Copyright by the editor, Hal Morris, Secaucus, NJ 1997. Permission is granted to copy, but not for sale, nor in multiple copies, except by permission.
Jacksonian Miscellanies is a weekly* email newsletter presenting short** documents from the United States' Jacksonian Era, which you can receive it for free by sending to hal@panix.com a message with
subscribe jmisc
as either the subject line, or as the *only* line in the message body. If you want to make a comment or query, please send a separate message to hal@panix.com.
((* Biweekly in the summer
** Typically 10-20 pages of printed text))
Jacksonian Miscellanies can also be read at http://www.panix.com/~hal/jmisc. The WWW version is augmented with much biographical, bibliographical, and other information.
Please direct responses and comments to hal@panix.com,
NOTE: Please let me know whether or not you'd like to see more material along the following line. I would still like to use mostly chapter-length excerpts from original source materials, but would you like to see, e.g. one issue a month along the following lines?
As an experiment, and to give some exposure to a new project, here is a sample of the new project -- A survey of events (which include letters and diary entries, as well as what one more typically calls "events"), in chronological order, with citations**. On the web page, hyperlinks are used very exhaustively -- to link to biographies of people mentioned, and to descriptions of localities, to events on other dates, and to bibliographical entries.
** The citations are in the form of title abbreviations with hyperlinks. If you cannot conveniently use the hyperlinks, and want to get the full bibliography to which they refer, you can click HERE (when viewing this on the web), or if you can't do that, request that I mail it to you as text.
The main link for this is: {CLICK HERE}
if viewing this as a web page.
NOTE: It may be a couple of days before you can see any of this on
the web.
The only years with a considerable amount of material are clustered around 1830.
What I'm passing on, for the 1/20 Jacksonian Miscellanies, is the current state of the section for the year 1830. It is barely begun, and in short time should reach ten times the current size, and continue growing.
01/07 - The new railroad from Baltimore, as far as Carrollton, became the first railroad open for public transportation. (see 1/1) (Source: Vexler, Baltimore, p32)
01/08 - 15th anniversary of Battle of New Orleans.
01/10 - Caleb Atwater attends Pres. Jackson's "First levee"; "opened at 5:00, ... President [and cabinet] were there at an early hour. ... The Secretary of War, and all his family were dressed in the neatest but plainest manner. The Secretary's lady, ("Peggy" Eaton) whose person is symmetry itself, neither needed nor wore any thing, but plain American calico for a dress, without a ruffle, or a single ornament, on her person ... no sooner had she taken her place, near the President's family, than all the beauty and fashion in the room, gathered around her, to do her honor. ... During five long hours, they stood, almost without moving from their places on the floor, shaking hands with those who had just entered the room, or were about to retire from it." (Source: Atwater, Remarks, 269)
01/20 - Webster joins in, giving his first "Reply to Hayne".
01/26 - Webster's second "Reply to Hayne".
01/30 - The Texas Gazette reports that during the previous 2 months, Stephen Austin issued 230 certificates receiving settlers and prospective settlers. (Source: Barker, Austin, p272)
02 (date uncertain) - (described in letter of 2/10) The Hanover St. Church of Boston, of which Lyman Beecher was pastor, burned to the ground. (source: Auto...Beecher, II, p162)
03/03 Ralph Waldo Emerson in journal: "Read with admiration and delight Mr. Webster's noble speech in answer to Hayne. What consciousness of political rectitude, and what confidence in his intellectual treasures must he have to enable him to take this master's tone. Mr. Channing said he had great 'self-subsistence'. The beauty and dignity of the spectacle he exhibits should teach men the beauty and dignity of principles. [He] has mind great enough to see the majesty of moral nature and to apply himself in all his length and breadth to it and magnanimously trust thereto." (Source: Heart of Emerson's Journals, p45)
03/17 - William S. Phiquepal left Frances Wright in Haiti to return the John Quincy Adams to New Orleans with a cargo of Haitian coffee to help defray expenses. By this time, Wright was pregnant by Phiquepal, which would lead to a most unhappy marriage. "Mingling in the easy social life of Haiti's mulatto aristocracy, she and Phiquepal spent a month together on the island. There were garden parties and dinners, rides on horseback, strolls through Port-au-Prince ..." (Eckhardt, Wright, p212)
Frances Wright left Haiti on the Enterprise for Europe by way of Philadelphia. (Eckhardt, Wright, p212)
03/28 - Charles Grandison Finney and his wife Lydia have their second child in New York, naming him Charles Beman Finney, after Finney's friend Nathan Beman. (Source: Hambrick-Stowe, Finney, p96-7)
04/13 - Jefferson day "battle of the toasts"
at (Jesse Brown's) Indian Queen Hotel, Washington.
Jackson: "Our Federal Union: It must be preserved."
Calhoun: "The Union: Next to our liberty most
dear; may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the
rights of the states and distributing equally the benefit and burden of
the union.
(Source: Chambers,
Benton, p164)
04/23 - Frances
Wright arrives from Haiti, in Philadelphia
with the burden of a pregnancy by an unfortunate companion. A Quaker friend
said that Fanny, who was not in the ordinary sense a man's woman, would
never have married and become a mother had she not been "under the
influence of a species of hallucination."
She then went to New York to help her troubled sister,
Camilla.
But Camilla, having been wracked by tragedy and illness, was now "visibly
sinking". Her only local companion was Robert
Dale Owen; they were possibly both in love with each other, but he "had
responded to the impossibility of their situation by burying his emotions
in work". He rode every day 5 miles on horseback from their home in
upper Manhattan Island to "the city" (Only south of Houston
could be called the city in those days), and worked twelve hours a day.
(Eckhardt,
Wright, p213)
05/02 - James Watson Webb assaulted Duff Green, who, ... drew from his breast a pistol and presented it at Webb, who immediately ceased all hostile demonstration, and on his return to New York published an article over his name.
05/15 - Frances Wright responds in the Free Enquirer to the attacks of Dr. William Gibbons, attacked Frances Wright in a "scabrous pamphlet" first published at this time, "An Exposition of Modern Skepticism", which went into several printings, and "quoted letters to the Free Enquirer to prove [her] followers advocated promiscuous, if licensed, concubinage" and could offer "no remedy for the evils of life other than a pistol or a hangman's noose." On Wright's return to New York, she responded in print (see 5/15/1830) (Eckhardt, Wright, p214)
05/27 - Andrew Jackson wrote veto message on the Maysville Road bill. (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p200) (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p254)
05/25 - John C. Calhoun, having been confronted as to his attitude to Jackson while Secretary of War, with many other tensions in the background, responds to a demand for explanations with a 52 page letter, beginning "I cannot recognize the right on your part to call into question my conduct.", and at one point says "I should be blind not to see that this whole affair, is a political manoeuvre ... and that a blow is mediated against me" (untactfully implying that Jackson wasn't his own man, and was being manipulated by Van Buren and company). (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p245)
05/30 - Andrew Jackson responds to Calhoun's letter of 5/25: "... I have a right to believe that you were my sincere friend, and until now, never expected to have the occasion to say to you, in the language of Caesar, Et tu Brute. ... Your letter to me ... is the first intimation to me that you ever entertained any other opinion ..." (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p247)
05/31 - Congress adjourned. (Source: Chambers, Benton, p167)
06/17 - Andrew Jackson and entourage head home for Tennessee, after his first year in office.
06/26 - George IV of England died.
07/01 - A "giant meeting" is held, organized by James Hamilton, ostensibly to welcome Robert Y. Hayne and William Drayton home from the Senate, but it is "distinctly understood that those who go to the dinner declare themselves in favour of some interposition of State Sovereignty." The lavish and boisterous dinner featured some "indiscreetly warm toasts and sentiments." Langdon Cheves speaks, but warns against the Nullification strategy; advocating instead a southern convention. (but see 10/13 for the view of an anti-nullifier disappointed by Cheves) (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p201-3)
07/21 - John Eaton arrives at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, where he and his wife Peggy Eaton continue to suffer ostracism as they did in Washington. "I will govern my Household or I have none." (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p268)
07/25 - Charles X, King of France issued "fatal decrees" which lead, within 3 days, to his deposition and fleeing for England. He is replaced by Louis Philippe. (Pierson, Toqueville, p13, 15)
07/28 - Andrew Jackson comes to Franklin, TN, home of John Eaton, where he sees, for a change, the greatest courtesies being extended to Peggy Eaton. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p268)
08/23 - Andrew Jackson confronts a Chickasaw Indian delegation at the Presbyterian church in Franklin, TN (not insignificantly, the home of the Secretary of War) giving them an ultimatum to move to new territories across the Mississippi. The Choctaw are supposed to arrive, but never do. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p270)
08/27 - The Chickasaw Indian chiefs response expresses defeat and humiliation: "To our great father the president ... Father, you say you have travelled a long way to talk to your red children. We have listened -- and your words have sunk deep into our hearts. As you are about to set out for Washington city -- before we shake our father's hand ... after sleeping upon the talk you sent us, ... we are now ready to enter into any treaty based upon the principles communicated to us by major Eaton and gen. Coffee. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p270)
08/30 - Chickasaw Indian Chiefs agree to give up their homes and move across the Mississippi. See 8/23, 8/27. (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p270)
09 (exact date unknown) - The first fatal accident on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. (Source: Vexler, Baltimore, p33)
09/01 - Charles Kean first appeared at the Park Theatre, New York, in "Richard III.," before a large audience. (Source: Haswell, Octogenarian, ch 13)
09/10 - Charles Grandison Finney begins half a year of ministering in Rochester and other parts of Western New York (Source: Hambrick-Stowe, Finney, p101).
09/15 - U.S. commissioners, including Gen. Coffee and John Eaton, meet with Choctaw chiefs and headmen at Dancing Rabbit Creek (Mississippi?), to pressure them to sign over their territory and move across the Mississippi River. (see 8/23, 8/27, 8/30) (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p272)
09/17 - A meeting in Columbia, SC declares recent reductions in the tariff, and Jackson's Maysville Road Veto "nothing but sugar plums to pacify children." (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p200)
09/20 James Hamilton, Jr. writes to Van Buren(!) probably re the 9/17 meeting that moderates had accused nullifiers of an intention to split the union; as Hamilton put it, they raised "a war whoop of disunion." (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p206)
09/25 - Charles Sumner graduates Harvard (Source: Selected Letters .. Sumner, p.xv).
09/27 - Choctaw Indian chiefs, with the help of some bribery, sign treaty to move across the Mississippi. (see 9/15). (Source: Remini, Jackson, vol 2, p272)
09/28 Charles Sumner, having just graduated Harvard "at home, embarking on a year of individual study", writes jovially to Jonathan F. Stearns. (Source: Selected Letters .. Sumner, p5).
10/13 - William Drayton, an opponent of Nullification writes of his disappointment at Cheves convention approach (see 7/1) being too close to that of the Nullifiers. Cheves, "who could have done so much good, [has instead done] so much evil". (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p203)
10/15 - W.L. Garrison gave an antislavery lecture at the Freethinkers' Society in Boston (no church would have him), at which Lyman Beecher call his ideas misguided and dangerous (Beecher had been a hero of Garrison's, but this put an end to that). Also present at the speech, but approving of it, were the Reverends Samuel Sewall and his cousin Samuel J. May. (Source: Stewart, Garrison, p49)
10/24 - Andrew Jackson, in a letter to Mary Eastin, expresses the opinion that Calhoun was "persecuting Peggy Eaton in order to renew the assault on Rachel Jackson." (Source: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, p188)
10/31 - Alexis de Toqueville and Gustave de Beaumont of France, out of favor with the new government, and wishing to be out of the country for a while, apply to go on a mission to America to study the new prison reforms. (Source: Pierson, Tocqueville, p18)
11/05 Edward Beecher leaves the East for Illinois College, where he serves as president. (Source: Merideth, Politics of the Universe, p75)
11/01 - Nathan Appleton Elected to Congress. (Source: Tharp - Appletons of Beacon Hill)
11/26 - In New York, a large celebration in honor of the dethronement of Charles X. (Source: Haswell, Octogenarian, ch 13)
"early" in month - Edward Beecher arrives at Illinois College, in Jacksonville, IL, where he serves as president.(Source: Merideth, Politics of the Universe, p76)