Eagle's Cry

by David Nevin

  But Jimmy shook his head. “Succeeding Tom? That’ll be Colonel Burr, surely, after being vice president.”

  “Burr won’t make it,” Colonel Madison said. “It takes moral fiber to run a country, strength of self. Look at General Washington, at Mr. Adams, a man of real quality even if we disagreed with him, and now Tom, men of stature all. Burr? No, he doesn’t compare.” A coughing spell overtook him and he set down his glass. “But the real point is this: You must be very careful. In everything, do you understand? This is a dangerous time; we could easily see violence.”

  In a phrase the old man had forced to the surface the fear she’d been trying to suppress for days. Violence? What, anarchy, civil war, those in power refusing to relinquish it? After all, they had all the tools of force … .

  “Won’t be violence,” Jimmy said. His glance slid to her.

  “You’re talking about a transfer of real centralized power to the people. That will terrify the former and could destabilize the latter.”

  “No,” Jimmy said.

  “James, there hasn’t been a transfer of power from a closed inbred elite to the common folk without bloodshed in a thousand years. Read your history, Son. Men don’t surrender power willingly.”

  “But we are different. We’re a new people, we’ve built a new system, a government of checks and balances. Free men can govern themselves, Father.”

  The old man smiled, suddenly tired. “Just watch yourself, Son. Both of you.”

  Everything seemed darker as Dolley went back to the bedroom. She had been an inexperienced young Quaker woman when she married Jimmy, and she had moved into the highest circles of national life with studied aplomb—displaying much more confidence than she felt—and she hadn’t managed that by being naive and foolish.

  She continued packing. The storm was coming and they would be at its center, and yes, she was frightened.

  When he walked into the bedroom, the set of her shoulders told Madison she was angry. Of course he’d seen her alarm, nor had his father told him anything new. Certainly there was peril in this discarding of an old philosophy for one that was new and untested, what Tom called the second revolution. But the men on the other side were honorable, despite their more restrictive view of democracy. They’d be all right so long as no new disruption shattered things and turned the genie loose … .

  At last she spun around. “Why didn’t you tell me you looked for trouble?”

  “I don’t look for trouble.”

  “Jimmy, don’t tell me! Your father talked trouble; you didn’t look in the least surprised. You knew it all along!”

  She glared at him, fists on her hips. She was a stunning woman, her black hair full and striking, her eyes the color of sky on a bright day, her cheeks always at a blush, which he’d been amazed to learn was not entirely nature’s gift, immense strength in set of nose and modeled lips. In fact, he had feared to alarm her, and he wondered if that were a form of denigration.

  “Don’t shield me,” she said. “My first husband died in my arms and my newborn infant died the next day, and there’s hardly a dirtier death than yellow fever with black vomit and bloody bile bursting from the bowels and the victim gasping for water. The only blessing’s that it’s quick. I’m a strong woman—I don’t need to be shielded.”

  She wiped her eyes. “So,” she said, smoothing her gown down her sides, “if there’s trouble, I guess we’ll deal with it.” She blew her nose. “Now, didn’t I see you turn your horse loose when you galloped up? Let’s go get him before everyone decides he threw you.”

  She was the joy of his life and he took her hand as they walked out into the sunny afternoon.

  The man Burr sent from New York made a terrible impression. Madison didn’t like him the moment he presented himself at Swan’s in Richmond, where the Madisons had the inn’s only parlor and room, bouncing in like an absentee landlord. His name was David Gelston, and he was a sleek young businessman en route to what he described as unique opportunities to be exploited in Charleston. Madison read him at a glance: pale, overdressed, too eager, talked too fast, and his open cupidity in describing his Charleston hopes put a civilized man’s teeth on edge.

  “I’m here to tell you the New York view,” he barked. “This time Virginia must play fair. You betray us again. The party will be torn to shreds.” Madison fought to control anger, though in fact there was validity in Burr’s complaint.

  In writing the Constitution they had left one fundamental flaw, which was natural enough since that was before parties emerged but now was very dangerous. The presidency would go to the man with the highest number of electoral votes, the vice presidency to the runner-up.

  No one thought in terms of a ticket then or of a running mate. That concept arose in ninety-six when the general was stepping down, and without much hope, Tom ran against Adams. In a loose relationship, forerunner of the ticket concept, Burr ran with him for the vice presidency. Things had been so informal then! As Madison remembered it, everything was casual. As it turned out, Burr drew far fewer votes than Tom, but it was the bare handful that Virginia gave him that he took as a special slight. He’d never forgiven Tom or Virginia.

  But his ultimatum now raised a new problem. If electors voted two-by-two for Tom and Burr, each man would emerge with seventy-three electoral votes, and they would be tied. That would throw the election into the Congress, and the House still sitting was firmly in control of old-line Federalists consumed by fear of the new, and then anything could happen.

  It was an immense danger but easily solved. Short Burr a single vote here, and there could be no tie. “Tell Aaron not to worry; we’ll guarantee him a solid twenty votes.”

  But Gelston jabbed his finger. “We must have the full twenty-one. Nothing less will satisfy!”

  “Look, young man,” Madison snapped, “it has nothing to do with Aaron; the risk of a tie is what matters.”

  “Forget that,” Gelston said. “We’ve already solved that—arranged for a couple of short votes in the North. Colonel Burr doesn’t want an equal total; he just wants Virginia to pay him the respect that is his due.”

  “Does Aaron really endorse this claptrap?” Madison asked.

  “Certainly, because he stands for New York, and New York, sir, is watching! Any fool can see that Virginia aims to rule or ruin. Biggest state, ran the war, ran the Constitution, ran the government. Adams not a Virginian, and we threw him out. Well, New York is coming up; we have our pride. We don’t intend to submit to Virginia, and you’d better believe it.”

  The young man leaned forward in his intensity, fist doubled and beating on his thigh for emphasis. “Look, Mr. Madison, I can see you don’t care much for me. Probably you see me as a typical New Yorker, crass, competitive, not a real gentleman. Well, I don’t much like you, either, living on a plantation with a passel of slaves to keep you comfortable, and you’re oh, so polite, so gentlemanly, drinking your tea with your finger stuck out, darkies bringing you Madeira.”

  Gelston laughed without mirth. “It’s time you got used to New York, for we’re coming into our own. Winning there gave Mr. Jefferson the election, and that was Colonel Burr’s doing. So we want the honor due us. You slap us in the face with a twenty vote and we won’t take it!”

  He stood abruptly and cracked his hands together. “You go wrong on this, and I promise you you’ll split the party wide open. That is Colonel Burr’s message, and it is totally real. Please take it very seriously.”

  Madison stood. “Good day,” he said. He didn’t offer to shake hands, nor did Gelston.

  When Madison was troubled—and he was very troubled now—he liked to put a good horse under him and take to the country. He was trotting along a little used lane, passing fields still covered with slash, fruit trees banked against cold, a herd of cattle that would dress out, to his practiced eye, at a hundredweight below his own cattle on Montpelier.

  At a small creek he swung down and hobbled the horse to let it drink and crop the abundant gra
ss near the water. He paced the bank. If he protected against a tie but raised the specter of North and South at each other’s throats on the eve of triumph, what had he gained? And then, smiling sourly, he had to admit that he wasn’t all that selfless either. Now that the prize was in sight, he wanted it!

  So did Dolley. She hadn’t said much, but he knew her well. And Burr had another claim on them. He had introduced them in Philadelphia and Madison recognized that as a debt, for she had reshaped his life. She was gorgeous with her robust figure and striking color. He was a gnomish little fellow with a soft voice, a bit the looby in society, but a beautiful woman loved him! He felt a personal triumph when she turned heads. And so he was what he was and on the whole was satisfied with that. He had a powerful mind—a fact he had demonstrated too often for self-doubt—though that was poor consolation when he was with men who were tall, dashing, and touched with the gift of command. But he made good decisions, if he always found many a pro and con to weigh. Indeed, he doubted the competence of men who saw issues as simple and made decisions in a finger snap. He didn’t decide things in any finger snap, you may be sure.

  Anyway, the current problem was of his own making. Of course they should have foreseen the rise of parties, which are just vehicles to express different views, but they hadn’t. Failure of imagination then impaled him now. But he wouldn’t be deciding in any finger snap. A cold breeze arose. He tightened the saddle girth and turned the horse toward Richmond, as chilled by the decision ahead as by the wind.

  At the inn’s stables, he swung down and gave the groom a coin to give the horse a good currying and brushing. Billy Blackleg, so called for some presumably forgotten episode, was a skinny man with hard, horny hands and rheumy eyes, his drooping mustache gray at the top and stained brown at the ends from the chaw always in his cheek. He lived in the stables and he washed his shirt every week or so.

  He slipped the coin into his pocket like a sharpster palming a card, pulled off the saddle, and said from the corner of his mouth, voice very low, “Mr. Madison, I guess you’re watching out pretty good this business don’t fall into no tie between Mr. Jefferson and that New York feller.”

  Startled, Madison said, “We certainly don’t want one, Billy. What brought that to your mind?”

  “Well, thing is, most rich folks ain’t like you. They hold ‘emselves special. They don’t even look down on you.”

  Madison waited.

  “Know what I mean? They don’t even see you. ‘Lessen you make a mistake. Then they act like you was a dog shat on the floor.”

  Madison nodded, waiting.

  “So they talk in front of you, see what I mean? Now, most folks stay at Swan’s they’re going to be Federalists. I guess that ain’t any news to you. And they come out for their mounts and they don’t give me no warning, so I’m scrambling around getting them saddled and all and they go to talking like I ain’t got ears, know what I mean?”

  Madison nodded.

  “And they’re saying the electors—them that cast the electoral votes, ain’t that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, they’re saying the electors likely will cast votes two for two, see, every man for Mr. J. and the New Yorker. And then it would be a tie and they’d be on horseback.”

  “Horseback, eh?”

  “They’re saying maybe it ain’t over yet—they get a tie and they say they can find some way to set it on its ear—keep the government in their own hands, see? So it seems like us Democrats would be smart not to let no tie develop. I don’t know if you’ve thought on that or not.”

  “Billy,” Madison said, shaking his hand, “that’s very good thinking. I’m in your debt.”

  Billy gave him a grand smile. “Don’t think nothing of it, Mr. Madison. We’re all in this together.”

  Dolley watched Jimmy chew over the dilemma. She thought it incredibly selfish for Aaron to expose them to danger for reasons of shabby pride. Twenty as opposed to twenty-one would shatter the republic? Really! The tail wagged the dog.

  Still, there was tension in the air. An old friend, a Federalist—which had never mattered before—set up a whist game that turned into an awkward disaster. The other women seemed to feel they were sitting with the devil’s handmaiden. In a millinery shop that same afternoon a fierce old woman in an expensive hat of apricot velvet put a claw on her arm and hissed, “I just want to tell you, we all of us, the sensible people, the right people, think it’s terrible what you and your husband and the rest of them are doing!”

  Men milled about the streets, laughing Democrats celebrating victory with bottles in hand, Federalists with downturned mouths. Several street fights became one with the whist game, the old woman, the newspaper venom, the vile accusations, the tomato someone had thrown at their carriage, glares at the inn, a rude woman who’d brushed past her in the corridor …

  It was like nothing she could remember since the early days of the Revolution when she was a child and all around her patriots and loyalists were dividing into blood enemies. And into this tinder Aaron had thrown a flaming torch. It struck her that she’d never felt he had much weight, clever and handsome and charming through he certainly was—witness the way women melted in his presence. But that made her feel guilty and that made her angry. Would nothing go right in these ugly days? In fact, Aaron had been good to her when she’d needed help and she hadn’t questioned weight then. She’d been half crazed with grief when the fever had taken baby and husband. She’d asked Senator Burr to guide her affairs and stand as guardian to her little boy in case the fever returned for her.

  As a tenant in her mother’s house he’d owed her nothing, but he had performed nobly. She’d felt so alone, this being after her Quaker father’s business had failed in Philadelphia, and the church had expelled him for debt, and something broke in him—in the end, she thought, women were stronger than men—and he went to bed till he died while her mother opened for roomers.

  Months passed and she’d put aside widow’s weeds and looked about. And one day Aaron had told her that the great little Madison had asked to be presented. The request was so specific of serious intent that she was breathless, and that very afternoon he’d brought Mr. Madison around. Jimmy had been terribly nervous, his hand shook when he took hers, he murmured “You’re very beautiful,” and then was tongue-tied; and she had rattled on rather desperately, wondering if she were making a fool of herself, wondering if he were even interested; and then he stood to go and asked if he might call tomorrow and would she on the next evening accompany him to a dinner General Washington was giving?

  He was a power in the House in those days and very close to the general, and she’d been swept into the highest circles of the capital in urbane Philadelphia and had held her own. Better than her own. Jimmy had glowed in her presence, many people told her she’d made a new man of him, and one day dear old Aunt Martha—whom Dolley could see was easily a match for the general despite her gentle manner—said she would nudge Jimmy along.

  But nothing happened. Then, with the session ending and the time ever so clearly now or never, he sent a note: He had something to say. She wore a gown the color of roses that was cut as low as she dared, seated him on the sofa beside her, and waited for what she became sure would be bad news. He stumbled, his tongue twisted, she noticed a buckle coming loose on his shoe and he’d worn hose that were yellowing with age—not at all the picture of a man who’d come to propose marriage. She had an awful impulse to tell him she understood, he could go, au revoir—but no!—she would fight to the end. So she waited, smiling, encouraging him, and at last he blurted the question she’d been desperate to hear and she collapsed into his arms. Six wonderful years had passed, that no children had come the only shadow. She knew there was ugly gossip about this, which she could settle in a word if she chose … .

  She wanted an afternoon walk and they set out, her arm through his, on brick sidewalks laid in sunburst design, past graceful stoops and saplings set in sidewalk squ
ares and guarded by little iron fences. He still had a few days before decision and he was laying out the pros and cons, when an elderly voice hailed them. They saw an old man on a younger man’s arm. Jimmy said it was Colonel Emberly, an old family friend, and his son. The young man, prematurely gray and wearing an army major’s uniform, scarcely spoke and when he did his lips scarcely moved.

  Glaring, the colonel cried, “I never thought I’d see a Madison betray his people. You’ve turned your coat, sir.”

  She saw a look of surprising vulnerability flash over Jimmy’s face and then his expression hardened. “I’ve done no such thing, sir, and I resent your saying so.”

  It was so unexpected that she felt momentarily disoriented; then she saw the officer staring at her with angry intensity and all her instincts went on guard.

  “Oh, do you?” the old man shouted. “Well, the people who matter, who count for something in this country, they understand what you’re doing, the false doctrine you and your precious Mr. Jefferson are spreading. Common man democracy!” He spat the words out as if they had a foul taste. “Look at France, a monument to what it really means. What it’s always meant. You let the rabble get control and they’ll destroy everything—everything! Dragged everyone who counted off to that great bloody blade of theirs; you think that can’t happen here? It can. You’ll see. You think you’re safe, but they’ll turn on you too; you’ll never be able to control the passions of your own followers—”

  Listening to the old man rant, she saw the danger; he believed every word of it. Like the women at whist, the old woman in the apricot hat, he honestly saw Democrats as in league with the devil! No one denied that ideals expressed in our own revolution had spun out of control in France, the clattering guillotine taking revenge against centuries of wealth and privilege. And then Napoleon Bonaparte seized a broken country and imposed his rule—