Though, to be sure, Adams was not far from the line of fire. Benton had only to lower the hand perhaps a foot and shift it three inches to the left to bring the man from Massachusetts directly into the accusatory finger’s aim.
“And this!—in the face of the fact that in every contest for human rights, the great moneyed institutions of the world have uniformly been found on the side of kings and nobles, against the lives and liberties of the people!”
Adams clapped his hands together. Once, twice, thrice.
“Splendidly said, Thomas! And I can assure you that should I ever choose to forgo the barren soil of New England for the fertile vistas of Missouri, I shall certainly cast my vote for you upon every possible occasion.”
That brought a laugh to the room. A booming one from Benton.
Coffee laughed, too, but his laugh faded quickly. Choked off at the source, so to speak. Adams had turned his head slightly, and Coffee finally spotted the little gleam somewhere in there.
Uh-oh. Belatedly, he remembered. Adams had so few of the overt political skills of most of the men in that room that it was easy to start underestimating the rest of the man. Even Andy Jackson, by now, would allow—not often, and then only grudgingly, true, but he’d still admit it—that John Quincy Adams had probably the finest political brain in the nation.
That didn’t mean he was necessarily right on any given issue or dispute. He had his own biases, his own sectional and class views and interests, as much as any man. Not to mention that stiff Puritan way of looking at the world, so different from that of the Jackson camp, all of whom were certainly Christians but few of whom belonged to any church or regularly attended services.
But you underestimated that rapier intelligence at your peril.
“Fine, gentlemen,” he said firmly. “We’ve argued this matter long enough. Clearly, I’m in a small minority on this issue, in present company. A minority of one, to be precise.”
Sitting on a divan nearby, Governor Shulze waggled his hand. “Say one and a half, John.” With his German accent, it came out more like “vun-unda-haff.”
Shulze gave the room at large a mildly apologetic glance. “I understand—even agree, for the most part—with the points made by the senators from Tennessee and Missouri. Still, mine is a state with much industry and manufacture. I should not care to return to the financial chaos of previous times when it comes to the nation’s banking system. I have also seen poor men—even thrifty German ones—stripped of all they own because a wildcat bank collapsed, and through no fault of their own. That is a form of tyranny, also.”
Adams gave him a nod. On the opposite side of the room, so did Jackson. Shulze was raising the practical and financial side of the problem, which not even Andy would deny existed so long as the basic principle was retained.
But John Coffee barely noticed all that. His attention was riveted on Adams. There was a great big giant trapdoor opening here somewhere. He was sure of it.
Adams cleared his throat, almost as noisily as Benton had done a few moments ago.
“So I shall concede the point, while not restricting myself from saying what I believe on the issue as a representative from my state. In the event I should be elected, of course.”
Normally, that would have brought a laugh, too. That Adams would be sitting in the House—in less than two months, not even having to wait for 1826—was now a foregone conclusion. As soon as John Quincy had announced his intentions, the sitting congressman from the Massachusetts 11th District had offered to resign his seat—on the condition that the governor of the state would appoint Quincy Adams to serve out his term.
The governor was no great friend and admirer of Adams, but no one expected him to do otherwise—for the simple reason that, whatever his personal inclinations, refusing to appoint Adams would pretty well guarantee his own removal from office at the next gubernatorial election. The Arkansas War had all of New England hopping mad, no state more so than Massachusetts. In the fray that was coming, the Bay State wanted its best lance in the tournament.
Coffee saw that Jackson wasn’t smiling any longer, either. Andy had spotted the same gleam.
“But having done so, I must advance a demand of my own. It strikes me as grotesque for the senator from Missouri—as well as the senators here from Kentucky and Tennessee—to be making orations on the subject of the dire threat posed by a national bank to the foundations of our democracy.”
Adams cocked an eye at Jackson. “A ‘viper’ in the crib of the republic, as I recall you putting it. A very nice turn of phrase. But having conceded the viper, I must now insist that my colleagues here explain to me how they can tolerate—decade after decade—the presence of a dragon in that very same crib. That great ancient reptile that is called slavery.”
Coffee blew out his cheeks. So. There it was.
The elephant in the middle of the room, that they had all been doing their level best to pretend wasn’t there.
Jackson sighed and looked away, staring out of one of the windows. Through whose panes he could easily see some of his own slaves—his many slaves—working in the fields beyond.
His lips quirked slightly. “Tarnation, John Quincy, the Republican Party managed to get all this way without ever much talking about that.”
“Yes. I know we did. Quite successfully. But that was because the dragon was asleep.”
For the first time since that day’s session began, Adams rose from his chair. Unlike most of the politicians there, he was not given to perorations. But, clearly enough, his time had come. John Coffee didn’t doubt for a moment that Adams had planned it this way from the opening of the informal session.
Not today’s session, either. From the beginning. From the day he arrived at the Hermitage—or, more likely, weeks earlier when he’d accepted Jackson’s invitation.
“It is time to face reality, gentlemen. We did not ask for the Arkansas War. Indeed, we opposed it. But the war is here, and none of us expects it to be over any time soon. Not before 1826, at the very earliest, and most likely not until 1828.”
He pointed a finger of his own toward the west. Not a finger of accusation, simply that of a scholar, in college, instructing students.
“The Arkansas War changes everything, gentlemen. Whether you like it or I like it. Whether you ever intended to deal with the matter, or I did.”
Adams paused long enough to finish composing his stance and expression. That Puritan rectitude business, whose self-critical honesty was perhaps even more annoying than the critical nattering at others. “And I will state here, for the record, that I never had any intention of doing so, either. Like you, I decided long ago to let the dragon sleep. As did George Washington, our first president. As did my father, who succeeded him. As did his successor, Thomas Jefferson—for all his public histrionics on the subject.”
The last was said with a sneer. The whole Adams family, even those like John Quincy who had abandoned Federalism, had a corrosive detestation of Jefferson stemming from the campaign of 1800.
But his sneer was no greater than Jackson’s. For all that the Republican Party—movement, say better—was sometimes called Jeffersonian, Andy Jackson despised Thomas Jefferson. So did the majority of the men in that room.
“As did James Madison and James Monroe, who succeeded them,” Adams went on. “And you can be quite certain that our sixth president, the estimable Henry Clay, will be moving heaven and earth to do the same. Not that Calhoun will allow him the luxury.”
He paused again, to sweep the room with a hard gaze. “Oh, no. In John C. Calhoun, you can see the dragon, gentlemen. Erect and breathing fire. Henry Clay will sacrifice the virgin to the beast, or the beast will devour him whole. It has come wide awake. A dragon that might well have continued sleeping for decades, had things been otherwise. Slept long enough, indeed, for all of us here to pass on to the afterlife, never having dealt with the monster. Although I suspect our descendants would not have thanked us for it, two or three generations henc
e. And I have come to do much more than suspect that the God we will all someday answer to will most certainly not thank us at all. In that, if nothing else, I think the scoundrel Jefferson was stating the simple truth.”
He sat down abruptly. “So. There it is. I have some proposals of my own. I am most willing to listen to proposals from anyone else. But this much I will not budge on. I will give you the bank, Senator Jackson. We have already compromised on the tariff and internal improvements, in which I conceded more than I gained. I will probably concede much else. But I will not—ever again—participate in a political party that does not at the very least have the simple honesty—the simple virtue, if you will—to be able to call a reptile a reptile. If it can’t even manage that much, it can’t manage anything worthwhile.”
Silence followed. Coffee looked around the room.
Andy was still staring out the window. Benton was giving Adams a look that was half a glare. Only half, though. Shulze was obviously trying not to look smug. Martin Van Buren, over in the corner, had an unreadable expression. But that was a given with the senator from New York. If there was any politician in the country slicker and smoother than Henry Clay, it was the Little Magician. The former Radical Republican’s first and immediate reaction to anything was to start calculating the votes, once he was assured that states’ rights would be respected. And no one thought Adams was challenging that principle.
Coffee then looked at Richard Johnson. The senator from Kentucky was giving Adams a look that Coffee couldn’t interpret at all. Well…
He could, actually, he thought. If you remembered that Johnson was a man as well as a politician.
Finally, he looked at the two men who, in the end, were perhaps the most important ones of all. They were sitting side by side in a divan angled to the one holding Shulze.
William Carroll, governor of Tennessee. Joseph Desha, governor of Kentucky. There was no one here representing the state government of Missouri, because the elected governor had just died a couple of months earlier and his successor wasn’t known yet.
Both men looked more like rabbits paralyzed by the sight of a viper—or a dragon—than anything else he could think of. Coffee couldn’t really blame them. In the United States of America, in the year 1825, the states were more often than not the battlefields upon which the political wars were fought. A proposal—not even that yet, just a question—that frightened presidents and senators and congressmen could be downright petrifying for a governor.
Jackson spoke first, still looking out the window. His tone was quite mild. “Let’s start with this, John. Under no conditions will I support outright abolition. Not even on a state level, much less a national one. First, because I detest abolitionists. Second, because I don’t think it would work anyway. Third, because”—he had a crooked smile, now—“fine, I’ll be honest. I can’t afford it myself.”
“Agreed,” said Adams immediately. “To make something clear, Senator Jackson—or anyone here—I have no fondness for abolitionism myself. Never have had, despite what some people insinuate.” He shrugged heavily. “The truth is, being blunt, I don’t care much what happens to negroes. They are not my race of men, and I’ve never seen much evidence that leads me to question the general assessment of their capabilities. But that’s not the point. The problem with slavery, so far as I am concerned, is not its effect upon negroes. The problem is its effect upon us. It is corroding the republic, gentlemen. Like venom from a viper. Sooner or later, it will sweep the republic under, in all but name, or it will tear it apart.”
Carroll started to protest. “I think that’s more than a bit—”
“No, he’s right,” said Jackson quietly. He still hadn’t taken his gaze from the countryside beyond. “I didn’t use to think so, either, Bill. But John’s right. Arkansas changed everything. Or maybe it’s better to say that Arkansas stripped away the blinders. Where do you want to start? States’ rights? Calhoun and his people are already demanding that the federal post has to be closed to abolitionist literature.”
“But you said—wasn’t but—”
Jackson waved his hand impatiently. “I know what I said. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea to me, once. Stinking abolitionists. But haven’t you been paying attention? Now they’re claiming that even the reports being filed by Cullen Bryant—even Scott!—are ‘abolitionist.’ ”
Finally, he turned away from the window. Some fury was coming into his eyes. “And don’t that cap the climax? Winfield Scott, who whipped the British at the Chippewa and almost lost his life at Lundy’s Lane, has to shut his mouth and not tell the country the truth about its military affairs—so that John Calhoun, who never once in his life put himself in harm’s way for the sake of the republic, isn’t discomfited on his plantation. No different, I tell you—no different at all!—from those damn traitors in New Orleans!”
He gave the room a sweeping gaze much like the one Adams had just given it. Allowing for a fifty-degree increase in temperature. “No, sir! Be damned if I’ll support that!”
His eyes met those of John Quincy Adams, then, and the two men exchanged a quick, hard nod.
So, it was all over but the shouting.
Well, all over but the dickering. There’d be days of that, still.
John Coffee thought about his own reaction and was a bit surprised at what he found.
Simply relief. A man could live with a reptile, even place his own well-being in the creature’s care. That wasn’t easy, but it could be done. What was truly hard—exhausting, after a while—was the need to keep insisting the scaly damn thing was warm and furry. As if it were a pet instead of a vicious wild beast that could turn on you at any moment.
By midafternoon, two days later, they finally agreed on a modification of New York’s method of gradual emancipation. Quincy Adams dragged the negotiations out for at least half a day, all but calling them a pack of cowards. New York had taken longer to free its slaves than any of the Northern states except New Jersey. In fact, they still weren’t all free. There were hardly any negroes remaining who were affected by those particular curlicues in a set of laws that was riddled with curlicues, true enough. But, technically, the last slave in New York wouldn’t be free until 1827.
But Coffee knew—everybody knew—that was just Quincy Adams’s way of applying the goad. Fine for him to advocate the Vermont or Massachusetts approach, when slaves had never featured significantly in those colonies and states to begin with. The legislative program they were trying to develop had the border states as their principal target, and slavery was prominent in those states.
So, they felt the New York model would be more palatable, given that New York had had a large number of slaves through most of its history. In fact, until very recently, there had been more slaves in New York City than in any city in the nation, including Charleston, South Carolina. Nor was that simply a reflection of the fact that New York was by far the largest city. It was estimated that, as late as the end of the century, one out of four households in the city had owned slaves.
There was the further advantage, using the New York model, of having Martin Van Buren’s expertise—no small thing, when it came to what would surely be bitter infighting in Congress.
Not that the issue would really be decided in Congress. Jackson, a firm advocate of states’ rights, was adamant that no emancipation program of any kind could be applied to the nation as a whole. The new party could legitimately use Congress only as a podium from which to expound its views. The battles themselves would have to be won in the separate states, one at a time.
In practice, that meant Tennessee and Kentucky within a year or two, with Missouri to come later. The issue of slavery was still a sore point in Missouri because of the Missouri Compromise. Benton warned them that it would take, in his estimate, at least four years before any Missouri legislature would be willing to seriously contemplate the notion.
You never knew, though, he added. More and more German immigrants were coming into the state, and
wherever Germans went, support for slavery was sure to drop. Drastically, at times. What was perhaps more important, however, was the uncertain variable of the Arkansas War.
Arkansas had forced the issue—and Arkansas might very well continue to set the pace and determine the parameters. If for no other reason than the simplest and crudest. The longer and more successfully a mostly black nation could defend its independence, the more difficult it became for any white man in America—even John Calhoun—to persist in the claim that black people were incapable of managing their own affairs.
That was the ancient formula, even older than the dangers of a Praetorian Guard. A nation might produce no poets, no philosophers, no inventors, no scientists, no statesmen, no theologians, no sculptors—no barbers and butchers and bakers, for that matter. But if it could beat down anyone who tried to conquer it, no one could claim that it didn’t produce men.
Poets and philosophers might weep over that crude arithmetic. But Andrew Jackson was neither, whatever John Quincy Adams’s pretensions might be. He had no trouble with it at all. He had subscribed to the formula in full since the age of thirteen, when he told a British officer who commanded him to shine his boots that he’d not do it. He still had the scar on his forehead from the officer’s ensuing saber cut—but he’d never shined the boots.
CHAPTER 41
On the following day, having settled the core question, the founders of the new National Democratic-Republican Party—such was the title they decided upon—were seized by a bolder spirit. Or perhaps it was simply that they could calculate a different arithmetic. That was certainly true of Van Buren.
With the political authority gathered at that founding convention of the new party, its leaders were quite confident that they could win in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. Not easily, no, but win they would. And they’d win Delaware, too, perhaps even sooner than Missouri. The Quakers and Methodists were influential in that state. The Quakers had long been antislavery, and the Methodists had been moving steadily in that direction. Arkansas Post—the whole Arkansas situation—was turning the Methodist drift into a powerful current.