military man, but as one of overbearing nature, disposed to sacrifice great principles of free government to his inordinate love of rule. As I thought that Mr. Pearce's report mistook the facts, the law, and the policy of a great occasion, I presented the subject in a pamphlet, appealing, not to merely popular, but legal and dispassionate consideration. In the 28th Congress, by change of parties, I was transferred from a minority to the majority: and, public attention being drawn to the subject, the Legislatures of several States, and the acting President of the United States, John Tyler, urged Congress to refund the fine. My pamphlet was laid on the table. of every member of the 28th Congress, when it assembled, the 5th of December, 1843; and, next day, as soon as the House of Representatives was organized, before the standing committees were appointed, or any business done, I asked and obtained leave to report a bill to refund the fine. The bill was considered, on several successive days, and efforts made by various members to defeat it. John Quincy Adams, by opposition unbecoming his position, said, that we should rather subscribe ourselves and raise some money for the old man. His position, generally, and that of others who opposed my bill, was, that it disparaged the judiciary; for which branch of American government they claimed the worst, and, as I consider, untenable British power to punish contempt. On the anniversary of the last battle of New Orleans, 8th of January, 1844, then become a national festival, my bill was finally passed by the House of Representatives, 158 of whose members recorded their votes for it, and no more than 28 voted the contrary. On the 31st of January, 1844, John Macpherson Berrien, who had been General Jackson's Attorney-General at the outset of his presidential administration, reported my bill from the Judiciary Committee to the Senate, with an amendment providing that it should not be construed to imply any censure on Judge Hall, by whom the fine was imposed: which proposed amendment was rejected by a vote of 26 to 18; and, on the 14th of February, 1844, my bill, without the least alteration, precisely as I reported it, finally passed the Senate, by 30 votes to 16-was, of course, approved by acting-Presi

dent Tyler, and became a law. The money, in gold, then not common currency, principal and interest, was sent to General Jackson and, what was still more grateful, a stigma removed from his republican reputation. No qualified repayment of the fine, approving the judgment, would have satisfied the beneficiary of that Act of Congress, who protested uniformly, with characteristic inflexibility, that as he had not applied to Congress, and desired no favor at their hands, so he would not accept the public tribute of repayment of the sum unjustly exacted of him, unless it did full justice to his right to declare and continue martial law as he had done.

My personal acquaintance with General Jackson was slight; and I am not well qualified accurately to describe his manners, which appear to have sometimes given offence by want of refinement. But uneducated and illiterate as he was, and coarse as he may have been, there were rectitude, sagacity, patriotism, courage, and charity enough in his nature to render him a superior man.

General Jackson died the 8th of June, 1846, and was buried the 11th of the month, as he had arranged, in the garden at his seat, the Hermitage, about twelve miles from Nashville, the capital of Tennessee. His disease was dropsy, with which he long suffered but with constant fortitude, and neyer-failing confidence of future beatitude. A devout Christian, but without humility, Death was no king of terrors to him; nor bad he any doubt of blissful immortality. The day of his interment was one of those still, balmy, beautiful mornings of early southern summer, when every tree was in full foliage, the earth covered with flowers, and the air perfumed with delicious odors. From thirty miles round, the neighborhood were collected to the funeral, filling the surrounding woods with vehicles, and horses fastened to branches, the horses neighing, and pawing the ground with impatience. The corpse was laid so as to present the bust to view, the face deathly pale, but fuller than life, owing to the disease, the bushy gray hair turned back over the head, the countenance perfectly serene, and looking more like sleep than death. General Armstrong, who had been one of Jackson's most faithful comrades in his

Creek war, and Judge Catron, of the Supreme Court of the United States, stood at the head of the coffin, regulating the throng as they approached in couples and were moved off, after gazing at the body. None were excluded or prevented: slaves and all had their turn, and many tears were shed.

A vault had been constructed, by General Jackson, in the garden, where his much-beloved wife was laid, and his remains were to repose with hers. Enclosed in two coffins of lead and mahogany-wood, they were laid together, the marble slab then placed over the vault, and the simple solemnities closed with customary religious exercises.

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CHAPTER VII.

LAST SESSION OF WAR CONGRESS.

Seat of Government-Jefferson's Library - Pensions- Despatches from Ghent-American misapprehension of British Power-Monroe-DallasHalifax Campaign-Conscription proposed by Monroe-Opposed by Jonathan Mason and Christopher Gore - Death of Vice-President Gerry -Amalgamation of Parties-Army Bills-Debates-Richard Stockton's Speech-English views of American Conscription-Congress reject it— Military Substitutes-State support of War-measures-South CarolinaNew York - Maryland-Western States-State Troops - Naval Measures- - Bill to suppress Smuggling-Peace-Lewis B. Sturges-Welcome of Peace-Failure of Congress to sustain the Executive - President's Drawing-room-Military Peace Establishment-Discussion and Dissension on reduction of the Army - Bill to limit Navigation to American Seamen-Restrictive Laws repealed — Naval Rewards - Military Academy-Consequences of War.

CONGRESS assembled in September, 1814, in discomfort. All the public buildings of Washington were destroyed, except the patent-office, in which we met. And one of the first resolutions proposed was by Jonathan Fisk, for removal of the seat of government to some more convenient and less dishonored place. As Philadelphia was that generally preferred as the substitute, I voted for it; though now, if not then, convinced that to abandon Washington would be detrimental to the national interest, at any time, and at that crisis especially. At first Mr. Fisk, and Mr. Grosvenor, who was his chief supporter in the movement, obtained considerable majorities in the House. But dwindling at every successive vote till finally, by eighty-three to seventy-four, the project was defeated. Executive influence was strong against it, and local feeling intense. Mr. Thomas Law, a brother of the English chief justice, Lord Ellenborough, and who married a grand-daughter

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265 of Washington's wife, and by his advice, as Law said, invested a hundred thousand guineas, which he brought from India, where he governed a province, to this country, in city lots of the federal metropolis, a man of eccentric behaviour, considerable attainments, and addicted to newspaper publications, was particularly alarmed and protestant against what he reprobated as a breach of public faith, that would ruin him and many other innocent, meritorious property-holders of vested rights. The National Intelligencer, lampooned as the Court Gazette by the Federal Republican newspaper, intimated that the President's veto was ready for any bill that Congress might pass for removing the seat of government from where Washington had fixed and named it by an act of Congress, in which Madison took an active part, by compromise and compact; to deracinate which, would violate national faith, like repudiation of public debt. Since then, Washington has quintupled its population, and, in that respect, is rendering itself obnoxious to the objection to populous towns, which was a leading inducement for transferring the seat of government from Philadelphia. While writing this (April, 1848), mobs, several thousand strong, besiege, and even assault, every night, a printing-office, stoutly defended by the occupant, accused of countenancing illegal emancipation of slaves, concerning which inauspicious topic both Houses of Congress have been daily disturbed by fierce controversy.

From the destruction of the library of Congress, as is the common result of violent injustice, sprang a library ever since. accumulating, till already one of the greatest ornaments and most rational enjoyments of the Capital. On the 10th of October, 1814, Robert Goldsborough, from the joint library committee of both houses of Congress, communicated to the Senate Jefferson's letter of the 21st of September, 1814, addressed to Samuel Harrison Smith, offering his library to Congress; for the purchase of which, a resolution was immediately introduced, by unanimous consent, in the Senate, forthwith passed through the three readings, and on the same day sent to the House, there read twice and committed to a committee of the whole.