University of Virginia Library

35. LETTER XXXV.[1]
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.

My Dear Friend:—This is nullification day, and it's most
night, and I aint dead yet, and haint been shot at once to-day.
I got up this morning as soon as it was light, and went out,
and looked away toward South Carolina, and listened as hard
as I could to see if I could hear the guns crackin' and the

[ILLUSTRATION]

LISTENING FOR THE GUNS IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

[Description: 688EAF. Page 192. In-line image. A man stands on a catwalk above a dome and listens with one hand to his ear. A flag flies in the air behind him.] 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 shan't 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 Captain 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 afterward,
said: “Mr. Dow, the new Mayor of Portland, is not the author
of Jack Downing's letters; they are written by the editor
of the Portland Courier.” Now, Mr. Editor, my good old
friend, isn't this too bad? I haven't come acrost any thing
that made me feel so wamble-cropt this good while. Jest as
if Major Jack Downing couldn'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 don't 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 couldn't 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 haven'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 don't 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 don't write
my proclamations and messages, or that you don't write your
letters, shall forfeit his press and types; and, if that don't
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.