for political discussion. The presence of these eminent men lent a charm even to the muddy streets and scattered houses of the Washington of that day. The two branches of government then met in small, ill-arranged halls, the House of Representatives having huge pillars to intercept sight and sound, with no gallery for visitors, but only a platform but little higher than the floor. In this body the great Federal party had left scarcely a remnant of itself, Elisha Potter, of Rhode Island, describing vividly to Quincy a caucus held when the faithful few had been reduced to eleven, and could only cheer themselves with the thought that the Christian apostles, after the desertion of Judas, could number no more. The Houses of Congress were still rather an arena of debating than for set speeches, as now; and they had their leaders, mostly now fallen into that oblivion which waits so surely on merely political fame. Daniel Webster, to be sure, was the great ornament of the Senate; but McDuffie, of South Carolina, and Storrs, of New York, members of the House, had then a national reputation for eloquence, though they now are but the shadows of names. To these must be added Archer, of Virginia, too generally designated as "Insatiate Archer," from his fatal long-winded ness. For the first time in many years the White House was kept in decent order again; all about it had for years if we may trust Samuel Breck's testimonyworn the slipshod, careless look of a Virginia plantation. Fence-posts fell and lay broken on the ground for months, although they could have been repaired in half an hour; and the grass of the lawns, cut at long intervals, was piled in large stacks before On the drawing-room windows. Fifty thousand dollars spent on the interior in Monroe's time had produced only a slovenly splendor, while the fourteen thousand appropriated to Adams produced neatness, at least. Manners shared some of the improvement, in respect to order and decorum at least, though something of the profuse Virginia cordiality may have been absent. It was an intermediate period, when, far more than now, the European forms were being tried, and sometimes found wanting. In Philadelphia, where the social ambition was highest, William Bingham had entertainments that were held to be the most showy in America. He had, as in England, a row of liveried servants, who repeated in loud tone, from one to another, the name of every guest. A slight circumstance put an end to the practice. the evening of a ball an eminent physician, Dr. Kuhn, drove to the door with his step-daughter, and was asked his name by the lackey. "The doctor and Miss Peggy," was the reply. "The doctor and Miss Peggy" was echoed by the man at the door, and hence by successive stages to the drawing-room. The doctor and Miss Peggy (Miss Markoe, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Bache) became the joke of the town; and the practice was soon after changed, carrying with it the humbler attempts at imitation in Washington. Samuel Breck, who tells the story, rejoices that among the other failures in aping foreign manners were "the repeated attempts of our young dandies to introduce the mustache on the upper lip." "And so," he adds, "with the broadcloth gaiters and other foreign costumes. They were neither useful nor ornamental, and would not take with us. So much the better." The President himself, in the midst of all this, lived a life so simple that the word Spartan hardly describes it. He was now sixty years old. Rising at four or five, even in winter, he often built his own fire, and then worked upon his correspondence and his journal, while the main part of the day was given to public affairs, these being reluctantly interrupted to receive a stream of visitors. In the evening he worked again, sometimes going to bed at eight or nine even in summer. His recreations were fewbathing in the Potomac before sunrise, and taking a walk at the same hour, or a ride later in the day, or sometimes the theatre, such as it was. For social life he had little aptitude, though he went through the forms of it. This is well illustrated by one singular memorandum in his diary: "I went out this evening in search of conversation, an art of which I never had an adequate idea. . . . I never knew how to make, control, or change it. I am by nature a silent animal, and my dear mother's constant lesson in childhood that little children should be seen and not heard confirmed me in what I now think a bad habit." It is to be observed that the influence of political wire-pulling first began to be seriously felt at this period. We commonly attribute its origin to Jackson, but it really began, as was explained in a previous chapter, with Crawford. As the end of Monroe's administration drew near, there were, it must be remembered, five candidates in the field for the succession-Crawford, Clay, Calhoun, Adams, and Jackson. Calhoun withdrew, was nominated for Vice-president, and was triumphantly elected; but for President there was no choice. Jackson had 99 electoral votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41, Clay 37. The choice was thrown into the House of Representatives, and took place February 9, 1825. Two distinguished men were tellers, Daniel Webster and John Randolph. They reported that Adams had 13 votes, General Jackson 7, Crawford 4; and that Adams was therefore elected. The explanation was that Clay's forces had been transferred to Adams, and when, after his inauguration, Clay was made Secretary of State, the cry of "unholy coalition" was overwhelming. It was, John Randolph said, "a combination hitherto unheard of, of the Puritan and the Blackleg-of Blifil and Black George"-these being two characters in Fielding's Tom Jones. This led to a duel between Clay and Randolph, in which neither party fell. But the charge remained. Jackson and Calhoun believed it during their whole lives, though the publication of John Quincy Adams's Diary has made it clear that there was no real foundation for it. The influence, since called "the machine," in politics was systematically brought to bear against Adams during all the latter part of his administration. Having the reluctance of a high-minded statesman to win support by using patronage for it, he unluckily had not that better quality which enables a warm-hearted man to secure loyal aid without raising a finger. The power that he thus refused to employ was simply used against him by his own subordinates. We know by the unerring evidence of his own diary that he saw clearly how his own rectitude was injuring him, yet never thought of swerving from his course. One by one the men dependent on him went over, beneath his eyes, to the camp of his rival; and yet so long as each man was a good officer he was left untouched. Adams says in his Diary (under date of May 13, 1825), when describing his own entrance on office: "Of the customhouse officers throughout the Union two-thirds were probably opposed to my election. They were all now in my power, and I had been urged very earnestly from various quarters to sweep away my opponents, and provide with their places for my friends." was what he absolutely refused to do. In these days of civil-service reform we go back with pleasure to his example; but the general verdict of the period was that this course may have been very heroic, but it was not war. This It must always be remembered, moreover, in our effort to understand the excitement of politics two generations ago, that the Presidential candidates were then nominated by Congressional caucus. The effect was to concentrate in one spot the excitement and the intrigues that must now be distributed through the nation. The result was almost wholly evil. "It places the President," John Quincy Adams wrote just before his election, "in a state of subserviency to the members of the legislature, which . . . leads to a thousand corrupt cabals between the members of Congress and heads of departments. . . . The only possible chance for a head of a department to attain the Presidency is by ingratiating himself with the members of Congress." The result was that these Congressmen practically selected the President. For political purposes, Washington was the focus of all that political agitation now distributed over various cities; it was New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, all in one. It was in a centre of politics like this, not in the present more metropolitan Washington, that John |