with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance."[6] The friendship in old age between himself and Mr. Adams, and the moral and intellectual beauty of their close correspondence, are a spectacle in sight of which all prior party misunderstandings should be forgotten. There is one infallible test by which to try old men who have had much to do in the world. If their power and privilege of admiration survive their knowledge of the world, they are true-hearted; and they occasion as much admiration as they enjoy. Jefferson stands this test.
His great acts are much heard of. The reduction of taxes and correction of abuses with which he began his administration; his having actually done something against slavery; his invariable decision for advocacy or opposition, in accordance with the true democratic principle, are now spoken of more frequently than things less worthy to be remembered. His influence has been greater than that of any other President since Washington, exactly in proportion to his nearer approach to the national idea of a chief magistrate.
No great change took place during the administration of his two successors, Madison and Monroe. They were strong in the strength of his principles, and of their own characters. Madison's term of office would have been memorable in history, if he had not immediately followed his friend Jefferson. Their identity of views, put into practice by Madison, with the simplest honesty and true modesty, caused less observation than the same conduct immediately succeeding a federal administration would have done. Hence the affectation, practised by some, of calling Madison a tool of Jefferson. Those who really knew Mr. Madison and his public life, will be amused at the idea of his being anybody's tool.
The reason why John Quincy Adams's administration is little notorious is somewhat of the same nature. He was a pure President; a strictly moral man. His good morality was shown in the devotion of his fine powers to the faithful conduct of evanescent circumstances. His lot was that of all good Presidents in the quiet days of the republic. He would not use his small power for harm; and possessed no very great power for political good.
General Jackson was brought into office by an overpowering majority, and after a series of strong party excitements. If ever there was a possibility of a President marking his age, for good or for evil, it would have been done during Jackson's administration. He is a man made to impress a very distinct idea of himself on all minds. He has great personal courage, much sagacity, though frequently impaired by the strength of his prejudices, violent passions, an indomitable will, and that devotion to public affairs in which no President has ever failed. He had done deeds of war which flattered the pride of the people; and in doing them, he had acquired a knowledge of the people, which has served him instead of much other knowledge in which he is deficient. He has known, however, how to obtain the use, though not the reputation, of the knowledge which he does not possess. Notwithstanding the strength of his passions, and the awkward positions in which he has placed himself by the indulgence of his private resentments, his sagacity has served him well in keeping him a little way a-head of the popular convictions. No physician in the world ever understood feeling the pulse, and ordering his practice accordingly, better than President Jackson. Here are all the requisites for success in a tyrannical administration. Even in England, we heard rumours in 1828, and again in 1832, about the perils of the United States, under the rule of a despotic soldier. The cry revived with every one of his high-handed deeds; with every exercise of the veto—which he has used oftener than all the other Presidents put together,—with every appointment made in defiance of the Senate; with the removal of the deposites; with his messages of menace to the French government. Yet to what amounts the power now, at the close of his administration, of this idol of the people, this man strong in war, and subtle in council, this soldier and statesman of indomitable will, of insatiable ambition, with the resources of a huge majority at his disposal? The deeds of his administration remain to be justified in as far as they are sound, and undone if they are faulty. Meantime, he has been able to obtain only the barest majority in the Senate, the great object of his wrath: he has been unable to keep the slavery question out of Congress—the introduction of which is by far the most remarkable event of his administration. One of the most desponding complaints I heard of his administration was, not that he had strengthened the general government—not that his government had tended to centralisation—not that he had settled any matters to his own satisfaction, and left the people to reconcile themselves to his pleasure as they best might—but that every great question is left unsettled; that it is difficult now to tell any party by its principles; that the principles of such affairs as the currency, land, slavery, internal improvements, &c. remain to be all argued over again. Doubtless, this will be tiresome to such public men as have entirely and finally made up their minds on these subjects. To such, nothing can well be more wearisome than discussion and action, renewed from year to year. But the very fact that these affairs remain unsettled, that the people remain unsatisfied about them, proves that the people have more to learn, and that they mean to learn it. No true friend of his country would wish that the questions of slavery and currency should remain in any position that they have ever yet occupied in the United States; and towards the settlement of the latter of the two, as far as light depends on collision of opinions, it is certain that no man has done so much, whether he meant it or not, as President Jackson. The occasional breaking up and mingling of parties is a necessary circumstance, whether it be considered an evil or a good. It may be an evil, in as far as it affords a vantage-ground to unprincipled adventurers; it is a good, in as far as it leads to mutual understanding, and improves the candour of partisans. For the rest, there is no fear but that parties will soon draw asunder, with each a set of distinctive principles as its badge. Meantime, men will have reason to smile at their fears of the formidable personage, who is now descending from the presidential chair; and their enthusiasm will have cooled down to the temperature fixed by what the event will prove to have been his merits. They will discuss him by their firesides with the calmness with which men speak of things that are past; while they keep their hopes and fears to be chafed up at public meetings, while the orator points to some rising star, or to some cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Irish emigrants occasionally fight out the battle of the Boyne in the streets of Philadelphia; but native Americans bestow their apprehensions and their wrath upon things future; and their philosophy upon things past. While they do this, it will not be in the power of any President to harm them much or long.
SECTION III.
STATE GOVERNMENTS.
Never, perhaps, did statesmen begin their task of constitution-making with so much aid from preceding circumstances as the great men of the Revolution. A social neighbourhood of colonies, all suffering under colonial grievances, and all varying in their internal government, afforded a broad hint of the present system, and fine facilities for putting it in practice. There was much less speculation in the case than might appear from a distance; and this fact so far takes away from the superhuman character of the wisdom which achieved the completion of the United States' constitution, as to bring the mind down from its state of amazement into one of very wholesome admiration.
The state governments are the conservative power, enabling the will of the majority to act with freedom and convenience. Though the nation is but an aggregation of individuals, as regards the general government, their division into States, for the management of their domestic affairs, precludes a vast amount of confusion and discord. Their mutual vigilance is also a great advantage to their interests, both within each State, and abroad. No tyrant, or tyrannical party, can remain unwatched and unchecked. There is, in each State, a people ready for information and complaint, when necessary; a legislature ready for deliberation; and an executive ready to act. Many States, in other ages and regions, have been lost through the necessity of creating their instruments when they should have been acting. State organisation is never managed without dispute; and it makes the entire difference in the success of resistance to aggression whether the necessary apparatus has to be created in haste and confusion, or whether everything is in readiness
