taking office under it. A thing the farthest imaginable from being true, under the present aspect of affairs.

I think it due to the country, and the party of our opinion politically, that you should accept the office.

I would not have written you, but our friend General Coffee, on being informed of the facts above, suggested the propriety of my writing-saying he had done so—and if it did no good-no harm could come of it.

As a Western man, I should feel disagreeable with all strangers in the cabinet-one old acquaintance of General J. ought to be there-and a man not wanting too much hereafter-one that feels as if, "in the fork of the poplar, safe from the pack." Out of Tennessee he cannot be found. If you refuse, we will feel restive, unsafe, and anxious.

The Kentucky people in the south of the State are generally for office on the Clay side—the aspirants are waiting until they are wearing out with age-are becoming doubtful that a union of N. Light Federalists with Kentucky republicans, if possible, cannot last-are dropping off, and if the government is successfully administered, will not long seriously oppose it., Such are the symptoms at present.

For your health and happiness accept my best wishes.

J. N. CATRON.

WASHINGTON CITY, 1st May, 1881.

DEAR JUDGE: I have just parted from the President. He informs me, confidentially, that you have declined the office of Secretary of War. The old man said he wrote you yesterday, urging you still to accept.

I know your friendship for the President, and I know, too, Judge, the sacrifices you have ever been willing to make for the love of your country. I write this at the request of the old General, because he says I have been present here, and can describe plainly to you the situation of things as they are. The old man says, that all his plans will be defeated unless you agree to come; should it be but for a period short of the continuance of his Administration. The public have settled down on you, Judge, as the man. The wishes and confidence of every one seem to require your acceptance. Nothing that you can offer will satisfy your friends; because, as the old man says-this is a crisis in which he wishes his best friends to be with him—and you well know that you are the nearest; so he declares, Judge--now for my own views. The good of the countrythe honor of your best friend-the character of the State-and, lastly, it must not be said, that aid is refused the old chief from Tennessee, and that, too, by Judge White.

Judge, pardon me for attempting to influence you. I write because I know you will do one thing, and that is, believe what I say. Could you

but witness the anxiety of the General, and the distress that follows, under the supposition that you will not join him, I know you would yield. Yours truly,

F. W. ARMSTRONG.

The importunities of these mutual friends did not succeed in effecting their object, and it was determined to make another attempt to operate upon Judge White from another quarter. For this purpose General Jackson, accompanied by Judge White's brother-in-law, Judge Overton, visited Virginia, and conferred with Mr. Tazewell; as it was well known that the relations existing between Mr. Tazewell and Judge White were of the most intimate and friendly character. Mr. Tazewell, in speaking of the alienation of General Jackson from Judge White, says:

Under this impression, I was somewhat astonished at an incident which I will now relate. During the summer or fall of 1831, General Jackson, accompanied by Judge Overton, of Tennessee, paid a visit to Old Point Comfort, a watering place not very far from here. So soon as

I was able, after I was informed of their arrival there, I called to see them. Upon this occasion, I was told by Judge Overton, that the office of Secretary of War, then vacant, either had been or would be offered to our friend Judge White; and I was asked my opinion as to his qualifications to fill it, and as to the probability of his accepting it. To these inquiries I replied promptly, that the war department, during several years past, had been getting into much confusion, as I thought, and that none of my acquaintance was so well calculated to restore it to order as Judge White, of whose unwearied industry and sound judgment I had had the best opportunity to form a correct opinion. But that from my knowledge of him, I did not believe that he would accept such an appointment. Judge Overton concurred in the opinions I had expressed; and as I believe communicated them to the President. For in a very short time, similar inquiries were addressed to me by the President himself, to which I returned the same answers. He too expressed his apprehensions that Judge White might not accept; and requested that I would write to him, advising him to do so. With this request I declined to comply, stating to Gen. Jackson as my reason for doing so, that I thought it would be indelicate on my part to give such advice to any one situated as Judge White then was. I had just heard of the sad domestic bereavement with which he had been afflicted.

When we met in Washington, at the commencement of the next session of the Senate, I communicated to Judge White the substance of what had occurred. He then informed me, that the war department had been

offered to him, which he had promptly declined; and thanked me, with much feeling, for the part I had taken in the subject, of which Judge Overton had informed him.

His utter refusal to accept this position under Gen. Jackson, and thereby to aid in the elevation of Mr. Van Buren, to the Presidency; his firmness and impartiality in favoring Mr. Clay's compromise in 1832; his endeavors to check the constantly increasing patronage of the executive, by voting against large appropriations, to be expended as the President might choose; and above all, his permission to his friends to use his name as a candidate for the Presidency, in opposition to Mr. Van Buren, gradually alienated Gen. Jackson from him, and at last widened the breach between them, until they became totally separated in their feelings and principles.

Judge White's position in the Senate now became singular. If there was any one of his own political sect whose judgment coincided with his, the moral courage was wanting to stand by the side of one looked upon as a victim marked for destruction. But this isolation had no terrors for Judge White. Although his course was necessarily solitary, yet it was marked with a fixed determination at any hazard "to maintain what he believed sound principles and sound practices, under the supposition that his constituents, when they re-elected him to office in 1835, intended he should resist every attempt of the executive through his patronage to influence public opinion;" and but few public men ever received such decided marks of approbation, or were so fully sustained in their course, as he by the people of his own State.

1

When the subject of the Presidency was agitated in 1838, and Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren seemed likely to be the favorite candidates of the two parties, Judge White, who had opposed the ruinous policy. pursued by the latter, in his administration of the government, did not stand aloof because he could not find a candidate to suit his own views in every particular. Had it been his province to nominate one, he would not have selected either of these gentlemen, as he differed from them both upon important questions; but as this was not his prerogative, and he felt no disposition to occupy a neutral position, he deemed it expedient to support the one whose policy would best promote the interests of the country. With these views his choice was fixed upon Mr. Clay, and he avowed his determination as a private citizen to sustain him for the Presidency-but at the same time

declared his purpose to resist in the Senate, any measure which in his judgment might be adverse to the prosperity of the nation. Instead of Mr. Clay, Gen. Harrison was the nominee of the Harrisburg Convention, and although Judge White would have preferred the former, he announced his determination to support the new candidate. This he would doubtless have done in good faith had his life been spared.

CHAPTER XIII.

RELATIONS TO MESSRS. GRUNDY, POLK, JOHNSON AND CAtron.

THE peculiar relations which these gentlemen sustained to Judge White, and the prominent position they occupied as politicians, render it necessary to take special notice of their course. Judge Grundy was for a number of years Judge White's colleague in the Senate. They all belonged to the same political party. Although not on terms of particular intimacy, they labored together harmoniously up to 1834, on most points of importance. Judge White had the kindest feelings towards his colleague, and never doubted the sincerity of his professions, until certain developments connected with a meeting at Washington, which was designed to test Judge White's strength in the Tennessee delegation, proved that his friendship was not to be relied upon. About this juncture, affairs connected with Judge Grundy's course in regard to the U. S. Bank, proved that the suspicions awakened as to his fidelity were not without foundation.

To Mr. Polk, Judge White was very much attached. During the session of 1833-34, when he and Col. Bell were both run for speaker of the House of Representatives, Judge White wrote to the editor of the Knoxville Register--"Polk and Bell were both run for speaker; the latter is elected. I fear a want of kind feelings between them may grow out of the canvass, and be the means of dividing, at home, those who now pass for friends. Both are to me like children; therefore I took no part in the contest.

"Justice to these gentlemen, as well as sound policy, requires that nothing should be said, or done, which can have the effect of wounding the feelings of either."

Some months after this, during the summer of 1834, Judge White's name was freely used in connection with the Presidency. Upon hearing of some threats from Gen. Jackson of what he would