Continued from: John
A. Quitman to John F. H. Claiborne, July 31, 1831
Aug. 6th. Since
writing the above I have been in motion about the country, and will now gallop
over a few of the many political observations collected during my long journey
from Natchez, reserving particulars until my return. A very fierce struggle is
going on in Kentucky. In no part of the Union have I seen so much excitement.
In Virginia, which I traversed from west to east, there is evidently an
important change working in sectional politics. They are growing lukewarm in
support of the (Jackson's) administration, and I have no doubt the dissensions
in the cabinet, and the developments that have been made, will ferment the
leaven now generally diffused. My opinion is that Virginia is in favor of
Calhoun, and, if so, Jackson can only be supported upon the principle of being
the least of two evils. At Charlottesville I had the pleasure of an hour's
interview with our senator, Mr. Poindexter. I found his political opinions so
nearly my own, you may conceive I enjoyed a great treat in his conversation. He
is more pungent and tart than ever, and his tone is something like a sneer. He
is awfully severe on Jackson and his advisers, and no less bitter against some
of our folks at home. Ho tells me he has written you at length upon the
politics of the day. I found him walking among the people in the court-yard,
without assistance and without crutches. He is a man of extraordinary
intellectual powers. You knew him from your childhood, and I do not now wonder
at your risking your popularity to support him. He has fascinated me. How is it
that his private character is so bad? Why do we hear so much said against him
in Adams County? His intemperance, his gambling, his libertinism, and his
dishonesty. He gives no indications of these defects, and he is here, where he
once resided, taken by the hand by the first people and followed by the crowd.
By the way, have you ever met with the pamphlet published by Dr. Brown against
Poindexter? I met with it in Kentucky. It charges him with base cowardice in
several personal difficulties in Mississippi and at the battle of New Orleans.
Can so bold a politician be deficient in personal courage? Can a public speaker
who so fiercely arraigns so many influential citizens be himself a knave? The
testimony in this pamphlet is very strong. The witnesses are Dr. Brown, Colonel
Percy, Dr. Hogg, Dr. Stephen Duncan, Elisha Smith, and others whom we well know.
I send the pamphlet to you.1 Mr. P. is quite decided in his
opposition to the administration, and thinks our congressional delegation will act
with him. Will his opposition to General Jackson affect your relations to him?
He is for Calhoun.
Here in New York I can plainly perceive among the Jackson
party an alienation of feeling. The Democratic anti-tariff men, the free-trade
and state-rights men, who were all under the banner of Jackson, begin to feel
uneasy, but, as yet, have not determined on their course. The anti-masons, the
no-Sunday-mail party, the manufacturers, the working interest, and the
latitudinarians and so-called philanthropists all incline to Clay. The free-trade
and state-rights portion of the Jackson party may well open their eyes when
leading papers like the New York Courier and Enquirer are evidently shifting
over to the tariff side, to prepare the way for Mr. Van Buren. I lately dined
with a large party of intelligent men, who all along had supported the
administration. Being asked about the impression which the late cabinet
explosion had made in Mississippi, I ventured the opinion that a great majority
of our politicians were disposed to side with Mr. Calhoun. One of them replied,
“We have the same feeling. The President is abandoning the principles which
raised him to office.”
For my part, I hope Mr. Calhoun, or some decided anti-tariff
man, will become a candidate. We must know the opinion of presidential
candidates on this tariff question. An idea has frequently occurred to me of
proposing to the Southern Republicans to run an independent or unpledged ticket
for electors. How would this do? I wish you would reflect upon it, and give me
your advice. In the mean time mention it to no one. If Mr. Van Buren is a
decided tariff and internal-improvement man, I have no notion of smoothing his
road to the presidency by a compromising course of policy.
Among the masses in the Northern States, every other feeling
is now swallowed up by a religious enthusiasm which is pervading the country.
Wherever I have traveled in the free states, I have found preachers holding
three, four, six, and eight days' meeting, provoking revivals, and begging contributions
for the Indians, the negroes, the Sunday-schools, foreign missions, home
missions, the Colonization Society, temperance societies, societies for the
education of pious young men, distressed sisters, superannuated ministers,
reclaimed penitents, church edifices, church debts, religious libraries, etc.,
etc.: clamorously exacting the last penny from the poor enthusiast, demanding
the widow's mite, the orphan's pittance, and denouncing the vengeance of Heaven
on those who feel unable to give, or who question the propriety of these
contributions, whether wholesale or specific. They are not only extortionate,
but absolutely insulting in their demands; and my observations lead me to
believe that there is a vast deal of robbery and roguery under this stupendous
organization of religious societies. That there is misapplication of funds, and
extravagance, and a purse-proud and arrogant priesthood supported by these
eleemosynary appeals, there can be no doubt. When in the city of New York, I
lodged at the Clinton Hotel. From my window I saw several splendid edifices,
which could not be valued at less than $100,000, belonging to the American
Tract and other societies! Thus is the industry of remote parts of the Union
taxed to build palaces in the Northern cities, and to support herds of lazy
cattle. Here are clerks by the hundred, salaried liberally out of contributions
wrung from pious and frugal persons in the South; and these officials, like the
majority of their theologians and divines, are inimical to our institutions,
and use our own money to defame and damage us! Respect for the proposed object
of these societies, and the fear of their power, have deterred even the bold
from exposing their abuses. But such thraldom must not be submitted to.2
I am heartily tired of the North, and, except parting from my relations, shall
feel happy when I set my face homeward.
Your elections are now over. I look forward to hear that you
and Bingaman are elected representatives, and Gridley sheriff. Write me again
at Lexington, Ky. Your description of Plummer's visit to Natchez, and of the
intrigues it occasioned, amused me much. I know he has the ready talent and
tact to carry him through, if he has prudence. What is the editor of the “Clarion”
about, in his severe strictures on Ingham, and Branch, and Berrien, who very
properly retired in disgust from Jackson's cabinet?
_______________
1 All this will be explained in a biography of
the Hon. George Poindexter, based on his own correspondence and manuscripts,
which I am now writing. — J. F. H. C.
2 I find these opinions, uttered near thirty
years ago, singularly confirmed by the Rev. Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina,
in a speech delivered by him in the General Assembly of the Old School
Presbyterian Church, May, 1860. The subject was the policy of the Church in
regard to mission and other boards. The quotation is from the Cincinnati
Commercial:
"Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina,
who addressed the Assembly at Nashville, in 1855, on the same subject, most
certainly made an able effort to convince the Assembly that the Church has no
power to delegate authority committed to her by her Master; that she should do
her own work, and not appoint boards or other organizations to do it. He
argued, too, that it is a sin and a shame to have boards where the membership
is complimentary, and the privilege of consulting in which can be purchased
with money. The principle is money. The seed of the serpent may be harmless,
but the seed contains the poison. We need unity, simplicity, and completeness
of action; and he closed by rejoicing that, when the millennium comes, we will
not find it necessary to change our principles. But I can not say, as the
brethren have, ‘We have done well enough.’ Look at 800,000,000 of heathen
without the Gospel! Look at the resources, the riches of our Church, and dare
we say we have done well enough? I believe these boards have stood in the way
of free action of the Church.
“He referred, likewise, to Dr. B. M.
Smith's history of those boards, as full of startling disclosures."
In the New Orleans Christian Advocate
of May 30th, 1860, edited by Rev. C. C. Gillespie, one of the strongest writers
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, I find an able article, prompted by
the anniversary meetings of the societies referred to in Quitman's letter. The
article, which furnishes thoughts enough for a book, and a very interesting
book, thus concludes:
"We confess we are sick of
societies. We may be wrong; if so, we hope for pardon and more light. There is
a cold, heartless, mechanical utilitarianism about this exclusive associational
way of doing good that crushes out all individuality of reason, affection, and
progress. Societies grow fat and strong, and individual Christian character
remains stationary, or, rather, assumes dwarfish proportions. It is a sort of
concentration of all the surplus energy of the artificial, cantish Yankeeism
there is in American character. It is true, there must be associated effort. We
do not deny that. But it should be harmonious with those individual aptitudes
and social relations and sympathies which God has ordained. Such association we
find in the Church. God made our individual constitutions, He established our
social relations and sympathies, and He ordained the Church. They are all
harmonious. It may be said that, condemning High Churchism, we are High
Churchmen ourselves. In the sense of giving the Church the place, and the
importance, and the allegiance intended by its Divine Founder, and set forth in
the Scriptures, we are High Churchmen. We have almost as little sympathy with
Low Churchmen, of any school, as for societarians. They both undervalue the
Church in theory, or are unfaithful to their own Church ideal. High Churchism,
in the sense of giving the Church a character and power not taught in the
Scriptures, is the other extreme. Societarianism and Low Churchism lead to
indifferentism and infidelity. Devotion to the Church of Christ, as set forth in
the Bible, as ‘the purchase of Christ's blood’ — as ‘the body of Christ,’ as ‘the
pillar and ground of the truth,’ as the ‘kingdom’ of Christ, against which the
gates of hell shall not prevail — is simple Christianity, as far as it goes.”
These are striking illustrations of the
forecast and sagacity of Quitman. He saw, thirty years ago, what no one else
saw at that day, but what is now viewed as a serious social and religious evil.
SOURCE: John F. H. Quitman, Life and Correspondence
of John A. Quitman, Volume 1, p. 106-11
