University of Virginia Library

LETTER LIV.
In which Major Downing goes up top the Congress house
and listens to see if he can hear the guns in South Carolina,
and also has a talk with the President, about the
slander of the newspapers.

[Note. The first of February, 1833, was the day appointed by
South Carolina for putting in force her nullifying Ordinance.]

My Dear Friend — This is nullification day, and it's
most night, and I aint dead yet, and hant been shot at
once to-day. I got up this morning as soon as it was
light, and went out and looked away towards South Carolina,
and listened as hard as I could to see if I could
hear the guns crackin and the cannons roarin. But it
was all still as a mouse. And I've been up top the Congress
house five or six times to-day, and listened and
listened, but all the firing I could hear was inside the
Congress house itself, where the members were shooting
their speeches at each other. I had my company all
ready this morning with their dinners in their napsacks,
to start as quick as we heard a single gun. We shant
go till we hear something from these nullifiers, for the
President says he aint agoing to begin the scrape, but if
the nullifiers begin it, then the hardest must fend off.

Yesterday a friend handed me a couple of papers
printed at Hallowell away down pretty near to Augusta
in the State of Maine, called the American Advocate,
and I found something in 'em that made me as mad as a
March hair. The first one mentioned that Capt. Dow
was chosen Mayor of Portland, and then said, he is the

reputed author of the Jack Downing letters that have
been published in the Portland Courier. The other paper
that was printed two or three days afterwards, said
Mr. Dow the new Mayor of Portland is not the author
of Jack Downing's letters; they are written by Mr Seba
Smith, the Editor of the Portland Courier. Now, Mr
Editor, my good old friend, is n't this too bad? I have
n't come acrost any thing that made me feel so wamble-cropt
this good while. Jest as if Major Jack Downing
could n't write his own letters.

I've been to school, put it altogether, off and on, more
than six months; and though I say it myself, I always
used to be called the best scholar among all the boys in
Downingville, and most always used to stand at the head
of my class. I'd been through Webster's spelling book
before I was fifteen, and before I was twenty I could
cypher to the rule of three. And now to have it said
that I dont write my own letters, is too bad. It's what
I call a rascally shame. I was so boiling over with it
last night, that I could'nt hold in; and so I took the papers
and went in and showed them to the President. I
always go to the President when I have any difficulty,
and when he has any he comes to me; so we help one
another along as well as we can. When the President
had read it, says he, Major Downing, it's strange to see
how this world is given to lying. The public papers are
beginning to slander you jest as they always do me. I
have n't written scarcely a public document since I've
been President, but what it's been laid off to Mr Van
Buren, or Mr McLane, or Mr Livingston, or Mr Taney,
or somebody or other. And how to help this slanderous
business I dont know. But it's too provoking, Major,
that's certain. Sometimes I've a good mind to make
Congress pass a law that every editor who says I dont
write my proclamations and messages, or that you dont
write your letters, shall forfeit his press and types; and
if that dont stop him, that he shall be strung up by the
neck without Judge or Jury.

And now, Mr Editor, I wish you would jest give that
Hallowell man a hint to mind his own p's and q's in future,
and look out for his neck. And as you know very
well that I do write my own letters, I would thank you
jest to tell the public so.