The Wages of Fame

by Thomas Fleming

  “To Saint George,” Henry Clay said. “May he soon slay all our dragons and gorgons—with no reference to present company, of course!”

  Everyone good-naturedly drank to George. “Where is the senator, Mrs. Stapleton?” John Quincy Adams asked.

  “At the White House. He felt compelled to wish the president a fond farewell.”

  “I’d be inclined to wish him a very different good-bye,” Adams said. “As would most of the people in this room. Thank goodness we’re forbidden to be disagreeable in the presence of beauty.”

  He raised his glass, first to Caroline and then to Fanny Kemble, and offered the rest of the room a mocking bow. As usual, he was giving a superb performance.

  In the White House, Senators George Stapleton and Thomas Hart Benton were among the small group that had gathered in the upstairs study to hear President Andrew Jackson read over the final version of his Farewell Address. It was to be printed in the Washington Globe tomorrow. The two solons were among the select few who had been asked to read previous drafts of the document and suggest changes. Roger Brooke Taney, the new chief justice of the Supreme Court, had done most of the writing.

  The president thanked them again for their help with the address. “I hope I’ve satisfied you on the matter of the Union, Stapleton,” Old Hickory said.

  “You have entirely, Mr. President.”

  Jackson flipped the pages to the opening paragraphs and read the key sentence again: “At every hazard and at every sacrifice the Union must be preserved.”

  “Amen,” said Benton.

  “President-elect Van Buren doesn’t like it,” Jackson said. “But I refused to put in a single qualifier.”

  “I think I’ll clip the whole paragraph and mail it to Senator Calhoun,” Senator Benton said. “He disgraced himself and the Senate today with another attack on you.”

  “What did he call me this time?”

  “Tyrant, dictator, the usual names. Then he accused you of a breach of the privileges of the Senate because you called him a liar in your letter last week. He claimed as a legislator he had the right to judge you but you had no right to judge him.”

  “I should have hanged him when I had the chance.”

  “History may well agree with you,” Benton said.

  “If I’d challenged Clay when he called me a would-be Caesar in 1819, I would have killed him. Think how much better off we’d be without those two.”

  “It would be a peace that surpasseth understanding,” Benton agreed.

  George thought Chief Justice Taney, a devout Maryland Catholic, looked uncomfortable about these murderous Western sentiments. Georgia-born Secretary of State John Forsyth’s smile suggested he took a more benign view. When it came to hanging and dueling, the South and the West were in agreement most of the time.

  The president’s tall, diffident adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr., who was serving as his secretary, gathered up the sheets of the Farewell Address to deliver to the Washington Globe. As he departed, a thunderous roar erupted in the hall. “I’m here to see the president!”

  Everyone knew instantly that it was the spherical Democratic senator from Ohio, William “Earthquake” Allen. He had the loudest voice in Washington. Into the study he lumbered. “Mr. President,” he shouted. “I couldn’t let you go without paying you m ’personal respects.”

  Earthquake was drunk but Jackson greeted him with his usual courtesy. They shook hands and Old Hickory said, “I think this occasion permits me to break my doctor’s rules. Let’s open a bottle of Madeira.”

  The old warrior had been seriously ill for the last six weeks. Twice he had hemorrhaged blood from his lungs. Rumors of his death had swept the city a half dozen times. That had not prevented him from dashing off scorching letters to Calhoun, Adams, and other enemies in Congress who were using the last days of his presidency to denounce him.

  One of the White House’s black servants swiftly produced the Madeira. Everyone soon had a glass in his hand. “To the greatest president!” bellowed Earthquake Allen.

  Everyone drank without a contrary word or, as far as George could see, a negative thought. Excepting George Washington, Senator Stapleton was inclined to agree with Earthquake. Old Hickory lit one of his corncob pipes and puffed away for several silent minutes. George realized Jackson’s eyes were on the face of a grandfather clock in the corner. Soon all eyes were on the same timepiece, as the minute hand approached midnight.

  Twelve chimes broke the stillness. Jackson’s mouth relaxed into a semismile. “Gentleman, I am no longer president of the United States, but just a citizen like any of you.”

  “There’ll never be a citizen like you, General,” roared Earthquake Allen.

  George could think of nothing appropriate to say. He silently extended his hand, and Jackson grasped it with the same tough squeeze that had hauled George into the ranks of the Democratic Party at the Hermitage eight years ago. Benton, Forsyth, and Taney also felt words were superfluous and imitated George.

  From a shelf to his right, Jackson took down a small book and turned its pages as they left the room. Andrew Jackson Jr., standing in the open doorway, whispered, “That’s Rachel’s Bible. He reads a chapter every night.”

  As the door closed, the ex-president’s voice followed them into the hall: “Gentlemen, don’t for a moment lose sight of Texas!”

  The four years of Andrew Jackson’s second term swarmed through George’s mind as he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue in the cold March night. It had been a wild ride. The president’s decision to destroy the Bank of the United States had released an orgy of inflation and speculation. Banks began issuing their own currency under loose state laws, and the price of everything began gyrating skyward. Thousands of businessmen stormed Congress begging the lawmakers to do something, anything, to get the economy under control. The followers of John C. Calhoun joined the forces of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster in ferocious attacks on the president.

  From New Jersey, Jeremy Biddle and George’s uncle Malcolm Stapleton sent him a stream of letters denouncing Jackson with similar vehemence. Malcolm died of a stroke while dealing with a strike at Principia Mills, caused by the wild inflation. Sally Stapleton blamed Andrew Jackson, and by association, George, for his death. Jeremy reiterated his personal friendship as often as he repeated his angry criticism of Jackson’s economic policy, but George sensed his old friend was growing more and more beleaguered and unhappy.

  That makes two of us, George found himself thinking. But he quickly corrected this lapse into gloom. True, his marriage with Caroline had its problems. But what marriage didn’t? John Sladen had admitted to him in a moment of bitter candor that Clothilde Legrand had become more and more erratic in her moods and attitudes. In a family tradition inherited from her mother, she seemed to resent John’s immersion in Washington’s politics and sulked on their plantation or in their house in New Orleans. Floride Calhoun had announced a similar determination to shun Washington, for reasons her husband could only hint at with words like “temper.”

  George found himself thinking of Andrew Jackson’s final order. Texas was his most explosive legacy. He had sent a series of envoys to Mexico City to negotiate a peaceful purchase. When the Mexicans declined to cut a deal, Old Hickory had encouraged his six-foot-six Tennessee protégé, Sam Houston, to go down there and organize an army from the thousands of American settlers in the territory. When the Mexicans responded with a bigger army, Houston had routed them and captured the president of Mexico, General Santa Anna.

  Houston had shipped Santa Anna to Washington, where he told Andrew Jackson that he was agreeable to selling Texas for three or four million dollars if he got some of the cash. As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, George had met this smooth, smiling political soldier two months ago and had been impressed by his apparent candor and reiterated desire for peace. Caroline predicted that the moment he got back to Mexico, he would renege on his promises—which was exactly what he did.

&nb
sp; Meanwhile, John C. Calhoun had risen in the Senate to welcome Texas into the Union—as a vast new territory in which to expand the domain of slavery. Abolitionists in New England had screamed in rage and battered their politicians with thousands of letters opposing the idea. It had been deplorable politics on Calhoun’s side if he was sincere about supporting the Union. When George asked him privately what he thought he was doing, he had claimed to be merely telling the truth. At home, Caroline had been Calhoun’s advocate, arguing that it was better to bare the fundamental quarrel over Texas sooner rather than later, so that neither side had any illusions.

  Jackson, cursing Calhoun, had backed away from immediate annexation and announced the United States could only acquire Texas by new negotiations with Mexico and the consent of the Texan people. Houston, obedient to the chieftain’s wishes, had set up the Republic of Texas and hunkered down to wait for the moment when Jackson decided the issue had fermented in the national mind and the Mexicans were ready to accept the inevitable.

  The bank and other issues had distracted and divided the Democrats. Texas, awash in debt, began making ominous noises about an alliance with England. Only in the last week of his presidency had Jackson taken the next cautious step. He had allowed both houses of Congress to pass resolutions recognizing the Texas Republic—and dispatched a diplomat to represent the United States at Sam Houston’s capital. Old Hickory was leaving this gigantic thundercloud on the southern border for the administration of Martin Van Buren.

  Why did that name stir noxious fumes in his brain? Senator Stapleton had supported the Little Magician’s candidacy. George had been a good Democrat. He had gotten to know Van Buren better during the four years he had presided over the Senate. He was, able, he was shrewd. But he never won George’s respect. He still remembered the man who had flattered his way into Andrew Jackson’s affections.

  George realized he half agreed with Davy Crockett, the contrary Tennessean who had penned a ferocious assault on the Little Magician during the presidential campaign. Van Buren is as opposite to General Jackson as dung is to a diamond … . When he enters the Senate chamber, he struts and swaggers like a crow in the gutter … . It would be difficult to say, from his personal appearance, whether he was man or woman, but for his large side whiskers. In Crockett’s wake was a swarm of nicknames that testified to similar opinions of Van Buren: the Red Fox, the Weasel, Sweet Little Fellow, the Flying Dutchman, the Mistletoe Politician.

  A lot of voters had agreed with Davy Crockett and his friends. Henry Clay and his followers had organized themselves into a new political party, the Whigs, which imitated the Democrats with local committees and campaign rallies and rousing newspaper coverage. They had come close to putting another Western general, Ohioan William Henry Harrison, in the White House. Van Buren had carried a bare fifteen states.

  New Jersey was not one of them. Jeremy Biddle, prodded by his wife, had announced he was a Whig and poured thousands of dollars into the Harrison campaign in the Garden State. Jeremy wrote George a tortured letter, desperately trying to salvage their personal friendship. George assured him he had nothing to, worry about on that score.

  Privately, George took a certain satisfaction in New Jersey’s defection. Its congressional delegation remained Democratic. Van Buren could hardly reproach him. The Little Magician had also failed to carry Tennessee, where Crockett’s biography and those savage nicknames had a cruel impact.

  With a better name for their political party, Clay and company might have trounced the Democrats. The choice of Whig testified to the way Andrew Jackson obsessed the minds of every politician in the country. The name was drawn from English history, when Whigs opposed the tyranny of the king. Clay and his followers thought the moniker would be a good way to remind people that “King Andrew” was still running the Democratic Party.

  But the uncrowned king and his courtier had prevailed. Tomorrow morning Martin Van Buren would become the eighth president of the United States. It was going to be an odd sensation, serving a president he despised. After eight years in the service of a man he loved.

  George had made the mistake of saying this to Caroline yesterday. He had gotten a lecture about the unimportance of one’s personal feelings in politics. Mrs. Stapleton seemed to have forgotten the way she had argued on the opposite side of that principle when she allied him with John C. Calhoun. For a moment an alien voice raged in George’s mind: Maybe this time I’ll get a chance to say I told you so. But he had not spoken these abrasive words. Instead he had listened like a good boy to mother’s latest scolding.

  Although he carefully excluded the thought from his mind, Senator George Stapleton was not a happy man.

  TWO

  “MR. CALHOUN IS SO GRATEFUL FOR the money you’ve loaned the South Carolina Railroad. He predicts its success could change the temper of the state,” Caroline said.

  “That’s good to hear,” George said. “Jeremy Biddle still says we’re never going to see a cent of profit.”

  “That’s typical of his narrow, penny-pinching mind.”

  Caroline was already in bed, wearing a pale blue nightgown. Her hair was carefully wrapped in a gauze turban to protect her curls for the inauguration tomorrow. The swirls of white cloth isolated that perfect face, making it seem like a piece of sculpture. George had felt a rush of desire when he walked into the room.

  Instead of a kiss, Caroline gave him an exhaustive report on what was said and what was hinted and what was unsaid at the night’s salon. He sipped a brandy and soda and barely listened until she got to Texas.

  “Senators Calhoun and Webster had a fascinating discussion about Sam Houston—whether they could trust him. Senator Clay chimed in with the story of the way Houston had abandoned his wife of four weeks and gone off to live with Indians in Oklahoma! Mr. Calhoun said he was afraid the English were planning to call in all the money they were loaning Houston and set up an abolitionist state on the southern border. Mr. Webster said he hoped the English tried it. It would drive every abolitionist in New England into eternal silence. Everyone turned to Silas Wright as Martin Van Buren’s spokesman and asked his opinion. He said, only half-humorously, that the president-elect wished Texas would just go away.”

  George told her Andrew Jackson’s farewell words.

  “If Mr. Calhoun were the president, he’d keep everyone’s eyes on Texas. But Machiavelli’s twin brother will do nothing. I’m sure of it,” Caroline said.

  George finished his drink and sat down beside her on the bed. “Did everyone congratulate you on your stunning appearance, as usual?”

  “I was hopelessly upstaged by Fanny Kemble.”

  “I wouldn’t have given her a passing glance. She’s not my type.”

  “Johnny Sladen gave her more than several passing glances.”

  “From what I hear around town, Johnny is paying passing glances to quite a few unattached ladies. I guess they have different ideas about marriage down in Louisiana.”

  “He paid you the nicest compliment.” She told him John’s toast.

  George winced. “That’s laying it on a bit too thick.”

  “George! He meant it.”

  “I suppose so. But tomorrow he’ll be after me to loan another half million to the Louisiana and Pensacola Railroad. Or invest another fifty thousand dollars in Sam Swartout’s Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company. I don’t like the way Sam piles on mass meetings at Tammany Hall in favor of annexing Texas without telling anyone that he and his friends own half the Gulf Coast and annexation will make them millionaires. If the Whigs get hold of that information, we’ll all look like crooks.”

  “It’s a perfectly legitimate enterprise. George Washington had money in land companies.”

  “I suppose so. But it still makes me uneasy. Jeremy Biddle says—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t give a damn what he says!”

  George paced the room, struggling to control his temper. He still wanted to make love to his wife. They had
not touched each other, beyond a polite kiss or two, for ten days. “I begin to think we should only talk politics on the first floor.”

  “George, I couldn’t possibly. Not tonight. You’d ruin my hair.”

  Tomorrow night she would be too tired from the inaugural ball. Last night, by the time he came home from a late session of the Senate, she had coated her face with a half pound of beauty cream.

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline said. “I love you just as much—”

  “I love you too.”

  He kissed her, undressed, turned out the oil lamp, and slipped into bed beside her. He told himself Caroline’s diminished enthusiasm for sex had nothing to do with love or politics. Two years ago she had given birth to a baby girl who had only lived a week. Last year she had had a miscarriage, an incredibly messy business in which she had lost at least a gallon of blood.

  On Caroline’s side of the bed lay a woman who found it more and more difficult to simulate enthusiasm in her sexual encounters with George Stapleton. Her fear of another pregnancy had begun to blend with more fundamental problems, above all Senator Stapleton’s increasing political independence. John C. Calhoun’s warning about the limits of a woman’s advice had taken deep root in George’s psyche. Caroline did not realize this of course. She and John Sladen still congratulated themselves on cementing this unlikely partnership between North and South.

  Meanwhile, Calhoun, Sladen, and others struggled to unite the South for a regional confrontation with the industrial North that would annihilate the tariff and demolish the abolitionists once and for all. The surprising strength of the new Whig party among the planter aristocracy had put a serious dent in these hopes, outside of ever faithful South Carolina. The new president, Martin Van Buren, also put his not inconsiderable talents for conciliation into reassuring Southern Democrats that they had nothing to fear from the abolitionists while he was president, further isolating Calhoun.