Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII - John Lord
LORD'S LECTURES
BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME XII
AMERICAN LEADERS.
BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
ETC., ETC.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
The remarks made in the preface to the volume on "American Founders" are
applicable also to this volume on "American Leaders." The lecture on
Daniel Webster has been taken from its original position in "Warriors
and Statesmen" (a volume the lectures of which are now distributed for
the new edition in more appropriate groupings), and finds its natural
neighborhood in this volume with the paper on Clay and Calhoun.
Since the intense era of the Civil War has passed away, and Northerners
and Southerners are becoming more and more able to take dispassionate
views of the controversies of that time, finding honorable reasons for
the differences of opinion and of resultant conduct on both sides, it
has been thought well to include among "American Leaders" a man who
stands before all Americans as the chief embodiment of the "cause" for
which so many gallant soldiers died--Robert E. Lee. His personal
character was so lofty, his military genius so eminent, that North and
South alike looked up to him while living and mourned him dead. His
career is depicted by one who has given it careful study, and who,
himself a wounded veteran officer of the Union army, and regarding the
Southern cause as one well "lost," as to its chief aims of Secession and
protection to Slavery, in the interest of civilization and of the South
itself, yet holds a high appreciation of the noble man who is its chief
representative. The paper on "Robert E. Lee: The Southern Confederacy,"
is from the pen of Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, Chancellor of the University
of Nebraska.
NEW YORK, September, 1902.
CONTENTS.
_ANDREW JACKSON_.
PERSONAL POLITICS.
Early life of Jackson
Studies law
Popularity and personal traits
Sent to Congress
A judge in Tennessee
Major-general of militia
Indian fighter and duellist
The Creek war
Tecumseh
Massacre at Fort Mims
Jackson made major-general of the regular army
The Creek war
At Pensacola
At Mobile
At New Orleans
The battle of New Orleans
Effect of his successes
The Seminole war
Jackson as governor of Florida
Senator in Congress
President James Monroe
President John Quincy Adams
Election of Jackson as president
Jackson's speeches
Cabinet
The "Kitchen Cabinet"
System of appointments
The "Spoils System"
Hostile giants in the Senate
Jackson's opposition to tariffs
Financial policy
The democracy hostile to a money power
War on the United States Bank
Nicholas Biddle
Isaac Hill and Secretary Ingham
Opposition to the re-charter of the bank
The President's veto
Removal of deposits
Jackson's high-handed measures
The mania for speculation
"Pet Banks"
Commercial distress
Nullification
Sale of public lands
John C. Calhoun
The president's proclamation against the nullifiers
Compromise tariff
Morgan and anti-masonry
Private life of Jackson
His public career
Eventful administration
_HENRY CLAY_.
COMPROMISE LEGISLATION.
Birth and education
Studies law
Favorite in society
Settles in Lexington, Ky.
Absorbed in politics
Marriage; personal appearance
Member of Congress
Speaker of the House
Advocates war with Great Britain
His speeches
Comparison with Webster
Peace commissioner at Ghent
Returns to Lexington
Re-elected speaker
The tariff question
The tariff of 1816
The charter of the United States Bank
Beginning of slavery agitation
Beecher in England, on cotton as affecting slavery
The Missouri question
Clay as a pacificator
Internal improvements
Greek struggle for liberty
Tariff of 1824
The "American system"
The cotton lords
Clay's aspirations for the presidency
His competitors
Clay secretary of state for Adams
Jackson's administration
Clay as orator
His hatred of Jackson
The tariff of 1832
The compromise tariff of 1833
Clay again candidate for the presidency
Political disappointments
Bursting of the money bubble
Harrison's administration
Repeal of the Sub-Treasury Act
Slavery agitation
Annexation of Texas under Polk
Clay as pacificator of slavery agitation
John C. Calhoun
Anti-slavery leaders
Passage of Clay's compromise bill of 1850
Fugitive-slave law
Clay's declining health
Death
Services
Character
_DANIEL WEBSTER_.
THE AMERICAN UNION.
General character and position of Webster
Birth and early life
Begins law-practice; enters Congress
His legal career
His oratory
Congressional services; finance
Industrial questions
Defender of the Constitution
Reply to Hayne of South Carolina
Webster's ambition
His political relations to the South
The antislavery agitation
Webster's 7th of March Speech
His loyalty to the Constitution and the Union
His political errors
Greatness and worth of his career
His death
His defects of character
His counterbalancing virtues
Permanence of his ideas and his fame
_JOHN C. CALHOUN_.
THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
Rapid Rise of Calhoun
Education; lawyer; member of Congress
Early speeches
His enlightened mind
Secretary of war
Condition of the South
Calhoun's dislike of Jackson
The tariff question
Bears heavily on the South
Calhoun a defender of Southern interests
Nullification
The tariff of 1832
Clay's compromise bill
Jackson's war on the bank
Calhoun in the Senate
His detestation of politics as a game
Lofty private life
Early speeches
The original abolitionists
Radicalism
Northern lecturers
Calhoun's foresight
Calhoun as logician
Southern view of slavery
Anti-slavery agitation
Slavery in the District of Columbia
John Quincy Adams and anti-slavery petitions
Southern opposition to them
Clay on petitions
Violence of the abolitionists
Misery of the slaves
Admission of Michigan and Arkansas into the Union
Triumphs of the South
Growth of the abolitionists
"Dough-Faces"
Texan independence
Annexation of Texas
The Mexican war
The war of ideas
Prophetic utterances of Calhoun
His obstinacy and arrogance
Admission of California into the Union
Clay's concessions
Calhoun dying
Compromise bill
Calhoun's career
His want of patriotism in later life
Nullification doctrines
Calhoun contrasted with Clay
His character
_ABRAHAM LINCOLN_.
CIVIL WAR AND PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.
Lincoln's parentage
Rail splitter; country merchant
In the Black Hawk war
Postmaster
His aspirations and passion for politics
Stump speaker
Surveyor
Elected to the legislature
Lincoln as politician
Admitted to the bar
Elected member of Congress
His marriage
Lincoln as lawyer
Orator
On the slavery question
Anti-slavery agitation
The compromise of 1850
Stephen A. Douglas
Repeal of the Missouri Compromise
Charles Sumner
Dred Scott decision
Lincoln's antagonism to Douglas
His commitment to anti-slavery cause
Rise of the Republican party
Lincoln's debates with Douglas
Speaks in New York
Lincoln as statesman
Nomination for the presidency
His election
Inauguration
Lincoln's cabinet; Jefferson Davis
Fort Sumter
War
Lincoln as president
Bull Run
Concentration of troops in Washington
General McClellan
His dilatory measures
Gloomy times
Retirement of McClellan
General Pope
McClellan restored, fights the battle of Antietam
Inaction and final retirement of McClellan
Burnside and the battle of Fredericksburg
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
General Hooker
Lee's raid in Pennsylvania
General Meade and the battle of Gettysburg
Lincoln overworked
Siege of Vicksburg
General Grant
Battle of Chattanooga
Grant made general-in-chief
March of Grant on Richmond
Military sacrifices
Siege of Petersburg
Surrender of Lee
Results of the war
Strained relations between Chase and Lincoln
Chase chief-justice
Lincoln's second inaugural
His profound wisdom
His assassination
Great services
Position in history
_ROBERT E. LEE_.
THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.
BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, LL.D.
Birth, lineage, personal appearance, and early career.
A Virginian, he joins his State and the South in secession.
His seven days' fighting against McClellan; forces the latter to raise
the siege of Richmond.
"Stonewall" Jackson and his efficient fighting machine.
Wins at Antietam and Fredericksburg.
Outmanoeuvres Hooker at Chancellorsville.
Successes at Gettysburg and at the second battle of Bull Run.
Grant changes the fortune of war for the North.
Confederate dearth of necessaries and "dear money".
Lee's retreat and capitulation at Appomattox.
His personal characteristics.
Skill shown in his military career.
His manoeuvring tactics and masterful strategy.
High name among the great captains of history.
Gains of his leadership, in spite of "a lost cause".
Latter days, and presidency of Washington College, Lexington, Va.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XII
Sherman's March to the Sea
_After the painting by F.O.C. Darley_.
James Monroe
_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart, City Hall, New York_.
Andrew Jackson
_After a photograph from life_.
Henry Clay
_From a daguerreotype_.
Martin Van Buren
_From a daguerreotype_.
Daniel Webster
_After a drawing from a daguerreotype_.
John C. Calhoun
_From a daguerreotype_.
James K. Polk
_From a daguerreotype_.
Abraham Lincoln
_After an unretouched negative from life, found in 1870_.
General George B. McClellan
_After a photograph from life in the possession of the War Department,
Washington, D.C._
Ulysses S. Grant
_After the painting by Chappel_.
Assassination of President Lincoln
_After the drawing by Fr. Roeber_.
Robert E. Lee
_From a photograph_.
BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.
ANDREW JACKSON.
1767-1845.
PERSONAL POLITICS.
It is very seldom that a man arises from an obscure and humble position
to an exalted pre-eminence, without peculiar fitness for the work on
which his fame rests, and which probably no one else could have done so
well. He may not be learned, or cultured; he may be even unlettered and
rough; he may be stained by vulgar defects and vices which are fatal to
all dignity of character; but there must be something about him which
calls out the respect and admiration of those with whom he is
surrounded, so as to give him a start, and open a way for success in the
business or enterprise where his genius lies.
Such a man was Andrew Jackson. Whether as a youth, or as a man pursuing
his career of village lawyer in the backwoods of a frontier settlement,
he was about the last person of whom one would predict that he should
arise to a great position and unbounded national popularity. His birth
was plebeian and obscure. His father, of Scotch-Irish descent, lived in
a miserable hamlet in North Carolina, near the South Carolina line,
without owning a single acre of land,--one of the poorest of the poor
whites. The boy Andrew, born shortly after his father's death in 1767,
was reared in poverty and almost without education, learning at school
only to "read, write, and cipher;" nor did he have any marked desire for
knowledge, and never could spell correctly. At the age of thirteen he
was driven from his native village by its devastation at the hands of
the English soldiers, during the Revolutionary War. His mother, a worthy
and most self-reliant woman, was an ardent patriot, and all her
boys--Hugh, Robert, and Andrew--enlisted in the local home-guard. The
elder two died, Hugh of exposure and Robert of prison small-pox, while
Andrew, who had also been captured and sick of the disease, survived
this early training in the scenes of war for further usefulness. The
mother made her way on foot to Charleston, S.C., to nurse the sick
patriots in the prison-ships, and there died of the prison fever, in
1781. The physical endurance and force of character of this mother
constituted evidently the chief legacy that Andrew inherited, and it
served him well through a long and arduous life.
At fifteen the boy was "a homeless orphan, a sick and sorrowful orphan,"
working for a saddler in Charleston a few hours of the day, as his
health would permit. With returning strength he got possession of a
horse; but his army associates had led him into evil ways, and he became
indebted to his landlord for board. This he managed to pay only by
staking his horse in a game of dice against $200, which he fortunately
won; and this squared him with the world and enabled him to start
afresh, on a better way.
Poor and obscure as he was, and imperfectly educated, he aspired to be a
lawyer; and at eighteen years of age he became a law-student in the
office of Mr. Spruce McCay in Salisbury, North Carolina. Two years
later, in 1787, he was admitted to the bar. Not making much headway in
Salisbury, he wandered to that part of the State which is now Tennessee,
then an almost unbroken wilderness, exposed to Indian massacres and
depredations; and finally he located himself at Nashville, where there
was a small settlement,--chiefly of adventurers, who led lives of
license and idleness.
It seems that Jackson, who was appointed district-attorney, had a
considerable practice in his profession of a rough sort, in that
frontier region where the slightest legal knowledge was sufficient for
success. He was in no sense a student, like Jefferson and Madison in the
early part of their careers in Virginia as village lawyers, although he
was engaged in as many cases, and had perhaps as large an income as
they. But what was he doing all this while, when he was not in his
log-office and in the log-court-room, sixteen feet square? Was he
pondering the principles or precedents of law, and storing his mind with
the knowledge gained from books? Not at all. He was attending
horse-races and cock-fightings and all the sports which marked the
Southern people one hundred years ago; and his associates were not the
most cultivated and wealthy of them either, but ignorant, rough,
drinking, swearing, gambling, fighting rowdies, whose society was
repulsive to people of taste, intelligence, and virtue.
The young lawyer became a favorite with these men, and with their wives
and sisters and daughters. He could ride a horse better than any of his
neighbors; he entered into their quarrels with zeal and devotion; he was
bold, rash, and adventurous, ever ready to hunt a hostile Indian, or
fight a duel, or defend an innocent man who had suffered injury and
injustice. He showed himself capable of the warmest and most devoted
friendship as well as the bitterest and most unrelenting hatred. He was
quick to join a dangerous enterprise, and ever showing ability to lead
it,--the first on the spot to put out a fire; the first to expose
himself in a common danger; commanding respect for his honesty,
sincerity, and integrity; exciting fear from his fierce wrath when
insulted,--a man terribly in earnest; always as courteous and chivalric
to women as he was hard and savage to treacherous men. Above all, he was
now a man of commanding stature, graceful manners, dignified deportment,
and a naturally distinguished air; so that he was looked up to by men
and admired by women. What did those violent, quarrelsome, adventurous
settlers on the western confines of American civilization care whether
their favorite was learned or ignorant, so long as he was manifestly
superior to them in their chosen pursuits and pleasures, was capable of
leading them in any enterprise, and sympathized with them in all their
ideas and prejudices,--a born democrat, as well as a born leader. His
claim upon them, however, was not without its worthy elements. He was
perfectly fearless in enforcing the law, laughing at intimidation. He
often had to ride hundreds of miles to professional duties on circuit,
through forests infested by Indians, and towns cowed by ruffians; and he
and his rifle were held in great respect. He was renowned as the
foremost Indian fighter in that country, and as a prosecuting attorney
whom no danger and no temptation could swerve from his duty. He was
feared, trusted, and boundlessly popular.
The people therefore rallied about this man. When in 1796 a convention
was called for framing a State constitution, Jackson was one of their
influential delegates; and in December of that year he was sent to
Congress as their most popular representative. Of course he was totally
unfitted for legislative business, in which he never could have made any
mark. On his return in 1797, a vacancy occurring in the United States
Senate, he was elected senator, on the strength of his popularity as
representative. But he remained only a year at Philadelphia, finding his
calling dull, and probably conscious that he had no fitness for
legislation, while the opportunity for professional and pecuniary
success in Tennessee was very apparent to him.
Next we read of his being made chief-justice of the Superior Court of
Tennessee, with no more fitness for administering the law than he had
for making it, or interest in it. Mr. Parton tells an anecdote of
Jackson at this time which, whether true or not, illustrates his
character as well as the rude conditions amid which he made himself
felt. He was holding court in a little village in Tennessee, when a
great, hulking fellow, armed with a pistol and bowie-knife, paraded
before the little court-house, and cursed judge, jury, and all
assembled. Jackson ordered the sheriff to arrest him, but that
functionary failed to do it, either alone or with a posse. Whereupon
Jackson caused the sheriff to summon _him_ as posse, adjourned court
for ten minutes, walked out and told the fellow to yield or be shot.
In telling why he surrendered to one man, when he had defied a crowd,
the ruffian afterwards said: "When he came up I looked him in the eye,
and I saw _shoot_. There wasn't _shoot_ in nary other eye in the crowd.
I said to myself, it is about time to sing small; and so I did."
It was by such bold, fearless conduct that Jackson won admiration,--not
by his law, of which he knew but little, and never could have learned
much. The law, moreover, was uncongenial to this man of action, and he
resigned his judgeship and went for a short time into business,--trading
land, selling horses, groceries, and dry-goods,--when he was appointed
major-general of militia. This was just what he wanted. He had now found
his place and was equal to it. His habits, enterprises, dangers, and
bloody encounters, all alike fitted him for it. Henceforth his duty and
his pleasure ran together in the same line. His personal peculiarities
had made him popular; this popularity had made him prominent and secured
to him offices for which he had no talent, seeing which he dropped them;
but when a situation was offered for which he was fitted, he soon gained
distinction, and his true career began.
It was as an Indian fighter that he laid the foundation of his fame.
His popularity with rough people was succeeded by a series of heroic
actions which brought him before the eyes of the nation. There was no
sham in these victories. He fairly earned his laurels, and they so
wrought on the imagination of the people that he quickly became famous.
But before his military exploits brought him a national reputation he
had become notorious in his neighborhood as a duellist. He was always
ready to fight when he deemed himself insulted. His numerous duels were
very severely commented on when he became a candidate for the
presidency, especially in New England. But duelling was a peculiar
Southern institution; most Southern people settled their difficulties
with pistols. Some of Jackson's duels were desperate and ferocious. He
was the best shot in Tennessee, and, it is said, could lodge two
successive balls in the same hole. As early as 1795 he fought with a
fellow lawyer by the name of Avery. In 1806 he killed in a duel Charles
Dickinson, who had spoken disparagingly of his wife, whom he had lately
married, a divorced woman, but to whom he was tenderly attached as long
as she lived. Still later he fought with Thomas H. Benton, and received
a wound from which he never fully recovered.
Such was the life of Jackson until he was forty-five years of age,--that
of a violent, passionate, arbitrary man, beloved as a friend, and feared
as an enemy. It was the Creek war and the war with England which
developed his extraordinary energies. When the war of 1812 broke out he
was major-general of Tennessee militia, and at once offered his services
to the government, which were eagerly accepted, and he was authorized to
raise a body of volunteers in Tennessee and to report with them at New
Orleans. He found no difficulty in collecting about sixteen hundred men,
and in January, 1813, took them down the Cumberland, the Ohio, and
Mississippi to Natchez, in such flat-bottomed boats as he could collect;
another body of mounted men crossed the country five hundred miles to
the rendezvous, and went into camp at Natchez, Feb. 15, 1813.
The Southern Department was under the command of General James
Wilkinson, with headquarters at New Orleans,--a disagreeable and
contentious man, who did not like Jackson. Through his influence the
Tennessee detachment, after two months' delay in Natchez, was ordered by
the authorities at Washington to be dismissed,--without pay, five
hundred miles from home. Jackson promptly decided not to obey the
command, but to keep his forces together, provide at his own expense for
their food and transportation, and take them back to Tennessee in good
order. He accomplished this, putting sick men on his own three horses,
and himself marching on foot with the men, who, enthusiastic over his
elastic toughness, dubbed him "Old Hickory,"--a title of affection that
is familiar to this day. The government afterwards reimbursed him for
his outlay in this matter, but his generosity, self-denial, energy, and
masterly force added immensely to his popularity.
Jackson's disobedience of orders attracted but little attention at
Washington, in that time of greater events, while his own patriotism and
fighting zeal were not abated by his failure to get at the enemy. And
very soon his desires were to be granted.
In 1811, before the war with England was declared, a general
confederation of Indians had been made under the influence of the
celebrated Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawanoc tribe. He was a man of
magnificent figure, stately and noble as a Greek warrior, and withal
eloquent. With his twin brother, the Prophet, Tecumseh travelled from
the Great Lakes in the North to the Gulf of Mexico, inducing tribe after
tribe to unite against the rapacious and advancing whites. But he did
not accomplish much until the war with England broke out in 1812, when
he saw a possibility of realizing his grand idea; and by the summer of
1813 he had the Creek nation, including a number of tribes, organized
for war. How far he was aided by English intrigues is not fully known,
but he doubtless received encouragement from English agents. From the
British and the Spaniards, the Indians received arms and ammunition.
The first attack of these Indians was on August 13, 1813, at Fort Mims,
in Alabama, where there were nearly two hundred American troops, and
where five hundred people were collected for safety. The Indians,
chiefly Creeks, were led by Red Eagle, who utterly annihilated the
defenders of the fort under Major Beasley, and scalped the women and
children. When reports of this unexpected and atrocious massacre reached
Tennessee the whole population was aroused to vengeance, and General
Jackson, his arm still in a sling from his duel with Benton, set out to
punish the savage foes. But he was impeded by lack of provisions, and
quarrels among his subordinates, and general insubordination. In
surmounting his difficulties he showed extraordinary tact and energy.
His measures were most vigorous. He did not hesitate to shoot, whether
legally or illegally, those who were insubordinate, thus restoring
military discipline, the first and last necessity in war. Soldiers soon
learn to appreciate the worth of such decision, and follow such a leader
with determination almost equal to his own. Jackson's troops did
splendid marching and fighting.
So rapid and relentless were his movements against the enemy that the
campaign lasted but seven months, and the Indians were nearly all
killed or dispersed. I need not enumerate his engagements, which were
regarded as brilliant. His early dangers and adventures, and his
acquaintance with Indian warfare ever since he could handle a rifle, now
stood him in good stead. On the 21st of April, 1814, the militia under
his command returned home victorious, and Jackson for his heroism and
ability was made a major-general in the regular army, he then being
forty-seven years of age. It was in this war that we first hear of the
famous frontiersman Davy Crockett, and of Sam Houston, afterwards so
unique a figure in the war for Texan independence. In this war, too,
General Harrison gained his success at Tippecanoe, which was never
forgotten; but his military genius was far inferior to that of Jackson.
It is probable that had Jackson been sent to the North by the Secretary
of War, he would have driven the British troops out of Canada. There is
no question about his military ability, although his reputation was
sullied by high-handed and arbitrary measures. What he saw fit to do, he
did, without scruples or regard to consequences. In war everything is
tested by success; and in view of that, if sufficiently brilliant,
everything else is forgotten.