University of California • Berkeley 
 
I 
 
 VINDICATION 
 
 ^-^ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHARACTER AND PUBXXC SSRVZCES 
 
 IN REPLY TO THE 
 
 RICHMOND ADDRESS, SIGNED BY CHAPMAN JOHNSON. 
 AND TO OTHER EliECTIONEERING CALUMNIES. 
 
 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NASHVILLE REPUBLICAN, 
 
 AND ATTRIBUTKD TO 
 
 MAJOR HENRY LEE, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 True and Greene, Prinleri 1828. 
 
TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The following is a most ably written and conclusive argument. It has 
 not had, in that respect, its superior during the present canvass. 
 
 We solicit for it the candid perusal of all men, who are willing to know 
 the truth, and knowing it, to vindicate it against error or designed mis- 
 representation. 
 
 No man has rendered more important services to his country, than 
 Andrew Jackson. They have shed upon that country and upon his own 
 name, imperishable glory. For these services, his country is grateful ; and 
 for them and his merits, for his republican character and attachments, and 
 for his determination to bring into the councils of the nation the old 
 Democracy instead of the Federalism and Aristocracy which now govern 
 us, his country will place the highest of her gifts within his hands. But 
 these great services and deeds of devotion to the general welfare, ami the 
 perilous defence of his native soil, are the sources of envy in the minds of 
 malignant partizans and bad-hearted men. They hate what they cannot 
 imitate ; and in nearly all cases, they condemn now what they condemned 
 during a war which they opposed, and the defenders and supporters of 
 which they then vilified. Such men have filled the country with gross 
 misrepresentations of the character and conduct of Gen. Jackson. Every 
 act of his life is gainsayed or perverted. No man, elevated and noble as 
 has been his devotedness under great emergencies and in the most tryingr 
 times, has been so much traduced. No man has been more foully slander- 
 ed. The inmost recesses of his family, the honor of his wife, his domes- 
 tic peace, — all have been invaded, to serve the purposes and prop up the 
 hopes of a falling party — to sustain an administration, which coming into 
 power without the consent of the people, seeks by such means to deceive 
 that people into its support. Like Tompkins, he has been hunted down 
 by his enemies and the enemies of his country. Not content with these 
 assaults and calumnies upon the private character and domestic life of a ven- 
 erable citizen, they attempt even to scandalize the coimtiy, and in the very 
 language and manner of the pensioned writers of the British press, de 
 predate the honors and underrate the victories of the nation. These 
 calumnies have called out the following vindication. It is worthy of the 
 
4 
 
 author, of the subject, and of the country. Let every lover of his coun- 
 try read it. — Albany Argus. 
 
 [From the Nashville Republican.] 
 
 To the Editors of the Richmond Enquirer. 
 
 Gentlemen : — The address of the Adams men in Richmond, published 
 in your paper of the 26th November, is not more remarkable for the re- 
 spectable names attached to it, than for its prodigious errors, both of fact 
 and inference. Such a conflict between persuasive authority and repul- 
 sive misrepresentations, is rarely seen, and is difficult to account for, unless 
 we suppose the address was fabricated by the editor of the Whig-, and 
 signed under the influence of some unhappy hallucination. Mr. Chapman 
 Johnson appears to have given in his adhesion with scru|)les and reserva- 
 tions, inconsistent with that act of fraternity, and incompatible with the 
 sentiments of the party he joins. But his standing as a local politician 
 being high, and his name not unknown as an attorney, the signers, devo- 
 ted to their cause, and careless of their principles, receive him with open 
 arms. They have peifect confidence in the probity and honor of Messrs. 
 Adams and Clay — he has none. They apprehend no attack on public lib- 
 erty, or immediate danger to our institutions, from the election of General 
 Jackson — he is solemnly convinced (poor man !) that " General Jackson is al- 
 together unfit and eminently dangerous." They consider the opposition 
 factious and unprincipled-— /te does not. These' discordances are hard to 
 reconcile — unless we reflect on the improbability of finding any varieties, 
 of opinion sufficient to place the brother-in-law of the Attorney-General, 
 the Attorney of the United States, ana the would-be-successor of Chief 
 Justice Marshall, in fair opposition to the Court. One of the first positions 
 taken in the address, is, that the election of General Jackson is to be de- 
 precated, " as ominous of the decay of that spirit by which alone our in- 
 stitutions can be upheld and perpetuated ;" and I perceive, ai a trashy 
 meeting of Mr. Southard's King George's, this spurious sentiment is 
 adopted, and traced to a jealousy of military fame, discoverable in the 
 constitution of the United States — an instrument which was framed under 
 the eye and auspices of General Washington, and was by him recommend- 
 ed to the American people, who made him their first President, when his 
 sword was scarce cold in his scabbard, and when the sounds of war were 
 just hushed in the land ! It is neither more nor less than another repetition 
 of Mr. Clay's charge of Military Chieftainship — an avowal that General 
 Ji<-ckson's services in repelling the invaders of his country, constitute a 
 just ground for his exclusion from civil office. The Legislature of this 
 state, who know the General at least as well as the readers of the Whig, 
 did not think so, when they made him Senator of the United States ; nor 
 did Mr. iVJunroe, when he appointed him Minister to Mexico. The laws of 
 society require of every man the exertion of his abilities and the hazard 
 of his life, in defence of the community of which he is a member. The 
 laws of this country place arms in the hands of the citizen, and devote his 
 life to this most sacred duty. If he shrinks from the glorious task, he is 
 consigned to ignominy : if he performs it with superior skill and courage, 
 he forfeits for ever, in the opinion of the Richmond meeting, public confi- 
 dence and civil honors. In their political ethics, the best and the worst 
 conduct are equally culpable ; and the only military services which entitle 
 a citizen to political promotion, are such as some of themselves perform- 
 ed — viz. wearing uniform, taking pay, and doing nothing. So, because 
 Governor Barbour tied himself to a broad -sword, and rode behind pistols 
 two or three times to Norfolk, and two or three times back, sounding louder 
 
than an empty barrel all the while, he was made Senator of the United 
 States, in postponement of Mr. Wirt, a man of acknowledged ability. It 
 is very true, that neither Mr. Adams nor Mr. Clay is obnoxious to this 
 ostracism of the Richmond meeting. While GeneralJackson was braving 
 the ambushed shaft of the Indian, and foiling the discipline shock of Brit- 
 ish columns ; was performing toilsome marches ; was enduring thirst and 
 hunger, relieved only by the fruit of the oak and the wave of the torrent; 
 was periling his life and pledging his fortune, to save the lives and fortunes 
 of his countrymen, these diplomatic gentlemen " were brewing mysteries of 
 ruin" against each other, in sumptuous chambers at Ghent — were prepar- 
 ing that hostile rivalship, which, in due dramatic succession, rose into the 
 production of separate interests, and sunk into the soft catastrophe of the 
 coalition. Mr. Adams carefully duplicating his charges against our 
 " weak and penurious government," and Mr. Clay gratifying his love of 
 pleasure by excursions to Paris ! Such are the services, and such the am- 
 bition, which, according to Messrs. Call. Cabell, and Stanard, it is the 
 interest of the American people to cherish and reward, in preference to 
 the noble patriotism and incorruptible virtue of the laurelled farmer of 
 Tennessee ! Absurdity and mjustice like this, gentlemen, can never find 
 favour in the renowned commonwealth which gave birth to Washington, 
 and was the theatre of his greatest military exploit. 
 
 The state of public intelligence is so high in Virginia, that politicians 
 who attempt to effect a delusion, prefer hazarding a downright mis-state- 
 ment to a train of sophistical reasoning — counting more on want of suspi- 
 cion, than want of judgment in the people. With this view, and with a 
 claim to this desperate excuse, the Richmond meeting charge General 
 Jackson with " an unreasonable desire to fill the office of President." I 
 should like to know what circumstances in the conduct of General Jackson, 
 indicate even colourably, the " unreasonable desire " here spoken of. 
 How are the Richmond meeting to palliate such defamation 7 Will they 
 refer to his letter to Carter Beverly, which was expressly intended to pre- 
 vent misrepresentations, and was published under circumstances of indeli- 
 cacy by Mr. Clay himself; or will they rely on his colloquial answer to 
 the intrusive question of that person, which haviug been shown to be true, 
 by the testimony of Messrs. Trimiile, Buchanan, Isacks and Eaton, is cer- 
 tainly blameless. Was General Jackson bound in violation of his princi- 
 ples, and his nature to conceal by evasion or falsehood, any facts connectec 
 with the last election, out of tenderness to the reputation of Messrs. Ad- 
 ams and Clay, who had been for months paying the public money to Binns, 
 Hammond and Gales, for slandering himself and his wife ? Or was he to 
 commit the incivility of refusing an answer to Mr. Owen's letter of inquiry 
 upon points of his public conduct, against an official misrepresentation of 
 which, from the war-office, that gentleman was contending at the risk of 
 his political fortune ? Would it have been criminal or censurable in Mr. 
 Jefferson, to reply to a letter asking for information respecting any topic 
 of his history, when his claims were opposed to the elder Adams, and his 
 person and his fame vilified by the younger ? No man, enjoying in so large 
 a degree, as General Jackson, the admiration and gratitude of the public,ev- 
 er endeavoured so studiously to elude its gaze. Buried in our western woodg 
 he remains, and though unrestrained by the dignityor duty of office, resists 
 the importunity of his eminent friends in all quarters of the Union, and 
 even his t)wn liberal curiosity ; and has forborne for many years, the usual 
 recreation of tours for health or pleasure. While Mr. Adams and Mr. 
 Clay, in the enjoyment of salaries, and under the responsibility of office, 
 can find time for frequent and distant excursions — to a festival in this state — 
 a parade in that — an election in Kentucky — a review in Massachusetts — 
 
and an ebony and topaz entertainment in Baltimore. The discernment of 
 the Richmond meeting- is so keen, that they can discover egregious ambi- 
 tion and a lust for office, in the noiseless retirement and rural pursuits of 
 General Jackson ; while in the shameless and unexampled electioneering 
 of the cabinet, they see nothing but Political chastity, and concious recti- 
 tude. Is this the exercise of "that benevolence and Christian charity" 
 which they pleat in favour of the coalition ? Is it not rather an eruption 
 of that abominable spirit, which, to use their own words, " ascribes an ac- 
 tion to the worst and most dishonourable motive that could produce it ?" 
 However delightful it may be to them, to offer this sacrifice of truth and jus- 
 tice to the gods of their idolatry, they are too wise not to calculate on pro- 
 voking by it, general ridicule, if not public contempt. On this subject, 
 they have another assertion which has about as much reality for its foun- 
 dation, as Banquo's ghost, or Redheffer's perpetual motion. They declare 
 that they have " seen with inevitable regret. General Jackson descend from 
 his high dignity, to mingle in person in the contest waged for his own 
 election." The sincerity of their regret may be best estimated, by reflect- 
 ing on the torture to which their invention must have been subjected, for the 
 incident from which it flows — the pain of which operation, might have been 
 spared them, had the delicacy of General Jackson not been illustrated by 
 contrast, with the meddlesome eflTrontery and corrupting circulation of the 
 executive officers ; had he met Mr. Adams at Baltimore, Mr. Clay in Pitts- 
 burgh, Mr. Southard in Virginia, Mr. Barbour at Annapolis — or had it 
 not required the invitation of a sovereign state to draw him from his home, 
 to participate in the celebration of a great event in his own and his coun- 
 try's story. 
 
 But the temper of the Richmond meeting, their attention to the progress 
 of events, the phases of character, and all the circumstances belonging to 
 the problem involved in the comparison of General Jackson with Mr. Adams, 
 and in the designation of the latter for President, is best explained by their 
 own declaration — viz : that they " now think of General Jackson as they 
 always did." 
 
 Tt is very well known that about the time Algernon Sidney' drew his 
 impatient pen et in celeres iambos misit furentem against the Hero of New- 
 Orleans, the latter was regarded by many persons in Virginia with much 
 such sentiments as during the heat of the revolution prevailed in England 
 towards General Washington. They believed the execution of Arbuthnot 
 and Ambrister to be, in the language of Mr. Clay, (who was then attack- 
 ing Mr. Munroe, through the reputation of General Jackson, for appoint- 
 ing Mr. Adams Secretary of State in preference to himself,) murder.* 
 
 That the pursuit of the Seminole Indians to their places of refuge and 
 recruit in Florida, was lawless and unauthorized — and that General Jack- 
 son's character was ferocious — his propensities vicious — habits profligate, 
 and conduct outrageous. Whereas, now that the excitement of that sea- 
 son has subsided, and that time has cast its impartial light upon the matter, 
 it is universally known that the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister 
 was in strict conformity with the laws of nations and usages of v;ar ; was 
 perfectly justifiable upon the principles of a prudent retaliation ; and was 
 a measure of justice far less opposed to mercy than the execution of the 
 unfortunate Andre. That the invasion of Florida was no violation of the 
 neutrality of Spain — it being necessary that neutrality should exist before 
 it can be violated, and it being both notorious and attested, that the sove- 
 reignty of that province was, like the embraces of a harlot, " open to all 
 comers," and particularly prostituted to our enemy. That this prudent 
 
 * Mr. Clay uttered this outrageous charge in debate, but in the report of his speech sup- 
 pressed it. 
 
 i 
 
and effective measure corresponded with the orders and policy of the 
 government, and like the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, gave 
 serious offence to no statesmen on earth but our own designing politicians. 
 It is also known that by the quiet force of virtue General Jackson has 
 lived down the calumnies of his private character, and that a jury of his 
 vicinage, unbought and unsolicited — as respectable for numbers, for knowl- 
 edge, for talents, and for worth, as the Adams men of Richmond, have 
 furnished undeniable evidence of his spotless integrity, amiable virtues, 
 and unblemished honor. And yet Messrs. Cabell, Call, Stanard & Co. 
 " think of General Jackson as they always did !" Examples of intellectual 
 perfection! On a subject so complex, progressive and variable as human 
 character — to fix which the canonizing seal of death is required, and to 
 ascertain which the patient research of the historian is often insufficient, 
 their impeccable opinions .are neither to be enlightened by time nor mqdi- 
 fied by evidence ! They listen not to the increasing plaudits of his coun- 
 trymen, 01 to the unvarying testimony of his neighbours — they regard not 
 the faithful energy with which he has filled civil offices, nor the easy 
 grandeur with which he resigned them — and they turn their eyes from an 
 act of moderation and magnanimity which has no parallel in the history of 
 Grecian or of I' oman greatness. To preserve the freedom of Corinth, 
 Timoleon permitted the as8assinati(>n of his own brother. In defence of 
 liberty and law, Brutus stabbed his friend in the capitol ; and poetry and 
 oratory delight to portray him brandishing his bloody dagger over the body 
 of ('sBsir, and congratulating Cicero on the freedom of the state. But 
 this splendid act, tho..gh described in the immortal eloquence of Tully, or 
 in the classical numbers of Akenside, must lose its lustre if compared 
 with General Jackson's rejection of Buchanans' overture.* The highest 
 object of human ambition was placed within reach of the American patriot. 
 No law of the republic was to be violated, no feeling of the heart to be 
 outraged, no prejudice cf mankind to be shocked — but the secret virtue 
 of his inmost soul could not be turned from the path of honor, and he 
 subdued th ^ powerful temptation as he subdued the foes of his country. 
 Still he is charged with an '• unreasonable desire to fill the office of Presi- 
 dent" — is thought of ''just as he always was" by the Richmond meeting! 
 It is impossible to conceive that this noble act of General Jackson was un- 
 known to the gentlemen. Nor are they bound to dissent from the general 
 admiration of it, in order to arrive at a perfect faith in the purity of the 
 coalition. The most favourable account that can be given of their en- 
 deavour to undervalue or discredit it, is to impute it to a feeling, like that 
 of the Athenian citizen, who voted for the banisiiment of Aristides because 
 he could not bear to hear him called the Just. But men who show no 
 mercy to facts, can do little justice to character. 
 
 In approaching" the subject of Mr. Adams' merits, they found their zeal 
 in his favour upon sympathy excited by the strong and general opposition 
 which his election and his measures have provoked — a sentiment for 
 which they justly claim the credit of generosity, it being evident that zeal 
 for the re-election of Mr. Adams, cannot proceed from a noble love of 
 liberty, a prudent regard to the interests of the country, or a proper respect 
 
 * "'Caesare interfecto inquit statim cruentum alte extollens Marcus Brutus puffionem Ciceronem 
 nominatim exclamavit atque ei recuperatam libertatem eat gratulatus.^^ — 2d Philippic. 
 
 " Brutus rose, 
 Refulgent from the stroke of <;i«sar"s fate, 
 Amid the crowd of patriots and hia arm 
 Aloft extendi'!?:, like eternal Jove 
 When guil" brings down the thunder, call'd aloud 
 On nlly's name and shook his crimson steel. 
 And bade the father of his country hail ! 
 For, lo • the tyrant ! prostrate in the dust, 
 And Rome again is free." 
 

 8 
 
 for its institutions. They thus sum up their articles of faith in the divine 
 right of John the 2d ; " He is pure and upright in intention — patriotic, 
 however occasionally mistaken — prudent and indefatiirable in the discharge 
 of his public duties — blameless and irreproachable in private life." That 
 honest and sagacious traveller Lemuel Gulliver, declared that the shade of 
 Homer was introduced to the shades of his commentators, in his presence ; 
 and that the parties appeared to have been totally unacquainted before. 
 
 Should the shade of Lemuel ever visit our country, know Mr. Adams, 
 and read this character of him, he would sware he was a stranger to his 
 best friends. They have drawn the character of Madison, and given it to 
 the public for that of Adams. — Was Mr. Adams, pure and upright in brib- 
 ing Mr. Clay to elect him ; in betraying the federal party with falsehoods 
 to Mr. Jefferson, and reclaiming it by promises to Mr. Webster — m charg- 
 ing a double salary and for a constructive journey, while minister, and pay- 
 ing that dishonest charge to himself while Secretary of State ? Was he pat- 
 riotic when writing his letter to Levitt Harris, undervaluing the resources 
 and ridiculing the spirit of his country, wiien that country was involved in 
 the casualties of a bloody war ? Did patriotism inspire his mind when he 
 urged the surrender to England of the free navigation of the Mississippi ; 
 or when he negotiated away the Colonial trade ; Was he patient and faith- 
 ful in the discharge of his duties when he forced on the Post Master Gen- 
 eral the appointment of the present deputy at Nashville, and repulced with 
 petulence tiie representations of this state, whilst respectfully deprecating 
 that act of oppression ? His private life, in so far as it can be seperated 
 from his public conduct, does not reach beyond the years of puberty — for 
 his youth, his manhood, and his age, have been spent in lucrative connex- 
 ion with the public treasury. But if the Richmond meeting will answer 
 the questions above proposed, with only a "small approach" to acknowl- 
 edged facts in the conduct of Mr. Adams, they will render perfectly harm- 
 less a warmer zeal and a larger minority, than they represent or express. 
 The opposition in this free and enlightened country, stern and general as it 
 is, it comports with the modesty and tolerance of these gentlemen, to de- 
 nounce, " as a studious misrepresentation of the President's measures," 
 " a perversion of his most careless language" — a wanton attack on his 
 character and that of his cabinet, as premature and unsupported by the 
 real character of the Administration. In such estimation are the motives 
 of Macon, Calhoun, Van Buren, and Tazewell, held by gentlemen, who see 
 in the career of Mr. Clay nothing but patriotism and virtue! It is very 
 true that an opposition to the re-election of Mr Adams, was manifested in 
 the country, before his Administration was organized, or the course of his 
 policy had pointed towards arbitrary power and cabinet succession. But 
 the Richmond meeting do not require to be told, that this opposition was 
 the natural effect of his unfair election, and was therefore necessarily an- 
 terior to the organization of his government, and independent of the char- 
 acter of his measures. An equitable, enlightened and prudent administra- 
 tion, might indeed have allayed this original opposition ; but the prudence 
 of Mr. Adams' measures has not exceeded the purity of his election, and 
 his friends, who are continually boasting of his skill and experience, have 
 the mortification to find the policy of his government as fruitful a source 
 of opposition as its origin. And it may be fairly affirmed, that when we 
 consider his impure election, his extravagant doctrines, and mischievous im- 
 policy, the opposition is as temperate, as a sentiment so strong and general, 
 actuating a body politic as sensative and robust as the American public, 
 can well be expected to be. 
 
 Which of his measures are conceived to have been " studiously misrep- 
 resented" I cannot conjecture, but if the Panama mission, and the negotia- 
 tion respecting the Colonial trade, are the subjects of this misrepresenta- 
 
9 
 
 tion, the advisers ofMr. Adams in Richmond, would relieve his feputationj 
 and add to their own very much, if they would hasten to convince the coun- 
 try, that the mission of Mr. Sergeant eventuated in any thing- better tlian 
 indelible ridicule and prodigal expense — and that our profitable trade with 
 the British West Indies has really not been transferred to the ports ot the 
 St. Lawrence — and the north of Europe. But they tell the people of Virgin- 
 ia that the monarchial declarations of Mr. Adams, in his first message, were 
 not serious, were merely " his highness's levity" — " his most careless lan- 
 guage." What must ! e think of the heads of these loyal Virginians, who 
 can invent no better apology for his solemn and considerate expressions ; 
 or what must we think of his, for having forced his advocates to such damn- 
 ing extremities of excuse. — It is, however, easier to suppose that these 
 gentlemen in;iulged in " most careless language" in framing this absurd 
 apology than that Mr. Adams did, when he asserted in a message to both 
 Houses of Congress, and re-asserted to the Senate on the nomination of 
 Messrs. Anderson and Sergeant, the " constitutional competancy of the 
 executive" to institute embassies and to commission envoys, without the ad- 
 vice or consent o! the senate ; and when he counselled the national repre- 
 sentatives to proceed in promoting the general welfare and in executing 
 schemes of internal improvement — in building " Light houses of the sky," 
 and watching the radiance and revolutions of the planets — without being 
 " palsied by the will of their constituents." 
 
 The object of these and other apologists of the President, is to reconcile 
 the country to his unwarrentable pretensions upon the ground that they 
 are mere abstract opinions, casually conceived and " carelessly" expressed ; 
 which he lias never attempted and never will attempt to reduce to practice, 
 and which, in the instance of the Panama mission, he actually abstained 
 from enforcing. As if the principle were not every thing, and the prac- 
 tice in any particular case, nothing ? Hamden did not regard the amount 
 of ship money levied upon him, but he resented and resisted, at great cost 
 and peril, the principle which this tax of 20s. involved. And his factious 
 opposition is called by the loyal Hume himself, " a bold stand in defence 
 of the laws and liberties of his country"—" by which he merited great re- 
 nown with posterity." The factious opposition of our ancestors to the 
 Stamp Act. was not to the particular law or to the modicum of exaction, but 
 to the principle of taxing the people of this country without the consent of 
 their representatives, as the Adams men may learn by consulting Marshall's 
 history of the American Colonies. The same important work will remind 
 them, that when that irritating measure was exchanged for the more in- 
 vidious one of duties on certain articles of importation, the same principle 
 of oppression was descried by the sagacity, and opposed by the indepen- 
 dence, of our fathers ; and that when it was attempted to conciliate them, 
 by a repeal of all the duties except that on tea, it was regarded as an as- 
 sertion, not a surrender, of the odious principle of taxation without repre- 
 sentation, and that the spirit of patriotic- resistance, instead of being as- 
 suaged, rose higher and higher, until it flamed forth in open rebellion., 
 Marshall observes (page -388) " The contest with America was plainly a 
 contest of principle, and had been conducted entirely on principle by both 
 parties. The amount of taxes proposed to be raised was too inconsidera- 
 ble to interest the people of either country. But the principle was, in the 
 opinion of both, of the utmost magnitude." So the contest between the 
 President and the People of the United States is" plainly a contest of prin- 
 ciple," and as such has been " conducted by both parties." He maintains 
 the twice declared doctrine of his " constitutional competancy." They 
 complain that it militates directly against that principle cf the constitution, 
 which limits the control of the executive over the objects and expense of 
 2 
 
10 
 
 our diplomatic intercourse. — This principle is of the " utmost magnitude," 
 and it differs from that maintained with so much blood and treasure by our 
 forefathers, in this, that it is expressly defined and guaranteed by that 
 written constitution, which Mr. Adams swore " to preserve, protect, and 
 detiend." Now Mr. Marshall, who placed Mr. Adams under the " solem- 
 nities of this oath," tells us that so far from the right insisted on by our an- 
 cestors, being defined and settled by any written instrument, it existed 
 only in their natural sense of justice, and inbred love of liberty, (p. SS^O 
 " The degree of authority, which might rightfully be exercised by the 
 mother country over her colonies, had never been accurately defined. In 
 Britain it had always been asserted that Parliament possessed the power 
 of binding them in all cases whatever. In America, at different times and 
 in different provinces, different opinions had been entertained on this sub- 
 ject." The enforcement of this plausible authority, going only to the col- 
 lection of an inconsiderable tax, and infringing no written charter of liber- 
 ty, roused our ancestors to arms. And yet their sons are persuaded by 
 the Richmond meeting to submit to a palpable violation of their bond of 
 Union and Government, subjecting them to unlimited expense, and involv- 
 ing a vital change of its provisions ! Verily, the patriotism of this conven- 
 ticle " passeth all understanding !" 
 
 Taking counsel of their loyalty, they evidently deem lightly of the prin- 
 ciple at issue between the country and the cabinet, and conceive that the 
 practical waiver of it, on the part of Mr. Adams in the case of the Panama 
 mission, ought, of rigiit, to have prevented the opposition, which they as- 
 cribe to " a personal and vindictive spirit." In this sentiment they will 
 probably be pleased to learn, that they coincide with that prince of novel- 
 ists and tories. Sir Walter Scott. In attempting the life of JVapoleon^ he 
 reproa«;hes the people of France with " a rancorous and vindictive opposi- 
 tion," because they objected to the king's assuming the right of granting 
 a constitution to the nation, and insisted on the constitution's emanating 
 from the people. Sir Walter favors the arrogance of the Monarch, and 
 says "the objections of the French people were, practically speaking, of no 
 consequence." " It signifies nothing," says he, " to the people of France, 
 whether the constitution was proposed to the King by the National Rep- 
 resentatives, or by the King to them." In the same spiric, the Richmond 
 meeting conceive that the limitations of executive power " are, practically 
 speaking," of equal value, whether they are secured by the provisions of 
 the constitution, or granted by the indulgence of Mr. Adams. But, if they 
 do not regard the existing encroachments and actual misrule of the Pres- 
 ident of sufficient importance to warrant a transfer of power to more able 
 and honest hands, let them remember that Mr. Adams came into office with 
 " a smaller approach to unanimity" than any of his predecessors, and that 
 his first message and his first term are to be taken as the lowest range of 
 his ambition. Elect him again, and ratify his missayings and misdoings 
 by the voice of Virginia — that State which, in the language of Burke, once 
 was foremost to " augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the ap- 
 proach of tyranny in every tainted breeze" — will not his high-born spirit, 
 which looks above the constitution for the sources of power, take a bolder 
 and a loftier flight ? May he not aim at transforming the line of safe pre- 
 cedent into the power of appointing his successor, which would show his 
 noble disdain of " the will of his constituents," his diplomatic intimacy with 
 the spirit of foreign monarchies, and would rise above his present preten- 
 sions about as far as they are above the level of the Constitution ? 
 
 The first year of Charles the Second's reign, after he was restored to 
 the throne of his father, are admitted on all hands, by round-head and cav- 
 alier, whig and tory, to have been legal and moderate. — But as soon as he 
 
11 
 
 got firmly seated, he showed tlie people that love of pleasure was inferior 
 to lust of power, and that " the most careless language" often escaped from 
 the most determined tyrant. 
 
 Louis the XVIII. for the first year or two, was moderate and gentle in 
 his sway, but he soon muzzled the press, and effected a complete despot- 
 ism. And why should we think that what is true of a Stuart, or a Bour- 
 bon, is not true of an Adams? 
 
 Shall we act prudently to ourselves, and gratefully to our ancestors, or 
 justly to our posterity, if for no other object than the emolument and grat- 
 ification of a few unworthy men, we risk our rights and liberties, our in- 
 heritance of glory and freedom, in their unclean and incapable hands ? 
 When the Richmond meeting ask the people of Virginia " what benefit 
 they expect to derive, what triumph of principle they expect to achieve by 
 the election of Gen. Jackson," they may be answered, that they expect to 
 vindicate the purity of election, by the exemplary punishment of its viola- 
 tion, the safety of the constitution, by withholding power from its avowed 
 enemy ; and the liberty of the press, by relieving the treasury from the ex- 
 pense of its corruption. That they expect to restore dignity and truth to 
 our foreign intercourse, economy and justice to our domestic government, 
 fidelity to the representative and influence to the constituent, supremacy 
 to the law, and satisfaction to the people. 
 
 The Richmond meeting having disinterred from " the tomb of the Cap- 
 ulets," the old charges connected with Gen. Jackson's defence of New-Or- 
 leans and occupation of Pensacola, I beg leave to invade your columns 
 briefly in his defence, at the risk of being denounced, in the same wise and 
 equitable spirit, for a violation of the laws of courtesy, and the limits of ed- 
 itorial neutrality. Their accusations branched out into the criminating 
 accounts of an indictment, and reiterated with the spiteful tautology of at- 
 tornies, amount to these two : "that General Jackson has invaded a neu- 
 tral country in defiance of orders, and in violation of that provision of the 
 constitution, which intrusts the power of peace and war to the President," 
 and " has suspended the writ of habeas corpus upon his individual authority." 
 
 How far the invasion of Florida was in defiance of orders^ may be deter- 
 mined by reference to the following documentary abstract. On the 9th of 
 December, 1817, the Secretary of War ordered Gen. Gaines "should the 
 Indians assemble in force on the Spanish side of the line, and persevere in 
 committing hostilities, within the limits of the United States in that event, 
 to exercise a sound discretion^ as to the propiiety of crossing the line for the 
 purpose of attacking them and hreaking up their towns' On the 16th of 
 December, he writes to the same, " should the Seminole Indians still re- 
 fuse to make reparation for their outrages and depredations on the citizens 
 of the United States, it is the wish of the President^ that you consider your- 
 self at liberty to march across the Florida line, and attack theni unthin its lim- 
 t<s."* Soon after this last order the President received intelligence of the 
 massacre of Mrs. Garret and her family, and the shocking butchery of 
 
 * This wish of the President was of no very recent date. As early as the 19th October, 1813, 
 when Gen. Armstrong, then Secretary of War, was on the Canada frontier, Mr. Monroe, Sec- 
 retary of State, thus expressed himself to Governor Blount, of Tennessee—" Sir, I am instrucf- 
 ed by the President to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's letter of the 28th ult.'' '■! he 
 menaced invasion of your State by the hostile Creeks must be met with a decision which vill 
 not only give security to yourselves, but be felt beneficially through the whole extent of our 
 southern country. Our citizens must not contmue to be the victims, either of the aggressions 
 of that, or any other tribe, whether they be voluntary, or be made at the instigation of British or 
 Spanish intrigue or seduction.^^ 
 
 The letter containing this passage was forwarded by Gov. Blount to General Jackson, and at 
 that early day conveyed to his mind a proper notion of the views of Mr. Monroe respe- ting the 
 character of the Indian war, and of the energetic meanures which would be required to bring it 
 to a speedy and effectual conclusion. 
 
12 
 
 Lieut. Scott and his detachment of thirty men. Under the melancholy im- 
 pression of these events, he had recourse to the well known energy and 
 talent of the " Military Chieftain," and called upon him to repair to the 
 scene of danger and "terminate the conflict." 
 
 The first order he received, dated the •26th Dec. 1817, recited "the in- 
 creasintr display of hostile intentions by the Seminole Indians," and author- 
 ized him to call on the executives of the adjoining States for a military 
 force sufficient " to beat the enemy." It also informed him that Gen. 
 Gaines, his second in command, had been directed "to penetrate from 
 Amelia Island, tfirou^ih Flotida, to the Seminole towns." With this view, 
 (the Secretary adds,) " you may be prepared to concentrate your force, and 
 to adopt necessary measures, to terminate the conflict." It cannot be dis- 
 puted that these orders not only authorized General Jackson, but actually 
 commanded him, to invade Florida. 
 
 He is informed that since the order authorizing Gen. Gaines "to march 
 across the Florida line, and attack the Indians within its limits" were issu- 
 ed, the Government had learnt " their increasing display of hostile inten- 
 tions," in the murder of Mrs. Garret and family, and »»f Lieut. Scott and 
 his men, that therefore (ien. Gaines had been directed to penetrate from 
 Amelia Island through Florida, and co-operate in an attack on the Semi- 
 nole towns, if his force were sufficient for that offensive operation ; and that 
 "with this view" he himself was expected "to concentrate his force, and 
 adopt the necessary measures to terminate the conflict." JVith what view, 
 let me ask Messrs. Cabel, Call, and Stanard, was General Jackson "to 
 concentrate his force and adopt his measures ?" They can only answer, 
 with the view of " penetrating into Florida," and carrying on withm its 
 limits such military operations, as might be " necessary to terminate the 
 conflict." — What justification, rather what apology, can they offer against 
 the indignation of their readers, and the reproaches of truth, for declaring, 
 with the affectation of regret too, that this act of Gen. Jackson was " in 
 defiance of orders!" The orders themselves correspond with the act, and 
 the act conforms to the interpretation given to the orders by the govern- 
 ment that issued them. On the 25th of March, 1818, the President, in a 
 message to Congress, adverting to the course and spirit of the Indian hos- 
 tilities, says, Gen. Jackson " was ordered to the theatre of action, charged 
 with the management of the war, and vested with the powers necessary to 
 give it effect." And on the 13th May, following, the Secretary of War 
 writes to Gov. Bibb, " General Jackson is vested with full powers to con- 
 duct the war in the manner he may judge best." 
 
 Now, how could General Jackson's discretion, which was intrusted with 
 these " full powers," fail to determine ^on crossing the Florida line, in or- 
 der to comply with his instructions " to beat the enemy" and to " termin- 
 ate the conflict," when that enemy was situated "within the limits of Flor- 
 ida ?" It is counting nothing on the justice of the Richmond meeting to 
 affirm, that even they will admit it was impossibk. As this act of General 
 Jackson was authorized and commanded by the President of the United 
 y States, ,whom, as a Major General in the service, he was bound to obey, it 
 V no part of his defence, to disprove the allegation of its being in violation 
 of a provision in the constitution. This charge were it sustainable, would 
 ev\dently miss General Jackson and hit Mr. Monroe. But it was debated 
 in the House of Representatives with intense eagerness for about three 
 weeks ; was discussed by 32 members, and inforced by all the boasted 
 management and eloquence of Mr. Clay ; and yet was decided in the neg- 
 ative by a vote of 100 to 70, with the votes of Messrs. Sergeant, Southard, 
 and Newton among the nays. To them I beg to refer the meeting for its 
 further discussion, remarking only, that the entrance of the American 
 
13 
 
 army into Florida, and their provisional assertion of our belligerent rights, 
 in place of the abused or the direlict authority of Spain, was no violation of 
 neutrality, much less an act of war ; but an act strictly defensive ; author- ^ 
 ized by the principle of self-preservation, which is derived from the law of 
 nature itself; is recognized by the law of nations, and conduces to their 
 mutual safety, and under the obligations of which the President, to whom 
 the constitution commits the defence of the nation, and the assertion of its 
 rights, was bound to prosecute the war with the Seminole Indians, to a 
 speedy and successful issue. 
 
 The right of self-defence, belonging to the nation, and committed to the 
 President, carried with it a right to the means of its exercise.* And the 
 inability of the Sj>anish authorities, or their unwillingness to preserve tow- 
 ards us the general obligations of neutrality, or to comply with the pobitive 
 stipulations of a treaty binding them to restrain the Indians, within their 
 limits, from hostilities against the citizens of the United States, brought 
 Geneial Jackson's military operations, in Florida, strictly within the num- 
 ber of these means. But whether regarded as they relate to the constitu- 
 tion of this country, or as they effected the rights of Spain, they are equal- 
 ly insufficient to inculpate General Jackson. He acted like other com- 
 manders, under the orders of his government, and these orders he execu- 
 ted vvith his usual energy and address. 
 
 He was not responsible for their nature, or for the extent of operations 
 which they commanded, and therefore needed no defence. And the fact is, 
 that in the despatch of Mr. Adams, when Secretary of State, to our Min- 
 ister in Spain, dated 28th November, 1818, (which has been so invidiously 
 — and I may say ignorantly lauded as an able and liberal defence of Gen- 
 eral Jackson, and which so far as it re^arards this matter, is nothing more 
 than a verbose and declamatory rehersal of the evidence and arguments 
 furnished by the General himself, in explanation of his measuref) the name 
 of Jackson is introduced for no other than the usual diplomatic purpose of 
 making the officer the scape-goat for the government. 
 
 The next charge of the Richmond meeting, " he has suspended the 
 writ of habeas corpus upon his individual authority," besides the fault of 
 expression, in using individual where official was required, and the glar- 
 ing incongruity between a belief in these charges and the e-rly declara- 
 tion of the meeting, that they apprehend from the General " no attack on 
 public liberty," and " repose undiminished confidence in his love of coun- 
 try ;" an incongruity which shows that the end of their address had for- 
 gotten the begining, contains a positive mis-statement of fact. General 
 Jackson did not suspend the writ of habeas corpus. I am perfectly aware, 
 that the true questi<m growing out of the defence of New-Orleans, is not 
 whether the writ of habeas corpus was or not suspended, but whether Gen- 
 eral Jackson did or did not, on that memorable occasion, perform his duty. 
 I am also satisfied, that no friend to his country, can lay his hand on his 
 heart and say, he did not perform it. — But his merit is so rich in relation 
 to that defence, that I am willing to pursue the criminal inquiry set on foot 
 by the unfounded ^nd irrelevant charge of the meeting, confident of being 
 able to show, that their own mode of investigation must demonstrate the 
 General's renown, and their own injustice. It appears to me, that the 
 public writers in Virginia, who have been shivering their lances against 
 the "broad circumference" of General Jackson's fame, and especially the 
 
 *Vattel, page 241. 
 
 t For the arguments and evidences here referred to, See documents (25) accompanying the 
 President's Message, December 2d, 1818 ; particularly the General's despatches of the 5th of 
 May and the 2d of June, 1818, and their enclosures, and compare them with Mr. Adams' letter 
 to George Washington Irving. 
 
14 
 
 contrivers of this address, imitate the acts of necromancers, who, in calling 
 up the dead and communicating with the devil, are represented to begin 
 by alarming the spectators with exhibitions of skulls and skeletons.prodigi- 
 ous shadows on the wall, magical circles on the floor, blue flames, livid 
 smoke, and other such fearful sights. So, the politicians alluded to, always 
 endeavour to terrify and mislead the judgment of their reader, by parad- 
 ing a number of technical phrases — the writ of habeas corpus, the liberty of 
 the citizen^ the liberty of the press^ &c. as if these constitutional blessings 
 had been destroyed by General Jackson, and had not, in fact, been pre- 
 served to the people of New-Orleans, by his prudence, patriotism,and valour. 
 This pernicious sophistry results, in part from the absence of facts for the 
 foundation of their attack ; in part, from the brood of attornies produced 
 by their ponderous jurisprudence ; and, in part, from their exclusive read- 
 ing of English history and English law wherein these safe-guards of free- 
 dom are frequently seen struggling under the gripe of oppressicm, and 
 faintly dawning out after a night of darkness, hut here, where they 
 are the staff of our political life as general and current as the air we 
 breathe, they should be contemplated without agitation, and handled with- 
 out hysterics. If the Richmond meeting would condescend to follow the 
 advice of Dr. Franklin to Buffon, and would ascertain facts before they 
 philosophized, they would find, that General Jackson did not suspend the 
 writ 01 habeas corpus. On the contrary in order to prevent any interfer- 
 ence of this delicate process of civil authority, at a crisis so dangerous, 
 with the military power, he recommended to the legislature of Louisiana, 
 as they had assumed the power of laying an embargo and of closing the 
 courts of justice, to suspend the WTit of habeas corpus. His recommen- 
 dation was not complied with.* But, let me ask, did the writ of habeas 
 corpus ever discharge a soldier under confinement in the camp of General 
 Washington, or of General Greene, or of any other commander, in time 
 of war and invasioH ? General Jackson had found it necessary, as there 
 was a levy, en masse, of the citizens, to incorporate the City of New- 
 Orleans within the limits of his camp, by encompassing it with a chain of 
 centinels, and extending, of consequence, over it, (what the attornies call 
 martial law,) the influence of the rules and articles established by Con- 
 ress for the government of the armies of the United States, whether of 
 regulars or militia. But this extensive castrametation, which made a 
 popular city seem to revolve around a small army, is objected to. Facts 
 will show, with what justice. When General Jackson arrived at New- 
 Orleans, he found the population prostrate with fear and despondency. 
 
 His presence, prowess, and activity, awakend a very different spirit ; the 
 patriotic citizens manifesting ardour and confidence, and gradually dis- 
 tinguishing themselves from the disaffected French, who, under the aus- 
 pices of the French consul, and out of gratitude to the English for the 
 restoration of the Bourbons, were discovering " an awful squinting at 
 monarchy." Governor Claiborne had written to General Jackson, " the 
 country is said to be filled with spies and traitors" — " there is in this city a 
 greater spirit of disaffection than I had anticipated" — " my greatest difii- 
 culty is with the European Frenchmen, who, after giving their adhesion 
 to Louis the Eighteenth, have, through the medium of the French consul, 
 claimed exemption from the drafts, as French subjects," though they had 
 come into the American family of choice, under the treaty of cession, and 
 exercised the rights of citizenship ever since, as General Jackson discov- 
 ered by inspectmg the election polls. The Governor adds, that, after 
 consulting legal advisers, he had taken upon himself to banish a suspected 
 
 * Eaton's Life of Jackson, page 278, 
 
15 
 
 inhabitant, by ordering him " to depart from the state in forty-eight hours." 
 So sensible, indeed, were all the faithful citizens, and every prominent 
 authority in New-Orleans, of the necessity of removing all obstructions 
 to the enforcement of the paramoijnt law of self-defence, that the Legisla- 
 ture having no power under the constitution to regulate or restrain com- 
 merce, passed an act laying an embargo, which the Governor sanctioned, 
 and the citizens acquiesced in. In that case, the Legislature acted, and 
 wisely acted, on the principle of self-preservation, recognized in the pream- 
 able to the constitution, " to provide for the common defence ;" and did 
 that for their constituents whscJi Congress, to whom they had delegated 
 the power, would if they could, have done for them. The Legislature 
 also passed a law, closing the courts of justice for four months, which 
 the Governor assented to, and the judiciary solemnly approved. And 
 Judge Hall himself, discharged without bail or recognizance, persons 
 committed and indicted for capital offences, against the United States — 
 concurring with the other departments of power, in their conviction of the 
 Itgal necessity of superseding the less essential and elementry provisions 
 of law, by the great law of self-defence. And was General Jackson, who 
 held all the power which the United States could exert in defence of 
 this important and vulnerable position, to resist these practical analogies, 
 and revolt from this great law, at a moment when the 'wvito^ habeas corpus 
 was perverted to endanger liberty, when the hopes of the nation, the in- 
 terests of millions, the lives of thousands, rested on his single arm ? Was 
 he to repeat for his country the Bladensburgh races, or to fight for her 
 the battle of New-Orleans ? 
 
 Had he fashioned his conduct to suit the taste and win the applause of 
 the Richmond meeting, he might have had Generals and Attorney-Gene- 
 rals, Barristers and Merchants, from the city, capering about his lines, 
 discouraging his men, disconcerting his measures, and scamperinp- away 
 from the enemy. He chose rather to have citizen soldiers, and to make 
 those who owned the power contended for, share in the toil and danger of 
 its protection. A rich and testy dealer in cotton, who looked as if " but 
 for these vile guns he would himself have been a soldier," accosted the 
 General, who was piling up cotton bales against Wellington's invincibles, 
 and requested that he ^^ appoint a guard for his cotton." "Certainly," 
 replied the General, " your request shall be complied with — here, sergeant, 
 give this gentleman a musket and ammunition, and station him in the 
 line of defence ; no one can be better qualified to guard the cotton, than 
 the owner of it." Thus the dealer was delt with. This commanding 
 spirit, confirmed by the example of the other authorities, and by the pres- 
 sure of the moment, suggested to General Jackson the prudence of com- 
 prehending New-Orleans itself in his camp : of taking the city he was to 
 defend under his protection. The measure was discussed with eminent 
 citizens in the presence of Judge Hall, and approved by others, was not 
 excepted to by him. It was advised and adopted distinctly on the ground 
 of public necessity, of which all were convinced, and none even now can 
 doubt. If the noted Louaiilier, under the influence of the royalist Blan- 
 que, and the officious Judge (whose fault is atoned by the fact that he soon 
 repented it, and he died a sincere friend and admirer of Jackson) brought 
 without necessity, and upon a secondary principle, the civil authority into 
 collision with the millitary power .when exerted /rom necessity and for the 
 primary objects of the constitution, it was no fiiult of the General. It is 
 not the first time that enactments, provided for the liberty of the citizen, 
 have been found temporarily incompatible with the safety^ of the state. 
 Hence the well known maxim of the civil law. Inter arma silent leges. It 
 is not the only conflict that has or can be found between separate provis- 
 
16 
 
 ions, or between the end and details of our constitution. Treaties, when 
 approved by the Senate and ratified by the President, are declared to be 
 " the supreme law of the land," and yet members of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives claim, and justly too, the right of disregarding this supreme law, 
 and of interposing their power over bills of revenue. The right of proper- 
 ty is secure under the constitutiim ; and yet, in certain cases, a military 
 officer may seize the means of subsistence or of transportatiou, leaving 
 only a fair compensation to the owner, on the just ground of necessity. 
 The trial by jury is the birth-right of the citizen, and a dearer right than 
 that secured by the habeas corpus, and yet the judicial power sets this right 
 at defiance, and punishes for contempt, without the intervention of a jury, 
 upon the ground of legal necessity. In violation of the same right, our 
 legislative bodies punish abitrarily any citizen who may attempt an abuse 
 of their dignity or privileijes, and Mr. Clay himself exercised this power 
 in the case of John Anderson, "^he truth is, these anomalies must be tol- 
 erated even in our fair and effective system, on the ground of necessity. 
 The)'' are essential to the principles they seem to oppose. The inconsisten- 
 cy of military power witli the spirit of our institutions, arises from the na- 
 ture of things — not from the character of this or that commander — from 
 the opposite characters of peace and war, and the adverse dispositions of 
 mind on which these conditions of society are founded. 
 
 Force is the principle of war. Equity the spirit of peace. These two 
 elements, however elaborated by civilization or ramified into consequences, 
 cannot be divested of their original discordance. The prudence of our 
 magistrates, and the patriotism of our citizen?, have in most instances, 
 prevented their collision ; but Louaillier and Judge Hall determined to 
 bring them into conflict. On the 13ih of February, Admiral Cochrane 
 had written to General Jackson that he had received from Jamaica unoffi- 
 cial intelligence of peace. The General received his letter on the 2lst, 
 and immediately addressed to him this inquiry — " whether he considered 
 the intelligence as authorizing a cessation of hostilities ?" which inquiry 
 was answered in the negative. But with the retreat of the enemy to their 
 ships, the danger appeared to many to be over, and the impatience of 
 military duty which this impression created, was the motive upon which 
 Louaillier operated. Although the General in a proclamation had caution- 
 ed the citizens " not to be thrown into false security by the intelligence of 
 peace," observing " even if it were true that peace had been signed in Eu- 
 rope, it could not put an end to the war until it should be ratified by the 
 two governments,"* — although the British, who had been re-inforced by a 
 larger body of fresh troops, lay in half a day's sail of New-Orleans, by 
 a passage which the batteries at Cht/Menteur and Fort Coquilles de- 
 fended, Louaillier published a piece that caused the Louisiana compa- 
 nies which manned these batteries, to desert, return into the city, and 
 leave it exposed. He was arrested for exciting mutmy and desertion in 
 the camp, and for giving intelligence to the enemy, and to discharge him 
 from arrest. Judge Hall issued his writ. The writ was resisted. It was 
 proved by the testimony of the clerk, that the writ was actually issued be- 
 fore the arrest of Louaillier, and that the date had been altered by the 
 Judge to suit the occasion. — This was proof of complicity on his part, that 
 rendered the proceeding more exceptionable. But General Jackson de- 
 clined availing himself of this defect, and met the prinicple fairly, assert- 
 ing the necessity of adhearing to his plan of defence, and maintaining 
 military power. Nor did he stop to ascertain what statute had conferred 
 on a District Judge of the United States, power to issue a process, which, 
 
 * Historical Memoirs by Latour. 
 
17 
 
 touching the liberty of the citizen, and being in its nature the creature of 
 statute, would more properly emanate from the state judiciary. As all 
 other commanders in this Union, on occasions of less necessity, had done, 
 he kept the civil process out of the camp. And would the gentlemen of 
 Richmond have had him yield to the officious Judge and mal-content citizen 
 — to suffer his troops to desert, and defences to be abandoned, when a supe- 
 rior hostile force, unused to defeat, and intent on " beauty and booty" was 
 not farther from New-Orleans than City Point is from Richmond — New- 
 Orleans far more important to lose and difficult to recover than Richmond ? 
 Was the temporary restraint of Louaillier, the momentary suppression of 
 his cacoethes scribendi, a greater evil than the permanent conquest of New- 
 Orleans.The meeting described the writ of habeas corpus "as the safe-guard 
 of individual liberty," — but at the crisis refered to, the power of General 
 Jackson was the safe-guard of the liberty of thousands, and individual lib' 
 erty was not to endanger so great a stake. He who brought it into collision 
 with this great object, acted like a bitter foe to his country, and was no 
 more entitled to respect than he would have been, had he, on the 8th of 
 January, interposed his person between the American riflemen and the 
 enemy, and insisted on the former not firing for fear of taking his life. 
 The truth is, the Judge, the citizens, the army and the people, were all 
 embarked in the same vessel, and in the same storm. Mc^asures proper 
 for the defence of all, were by the law of necessity, obligatory on all, and 
 the pilot to whose strong arm the helm was consigned, would have been 
 guilty both of crime and folly, had he relinquished it merely because 
 land was in sight. This, General Jackson would not do, and his patriotic 
 firmness has excited the lasting gratitude of the American people. The 
 sentiments which the same people entertain for those who rail at him for 
 serving — nay saving his country — for not permitting his centinels to be 
 snhpoE.na'd from their postb, or his men removed by writ of habeas corpus 
 from their guns, acts which lawyers enough could have been found to 
 justify — the Richmond meeting will be able to discover, should they, who 
 are so pure from all stain of military glory, ever hereafter make an ap- 
 peal to their fellow citizens for promotion to political honors. But the 
 civil authority, which from its mal-admistration, he was obliged to offend, 
 he propitiated in a manner so signal, as to return it greater strength and 
 sanctity than the folly of its object and \U agent had taken away. When 
 peace was announced, he hastened to appear before Judge Hail in court, 
 and offered an argument to show cause why he should not be punished for 
 contempt. 
 
 The Judge refused to hear his defence. At a subsequent day he attend- 
 ed to receive sentence, and when the Judge, trembling at the murmurs or 
 the indignant crowd, hesitated to pronounce it, "fear not,'* said the illustri-- 
 ous prisoner, waving the multitude to silence with his hand — " Fear not, 
 your honor : the same arm which repelled the invasion of the enemy, shall 
 protect the deliberations of the court." The sublime humility of the pat- 
 riot General did not end here. The ladies of New-Orleans \vhooe en- 
 chantments had been saved from terror and pollution, not by the habeas 
 corpus^ but by his valour, contributed a fund to discharge the fine. But 
 they found he had anticipated them — had paid $1000 out of that small for- 
 tune, the whole of which he had pledged to the banks of New-Orleans, to 
 raise money for its defence. And when their gratitude would force the 
 contribution upon him, he preserved his independence, and displayed his 
 humanity, by requesting that the money should be applied to the relief of 
 the widows and orphans of the brave citizens who had fallen in the cam- 
 paign. Could Washington himself have shown greater respect to the law, or 
 greater fidelity to the country ? It has been said that Washington never 
 3 
 
18 
 
 refused to comply with civil process. But he was a dictator, and who ev* 
 er dared to oppose the civil process against his power ? Did he not exe- 
 cute deserters without even a military trial ? Did he not punish mutineers 
 by decrimination and instant death ?* Did he not forage in New-Jersey 
 as in an enemy's country — in each case, on the ground of necessity ? He 
 did, and his conscience and his country both approved him. While Jack- 
 son, acting with less rigour, under equal necessity, is denounced by the 
 Richmond meeting, as *' this agent of illegal enormities." 
 
 But Judge Fromentin issued a habeas corpus in the case of Callava, and 
 as the meeting had doubtless two strings to their bow, 1 will give a few 
 words to that subject. If the power and the precept of Judge Hall were 
 defective, those of Fromentin were absolutely good for nothing. 
 
 General Jackson, as Governor of Florida, was invested with " all the 
 powers and authority heretofore exercised by the Captain General and In- 
 tendant of Cuba, and the Governors of East and West Florida, within the 
 said provinces, respectively. "The only limitations are contained in a provi- 
 so, reserving the power of imposing additional taxes and granting of land. 
 Now who ever heard of a writ of habeas corpus being pushed into the face 
 of a Spanish governor ? But in addition, it appears that Judge Froraentin's 
 powers were as limited as Governor Jackson's w ere ample. In a letter from 
 the department of State he is told by Mr. Adams, " I am instructed by 
 the President to inform you that your commission as Judge, was intended 
 to apply to the execution only of the laws relative to the revenue and its 
 collection, and to the slave trade." Now Merced Vidal had represented 
 on oath to Mr. Breckenridge, the Alcade or Judge of Pensacola, that the 
 testamentary papers of her father had been taken from among the public 
 records before the cession of the province ; that for want of them she 
 could not get possession of the estate which she inherited, a great part of 
 which consisted in a sum of money deposited with the house of Innerarity 
 & Co. and that they were withheld by means of the said Innerarity. 
 The papers were found in possession of Domingo Sousa, an agent or sub- 
 ordinate of Colonel Callava, a Spanish officer, who had proclaimed himself 
 to be Governor of West Florida, and acting as such had delivpred over 
 the provinces to Jackson. When applied for, they were refused to Gov- 
 ernor Jackson's commissioners, and returned by Sousa to Callava. Upon 
 Callava's repeated refusal to surrender them, he was arrested, the box in 
 which the papers were contained, was opened by commissioners, acting 
 with a warrant of the Governor, the papers taken out, deposited in the 
 court of Judge Breckenridge for the benefit of the heirs of Vidal, the box 
 resealed, and Callava discharged. Now, here Governor Jackson was 
 acting strictly within his commission, and clearly for one of the objects of 
 his appointment, viz. " maintaining the inhabitants in the free enjoyment 
 of their property."f Callava, it was stated on oath, declared his intention 
 was to carry off the papers to Havana, where they would have been re- 
 tained for a fee from Innerarity — or, if returned to the heirs of Vidal, at 
 very heavy costs. To procure the discharge and faciliate the extortion 
 and fraud of Callava, Fromentin, without the petition and affidavit requir- 
 ed by law, and without the slightest authority from his commission, issued 
 a writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 The Governor disregarded the ridiculous precept, and accomplished the 
 objects of justice. As soon as the papers were secured, Callava was re- 
 leased. But the Spanish minister and Callava insisted that the latter was 
 
 * Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. 4, and page 404—5. 
 
 t The words of his comraisaion, enclosed by Mr. Adams in a despatch from the Secretary 
 of State, of the 12th March, 1821. See documents accompanying the President's Message, 
 Dec. 6, 1821. 
 
19 
 
 shielded from the Governor's authority by his immunities as a public func- 
 tionary of Spain. For this plea, however, theiie was no cause, although 
 Mr. Adams' diplomacy had furnished a pretext. His diplomacy, like the 
 beauty of his style, has been the subject of unmeasured praise ; when in 
 truth his blunders exceed every thing in the history of international nego- 
 tiation. 
 
 [n the same treaty he stipulated that with the territory, Spain was to 
 cede to the United States the fortifications within it, (which was pretty 
 much a thing of course,) but no mention was made of the ordnance or mu- 
 nitions with which the fortifications were finished. In several instances 
 they exceeded in value the works themselves, and therefore the Spanish 
 authorities availed themselves of the incompleteness of phrase in the trea- 
 ty, and refused to give them up.* 
 
 The time prescribed for the surrender of the province had expired, and 
 the term fixed for the departure of the Spanish officers had passed. Gen. 
 Jackson as Governor had possession on the part of America, and the pow- 
 ers of Callava, as commissioner under the treaty, had ceased with the trans- 
 fer of possession ; but he claimed the continuance of these powers, as the 
 Spanish Minister did f«r him, upon the ground that the article respecting 
 the fortifications was not yet executed, and that until it was, his powers, 
 and with them, his immunities under the law of nations, continued. 
 
 Gen. Jackson, with his usual discrimination, perceived the fallacy of this 
 pretension — showed that the non-execution of that article had caused it to 
 revert to the ordinary channels of negociation between the two countries, 
 and as he had given to Callava on taking possession, a verified list and val- 
 uation of, and an official receipt for, the ordnance, &c. this subject could 
 never again fall into the hands of a commissioner. He therefore denied 
 the privilege of Callava, and by his authority as Governor of the province, 
 frustrated his mercenary attempt to defraud the heirs of Nicholas Maria 
 Vidal : and defeated the ridiculous and unauthorized endeavour of Fro- 
 mentin to favour this villanous project by a writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 When you reflect, gentlemen, on your own repeated publication of Gen. 
 Jackson's letter to Dr. Coleman, avowing his sentiments in favour of a ju- 
 dicious tariff, and on your reference to one not leis explicit, and on the same 
 subject, to a member of the Legislature of Virginia, you will confess with 
 me the difficulty of finding a decent denomination for the declaration of 
 the meeting, that General Jackson "shrouds his opinions of the Tariff in 
 impenetrable mystery." Have either of the signers of the address applied 
 to General Jackson for a statement of his opinions on this subject ; and 
 were he to publish tliem voluntarily, would not they all be ready to repeat 
 the charge, " he mingles in person in the contest waged for his own ele- 
 vation?"^ According to their " benevolence and Christian charit)r," if si- 
 lent, he is sinful, and guilty if he speaks. This charge is no truer than the 
 story of Decatur's attempt to bully him in the lobby of the Senate, where, 
 in fact, they never met. The reference of the meeting to history, ancient, 
 modern, and recent, for the purpose of vamping up their rotten cause, need 
 hardly be noticed. 
 
 Any school-boy in Richmond can tell them that neither Sylla, Cromwell, 
 nor Bonaparte destroyed the liberties of his country — ^that in every instance 
 demagogues like Mr. Clay and his satellites and instruments, had done that 
 first ; and that the usurpers were submitted to in preference to the dema- 
 gogues. 
 
 * For this fact see, in documents accompanying the President's Message of December 6tb, 
 1631, the letter of Don Hilario Rxvks y Salmon, of the 6th of October, 1621, to Mr. Adams. 
 
20 
 
 The men vho endeavour to sustain and prolong the corrupt practices of 
 the present administration, are the persons who are paving the way for mil- 
 itary despotism. They are undermining our institutions, poisoning our 
 public spirit and disgusting the people with a form of government which 
 cannot subsist without the support of opinion. If histoiy reflects true col- 
 ours from the past to the present, the Richmond meeting are now " sow- 
 ing the seeds of despotism" in this free country, and endeavouring to draw 
 their fellow-citizens to a precipice, the brink of which is adorned with the 
 flowers of flattery, and the bottom covered with the ruins of States. Plu- 
 tarch, speaking of the usurpation of Sylla, says, "the people were so cor- 
 rupt, and the republic in so sickly a condition, that tyrants sprung up on 
 every side, nor is it any wonder if Sylla gained the ascendancy at a time 
 when such wretches as Glaucias and Saturninus expelled such men as Me- 
 tellus," who was denounced like General Jackson as a Militan/ Chieftain. 
 The tyrany of the long parliament had made its rule and its members so 
 odious, that Cromwell kicked them out of their seats without " the least 
 opposition." 
 
 Hume relates this fact, and accounts for it by stating, that its " dissolu- 
 tion was ardently desired by the people, as its commencement had been." 
 Who can say that France was free, when Bonaparte effected the revolu- 
 tion of the eighteenth of Brumaire? Had not the raging cruelty of Ma- 
 rat, of Danton, of Robespierre, been slacked in the best blood of France — 
 her noble patriots, her lovely females, the grace and chivalry of the land ? 
 And were not the corruption and imbecility of their Directory, the proxi- 
 mate causes of Bonaparte's success ? — causes which made his iron rule re- 
 lief to the French people ? Or did either of these men resign command, 
 and retire to private life for ten years ? But even if Lucius Cornelius 
 Sylla had destroyed the liberty of Rome, would that be any^sort of an ob- 
 jection to the election of Andrew Jackson ? The characte'rs of the men 
 are as different as their ages and countries. Both exhibited great military 
 talents, but the Roman, great, moral, and political vices. Shall we never 
 respect a parson, because Dr. Dodd was hung for forgery ; or a bishop, 
 because bishop Jocelyn was banished for an unnatural crime ? What 
 would their reverend delegate. Dr. Kerr, say, if the Richmond meeting 
 were to direct such logic against him ? And yet the analogy is closer be- 
 tween an American and an English priest, than between an ancient and 
 a modern general. 
 
 The Richmond meeting appear to conceive, that the qualifications of 
 Mr. Adams for the Presidency are undeniable ; because he has been long 
 in public life, and has great practice in diplomacy — and they denounce 
 General Jackson, as incompetent and dangerous. But there are such things 
 as age without experience, and practice without perfection. Some men 
 ' grow old in bad habits of thought— inveterate in eccentricities — obstinate 
 in errors. This happens to those who are conceited ; w^o have acquired 
 a little knowledge, and have credit for a great deal ; who have not mixed 
 in the strife and bustle of the world, and felt the springs by which it is ac- 
 tuated. It is the case with Mr. Adams. He knows something of the man 
 in the moon, but nothing of the men on the earth. He thought that the 
 appointment of James Barbour would conciliate Virginia — when the small- 
 est tact, or even the power of common observation, would have convinced 
 him that no man of that state had less influence than Mr. Barbour — and 
 that the very idea of flattermg Virginia by such a placebo, was a deep of- 
 fence to her pride. But even if Mr. Adams were — what he is not, never 
 was, and never will be — an able diplomatist and an elegant writer, would that 
 prove him well qualified for the office of President ? Did any one ever 
 
21 
 
 think of Talleyrand as an able chief magistrate — or consider General 
 Washington a skillful diplomatist ? The qualities which compose the char- 
 acter of Jackson, on the one hand, and which posterity will know him by, 
 are a vigorous judgment — a deep insight into character — a generous sen- 
 sibility to merit — a prompt indignation at vice — a frank temper — a free 
 hand, and a valliant heart. The rapidity and strengtli of his reasoning fa- 
 culty, and the fervour of all his conceptions, constitute him decidedly a 
 man of genius, and give him a force of character which all feel who ap- 
 proach him. To such a mind, so prompt, so active, so enterprising, age has 
 indeed given experience, and reflection brpught wisdom. 
 
 That he may be less odious to the Richmond meeting, I will not men- 
 tion the moral qualities that distinguish him from their idol, Mr. Clay — his 
 correct habits, simple tastes, upright principles, and lofty honor. But I 
 will mention that he too has been an attorney, and even a judge — that he 
 stood first at the bar of his state as a criminal lawyer, and high on its bench 
 as an equity judge — and that in the society around him, he has maintained 
 an intellectual superiority as eminent, and a social influence as endearing, 
 as Judge Marshall enjoys in Richmond. Think then of his great exploits, 
 his heroic self-denial, his sensitive patriotism, his victorious courtesy f and, 
 to raise your conception still higher, gentlemen, compare him with the 
 judges and the attornies who modestly pronounce him incompetent, and 
 say whether the people of Virginia can hesitate to prefer him to Mr. Ad- 
 ams. If indeed they should hesitate ; if a malignant fate shall ordain suc- 
 cess to the counsels and machinations of the Richmond meeting, shall de- 
 cree that the great state, which revolted from the honest aristocracy of the 
 father, must submit to the perfidious despotism of the son ; then may George 
 the 4th hope to replace the jewel which was plucked by our ancestors from 
 the British crown ; and expect to see the Cabells, the Stanards, the Talia- 
 ferros, and the Calls, lay prostrate at his feet, that liberty which the Wash- 
 ingtons the Henrys, the Randolphs, and the Lees, wrested from the grasp 
 of his father. 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 * The correspondence between Gen. Jackson and the British commanders, after the battle 
 of the 8th, is well worth reading. It shows that the American General was the conqueror of 
 his foes, even in humanity and politeness. On the 27th February, Gen. Lambert writes, " on 
 the subject of your concluding paragraph, I have only to remirk, that honourable and feeling 
 conduct, which has characterized every transaction in which I have had the honour to be con- 
 cerned with you :" and General Keene expresses ' his thanks for the kindness he has receiv- 
 ed from Gen. Jackson, through the medium of Colonel Livingston." 
 
[From the Nashville Republican.] 
 
 To the Editors of the Richmond Enquirer. 
 
 Gentlemen — Since my last communication, I have read the address re- 
 ported by Mr. Johnson to the Adams convention in Richmond, and I find it 
 to be a fabric of stimulated fears raised on a foundation of antiquated slan- 
 ders. Void of facts, destitute of truth, and patched up with theological zeal 
 and forensic stratagem. It reminds me of the men of straw, dressed in cast 
 off hats and coats,and stationed as scare crows in the corn-fields of Virginia. 
 Decked in the pap-stained garments of Binns, Gales, and Hammond, it is 
 calculated to deter very close examination, but as it is avowedly the work 
 of Mr. Johnson, and looked on by him with the eyes of Pygmalion, I risk 
 the displeasure of fastidious readers and undertake to expose it. 
 
 But do not the proceedings of this convention give birth to a reflection 
 too solemn to be unuttered — that in the ruling state of this confederacy, a 
 commonwealth teeming with patriotism, and rich in renown, which, " when 
 asked for her jewels, still points to her sons" — men of high station and re- 
 pute should be found, concerting by an organized effort the renovation of 
 exploded falsehoods, in order to tarnish the fame ofa private citizen, whose 
 great exploits and popular virtues make him formidable to a weak and cor- 
 rupt administration ? And does it not add to the gloom of this reflection, 
 that the holy places of prayer and the exalted tribunals of justice, should 
 furnish recruits to this conspiracy against the character of a venerable 
 patriot, and the liberty of a youthful republic ? But let not the lover of 
 freedom — let not the votaries of truth despair — let not the friends of the 
 country tremble. The People are not only the fountain of political pow- 
 er, but of political hope. Guarded by the press, which, in spite of the 
 expensive efforts of Mr. Clay to seduce or intimidate it, is yet free, the in- 
 stitutions of our country will find strength and perpetuity against the ma- 
 chinations of the few, in the pure love of freedom which animates the great 
 body of the nation. To their sure and sagacious patriotism, it is perhaps 
 fortunate that frequent appeals are necessary. Even the labours of the 
 Richmond convention may in this way prove useful, as the serpents which 
 Hercules strangled in his cradle, may be supposed to have invigorated him 
 for the greater task of cleansing the Augean stable. There is certainly 
 much to admire in the rhetoric and the leason of Mr. Johnson, in founding 
 a claim for the convention to peculiar sincerity and particular attention, up- 
 on the remarkable fact of the month of January (when they chose to assem- 
 ble) being an " inclement season !" But he might have mentioned a much 
 more extraordinary circumstance, and counted on the attraction of more 
 general notice. He might have told the people of Virginia that he and 
 his compatriots were careful to select the day which had been consecrated 
 by more than half the nation to the honor of General Jackson and the pub- 
 lic gratitude — the day on which the altars of freemen burn with incense 
 and their hearts with joy, for the more signal and embittered opportunity 
 of pouring out upon him a collected torrent of abuse. That while the 
 people of Louisiana were hailing him as their saviour, the legislature as 
 their deliverer, the ladies as their protecter, the children as their guardian, 
 and the patriach^ as his friend, they had predetermined to be employed 
 in denouncing him in the name of that very legislature and that very peo- 
 ple, as the slave of ignoble passions, the tyrant of Louisiana, the enemy of 
 
 * Fatber Antoine 
 
23 
 
 the people he saved, and the foe of that liberty which he defended. This 
 would have constituted as affective an appeal to public notice as the shiv- 
 ering allusion to a January journey. 
 
 This frigid exordium gives place to a scale of their opinions respecting 
 Mi. Adams, tenderly graduated from a shade of modest objection to the 
 florid glow of courtly adulation, where the manly tone for which Chapman 
 Johnson once had credit through Virginia, is artfully lost in the pathetic and 
 pensioned phrases of the Whig ; and for a harsh and unqualified avowal of 
 their hostility to General Jackson. " Most of us," say they, " approve the 
 general course of the administration, have confidence in its virtue^ its pat' 
 riotism, its wisdom, and see nothing to condemn in the President's inter- 
 pretation of the federal constitution." " The measures which some disap- 
 prove in the present administration, none could hope to see amended un- 
 der that of General Jackson." "The constitution which we would pre- 
 serve from the too liberal interpretation of Mr. Adams, we would yet more 
 zealously defend against the destroying hand of his rival." 
 
 With these fair and well digested sentiments, Mr. Johnson proceeds to 
 controvert the accuracy of the general belief that Jackson is the favourite 
 of the people ; in doing which, he falls into what logicians call a vicious cir- 
 cle, forgeting evidently that the best possible proof of that fact, is the gen- 
 eral belief of it. And it happens accordingly that the only reasonable 
 part of his argument on this point, is what he doubtless thought no argu- 
 ment at all — viz. a positive denial of it. He next endeavors to rebut the 
 objections which have so widely prevailed and been so completely establish- 
 ed to the last election by misrepresenting them, as black legs give them- 
 selves a command over the cards by stocking them. — " The friends of 
 General Jackson," he asserts, " insist that his plurality of votes at the last 
 election, proved him to be the choice of the nation " Now, the fact is, the 
 friends of General Jackson have done no such thing. They contended 
 and do now contend, that his plurality of votes, placing him nearer to the 
 point of popular preference, made decisive by the constitution, than either 
 of his competitors, it was the duty of the representatives of the people, 
 when they came to estim ite the comparative claims of the candidates, to 
 allow this circumstance great weight, and make it overbalance strong pre- 
 ferences for his rivals, or strong prepossessions against himself. — They 
 further maintained that when the right of choice was transferred from elec- 
 tors appointed by the people, to electors clele;irated by the states, a fact 
 which had not arisen in the first process, should have had a fair operation 
 in the second — viz. that in several of the western states, where Jackson 
 was second to Clay before the people, he became first as soon as Clay was 
 withdrawn. Mr. Johnson describes the primary election as popular and 
 the secondary as federal ; and he must admit that the moment which advan- 
 ced the process from the primary to the secondary stage, expunged the 
 name of Mr. Clay from the list of candidates, and left the popular will of 
 those States to operate in favor of Jackson, Adams or Crawford. Their 
 delegations were bound to give a genuine expression of that will, and to 
 gather it from such facts as were then before them. They had to deter- 
 mine who are the most popular in their respective States, Jackson Adams 
 or Crawford. If the Kentucky delegation looked to their polls, they found 
 that the same evidence which proved Mr. Clay to stand before General 
 Jackson in the popularity of Kentucky, proved General Jackson to stand 
 before Mr. Adams or Mr. Crawford. They knew that some of their own 
 body preferred him even to Mr. Clay. That a large majority of the Leg- 
 islature of Kentucky were in favor of his election, and that a general im- 
 pression, resting on a mass of undoubted facts existed, that h« -was next to 
 Mr. Clay in the estimation of the western people. 
 
24 
 
 These were the only facts upon which they could found a faithful course 
 of action at the time, and they could leave no doubt that if they made the 
 will of the people the rule of their conduct, they should vote for General 
 Jackson. The course of events has involved others which confirm that 
 conclusion. The elections in Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois, have prov- 
 ed incontestibly what Mr. Johnson earnestly denies that in the last Presi- 
 dential election, " the will of the people was improperly disappointed by 
 their representatives." That is, if the people who elected Messrs. Daniel, 
 Yancey, Chilton, Lyon, Duncan and Bates, to the present Congress, know 
 their own will as well as Mr. Johnson does. 
 
 The charge of corruption, which Mr. Clay fixed upon himself and his 
 flexible friends at the last election — under which some of them pine in 
 painful obscurity, and he himself writhes in splendid disgrace — .Vlr. John- 
 eon affirms, was met by Mr. Clay as soon as it was preferred, and abandon- 
 ed by its supporters when they were challenged for proof. — This the rea- 
 der will at once recognise as the empty and incautious language of Mr. 
 Clay himself, on those occasions upon which he has been permitted to ex- 
 change his cheap and gascon eloquence, for the wine and mutton of his 
 entertainers. Its having been adopted by a set of Virginia politicians, 
 removes those objections which occur to giving it even a brief considera- 
 tion. 
 
 It is to be observed that the charge of Mr. Kremer was prospective, im- 
 ported that Mr. Clay and his friends ivould vote for Mr. Adams, and that 
 in consideration thereof, Mr. Clay was to be appointed Secretary of 
 State. As soon as this charge was avowed by Mr. Kremer, Mr. Clay ap- 
 pealed to the House of Representatives for a solemn investigation of it, be- 
 fore the election — before either of the overt acts prospectively charged 
 by Kremer could have occuied. Mr. Clay could not vote for Mr. Adams, 
 nor Mr. Adams appoint Mr. Clay, before the election. Did it argue any 
 thing like innocence in Mr. Clay to defy Mr. Kremer to prove the charge, 
 at a time when its consummation, its only substantial proof had not been 
 eifected ; and when it was in tlie power of Mr. Clay himself to disappoint 
 the most conclusive evidence of intention that could be exhibited, by de- 
 clining to give the venal vote, and to receive the mercenary appointment. 
 The fact that he did challenge an investigation at a time when it was im- 
 possible to convict him, and has declined one since it was possible, is 
 proof sufficient, if other proof did not abound, that the motive of venality 
 alleged against him by Mr. Kremer really existed.* Let those who may 
 
 * In a case like Mr. Clay's where the judgment is to operate on the concealed motives of 
 the mind, it would appear that the best evidence is to be derived from the jjistificatory declar- 
 ations of the accused person. All other circumstaices have but a probable connection with 
 his motives, these have a necessary one. The former are directed at them, the latter proceed 
 from them ; and wherever they conflict with truth, they shew to demonstration, a conscious- 
 ness of guilt, and an effort to conceal it. 'I'o apply this rule — in his circular to his con- 
 stituents, of March, '825, Ms first real attempt at justification, he says: " I found myself 
 transformed from a candidate before tife people, to an elector for the people. I deliberately 
 examined the duties incident to this new attitude, and weighed all the facts before me, upon 
 which my judgment was to be formed or reviewed, ff the eagerness of any of the heaied 
 partisans of the respective candidates suggested a tirdiness in the declaration of my inten- 
 tions, believed that the new relation in which I wa> placed to the subject, imposed on me an 
 obligation to pay some re-pecl to dt^licacy :ind decorum.'' Mere he declares to his constitu- 
 ents that he was tardy in the declaration of his intentions, after he became transformed into 
 an (Hlector for the people, both because he was beset by heated pa tisans, and bec.Tis*" his new 
 relation lo the election imposed on him obligations of delicacy and decorum But in his pamph- 
 let, his last, or rather, his latest atempt at justification, he says, (p. 18.) "Mr. Bonliiiuy, 
 Senator from Louisiana, bore to me the first .Kthentic information which I received otthe 
 vote of Louisiana, and consequently of my exclusion from the house. And yet in our first 
 interview, in answer to an inquiry which he made, I t<ild him without hesitation, that I should 
 vote for Mr. Adams in preference to General Ja< kson." Was this t-^rdiness delicacy or de- 
 corum .> In the very " first interview," and on the very first inquiry, after he " found himself, 
 placed in the new attitude of elector for the people," so far from being tardy, delir -ite or decorous, 
 on the subject, he avows his intentions " to vote for Mr. Adams in preference to Gen. Jackson 
 
25 
 
 be so far beguiled by the sophistry of Mr. Clay and his parasites as to hope 
 for any relief to his reputation from Mr. Kremer's failure to convict him, 
 suppose for a moment that Paulding, Williams and Van Wart, who cap- 
 tured Andre and led to the detection of Arnold's treason, had only charg- 
 ed him with intendins; to deliver up West Point for a lucrative appoint- 
 ment in the British Army. Suppose Arnold had then demanded an inves- 
 tigation of this charge before a military tribunal, and had challenged its 
 supporters to the proof. Suppose these patriots had failed, as they must 
 have done, to convict hira — that he had then held the treasonable corres- 
 pondence with Sir H. Clinton and received the lucrative appointment — 
 would it be possible to extract any proof of his innocence from the result 
 of the investigation ? Could any friend of his, attempt such an imposition 
 on the common sense of mankind ; or would the most sceptical historiah 
 consider this circumstance as diminishing by a grain of doubt the mass of 
 evidence against him ? The parrellelism of these cases cannot be denied ; 
 and the only historical variation between them is that Arnold's emmissary 
 was apprehended, and that Clay's has not been. How cruelly absurd 
 then is it, for the adherents of the Secretary of State to recur to this 
 mock investigation in chanting his praise ; and how desperate must be the 
 condition of that man's character, vt^hich, when criminated by the circum- 
 stances of his own conduct, can be vindicated only by a mode of justifica- 
 tion, which leads directly to the demonstration of his guilt ? The author 
 of the address adds to this absurdity, another which, as he is an expert 
 and approved attorney, is as remarkable as it is obvious. He asserts that 
 General Jackson has given the sanction of his name to the charge of cor- 
 ruption under which the Secretary labours. It will be remembered that 
 Mr. Clay himself has eagerly assumed this position. But it is in direct op- 
 position to truth. Gen. Jackson has never adopted the charge or given it 
 the sanction of his name. He has only testified to a fact having connec- 
 tion with it, and instead of being a prosecutor, he is a witness — a distinc- 
 tion, to which no ordinary intemperance of zeal could have blinded Mr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 These abortive attempts to justify the last election and to criminate all 
 who were offended by its impurity, are preliminary to a formal vindication 
 of the conduct and doctrines of the President, and to a studied and detailed 
 misrepresentation of every feature in General Jackson's character, and 
 every act of his ife. In conformity with this division of h'S subject, Mr. 
 Johnson imputes the general dissatisfaction which succeeded the first mes- 
 sage of Mr. Adams " to unwarrantable inferences " drawn from some of 
 his expressions by the " factious opposition :" — thus, notwithstanding his 
 loyal hatred of military chieftains, adopting the old military maxim of carry- 
 ing the war into the enemy's country. The phrase " palsied by the will of 
 
 Now suppose a man to come to his death by being poisoned with arsenic 5 and that a sus- 
 pected person when arraigned for the murder, should, upon his first examination affirm, 
 that the arsenic which he bought was .ill used in poisoning rats, and on his second, that he had 
 bought no arsenic at all, would not his contradiction rivet on the minds of the jury a convie- 
 lion of his guilt? And yet it is not so flagrant as that of Mr. Clay— for one branch of his is 
 carried out into a camplamt against " heated partisans," and into a claim to ihe refinement of 
 " delicacy and decorum." Again.— He insists (p 18.) that on the 15th Dec. when the vote of- 
 Louisiana and his consequent exclusion from the House, were only conjectured from report, 
 not authentically known, and of course when he was but half " transformed into an elector 
 for the people, he told Mr James Barbour, who had himself just been transformed from an 
 " eager partisan " of Mr. Crawford, to an " eager partisan of At. Adams, that " in the event 
 of the contest being narrowed down to Mr. Adams and General Jackson, he was in favor of 
 Mr. Adams." And to prove still f.irther his " tardiness," " delicacy and decorum," he avers 
 (pp. 19, 20.) that immediately after the 20th of Dec when Mr. IJouligny gave him the first 
 authentic information of his exclusion from the House, and consequent transformation into 
 '• an elector for the people," he told General La Fayette "that he had concluded to vote for 
 Mr. Adams." These contradictions carry the evidence against JUim as far aa the force of moral 
 proof can go. 
 
26 
 
 our constituents," he declares, " has been torne from its context, misinter- 
 preted ; and used as the authority upon which the President is charged 
 with the heresy, that the representative owes no obligation to the will of 
 his constituents." The spirit of a recent convert seems here to animate 
 the languid formality of Mr. Johnson's style, and there is something soft 
 if not tender, in his lament, over the fate of this sxquisite figure of Mr. 
 Adams. — 
 
 *' Oh, hadst thou cruel ! been content to seize, 
 Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these." 
 
 But Mr. Johnson has evidently nothing of poetry in his soul, but the fiction, 
 and his sorrow will accordingly be found to be more causeless than that 
 of Belinda. In that paragraph of the message which begins, " The spirit 
 of improvement is abroad upon the earth," the representatives of the nation 
 are told that Liberty is power ; that the nation blessed with the largest 
 portion of liberty," (intimating his inbred opinion that even the freest na- 
 tion ought to be under a wholesome reservation of liberty by their rulers,) 
 " must in pro})ortion to its numbers, be the most powerful nation upon 
 earth ; and that the tenure of power by man, is, in the moral purposes of 
 the creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, 
 to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men. While foreign 
 nations, less blessed with that freedom which is power, than ourselves, are 
 advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were 
 we to slumber in indolence, fold up our arms, and proclaim to the world, 
 that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to 
 cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual in- 
 feriority ?" It must be confessed that this passage, which would be as 
 well placed on a page of Newton's Principia, as in a President's message, 
 is sufficiently tumid and obscure, and not be charged with any very direct 
 signification. But its import when carefully interpreted, certainly amounts 
 to this. There are two rules of political action fo^ out government — one^ 
 derived^ from that condition^ [jure divino) which i^ the execution of his moral 
 purposes the creator attaches to the tenure of power and the possession of 
 liberty which is power ^ by man. 7 he other, that which tminatesfrom the will 
 of the p:ople. Under the operation oj the first rule, foreign nations evjoy- 
 infr less of" that liberty which is power, than ourselves, arid consequently less 
 energetically impressed by the condition attached by the creator, to its tenure, 
 are advancing with gigantic strides, in the career of public improvement and 
 exerting their power to " ends of beneficence,'*^ in conformity with the moral 
 purposes of our creator. If we do not also advance " ivith gigantic strides 
 in the career of public improvement — if we forbear to exert our power " to 
 ends of beneficence,^^ we shnll " cast away the bounties of Providence and doom 
 ourselves to perpetual inferiority to foreign nations.'''* Shall revolt from the 
 great rule which is imposed by the creator upon free nations, and shall in 
 fact proclaim to the ivorld that we are reduced by the will of our constituents, 
 to a political impotence a3 feeble and uncouth as the muscular action of a 
 palsied frame. 
 
 It must be admitted that not only are the two rules here proposed, but 
 that the power of contrast, and the effect of comparison are exerted to 
 the best of Mr. Adams' ability to induce Congress to prefer the first and 
 to despise the second. But in case Mr. Johnson should be disposed to dis- 
 pute this point, it may be well to add a little more of the precious context 
 from which this " morsel for a King" has been torn by the ruthless republi- 
 cans. Mr. Adams proceeds — "In the course of the year now drawing to 
 its close we have beheld, under the auspices and at the expense of one 
 State of this Union, a new university unfolding its portals to the sons of 
 science, and holding up the torch of human improvement to eyes that seek 
 
27 
 
 the light. We have seen under the persevering and enlightened enter- 
 prise of another state, the waters of our western lakes mingled with those 
 of the ocean. If undertakings like these have been accomplished, in the 
 compass of a few years, by the authority of single members of our con- 
 federation, can we, the representative authorities of the whole union, fall 
 behind our fellow servants in the exercise of the trust committed to 
 us for the benefit of our common sovereign, by the accomplishment of 
 works important to the whole, and to which neither the authority nor the 
 resources of any one state can be adequate.'*' Here evidently another 
 standard of power is recommended to the Congress, hardly less indefinite 
 and alarming than the former. It is urged that inasmuch as the authority 
 and resources of Virginia and New York, have been adequate to the 
 erection of a new University, and the completion of the Grand Canal, it is 
 the duty of the representative authorities of the whole union to exercise 
 power and resources sufficient for the construe tion of works and the ex- 
 pansion of improvement, as much beyond these particular enterprises as 
 the resources of the whole union exceed those of either of these states. 
 And the authority of the general government, instead of being measuied 
 by the grants and reservations of the constitution, is to be regulated by 
 the inverse proportion which the whole confederacy bears to a particular 
 state. Thus according to Mr. Adams the moral condition of our exis- 
 tence, and the physical circumstance of our union, conspire to absolve the 
 representative from obedience to the will of his constituents. And it can- 
 not fail to be perceived, that under his florid and umbrageous diction, lurks 
 the offensive idea of patronizing the people and improving the states, 
 which all men with a spark of freedom in their souls must abhor, as 
 strenuously as nature does a vacaum. With equal zeal and success it is 
 attempted to justify the terms of infinite assumption and imperious menace 
 with which Mr. Adams reprehended certain proceedings of the state of 
 Georgia. I have not before me that remarkable communication, but I am 
 willing to take Mr. Johnson's extenuated statement of its substance, in 
 order to prove how richly both its author and its advocate deserve the rep- 
 robation of an enlightened people. The latter says " he made an obvious 
 though not an avowed referance to his oath of office, as imposing an ob- 
 ligation above all human law." Now this is either an intellectual absurdity 
 or a political sin. The constitution of the United States, denominated by 
 Mr. Johnson himself, " the supreme law of the land" prescribes certain 
 duties for the President, among which is that of taking the oath of office. 
 To say that the performance of this one duty imposes on the President an 
 obligation above the supreme law of the land, and the very law which 
 prescribes it, is to say that the creature is above the creator ; and that the 
 sanction of a religious ceremony to the obligation of the President to ^re- 
 serve, protect and defend the constitution, endows him with a right to violate 
 his oath and to destroy the constitution. Again — to say that his oath of office 
 imposes an obligation above the supreme law, or requires at his hand the 
 performance of other duties, than those prescribed by the constitution, is 
 avowing at once that this is not a government of laws, and that the execu- 
 tive branch is above the control of the constitution. In the first sense, 
 the expression is absurd, in the second criminal, in both sufficiently offen- 
 sive, and to be fair with Mr. Johnson, he is welcome to ascribe it as he 
 pleases, either to want of sense or want of principle, in his hero. 
 
 In palliating the more questionable demerits of the president in regard 
 to his equivocal support of that policy which inclines to an exorbitant tariff 
 of duties on imports, for the purpose of encouraging domestic manufac- 
 tures, Mr. Johnson shines more as a panegyrist than as an economist or 
 civilian. All liberal men agree that error of opinion on this subject in- 
 
23 
 
 volves no radical defect of principle. Large divisions of our territory and 
 population, are the seats of adverse doctrines on this momentous and yet 
 experimental matter, and as they are all animated by undoubted patriotism, 
 there is every reason to hope that the true point beyond which the right 
 of taxation vested in the federal government ought not to be carried, will 
 be seasonably determined by the luminous collision of their respective sys- 
 tems. Already important light has been shed on the matter by the author of 
 Brutus, in the Charleston Mercury. He maintains that the exercise of 
 the taxing power was intended by the framers of the constitution to be 
 confined to the purpose of revenue, and that whenever it might become 
 expedient for the industry of any quarter of the Union, to encourage the 
 production of a particular commodity, it was designed that the state or 
 states interested therein, should assume the qualified exercise of taxing 
 power, " with the con^^ent of Congress, and on condition, that the duties 
 so raised should be paid into the Treasury of the United States." Who- 
 ever reads his essays will feel persuaded that his explication of many im- 
 portant questions involving the powers of the Geneial Government, is 
 both original and profound, and promises the establishment of a fiscal poli- 
 cy consonant to the spirit of the constitution and conducive to the preser- 
 vation of the Union. I wish it could be said that either of these great ob- 
 jects was likely to be advanced by the dissertation of Mr. Johnson the 
 polarity of whose mind seems insensible to their high attraction, and to 
 turn with trembling constancy to the foot of the throne. The right of the 
 government, accordingly, he deduces from its practice, as an attorney es- 
 tablishes principle by precedent, and as if the goverment of the United 
 States were to impiove every thing but its own practices. He insists that 
 the doctrine of indirect taxation was practised upon by the Administration 
 of Washington, and by that of all his successors — giving into a fallacy 
 which though it makes his argument plausible, renders it unsound. 
 
 The power of taxation, like other powers vested in the general govern- 
 ment, has an object direct and objects resulting. Its direct object is the 
 raising of reveni'e ; among its resulting objects is the encouragement of 
 domestic manufactures. This i.^ clearly secondary in intention and subor- 
 dinate in importance to the first object. It must accordingly be increased 
 or diminished, as the scale of taxation is enlarged or contracted. But it 
 is an inversion of the order of things, as well as a perversion of the mean- 
 ing of the constitution, to say that the scale of revenue is to be enlarged not 
 to supply the necessary expenses, or to pay the debts of the nation, but to 
 increase the resulting action of the taxing power — a power which plainly 
 would never have been intrusted to the general government but for the 
 necessity which exists in all governments for its direct object, revenue. 
 Hence it does not follow, as Mr. Johnson labours to shew, because Gener- 
 al Washington established a tariff'of duties, and succeeding administrations 
 increased it, that his policy and the policy of his successors was, in this 
 respect, the same. General Washington's policy went no further than 
 the direct object of the taxing power required. The lightest duty on the 
 importation of English boots communicates some degiee of encouragement 
 to American boot makers and tanners ; and as that no similar duties must 
 be imposed in order to provide in the most convenient way for the expenses 
 of government, it is certainly a mitigation of the necessary evil of taxation, 
 that a useful branch of domestic industry should be promoted by it. But 
 the mitigation of an evil does not make it a good. And the objection which 
 Jies against the policy of Mr. Adams, and in a less degree against that of 
 Mr. Munroe, is, that it proposes to exercise the taxing power not for its 
 direct object, and no doubt constitutional end, but for its resulting objects — 
 not for a sufficient revenue, but for a multitude of manufactures ; thus trans- 
 
29 
 
 tending the particular design and violating the general spirit of the con- 
 stitution, by taxing one part of the community for the benefit of another 5 
 making the relative condition of the Southern States worse than it was 
 before the union, giving the manufacturing States greater privileges than 
 they would have enjoyed without it; and burthening a great, salutary and 
 venerable branch ot human industry for one less extensive and less favor- 
 able to the physical wants and moral condition of mankind. — Let the re- 
 port of i\lr. Secretary Rush, in which he proposes the artificial and oppres- 
 sive system of England as a model for the' financial policy of this country, 
 and talks about resculatvig every fibre of labor, and every species of pro- 
 perty in this vast confederacy of free States, by a nicely balanced ma- 
 chinery of encouraging taxation, be examined, and the inordinate and un- 
 constitutional excess of \lr. Adams' policy in the employment of the tax- 
 ing power, will at once be perceived. 
 
 Nor, will the force of this contrast be at all weakened by the 
 fact which Mr. Johnson relies on — viz. that the law of '89, laying the 
 first duties imposed under the constitution, and advocated by Mr. Madison, 
 then a member of Congress, recites in its preamble, that the laying of 
 duties " was necessary for the support of government, for the discharge 
 of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of 
 domestic manufactures.''^ The government was then new and just getting 
 into operation. The important and searching power of taxation was then 
 first to be applied to the inhabitants and property of a number of free states 
 who had confided it reluctantly, with many misgivings and hesitations, to 
 the federal head. Under these circumstances, it was the duty of Congress, 
 and no doubt their aim, to make the first act of taxation as palitable as 
 possible, to recommend it as strongly as they could to the people, upon 
 whose opinion they knew the whole fabric of government rested. They 
 therefore recited in the preamble, the two great circumstances which ren- 
 dered taxation necessary, and the one which was most likely to render it 
 acceptable. The first was addressed to their patriotism, the second to 
 theii honor, the third to their interest — powerful appeals to paramount 
 motives. This was the object of the preamble, as the least insight into 
 the circumstance of the period would have tought Mr. Johnson, and as is 
 apparent from the fact, that subsequent bills of revenue contain no such 
 recitations. It is hard to forbear a smile at reflecting on the derisions and 
 surprise with which the sages of '89 would look on this attempt to legal- 
 ize a broad and encroaching system of policy, not by expounding the terms 
 of analysing the spirit of the constitution, but by italicising a phrase " torn 
 from its context" in the c< rner of a preamble to an act. 
 
 But he contends that whether Mr. Adams be right or wrong in respect 
 to the tariff, or his " ineffably gigantic" schemes of internal improvement, 
 his friends may applaud and the nation trust him, because his opinions are 
 at least as right as those of General Jackson. This, although it will turn 
 out to be an improvement upon the old ELOsurdhy of ignotum per ignoiius, is 
 probably the most fair and formidable inference in the address, for, ag 
 Hooker has said, that change even from the woi'se^ is sometimes inconven- 
 ient, there might be some color of reason in advising the American people 
 to rest satisfied with Adams, seeing that Jackson's opinions coincided with 
 his. But unfortunately for Mr. Johnson, even this slender argument is 
 denied him by the assertion of the Richmond meeting, by which his con- 
 vention stands publicly affiliated, and to which he sent in his memorable 
 adhesion. That assertion is not disavowed or disputed, and is of course 
 adopted by Mr. Johnson's address, and it declares that " Gon, Jackson 
 shrouds bis opinions of the tariff in im penetrable mystery." While these 
 opinions are thus concealed in " impenetrable mystery," how does Mr, 
 
30 
 
 Johnson discover that they coincide exactly with those of Mr. Adams ? 
 The detection of such an insidious inconsistency as this, in the grave, 
 earnest and public affirmations of a man of Mr. Johnson's standing, must 
 affect even his adversaries with more regret than pleasure ; and excite a 
 feeling of tender abhorrence, like that which induces us to pity aud ap- 
 prove "the execution of a criminal. 
 
 Having with these infelicitous errors, both of argument and assertion, 
 endeavored to justify the doctrines of Mr. Adams, (avoiding carefully all 
 mention of " the constitutional competency,") and having enjoined upon 
 the American people (what was no doubt modestly meant) the duty of ap- 
 plying to the consideration of the President's conduct, that indulgent rule 
 of construction which insures impunity to guilt rather than security to in- 
 nocence. Mr. Johnson proceeds with a sudden change of temperature, to 
 make a portentious reference to the vast and delicate duties of the chief 
 magistrate, and fierce allusions to the temper and actions of General Jack- 
 son. No part of the address discovers a colder prejudice or a more fer- 
 vent loyalty than this. The Richmond, is like the Roman courtier, m odio 
 SfBVus^ hlandiloquentia comis. It is really surprising to see the same pen 
 running with the lightness of Camilla's step over the faults of the man in 
 power, and falJing with the demolishing tread of an elephant on the virtues 
 of a private citizen. Like the "lithe probosis" of that shrewd animal, how- 
 ever, it handles tenderly what is frail, and what is sound, rudely : and the 
 quick-sighted people of Virginia will neither be inflamed into injustice by 
 Mr. Johnson's violence, nor deceived into submission by his gentleness. As 
 if emphasis were not ridiculous in stale misrepresentations, and a tone of 
 deep-mouthed vituperation natural to those whose accisations are unsup- 
 ported by fact, he tells them with an air of amazing confidence, that Gen- 
 eral Jackson has " trampled on the laws and constitution of his country, 
 has sacrificed the lives and liberties of men, and made his own arbitrary 
 will the rule of his conduct." But his fundamental position is this — " ca- 
 pacity for civil aflfairs in a country like ours, where the road to preferment 
 is open to merit in every class of society, is never long concealed, and sel- 
 dom left in retirement." It is then added, that " General Jackson has liv- 
 ed beyond the age of sixty years, and was bred to the profession best cal- 
 culated to improve and display the faculties which civil employments re- 
 quire ; but the history of his pifblic life in those employments is told in a 
 few brief lines in a single page of his biographer. He filled successively 
 and for very short periods, the office of member of the Tennessee Conven- 
 tion, which formed their State Constitution, Representative and Senator in 
 Congress, Judge of the Supreme Cmrt of Tennessee, and again Senator 
 in C'Ongress of the United States." Where a man is so vei-y didactic as 
 Mr. Johnson is, accuracy of knowledge and precision of detail might be ex- 
 pected. But these humble constituents of truth lie far beneath the range 
 of his romantic fancy, as the reader who chooses to consult Eaton's work 
 will find.* The account of Jackson's " civil employments" is not contain- 
 ed on a " single page" of that work, and Mr. Johnson's summary of it is 
 defective as to the very important office of Attorney General, which Wash- 
 ington, no mean judge of merit, himself conferred. But if we admire the 
 fidelity of his statements we shall be amazed at the accuracy of his rea- 
 soning. He concludes, that as capacity for civil offices is in this country 
 
 *See pages 17, 18. GeneralJackson, though no set-fast in office, was eight years Attorney 
 Cteneral of the Territory, and six years Judge of the highest court of the Sute. His resignation 
 of this last station was accepted on the 24th July, 1804, thirteen days after Hamilton was shot 
 by Burr, and a year at least before the appearance of Burr in the W^estern country, with whom, 
 as a Judge, the secret slanderers under the management of Mr. Johnson, attempt to associa'e 
 him. 
 
31 
 
 " never long concealed and seldom left in retirement," the frequent appoint- 
 ment and repeated election of General Jackson is proof positive of his no- 
 torious incapacity to fill them. There is somethinof transcendental in this 
 syllogism. And if we reflect that in addition to Mr. Johnson's corrected 
 list of civil offices, General Jackson has filled the important ones of com- 
 missioner for receiving the cession of Florida, of Governor of that Territo- 
 ry under the Spanish laws, and negociator of several of our most important 
 Indian treaties, that he never solicited an office in his life, or abused the 
 confidence which his constituents reposed in him — that Mr. Adams never 
 filled one which connected him immediately with the people the great 
 central fire which distributes warmth and life to our whole system ; and 
 that his services were recommended to one party by descent, and to 
 the other by purchase, its value as a political argument may be correctly 
 estimated. The evident distortion of Mr. Johnson's judgment seems to be 
 chronically confirmed by the fact, that General Jackson resigned several 
 of these offices, manifesting a preference for private life, in unison with 
 the taste of Cincinnatus, of Washington, and of all the greatest patriots of 
 the world, ^nd in opposition to that low ambition which cannot exist out of 
 the purlieus of the treasury. The classical reatler will remember how the 
 Roman writers celebrate the reluctance with which the Dictator ahAratro 
 left his farm, and the satisfaction with which, crowned with laurels, he re- 
 tired to it. The same disposition was seen and admired in our beloved 
 Washington. In a letter to a member of Congress, who was persuading 
 him to accept the office of President, then just created, he thus expressed 
 himself: " You are among the small number of those who know my invin- 
 cible attachment to domestic life, and that my sincere wish is to continue 
 in the enjoyment of it solely, to my final hour. My increasing fondness 
 for agricultural amusements, and my growing love of retirement, augment 
 and confirm my decided predilection for the character of a private citizen.'* 
 And he concludes — " You will perceive, my dear sir, from what is here ob- 
 served, that my inclinations will dispose and decide me to remam as I am, 
 unless a clear and insurmountable conviction should be impressed on my 
 mind, that some very disagreeable consequences, must in all human proba- 
 bility result from the indulgence of my wishes." This letter was written 
 when Washington was in his 57th year, and Jackson was ,58 when he 
 made his last and most splendid resignation. This is the temper and these 
 are the habits that render " military chieftains" the defenders of the repub- 
 lic in war, and its guardians in peace ; and it is not the least extravagant of 
 Mr. Johnson's paralogisms, that in the same breath he should descant on 
 the dangerous influence of military renown, and reproach its possessor with 
 an obstinate predilection for private life. Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams, it is 
 true, have never yet offered to the world that best and most lovely evidence 
 of merit, which modesty displays, have never resigned one office without 
 the prospect of another, and are not likely to impose on their eulogists the 
 task of portraying the grand but quiet virtue of disinterestedness. Yet, 
 Washington, the military chieftain, served eight years without giving rea- 
 son to doubt his wisdom or integrity^ while Messrs. Adams and Clay, the 
 diplomatist and the orator, have effected in less than half that time, a gen- 
 eral conviction that they are destitute of both. 
 
 But, says Mr. Johnson, General Jackson not only " resigned three, but 
 passed through all these offices, acknowledging his unfitness in two in- 
 stances, manifestly feeling it in all, an 1 leaving no single act, no trace be- 
 hind, which stamps his qualifications above mediocrity." Such allegations 
 as these are enough (to use Mr. Johnson's peculiar dialect) "to stamp their 
 author below mediocrity" — as they abound in misstatement and miscon- 
 struction. An individual is appointed to one office, and successively pro- 
 
32 
 
 woted to two others, and because he vacates the subordinate ones in order 
 to reach the liighest in the series, these acts of resiofnation are interpreted 
 into a confession of his own unfitness. Did Mr. Clay acknowledge his un- 
 fitness for the Speaker's chair, when he resigned it and took office in the 
 cabinet of Mr. Adams ? Does a Colonel evince a conscious incapacity 
 when he accepts the commission of General ? General Jackson resigned 
 his seat in the House of Representatives to fill a place in the Senate, and 
 this station he resigned with a patriotism and liberality highly honorable 
 to him, to make room for General D miel Smith, his neighbor and friend — 
 a gentleman whose superior age and scientific attainments gave him pecu- 
 liar claims to public confidence, and inspired a hope that he would prove a 
 useful accession to the party which was then opposed to the administration 
 of the elder Adams. This disinterested act, which few of the many who 
 can make long speeches, would be capable of, is urged in the address as fur- 
 ther proof of incapacity, and the formidable array of evidence to that point, 
 is completed by the assertion that " no trace," that is. no speech is left be- 
 hind him in his civil career, placing him above mediocrity. But before the 
 conclusion here designated can be admitted,it must be ascertained whether a 
 long speech in Congress, is not in nine cases out of ten,at least a proof of me- 
 diocrity.* A member of Congress, who, without the possession of rare orato- 
 rical powers, makes long speeches, is known to have given full exertion to 
 his abilities,and has no claim to a reputation higher than that which is acquir- 
 ed by a large portion of his comrades. Whereas a silent member is regard- 
 ed as possessed of such strength of mind and dignity of taste, as to disdain 
 the slender repute which one or more speeches create, and is, tor that very 
 reason, considered far above mediocrity. When Patrick Henry was ask- 
 ed "who he thought the greatest man" in the famous Congress of '74, from 
 which he was just returned, he replied — " If you speak of eloquence, Mr. 
 Rutledge of South Carolina, is by far the greatest orator; but if you speak 
 of solid judgment and sound information, Co onel Washington is unques- 
 tionably the greatest man on that floor."f Yet Washington "passed 
 through and resigned" this and other civil offices, without leaving "a 
 trace" behind, which in the accurate style and estimation of Mr. Johnson, 
 "stamped his qualifications above mediocrity." It is rather unfortunate 
 for one, who undertakes to instruct the people of Virginia, that his most 
 oracular opinions should conflict with the dictates of common sense — the 
 judgment of Patrick Henry, and the example of Washington. 
 
 The temper of General Jackson is said to be as unsuitable as his capa- 
 city, and " the spirit of domination displayed in his celebrated letter to 
 Gov. Rabun," is referred to as evidence that the office of President should 
 not be entrusted to his " impetuousity of temper " and " fiery misrule." 
 In a deep prophetic tone it is added, a foreif^m war may come, may rage 
 with violence, and may find General Jackson at the head of the civil gov- 
 ernment and commander in chief of the land and naval forces. Dissenti- 
 ent views among the statesmen may arise — controversies grow up between 
 the state and federal authorities — as discussions and controversies have 
 heretofore arisen — and who then, we pray you, can answer for the conse- 
 quences of that spirit which said to Gov. Rabun, " when I am in the field 
 you have no authority to issue a military order." It may be thought singu- 
 lar that Mr. Johnson, after having so bitterly reviled and lamented the un- 
 fairness of tearing " from their context " the expressions of the President, 
 should when urging a charge so personal in its nature as this againsl. his 
 rival, and attaching to it, as a consequence, " the dissolution of the Union, 
 
 * Frank Johnson made a speech five days long, 
 t Wirt's life of Henry, page 113. 
 
33 
 
 and death to the hopes of every free government upon earth," be guilty of 
 this very unfairness himself witli a violence too, which cannot be conceiv- 
 ed without attending lo the following summary of facts : 
 
 When General Jackson assumed the direction of the Seminole war 
 he found General Gaines near Hartford, in Georgia, at the head of the con- 
 tingent force of that State, which he speedily put into motion. Advanc- 
 ing with his raw force of one thousand men, in the direction of Fort .-Scott, 
 he passed on rude rafts and scarce practicable routes, the fenny sv/amps 
 and flooded rivers of that region, impelled by the energy of his character 
 and the hope of finding the supplies which had been ordered there, at 
 Fort Early. Jiut when he reached that place, the danger of famine was 
 not abated, there being only a barrel and a half of flour and a few bushels of 
 corn in the Fort. In the neighbourhood lived a small tribe of Indians, the 
 Chehaws, whose friendship, though doubted, now proved sincere. To 
 these sons of the forest in his extremity, he applied, desiring them to bring 
 in such supplies of corn, peas and potatoes as they could spare, and prom- 
 ising liberal pay for them. They immediately brought a small supply, 
 and on the General's encamping near their village, which lay directly in 
 his route to Fort Scott, their aged Chief, Howard, the survivor of many 
 wars with the kings of the forest and the foes of his tribe, received him 
 as a brother, and the simple-hearted community emptied almost to exhaus- 
 tion, to relieve the wants of their guests, the small stock of food which 
 had been collected for their subsistence through the winter. Enthusiasm 
 succeeding their kindness — the few warriors of the village joined the 
 American standard, and it was only in compliance with Jackson's request, 
 that the grandson of Howard, a youth of eighteen, was left to assist that 
 patriarch of the woods, in attending to the old men, women and children. 
 Thus confiding in the honor of General Jackson, and in the faith of the 
 United States, the Chehaw villagers were left in complete exposure. 
 But what had they to apprehend, or what had General Jackson to appre- 
 hend for them ? To the commanding officer of the small garrison left at 
 Fort Early, he had given instruction to consider the Chehaws as friends, 
 and there was no power behind him that could be dangerous to the allies 
 of the United States. Having clasped the right hand of Howard in friend- 
 ship, marshalled the warriors of the tribe, and assured the women of peace 
 and protection, who, with their " young barbarians," witnessed his depar- 
 ture, he hastened onward to the theatre of war. 
 
 Where the lion walks harmless, the wolf prowls most ferociously. A 
 Captain Wright, of the Georgia militia, upon some false imformation, 
 conceived and communicated to the Governor, the impression, that after 
 the march of General Jackson from the vicinity of Hartford, hostilities 
 had been committed on that section of the frontier by the Philonees and 
 Oponees — subordinate or rather incorporated septs of the Chehaw tribe. 
 The Governor, on this erroneous representation, issued a very inconsider- 
 ate order, empowering the Captain to march at the head of two compa- 
 nies of cavalry, and such infantry as could be drawn from the garrison of 
 Fort Early, against the supposed aggressors. It was in vain that the 
 commanding officer there assured Captain Wright of the friendship and 
 innocence of the (.Chehaws, and informed him of their recent aid and hos- 
 pitality to General Jackson. But why prolong the dreadful recital ! The 
 Governor's party had the power and the will to destroy. They burst like 
 a tempest on the devoted village. Helpless age and unresisting infancy 
 they confounded in one torrent of destruction. The bayonet, red with the 
 blood of the infant, was plunged into the breast of the mother. The aged 
 Howard supported by his grand-son, advanced with a white flag, and was 
 shot with that emblem of mith and peace in his feeble hand. The same 
 
34 
 
 cruel volley despatched his grand-son — the village was given to the flames 
 — the women and children to the edge of the sword, or they fled frotn in- 
 stant slaughter in terror and exile, to famine. Wilder scenes of desola- 
 tion have indeed been spread on the face of the globe, when hyder de- 
 scended like a thundercloud from the mountains of Mysore, upon the 
 plains of tiie Carnatio — or when Turreau left La Vendee .shrouded in soli- 
 tude and ashes. But a deeper stain of dishonor or a more intense visita- 
 tion of wo was never seen or inflicted, than at the ^ecluded village of the 
 Chehaws. The massacre of Wyoming was mercy to it, and the revenge 
 of Brandt far less cruel than this amity of the United States. It violated 
 at one blow, humanity, friendship, and the faith of treaties — the obligations 
 of justice, gratitude and honor— and involved in its consequences the dis- 
 grace of the nation, the murder of our citizens, and the probable renewal 
 of the war, which was then almost concluded. Against this shameful 
 outrage, the heart of Jackson arose, and he resented it with indignation, 
 but not without dignity, complaining to the executive of the United States 
 and remonstrating with that of Georgia. To the former he says, (7th 
 May 1818.) " The outrage which has been committed on the super-anuated 
 warriors, women and children of the Chehaws, whose sons were then in 
 the field, in the service of the United States, merits the severest chastise- 
 ment. The interference too of the Governor of Georgia, with the duties 
 imposed on me, claims the early attention of the President. All the ef- 
 fects of my campaign may by this one act be destroyed, and the same 
 scenes of massacre and murder with which our frontier settlements have 
 been visited, again repeated."* To the latter (i^Iay 7; after referring to 
 the massacre as " base and cowardly," and to an enclosed copy of General 
 Glascocks letter detailing it, he observes "That a Governor of a State 
 should make war against an Indian tribe at perfect peace with and under 
 the protection of the United States, is assuming a responsibility that I trust 
 you will be able to excuse to the United States, to which you will have to 
 answer," and he adds, "you as Governor of a State within my Diilitary 
 division, have no right to give a military order when I am in the field." 
 This last is the phrase which Mr. Johnson has "torn from its context," 
 and repeated with an aggrevating abbreviation, and in alarming italics. 
 
 * General Jackson was informed of this calamity by a letter from General Glascock, dated 
 the 30th April 18.8, written at Fort Karly ou his return to Georgia, with the contingent of 
 th-^t state. The following is an extract : " On arriving within thirty miles of the Chehaw vil- 
 lage, I sent on Major obinson, with a detachment of twenty men, to procure beef •, On his 
 arriving there the Indians had fled in every direction, the Chehaw town having been consumed 
 about four days before, by a party of men consisting of 2:30, under Captain Wright, now in 
 command at Hartford. It appears that after he assumed the commandof thatplare, he obtained 
 the certificates of several men on the frontier, that the Chehaw Indians were engaged in a 
 skirmish on the Big Bend. He immediately sent or went to the Governor and obtained orders 
 to de-troy the town of PhiUemee and Open- e. Two c-mpanies of cavalry were immediately 
 ordered out and placed under his command, and on the 22d he reached this place. He ord; jcd 
 Capt. Bothwell to furnish him with twenty-five or thirty men to accompany him ; having 
 been authorized to do so by the (Governor, t»'e order was complied with. Captain Bothwell 
 told him that he could not accompany him himself ; disapproved the \ Ian and informed ( apt. 
 Wright that there could be no doubt of the friendship of the Indians in that quarter and stated 
 thatOponee had on that day, brought in a public horse that had been lost. This availed 
 nothing, mock patriotism burned in their breasts. 1 hey crossed the river that night and push- 
 ed for the town. When arriving near there, an Indian was discovered graying ^onJe cnttle ; 
 he was made a prisoner. I am informed by sergeant Jones, that the Indian proposed 
 to go with the interpreter and bring one of the Chiefs, for the C; ptain to talk with. It was 
 not attended to -an advance was ordered the cavalry pushed forward and commenced the 
 massacre. Even after the firing and murder commenced. Major Howard, an old Chief, who 
 furnished you with considerable corn, came out from his house with a white flag. It was 
 not respected ; an order for a general fire was given and nearly four hundred gi iis were dis- 
 charged at him before it took effect. He fell and was bay< netted. His son f grand son) was 
 also kHled." After continuing such horrid details as above. General Glascock adds. '• Since 
 thet, three of my command, who were left at Fort Scott, obtained a furlough, and o.i their 
 way to this place, one of them was shot." So that the outrage produced by the order of the 
 Governor of Georgia, was already being retaliated on his fellow citizens. 
 
35 
 
 "When I am in the field you havl no right to issue a military order." Now, 
 although the negation may at first appear too general, yet the context 
 plainly limits it to the field of command on which Jackson was then em- 
 ployed. It obviously was not his intention to say that the Governor had 
 no right to regulate the militia concerns of his State, or to order.out quotas 
 in the service of the United States, but that he had no right, as Governor 
 of Georgia, to interfere with his duties, by operations extraneous to the 
 sovereignty of the J^tate, and hostile to the Indians at peace with and 
 under the protection of the United States. In this he was perfectly right, 
 and evinced a disposition to preserve rather than to disturb the harmony 
 so desirable between the States and the general government. The 
 power of making war is vested exclusively by the constitution in the fed- 
 eral government, and the equivalent duty imposed on it of guaranteeing 
 the integrity and independence of the several States. This duty, the 
 federal government was then in the act of discharging in favor of the 
 State of Georgia ; and yet, according to Mr. Johnson, the Governor of 
 Georgia was to interrupt its military operations, and to murder its friends 
 and allies, without the voice of remonstrance or admonition. Let us sup- 
 pose fur a moment, that after General Brown had concluded a friendly 
 agreement with the BufFaloe Indians, and with their supplies of provisions 
 and men, had invaded Canada, Governor Tompkins had come on his track, 
 burnt the friendly village, and destroyed or dispersed its inhabitants. 
 Would it have been an unpardonable offence in General Brown to remon- 
 strate against that outrage, and to inform Governor Tompkins that he had 
 transcended his authority ? Would it have displayed a "dangerous spirit 
 of domination," or an honorable feeling of justice and humanity ? And 
 would it have exposed Gen. Brown to the suspicion and execration of his 
 fellow citizens, or entitled him to their approbation and support ? Mr. 
 Johnson's acquaintance with history will remind him that the taking of 
 Saguntum, while in alliance with the Romans, was the immediate cause 
 of the second Punic war, and that the destruction of that city excited a 
 dignified resentment in the Roman people, which defeat after defeat, and 
 slaughther after slaughter, could not subdue, and gave a moral interest as 
 well as a political force to the vengeful expression of the elder Cato, " de- 
 lenda est Carthagro." Not to mention other examples of feeling repugnant 
 to the sentiments with which Mr. Johnson contemplates the sensibility of 
 General Jackson for the fate of the Chehaws, the pride which on a late 
 occasion England took in stretching forth her power as an agis over her 
 " ancient ally" may be cited — when Mr. Canning, as the organ of his 
 country, declared to the nations in a tone of generous defiance, that when 
 the march of foreign conquest touched the frontiers of Portugal, it must 
 stay its haughty step. Yet, while we admire the spirit of the Roman people 
 and of the English Statesman, we are persuaded to believe, by Mr. John- 
 son and his star chamber judges, that when our own patiiot protested 
 against an outrage on humanity a violation of faith, and usurpation of au- 
 thority, acquiescence in which would have stained with disgrace our com- 
 mon sense, our common nature and our common country, he displayed a 
 "fiery misrule of temper," and "a dangerous spirit of domination." 
 
 It may perhaps, be within the extensive circle of his sophistry to 
 contend that the Governor of Georgia, as the head of a sovereign state, 
 had a rip^ht to make war on the Indians, the right of war being an inci- 
 dent inseparable from sovereignty. Waiving the constitutional pact be- 
 tween the states and the federal government, and the laws of Congress, 
 placing the Indian tribes under the control and keeping of the United 
 States, which would at once defeat this course of argument, it will be 
 enough to observe, that even if the Governor had the right of waging this 
 
36 
 
 war, he was bound to prosecute it according to the law of nations and the 
 usaf^es of war. These would have rendered it his duty to ascertain first, 
 whether the injury he complained of was really committed by the Che- 
 haws — and if it were, secondly, whether the authorities of that tribe 
 would make or refuse proper reparation. This is the practice of all civi- 
 lized states— is that of the United States — and was exemplified in the late 
 disturbance with the Winnebagoes. So that, conceding the right of war 
 to the Governor, his violation of the laws and usages of war to the injury 
 of the Chehaws, justly exposed him to the remonstrances of General 
 Jackson, who, as an officer of the United States, the guest of the venera- 
 ble Howard, and the commander of the Chehaw warriors, was in strict 
 alliance with that tribe, and bound to protect it. The fact is, that the 
 Governor of Georgia was for a time, so infatuated, as to consider his offi- 
 cial dignity invaded, and his power encroached upon by this remonstrance 
 of the General, and under that impression wrote a lettef to him, remind- 
 ing him of Georgia's "bleeding frontier,'' and taunting him with affecting 
 " a military despotism." The fact is too, that this his letter, made its gas- 
 conading appearance in a Georgia Journal, before it was received by the 
 General, and fell into disreputable oblivion soon after. And the probabil- 
 ity is, that Mr. Johnson, who though prodigal in charges, is penurious in 
 proofs, has been guided to this buried slander by a sense for defamation 
 as keen and creditable as that which leads certain winged gnostics to the 
 carcases of the dead. But it has as little truth as fragrance. For from 
 the time the Georgia Brigade encamped on the Oakmulgee, and under 
 the conduct of General Jackson, marched by the way of Fort Early to 
 Fort Scott, up to the close of the war, the southern frontier of that State 
 could neither have bled nor been exposed. A thousand men either sta- 
 tioned on that frontier, or penetrating from it into the Indian country, na- 
 turally bore off" any thing like hostility ; and accordingly General Jacksoii 
 met with no opposition until he reached the Mickasuky towns, at least 
 150 miles south of Hartford. Besides, the Tennessee contingent consist- 
 ing also of ] 000 men, had marched on the 14th of February from Fay- 
 etteville in Tennessee, under the command of Colonel Hayne, of the Uni- 
 ted States Army, and after reaching Fort Mitchell, on their way to join 
 General Jackson at Fort Scott, had from information that their rations 
 which had given out could not be replenished in the direction of Fort 
 Scott, filed off to the left, and by a route nearly parrallel to the advance 
 of Jackson," had passed into Georgia, at Hartford ; where Colonel 
 Hayne with 400 men remained for the protection of that frontier, until 
 after the period of which Governor Rabun represented it to be " bleed- 
 ing."* There could therefore have been no real cause, as there was no 
 possible justification for the attack on the Chehaws ; and of this the Gov- 
 ernor himself was soon sensible, for in a letter of the 11th May, from 
 Milledgeville, General Glascock says to General Jackson — " I had an in- 
 terview with the agent and the Governor, and they have concluded that a 
 talk will immediately be held with the chiefs of that place — ascertain the 
 amount of property destroyed, and make ample reparation for the same. 
 This is at once acknowledging the impropriety of the attack, and not in 
 the least degree throwing oft' the stigma that will be attached to the 
 State." 
 
 The next charge is headed with the following important dictum. " Mi- 
 litary men should never be allowed to forget that the obligation to obey, 
 being the sole foundation of the authority to command, they should incui- 
 
 *See the despatch of General Jackson to the war department of the 25th March, from 
 Fort Gadsden, three weeks before the massacre of the Chehawa, and also his letter of the 
 11th of August to Governor Rabun. 
 
37 
 
 ivBite subordination not by precept only, but by example." And it is alleg- 
 ed that in defiance of it, General Jackson has committed a threefold of- 
 fence. " He has offered indignity to the Secretary of War in the very let- 
 ter assigning his reasons for disobeying- the order to disband his troops — 
 he has placed his own authority in opposition to that of the War Depart- 
 ment, by a general order forbiding the officers of his command, to obey 
 the orders of the Department, unless they passed through the channel 
 which he had chosen to prescribe — and he disobeyed the order of the Go- 
 vernment in his military operations in the Spanish territory." Sweeping 
 charges are almost always unfounded, because in order to make them 
 plausible it is necessary to suppress the very circumstances which qualify 
 the actions they inculcate. In the precise tone of Mr. Johnson, an Eng- 
 lish essayist might say that the Congress of '76 offered an indignity to the 
 King of Great fintain, in the declaration of independence assigning their 
 reasons for disobeynisr his authority. Every case of the kind is character- 
 ized only by its circumstances, and when an expert disputant trained to 
 the tricks of the forum, advances a charge and omits the circumstances 
 explanatory of its foundation, it is strong evidence that he is himself con- 
 scious of its injustice. Now it turns out that the alleged disobedience of 
 General Jackson was justified by the circumstances of the case, was ap- 
 proved by the government and sanctioned by events. Under the acts au- 
 thorising the President to accept the services of 50,000 volunteers. Gen- 
 eral Jackson, then commanding the 2d division of that militia which he 
 soon rendered so famous — tendered to the Government of the United 
 States the services of himself and two thousand five hundred men of his 
 division, and the tender was accepted The detachment having been em- 
 bodied and organized, was ordered to proceed by water to New Orleans. 
 Subsequently to his departure, General Jackson was advised to halt near 
 Natchez, and in compliance with it, he took a position in the neighbor- 
 hood of that city. Here while attending to the health and discipline of 
 the corps, he received the laconic mandate from the War Department, 
 with disobedience to which he is so grievously reproached. It is first to 
 be noticed, that as all men have some degree of fallibility, and some de- 
 gree of discretion, and as the imperfections of language and the interpo- 
 sition of distance, give ample scope for the operation of both, it may well 
 happen that the non-execution of an order is the best possible mode of 
 obeying the government. When an officer receives an order, which the 
 exercise of a sound discretion convinces him, would not have been issued 
 had the condition of the circumstance in which it was to operate been 
 known to the authority from which it proceeded, the spirit of his duty 
 comes in direct opposition to the letter of his order. Obedience in such 
 a ease, consists not in a blind submission to the words, but in a zealous 
 fulfilment of the intentions of the government. The order of the Empe- 
 ror, it is true, authorized Grouchy to continue his unprofitable contest 
 with the Prussians, but the spirit of his duty required his presence and 
 exertions at Waterloo. By disregarding the signal which recalled him 
 from fight. Lord Nelson fulfilled the wishes of his Government, shook the 
 throne of Denmark, and shattered the confederacy of northern powers. 
 So obvious is the distinction betvveen nominal and real obedience, that it 
 could not have escaped the attention of Mr. Johnson, but for the loyal 
 amazement with ,which he is afferted at the idea of indignity to the head 
 of a department. This seems to overcome all his better faculties, and t« 
 leave him nothing but the powers of genuflection and obloquy. He for- 
 gets that an order may be obscure, and therefore liable to misconstruction, 
 and that it may contain imperfections of date, or expression which bring 
 into doubt its genuineness. In the case now considered, all these causes 
 
38 
 
 operated against a strict execution of the order. General Jackson could 
 not be easily convinced that it was the intention of the President, after 
 accepting the services of his volunteers, and removing them six hundred 
 miles from their homes in an inclement season, pregnant with disease, and 
 beyond a vast wilderness filled with hostility, to deprive them of food to 
 save them from hunger^ — to strip them of tents to cover them from the 
 weather and of arms to defend them from savages. Yet, on the I5th 
 March, he received the duplicate of an order addressed to him at New- 
 Orleans, requiring him, '' on its receipt, to consider his corps dismissed 
 from public service," and to " deliver over to General Wilkinson all arti- 
 cles of public property which may have been put mto its possession" — 
 not leaving the men a mouthful of food — in the hands of the detachment 
 a musket or cartridge — in the possession of the corps a single tent or wa- 
 gon, or the smallest accommodation for their sick, of whom there were 
 more than 150. He received another copy of the same order, which was 
 dated nearly a month earlier (before General Armstrong, whose signature 
 it bore, had come into the war department,) and contained variations of 
 expression which made it appear not to be an exact copy. However 
 he determined to obey it with as much exactness and as little delay as 
 possible. He saw, what Mr. Johnson does not perceive, that its declara- 
 tory part effected itself. He and his detachment were dismissed the ser- 
 vice of the United Slates. The order was not a direction to disband, but 
 a notification of dismissal, so far effected itself, and required in no degree 
 the agency of General Jackson. This Mr. Johnson may assure himself 
 of by conceiving that General Jackson, or any other General, were di- 
 rected to consider himself and his corps evgnsred with the enemy, and re- 
 flecting whether that would be deemed an order for attack. Its manda- 
 tory clause relating to public property and admitting of some exceptions, 
 he conceived it his duty, both to the government and to his men, not to 
 carry into full execution. Viewing ours as a just and paternal govern- 
 ment, he considered his detachment pretty much as the law considers a 
 pre-termitted child, and determined to do that for his men which the go- 
 vernment had, it appeared forgotten to do. In a letter to the Governor of 
 Tennessee, under whose authority the order of the Secretary had repla- 
 ced him, he says, " I have, however from the necessity of the case, deter- 
 mined to keep some of the tents, and to march the men back in as good 
 order as possible, and I will make every sacrifice to add to their comfort. 
 I have required of the contractor here twenty days rations, which will 
 take my men to Colbert's ; and I must trust in Providence and your exer- 
 tions to furnish them with supplies from there to Nashville." To General 
 Wilkinson who had enclosed the order, he says, " I have had the honor of 
 receiving your letter of the 8th inst. with its enclosures, containing direc- 
 tions for me to deliver over public property to you, which is in possession 
 of my detachment. The order will be complied with, except a small re- 
 seivation of tents for the sick, and some other indispensible articles. I 
 acknowledge the order was unexpected ; but I coincide with you in senti- 
 ment that those who are bound must obey." Let the reader recollect that 
 the law under which the services of this corps had been accepted, 
 made the arms and accoutrements of the soldier his private property at his 
 discharge — operating like a bounty on enlistments — that of course Gen. 
 Jackson had no right to apply it to this species of military property, and 
 that he only suspended its execution so far as to retain a few tents and 
 other articles indispensable to the care of the sick, until he could get his 
 corps through the wilderness, which was already the scene of those Indian 
 murders that soon brought on the Creek War. That to effect this patri- 
 otic and honorable purpose he borrowed 5000 dollars on his own private 
 
39 
 
 account* — and that the government itself sanctioned his proceeding, and 
 then determine the degree of credit to which Mr. Johnson's charge is en- 
 titled. Let it be also remembered that this chivalric corps contained the 
 Cotfees and the Carrols, who fought wherever they could find a foe, and 
 the Lauderdales and the Donelsons who fell with so much glory and that' 
 had Gen. Jacksofi, through fear of " indignity," disbanded his troops and 
 left them uncovered, unfed, undefended victims to disease, to want and to 
 murder, the patriots of Tennessee would have been justly disgusted with 
 a service, which, when inspired with gratitude and affection for their faith- 
 ful leader, they adhered to with such signal zeal and triumphant efficiency. 
 It appears, then, that so far from deserving censure for the modified 
 execution of the order m question, he merits the praise of prudence and 
 generosity, and is entitled to the gratitude of his country for that season- 
 able and enlightened independence which had the effect of attaching* to 
 him and to her the materials of future safety and honor. As to the indig- 
 nity offered to the Secretary of War, at which our modern Macsycophant 
 is so bustling and booing, it is probable that the Secretary, who was by no 
 means dull of app.'-ehension. did not perceive it. But if he did, he could 
 only consider it a private injury, as, by his own act. General Jackson was 
 no longer under his authority ; and was, therefore, out of the rule of obe- 
 dience, upon which Mr. Johnson founds the right to command. fJis let- 
 ter, after representing the discrepancy between the date of the order, (5th 
 Jan.) and the official notification of Gen Armstrong's entrance into the 
 War Department, (3d Feb.) assures the Secretary of his determination 
 "to obey the order, and to deliver over to the quarter master of the de- 
 partment all public property in my hands that can be spared from the con- 
 venience and health of my men, on their return to Nashville ; it being 
 the place where they were rendezvoused by the orders of the President 
 of the United States ; and to which place I shall march them as soon as 
 the necessary supplies can be had for the purpose." He then expatiates 
 on the los.-s of public spirit and of patriotic lives, and on the great distress 
 which would attend the immediate dispersion of his men — expresses his 
 conviction that their arms belonged to them, and his surprise that an order 
 so neglectful of their feelings and interests, should have been traced by the 
 hand "of an old revolutionary soldier, who knows the privations of a sol- 
 dier's life ; who exercisefl his talents, (not at a very prudent moment) in 
 their behalf, at the close of the last war." Now this, so far from offering 
 an inlignity, really conveyed a delicate allusion to the Newburg letters. 
 Gen Armstrong had not the folly to consider it an indignity, and Gen. 
 Jackson being out of service, not the right to consider it an offence. He 
 was, no doubt, gratified at his prudence in not putting that interpretation 
 on his laconic order, which might have been a natural one in situations so 
 safe, near and plentiful as Niagara and Norfolk, but which would have 
 been incalculably distressing to the Tennesseans at Natchez. When it 
 is taken into consideration too, that the tender of this corps had been ac- 
 cepted in August, that they had been assembled in December, had em- 
 barked on the Cumberland in January, that after voyaging, often through 
 floating ice and stormy weather, more than 1000 miles, they had encamped 
 near Natchez on the 21st February, and had then been dismissed without 
 ceremony or accommodation on the 15th March — the reader will be apt 
 to conclude that more moderation on the part of Jackson, would have been 
 mean spirited, would have betrayed a want of that sensibility to the claims 
 of friendship and neighborhood and fellowship, which he so heroically 
 felt — which did him so much honor as a man, and were so fortunate in the 
 event to his country. 
 
 *0f a merchant of Natchez. 
 
40 
 
 The winding course of Mr. Johnson's defamation, brings next into view 
 the charsfe of disobedience to the War Department, in the shape of " a 
 general order ;" and if a man can lose reputation by making unjust at- 
 tacks upon the fame of another, it will tend as little to his honor as those 
 which have already been refuted. The circumstances explaining this 
 case are the following : — while Gen. Jackson was in the service of the 
 United States, it occurred several times, and at seasons of the greatest 
 pressure, that officers to whom he had assigned important duties, were 
 silently withdrawn from their posts by orders from some subaltern in the 
 line, stationed as a deputy in the adjutant and inspector general's office, 
 at Washington. On the 1st of October, 1814, for example, just a fortnight 
 after the first attack on Fort Bowyer, and while the whole British arma- 
 ment was hovering between Mobile and New Orleans,* an order was is- 
 sued from the War Department, signed John R. Bell, deputy inspector 
 general, directing Col. Sparks, and the officers of the 2d regiment, inclu- 
 ding the gallant Major Lawrence, to proceed forthwith on the recruiting 
 service ! This order was received whde Gen. Jackson was effecting the 
 timely expulsion of the British from Pensacola, and had left Mobile in 
 charge of Col. Sparks, and Fort Bowyer in that of Major Lawrence. — 
 With commendable prudence these officers declined obedience, and re- 
 mained at th'^ir posts. General Jackson complained of it to the govern- 
 ment, pointed out the serious consequences that might have been produced 
 by it, and suggested the propriety of communicating in future, all orders 
 to his subordinates through him, inasmuch as his capacity to defend the 
 extensive and defenceless line of territory committed to his charge, would 
 be destroyed, if the officers on whose vigilance and exertions he depended 
 were removed from their stations without his knowledge. 
 
 This representation received no effectual attention from the government 
 and the anomalous practice it condemned, continued at intervals to pre- 
 vail. A forcible instance occurred in the person of Major Long, who 
 having reported himself under a regular order to Gen. Jackson for duty, 
 was directed by him to the Upper Mississippi for the purpose of sketching 
 the topography of a district in that quarter, upon which a contest with the 
 Indians was then apprehended. The next thing the General heard of his 
 •Engineer was, while he was anxiously expecting his leport, through a 
 newspaper notice in New-York, that the Major had sometime since estab- 
 lished himself in that city, in obedience to an order from the War De- 
 partment. Gen. Jackson (4th March, 1817) again appealed to Mr. Mon- 
 roe (then President) on the subject, reiterated his former reasons against 
 the irregularity, and deprecated with much earnestness its prevalence in 
 his division when no emergencies of war existed to require it, and when 
 his head quarters were at Nashville, a point of convenient distribution lor 
 orders directed by mail to the various military stations in the south and 
 west. This communication, like the former, proving ineffectual, deter- 
 mined no longer to have more responsibility than power, he took measures 
 to bring the subject before the government in a way that would admit of 
 no further neglect. On the 22d April he issued a general order forbid- 
 ding the officers of his division to obey any order from the War Depart- 
 ment which did not pass through the office of his Adjutant General. — 
 About two months after this, the President still declining any decision on 
 the matter, and suffering it to fester by delay, an order was issued from 
 the War Department to General Ripley, then in command at New Or- 
 leans, which, in compliance with Jackson's general order he did not obey. 
 Finding one of his officers involved in difficulty by an act of military sub- 
 
 * See despatch from Mr. Monroe to Gen. J. of the 27th Sept. and from Gen. J. to Mr. M. 
 «f the 24th and 37th August. 
 
41 
 
 ordination and fidelity, Jackson immediately assumed an attitude whicli 
 none but a Martinet or an Attorney can fail to admire. In a letter to the 
 President, (I'Mi Aug. 1817) he referred to his former communications on 
 this subject, and to the cases which had produced them — repeated the 
 substance of his general order, and stated the dillemma of General Rip- 
 ley, and with his characteristic spirit and honor thus relieved him from all 
 responsibility. " This has given rise to the proper disobedience of Major 
 Gen. Ripley to the order of the Department of War above alluded to, for 
 which I hold myself responsible." He adds — "In the view I took of this 
 subject on the 4th of March, I had flattered myself you would coincide, 
 and had hoped to receive your answer before a recurrence of a similar 
 infringmeut of mditary rule rendered it necessary for me to call your at- 
 tention tfiereto. None are infallible in their opinions, but it is neverthe- 
 less necessary that all should act agreeable to their convictions of right. 
 My convictions in favour of the course I have pursued are strong, and 
 should it become necessary, 1 will willingly meet a fair investigation be- 
 fore a military tribunal. The good of the service, and the dignity of the 
 commission I hold, alone actuate me. My wishes for retirement have al- 
 ready been made known to you, but under existing circumstances, my 
 duty to the officers of my division forbids it, until this subject is fairly un- 
 derstood." The final decision when it came was, that orders to inferiors 
 should pass through the commanding officer of the division, always there- 
 after, Mn/e55 in case o/* necc55%. Admitting the principle contended for 
 by Jackson, and terminating a practice, which under the aspect of legal 
 authority, was subversive of discipline, injurious to service, and repugnant 
 to justice. It is true that by the Constitution the President is Comman- 
 der in Chief of the army, and that by a custom almost equivalent to law, 
 the orders of the Secretary are considered the orders of the President, 
 and that among the illegitimate descendants of this custom, was the 
 
 f>ractice of confiding the power of the Department to Lieutenants of the 
 ine, whose enormous deviations from propriety, as in the order to Col. 
 Sparks, brought it into question and disrepute. But the President is Com- 
 mander in Chief, only in the same sense in which the General is com- 
 mander of his division, has no stronger claim to the obedience of the 
 General than the latter has to the obedience of the Colonel, and his or- 
 ders, whether issued under his sign manual, or through the Secretary of 
 War, or the imposing instrumentality of a subaltern, are to be restrained 
 by the laws of Congress and the principles of the Constitution. No man 
 will contend that his authority in the army is absolute — that he can of 
 his own accord inflict capital punishment on a soldier — can make a lieu- 
 tenant command a captain, a colonel a general, or exact duty from either 
 without allowing him his proper rank. Now the essence of rank consists 
 in the superiority of command which it confers, and any order of the 
 President, making an inferior disobey the orders of his superior, is a de- 
 rogation of the rank of that superior, and produces a disorder, the remo- 
 val of which necessarily exposes to disturbance in a similar and equivalent 
 degree, the authority of the President over the superior. The order to 
 Col. Sparks required a direct and violent disobedience to Gen. Jackson's 
 command, as that to Major Long effected it. To have rendered these or- 
 ders entirely legal and expedient, they should have been communicated 
 through the commanding General. They would then have preserved the 
 just equality between responsibility and power, which the nature of dele- 
 gated authority requires. And instead of causing one act of obedience, 
 and one of disobedience, they would have produced two acts of perfect 
 obedience, through agents related in due subordination to each other. — 
 The course pursued by the government moreover, involved the signal in- 
 6 
 
42 
 
 justice of tixing" publicly the proportion between Gen. Jackson's power 
 and responsibility, upon which proportion, it must be presumed, he con- 
 sented to assume the latter, and then privaieh/, and without his knowledge 
 reducing the former below that proportion, by a proceeding much in the 
 nature of an expost facto law. The silence and hesitation persevered in 
 respecting his remonstrances, while they tended to produce an impression 
 that the reasons he advanced were not disapproved, created a strong de- 
 mand for the decisive measures he adopted, and the fact which is but too 
 apparent that the irregularity he complained of was calculated, if contin- 
 ued, to disappoint the department, as well as the General, as it might be 
 retorted by the latter in various perplexing ways, furnishes another strong 
 objection to it. Its only excuse is a complete justification of it, where it 
 can be shewn, and a marked condemnation of it, where it cannot be 
 shewn, viz. necessity. To this fair adjustment and full redress, Gen. 
 Jackson brought this abuse in the service, and for the spirit and judgment 
 he displayed on that occasion alone, he deserves the gratitude of the ar- 
 my and the respect of his fellow citizens. 
 
 Havmg in a former number shewn to your readers that his military ope- 
 rations in Floriiia, were in direct obedience to the orders of the War De- 
 partment, I shall not be detained by Mr. Johnson's repetition of that un- 
 founded charge further than to advert to the clumsy dexterity with which 
 he shifts his ground — at one moment inveighing against the General, for 
 disobedience to the orders of the Department, and at the next reviling him 
 for conduct in direct obedience to them. From this dilemma he cannot 
 escape unless he can prove that the orders vesting General Jackson " with 
 full powers to conduct the war in the manner he might think best " — au- 
 thorizmg him " to march across the Florida line and attack the Seminoles 
 within its limits " — and requiring him to collect a force sufficient " to beat 
 the enemy and terminate the conflict," did not justify his invasion of Flor- 
 ida, within the limits of which " the enemy " was situated ; or his tempora- 
 ry occupation of the Spanish Posts, of which, in defiance of the stipulations 
 of a treaty and the duties of a neutral, the Seminoles held either hostile 
 control or military possessions. A disposition to avoid labor and repeti- 
 tion, suggests the propriety of a similar reference for a refutation of the 
 charges grounded upon the mis-called declaration of martial law — an act 
 of vigor and forecast, which In its origin and consequences was vindi- 
 cated by urgent necessity, justified by powerful analogies, sanctioned by 
 examples, and ratified by events ; covering that city with glory and pro- 
 tection, endearing its performer to all who were willing to fight in its de- 
 fence, and thrilling every patriotic heart in this Union with emotions of 
 joy and triumph. ^ 
 
 These ofiences against the law and the Constitution being disposed of, 
 we come to those with which Mr. Johnson declares " mercy and humanity 
 imite in accusing General Jackson." They stand in his catalogue in the 
 following order; — "The cold-blooded massacre at the Horse Shoe" — 
 " the decoyed and slaughtered Indians at St. Marks " — " the wanton and 
 unexampled execution of Ambrister " — " and of the still more injured Ar- 
 buthnot, a trader and an advocate for peace." With respect to " the cold 
 blooded massacre at the Horse-Shoe," as no order for one was ever given 
 by General Jackson, it is a calumny on the courage and humanity of his 
 officers and men, who have added unfading laurels to those which they 
 gained on that desperate day — many of whom, in their unrivalled cam- 
 paigns, found honorable wounds or glorious death — and some of whom 
 have filled and occupy the highest stations in the esteem and government 
 of a grateful country. My business is confined to the correction of the 
 more intentional injustice of the address, and therefore, after assuring thfi 
 
43 
 
 reader that there is no foundation whatever in truth or in history for sucli 
 a charge, T nhall do no more than submit this inexcusable misrepresenta- 
 tion to that sort of destruction which the testimony of a witness undergoes, 
 when it is proved, that in order to establish a certain point of interest, he 
 has made solemn declarations, which had no foundation in fact, and could 
 have none in his own knowledge. General Carroll, the late Governor of 
 Tennessee, and a distinguished disciple of General Jackson in war, v^'hose 
 rank and presence in this action, gave him a minute acquaintance with its 
 features, upon reading Mr. Johnson's address, furnished the following 
 statement: — '* I have seen the address of the anti-Jackson Convention of 
 Virginia, in which General Jackson is charged with the cold blooded 
 massacre of the Indians at the Horse Shoe. During the whole of the 
 Creek war, I serve;^ as Inspector General of the Army — was present at 
 the battle of the Horse Shoe, and can say, of my own personal knowledge, 
 that the charge is wholly destitute of foundation. Tow ards the close of 
 the action, after the breast-works had been taken by assault, a number of 
 Indians took refuge under a quantity of brush and logs. General Jackson 
 advanced within a short distance of the place of their concealment, and 
 directed his interpreter, George Mayfield, to assure them, that if they 
 would surrender, that they should be treated with the greatest humanity. 
 They answered the proposition by firing upon and wounding Mayfield 
 severely in the shoulder. A similar proposition was also made Ity Jim 
 Fife.orold Chinnebee, and the fire of the Indians was the only roply it re 
 ceived. After a number of our men were killed and wounded by those 
 Indians, and after they had twdce refused to surrender upon any terms, 
 the brush was set on fire, and but few of them escaped death. The pris- 
 oners taken on that day, including a large number of women and children, 
 were humanely treated by General Jackson. I have made the above 
 statement in justice to General Jackson, and the brave men who fought 
 the battle of the Horse Shoe."* 
 
 The testimony of numerous eye witnesses might be added to this state- 
 ment, but no multiplication of certificates could render it more respecta- 
 ble, or more completely effect the explosion of this " cold-blooded " slan- 
 der. The reader must be struck with the emphatic, yet forbearing tone 
 in which it is expressed, proving that although the writer was sensible of 
 the injustice of Mr. Johnson's reflection on himself, he was not at all mov- 
 ed by it. 
 
 But perhaps it is intended to impress the public mind with the belief, 
 that dislodging those desperate Indians who rejected quarter and prolong- 
 ed the battle after resistance was vain, was of itself a " cold blooded mas- 
 sacre." Are then, the enemies of the United States, when waging a sav- 
 age unsparing war, to requite with w^ounds and death our offlers of human- 
 ity and protection, and yet be saved from death or retaliation ? Are our 
 commanders to begin an action — overpower by great effort, the main force 
 of the enemy, and then abandon the field and the victory to a few despe- 
 radoes ? General Jackson's duty to his country and his government, 
 compelled him, if in his power, to defeat the enemy ; and that operation ne- 
 cessarily involves the destruction of every adversary who refuses to yield. 
 Had the desperate party at the Horse Shoe, been a detachment of Bona- 
 parte's Imperial Guard, the veterans of fifty pitched battles, and command- 
 ed by Ney or Soult, the^ must have suffered the fate of the Indians — as a 
 garrison which refuses a summons, may by the laws of war, be blown into 
 the air. But who were these determined and deluded savages? The 
 
 * Ramsay's History, continued, published is 1818, gives an account similiar to this of Hen. 
 ©airoll's, V. 3. p. 162. 
 
44 
 
 same who, when the sudden hostility of their nation rose like an inunda- 
 tion on the settlenjents of Alabama, herding- hundreds of women and child- 
 ren into Fort Mimms, broke into that asylum with treachery, fire and 
 murder. Who followed to that feast of butchery, where quarter was neith- 
 er offered nor allowed, the volcanic voice of Weatherford ; and as it rose 
 above the shouts of fury and the shrieks of despair, breathinor inextin- 
 guishable rage and demanding relentless slaughter, obeyed its ferocious 
 summons until but 17 out of 300 of our unarmed citizens were teft alive. 
 They were the same men who, under cover of a truce granted for their 
 benefit by General Jackson, had entrapped and slaughtered the son of 
 Chinnibee — the Massanissa of the Creeks — the friend and the ally of the 
 American people. * These are the beings, whose self-provoked destruc- 
 tion, in a fair and hard-fought action.f the people of Virginia are advised 
 to consider, in order to vilify a faithful officer, a " cold-blooded massacre !" 
 The charges " of the decoyed and slaughtered Indians at St. Marks," 
 is next in order and equal in truth. Its subject is indissolubly connected 
 with the crimes and fate of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and blends itself in- 
 timately with the operations of Jackson in Florida. But the scene of these 
 transactions was so remote and obscure — covered by untravelled wilder- 
 nesses, unmeasured swamps, and undefined jurisdictions — the characters 
 upon which they operated so notorious and yet so unknown, their allegiance 
 so diversified, and their motives so various, that the attention even of a 
 fair inquirer is often bedimmed and confounded in their study, as the 
 strongest eye is mocked in pursuing the ever-changing reflection from 
 agitated water. In their present state of indigestion, they form a mass of 
 rubbish, behind which every scribbler who chooses to revile Jackson and 
 hopes to delude the public, entrenches himself. I confess it was with as- 
 tonishment, something like that which the reader of Tom Jones experiences 
 on finding the philospher Square meditating on the fitness of things behind 
 Molly Seagrim's blanket, I discovered C. Johnson ensconced within it 
 And it is less to expose him, than to prevent the leader of any future con- 
 venticlers, who may put their heads and their haunches together for the pur- 
 pose of hatching public misrepresentations, that I invoke the patience of the 
 reader's attention to the following details. 
 
 * Chinnibee was the Chief of the Natchez tribe. A few days before the battle of the Horse 
 Shoe, a party of the hostile Creeks commu nicated to him their wish to submit to General Jack- 
 son, and join the friondly Creeks. For this purpose Chinnibee interceded, and pledged him- 
 self as a hostage for their fidelity. They accordingly came into his fort, where they were re- 
 ceived as friends. In the course of a few days, they mentioned that they had corn and some 
 other provisions secreted in the neighboring hills, and asked for permission and assistance to 
 convey it to the fort. L'hinnibee furnished them his horses, and sent with them his youngest 
 son. After getting about fifteen miles from the fort they turned upon young Chinnibee, and 
 murdered him with the indecency and cruelty peculiar to savages— carried off the horses- 
 joined the hostile Creeks, and were engaged in the battle. To the honor of the noble father 
 of this Tinfortunate son, it must be added, that after the action had commenced, (apt. Gordon, 
 who commanded the spies discovered, just as the order for storming the Indian breast work 
 was about to be given, that the women and childen who were within the works, might be 
 aaved by the intervention of Chinnibee, and would otherwise be destroyed in a successful as- 
 sault. He communicated this to General Jackson, who suspended the order, although his men 
 were suffering from the fiie of the Indians, both those prepared to make the assault, and 
 those who were swimming the river to support it, and desired old Chinnibee to endeavor to 
 get the women and children to a place of safety. Although his son had been murdered so 
 cruelly, with a humnnity truly christian, this old man mounted the breast woik at the haznrd 
 of his life, and calling to the women, told them he was ready to save them and their children. 
 They hastened towards him, he sprang into the fort, and the poor creatures clinging to his 
 hunting shirt and clustering around him like a swarm of bees, were brought out of the fort 
 and saved from destruction. The General then gave the order to storm, the works were car- 
 riei', the enemy destroyed, and the victory gained. Does this look like a cold-blooded massa- 
 cre ? And yet fifty witnesses will confirm it if Mr. Johnson is incredulous 
 
 t The loss of the Americans in this action, was 55 killed and 146 wounded. Ainong the 
 former were Major Montgomery, of the regular army, an officer of great promise, and 
 Lieutenants Mouiton and Womerville. Among the latter, the present Generals Carroll and 
 Houston, the late and the present Governor^of Tennessee. 
 
45 
 
 The dramatis personce engaged in the catastrophe which Jackson is ac- 
 cused of producing were — Lieut. Colonel Nichols, of the British artillery 
 — Woodbine an English adventurer of fine address and desperate morals, 
 trainer of hostile Indians, with the title if not the rank of Captain * and in 
 that respect, adjunct and successor of Nichols — Arbuthnot, a Scotchman, 
 who had left his wife in Europe, married a colored one in the ^^ est Indies, 
 and with a son by the former one taken a trading position, in Florida, got 
 himself elected Chief of the Indians at war with the United States, and 
 as such as had sanctioned the butchery of Lieut.Scott and h's party — Am- 
 brister, a half officer and half buccaneer, who, with the commission of 
 " auxiliary lieutenant of colonial marines," given by Admiral Cochrane dur- 
 ing the war with his country, was taken three years after the peace, leading 
 the Indians and fugitive negroes in battle against the troops of the United 
 States. Hambly and Doyle, subjects of Spain, agents of a commercial 
 firm in Pensacola, driving the Indian trade in an establishment on 
 the Apilachicola, and favorers of peace — Cook, clerk to Arbuthnot, 
 also in fa^or of peace — Francis or Millis Hadgo, Chief of the prophets 
 of the Creek Nation, appointed by Tecurnseh in his insurrectional visit 
 to the Southern tribes in the fall of 1812, an inveterate enemy of the 
 United States, had refused to unite with his countrymen in the capitulation 
 of Fort Jackson, abandoned his country and at the head of the outlav/ed 
 Redsticks, had taken refuge and protection with the Seminoles in Florida, 
 instigated them to rapine and murder, and witnessed and encouraged the 
 massacre of Lieutenant Scott and his party — Hemithlimaco, a Redstick 
 Chief the principle warrior of the prophet, and principle perpetrator of 
 that massacre.f 
 
 The motives and liabilities of these men were as various as their names 
 and nations. The motive of Nichols was success in his profession and ser- 
 vice to his country, stained with the desiirn of debasino- the chivalry of 
 w^ar, by the employment of savage associates. To this Woodbine added, 
 and in a predominating degree, the infamous desire of plundei and profit. 
 Lucre was the sole object of Arbuthnot, and his means for procuring it, 
 were sagacious and unscrupulous — proposing to acquire an influeiice 
 over all the surrounding Indian tribes, by means of it to disturb their ex- 
 isting relations with their civilized neighbors, both as to territory and trade, 
 and to engross the entire profits of the latter. A mixed and unprincipled 
 thirst for gain and for fame, seems to have actuated Ambrister. Interest, 
 which incited Arbuthnot and Ambrister to produce confusion: made Ham- 
 bly and Doyle anxious to preserve peace. Cook was engaged to be mar- 
 ried to a girl in New Providence, felt therefore an inordinate attachment 
 to life, and little disposition to run the hazards of his employer, Arbuthnot. 
 The " self exiled" Prophet, loving his country less than he hated her ene- 
 mies, was filled with revenge for the disasters of the Creek war, for the 
 loss of influences which they had occasioned him, for the severities which 
 his refusal to submit to the capitulation^ of Fort Jackson had occasioned 
 
 * Latour, page 37. 
 
 t The Redsticks were a powerful tribe of the Creek Indians, whose national standard watj 
 a red pole decorated with human scalps. 
 
 " Besmeared with blood, 
 
 " Of human sacrifice, and parent's tears.'^ 
 Their possessions once reached from the Alabama to the Mississippi, and one of their princi- 
 ple villages was on the latter river, where Baton Rouge (Red Staff) now stands 'J he '* out- 
 lawed Redsticks" were that portion of this tribe who, refusing to abide by the capitulation of 
 Fort Jackson, were outlawed by the Creeks. 
 
 JThe agreement commonly called the treaty of Fort Jackson, was in reality, a military ca- 
 pitulation, so designated and prescrib«»d by the government. In a letter from. the \^'ar depart- 
 ment, of the 20th March, 1814, first addressed to Gen. Pinckney and then communicated to 
 €fen. Jackson, it is said— "since the date of my last letter, it has occurred torae thai the pro- 
 
46 
 
 him and for the '• examplary punishment" denounced against him by the 
 order of the Secretary of War, {16th Jan. 1818) which was committed for 
 execution to Gen. Jackson. He was further stimulated by the pride of 
 character which a late visit to England, and a flattering reception from the 
 Prince Regent had inspired, and by the hope of reviving the hostile spirit 
 of the Creeks and regaining his former influence and possessions. With 
 a hatred to the United States equally passionate and fierce, Himithlimaco 
 was infuriated by a natural thirst of carnage, superstitions, reverence for 
 the prophetical dignity of Francis, and habitual eagerness to execute his 
 most brutal purposes. 
 
 The agency of these individuals, impelling, moderating or counteract- 
 ing each other, and deriving more or less encouragement and aid from the 
 Spanish authorities, had kept up a state of hesitating war, but unremitting 
 robbery and bloodshed on our southern frontier, ever since the termination 
 of the Creek war, in August 1814. In its least offensive but most dan- 
 gerous form, it was repelled by General Jackson, when he dislodged the 
 British armament from Pensacola, in November of that year. It is the bu- 
 siness of History to record how, with more than mother's care, a patriot's 
 fire, and a statesman's foresight, on the first intelligence of its appear- 
 ance there, he flew unordered to the protection of Mobile, and fortified 
 and garrisoned Fort Bowyer. How, while he awakened by despatches, 
 the vigilance of the cabinet, just composed after the capture of Washing- 
 ton — he roused the patriotism of the people, and calling on Coffee and his 
 volunteers with a voice in which they heard the triumph of Fame, he for- 
 ced the British to abandon Pensacola, and the Spaniards to maintain their 
 neutrality. How, after securing the left flank of his extensive line of de- 
 fence, penetrable by rivers, and accessable by bays, he passed with in- 
 credible expedition, to the banks of the Mississippi, with little other aid 
 from the government than stale intelligence and diplomatic diredions* with 
 arms, flints and money, collected by himself, with raw, unfurnished and in- 
 ferior forces, he vanquished both in attack and defence, the most formida- 
 ble veterans of Europe, and surpassed in skill and courtesy, her renowned 
 and accomplished Generals. Since the peace with England these lawless 
 disturbances had been continued by forays of rapine and murder, princi- 
 pally on the southern borders of Georgia, which, after some movements of 
 troops, many talks with the Indians, and much diplomacy with tSpain, were 
 
 posed treaty with the Creeks should take a form altogether military, and should be in the na« 
 ture of a capitulation.'''' Under this and similar orders, the capitulation was concluded. And 
 yet Mr. Clay, in his spe ech (Jan. 18th, 1819,) on the Seminole war, attachei blame to Gen. Jack- 
 son for " the dictorial terms" of this treaty^ as he calls it. So that then as now, if General 
 Jackson executed the orders of the government lie was censured, and if he only appeared to 
 transcend them, abused. 
 
 *The first intelligence which General Jackson received from tlie government of the pro- 
 jected attack on New Orleans, was in a letter from Mr. Monroe, (then Secretary of war) of 
 the 7th Sept, 1814. But as early aa the 10th Aug. he had despatched by express the same in- 
 telligence in a coroborated form to the Department, the receipt of which, and of four other 
 despatches of that month, are acknowledged by Mr. Munroe on the 27th Sept. In the letter 
 of the 7th, General Jackson is emphatically told, '' you should repair to New-Orleans as soon 
 as your arrangements can be completed in the other parts of the di^^trict, unless your presence 
 should be required at other jmints.'''' In a letter of the lO'h December, he is told in a spirit 
 quite prophetical, considering he had no efficient supplies from the Department, that by ta- 
 king a suitable position in the vicinity of JVew Orlearis, he will be enabled " to overwhelm the 
 enemy whenever he jyrfsents himself,^' and this without the Secretary's having any definite 
 knowledge of Jackson's strength or giving any information of the enemy's. Rut suppose the 
 enemy had got possession of Mobile, which the same letter describes as of little importance, 
 " comparatively a trifiing object with the British government." and which nothing but Jack- 
 son's bold expulsion of them from Pensacola, and persevering maintenance, in spite of the 
 order for the officers of the 2d regiment to go out the recruiting service, [of a garrison at 
 Fort Bowyer,] prevented — their 14,000 men might have been passed up the 'I ombeckbee, re- 
 kindling the Indian war all the way, and in four days march from the highest navigation of 
 that liver, have readied the Mississippi at the Chickasaw Bluffs, cutting off New Orleans 
 from supplies and support, ensuring both to themaelvea, and then New Orleans must have 
 15Ulen without a blow. 
 
47 
 
 persevered in until the Fall of 1817 — murder and military execution wem 
 committed on our unsuspecting soldiers and helpless women and children. 
 Public opinion now appealed to the government, and the government to 
 General Jackson. He took the field, and with that unerring aim of judg- 
 ment and courage, which, like the noble instinct of the mastiff, springs 
 right at the heart, he penetrated and destroyed the sources of this cruel 
 and infamous war, with the utmost possible expedition and the least practi- 
 cable bloodshed. Without provisions, and with a force of only 10()0 raw 
 militia and Indians, to whom too, he was a stranger, he entered Florida, 
 built Fort Gadsden, routed the Indians at Micasuky, found in their village 
 near 300 old scalps, and on the prophet's red pole, 50 fresh ones, most of 
 them recognized by the hair to have belonged to the unfortunate party 
 of Lieut. Scott. Here ascertaining from the prisoners that a part of the 
 enemy had fled to St. Marks, and also ascertaining the criminal complicity 
 of the commandant, he formed a determination to prevent any further abuse 
 of Spanish neutrality and American rights, and took possession of that for- 
 tress — where he found " the advocate for peace," Arbuthnot, who with 
 the innocent and vacant look, peculiar to his countrymen, when they medi- 
 tate shrewd and dangerous designs,* sat an unconcerned guest at the table 
 of the commandant. From St. Marks, discovering that the remnant of the 
 routed Indians and negroes had retreated down the west coast of East Flor- 
 ida, in the direction of Woodbine's grand depot of Virginia and Georgia 
 runaway slaves, he pursued and overtook them near the Econfinnah swamp, 
 where some were killed, many taken, and the only woman who escaped 
 death from the murderers of Lieut. Scott, recaptured. The enemy re- 
 treating to the Snawney were not allowed time to renew their strength or 
 courage, but were again attacked and routed with such loss and dispersion, 
 that the victors hoped tl^ey had finished the war. 
 
 On this occasion Ambrister was made prisoner. The army returned to 
 St. Marks, where the General having received information from the Gov- 
 ernor of Alabama, that a large body of hostile Indians who had been 
 committing fresh murders on the Alabama, were assembling near Pen- 
 aacola, and were there freely admitted and constantly furnished with 
 means of subsistence and war, he determined to cut oflTthis last head of 
 the HydrsB — to supply any defect of will or power that might exist on the 
 part of the Governor to observe his neutrality, and to occupy that place 
 for a time also. Marching by the Ocheesee Bluffs, he was confirmed in his 
 intention by finding the navigation of the Escambia occluded to his sup- 
 plies. He therefore proceeded, and entering Pensacola on the 24th of 
 May, he took Fort Barrancas on the 27th — having in his short campaign 
 of three months, and with and undisciplined force, varying from one to 
 two thousand, overrun a country larger than Italy — forced a Parthian ene- 
 my three times to action, and though once inferior in numbers, thrice de- 
 feated him ; without any materials for a military bridge, having passed 
 rivers as large and as deep as the Po or the Adige — without other subsis- 
 tence frequently than acorns, raw hides and water, having marched more 
 than 800 miles ; with scarce any artillery, having taken by force or in- 
 timidation three fortresses, and with little more than the energies of his 
 own great mind terminated forever this savage, servile and piratical 
 war. It was a subject of glory to Pompey the Great, that after 
 having worsted Sertorions, he should agree to conduct the war a- 
 gainst the Pirates. When General Jackson undertook the Seminole 
 War, he had defeated the best troops, and among the finest Generals 
 of Europe, and terminated the most glorious campaign of the age. Yet 
 he is found as ardent and persevering against these hordes of savages 
 
 ^aniu* to Lord Mansfield. Seott, passim. 
 
48 
 
 and slaves, as sincerely devoted to the country as any young aspirant 
 for fame, little dreaming that in the bosom of that country, ingrati- 
 tude was to hatch a brood of Vampires ! During these operations, it hap- 
 pened that the Prophet Francis and his instrument Kenhagee, king of the 
 Mississukian. in whose town the 350 scalps were found, had after the mur- 
 der of Lieut, Scott and his party seized Hambly and Doyle, at the instiga- 
 tion of Arbuthnot, under whose authority as chief, and that of Francis 
 they were tried in council and setitenced to be tortured to death, for their 
 friendship to the United States. From this wretched fate they were res- 
 cued by the spirited interference of a negro, jYero, the commander of 60 
 other negroes in the service of the hostile Chief Bowlegs, and were by 
 his agency conveyed, as prisoners of Arbuthnot, and his Indians to St. 
 Marks, for safe keeping. Here they were received by the commandant 
 as prisoners, and here they saw numerous evidences of the participation 
 of the Spanish authorities in the Seminole war, but escaping in a canoe, 
 they were taken up by Lieut, M'Keever, of the United States' Navy, in the 
 adjacent Bay. With a sort of dramatic coincidence, it came lo pass that 
 the thirst for blood having risen in ihe breast of the prophet and his war- 
 rior Himithlimaco, they soon repented the rescue of Hambly and Doyle, 
 and came to St. Marks in quest of them, just after they had made their 
 escape. With the ferocious perseverance of wolves they pursued their 
 flight along the coast, hoping that weather or weariness would force them 
 ashore, and soon descried a vessel at anchor, with British colours flying at 
 the mast head. — After some reconnoitering they went aboard, were con- 
 ducted into the cabin where they found ilambly and Doyle, who immedi- 
 ately indentifyiHg them as the murderers of Lieut. Scott and his party, 
 and their own captors and tormentors, they were put in irons by Lieut. 
 M'Keever. These circumstances being all made known to Gen. Jackson, 
 by a mass of proof and undisputed notoriety, in conformity with the order 
 of the Secretary of War "to inflict exemplary punishment on the authors 
 of the atrocities" — committed on Lieut. Scott's party, and Mrs. Garrett's 
 family, he had them hung, in accordance with the principles of the law of 
 Nations, and in obedience to the dictates of humanity, which their atroci- 
 ties had outraged, anfl to which the terror and example of their fate was 
 a just sacrifice, and proved a salutary propitiation. 
 
 The reader will see that tiie only decoying was practiced by Lt. M'Kee- 
 ver, and before he can agree to censure that, it must be shewn that our 
 naval officers had no right to use such stratagems as the officers of other 
 nations practice, although the colours of all nations are furnished them for 
 this express purpose ; and it must be farther shown that it was the duty 
 of Gen. Jackson to see that Lt. M'Keever should dress and manage his 
 ship exactly to the taste of Mr. Johnson. These Indians were taken by 
 stratagem and surprise as Andre was, and like that unfortunate officer, 
 whenever violated a feeling of humanity, they were "slaughtered" — that 
 is, they were hung. In this punishment, as justice, humanity, and the 
 law of nations were satisfied, it is to be observed that they being out of 
 the United States, our own laws were not concerned. Had they been 
 brought within our limits all their crimes must have gone unpunished — 
 for they had not violated our municipal, or maritime, or martial laws. — 
 But the law of nations vests the right of retaliation in the commanding 
 general, and the imbecility or dishonour of the Spanish authorities having 
 justified the assertion of our beligerent rights, it was the duty of Gen. 
 Jackson to fulfil the instructions of his government and bring these mur- 
 derers to punishment.* 
 
 ♦Although the feeling and common sense of every man must convince him that the death 
 of the prophet and Himithlimaco was due to humanity and justice, yet it may be proper to 
 
49 
 
 Let us now come to the case of Arbuthnot From the recaptured 
 American woman, who was the sole remaining survivor of Lieutenant 
 Scott's party — from Cook his Clerk — from Phenix his acquaintance — from 
 letters andf apers found in a vessel of his, captured m the moutn of the 
 Snawney, and others obtained from the Indians by our agent, it was prov- 
 ed incontestibly that " this advocate for peace," by misrepresenting the 
 terms of the Treaty of Ghent — the conduct of the American, and tne in- 
 tentions of the British government, had incited, in time of peace, the 
 Seminole Indians to hostilities against the United States. That to aid 
 those hostilities, he had applied in behalf of the Indians, to various func- 
 tionaries of Britain for supplies, and to disguise them for protection. — 
 That he had furnished them with intelligence and ammunition for military 
 purposes, and had given them advice and orders in the managepient of the 
 war. That he had directed the seizure and presided at the condemnation 
 of Hambly and Doyle in conseq ence of their being "the advocates for 
 peace" with the United States. That he had instigated and countenanced 
 the massacre of i^t. Scott and his party, consisting of about 40 American 
 citizens. That as an Indian Chief, he had permitted our gallant officers 
 to be assassinated, our brave soldiers to be butchered, and their helpless 
 wives to be murdered, or with more horrible cruelty spared to see their 
 infants " taken by the heels and their brains dashed out against the sides 
 of the boat."* And that when one of the two women who had been 
 spared (the wife of an American serjeant)was from pregnancy no longer 
 able to keep up with the march of her captors, this "advocate for peace" 
 ordered her to be put to death, and that accordingly she was bayoneted 
 through the womb ! From the same and other sources of proof it was 
 demonstrated that x\mbrister had not only instigated the Indians to war, 
 against the United States, but had actually joined them with a party of 
 runaway negroes and led them in battle — having used his commission as a 
 British officer (a nation with which we were at peace) to promote his per- 
 nicious influence among them, and having endeavoured by force to convert 
 a Spanish fortress into a place of savage hostility against the United 
 States. 
 
 These are the men whose crimes had destroyed so many innocent lives, 
 for the sake of Otter skins and runaway slaves, and whose punishment 
 is lamented with such dignified sorrow by Mr. Johnson, for the sake of 
 Messrs. Adams and Clay. The evidence against them satisfied a court of 
 gallant and intelligent officers of their guilt — satisfied the representatives 
 and the government of the nation — and convinced the Courts of Spain 
 and of England of the justice of their punishment. And yet because it is 
 too voluminous and intricate to be readily examined,! Mr. Johnson found 
 
 fortify that well founded decision by respectable authority. Vattel says (520, 34) "When we 
 are at war with a natioa which observes no rules and grants no quarter, they may be chastised 
 in the persons of those of them who may be taken. They are of the number of the guilty, 
 and by this rigjr the attempt may be made of bringing them to a sense of the laws of human- 
 ity." The prophet and Himithlimaco were not only "among the guilty," but the leaders of 
 the guilty. 
 
 * Vide in the documents hereafter specified, Cook's letter, and the account obtained from 
 the recaptured woman. ^: 
 
 t For the evidence in these cases, see documents (35)^ccompanying the President's mes- 
 sage of the 2d December, 1818, and those (65) accompanying that of the OSth Dec. following, 
 panicuiarly tlje letter from Gen. Gaines of the 2d December, 1817, with its enclosures that 
 from Gen. Jackson, of the 8th April, 18 18, and the report of Col. Butler of the 3d May, in the 
 first set. In the second, Vos. 45, 46 and 6i, with the deposition of Lieut. M'Keever and the 
 testimony of Phenix and Cook before the Court are chiefly apposite. In addition to the au- 
 thority already produced for their execution, and in illustration of the principle that must 
 have satisfied the foreign governments on the subject ; the following reference is made to 
 Vattel, (52 o. 29.) " VVe may refuse to spare the life of an enemy who has surrendered, 
 when the enemy has been guilty (a fortiori when he himself has) of some enormous breach 
 
 7 ■ . ^ 
 
50 
 
 upon it imputations which with the rancourous, have the retributive pro- 
 perty of injustice, and though aimed at the reputation of another, will 
 only affect his own. There is one thing that ought to be mentioned as 
 remarkable both in his ire and his grief — namely, his solemn affirmation 
 that Arbuthnot who was hung, was "more injured" than Ambrister, who 
 was only shot — bemg convinced, as if from experience, that death by 
 hanging, is worse than death by shooting. 
 
 When a writer has clearly established his title to disbelief, it cannot be 
 necessary to oppose a formal refutation to each of his misstatements, es- 
 pecially if, as in the case of Mr. Johnson, his errors have been exposed 
 before. It appears that in the list of unfounded charges contained in the 
 address, are two which had escaped my notice. They relate to the six 
 militia men, and to the alledged usurpation of power to appoint militia- 
 officers. The first of these charges is now before the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and as its determination by that body will not only have the 
 authority of truth but of the nation, I shall not enter on the easy task of 
 refuting it. The second was long ago demolished by the memorial of 
 Gen. Jackson which was presented to the Senate on the 6th of March, 
 1820, and which convinced Mr. Jefferson of his "salutary energy" in the 
 prosecution of the Seminole War. It will be enough to refer the reader 
 to that document, and particularly to the deposition of Col. Hayne and to 
 the letter of Cols. Dyer and Williamson, in its appendix for proof that the 
 charge is absolutely and totally false. Would it were in my power to 
 convince him that Mr. Johnson does not know it to be so. 
 
 Having thus completed the exposure of this laboured attempt to degrade 
 a great citizen and delude a great state, it remains to look at the charac- 
 ter and condition of the body of which it purports to be the offspring. 
 In individual character it is enviable, in numbers respectable, but in popu- 
 lar influence and constitution, meagre and scant. Like a dying peach 
 tree, it has all leaves and no fruit. It appears to be more numerous than 
 the House of Delegates, the broadest representation known in the state, 
 and yet, consisting as it does of detached and discontented politicians, its 
 constituents would hardly form a brigade of militia — and they would be 
 all against any thing military. It is, in truth, a "most forcible feeble," — 
 and the address is the most enterprising experiment on record for pro- 
 pelling falsehood by the force of authority. Of this experiment, it is but 
 justice to say, Mr. Johnson appears to be the organ, the manager, the Mix. 
 But now that his torpid /orperfo has exploded, what will he do with his 
 corps of engineering judges, misguided by him into the defiles of dilem- 
 ma and discredit ? Will he disband them in the wilderness of fallacy 
 and falsehood, far from their sitting, and as it would seem their superior 
 parts, bruising their delicate shins or bumping their tender rotundities 
 against the stubborn obstructions of fact, and the bold projections of ar- 
 gument, stragglin;ar and scrambling to make their way back to privacy 
 and privilege without steam-boats and without mileage.* In opposition to 
 
 of the laws of nations, and particularly when he has violated the laws of war." Arbuthnot 
 and Ambrister had violated the laws of peace and war, of God and man — and to have treated 
 them like ordinary prisoners of w<^ would have been encouragement. "Vattel (321) says, 
 "retaliation may be exercised even on the innocent," a principle on which Gen. Washington 
 acted in the case of bir Charles Asgill, (Marshall 3d, 391.) and that "when your army is out 
 of your own territory the right of retaliation is in the Commanding General, and he has the 
 right of sacrificing the lives of the enemy to his own safety or that of his people, if he has 
 to contend with an inhuman enemy, and to treat him as his own people have been treated. — 
 See also the details in the House of Lords, 11th May, 1819. 
 
 * Some few years ago, a brace of these administration judges took a farcy to travel in 
 steam-boats. One of them embarked high up on the 1 ctomac, ard having coasted an immense 
 peninsula, landed in Richmond. The other took water on seme of the Western rivers, and 
 
51 
 
 orders from Washington, he can never dare to "divulge their draggletail- 
 ed show" in a regular retreat, as that might " offer an indignity to the 
 Secretary of War," and produce his own dismission from service. The 
 chaplain of the expedition too, the "oUy man of God," what will become 
 of his reverence ? But this is a subject too serious for ridicule, too awful 
 even for pleasantry. The God of Moses from Sinai's fiery top has said, 
 "thou shalt not bare false witness against thy neighbour," and the Re- 
 deemer of Mankind, the Lord of meekness and compassion, denounces 
 punishment on "evil speaking," and says for every malicious word a man 
 shall utter, "he shall give an account at the day of judgment !" For that 
 account let the reverend gentleman prepare. 
 
 In respect to Mr. Johnson it can hardly be said that modesty or elo- 
 quence is pre-eminent among his political virtues, or that his professional 
 ability is likely to be deci eased by infusions of talent into his general wri- 
 tings. Of him ii will never be said — 
 
 " How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost." 
 
 Acknowledging in his letter of adhesion, strong distrust and disapproba- 
 tion of Mr. Adams, he yet insists that it is "ineffably stupid" in the peo- 
 ple of Virginia, the most alert and spiritual devotees of liberty in the civ- 
 ilized world, not to postpone their decided favourite to the object of his 
 public die-esteem. Nor is he entitled to the praise of invention ; for, after 
 labouring lustily in the field of fiction, he furnishes his party with nothing 
 original. While all his charges are false, not one of them is new ; and 
 though all his inferences are fallacious, most of them are trite. An in- 
 delicate memory furnishes his premises, and an immoderate presumption 
 regulates his conclusions. Insensible to the grandeur of the character 
 he traduces, he seems forgetful of the intelligence of the people to whom 
 he appeals. But it is strange that an individual so inconsiderate of others 
 should not have more respect for himself He does not appear to consid- 
 er that by repeating, he adopts these stones — partakes of the disgraceful 
 motion of the scandal, and marked as "the tenth transmitter" of false- 
 hood, descends with th^ progress of an impenitent sinner, who sinks in 
 infamy as he advances m age. 
 
 If these remarks should appear intolerant, it must be remembered that 
 the re-action of injustice is proportioned to its violence ; and if long, that 
 for the poison of concentrated slander, the most effectual antidote is 
 expanded truth. 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 made his way to the Treasury either by Wheeling or New Orleans. In imitation of (^ 
 Adams they charged constructive viilease, when their legal milrage was en thegdiri 
 ordinary route. The charge of one was tnrice the amount of his just claim, that of th^' 
 about five times. The legislature made them disgorge, although Air. t lay had sane! 
 the doctrme, in allowances, when Speaker, to his western friends. '. he matter occasion! 
 some anger and much fun in Virginia, all at the expense of the steam-boat judges. 
 
V' 
 
Mti^ii^is^-: ,_ 
 
 V.4 
 
lie. BERKELEV LIBRARIES