Part 12 (2/2)

For surely here, if anywhere, the essential fibre of the man would be discovered. I must also express my regret that this writer, to whom Americans owe very much, should have been content (although in this he has but joined some other historians of American politics) to accept mere campaign or partisan rumors which when directed against other men, have gone unnoticed, but against Van Buren have become the basis for emphatic disparagement and contumely. Even Mackenzie, the publisher of the purloined letters, writing his pamphlet with the most obvious and reckless venom, is quoted by this learned historian as respectable authority. Van Buren had refused during nearly a year to pardon Mackenzie from prison for his unlawful use of American territory to prepare armed raids on Canada. Sir Francis B. Head's opinion was doubtless somewhat colored; but he was not entirely without justification in applying to Mackenzie the words: ”He lies out of every pore in his skin. Whether he be sleeping or waking, on foot or on horseback, together with his neighbors or writing for a newspaper, a mult.i.tudinous swarm of lies, visible, palpable, and tangible, are buzzing and settling about him like flies around a horse in August.”

(Narrative of Sir F. B. Head, London, 1839.)

[14] The reference was to commercial paper and not to bank-notes. But both had been active characteristics of American speculation.

[15] The depositories now authorized for the proceeds of the internal revenue secured the government by a deposit of the bonds of the latter, which the depositories must of course purchase and own. (_U. S. Rev.

Stats._ -- 5153.)

[16] I cannot refrain in this revised edition to note that England, although not always a ready scholar, has in later years learned a fa.r.s.eeing wisdom which in colonial administration makes her the teacher of the world. The modern policy of deference to local sentiment and of finding her own advantage in the independent prosperity of the colony, has bound continents, islands, races, religions, to the English empire, and brought from them wealth to England, as the old rule of force never did.

[17] It should be remembered that several great expenses of the White House were then and are now met by special and additional appropriations.

[18] I must again complain of the curious though unintended unfairness of Professor Von Holst (_Const. Hist. of the U. S._ 1828-1846, Chicago, 1879, p. 663). He treats this letter with great contempt. He a.s.sumes indeed that Van Buren's declaration for annexation would have given him the nomination; and admits that Van Buren declared himself ”decidedly opposed to annexation.” After this sufficient proof of courage, for Van Buren could at least have simply promised to adopt the vote of Congress on the main question, it was not very sensible to declare ”disgusting”

Van Buren's efforts ”to creep through the th.o.r.n.y hedge which shut him off from the party nomination.” Professor Von Holst's ”disgust” seems particularly directed against the pa.s.sage here annotated where, after his strong argument against annexation, he declared that he would not be influenced by sectional feeling, and would obey the wishes of a Congress chosen with reference to the question. Few, I think, will consider this promise with reference to such a question, either cowardly or ”disgusting,” made, as it was, by a candidate for the presidency, of a democratic republic, after clearly and firmly declaring his own views in advance of the congressional elections.

[19] James G. Blaine's _Twenty Years_, vol. i. pp. 269, 272.

[20] An engraving of this portrait accompanies Holland's biography, written for the campaign of 1836.

[21] The mania for election betting among public men was very curious.

In the letters and memoranda printed by Mackenzie, the bets of John Van Buren and Jesse Hoyt are given in detail. They ranged from $5000 to $50; from ”three cases of champagne” or ”two bales of cotton,” to ”boots, $7,” or ”a ham, $3.” They were made with the younger Alexander Hamilton, James Watson Webb, Moses H. Grinnell, John A. King, George F. Talman, Dudley Selden, and other notable men of the time.

[22] One of the latest and most important historians of the time, after saying that ”nothing ruffled” Van Buren, is contented with a different explanation from mine. Professor Sumner says that ”he was thick-skinned, elastic, and tough; he did not win confidence from anybody.” But within another sentence or two the historian adds, as if effect did not always need adequate cause, that ”as president he showed the honorable desire to have a statesmanlike and high-toned administration.” (Sumner's _Jackson_, p. 451.)

[23] Here again I spoke of Gladstone, to whom, as this revised edition is going to press, the civilized world is bringing, in his death, a n.o.ble and fitting tribute.

[24] This expression was not original with Van Buren, as has been supposed. It was used by Fisher Ames in 1788; and Bartlett's _Quotations_ also gives a still earlier use of part of it by Matthew Henry in 1710.

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