1824: The Arkansas War (35 page)

“Yes,” he repeated. “Just remember that I’d already made my decision.”

Coffee hissed. “Andy, you
can’t
give that speech this afternoon. In your state—”

“Watch me.”

The speech was as bad as Coffee feared. Not the words themselves, so much. It was the tone and, worst of all, the coda that Jackson added that had never been part of his written text.

“…the basest, meanest scoundrel, that ever disgraced the image of his God—nothing too mean or low for Henry Clay to condescend to, secretly to carry his cowardly and base purpose…

“…he is personally void of good morals, and politically a reckless demagogue, ambitious and regardless of truth when it comes in the way of his ambition…”

That the words he spoke were all true, in Coffee’s opinion, made no difference. All the assiduous work that Andy had done in Washington since he’d been elected senator two years earlier—and done exceedingly well—were washed away. The suave and sophisticated political leader that the capital’s elite had come to know and even admire was gone; the frontier half savage that they feared, risen to the surface.

It didn’t help that he’d ended his speech by referring the Speaker of the House to “all the laws which govern and regulate the conduct of men of honor.” Which amounted, under the circumstances, to a challenge to a duel, should Clay choose to take exception to his remarks.

To be sure, Clay himself had been known to make similar noises in the course of public controversies. But “noises” were all they were: just typical Clay theatrics that nobody took in earnest.

Coming from Jackson, the words were taken dead seriously. The senator from Tennessee was one of the most notorious duelists in America.

Clay made no public response, of course. Since he hadn’t been present in the Senate when Jackson gave the speech, he could ignore it. To do otherwise would be politically foolish, and personally…

Quite possibly fatal.

Besides, he was too relieved by the latest news to give much thought to Jackson.

CHAPTER 23

Washington, D.C.

N
OVEMBER 8, 1824

“Well, breathe easy, gentlemen,” said Adam Beatty, as soon as he entered the dining room of the boardinghouse. “They found him.”

Henry Clay, who had been slumped in a chair gazing out the window, came erect immediately. “They caught the bastard?”

Beatty shook his head. “Well, no, they didn’t
catch
him. It looks like he made his escape from the city. But they know for sure who did it. No question, apparently.”

He smiled so widely it was almost a grin. “What’s important is…He wasn’t one of ours. A Radical, it seems. One of Crawford’s people. Well, not directly. From what I was told, there’s no evidence he was active in Crawford’s campaign. But those were definitely his sympathies.”

Most of the other men in the room were starting to smile, too. Porter wasn’t, though—and he was glad to see that Clay wasn’t, either. In fact, Clay’s expression was darkening fast.

“No, Mr. Beatty!” the Speaker snapped. “What’s important here is that an innocent young woman was foully murdered on the very steps of our nation’s Capitol. What in Sam Hill is wrong with you?”

That wiped the smiles off. Clay glared around the table. “For the sake of all that’s holy, gentlemen. Yes, I want to be in the White House, and you want me there. But if I ever see you gloating again because a young woman’s murder can’t hurt us politically, I shall ask you to leave my company at once. And don’t return. Is that understood?”

The nods came as fast as the smiles had vanished. Clay could be as gracious and charming as anyone in the world when he wanted to be—which he usually did. But there was a very sharp edge to him, also, as any number of rambunctious young congressmen had learned when they thought heedlessly to cross lances with the Speaker of the House. Clay had not dominated that very unsubmissive chamber of legislators for years by being unable or unwilling to crack the whip, when need be.

Beatty had taken a seat, now, doing everything in his power to look as inconspicuous as possible.

There was perhaps half a minute of strained silence. Then, sighing, Clay slumped back in his chair again.

“Henry, I’m sorry—” Beatty began.

Clay waved off the apology. “Never mind, Adam. Didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just…Dear God, what a horrible thing to have happen. I think Maria Hester was the president’s favorite child, too, even if he’d never admit it. I don’t want to think what he’s going through, right now.”

Josiah Johnston made a face. “She was certainly my favorite of his daughters. The other, Eliza…”

He left off the rest. Eliza Hay, Monroe’s oldest daughter, was rather notorious in Washington. A very attractive and intelligent woman, to be sure. Also very vain, and given to being haughty and sarcastic. Maria Hester had been much the more charming of the two.

Silence, again, for a minute or so. Then Clay sat up straighter in his chair.

“Very well. The needs of the nation continue, after all. So what’s the news, Adam?”

This time, very wisely, Beatty gave his report with neither smiles nor commentary. “It’s been clearly established that the culprit was a certain Andrew Clark. From a family—rather prominent, it seems—in Savannah, Georgia. His father owns a large plantation in the area.”

“Clearly established—how?” Porter asked.

Beatty shook his head. “I don’t know the details, Peter. I got the news from a reliable source in the War Department. But there are definitely eyewitnesses to the man’s making threats about Houston. Had been since he arrived in the city a fortnight ago, it seems. Nobody took much notice of it, because…”

He shrugged. There were plenty of taverns in some quarters of the capital, patronized by Southern gentlemen, where damning the traitor Sam Houston and wishing all manner of ill upon him went with practically every round of whiskey. Nobody took much notice of it, not even the ones doing the damning and cursing. That type of Southern gentleman issued bloodcurdling threats routinely on every controversial subject imaginable, as casually as other men commented on the weather.

“The description fits, too,” Beatty continued, “all the way down to that bizarre hat and cloak. And when the hat was shown to the man’s landlady, she identified it as being his.”

“What’s the connection to Crawford?” asked Johnston.

“Nothing direct, as I said. He doesn’t seem to have been active in the campaign. It’s more a matter of being an extreme Radical.”

Porter grunted. “Why call him a Crawford man, then? More likely to be an admirer of John Randolph.”

Obviously still smarting from Clay’s rebuke, Beatty opened his mouth and closed it. His expression was a bit like that of a stubborn child, wisely silent after a parent’s chastisement but not having changed his mind any.

Clay’s broad mouth quirked into something that bordered on a smile. “Oh, fine, Adam. Say it.”

Beatty’s words came out in something of a rush. “Look, Henry, I apologize if my earlier remark was unseemly. But, blast it, it’s
true.
It would have been a disaster if this bastard had been associated with us. As it is…”

Johnston picked up the cue. “Just being a known extreme Radical is enough. Who cares what he thought of Crawford himself, Peter? Much less Randolph. Randolph’s not the Radical candidate for president. Crawford is. That’s what counts. Everybody’s furious about this, regardless of what they thought about Sam Houston. But it won’t come down on our heads.”

“In fact,” Beatty added, “it makes Jackson’s grotesque performance yesterday look worse than ever.”

Clay gave him a sharp look. Not a hostile one, though, more in the way of cold calculation. “You think so?”

Beatty’s detestable hearty bluffness was returning, alas. “For sure and certain, Henry! Why, the man practically threatened to kill you, and you had nothing to do with it at all. So why’d he attack you instead of Crawford?”

Porter tightened his jaws. That had to be one of the stupidest comments he’d ever heard. The reason Jackson had gone after Clay instead of Crawford—could even a dimwit not grasp this?—was that Clay had helped fund the Crittenden expedition, and Crawford had had nothing to do with it. That had been the subject of Jackson’s speech. He’d said nothing about Mrs. Houston’s murder.

On the other hand…

Grudgingly, Porter allowed that Beatty might be right, if not for the reasons he advanced. Whatever else, the murder had horrified everyone in Washington. The reasons behind it meant less than the sheer brutality of the deed itself. Which meant that the emotional reaction was likely to spill against…

Ironically enough, Andrew Jackson, the man the dead woman and her husband had named their firstborn son after. Not because anyone thought Jackson had any connection to the murderer but simply because he, more than any other candidate, exemplified that capacity for violence in the first place. Did a nation that had just witnessed the daughter of its president shot down on the steps of the Capitol want that president’s successor to be a man who’d killed another in a duel? A man who’d once held a gunfight in a hotel with the Benton brothers?

“It’s over,” Beatty predicted. “It’s all over but the shouting.”

Clay’s expression was darkening again. Hastily, Johnston interjected: “Well, no, Adam. There’s a funeral first, remember? Tomorrow.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

Later that afternoon, Clay spoke in private to Porter.

“Jackson put up five thousand dollars for that reward; am I right?”

Porter nodded.

“Fine. Then I’ll put up ten.”

Porter started to shake his head, but Henry had already seen the problem.

“No, no, that won’t do. It would make it seem as if I were engaged in a petty contest with Jackson. But I can put up an equal amount, I think. See to it, would you, Peter?”

John Quincy Adams worked later than usual that day, well into the evening. Not because there was anything particularly pressing to be done, but simply because he couldn’t think of anything better to do.

By eight o’clock, he decided it was time to go home. On his way out, however, a sudden impulse led him to the president’s office. Monroe was not in, having spent the entire day in the private quarters of the house with his wife and surviving daughter and his grandchildren. And Houston.

The same impulse—half sensed, not understood—led Adams into the office itself, and to the window behind the president’s desk that Monroe liked to look through.

Perhaps a minute later, Adams discovered himself sitting in the president’s chair. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even realized he’d done so.

He began to rise immediately, but froze halfway through. That half-felt, not-understood impulse had come into sudden focus. So, sighing softly, he sat back down again.

There was still a duty to be performed this day. Not one that John Quincy Adams wanted to perform, nor one that suited him well at all. But, whatever else, he was not a man who had ever shirked duty.

He spent perhaps an hour lost in his thoughts again. Only a small sound at the doorway brought him out of them.

Turning his head, he saw that James Monroe was standing there. Instantly flushing, Adams rose from the chair.

“Mr. President. Ah…my apologies. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please excuse my impertinence—”

“It’s fine, John,” Monroe said softly. He came into the room, waving his hand a bit. “Sit back down again. Why not? You may very well be sitting in that chair for four years, come March. Possibly eight. No reason not to see if it suits you.”

Monroe’s face seemed more drawn than usual, but it was hard to tell. The president was a man with such self-control that he would have been the envy of any Roman stoic.

Adams didn’t know quite what to say. He’d already visited the family earlier that day to extend his condolences. Repeating them again would seem…

Not like John Quincy Adams. For the same reason, the impulse to ask Monroe how he was managing died stillborn. For all the mutual respect between them, there had never been much in the way of personal intimacy between Adams and the president. Monroe was rarely given to such; and Adams, still less.