Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ more than human, or less, to have beheld Mr. Calhoun uttering violent philippics against General Jackson for those acts, without the strongest emotion.

      "Mr. Calhoun's proposition was rejected, as he knew it would be, and he came from behind the veil of cabinet secrecy all smiles and professions of regard and friendship for General Jackson! It was then that by his deceitful conversations he induced Colonel Hayne and others to inform General Jackson, that so far from thinking that he had violated his orders and ought to be punished, he disapproved and only nominally supported the more friendly decision of the cabinet, and thought with him altogether! There was no half-way feeling in his friendship! So complete and entire was the deception, that while General Jackson was passing through Virginia the next winter on his way to Washington, he toasted 'John C. Calhoun,' as 'an honest man, the noblest work of God.' Who can paint the workings of the guilty Calhoun's soul when he read that toast!!

      "But Mr. Calhoun was not content with the attack made by him upon General Jackson's character and fame in the dark recesses of Mr. Monroe's cabinet. At the next session of Congress the same subject was taken in hand in both houses. Mr. Cobb came forward with his resolutions of censure in the House of Representatives, where, after a long discussion, the assailants were signally defeated. Mr. Lacock headed a committee in the Senate which was engaged in the affair from the 18th December, 1818, to the 24th February, 1819, when they made a report full of bitterness against General Jackson. It charged him with a violation of the laws and constitution of his country; disobedience of orders; disregard of the principles of humanity, and almost every crime which a military man can commit.

      "It was not suspected at the time that this report owed any of its bitterness to Mr. Calhoun, yet that such was the fact is now susceptible of the strongest proof!

      "While the attacks upon General Jackson were in progress in Congress his presence in the city was thought to be necessary by his friends. Colonel Robert Butler, then in Washington, wrote to him to that effect. A few days afterwards Mr. Calhoun accosted him, and asked him in an abrupt manner why he had written to General Jackson to come to the city. Colonel Butler answered, 'that he might see that justice was done him in person.' Mr. Calhoun turned from him without speaking another word with an air of anger and vexation which made an indelible impression on the colonel's mind. It was obvious enough that he did not desire, but rather feared General Jackson's presence in the city. Colonel Butler's letter to General Jackson, dated the 9th June, 1831, is in these words:

      "'When in Washington in the winter of 1818-'19, finding the course which Congress appeared to be taking on the Seminole question, I wrote you that I esteemed it necessary that you should be present at Washington. Having done so, I communicated this fact to our friend Bronaugh, who held the then Secretary of War in high estimation. The succeeding evening, while at the French Minister's, he came to me and inquired in a tone somewhat abrupt, what could induce me to write for General Jackson to come to the city – (Bronaugh having informed him that I had done so) – to which I replied, perhaps as sternly, "that he may in person have justice done him." The Secretary turned on his heel, and so ended the conversation; but there was a something inexplicable in the countenance that subsequent events have given meaning to. After your arrival at Washington, we were on a visit at the Secretary's, and examining a map – (the Yellow Stone expedition of the Secretary's being the subject of conversation) – Mr. Lacock, of the Senate, was announced to the Secretary, who remarked – "Do not let him come in now, General Jackson is here, but will soon be gone, when I can see him." There was nothing strange in all this; but the whispered manner and apparent agitation fastened on my mind the idea that Mr. Calhoun and Lacock understood each other on the Seminole matter. Such were my impressions at the time.'

      "On my arrival, however, in January, 1819, Mr. Calhoun treated me with marked kindness. The latter part of Colonel Butler's letter, as to Mr. Lacock, is confirmed by my own recollection that one day when Mr. Calhoun and myself were together in the War Department, the messenger announced Mr. Lacock at the door: Mr. Calhoun, in a hurried manner, pronounced the name of General Jackson, and Mr. Lacock did not come in. This circumstance indicated an intimacy between them, but I inferred nothing from it unfavorable to Mr. Calhoun.

      "In speaking of my confidential letter to Mr. Monroe (printed correspondence, page 19), Mr. Calhoun states, that after reading it when received, 'I thought no more of it. Long after, I think it was at the commencement of the next session of Congress, I heard some allusion which brought that letter to my recollection. It was from a quarter which induced me to believe that it came from Mr. Crawford. I called and mentioned it to Mr. Monroe, and found that he had entirely forgotten the letter. After searching some time he found it among some other papers, and read it, as he told me, for the first time.'

      "The particular 'quarter' whence the 'allusion' which called up the recollection of this confidential letter came, Mr. Calhoun has not thought proper to state. Probably it was Mr. Lacock, who was the friend of Mr. Crawford. Probably he applied to Mr. Calhoun for information, and Mr. Calhoun went to the President, and requested a sight of that letter that he might communicate its contents to Mr. Lacock. Mr. Lacock was appointed upon the committee on the Seminole war, on the 18th December. On the 21st of that month the recollection of the confidential letter was first in the mind of Mr. Monroe, for on that day, in a letter to General Jackson, he gives an account of its reception, and the disposition made of it. Probably, therefore, it was about the time that Mr. Lacock undertook the investigation of this affair in the Senate, and that it was for his information that Mr. Calhoun called on Mr. Monroe to inquire about this letter.

      "Nay, it is certain that the existence and contents of this letter were about that time communicated to Mr. Lacock: that he conversed freely and repeatedly with Mr. Calhoun upon the whole subject: that he was informed of all that had passed: the views of the President, of Mr. Calhoun, and the cabinet, and that Mr. Calhoun coincided with Mr. Lacock in all his views.

      "These facts are stated upon the authority of Mr. Lacock himself.

      "The motives of these secret communications to Mr. Lacock by Mr. Calhoun cannot be mistaken. By communicating the contents of the confidential letter, and withholding the fact that an approving answer had been returned, he wished to impress Mr. Lacock with the belief that General Jackson had predetermined before he entered Florida, to seize the Spanish posts, right or wrong, with orders or without. Acting under this impression, he would be prepared to discredit and disbelieve all General Jackson's explanations and defences, and put the worst construction upon every circumstance disclosed in the investigation. By this perfidy General Jackson was deprived of all opportunity to make an effectual defence. To him Mr. Calhoun was all smiles and kindness. He believed him his friend, seeking by all proper means, in public and private, to shield him from the attacks of his enemies. Having implicit confidence in Mr. Calhoun and the President, he would sooner have endured the tortures of the inquisition than have disclosed their answer to his letter through Mr. Rhea. The tie which he felt, Mr. Calhoun felt not. He did not scruple to use one side of a correspondence to destroy a man, his friend, who confided in him with the faith and affection of a brother – when he knew that man felt bound by obligations from which no considerations short of a knowledge of his own perfidy could absolve him, to hold the other side in eternal silence. General Jackson had no objection to a disclosure of the whole correspondence. There was nothing in it of which he was ashamed, or which on his own account he wished to conceal. Public policy made it inexpedient that the world should know at that time how far the government had approved beforehand of his proceedings. But had he known that Mr. Calhoun was attempting to destroy him by secretly using one side of the correspondence, he would have been justified by the laws of self-defence in making known the other. He saw not, heard not, imagined not, that means so perfidious and dishonorable were in use to destroy him. It never entered his confiding heart that the hand he shook with the cordiality of a warm friend was secretly pointing out to his enemies the path by which they might ambuscade and destroy him. He was incapable of conceiving that the honeyed tongue, which to him spake nothing but kindness, was secretly conveying poison into the ears of Mr. Lacock, and other members of Congress. It could not enter his mind that his confidential letters, the secrets of the СКАЧАТЬ