Volume I Part 10 (2/2)
was--not even Cheetham could pierce the _incognito_; but every one knew that upon him the full mind of Aaron Burr had unloaded a volume of information respecting men, their doings and sayings, which enriched the work and made his rhetoric an instrument of torture. It bristled with history and character sketches. Whatever the Vice President knew, or thought he knew, was poured into those eighty pages with a staggering fulness and disregard of consequences that startled the political world and captivated all lovers of the brilliant and sensational in literature. Confidences were revealed, conversations made public, quarrels uncovered, political secrets given up, and the gossip of Council and Legislature churned into a story that pleased every one. What Hamilton's attack on Adams did for Federalists, ”Aristides'” reply to Cheetham did for the Republicans; but the latter wrote with a ferocity unknown to the pages of the great Federalist's unfortunate letter.
”Aristides” struck at everybody and missed no one. The Governor ”has dwindled into the mere instrument of an ambitious relative;”
Tillotson was ”a contemptible shuffling apothecary, without ingenuity or devise, or spirit to pursue any systematic plan of iniquity;”
Richard Riker was ”an imbecile and obsequious pettifogger, a vain and contemptible little pest, who abandoned the Federal standard on the third day of the election, in April, 1800;” John McKisson, ”an execrable compound of every species of vice,” was the man whom Clinton ”exultingly declared a great scoundrel.” The attack thus daringly begun was steadily maintained. Ambrose Spencer was ”a man as notoriously infamous as the legitimate offspring of treachery and fraud can possibly be;” Samuel Osgood, ”a born hypocrite, propagated falsehood for the purpose of slander and imposition;” Chancellor Livingston, ”a capricious, visionary theorist,” was ”lamentably deficient in the practical knowledge of a politician, and heedless of important and laborious pursuits, at which his frivolous mind revolted.”
The greatest interest of the pamphlet, however, began when ”Aristides,” taking up the cause of Burr, struck at higher game than Richard Riker or Ambrose Spencer. DeWitt Clinton was portrayed as ”formed for mischief,” ”inflated with vanity,” ”cruel by nature,” ”an object of derision and disgust,” ”a dissolute and desperate intriguer,” ”an adept in moral turpitude, skilled in all the combination of treachery and fraud, with a mind matured by the practice of iniquity, and unalloyed with any virtuous principle.” ”Was it not disgraceful to political controversy,” continues ”Aristides,”
with an audacity of denunciation and sternness of animosity, ”I would develop the dark and gloomy disorders of his malignant bosom, and trace each convulsive vibration of his wicked heart. He may justly be ranked among those, who, though dest.i.tute of sound understandings, are still rendered dangerous to society by the intrinsic baseness of character that engenders hatred to everything good and valuable in the world; who, with barbarous malignity, view the prevalence of moral principles, and the extension of benevolent designs; who, foes to virtue, seek the subversion of every valuable inst.i.tution, and meditate the introduction of wild and furious disorders among the supporters of public virtue. His intimacy with men who have long since disowned all regard to decency and have become the daring advocates of every species of atrocity; his indissoluble connection with those, who, by their lives, have become the finished examples of profligacy and corruption; who have sworn enmity, severe and eternal, to the altar of our religion and the prosperity of our government, must infallibly exclude him from the confidence of reputable men. What sentiments can be entertained for him, but those of hatred and contempt, when he is seen the constant a.s.sociate of a man whose name has become synonymous with vice, a dissolute and fearless a.s.sa.s.sin of private character, of domestic comfort, and of social happiness; when he is known to be the bosom friend and supporter of the profligate and abandoned libertine, who, from the vulgar debauches of night, hastens again to the invasion of private property. Who, through the robbery of the public revenue, and the violation of private seals, hurries down the precipice of deep and desperate villainy.”
This parting shot at Cheetham penetrated the most secret corners of private life, and leaves an impression that Cicero's denunciation of Catiline had delighted the youth of ”Aristides.” It would be fruitless to attempt the separation of the truth from the undeserved reproaches of Van Ness, but at the end of the discussion, Burr's character had not benefited. However unscrupulous and selfish the Clintons and the Livingstons might be, Burr's unprincipled conduct was fixed in the mind of his party, not by Cheetham's indulgence in fancy and inference, but by the well known and well established facts of history, which no rhetoric could wipe out, and no denunciation strengthen.
In the days of the duello such a war of words could hardly go on for two or three years without a resort to the pistol. Cheetham's pen had stirred up the tongues of men who resented charge with countercharge, and the high spirited United States marshal, John Swartout, the only friend of Burr in office, was quick to declare that DeWitt Clinton's opposition to the Vice President was based upon unworthy and selfish motives. Clinton answered promptly and pa.s.sionately. The Governor's nephew displayed a fondness for indulging the use of epithets even in mature years, after he had quarrelled with William L. Marcy and Martin Van Buren. In those calmer days when age is supposed to bring a desire for peace, he was accustomed to call Erastus Root ”a bad man,” Samuel Young ”much of an imbecile,” Marcy ”a scoundrel,” and Van Buren ”the prince of villains.” Just now, however, Clinton was younger, only thirty-two years old, about the age of Swartout, and on hearing of the latter's criticism he trebled his epithets, p.r.o.nouncing him ”a liar, a scoundrel and a villain.” Swartout quickly demanded a retraction, which Clinton declined unless the Marshal first withdrew his offensive words. Thereupon, the latter sent a challenge, and Clinton, calling in his friend, Richard Riker, the district attorney, met his adversary the next day at Weehawken and exchanged three shots without effect. On the fourth Clinton's bullet struck Swartout's left leg just below the knee, and while the surgeon was cutting it out, the Marshal renewed his demand for an apology. Clinton still refused, although expressing entire willingness to shake hands and drop the matter. On the fifth shot, the Marshal caught Clinton's ball in the same leg just above the ankle. Still standing steadily at his post and perfectly composed, Swartout demanded further satisfaction; but Clinton, tired of filling his antagonist with lead, declined to shoot again and left the field.
In the gossip following the duel, Riker reported Clinton as saying in the course of the contest, ”I wish I had the princ.i.p.al here.”[127] The princ.i.p.al, of course, was Burr, to whose house the wounded Swartout was taken. ”No one ever explained,” says Henry Adams,[128] ”why Burr did not drag DeWitt Clinton from his ambush and shoot him, as two years later he shot Alexander Hamilton with less provocation.”
[Footnote 127: Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p.
332.]
[Footnote 128: _Ibid._, 332.
Writing to Henry Post of the duel, Clinton (using the name, ”Clinton,”
instead of the p.r.o.noun ”I”) said: ”The affair of the duel ought not to be brought up. It was a silly affair. Clinton ought to have declined the challenge of the bully, and have challenged the princ.i.p.al, who was Burr. There were five shots, the antagonist wounded twice, and fell.
C. behaved with cool courage, and after the affair was over challenged Burr on the field.”--_Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 565. ”How Clinton should have challenged Burr on the field,” writes John Bigelow, in _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_ for May, 1875, ”without its resulting in a meeting is not quite intelligible to us now. Though not much given to the redress of personal grievances in that way, Burr was the last man to leave a hostile message from an adversary like Clinton, then a Senator of the United States, unanswered.”]
Out of this quarrel grew another, in which Robert Swartout, John's younger brother, fought Riker, wounding him severely. William Coleman of the _Evening Post_, in letting fly some poisoned arrows, also got tangled up with Cheetham. ”Lie on Duane, lie on for pay, and Cheetham, lie thou too; more against truth you cannot say, than truth can say 'gainst you.” The spicy epigrams ended in a challenge, but Cheetham made such haste to adjust matters that a report got abroad of his having shown the white feather. Harbour-Master Thompson, an appointee of Clinton, now championed Cheetham's cause, declaring that Coleman had weakened. Immediately the young editor sent him a challenge, and, without much ado, they fought on the outskirts of the city, now the foot of Twenty-first Street, in the twilight of a cold winter day, exchanging two shots without effect. Meantime, the growing darkness compelled the determined combatants to move closer together, and at the next shot Thompson, mortally wounded, fell forward into the snow.[129]
[Footnote 129: ”Thompson was brought,” says William Cullen Bryant in _Reminiscences of the Evening Post_, ”to his sister's house in town; he was laid at the door; the bell was rung; the family came out and found him bleeding and near his death. He refused to name his antagonist, or give any account of the affair, declaring that everything which had been done was honourably done, and desired that no attempt should be made to seek out or molest his adversary.”]
CHAPTER XII
DEFEAT OF BURR AND DEATH OF HAMILTON
1804
The campaign for governor in 1804 was destined to become historic.
Burr was driven from his party; George Clinton, ambitious to become Vice President, declined re-election;[130] and the Federalists, beaten into a disunited minority, refused to put up a candidate. This apparently left the field wide open to John Lansing, with John Broome for lieutenant-governor.
[Footnote 130: ”DeWitt Clinton was annoyed at his uncle's conduct, and tried to prevent the withdrawal by again calling Jefferson to his aid and alarming him with fear of Burr. But the President declined to interfere. No real confidence ever existed between Jefferson and the Clintons.”--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 2, pp.
173, 174.]
For many years the Lansing family had been prominent in the affairs of the State and influential in the councils of their party. The Chancellor, some years younger than Livingston, a large, handsome, modest man, was endowed with a remarkable capacity for public life.
The story of his career is a story of rugged manhood and a tragic, mysterious death. He rose by successive steps to be mayor of Albany, member of the a.s.sembly of which he was twice speaker, member of Congress under the Confederation, judge and chief justice of the Supreme Court, and finally chancellor. Indeed, so long as he did the bidding of the Clintons he kept rising; but the independence that early characterised his action at Philadelphia in 1787 and at Poughkeepsie in 1788 became more and more p.r.o.nounced, until it separated him at last from the faction that had steadily given him support. Perhaps his nearest approach to a splendid virtue was his stubborn independence. Whether this characteristic, amounting almost to stoical indifference, led to his murder is now a sealed secret. All that we know of his death is, that he left the hotel, where he lived in New York, to mail a letter on the steamer for Albany, and was never afterward seen. That he was murdered comes from the lips of Thurlow Weed, who was intrusted with the particulars, but who died with the secret untold. Lansing disappeared in 1829 and Weed died in 1882, yet, after the lapse of half a century, the latter did not feel justified in disclosing what had come to him as a sort of father confessor, years after the tragedy. ”While it is true that the parties are beyond the reach of human tribunals and of public opinion,” he said, ”yet others immediately a.s.sociated with them, and sharing in the strong inducement which prompted the crime, survive, occupying high positions and enjoying public confidence. To these persons, should my proof be submitted, public attention would be irresistibly drawn.”[131]
[Footnote 131: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
35.]
Lansing had the instinct, equipment, and training for a chancellor. It has been truly said of him that he seemed to have no delights off the bench except in such things as in some way related to the business upon it. He had the unwearied application of Kent, coupled with the ability to master the most difficult details, and, although he lacked Livingston's culture, he was as resolute, and, perhaps, as restless and suspicious; but it is doubtful if he possessed the trained sagacity, the native shrewdness, and the diplomatic zeal to have negotiated the Louisiana treaty. Lansing began the study of law in 1774, and from that moment was wedded to its principles and constant in his devotions. His mysterious murder must have been caused by an irresistible longing to trace things to their source, bringing into his possession knowledge of some missing link or defective t.i.tle, which would throw a great property away from its owner, but which, by his death, would again be buried from the ken of men. This, of course, is only surmise; but Weed indicates that property prompted the crime, and that the heirs of the murderer profited by it. Lansing was in his seventy-sixth year when the fatal blow came, yet so vigorous that old age had not set its seal upon him.
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