Chapter XV: Change of Government

GOVERNOR WOLCOTT--TOLERATION--MR. MONROE--PRIVATE LIFE OF WASHINGTON-- THOMAS JEFFERSON--THE OBJECT AND SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT--COURT ETIQUETTE --NATURE THE TEACHER AND GUIDE IN ALL THINGS.

During the year 1820 I was frequently a visitor at the house of Governor Oliver Wolcott, who then resided in Litchfield, Connecticut. Governor Wolcott was a remarkable man in many respects. He was originally a Federalist in politics, and enjoyed the confidence of that party to an unlimited extent. His abilities were far above ordinary, and his family one of great respectability. He was a native of Connecticut, and after Alexander Hamilton retired from the Treasury bureau in the Cabinet of Washington, he succeeded to that position. He filled the office with credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of his chief. He had, after considerable time spent in public life, left Connecticut, to reside in New York. Subsequent to the war, and when the Federal party had abandoned its organization under the Administration of Mr. Monroe, there grew up in his native State a party called the Toleration party. In reality it was a party proscriptive of the old Federal leaders, and it grew out of some legislation in connection with religious matters, in which, as usual, the Puritan element had attempted to oppress, by special taxation, for their own benefit, all others differing from them in religious creed. Governor Wolcott favored this new organization, and he was invited to return to the State and give his aid to its success. He did so, and in due time was made Governor by this party. At the time of which I write, he was as bitterly and sincerely hated by the old Federal party as ever Jefferson was, or as Andy Johnson now is by the Radical party, which is largely constituted of the _débris_ of that old and intolerant organization, and which is now eliminating every principle of the Constitution to gratify that thirst for power, and to use it for persecution, that seems inherent in the nature of the Puritan. By the hour I have listened to the abuse of him, from the mouths of men whose lives had been spent in his praise and support, simply because he had interposed his talents and influence to arrest the oppressor's hand. They said he had deserted his party, that he would live to share the fate of Burr, and that he was as great a traitor.

The bitterness and injustice of party is proverbial, and its want of reason is astonishing. Men who are cool and considerate on all other subjects, are frequently the most violent and unreasonable as partisans. It seems akin to religious fanaticism, and proscribes with the same bigotry all who will not, or conscientiously cannot, act or think with them. It prescribes opinions, and they must be obeyed by all who belong to the organization, and without reservation or qualification. Its exactions are as fierce and indisputable as the laws and regulations of the Jesuits. These are changed with party necessities, and not unfrequently are diametrically antagonistic to the former creed; yet you must follow and sustain them, or else you are a traitor, and denounced and driven from the party, and often from intercourse socially with those who have been your neighbors and friends from boyhood. In this method party compels dishonesty in politics, and is eminently demoralizing, for it is impossible to familiarize the conscience with political dishonesty without tainting the moral man in ordinary matters pertaining to life. Once break down the barrier which separates the right from the wrong, that success may come of it, and every principle of restraint to immoral or dishonest conduct is swept away. For this reason men of stern integrity never make good politicians. They are very often the reliable Statesmen, never the reliable politicians.

Governor Wolcott had through his life sustained an unimpeached reputation. He had filled to the full his political ambition. Again and again he had been honored by his people who had grown up with him. He had been honored by the confidence of Washington, and the nation. He was wealthy, was old, and only aspired to do, and to see done, justice to the whole people of his native State. In doing this he came in conflict with the unjust views and iniquitous conduct of an old, crushed party, and he was denounced as a traitor, and ostracized because he would be just.

This was the disruption forever of the Federal party in Connecticut; for though it had ceased to exist as a national organization, it still was sufficiently intact to control most of the New England States. Mr. Monroe's Administration had been so popular that in his second election he received every vote of every State in the Union, save New Hampshire: one man in her electoral college, who was appointed to vote for him, refused to do so, and gave as his reason that he was a slave-owner. New interests had supervened, old issues were dead--they had had their day--their mission was accomplished; old men were passing away, the nation was expanding into great proportions, and men of great talents were growing with and for the occasion; old party animosities were dimming out, and the era of good feelings seemed to pervade the national heart. Even John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were amicably corresponding and growing affectionate at eighty. It was but the lull which precedes the storm--the sultry quiet which augurs the earthquake.

Upon one occasion I ventured to ask Governor Wolcott to tell me something of Washington. We were strolling in his garden, where he had invited me to look at some melons he was attempting to grow under glass. He stopped, and turning round, looked me full in the face, and asked me if I had not read the "Life of Washington."

"Not the private life," was the reply.

"Ah! a very laudable curiosity in one so young. I knew him well, and can only say his private was very much like his public life. I do not suppose there ever lived a man more natural in his deportment than Washington. He did nothing for effect. He was more nearly the same man on the street that he was in his night-gown and slippers, than any man I ever knew; I can't say I was intimate with Washington; no man can or ever could have said that. His dignity was austere and natural. It was grand, and awed and inspired a respect from every one alike. You breathed low in his presence--you felt uneasy in your seat, before him. There was an inspiring something about him, that made you feel it was a duty to, stand in his presence, uncovered, and respectfully silent. I have heard this sternness attributed to his habit of command; not so--it was natural, and he was unconscious of it. Most men, however stern, will unbend to woman. There is in woman's presence a divinity which thaws the rigor of the heart and warms the soul, which manifests itself in the softening of the eye, in the glow upon the cheek, and the relaxation of manner. It was not so with Washington. In his reception-rooms he was easily polite and courteously affable; but his dignity and the inflexibility of his features never relaxed.

"I remember to have heard Mrs. Adams say 'she did not think he was ever more than polite to Mrs. Washington.' With all this he was very kind, and if he ever did let himself down it was to children, and these never seemed to feel his austerity, or to shrink away from it. It is said that it is the gift of childhood to see the heart in the eye and the face. It is certain they never approach an ill-natured or bad man, and never shrink from a kind and good one. In his intercourse with his Cabinet, he was respectful to difference--consulted each without reserve or concealment, and always weighed well their opinions, and never failed to render to them his reasons for differing with them. He was very concise and exact in stating a case, and never failed to understand well every question before acting. He had system and order in everything. In his private affairs, in his household, as well as in his public conduct, he observed strict rules, and exacted their obedience from all about him. In nothing was he demonstrative or impulsive; but always considerate and cool.

"I know nothing of his domestic matters. There were malicious persons who started many reports of discord between Washington and his lady. These I believe were all false. Mrs. Washington was a high-bred woman, a lady in everything; and so far as my observation or acquaintance extended, was devoted and dutiful. Of one thing I am very sure: she was a proud woman, and was proud of her husband. She certainly had not the dignity of her husband; no one, male or female, ever had. She was less reserved, more accessible, and not indifferent to the attentions and flatteries of her husband's friends. In fine, she was a woman. Washington's deportment toward his wife was kind and respectful, but always dignified and courteous. Toward his servants he was uniformly kind.

"He was an enemy to slavery, and never hesitated to avow his sentiments. His black servants were very much attached to him. The peculiar nature of Washington forbade those heart-friendships demanded by a narrower and more impulsive nature. He kept all the world too far from him ever to win that tenderness of affection which sweetens social life in the blending of hearts and sympathy of souls. But he commanded that esteem which results from respect and appreciation of the great and commanding attributes of his nature, which elevated him so far above the men of his age. He wanted the softness and yielding of the heart that so wins upon the affections of associates and those who are in close and constant intercommunication. Are not these incompatible with the stern and towering traits essential to such a character as was Washington's? Like a shaft of polished granite towering amid shrubs and flowers, cold and hard, but grand and beautiful, he stood among the men and the women who surrounded him when President.

"General Washington was cautious and reserved in his expressions about men. He rarely praised or censured. At the time I was in the Cabinet, he had abundant cause for dislike to Mr. Jefferson, who, in his Mazéi letter, had represented him as laboring to break up the Government, that upon its ruins a monarchy might arise for his own benefit. He spoke of this letter more severely than I had ever heard him speak of anything, and said no man better knew the charge false, than Mr. Jefferson. Some correspondence, I believe, took place between them on the subject. I believe they never met after this. Upon one occasion I heard him say that it was unfortunate that Jefferson had been sent to France at the time that he was, when morals and government alike were little less than chaos, for he had been tainted in his ideas of both."

"You knew Mr. Jefferson?" I asked.

"Come into the house, and I will show you something," said the venerable man, then tottering to the grave. I went, and he showed me some letters addressed to him by persons in Virginia, presenting, in no very enviable light, the character of Jefferson. When I had read them, he remarked: "You must not suppose I am anxious to prejudice your youthful mind against the great favorite of your people. It is not so. You seem solicitous to learn something of the men who have had so much agency in the establishment of the Government and the formation of the opinions of the people, that I am willing you should see upon what my opinions have, in a great degree, been formed. Mr. Jefferson is still living, and still writing. His pen seems to have lost none of its vigor, nor his heart any of its venom. You will hear him greatly praised, and greatly abused. I knew him at one time, but never intimately, and may be said only to know him as a public man; what of his private character I know, comes from the statements of others, and general report. You have just seen some of these statements. I knew the writers of these letters well, and know their statements to be entitled to credit, and I believe them. They assure me that Mr. Jefferson is without moral principle. His public conduct must convince every one of his want of political principle. His whole life has been a bundle of contradictions. He has had neither chart nor compass by which to regulate his course, but has universally adopted the expedient.

"That he has a great and most vigorous intellect is beyond all question; but most of its emanations have been the _ad captandum_ to seize the current, and sail with it. He saw the democratic proclivity of the people, he concentrated it by the use of his pen, and he has aided its expansion, until it threatens ruin to the Government. He knows it, and he still perseveres. Under the plea of inviting population, he advocated the extension of the franchise to aliens, and was really the parent from whose brain was born the naturalization laws, making citizens of every nationality, and giving them all the powers of the Government, extending suffrage to every pauper in the land, increasing to the utmost the material for the demagogue, and thus depriving the intelligence of the country of the power to control it. The specious argument that if a man is compelled to serve in the militia and defend the country, he should be entitled to vote, was his. Its sophistry is as palpable to Jefferson as to every thinking mind. Government is the most abstruse of the sciences, and should, for the security of all, be controlled by the intelligence of the country. During the world's existence, all the intelligence it has ever afforded, has not been competent to the formation of a government approximating perfection.

"The object of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The tenure of property is established and sustained by law; it is the basis of government; it is the support of government; in proportion to its extent and security, it is the strength and power of government, and those who possess it should have the control of government. In a republic, there can be no better standard of intelligence than the possession of property, and to give the greatest security to the government, none should, in a republic, be intrusted with the ballot, but the native, and the property-holder, or the native property-holder. The complications of our system are scarcely understood by our own people, and to suppose that ignorant men (for such constitute the bulk of our emigrant population) shall become so intimate with it, and so much attached to it, as to constitute them, in a few years, persons to be intrusted with its control, is supposing human intelligence to be of much higher grasp than I have ever found it. Most of these emigrants come here with preconceived prejudices toward the institutions of their native lands. This is natural. Most of them speak a foreign language. This has to be overcome, before they can even commence to learn the nature and operation of our system, which is so radically dissimilar to any and all others. These men, as the ignorant of our own people, naturally lean on some one who shall direct them, and they will blindly do his bidding. This is an invitation to the demagogue; these are his materials, and he will aggregate and control them. Such men are always poor, and envy makes them the enemies of the rich. This creates an antagonism, which we see existing in every country.

"The poor are dependent for employment upon the rich; the rich are dependent upon the poor for labor. This mutual dependence, it would be supposed, would tend to create mutual regard; but experience teaches the reverse. The poor have nothing to sell but their labor, and there are none to buy but the rich. Each, naturally, struggles to make the best bargain possible, and take advantage of every circumstance to effect this. Very few are satisfied with fair equivalents, and one or the other always feels aggrieved. Here is the difficulty. Well, endow the laborer with the ballot, and he usurps the government; for to vote is to govern. What is to be the consequence? We now have, with all the means of expansion and facilities a new country of boundless extent gives to the poor for finding and making homes, many more without property than with it. This disproportion will go on to increase until it assimilates to every old country, with a few rich and many poor. These many will control; they will send of their own men to legislate; they will favor their friends; they will levy the taxes, which the property-holders of the country must pay; they will make the laws appropriating these taxes; all will be for the benefit of their constituency, and the property, the government, and the people are all at their mercy. Jefferson sees this, and is taking advantage of it, and has indoctrinated the whole unthinking portion of our people with these destructive notions. It made him President. His example has proven contagious, and I see no end to its results short of the destruction of the Government, and that speedily. Mr. Jefferson's fame will be co-existent with the Government. When that shall perish, his great errors will be apparent. The impartial historian, inquiring into the cause of this destruction, with half an eye will see it, and then his true character will be sketched, and this great, unprincipled demagogue will go naked down to posterity. He has always been unprincipled, immoral, and dissolute. These, accompanying his great intellect, have made it a curse, rather than a blessing, to his kind.

"The world has produced few great statesmen--Washington and Hamilton were the only ones of any pretensions this country has produced. It was a great misfortune that Hamilton did not succeed Washington. Mr. Adams, now lingering to his end at Braintree, was a patriot, but greatly wanting in the attributes of greatness. He was suspicious, ill-tempered, and full of unmanly prejudices--was incapable of comprehending the great necessities of his country, as well as the means to direct and control these necessities. He had animosities to nurse, and enemies to punish--was more concerned about a proper respect for himself and the office he filled, than the interest and the destiny of his country. He quarrelled with Washington, was jealous of him, who never had a thought but for his country. Adams was all selfishness, little selfishness, and earned and got the contempt of the whole nation. Jefferson was turning all this to his own advantage; and the errors and follies of Adams were made the strength and wisdom of Jefferson. He had but one rival before the nation, Burr--he whom you saw yesterday, the crushed victim of the cunning and intrigue of his friend Jefferson.

"Washington had died--despondent of the future of his country. The prestige of his name and presence was gone. He had committed a great error in bringing Jefferson into his Cabinet and before the nation with his approbation. He knew every Cabinet secret, and took advantage of every one, and had placed himself prominently before the people, and with Burr was elected. The defect in the law as existing at the time, enabled Burr, when returned with an equal number of electoral votes, to contend with Jefferson for the Presidency. It was in the power of Hamilton, at this time, to elect. The States were divided, six for Burr, eight for Jefferson, and two divided. There was one State voting for Jefferson, which by the change of one vote would have been given to Burr: the divided States were under his control. He was, during the ballotings, sent for, with a view to the election of Burr; but he preferred Jefferson--thought him less dangerous than Burr, and procured his election. It was a terrible alternative, to have to choose between two such men. The consequences to Burr and the country have been terrible--the destruction of both.

"I suppose much I have said cuts across your prejudice, coming from the South. I have sought to speak sincerely to you, because you are young, impressible, and anxious for knowledge; and it is better to know an unwelcome truth, than to find out by-and-by you have all your life been believing an untruth. Nothing is more sickening to the candid and sincere heart, than to learn its cherished opinions and dearest hopes have been nothing but fallacies; and when you are old as I am, you will have been more fortunate than I have been, if you do not find much that you have loved most, and most trusted, a deceit--a miserable lie. Come and see me at your leisure: I shall always be glad to see you, and equally as glad to answer any of your questions, if these answers will give you information."

Governor Oliver Wolcott was short in stature and inclined to corpulency; his head was large and round, with an ample forehead; his eyes were gray and very pleasant in their expression; his mouth was voluptuous, and upon his lips there usually lurked a smile, humorous in its threatening, provoking a pleasing dimple upon his cheek. In society, in his extreme old age, for I only knew him then, he was less gay than the general expression of his features would have indicated. He was a man of strong will and most decided character. His individuality was marked and striking, and his tenacity of purpose made his character one of remarkable consistency.

Governor Wolcott was one of the old-school Federalists, a thorough believer in Federal principles. He believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, if the franchise of suffrage was confined to the intelligence and freeholds of the country, but reprobated the idea of universal suffrage as destructive of all that was good in republican institutions. Succeeding Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, he found all matters of finance connected with the Government in so healthy a condition and arranged upon such a basis as only required that he should be careful to keep them there. During the four last years of the Administration of Washington, this prevented any display on his part of any striking financial ability. The administration of his office was entirely satisfactory to the country, though it seemed he was only there to superintend the workings of the genius of Hamilton. Once in my hearing he remarked, he had only to work up to the scribings of Hamilton to make everything joint up and fit well.

He held Washington in higher esteem even than Colonel Talmadge; and differed from him in many particulars relative to his character. It was my good fortune to sit and listen, more than once, to discussions between these venerable men. It was always amicable and eminently instructive. Wolcott was an admirer of Mrs. Washington, Talmadge was not. Talmadge was a military man, and saw a healthy discipline only in obedience to superiors, and exacted in his own family what he deemed was proper in that of every man. Accustomed himself to a strict obedience to the commands of his superiors, and deeming Washington almost incapable of error, he thought hardly even of Mrs. Washington when she manifested a disposition the slightest to independence of her husband. Wolcott did not see her in the camp, but only as the wife of the President of the United States--mistress of the Presidential mansion, and affably dispensing the duties of hostess there--receiving, entertaining, and socially intermingling in the society admitted to the Presidential circle.

At that period there was more of ceremony and display in the higher circles of official society than at this time. The people had seceded from a monarchical government, and established a democratic one; but the prestige of titular and aristocratic society still lingered with those high in office, of distinguished position, and wealth. Many of those most prominent about the Government had spent much time in Europe, and had imported European manners and customs, and desired to see the court etiquette of the mother country prevail at the court of the new Government. Time and the institutions of democracy had not effected that change in the practices of the people, which the Revolution and the determination to control and direct their own government had in their sentiments.

Mr. Jefferson affected to despise this formal ceremony, and the distinctions in society encouraged by monarchical institutions, and sustained by authority of law--though coming from a State and from the midst of a people whose leading and wealthiest families had descended directly from the nobility and gentry of England, and who affected an aristocracy of social life extremely exclusive in its character, while professing a democracy in political organization of the broadest and most comprehensive type. His sagacity taught him that the institutions of a democratic government would soon produce that social equality which was their spirit, in the ordinary intercourse of the people--that he who enjoyed all and every privilege, politically and legally, given under its Constitution and laws, possessed a power which ultimately would force his social equality with the most pretentious in the land. In truth, the government was in his hands, and he would mould it to his views, and society to his status.

The institutions of government everywhere form the social organization of society. Men are ambitious of distinction in every government, and aspire to control in directing the destinies of their country--are justly proud of the respect and confidence of their fellow-men, and will court it in the manner most likely to secure it. Now and then, there are to be found some who are insensible to any fame save that given by wealth--who will wrap themselves up in a pecuniary importance, with an ostentatious display of their wealth, and an exclusiveness of social intercourse, and are contented with this, and the general contempt. Such men, and such social coteries, are few in this country. Fortunately, wealth which is only used as a means of ostentatious display is worthless to communities, and its possessor is contemptible. "Wealth is power" is an adage, and is true where it is used to promote the general good. Without it no people can be prosperous or intelligent, and the prosperity and intelligence of every people is greatest where there is most wealth, and where it is most generally diffused. This is best effected by democratic institutions, where every preferment is open to all, and where the division of estates follows every death. No large and overshadowing estates, creating a moneyed aristocracy, can accumulate, to control the legislation and the people's destinies under such institutions. No privileged class can be sustained under their operation; for such a class must always be sustained by wealth hereditary and entailed, protected from the obligations of debt, and prohibited from division or alienation.

Mr. Jefferson had studied the effects of governments upon their people most thoroughly, and understood their operation upon the social relations of society, and the character and minds of the people. He was wont to say there was no hereditary transmission of mind; that this was democratic, and a Cæsar, a Solon, or a Demosthenes was as likely to come from a cottage and penury as from a palace and wealth; that virtue more frequently wore a smock-frock than a laced coat, and that the institutions of every government should be so modelled as to afford opportunity to these to become what nature designed they should be--models of worth and usefulness to the country. Every one owes to society obligations, and the means should be afforded to all to make available these obligations for the public good. Nature never designed that man should hedge about with law a favored few, until these should establish a natural claim to such protection, by producing all the intellect and virtue of the commonwealth. This was common property, and wherever found, in all the gradations and ranges of society, should, under the operations of law, be afforded the same opportunities as the most favored by fortune. "In all things nature should be teacher and guide."

These doctrines are beautiful in theory, and are well calculated to fasten upon the minds of the many. They have been, time and again, incorporated into the constitution of governments, and have uniformly produced the same disastrous results. They are equally as fallacious as the declaration "that all men are born free and equal," which, with those above, has won the public approbation in spite of experience. The equality of intellect is as certainly untrue as the equality of stature; the one is not more apparent than the other. Transcendent intellect is as rare as an eclipse of the sun. It manifests itself in the control of all others--in forming the opinions and shaping the destinies of all others. This is a birthright--is never acquired, admits of great cultivation, receives impressions, generates ideas, and makes wonderful efforts. Cultivation and education gives it these, but never its vigor and power. In whatever grade or caste of society this is born, it soon works its way to the top, disrupts every band which ties it down, and naturally rises above the lower strata, as the rarefied atmosphere rises above the denser. This higher order of intellect will naturally control, and as naturally protect its power. From such, a better government may always be expected; and without this control, none can be wholesome or permanent.