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University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875[X]
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expand2001 (1)
1Author:  Smith Seba 1792-1868Add
 Title:  My thirty years out of the Senate  
 Published:  2001 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It will be seen by the date above that I wrote this little history of my life twenty odd years ago. It was the time the Boston folks published a little vollum of my first Letters, and the Life was writ to head the vollum with. But I've seen a great deal more of the world since then, and have writ a great many more Letters, and seen a great deal more of the workings of American Politicians. And they'll all have to come into my Thirty Years' View. But there'll be a kind of gap near the close of Gineral Jackson's time, and for awhile after, because a lot of my letters, written at that time, was lost in a fire some years afterward, and I don't suppose I can now find the papers they was published in. But I will bridge over the gap as well as I can, and there'll be a pretty long road to travel both sides of it. And this reminds me how strange the parallel runs between me and Colonel Benton; for he lost a lot of his letters and speeches and dockyments by fire, and had a good deal of a hard job to go over the ground again in getting up his work. But I and Colonel Benton are hard to beat. We generally go ahead, let what will stand in the way. Dear Cousin Ephraim:—I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, hoping these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing. When I come down to Portland I didn't think o' staying more than three or four days, if I could sell my load of ax handles, and mother's cheese, and cousin Nabby's bundle of footings; but when I got here I found Uncle Nat was gone a freighting down to Quoddy, and aunt Sally said as how I shouldn't stir a step home till he come back agin, which won't be this month. So here I am, loitering about this great town, as lazy as an ox. Ax handles don't fetch nothing; I couldn't hardly give 'em away. Tell Cousin Nabby I sold her footings for nine-pence a pair, and took it all in cotton cloth. Mother's cheese come to seven-and-sixpence; I got her half a pound of shushon, and two ounces of snuff, and the rest in sugar. When Uncle Nat comes home I shall put my ax handles aboard of him, and let him take 'em to Boston next time he goes; I saw a feller tother day, that told me they'd fetch a good price there. I've been here now a whole fortnight, and if I could tell ye one half I've seen, I guess you'd stare worse than if you'd seen a catamount. I've been to meeting, and to the museum, and to both Legislaters, the one they call the House, and the one they call the Sinnet. I spose Uncle Joshua is in a great hurry to hear something about these Legislaters; for you know he's always reading newspapers, and talking politics, when he can get anybody to talk with him. I've seen him when he had five tons of hay in the field well made, and a heavy shower coming up, stand two hours disputing with Squire W. about Adams and Jackson—one calling Adams a tory and a fed, and the other saying Jackson was a murderer and a fool; so they kept it up, till the rain began to pour down, and about spoilt all his hay. GRAND CAUCUS AT DOWNINGVILLE—THE LONG AGONY OVER, AND THE NOMINATION OUT. My Dear Old Friend:—I've jest got the Union, containing the broadside you fired at me, and I'm amazingly struck up, and my feelins is badly hurt, to see that you've got so bewildered that you seemingly don't know me. It's a melancholy sign when old folks get so bewildered that they mistake their oldest and best friends, one for t'other. Why, your head is turned right round. How could you say that I was “a fictitious Major Jack Downing?” and that my last letter to you was a “trashy forgery?” and that you would “strip the mask from me?” I feel bad now about writing my last letter to you, for I'm afraid you took it too hard. I beg of you now, my dear friend, to let all drop right where 'tis; leave Mr. Burke to do the burkin' and the fightin', and you go right out into the country and put yourself under the “cold-water cure” somewhere, and see if your head won't come right again. I “fictitious,” and you going to “strip the mask from me!” Why, my dear friend, if you could only be up here five minutes, and jest lift the mask off of my face one minute, you'd know me jest as easy as the little boy knew his daddy. Your head couldn't be so turned but what you'd know me; for you'd see then the very same old friend that stood by you and Gineral Jackson fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen years ago; the same old friend that coaxed up Gineral Jackson, and made him forgive you for calling him such hard names before he was elected. It's very ungrateful for you to forget me now— that is, if you was in your right mind. For I'm the same old friend, the same Jack Downing that was born and brought up in Downingville, away Down East, in the State of Maine, and that drove down to Portland in Jinnerwary, 1830, with a load of ax-handles and bean-poles, and found the Legislater in a dreadful snarl, all tied and tangled, and see-sawin' up and down a whole fortnight, and couldn't choose their officers. I found my ax-handles and bean-poles wouldn't sell, so I took to polytix, and went to writin' letters. The Legislater fout and fout all winter; but I kept writin', and at last I got 'em straitened out. I kept on writin' for a whole year, and got the polytix of Maine pretty well settled. Then I see Gineral Jackson was getting into trouble, and I footed it on to Washington to give him a lift. And you know I always stuck by him afterward as long as he lived. I helped him fight the battles with Biddle's monster bank till we killed it off. I helped him put down nullification, and showed exactly how it would work if it got the upper hand, in my letter about carrying the raft of logs across Sebago Pond, when Bill Johnson got mad and swore he'd have his log all to himself, and so he cut the lashings and paddled off on his log alone; and then his log begun to roll, and he couldn't keep it steady, and he got ducked head over heels half a dozen times, and come pesky near being drowned. And that wasn't all I did to keep off nullification and help put it down. I brought on my old company of Downingville malitia to Washington, under the command of Cousin Sargent Joel, and kept 'em there, with their guns all loaded, till the danger was over. And I used to go up top of the Congress House every day, and keep watch, and listen off toward South Carolina, so as to be ready, the first moment nullification bust up there, to order Sargent Joel to march and fire. The Gineral always said the spunk I showed was what cowed nullification down so quick, and he always felt very grateful to me for it. Well, I stuck by the Gineral all weathers; and I kept writin' letters from Washington to my old friend, the editor of the Portland Courier, and kept old Hickory's popularity alive among the people, and didn't let nobody meddle with his Administration to hurt it. Well, then, you know, the Gineral, in the summer of 1832, started off on his grand tower Down East, and I went with him. You remember, when we got to Philadelphy, the people swarmed round him so thick they almost smothered him to death; and the Gineral got so tired shakin' hands that he couldn't give another shake, and come pretty near faintin' away; and then I put my hand round under his arm, and shook for him half an hour longer, and so we made out to get through. I sent the whole account of it to my old friend of the Portland Courier. Well, then we jogged along to New York; and there, you remember, we come pesky near getting a ducking when the bridge broke down at Castle Garden. I sent the whole account of it to my old Portland friend. Well, the next day your “original” Major Downing published his first original letter in a New York paper, giving an account of the ducking at Castle Garden. Nobody couldn't dispute but this was the true, ginuine, “original” Downing document, although my “vile imitations” of it had been going on and published almost every week for two years. I say nobody couldn't dispute it, because 'twas proved by Scripture and poetry both. For the Bible says, “The first shall be last, and the last first;” and poetry says, “Coming events cast their shadows before.” So the shadows, the “vile imitations,” had been flying about the country for more than two years before the original event got along. I hope your head will get settled again, so that you can see through these things and understand 'em, and know me jest as you used to. I can't bear the idea of your not knowing me, and thinking I'm “fictitious.” My Dear Old Friend:—I'm alive yet, though I've been through showers of balls as thick as hailstones. I got your paper containing my letter that I wrote on the road to the war. The letters I wrote afterward, the guerrillas 12 and robbers are so thick, I think it's ten chances to one if you got 'em. Some of Gineral Scott's letters is missing just in the same way. Now we've got the city of Mexico annexed, I think the Postmaster-General ought to have a more regular line of stages running here, so our letters may go safe. I wish you would touch the President and Mr. Johnson up a little about this mail-stage business, so they may keep all the coach makers at work, and see that the farmers raise horses as fast as they can, for I don't think they have any idea how long the roads is this way, nor how fast we are gaining south. If we keep on annexin' as fast as we have done a year or two past, it wouldn't take much more than half a dozen years to get clear down to t'other end of South America, clear to Cape Horn, which would be a very good stopping place; for then, if our Government got into bad sledding in North America, and found themselves in a dilemma that hadn't no horn to suit 'em, they would have a horn in South America that they might hold on to. Dear Sir:—I've done my best, according to your directions, to get round Santa Anna, but it is all no use. He's as slippery as an eel, and has as many lives as a cat. Trist and I together can't hold him, and Scott and Taylor can't kill him off. We get fast hold of him with our diplomatics, but he slips through our fingers; and Scott and Taylor cuts his head off in every town where they can catch him, but he always comes to life in the next town, and shows as many heads as if he had never lost one. I had a long talk with him in the city, and pinned him right down to the bargain he made with you when you let him into Vera Cruz, and asked him “why he didn't stick to it.” He said he “did stick to it as far as circumstances rendered it prudent.” My Dear Old Friends:—Gineral Scott and I find a good deal of bother about getting our dispatches through to Vera Cruz, or else you'd hear from me oftener. I do think the President is too backward about clearing out this road from here to Vera Cruz, and keeping it open, and introducing the improvements into the country that we stand so much in need of here. He and Mr. Ritchie pretends to have constitutional scruples about it, and says the Constitution don't allow of internal improvements; and Mr. Ritchie says the resolutions of '98 is dead agin it, too; and, besides, Mr. Ritchie says these internal improvements is a Federal doctrine, and he'd always go agin 'em for that, if nothin' else. But 'tis strange to me the President hasn't never found out yet that where there's a will there's a way, Constitution or no Constitution. All he's got to do is, to call all these roads round here in Mexico “military roads,” and then he'd have the Constitution on his side, for everbody knows the Constitution allows him to make military roads. I know the President is very delicate about fringing on the Constitution, so I don't blame him so much for holding back about the internal improvements here in Mexico, though I don't think there's any other part of the United States where they are needed more. But there's no need of splitting hairs about the roads; military roads isn't internal improvements, and he's a right to make military roads as much as he pleases. And as them is jest the kind of roads we want here, and shall want for fifty years (for our armies will have to keep marching about the country for fifty years before they'll be able to tame these Mexicans, and turn 'em into Americans), it is confounded strange to me that the President is so behind-hand about this business. What's the use of our going on and annexin' away down South here, if he don't back us up and hold on to the slack? And there's no way to hold on to it but to keep these military roads open so our armies can go back and forth, and bring us in victuals, and powder, and shot, and money. Dear Colonel:—Things is getting along here as well as could be expected, considerin' the help we have, but we are all together too weak-handed to work to profit. If you want us to hurry along down South, we need a good deal more help and more money. It wouldn't be no use to give that three millions of dollars to Santa Anna now, for the people have got so out with him that he couldn't make peace if he had six millions. He's skulking about the country, and has as much as he can do to take care of himself. So I think you had better give up the notion about peace altogether, it 'll be such a hard thing to get, and send on the three millions here to help us along in our annexin'. It's dangerous standin' still in this annexin' business. It's like the old woman's soap—if it don't go ahead, it goes back. It would be a great help to us in the way of holdin' on to what we get, if you would carry out that plan of giving the Mexican land to settlers from the United States, as fast as we annex it. I've been very impatient to see your proclamation offering the land to settlers to come out here. You've no idea how much help it would be to us if we only had a plenty of our folks out here, so that as fast as we killed a Mexican, or drove him off from his farm, we could put an American right on to it. If we could only plant as we go, in this way, we should soon have a crop of settlers here that could hold on to the slack themselves, and leave the army free to go ahead, and keep on annexin'. I thought when I left Washington, you was agoing to put out such a proclamation right away. And I think you are putting it off a good deal too long, for we've got land and farms enough here now for two hundred thousand at least; and, if they would only come on fast enough, I think we could make room for twenty thousand a week for a year to come. But I'm afraid you're too delicate about doing your duty in this business; you are such a stickler for the Constitution. I'm afraid you're waiting for Congress to meet, so as to let them have a finger in the pie. But I wouldn't do it. From all I can hear, it looks as if the Whigs was coming into power; and if they should, it would be a terrible calamity, for they are too narrowminded and too much behind the age to understand the rights of this annexin' business, and it's ten chances to one if they don't contrive some way to put a stop to it. GREAT BATTLE IN THE COURT-MARTIAL. Dear Colonel:—I've been stumping it round all over the lot for two or three months, tight and tight, for our American friend, Gineral Cass, and as I s'pose you are very anxious and uneasy to know how it's coming out, I thought I would set down and make out a private report, and send it on to you by the telegraph wires, for they say they go like lightening, and give you some of the premonitory symptons, so that when the after-clap comes you may be a little prepared for it, and not feel so bad. As I said afore, I've been all round the lot, sometimes by the steamboats, and sometimes by the railroads, and sometimes by the telegraph, and when there wasn't no other WRITING BY TELEGRAPH. 688EAF. Page 310. In-line image. A man sits upon a telephone pole writing a telegraph on a piece of paper perched on top of his tophat. way to go, I footed it. And I'm satisfied the jig is up with us, and it's no use in my trying any longer; and Mr. Buchanan's speech was all throwed away, too. I'm very sure we shall get some of the States, but I'll be hanged if I can tell which ones. There an't a single State that I should dare to bet upon alone, but taking 'em all in the lump, I should still stick out strong for half a dozen at least. I see where all the difficulty is, as plain as day. You may depend upon it, we should elect Gineral Cass easy enough if it wasn't for Gineral Taylor; but he stands peskily in the way, jest as much as he stood in the way of the Mexicans at Bony Vista. As for Mr. Van Buren, if he stood agin us alone, we should tread him all to atoms; he couldn't make no headway at all, especially after we got the nomination at Baltimore. Jest between you and me, I don't think much of Mr. Van Buren now. I don't believe he ever was a Democrat. I think he only made believe all the time; and I'd bet two to one he's only making believe now. I wish the Old Gineral, dear Old Hickory, that's dead and gone, could be here now to have the handling of him for a little while; if he didn't bring him into the traces I wouldn't guess agin. Dear Gineral:—I'm afraid you've thought strange of it that I haint writ to you afore now, for so long time past; but I couldn't, I've been so busy cruising round among the fishermen down to New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that I couldn't get no time to write, nor couldn't find no Post-Office to send it. Ye see, Gineral, I didn't accept your invitation to take a seat in your Cabinet, 'cause I'm one of them sort that can't bear setting a great deal. I can't stan' it without I'm up and knocking about pretty much every day; and I understood the Cabinet had to set nigh about half the time, so I told you I should a good deal rather have some foreign appointment, where I could stir myself. And you told me the foreign appointments was pretty much all spoken for, twenty times over, but you would give me a commission as Minister-Gineral, and I might go round and look after the interests of the country wherever I thought MAJOR DOWNING'S VISIT TO THE FISHING SMACKS. 688EAF. Illustration page. The Major is standing up in a rowboat, being addressed by a sailor who is standing on the deck of a larger fishing boat next to which the rowboat has drawn. The sailor points to the mast of the boat, and another sailor is bending over some ropes at the prow of the boat. In the background there are many more fishing boats. One bears an "S" on its mainsail. best. Now that was jest what I liked; you couldn't a gin me no appointment that would suit me better.
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