OCR Text |
Show ANECDOTES OF PUBLIC MEN. BY COL. J. W. FORNEY. James Buchanan had, liko most men, a few favorite anecdotes, which he was sure to reproduce to every new visitor who ate his excellent dinners and drank his nutty old Madeira. It was a custom of Mr. Buchanan's enemies ene-mies to say that he never had the entire confidence of Old Hickory. Certain Cer-tain it is, ho never had the support of Amos Kendall, Francis P. Blair, or Andrew J. Donelson, Jackson's immediate imme-diate friends, or Kitchen Cabinet; yet no less true is it that, when James K. Polk was chosen President in 1$44, the venerable Jackson, then at the Hermitage, Hermit-age, near Nashville, wrote a strong letter to his friend and neighbor, the new Chief Magistrate, recommending Mr. Buchanan lor Secretary of State. Geo. M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was chosen Vice President on the same ticket with Mr. Polk. He, like Buchanan, Bu-chanan, was a standing candidate i'or the first office in the Dation, and it may well be conceived that tbere was no love lost between the rivals and their friends. What reader of these sketches who lives iu Pennsylvania who does not remember those days? Colonel Jas. Pane, Benj. Harris Brewster, Brew-ster, George W. Barton, Horn R. Kneass, II. M. Phillips, Henry Simpson, Simp-son, ATm. Badger, E. B. Schnable, and last, not least, Henry Horn, were among the leaders who fourrht under the respective banners of Dallas and Buchanan. The city of Philadelphia was the theatre of their "bitter contests for many years. But the great field of strife was Harrisburg. Simon Cameron, of Dauphin; Dau-phin; R. Frazer and Benjamin Champ-neys, Champ-neys, of Lancaster; Arnold Plumer, of Venango; Wilson McCandless, II. S. Magraw, and S. W. Black, of Alleghany; Al-leghany; Henry D. Foster, of Westmoreland; West-moreland; Henry AVelsh, of York; Morrow B. Lowry, of Erie; John Hickman Hick-man and William Worthington, of Chester; John B. Sterigere, of Montgomery; Mont-gomery; Richard Brodhead and A. H. Reeder, of Northampton; C. 0. Ward, David Wilmot and Victor E. Piollet, of Bradford; W. F. Packer, of Incoming; Incom-ing; Asa Packer, of Carbon these and a host more, many since dead, stood forth to fight for these two men in the Democratic State conventions with a devotion not usual in these more selfish times. The election of Dallas was a hard blow at our Buchanan side of the house; but J. B. was not so easily baffled; and so, when he got Old Hickory to indorse him for Secretary Secre-tary of State, we felt that we bad checkmated the Philadelphia favorite. And we were right, for no Vice President Pres-ident was ever ignored more than Geo. M. Dallas not even John C. Brecken- ridge, who fell under the suspicion of President Buchanan, the moment he was nominated, and never fully recovered recov-ered from it Notwithstanding this, James Buchanan retained George M. Dallas as minister to England all through his rule, and thereby proved that if he could forget a friend he could also forgive a foe. But to my anecdote. 1 heard Mr. Buchanan repeat it the last time at the Sunday dinner table of John T. Sullivan, Sulli-van, of Washington, one of the most interesting and genial of men, known and beloved alike at the Nation's Capital Capi-tal and in Philadelphia. He was a Democrat of the old school a Jackson Democrat was a Government director in the Bank of the United States with Peter Wager and Henry D. Gilpin;and yet ho was so cosmopolitan and catholic that every man of distinction was glad to receive and prompt to accept his invitations. in-vitations. Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Crittenden, Clayton, Silas Wright, Doctor Linn, Colonel Benton, Sam. Houston, William C. Rivers, Charles Jared, Ingersoll, Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, frequently discussed public affairs over his roast beef, baked potatoes, and iced wine. I was a boy when first asked into this circle, with its feast of reason and its flow of soul its generous inaugural of soup, reinforced re-inforced by good wines, and supplemented, supple-mented, after dinner, by unforgotten punch, brewed by the hand of the good old man now in his gTave. At one of these dinners I heard Old Buck repeat re-peat his story of General Jackson, probably for the hundredth time: Shortly after Mr. Buchanan's return re-turn from Russia in 1S34, to which he had been sent by President Jackson in 1832, and immediately following his election to the Senate of the United States by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, to fill the unexpired term of W llliam V llkms, resigned, who, in his turn, was sent to succeed Buchanan in the same foreign mission, Buchanan called upon Old Hickory with a fair English lady, whom he desired to present pre-sent to the head of the American nation. na-tion. Leaving her in the reception room down stairs, he ascended to the President's private quarters and found General Jackson unshaved, unkempt, in his dressing-gown, with his slippered feet on the fender before a blazing wood fire, smoking a corn-cob pipe of the old Southern school. He stated his object, when the General said he would be very glad to meet the handsome hand-some acquaintance of the new bachelor Senator. Mr. Buchanan was always careful of his personal appearance, and, in some respects, was a sort of masculine Miss Fribble, addicted to spotless cravats and huge collars ; rather proud of a small foot for a man of his large stature, stat-ure, and to the last of his life what the ladies weuld call "a very good figure." fig-ure." Having just returned from a visit to ths fashionable continental circles, cir-cles, after two years of thorough intercourse inter-course with the etiquette of one of the stateliest courts inEuropee was some what shiifked at the idea of tbe i'resi-di-iit meeting the eminent English lady in stifli a guise, anil venture to ask il lie did nut intend to change bis attire, whereupon the old warrior rose, witli his long pipe in his band, and deliberately, deliber-ately, knocking the ashes nut of (lie howl, said to his friend: "Buchanan, I want to give y u a little piece of ad-viee, ad-viee, which 1 hopo you will remember. I knew a man once who made his fortune for-tune ly attending to his own business. Tell the lady I will see her presently." 'file man who became President in lSoti was ibnd of saying that this remark re-mark of Andrew Jackson humiliated him nioro than any rebuke ho had ever received. J le walked down stairs to meet his fair charge, and iu a very short time President Jackson entered the room, dre.-sed in a full suit of black, cleanly shaved, with his stubborn white hair forced back from his remarkable lace, and advancing to the beautiful Britisher saluted her with almost kingly grace. As she left the White House she exclaimed to her escort, "1'our republican President is the royal model of a gentleman." Wash-, iwjton Sunday Chronicle. ' |