Famous American Statesmen Part 8

The lad fell at the first fire, a wicked sacrifice to a barbarous "code of honor." After twenty hours of agony, he died, surrounded by the stricken family. Hamilton was especially proud of this son, of whom he said, when he gave his oration at Columbia College, "I could not have been contented to have been surpa.s.sed by any other than my son."

For three years Hamilton worked on with a hope which was never broken, constantly adding to his fame. And then came the fatal error of his life. All along he had opposed Aaron Burr. When named for a foreign mission, Hamilton helped to defeat him. When the tie vote came between Jefferson and Burr in the Presidential returns, Hamilton said, "The appointment of Burr as President will disgrace our country abroad." When Burr was nominated for Governor of New York, Hamilton used every effort to defeat him, and succeeded. Burr, exasperated and disappointed at his failures, sent Hamilton a challenge. He wrote to Hamilton, "_Political_ opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum. I neither claim such privilege nor indulge it in others." Alas! that some men in public life, even now, forget the "laws of honor and the rules of decorum" in their treatment of opponents.

Everything in Hamilton's career protested against this suicidal combat.

He was only forty-seven, distinguished and beloved, with a wife and seven children dependent upon him.

Before going to the fatal meeting, he wrote his feelings about duelling.

"My religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of duelling, and it would even give me pain to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow-creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws....

To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of duelling, may think that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad examples, I answer that my _relative_ situation, as well in public as private, enforcing all the considerations which const.i.tute what men of the world denominate honor, imposed on me (as I thought) a peculiar necessity not to decline the call. The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular."

He made his will, leaving all, after the payment of his debts, to his "dear and excellent wife." "Should it happen that there is not enough for the payment of my debts, I entreat my dear children, if they, or any of them, should ever be able, to make up the deficiency. I, without hesitation, commit to their delicacy a wish which is dictated by my own.

Though conscious that I have too far sacrificed the interests of my family to public avocations, and on this account have the less claim to burden my children, yet I trust in their magnanimity to appreciate as they ought this my request. In so unfavorable an event of things, the support of their dear mother, with the most respectful and tender attention, is a duty, all the sacredness of which they will feel.

Probably her own patrimonial resources will preserve her from indigence.

But in all situations they are charged to bear in mind that she has been to them the most devoted and best of mothers." And then, the great statesman, after writing two farewell letters to "my darling, darling wife," conformed to "public prejudice" by hastening with his second, at daybreak, to meet Aaron Burr, at Weehawken, two miles and a half above Hoboken. It was a quiet and beautiful spot, one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the Hudson River, shut in by trees and vines, but golden with sunlight on that fatal morning.

At seven o'clock the two distinguished men were ready, ten paces apart, to take into their own hands that most sacred of all things, human life.

There was no outward sign of emotion, though the one must have thought of his idol, Theodosia, and the other of his pretty children, still asleep. Hamilton had determined not to fire, and so permitted himself to be sacrificed. The word of readiness was given. Burr raised his pistol and fired, and Hamilton fell headlong on his face, his own weapon discharging in the air. He sank into the arms of his physician, saying faintly, "This is a mortal wound," and was borne home to a family overwhelmed with sorrow. The oldest daughter lost her reason.

For thirty-one hours he lay in agony, talking, when able, with his minister about the coming future, asking that the sacrament be administered, and saying, "I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me."

Once when all his children were gathered around the bed, he gave them one tender look, and closed his eyes till they had left the room. He retained his usual composure to the last, saying to his wife, frenzied with grief, "Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian." He died at two o'clock on the afternoon of July 12, 1804. The whole nation seemed speechless with sorrow. In New York all business was suspended. At the funeral, a great concourse of people, college societies, political a.s.sociations, and military companies, joined in the common sorrow. Guns were fired from the British and French s.h.i.+ps in the harbor; on a platform in front of Trinity Church, Governor Morris p.r.o.nounced a eulogy, General Hamilton's four sons, the eldest sixteen and the youngest four, standing beside the speaker. Thus the great life faded from sight in its vigorous manhood, leaving a wonderful record for the aspiring and the patriotic, and a prophecy of what might have been accomplished but for that one fatal mistake.

Aaron Burr hastened to the South, to avoid arrest; but public execration followed him. He became implicated in a scheme for putting himself at the head of Mexico, was arrested and tried for treason, and, though legally acquitted, was obliged to flee to England, and from there to Sweden and Germany. Finally he came home, only to hear that Theodosia's beautiful boy of eleven was dead. Poor and friendless, he longed now for the one person who had never forsaken him, his daughter. She started from Charleston in a pilot-boat, for New York, and was never heard from afterwards. Probably all went down in a storm off Cape Hatteras. When it was reported in the papers that the boat had been captured by pirates, Burr said, "No, no, she is indeed dead. Were she alive, all the prisons in the world could not keep her from her father. When I realized the truth of her death, the world became a blank to me, and life had then lost all its value."

When he was nearly eighty, he married a lady of wealth; but they were unhappy, and soon separated. He died on Staten Island, cared for at the last by the children of an old friend. His courage and fort.i.tude the world will always admire; but it can never forget the fatal duel by which Alexander Hamilton was taken from his country, in the prime of his life and in the midst of his great work.

The name of Hamilton will not be forgotten. The Hon. Chauncey M. Depew of New York, on February 22, 1888, gave the great statesman this well deserved tribute of praise:--

"The political mission of the United States has so far been wrought out by individuals and territorial conditions. Four men of unequal genius have dominated our century, and the growth of the West has revolutionized the republic. The principles which have heretofore controlled the policy of the country have mainly owed their force and acceptance to Hamilton, Jefferson, Webster, and Lincoln.

"The first question which met the young confederacy was the necessity of a central power strong enough to deal with foreign nations and to protect commerce between the States. At this period Alexander Hamilton became the savior of the republic. If Shakespeare is the commanding originating genius of England, and Goethe of Germany, Hamilton must occupy that place among Americans.

This superb intelligence, which was at once philosophic and practical, and with unrivalled lucidity could instruct the dullest mind on the bearing of the action of the present on the destiny of the future, so impressed upon his contemporaries the necessity of a central government with large powers that the Const.i.tution, now one hundred and one years old, was adopted, and the United States began their life as a nation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature Andrew Jackson]

ANDREW JACKSON.

George Bancroft said, "No man in private life so possessed the hearts of all around him; no public man of the country ever returned to private life with such an abiding mastery over the affections of the people....

He was as sincere a man as ever lived. He was wholly, always, and altogether sincere and true. Up to the last he dared do anything that it was right to do. He united personal courage and moral courage beyond any man of whom history keeps the record.... Jackson never was vanquished.

He was always fortunate. He conquered the wilderness; he conquered the savage; he conquered the veterans of the battle-field of Europe; he conquered everywhere in statesmans.h.i.+p; and when death came to get the mastery over him, he turned that last enemy aside as tranquilly as he had done the feeblest of his adversaries, and pa.s.sed from earth in the triumphant consciousness of immortality."

Thus wrote Bancroft of the man who rose from poverty and sorrow to receive the highest gift which the American nation can bestow. The gift did not come through chance; it came because the man was worthy of it, and had earned the love and honor of the people.

In 1765, among many other emigrants, a man, with his wife and two sons, came to the new world from the north of Ireland. They were linen-weavers, poor, but industrious, and members of the Presbyterian Church. They settled at Waxhaw, North Carolina, not far from the South Carolina boundary, and the husband began to build a log house for his dear ones. This man was the father of Andrew Jackson.

Scarcely had the log house been built, and a single crop raised, before the wife was left a widow and the children fatherless. There was a quiet funeral, a half-dozen friends standing around an open grave, and then the little house pa.s.sed into other hands, and Mrs. Jackson went to live at the home of her brother-in-law.

Not long after the funeral, a third son was born, March 15, 1767, whom the stricken mother named Andrew Jackson, after his father. He was welcomed in tears, and naturally became the idol of her young heart.

Three weeks later, she moved to the house of another brother-in-law to a.s.sist in his family. She was not afraid to work, and she bent herself to the hard labor of pioneer life. There was no sorrow in the labor, for was she not doing it for her sons, and a n.o.ble woman knows no hards.h.i.+p in her self-sacrifice for love.

Her ambition seems to have centred in the slight, light-haired, blue-eyed Andrew, who, she hoped, one day might become a Presbyterian minister. How he was to obtain a college education, perhaps, she did not discern, but she trusted, and trust is a divine thing.

The barefooted boy attended a school kept by Dr. Waddell. He made commendable progress in his studies, from his quick and ardent temperament, but he loved fun even better than books. He was impulsive, ambitious, and persevering. He could run foot-races as rapidly as the bigger boys, and loved to wrestle or engage in anything which seemed like a battle. Says an old schoolmate, "I could throw him three times out of four, but he would never _stay throwed_. He was dead game, even then, and never _would_ give up."

To the younger boys he was a protector, but from the older he would brook no insult, and was sometimes hasty and overbearing. One of the best traits in the boy's character was his love for his mother. His intense nature knew no change, and he was loyal and single of purpose forever. He used to say in later life, "One of the last injunctions given me by my mother was never to inst.i.tute a suit for a.s.sault and battery or for defamation; never to wound the feelings of others nor suffer my own to be outraged: these were her words of admonition to me; I remember them well, and have never failed to respect them; my settled course through life has been to bear them in mind, and never to insult or wantonly to a.s.sail the feelings of any one; and yet many conceive me to be a most ferocious animal, insensible to moral duty and regardless of the laws both of G.o.d and man."

He did nothing slowly nor indifferently. He bent his will to his work, even at that early age, and knew no such word as failure. When the boy was thirteen, an incident occurred which made a lasting impression. The British General Tarlton, in the Revolutionary War, with three hundred cavalry, came against Waxhaw, surprised the militia, killing one hundred and thirteen and wounding one hundred and fifty. The little settlement was terrorized. The meeting-house became a hospital, and Mrs. Jackson, with her sons, helped to minister to the wants of the suffering soldiers. Andrew learned not only lessons in war, but to dream of future rewards to the British.

When Cornwallis, after the surrender of General Gates, moved his whole army toward Waxhaw, Mrs. Jackson and her sons were obliged to seek a safe retreat with a distant relative. Here Andrew did "ch.o.r.es" for his board. "Never," said one who knew him well at this time, "did Andrew come home from the shops without bringing with him some new weapon with which to kill the enemy. Sometimes it was a rude spear, which he would forge while waiting for the blacksmith to finish his job. Sometimes it was a club or a tomahawk. Once he fastened the blade of a scythe to a pole, and, on reaching home, began to cut down the weeds with it that grew about the house, a.s.sailing them with extreme fury, and occasionally uttering words like these, 'Oh, if I were a man, how I would sweep down the British with my gra.s.s blade!'"

A year later, when Mrs. Jackson had returned to Waxhaw, the brothers were both taken prisoners in a skirmish. Being commanded to clean the boots of a British officer, Andrew refused, saying, "Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and claim to be treated as such."

The angry Englishman drew his sword, and rushed at the boy, who, attempting to defend himself from the blow, received a deep gash in his left hand, and also on his head, the scars of which he bore through life. Robert, the brother, also refused to clean the boots, and was prostrated by the sword of the brutal officer. Soon after, the boys were taken with other prisoners to Camden, eighty miles distant, a long and agonizing journey for wounded men.

They found the prison a wretched place, with no medical supplies; the food scanty, and small-pox raging among the inmates. The poor mother, hearing of their forlorn condition, hastened to the place. Both her boys were ill of the dreaded small-pox, and both suffering from their sword-wounds. She arranged for the exchange of prisoners, and took her sons home; Robert to die in her arms two days later, and Andrew to be saved at last after a perilous illness of several months. Her oldest son, Hugh, had already given his life to his country in the war.

Almost broken-hearted with the loss of her two sons, yet intensely patriotic, she hastened to the Charleston prison-s.h.i.+ps, to care for the wounded, taking with her provisions and medicine sent by loving wives and daughters. The blessed ministrations proved of short duration. Mrs.

Jackson was taken ill of s.h.i.+p-fever, died after a brief illness, and was buried in the open plain near by. The grave is unmarked and unknown.

When, years later, her ill.u.s.trious son had become President, he tried to find the burial-place of the woman he idolized, but it was impossible.

Andrew was now an orphan, and poor; but he had what makes any boy or man rich, the memory of a devoted, heroic mother. Such a person has an inspiration that is like martial music on the field of battle; he is urged onward to duty forevermore. The world is richer for all such instances of ideal womanhood; the womanhood that gives rather than receives; that seeks neither admiration nor self-aggrandizement; that, like the flowers, sends out the same fragrance whether in royal gardens or beside the peasant's door; that lives to lighten others' sorrows, to rest tired humanity, to sweeten the bitterness of life by her loveliness of soul; that is to the world around her

"A new and certain sunrise every day."

Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, the boy of fifteen looked about him to see what his life-work should be. In the family of a distant relative he found a home. The son was a saddler. For six months Andrew worked at this trade. But other plans were in his mind. He knew how his mother had desired that he might be educated. But how could a boy win his way without money? For two years or more, little is known of him. It is believed that he taught a small school. When nearly eighteen, he had made up his mind to study law, a somewhat remarkable decision for a boy in his circ.u.mstances.

If he studied at all, it should be under the best of teachers; so he rode to Salisbury, seventy-five miles from Waxhaw, and entered the office of Mr. Spruce McCay, an eminent lawyer, and later a judge of distinction.

For nearly two years he studied, enjoying also the sports of the time, and making, as he did all through life, close friends who were devoted to his interests. When in the White House, forty-five years afterward, he said, "I was but a raw lad then, but I did my best." And he did his best through life!

He loved a fine horse almost as though it were human; he enjoyed the society of ladies, and possessed a grace and dignity of manner that surprised those who knew the hards.h.i.+ps of his life. His eager intelligence, his quick, direct glance, that bespoke alertness of mind, won him attention, even more than would beauty of person. Over six feet in height, slender to delicacy, he gave the impression of leaders.h.i.+p, from his bravery and self-reliance. Emerson well says, "The basis of good manners is self-reliance.... Self-trust is the first secret of success; the belief that, if you are here, the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause or with some task strictly appointed you in your const.i.tution."

When his two years of law-study were ended, the work was but just begun.

There was reputation to be made, and perhaps a fortune, but where and how? For a year he seems not to have found a law opening; the streams of fortune do not always flow toward us--we have to make the journey by persistent and hard rowing against the tide. He probably worked in a store owned by some acquaintances, earning for daily needs.

At twenty-one came his first opportunity; came, as it often comes, through a friend. Mr. John McNairy was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of the Western District of North Carolina (Tennessee), and young Jackson, his friend, public prosecutor of the same district. He moved to Nashville in 1788, to begin his difficult work. He was obliged to ride on horseback over the mountains and through the wilderness, often among hostile Indians, his life almost constantly in danger. Once, while travelling with a party of emigrants, when all slept save the sentinels, he sat against a tree, smoking his corn-cob pipe and keeping an eager watch. Soon he heard the notes of what seemed to be various owls! He quietly roused the whole party and moved them on. An hour later, a company of hunters lay down by the fires which Jackson had left, and before daylight all save one man were killed by the Indians.

Sometimes the young lawyer slept for twenty successive nights in the wilderness. This was no life of ease and luxury. At Nashville he found lodgings in the house of the widow of Colonel John Donelson, a brave pioneer from Virginia, who had been killed by the Indians. And here Jackson met the woman who was to prove his good angel as long as she lived. With Mrs. Donelson lived her dark-haired and dark-eyed daughter Rachel, married to Lewis Robards from Kentucky. Vivacious, kindly, and sympathetic, Rachel had been the idol of her father, and probably would have been of her husband had it not been for his jealous disposition. He became angry at Jackson, as he had been at others, and made her life so unhappy that she separated from him and went to friends in Natchez, with the approval of her mother, and the entire confidence and respect of her husband's relatives.

After a divorce in 1791, Jackson married her, when they were each twenty-four years old. History does not record a happier marriage. To the last, she lived for him alone, but not more fully than he lived for her. With the world he was thought to be domineering and harsh, and was often profane; but with her he was patient, gentle, and deferential.

When he won renown, she was happy for his sake, but she did not care for it for herself. Her kindness of heart took her among the sick and the unfortunate, and everywhere she was a welcome comforter. She lived outside of self, and found her reward in the homage of her husband and her friends.

Jackson soon began to prosper financially. Often he would receive his fee in lands, a square mile of six hundred and forty acres or more, so that after a time he was the possessor of several thousand acres.

Success came also from other sources. When a convention was called to form a const.i.tution for the new State of Tennessee, Jackson was chosen a delegate. He took an active part in the organization of the State--he was active in whatever he engaged--and bravely espoused her claims against the general government for expenses incurred in Indian conflicts. Tennessee felt that she had a true friend in Jackson, and, when she wanted a man to represent her in Congress, she sent him to the House of Representatives. This honor came at twenty-nine years of age--a strange contrast to the years when he made saddles or did "ch.o.r.es" for his board, and longed to "sweep down the British with his gra.s.s blade."