University of Virginia Library

LETTER LXVII.
In which the President begun to say something about ME
and Daniel.

My dear old Friend, — Its got to be a pretty considerable
long while now since I've writ to you, for I
never like to write, you know, without I have something
to say. — But I've got something on my mind now, that

keeps me all the time a thinking so much that I cant
hold in any longer. So jest between you and me I'll
tell you what 'tis. But I must begin a little ways beforehead,
so you can see both sides of it, and I'll tell
you what 'tis as soon as I get along to it.

You see I and the President has been down to the
Rip Raps a few weeks to try to recruit up a little; for
that pesky tower away down East like to did the job for
the old Gineral. So, after we got things pretty much
to rights here, we jest stepped aboard the steamboat and
went down to the Rip Raps. That are Rip Raps is a
capital place; it is worth all the money we ever paid for
it, if it was for nothing else only jest to recruit up the
Government. It is one of the most coolest places in the
summer time that you ever see. Let a feller be all worn
out and wilted down as limpsy as a rag, so that the doctors
would think he was jest ready to fly off the handle,
and let him go down to the Rip Raps and stay there a
fortnight, and he'd come up again as smart as a steel-trap.
The President got recruited up so nicely, while
we were down to the Rip Raps, that ever since we got
back till two or three days ago, he has been as good-natured
and sociable as ever I should wish to see a body.
And now I'm coming, pretty soon, to what I was going
to tell you about, that bears so heavy on my mind.

You see the President likes, every morning after the
breakfast is out of the way, to set down and read over
the newspapers, and see what is going on in the country,
and who's elected and so on. So when we've done
breakfast, we take the letters and papers that come
from the Post-Office, and go away by ourselves into the
great East Room where we can say jest what we've
a mind to, and nobody not hear us, and the President
sets down in his great arm rocking-chair and smokes his
segar, and I set down by the table and read to him.
Last Monday morning, as I was reading over the papers
one arter another, I come to a Pennsylvany paper and

opened it, and, says I, hullow, gineral, here's a speech
of Mr Webster at Pittsburg, as large as life. Ah, said
he; well, let us hear what Daniel has been talking to
them are Pennsylvany and Ohio chaps about. So I
hitched back in my chair, and read on. And by and by
I begun to get into the marrow of the story, where he
told all about Nullification, and what a dark time we had
of it last winter, and how the black clouds begun to rise
and spread over the country, and the thunders of civil
war begun to roll and rumble away off to the South, and
by and by how the tempest was jest ready to burst over
our heards and split the country all into shivers, and
how, in the very nick of time, the President's Proclamation
came out and spread over the whole country like a
rain-bow, and how every body then took courage and
said the danger was all over. While I had been reading
this, the President had started up on his feet, and walked
back and forth across the room pretty quick, puffing
away and making the smoke roll out of his mouth like a
house a fire; and by the time I had got through, he had
thrown his segar out of the window, and come and sot
down, leaning his elbow on the table and looking right
in my face. I laid the paper down, and there he sot
looking right at me as much as five minutes, and never
said a word; but he seemed to keep a thinking as fast
as a horse could run. At last, said he, Major Downing,
were you ever told that you resembled Daniel Webster?

Why, Gineral, says I, how do you mean, in looks or
what?

Why perhaps a little of both says he, but mostly in
looks.

Bless my stars, says I, Gineral, you dont mean to say
that I am quite so dark as he is.

Perhaps not, says he; but you have that sharp knowing
look, as though you could see right through a millstone.
I know, says he, that Mr Webster is rather a
dark looking man, but there is n't another man in this

country that can throw so much light on a dark subject
as he can.

Why yes, says I, he has a remarkable faculty for that;
he can see through most any thing, and he can make
other folks see through it too. I guess, says I, if he 'd
been born in old Virginny he 'd stood next to most any
body.

A leetle afore 'em, says the Gineral, in my way of
thinking. I'll tell you what 't is Major, I begin to think
your New Englanders aint the worst sort of fellows in
the world after all.

Ah well says I, seeing is believing, and you 've been
down that way now and can judge for yourself. But if
you had only gone as fur as Downingville I guess you
would have thought still better of 'em than you do now.
Other folks may talk larger and bluster more, says I, but
whenever you are in trouble, and want the real support
in time of need, go to New England for it and you never
need to be afraid but what it will come.

I believe you are right, says the Gineral; for notwithstanding
all I could do with my proclamation against
nullification, I believe I should have rubbed hard if there
had been no such men in the country as Major Downing
and Daniel Webster.

But this nullification business is n't killed yet. The
tops are beat down, but the roots are alive as ever, and
spreading under ground wider and wider, and one of
these days when they begin to sprout up again there 'll
be a tougher scrabble to keep 'em down than there has
been yet; and I 've been thinking, says he, and he laid
his hand on my shoulder and looked very anxious, I 've
been thinking says he, if you and Daniel — and here
the door opened and in cometh Amos Kendil with a long
letter from Mr Van Buren about the Bank and the safety
fund and the Government deposites and I dont know
what all; and the President's brow was clouded in a
minute; for he always feels kind of pettish when they

plague him about the safety fund. I have n't had any
chance to talk with him since, there 's so many of 'em
round him; and I 'm as uneasy as a fish out of water, I
feel so anxious to know what the President was going to
say about me and Daniel. I shall watch the first chance
when I think it will do to talk with him, and find out what
he was going to say. I cant hardly sleep a nights, I think
so much about it. When I find out I 'll write to you
again.

Send my love to the folks up in Downingville when
you have a chance.