A few minutes later a thin volley of rifle-fire signalled the approach of the President-elect.
The sergeant-at-arms threw open the doors and, to applause from the gallery, Jefferson stepped into the chamber. He wore plain dark clothes. He was exceedingly nervous; face flushed; eyes darting this way and that; tongue repeatedly moistening dry lips. As he proceeded down the aisle, clutching his manuscript, artillery began to sound and did not stop until he was beside us on the dais.
I indicated that he take the centre chair. I took the one to his right. Again we were at a loss what to do. Jefferson stood awkwardly, holding the sheaf of papers to his breast.
“You had better begin,” I said, establishing a precedent. Without further ceremony Jefferson read to the Chief Justice and me his inaugural address. I say read to us because no one else in the chamber heard a word of what he was saying and even Marshall and I were forced at times to lean forward in our chairs to catch the wisdom as it fell from those eloquent lips.
Marshall looked startled and pleased when Jefferson declared, “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans, we are all federalists.”
I was merely startled, and somewhat overwhelmed at the hypocrisy: Jefferson more than any other American had poisoned the political life of the nation by slandering as “monarchist” anyone who stood in his path. Nevertheless, the aim of the speech was, if not a mea culpa, at least a tacit admission of past excess, and this was a good thing: the public is always relieved to find that once the chief officers of the state are elected they do not sincerely want change.
On one occasion Marshall and I looked at each other and nearly broke out laughing. Jefferson had a strange propensity for confusing metaphors. At one point he graced us with the image of infuriated man’s “agonizing spasms” which promptly became through the alchemy of his literary art, “billows” that reached our distant and peaceful shore.
Jefferson then sat down to the somewhat strained applause of a Congress which had not heard a word of what he had said.
The Chief Justice came forward and Jefferson stood up again, dropping a number of pages. I collected them for him. He was then administered the oath of office. Then I, too, swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Thus it was that on March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson became the third president and Aaron Burr the third vice-president of the twelve-year-old American republic.
We all went back to Conrad’s boarding-house for dinner, and the new president modestly took his place at the far end of the table, despite the attempts of Mrs. Senator Brown to give him her seat near the fire. His only word to me that evening was, “The revolution has begun.” I was relieved. Apparently there was still a difference between Republicans and Federalists.
Twenty-two
MR. DAVIS SENT ME A NOTE this morning, requesting the honour of an interview at the City Hotel.
I arrived to find him seated alone in a corner of the bar, drinking beer from a pewter mug.
“How is the Colonel?”
“Flourishing.” The Colonel has indeed been in good form lately. “At least when I saw him last. That was two days ago. He’s at Jersey City.”
“Today, yes.” Mr. Davis was, as usual, conspiratorial. “Yesterday, however, he was in the city. In this very hotel. At half past five. Upstairs. In a private reception room.”
Mr. Davis likes mystery. I do not. “No doubt.” I was flat.
“I think you would be very interested if you knew who it was that he was visiting upstairs?”
“Would I?”
“He was with Mr. Van Buren for over forty minutes. Just the two of them.”
“They are old friends.” I was not going to allow Mr. Davis the pleasure of surprising me. Instead I changed the subject, surprising him. “I would like to know what happened between President Jefferson and Colonel Burr after the inaugural.”
“What happened?” Mr. Davis pursed his lips; looked puzzled—to lie or not? “Well, Colonel Burr asked for only three appointments. He got two. I was the third. For my work in the campaign I was to be made naval officer for New York. But I did not get the post, nor did any other friend of Burr get an appointment. Jefferson dropped the Burrites in favor of an alliance with old Governor Clinton and his nephew young DeWitt Clinton.”
I asked Mr. Davis why it was that Jefferson wanted to destroy Colonel Burr. The question is a simple one, and I have asked it a number of times. Unfortunately I never get an entirely convincing answer.
Mr. Davis sighed. “It is so obvious. When Burr got as many votes as Jefferson, and then did nothing to promote himself, Jefferson was undone. Men like Jefferson can never forgive a rival who behaves honourably. Also, Jefferson had already decided—for the good of the nation, naturally—to promote another Virginian once his second term was over.”
“Jefferson was without gratitude?”
“Entirely. That was the secret of his strength. Unlike Colonel Burr, he had no friends. Only servants like Madison, Gallatin, Monroe.”
“But he rewarded them.”
“Madison and Monroe extended the Jefferson administration another sixteen years. Friendship had nothing to do with it. Jefferson continued to be the master of the republic.”
I think this highly exaggerated; must ask Colonel Burr’s view. Certainly Jefferson died poor, and I should not think he was particularly influential at the end.
We were joined by a stolid young man with enormous chin whiskers and a bald head. “This is Reginald Gower.” The name was said to me as if I ought to know it. I did not. Soon learned the plot. Gower is a printer. Owns a bookstore. Wants to publish my pamphlet establishing the paternity of Martin Van Buren “and—even more important, Mr. Schuyler—Colonel Burr’s political influence on the Vice-President. Their meeting yesterday was most significant.” Gower nodded to Mr. Davis who nodded back. They were like a pair of Chinese mandarin dolls.
“Does Colonel Burr know what you are doing?” I turned to Mr. Davis, the Colonel’s oldest friend and political ally.
“Does Colonel Burr know what you are doing?” This was to the point.
“No.” I cannot lie; nor tell the truth either, it seems.
“Leggett wants Van Buren removed because he is not radical enough. We want him removed because he is too radical. Leggett wants Johnson for president. We want Clay. You, Charlie, my boy, can satisfy us both. A rare thing indeed!” Mr. Davis’ magnified eyes looked at me in a kindly, twinkly way.
I started to ask him how he knew of my arrangements with Leggett but decided that would gratify him too much. “Why don’t you write the pamphlet yourself?”
“You have material that I don’t.” The answer was prompt—too prompt? “Also, I have not the time to spend with the Colonel, to—extract the information.”
Mr. Gower turned to me. “I understand you’ve already begun. I want you to know, Mr. Schuyler, that I am willing to advance you five hundred dollars now and another five hundred if you can finish by September.”
I was not prepared for such a huge temptation. I have never had more than a hundred dollars in hand at any moment of my life. I paused. Could think of nothing to say.
Gower was quick. “Naturally you will get a certain royalty …”
“Depending on the size of the printing.” Mr. Davis tried to save Gower money but I, too, moved swiftly, and we came to terms.
In the tap-room of the City Hotel I found myself with a draught on the Bank of Manhattan (Colonel Burr’s invention, what else?) to the amount of $500. I am rich.
I went straight to Thomas Street. Mrs. Townsend greeted me in her parlour which was now dominated by a large gilded statue of an unclothed fat man.
“It is the Buddha.” Mrs. Townsend indicated a number of thick dusty volumes piled to left and right of the idol. “I am extending my religious range to the East.”
“Is that wise?” The God of Jonathan Edwards is, notoriously, a jealo
us God.
“I have taken precautions,” she said cryptically. “We’ve not seen you in some time. Helen pines for you.”
“I’ve been interviewing Mr. Van Buren.” This was stupid but I could not contain myself.
Mrs. Townsend nodded, apparently pleased that I had not been robbing a bank or leading a riot. “A gracious young man, as I recall, who has lived by the Golden Rule.” She gave the Buddha a tiny smile. They appear to have an understanding.
“He was with Colonel Burr yesterday.”
“So?” Mrs. Townsend lit a stick of sandalwood and set it upright in front of the statue. Sweet-smelling smoke swirled ceiling-ward. “Colonel Burr was a good friend to that young man.”
“Is he the Colonel’s son?”
Mrs. Townsend put a long finger to thin lips, and motioned to the Buddha whose smile was visible through the shifting smoke. Apparently one must be discreet, or the god would be angry.
“I have heard the story in Kinderhook, and thought nothing of it. After all, I knew old Mrs. Van Buren, and a very plain woman she was, much older than the Colonel …”
“Did you know the Colonel’s first wife?”
“Oh, yes. I used often to see her out marketing. Always with two blackamoors in livery. A gracious lady.”
“Was she also a plain woman, and much older than the Colonel?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Townsend looked at me thoughtfully. “I see.” If there is one thing Mrs. Townsend understands (other than the manifold faces of God) it is the private eccentricities of men.
“Is there anyone who might know the truth?”
“Is it important?”
“I think so. Not that such a thing could be published. But it goes a long way toward explaining why the two men are so close.”
Mrs. Townsend nodded. “Aaron Columbus Burr once told me that he took a trip up the Hudson River with Mr. Van Buren and the Colonel. He remembered Mr. Van Buren as being quite the nicest man he had ever met.”
I asked her where the young silversmith might be found. She told me. I almost did not go up to see Helen, so eager was I to earn my freedom. But I could not leave Mrs. Townsend—or myself—unsatisfied.
Helen was in a bad mood made worse by my proposal that she move out of Thomas Street. “Where on earth am I supposed to go, to the Five Points?”
“I will find you a room.”
“And what on earth am I supposed to do in the room all day?” She was suddenly furious; very white in the face; eyes fever-bright.
“Anything you like. Work. Earn money.”
“Like this?” She indicated the wash-basin, the pitcher of permanently cold water.
“If you want to.” I was growing more excited as she grew more obdurate. “But I thought you would want to start work on your own, making clothes.”
“What would you do?”
“I would see you.”
“You see me now, and it’s a lot cheaper this way than paying for weekly room and board, as I know pretty well.”
We left it at that: she will think the matter over. I am out of my mind, I know, but I have never before been this free, this rich!
Twenty-three
AARON COLUMBUS BURR IS AS TALL as the Colonel is short, and quite as dark; he is uncommonly handsome. Although he bears no particular resemblance to the Colonel, he does share the same excellent manners, enhanced more than marred by a strong French accent.
As we talked in his small crowded shop, he hammered a thin sheet of silver over a wooden mould. In his hands the hammer moves with such speed that it blurs before the eye; like the wings of a humming-bird.
I had introduced myself as a friend of Mrs. Townsend. The thick dark brows shot up with amusement. White teeth flashed. “Then we have this much in common.”
I had contemplated a dozen possible introductions for myself, realizing that I could not pass myself off as a journalist or politician without giving away the game. Nor could I say that I knew Colonel Burr without running the risk of being doubly revealed. But a fellow client of Mrs. Townsend meant that we belonged to the same club, as it were, shared a secret that was made all the more enjoyable by my inspiration: “I’m being married next month, Mr. Burr. To a girl from Connecticut.” A half-truth always sounds truer than truth. I told him that I wanted to know the prices of silver, old and new: my future father-in-law was generous.
The French Burr was most obliging; spent half an hour showing me about his shop, and another half-hour enquiring after Mrs. Townsend, and did I know Cora? Had I been with Marguerite? Was the black from Santo Domingo recovered from the mysterious knife-wound?
I invited him to drink with me at a near-by bar. He shouted something to his wife in the upper part of the house. Then he locked up and we crossed the crowded Bowery to a small French café with a sign out in front which said “Marquis de Lafayette.”
At round marble tables, Frenchmen played chess and dominoes; and spoke of home—usually some West Indian island. I find them exotic. Will I ever see France?
Columbus was embraced by the patron who showed us to a table in one corner where we ate bread and cheese and drank harsh red wine, all ordered by Columbus (as I took to calling him at his request) in rapid French. Delicately I mentioned the obvious fact of his Frenchness which appeared to deny the Englishness of his name.
“That is because of my father. You see, he is American. A lawyer. Very old. Very distinguished. My mother is French. They are married in Paris. She likes Paris. He likes New York. When I am very little I am in Paris. When bigger, I come to New York.”
“Burr? I seem to know the name.” I frowned.
But Columbus was not about to be helpful. “He is old, old man. My mother is very young when they marry.” Columbus wanted to talk of girls, and so we did, and I kept pouring him more and more red wine which he kept on drinking. From girls and Mrs. Townsend we moved—naturally—on to religion (he is a devout Roman Catholic: I look suitably awed by this exoticism); then from religion the conversation shifted—almost naturally—to politics.
Yes, he has met Mr. Van Buren. “I meet him on the boat to Albany—oh, when I am first here—maybe ten years ago.” Actually it was six years ago. I have worked out the date to be either May or June 1828. Columbus accompanied Colonel Burr and Senator Van Buren from New York to Albany where—something which I ought to have known but did not—Van Buren appeared as Colonel Burr’s junior associate counsel before the Court for the Correction of Errors in the case of Varick v. Jackson (Mr. Craft has promised to find me the record of the case. He recalls that the fee was a good one and that Senator Van Buren argued the case which Colonel Burr had prepared for him).
“It is my first trip on the river-boat. Colonel Burr takes me along because he wants me to go to a school in Albany but I don’t like school and come back here very quick. Mr. Van Buren tries to tell me how important an education is. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘what I would give if I had been to college!’ And Colonel Burr laughs and agrees with him and says if Mr. Van Buren was an educated man, he would be something a lot more than just a senator from New York which is a ridiculous thing to be, he says. He laughs a lot, Colonel Burr.”
I did my best to appear casual. Not to press. To keep Columbus to the subject. “I thought Mr. Van Buren was governor in 1828, not senator.”
Columbus shook his head. He sliced thick bread and ate it with pickled onions. I could almost taste the sourness, and winced as he chewed happily, mouth open.
“Mr. Van Buren is governor soon after because on the boat that’s what they talk about. ‘I must carry the state for Jackson,’ says Mr. Van Buren. ‘Indeed you must,’ says Colonel Burr. ‘But with old Governor Clinton dead we have nobody who can win this year,’ says Mr. Van Buren. ‘There’s you,’ says the Colonel. ‘But I am just elected again to the Senate,’ says Mr. Van Buren. ‘Yes,’ says Colonel Burr, ‘and now you be governor and you make General Jackson president and you will be secretary of state next year.’ And they argue about what to do but by the time we get
to Albany Mr. Van Buren says the Colonel is right and he will do just what he says and he does. Very affreuse, Albany is, and the Dutch girls are ugly. You’re not Dutch, are you?”
“No. No. I’m Irish.”
As best I could I tried to discover if Columbus knows anything of Van Buren’s true paternity but he does not or else is more discreet than I give him credit for.
I did acquire one useful detail. Some months before the trip up-river, Van Buren had made a speech in the Senate favouring half-pay for all surviving officers of the Revolution: “ ‘The best speech I ever wrote for you, Matty,’ says the Colonel. ‘But not,’ says Mr. Van Buren, ‘the last.’ ”
Twenty-four
I HAVE GONE over this conversation with Leggett who is delighted. “You have enough to start.” He handed me a number of pamphlets from a drawer in his desk. “A few libels for you to study.”
As luck would have it the first was an attack on his own candidate Richard M. Johnson. Apparently the senator from Kentucky has just lost his mulatto concubine, one Julia Chinn, by whom he had two daughters. Although the girls were highly educated, he failed to introduce them to society. He has now bought another mulatto girl, and taken her to bed. I read aloud one of the gaudier passages.
Leggett waves anxiously in the direction of Mr. Bryant’s office. “Don’t! He’s already suspicious enough.”
I desist. “Is this the style I’m to imitate?”
“Yes. With a phrase or two from me, if you like.”
I told him of the meeting with Gower, but did not mention the price I am to get. Leggett is thoughtful. “I’d be wary of anything Matt Davis is involved with.”
“He wants the same result you do.”
“Perhaps.” Leggett shook his head with wonder. “I had no idea Van Buren and Burr were so close. Practising law together as recently as—when?”