Below them, the president sat at one end of the head table. Facing him at the other end was Vice President Calhoun. Between them ranged members of the cabinet, the master of ceremonies, and other notables. The rest of the diners sat at two parallel tables that met the head table, forming a large U. Over a hundred congressmen and senators were among the diners, as well as numerous high-ranking members of the army and navy and government civil servants.
George was sitting beside James Polk rather far from the head table. Caroline was pleased to see that Martin Van Buren was only a few places away from him. “They planned to seat Mr. Van Buren well below the salt anyway,” Sarah whispered. Caroline was well aware that “they”—the banquet’s managers—were all Calhoun men.
Senator Hayne’s speech was a flowery eulogy of Jefferson and his firm belief in states’ rights as the bulwark of American liberty. He closed with the first toast of the evening: “The Union of the states, and the sovereignty of the states.” When he sat down to polite applause, the rest of the twenty-four formal toasts began. The first few were inarguable tributes to Jefferson, but the next speakers called on the party to abandon once and for all the high tariff that was supposedly bankrupting the South. The Pennsylvania congressional delegation rose in a body and left the room. Grim-faced, the succeeding speakers persisted in proclaiming the transcendence of states’ rights. The closing toast saluted “the doctrine contended for by Senator Hayne against Senator Webster.” In a word, nullification.
Tension seeped into the room as the waiters began clearing away the dessert dishes and the time for voluntary toasts arrived. Everyone knew the president would offer the first toast. Throughout the formal toasts, his face had remained expressionless. He drank to them with no visible enthusiasm, but he drank. Was Calhoun right? Caroline wondered. Was Jackson going to capitulate to this drumfire of Southern solidarity?
Finally, the master of ceremonies, a portly Virginian named John Roane, rose: “The President of the United States.”
Jackson stood up. For a moment his eyes swept the room. Then they returned to the head table. Down its length he glared at John C. Calhoun. “Our federal union—if must be preserved.”
Jackson raised his glass, a signal that meant everyone was required to stand and drink with him. All eyes were on the vice president. Would he refuse to rise? No, he was on his feet. His hand trembled slightly and some of the amber wine spilled on it as he drank to those ominous words.
Everyone sank into their seats. John Roane stood and said, “The Vice President of the United States.”
Calhoun rose. He did not glance at the audience. His gaze was fixed on Jackson. “The Union. Next to our liberties, most dear.”
A low murmur circled the room. It was a superb reply to the president’s stunning challenge. But Calhoun, ever the scholar/politician, could not leave it there. “May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states and distributing equally the benefits and the burdens of the Union.”
Caroline heard John Sladen mutter, “No!” under his breath. Did she feel the same disappointment in her heart? Below them, the master of ceremonies called on the next personage in order of political importance: “The Secretary of State.”
Martin Van Buren rose. He was wearing one of his creamy tan suits and a yellow vest. “Mutual forbearance and reciprocal concession. Through their agency the Union was established. The patriotic spirit from which they emanated will forever sustain it.”
John Sladen whispered in Caroline’s ear, “That means everything—and nothing. Machiavelli couldn’t have said it better.”
Toasts to the Union, the South, to the Founding Fathers, were lofted across the spacious room, which was decorated by two busts of Jefferson and a full portrait of Washington. finally came the one for which Caroline and John Sladen and Sarah Polk had been impatiently waiting. “Congressman Stapleton of New Jersey,” said the master of ceremonies.
George rose, his glass held high. His size made an instant impression on everyone. He paused, exactly as Caroline had rehearsed him, until all conversation ceased. His strong baritone rang out, “To the Union”—he gave Secretary of State Van Buren a stony stare—“of all honest men!”
The impact of these words on the Little Magician was nothing less than astounding. A gamut of emotions played across his usually imperturbable face: anger, shame, rage. The words had a very different effect on the rest of the company. A murmur of astonishment swept the room. Everywhere men turned to whisper to their neighbors. The banqueters rose to drink and the secretary of state remained seated, only struggling to his feet at the last moment. He glared at George Stapleton and gulped his wine as if it were a noxious poison.
In their box, John Sladen whispered to Caroline, “It worked! I knew it would work!”
“What are you talking about?”
“In this very room, twenty-eight years ago, Vice President Aaron Burr gave that same toast before he returned to New York to run for governor. Remember my telling you Martin Van Buren betrayed him in that race? We’ve reminded everyone with a shred of historical memory that Van Buren began his career with an act of treachery.”
The room buzzed with excitement. Men dashed from one parallel table to another, telling friends the real significance of George’s toast. Van Buren sat silent, glowering at George, who was beginning to look bewildered by the uproar he had stirred. Someone rushed to the head table and whispered in Vice President Calhoun’s ear. A pleased smile broke across his hitherto grim face. He looked down the room in George’s direction and raised his glass for a second toast to his sentiments, now that he understood their full relevance.
Caroline did not know whether to be pleased or appalled. Was it a good thing for George to associate himself with Aaron Burr, a politician who was ending his life a forlorn disgraced failure? And to arouse the violent enmity of Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson’s favorite? It would all depend on what Old Hickory thought of it. She turned her eyes to the other end of the head table. The president’s chair was empty.
FOUR
AS THE DINNER BROKE UP, Martin Van Buren scuttled into the night without saying a word to anyone. Southerners and Northern allies of John C. Calhoun rushed to shake George’s hand. Spherical Congressman Dixon Lewis of Alabama, who reportedly weighed 420 pounds, whacked him on the back. “It was a hit, my dear young friend,” Lewis chortled. “A veritable smash. He quailed, he caved. To think that old Burr, whom my father worshiped, could be resurrected to such effect.”
George managed to smile through this and other effusions. He met Caroline and Sarah Polk and John Sladen in the lobby of the Indian Queen and expressed his surprise and pleasure at discovering John had returned to Washington as a congressman. Sarah Polk congratulated George on his toast. Her husband joined them and declared George had achieved instant fame in seven words.
“Julius Caesar did it in three,” John said. “You’ve still got a ways to go, George.”
“I’ll get to work on it,” George said, good-natured as usual.
It was a balmy night. The Polks said they would walk back to Gadsby’s Hotel. John Sladen was staying at Senator Legrand’s house, only a few blocks from the Indian Queen. George and Caroline rode home in their carriage alone.
George’s voice came out of the darkness with a rather harsh edge. “What the hell are they all talking about? That toast—it’s got something to do with Aaron Burr?”
Tell him the whole truth? No, it would be too dangerous. “Apparently the words somewhat resemble a toast Mr. Burr gave at a dinner here in Washington not long before he ran for governor of New York in 1804—a race in which Mr. Van Buren betrayed him.”
“Did you know that?”
“Of course not. It was—a fortunate coincidence, don’t you think?”.
“I’m not. so sure. I think I’ve made a rather formidable enemy.”
“You didn’t think Mr. Van Buren would be pleased by the words, even without the allusion to Burr, did you?�
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“I thought they were vague enough to mean no one in particular. Wasn’t that the idea?”
“George, it was the most talked about toast of the night, after the president’s. You’ve established yourself as a man to watch.”
“A man Van Buren is going to watch, that’s for sure.”
“Everyone is going to watch. I guarantee it.”
The next day, Caroline asked Sarah Polk to make cautious inquiries into Andrew Jackson’s reaction to George’s toast. She implored John Sladen to persuade Senator Legrand to use his friendship with Old Hickory to protect George from the president’s all too possible wrath.
Her fears proved to be groundless. A week later she received a flattering note from the president. In the absence of Emily Donelson, would she consent to be his hostess at a dinner the following Saturday at the White House? Mrs. Eaton would be among the guests.
Caroline sent her regrets, pleading her advanced pregnancy. This prompted a visit from Old Hickory the following day. He said he wanted to make sure she was well. He was reassured by her healthy complexion. “I can see you’re going to present us with another Democratic voter,” he said.
“What if it’s a girl, General? Will you campaign for reelection on a platform of votes for women?” Caroline asked.
“If she’s as beautiful as her mother, I might be foolish enough to try it. Seriously, are you and George among those who think these old bones should endure another term?”
“The country would be the better for it, I’m sure, General.”
“Van Buren has been urging it on me,” Jackson said in a musing way. “Which reminds me. I liked your husband’s toast the other night. Did he like mine?”
“He adored it, General. The Union is his guiding star.”
“So he told me. It’s Van Buren’s too. Assure him of that.”
“I will, I promise you. But George regrets—he truly regrets—the differences between you and Mr. Calhoun.”
“So do I. It’s up to him to mend them. Otherwise, he’ll end up like Mr. Burr. That was a very salient warning your husband sent him the other night.”
Caroline smiled and nodded in agreement, managing to conceal her amazement. The president thought George had been reproaching Calhoun! It was a stunning example of how isolated a man can become in the White House. He hears only what his inner circle chooses to tell him. In Jackson’s case, it was also an example of how totally Martin Van Buren had mesmerized him. Seated so far apart, Old Hickory had missed the Little Magician’s visible chagrin.
Caroline rushed word of Old Hickory’s visit to Sarah Polk, who came for tea and eagerly devoured the news. She was especially struck to hear that Van Buren was urging a second term on Jackson. “That will devastate Mr. Calhoun. No man can endure three terms as Vice President. They’ll be making jokes about him. Always a bridesmaid, that sort of thing. The office is a nullity in the first place.”
Martin Van Buren soon demonstrated he was capable of more than an intriguer’s game in Washington, D.C. In successive weeks, the legislatures of New York, which he controlled, and Pennsylvania, which hated Mr. Calhoun for his opposition to the tariff, nominated Andrew Jackson for a second term. In a less conspicuous way, Van Buren went to work on George Stapleton. Editors of two more New Jersey papers began making hostile comments about the “aristocratic” congressman. One published outrageous lies about George and Caroline living in a palace in Washington. The second said he had a mistress in Charleston and had recently commandeered a navy ship to take him there for a visit.
These attacks might have become a serious matter. But George now had an ally in New Jersey who was ready to play politics as ruthlessly as Van Buren. Jeremy Biddle had become president of the newly opened Camden & Amboy Railroad. The Stapletons owned it almost entirely, having bought out the restless Colonel John Stevens, who was always looking for new fields of invention to conquer. The line was fabulously profitable from its first day of operation. Jeremy, who privately called the Democratic Party the Demagogue Party, put his loyalty to George above his political opinions.
In the matter of the two papers, Jeremy simply paid each a visit and asked the editor what he wanted to do: publish a correction of his slanders or face an opposition paper, which Jeremy, as George’s spokesman, was prepared to launch the following week. The correction was in print the following day. The original Van Buren satellite paper, the Newark Plebian, was transformed by Jeremy’s buying the enterprise from the stockholders at a price they could not refuse, firing the editor, and making it the official Stapleton organ for the state. The paper was soon telling its readers that Congressman Stapleton was the genius behind the Camden & Amboy. That proved he was a man of the people, eager to create hundreds of jobs for the citizens of New Jersey.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Caroline gave birth to another boy. He was a beautiful child, with a swatch of dark hair, dark eyes, and remarkably well-formed features. Unlike his brother, Jonathan, he was a placid baby, seldom crying, breaking into gurgles and smiles at the slightest provocation. George called him the love child, remembering their idyll at Kemble Manor.
Nevertheless, there was a wrangle over his name. George pushed for Malcolm after his uncle, but Caroline adamantly resisted until they reached a compromise. His middle name would be Charles, after her oldest brother, and Caroline reserved the right to use that name. She had no special affection for her brother. She would have called the child Lucifer before she used Malcolm. She had never forgiven him for his bitter lecture when George became a Democrat. George, satisfied that he had made a gesture of reconciliation to his uncle, agreed to the arrangement.
Beyond the nursery, the political giants continued their war. Martin Van Buren grew more and more confident of his influence over Andrew Jackson. He persuaded the president to veto a bill that provided federal funds for a road between Maysville and Lexington, Kentucky. Jackson added a message saying the administration opposed all such outlays unless they furthered interstate commerce. This doomed a dozen other roads and canals various states were attempting to build. Many noted it also enhanced the value of New York’s Erie Canal, which was pouring undreamt-of riches into that state from the Midwest.
In the House, George Stapleton rose to criticize the Maysville Road veto. In phrases that came easily to his New Jerseyan lips, he said that behind it lurked New York’s greed for money and power. He treated the House to a disquisition on how the city of New York had prevented the development of the New Jersey side of the Hudson by arguing for the last thirty years in a tangle of lawsuits that they owned the land along the river up to the low-water mark. They were aiming at a similar monopoly for the Erie Canal.
The speech played well in New Jersey and almost as well in the West and South. Caroline had helped George write it, with some clandestine assistance from John Sladen. A few days later, George received a summons from the White House. Old Hickory paced his office, puffing on one of his pipes.
“Why don’t you like Mr. Van Buren?”
“I think he has the makings of a tyrant, General.”
“Oh?” Jackson was amused. “That’s what they’re saying about me.”
“He wants everyone to fall in line to make sure he’s your successor.”
“You think so?”
“It’s my impression.”
“Mr. Calhoun doesn’t expect everyone to fall in line—including me?”
“Mr. Calhoun has his flaws, General. I freely admit them. But he’s a man of honor. He doesn’t stoop to intrigue.”
“You’re wrong. I thought so too, for the better part of the last twelve years. His conduct with Peggy Eaton changed my mind. Now I find him admitting—admitting—that he lied to me about his support of my conquest of Florida!”
From his desk Jackson snatched a letter that was almost as long as a book. In no less than thirty-two pages, John C. Calhoun angrily defended himself against “secret enemies” in the White House who were slandering him. The president had sent Calhoun the lett
er that his old enemy William Crawford had written, accusing him of the Florida perfidy. Calhoun had responded with this thinly veiled attack on Van Buren, and a haughty refusal to discuss the Florida accusation. That only convinced Jackson of his guilt.
George asked if he could take the letter home and read it. The president gave him his permission. George convened a meeting with Caroline, the Polks, and John Sladen to consider it. They were fascinated—and horrified. Sladen pronounced it a political disaster for Calhoun.
“Someone’s got to persuade Calhoun to take a milder tone toward the president,” James Polk said.
“Are you volunteering?” Caroline asked.
“I’m from Tennessee, remember? That makes me part of the conspiracy.”
“It will have to be George,” Sarah Polk said.
“I agree,” Caroline said.
“I’m no diplomat,” George protested.
“You’ll become one before this is over,” John Sladen said.
So George became a combination letter carrier and special pleader between these two intensely suspicious, angry men. Back and forth letters went, with George and John Sladen slowly persuading Calhoun to take a more temperate tone. Always George was conscious that they were boxing in the dark against Martin Van Buren. The Little Magician lurked behind the White House doors, skewing Old Hickory’s reaction to Calhoun’s wary approach to a reconciliation.
After two months of this clandestine diplomacy, John Sladen made a daring proposal to Calhoun. Why not publish the entire correspondence? Sladen pointed to numerous references to the vice president’s secret enemy inside the White House: “Everyone knows who you’re talking about. It would strike Van Buren like a forty-pound shot.”
The idea appealed to Calhoun. It combined a smashing blow at Van Buren with an implied criticism of Jackson, as his dupe. This aspect made George less than enthusiastic. “You couldn’t publish it without the president’s permission,” he said. “His letters are clearly confidential.”
The Wages of Fame Page 23
