tion lie, he did worse, he believed it. To
be willing to believe so scandalous a tale
respecting such men, except upon what
may strictly be called evidence, is not
creditable to the heart or the understand-
ing of any man. To persist in believing
it for fifteen years, after it had been
completely disproved, to avow a belief
in it, for political purposes, just as he
was sinking into the grave, revealed a
phase of character which we have a right
to call detestable. We owe it to the
interests of human nature to execrate
such conduct.

If General Jackson was passive during
the campaign of 1824, he was passive no
longer. The exposure of the circum-
stances attending his marriage, accom-
panied by unjust comments and gross
exaggerations, the reflections upon his
mother, the revival of every incident of
his life that could be unfavorably con-
strued, kept him in a blaze of wrath.
Determined to triumph, he took an
active part, at home and abroad, in the
canvass. He was elected; but, in the
moment of his triumph, his wife, than
whom no wife was ever more tenderly
beloved, was lost to him for ever. The
calamity that robbed life of all its charm
deepened, and, as it were, sanctified his
political resentments! His enemies had
slain her, he thought. Adams had per-
mitted, if he had not prompted, the cir-
culation of the calumnies that destroyed
her. Clay, he firmly believed, had orig-
inated the crusade against her; for this
strange being could believe any evil
thing of one whom he cordially hated.
Broken in spirit, broken in health, the
old man, cherishing what he deemed a
holy wrath, but meaning to serve his
country well, went to Washington, to
find it crowded with hungry claimants
for reward.

Oh, what an opportunity was his! Oh,
if he could but have buried the hateful
past in oblivion, and risen to the height
of his letters to Mr. Monroe! Or, if he
could only have devised some other mode
of avenging his private wrongs! How
different were the condition of public
affairs in this year 1860, how different
the prospect before us, if, instead of that
vague and ominous paragraph about
"reform," in his inaugural address, he
had used language like this:

"KNOW, all whom it may concern,
that in this republic no man should seek,
few men should decline, a public trust.
To apply for office, fellow-citizens, is of
itself an evidence of unfitness for office.
I will appoint no man to an office who
seeks one, or for whom one is sought.
When I want a man, I shall know how
to find him. If any one has indulged
the expectation that I will deprive hon-
est and capable men of their places be-
cause they thought proper to oppose my
election to the presidency, and, in the
heat of an exciting canvass, went beyond
the limits of a fair and proper opposi-
tion, I notify them now and here, that
Andrew Jackson, imperfect and faulty
as he is, is not capable of conduct so
despicable. Depart hence, ye office-
seeking crew, whose very presence here
shows that your motives for supporting
me were base!"

Such a paragraph as this would have
astonished the office-seekers; but the
people would have sustained him, would
now sustain any president who should
utterly defy the office-seeking horde.

General Jackson's appointment-and-
removal policy I consider an evil so
great and so difficult to remedy, that if
all his other public acts had been per-
fectly wise and right, this single feature
of his administration would suffice to
render it deplorable rather than admir-
able. The captain of a ship who should

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