David Crockett

CHAPTER X.

Crock­ett’s Tour to the North and the East.

His Re­elec­tion to Congress.–The North­ern Tour.–First Sight of a Rail­road.–Re­cep­tion in Philadel­phia.–His First Speech.–Ar­rival in New York.–The Ova­tion there.–Vis­it to Boston.–Cam­bridge and Low­ell.–Spec­imens of his Speech­es.–Ex­pan­sion of his Ideas.–Rapid Im­prove­ment.

Colonel Crock­ett, hav­ing been re­elect­ed again re­paired to Wash­ing­ton. Dur­ing the ses­sion, to com­plete his ed­uca­tion, and the bet­ter to pre­pare him­self as a leg­is­la­tor for the whole na­tion, he de­cid­ed to take a short trip to the North and the East. His health had al­so be­gun to fail, and his physi­cians ad­vised him to go. He was thor­ough­ly ac­quaint­ed with the Great West. With his ri­fle up­on his shoul­der, in the Creek War, he had made wide ex­plo­rations through the South. But the North and the East were re­gions as yet un­known to him.

On the 25th of April, 1834, he left Wash­ing­ton for this North­ern tour. He reached Bal­ti­more that evening, where he was in­vit­ed to a sup­per by some of the lead­ing gen­tle­men. He writes:

“Ear­ly next morn­ing. I start­ed for Philadel­phia, a place where I had nev­er been. I sort of felt lone­some as I went down to the steam­boat. The idea of go­ing among a new peo­ple, where there are tens of thou­sands who would pass me by with­out know­ing or car­ing who I was, who are all tak­en up with their own plea­sures or their own busi­ness, made me feel small; and, in­deed, if any one who reads this book has a grand idea of his own im­por­tance, let him go to a big city, and he will find that he is not high­er val­ued than a coon­skin.

“The steam­boat was the Car­roll of Car­roll­ton, a fine craft, with the rum old Com­modore Chay­tor for head man. A good fel­low he is–all sorts of a man–bow­ing and scrap­ing to the ladies, nod­ding to the gen­tle­men, curs­ing the crew, and his right eye broad-​cast up­on the ‘op­po­si­tion line,’ all at the same time. ‘Let go!’ said the old one, and off we walked in prime style.

“Our pas­sage down Chesa­peake Bay was very pleas­ant. In a very short run we came to a place where we were to get on board the rail-​cars. This was a clean new sight to me. About a dozen big stages hung on to one ma­chine. Af­ter a good deal of fuss we all got seat­ed and moved slow­ly off; the en­gine wheez­ing as though she had the tizzic. By-​and-​by, she be­gan to take short breaths, and away we went, with a blue streak af­ter us. The whole dis­tance is sev­en­teen miles. It was run in fifty-​five min­utes.

“At Delaware City, I again em­barked on board of a splen­did steam­boat. When din­ner was ready, I set down with the rest of the pas­sen­gers. Among them was Rev. O. B. Brown, of the Post-​Of­fice De­part­ment, who sat near me. Dur­ing din­ner he or­dered a bot­tle of wine, and called up­on me for a toast. Not know­ing whether he in­tend­ed to com­pli­ment me, or abash me among so many strangers, or have some fun at my ex­pense, I con­clud­ed to go ahead, and give him and his like a bliz­zard. So our glass­es be­ing filled, the word went round, ‘A toast from Colonel Crock­ett.’ I give it as fol­lows: ‘Here’s wish­ing the bones of tyrant kings may an­swer in hell, in place of gridirons, to roast the souls of To­ries on.’ At this the par­son ap­peared as if he was stumpt. I said, ‘Nev­er heed; it was meant for where it be­longed.’ He did not re­peat his in­vi­ta­tion, and I eat my din­ner qui­et­ly.

“Af­ter din­ner I went up on the deck, and saw the cap­tain hoist­ing three flags. Says I, ‘What does that mean?’ He replied, that he was un­der promise to the cit­izens of Philadel­phia, if I was on board, to hoist his flags, as a friend of mine had said he ex­pect­ed I would be along soon.

“We went on till we came in sight of the city and as we ad­vanced to­wards the wharf, I saw the whole face of the earth cov­ered with peo­ple, all anx­ious­ly look­ing on to­wards the boat. The cap­tain and my­self were stand­ing on the bow-​deck; he point­ed his fin­ger at me, and peo­ple slung their hats, and huz­za­ed for Colonel Crock­ett. It struck me with as­ton­ish­ment to hear a strange peo­ple huz­zaing for me, and made me feel sort of queer. It took me so un­com­mon un­ex­pect­ed, as I had no idea of at­tract­ing at­ten­tion. But I had to meet it, and so I stepped on to the wharf, where the folks came crowd­ing around me, say­ing, ‘Give me the hand of an hon­est man.’ I did not know what all this meant: but some gen­tle­man took hold of me, and press­ing through the crowd, put me in­to an el­egant barouche, drawn by four fine hors­es; they then told me to bow to the peo­ple: I did so, and with much dif­fi­cul­ty we moved off. The streets were crowd­ed to a great dis­tance, and the win­dows full of peo­ple, look­ing out, I sup­pose, to see the wild man. I thought I had rather be in the wilder­ness with my gun and dogs, than to be at­tract­ing all that fuss. I had nev­er seen the like be­fore, and did not know ex­act­ly what to say or do. Af­ter some time we reached the Unit­ed States Ho­tel, in Ches­nut Street.”

‘ The crowd had fol­lowed me fill­ing up the street, and press­ing in­to the house to shake hands. I was con­duct­ed up stairs, and walked out on a plat­form, drew off my hat, and bowed round to the peo­ple. They cried out from all quar­ters, ‘A speech, a speech, Colonel Crock­ett.’

“Af­ter the noise had quit, so I could be heard, I said to them the fol­low­ing words:

“‘GEN­TLE­MEN OF PHILADEL­PHIA:

“‘My vis­it to your city is rather ac­ci­den­tal. I had no ex­pec­ta­tion of at­tract­ing any un­com­mon at­ten­tion. I am trav­el­ling for my health, with­out the least wish of ex­cit­ing the peo­ple in such times of high po­lit­ical feel­ing. I do not wish to en­cour­age it. I am un­able at this time to find lan­guage suit­able to re­turn my grat­itude to the cit­izens of Philadel­phia. How­ev­er, I am al­most in­duced to be­lieve it flat­tery–per­haps a bur­lesque. This is new to me, yet I see noth­ing but friend­ship in your faces; and if your cu­rios­ity is to hear the back­woods­man, I will as­sure you I am il­ly pre­pared to ad­dress this most en­light­ened peo­ple. How­ev­er, gen­tle­men, if this is a cu­rios­ity to you, if you will meet me to-​mor­row, at one o’clock, I will en­deav­or to ad­dress you, in my plain man­ner.’

“So I made my obei­sance to them, and re­tired in­to the house.”

It is true that there was much of mere cu­rios­ity in the de­sire to see Colonel Crock­ett. He was a strange and an in­com­pre­hen­si­ble man. His man­ly, hon­est course in Congress had se­cured much re­spect. But such de­vel­op­ments of char­ac­ter as were shown in his rude and vul­gar toast, be­fore a par­ty of gen­tle­men and ladies, ex­cit­ed as­ton­ish­ment. His no­to­ri­ety pre­ced­ed him, wher­ev­er he went; and all were alike cu­ri­ous to see so strange a spec­imen of a man.

The next morn­ing, sev­er­al gen­tle­men called up­on him, and took him in a car­riage to see the var­ious ob­jects of in­ter­est in the city. The gen­tle­men made him a present of a rich seal, rep­re­sent­ing two hors­es at full speed, with the words, “Go Ahead.” The young men al­so made him a present of a tru­ly mag­nif­icent ri­fle. From Philadel­phia he went to New York. The ship­ping as­ton­ished him. “They beat me all hol­low,” he says, “and looked for all the world like a big clear­ing in the West, with the dead trees all stand­ing.”

There was a great crowd up­on the wharf to greet him. And when the cap­tain of the boat led him con­spic­uous­ly for­ward, and point­ed him out to the mul­ti­tude, the cheer­ing was tremen­dous. A com­mit­tee con­duct­ed him to the Amer­ican Ho­tel, and treat­ed him with the great­est dis­tinc­tion. Again he was fet­ed, and load­ed with the great­est at­ten­tions. He was in­vit­ed to a very splen­did sup­per, got up in his hon­or, at which there were a hun­dred guests. The Hon. Judge Clay­ton, of Geor­gia, was present, and make a speech which, as Crock­ett says, fair­ly made the tum­blers hop.

Crock­ett was then called up, as the “un­de­vi­at­ing sup­port­er of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws.” In re­sponse to this toast, he says,

“I made a short speech, and con­clud­ed with the sto­ry of the red cow, which was, that as long as Gen­er­al Jack­son went straight, I fol­lowed him; but when he be­gan to go this way, and that way, and ev­ery way, I wouldn’t go af­ter him; like the boy whose mas­ter or­dered him to plough across the field to the red cow. Well, he be­gan to plough, and she be­gan to walk; and he ploughed all forenoon af­ter her. So when the mas­ter came, he swore at him for go­ing so crooked. ‘Why, sir,’ said the boy, ‘you told me to plough to the red cow, and I kept af­ter her, but she al­ways kept mov­ing.’”

His trip to New York was con­clud­ed by his vis­it­ing Jer­sey City to wit­ness a shoot­ing-​match with ri­fles. He was in­vit­ed to try his hand. Stand­ing, at the dis­tance of one hun­dred and twen­ty feet, he fired twice, strik­ing very near the cen­tre of the mark. Some one then put up a quar­ter of a dol­lar in the midst of a black spot, and re­quest­ed him to shoot at it. The bul­let struck the coin, and as Crock­ett says made slight-​of-​hand work with it.

From New York he went to Boston. There, an the op­po­nent of some of Pres­ident Jack­son’s mea­sures which were most of­fen­sive to the New Eng­land peo­ple, he was fet­ed with ex­traor­di­nary en­thu­si­asm. He dined and supped, made speech­es, which gen­er­al­ly con­sist­ed of but one short anec­dote, and vis­it­ed near­ly all the pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions.

Just be­fore this, An­drew Jack­son had re­ceived from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty the hon­orary ti­tle of LL.D. Jack­son was no longer a fa­vorite of Crock­ett. The new dis­tin­guished guest, the renowned bear-​hunter, was in his turn in­vit­ed to vis­it Har­vard. He writes:

“There were some gen­tle­men that in­vit­ed me to go to Cam­bridge, where the big col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty is, where they keep ready-​made ti­tles or nick-​names to give peo­ple. I would not go, for I did not know but they might stick an LL.D. on me be­fore they let me go; and I had no idea of chang­ing ‘Mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Unit­ed States,’ for what stands for ‘lazy, loung­ing dunce,’ which I am sure my con­stituents would have trans­lat­ed my new ti­tle to be. Know­ing that I had nev­er tak­en any de­gree, and did not own to any–ex­cept a small de­gree of good sense not to pass for what I was not–I would not go it. There had been one doc­tor made from Ten­nessee al­ready, and I had no wish to put on the cap and bells.

“I told them that I did not go to this brand­ing school; I did not want to be tarred with the same stick; one dig­ni­tary was enough from Ten­nessee; that as far as my learn­ing went, I would stand over it, and spell a strive or two with any of them, from a-​b-​ab to cru­ci­fix, which was where I left off at school.”

A gen­tle­man, at a din­ner-​par­ty, very earnest­ly in­vit­ed Crock­ett to vis­it him. He re­turned the com­pli­ment by say­ing:

“If you ev­er come to my part of the coun­try, I hope you will call and see me.”

“And how shall I find where you live?” the gen­tle­man in­quired.

“Why, sir,” Crock­ett an­swered, “run down the Mis­sis­sip­pi till you come to the Oberon Riv­er. Run a small streak up that; jump ashore any­where, and in­quire for me.”

From Boston, he went to Low­ell. The hos­pi­tal­ity he had en­joyed in Boston won his warmest com­men­da­tion. At Low­ell, he was quite charmed by the as­pect of wealth, in­dus­try, and com­fort which met his eye. Up­on his re­turn to Boston, he spent the evening, with sev­er­al gen­tle­men and ladies at the pleas­ant res­idence of Lieu­tenant-​Gov­er­nor Arm­strong. In ref­er­ence to this vis­it, he writes:

“This was my last night in Boston, and I am sure, if I nev­er see the place again, I nev­er can for­get the kind and friend­ly man­ner in which I was treat­ed by them. It ap­peared to me that ev­ery­body was anx­ious to serve me, and make my time agree­able. And as a proof that comes home–when I called for my bill next morn­ing, I was told there was no charge to be paid by me, and that he was very much de­light­ed that I had made his house my home. I for­got to men­tion that they treat­ed me so in Low­ell–but it is true. This was, to me, at all events, proof enough of Yan­kee lib­er­al­ity; and more than they gen­er­al­ly get cred­it for. In fact, from the time I en­tered New Eng­land, I was treat­ed with the great­est friend­ship; and, I hope, nev­er shall for­get it; and I wish all who read this book, and who nev­er were there, would take a trip among them. If they don’t learn how to make mon­ey, they will know how to use it; and if they don’t learn in­dus­try, they will see how com­fort­able ev­ery­body can be that turns his hands to some em­ploy­ment.”

Crock­ett was not a mere jok­er. He was an hon­est man, and an earnest man; and un­der the tu­ition of Congress had formed some very de­cid­ed po­lit­ical prin­ci­ples, which he vig­or­ous­ly en­forced with his rude elo­quence.

When he first went to Congress he was mere­ly a big boy, of very strong mind, but to­tal­ly un­in­formed, and un­cul­ti­vat­ed. He very rapid­ly im­proved un­der the tu­ition of Congress; and in some de­gree awoke to the con­scious­ness of his great in­tel­lec­tu­al im­per­fec­tions. Still he was nev­er dif­fi­dent. He closed one of his off-​hand af­ter-​din­ner speech­es in Boston, by say­ing:

“Gen­tle­men of Boston, I come here as a pri­vate cit­izen, to see you, and not to show my­self. I had no idea of at­tract­ing at­ten­tion. But I feel it my du­ty to thank you, with my grat­itude to you, and with a grat­itude to all who have giv­en a plain man, like me, so kind a re­cep­tion. I come from a great way off. But I shall nev­er re­pent of hav­ing been per­suad­ed to come here, and get a knowl­edge of your ways, which I can car­ry home with me. We on­ly want to do away prej­udice and give the peo­ple in­for­ma­tion.

“I hope, gen­tle­men, you will ex­cuse my plain, un­var­nished ways, which may seem strange to you here. I nev­er had but six months’ school­ing in all my life. And I con­fess, I con­sid­er my­self a poor tyke to be here ad­dress­ing the most in­tel­li­gent peo­ple in the world. But I think it the du­ty of ev­ery rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple, when he is called up­on, to give his opin­ions. And I have tried to give you a lit­tle touch of mine.”

Ev­ery read­er will be in­ter­est­ed in the pe­rusal of the fol­low­ing se­ri­ous speech, which he made in Boston. It is a fair spec­imen of his best ef­forts, and will give one a very cor­rect idea of his trains of thought, and modes of ex­pres­sion. It al­so clear­ly shows the great ques­tions which ag­itat­ed the coun­try at that time. It can eas­ily be per­ceived that, as a stump or­ator in the far West, Crock­ett might have ex­er­cised very con­sid­er­able pow­er. This phase of his pe­cu­liar char­ac­ter is as wor­thy of con­sid­er­ation as any oth­er.

“GEN­TLE­MEN:

“By the en­tire friend­ship of the cit­izens of Boston, as well as the par­tic­ular friend­ship with which you have re­ceived me this evening, I have been brought to re­flect on times that have gone by, and re­view a prej­udice that has grown up with me, as well as thou­sands of my West­ern and South­ern friends. We have al­ways been taught to look up­on the peo­ple of New Eng­land as a self­ish, cun­ning set of fel­lows, that was fed on fox-​ears and this­tle-​tops; that cut their wis­dom-​teeth as soon as they were born; that made mon­ey by their wits, and held on to it by na­ture; that called cheatery moth­er-​wit; that hung on to po­lit­ical pow­er be­cause they had num­bers; that raised up man­ufac­tures to keep down the South and West; and, in fact, had so much of the dev­il in all their ma­chin­ery, that they would nei­ther lead nor drive, un­less the load was go­ing in­to their own cribs. But I as­sure you, gen­tle­men, I be­gin to think dif­fer­ent of you, and I think I see a good many good rea­sons for so do­ing.

“I don’t mean that be­cause I eat your bread and drink your liquor, that I feel so. No; that don’t make me see clear­er than I did. It is your habits, and man­ners, and cus­toms; your in­dus­try; your proud, in­de­pen­dent spir­its; your hang­ing on to the eter­nal prin­ci­ples of right and wrong; your lib­er­al­ity in pros­per­ity, and your pa­tience when you are ground down by leg­is­la­tion, which, in­stead of crush­ing you, whets your in­ven­tion to strike a path with­out a blaze on a tree to guide you; and above all, your nev­er-​dy­ing, death­less grip to our glo­ri­ous Con­sti­tu­tion. These are the things that make me think that you are a mighty good peo­ple.”

Here the speak­er was in­ter­rupt­ed by great ap­plause.

“Gen­tle­men, I be­lieve I have spoke the truth, and not flat­tery; I ain’t used to oily words; I am used to speak what I think, of men, and to men. I am, per­haps, more of a come-​by-​chance than any of you ev­er saw; I have made my way to the place I now fill, with­out wealth, and against ed­uca­tion; I was raised from ob­scu­ri­ty, and placed in the high coun­cils of the na­tion, by the kind­ness and lib­er­al­ity of the good peo­ple of my dis­trict–a peo­ple whom I will nev­er be un­faith­ful to, here or else­where; I love them, and they have hon­ored me; and ac­cord­ing as God has giv­en me judg­ment, I’ll use it for them, come of me what may.

“These peo­ple once passed sen­tence up­on me of a two years’ stay-​at-​home, for ex­er­cis­ing that which I con­tend be­longs to ev­ery free­man in this na­tion: that was, for dif­fer­ing in opin­ion with the chief mag­is­trate of this na­tion. I was well ac­quaint­ed with him. He was but a man; and, if I was not be­fore, my con­stituents had made a man of me. I had marched and counter-​marched with him: I had stood by him in the wars, and fought un­der his flag at the polls: I helped to heap the mea­sure of glo­ry that has crushed and smashed ev­ery­thing that has come in con­tact with it: I helped to give him the name of ‘Hero,’ which, like the light­ning from heav­en, has scorched and blast­ed ev­ery­thing that stood in its way–a name which, like the prairie fire, you have to burn against, or you are gone–a name which ought to be the first in war, and the last in peace–a name which, like ‘Jack-​o’-the lantern, blinds your eyes while you fol­low it through mud and mire.

“Gen­tle­men, I nev­er op­posed An­drew Jack­son for the sake of pop­ular­ity. I knew it was a hard row to hoe; but I stood up to the rack, con­sid­er­ing it a du­ty I owed to the coun­try that gov­erned me. I had re­viewed the course of oth­er Pres­idents, and came to the con­clu­sion that he did not of right pos­sess any more pow­er than those that had gone be­fore him. When he tran­scend­ed that pow­er, I put down my foot. I knew his pop­ular­ity; that he had come in­to place with the largest ma­jor­ity of any one that had gone be­fore him, who had op­po­si­tion: but still, I did not con­sid­er this as giv­ing him the right to do as he pleased, and con­strue our Con­sti­tu­tion to meet his own views.

“We had lived the hap­pi­est peo­ple un­der the sun for fifty years, gov­erned by the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws, on well-​es­tab­lished con­struc­tions: and when I saw the Gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tered on new prin­ci­ples, I ob­ject­ed, and was po­lit­ical­ly sac­ri­ficed: I per­sist­ed in my sins, hav­ing a clear con­science, that be­fore God and my coun­try, I had done my du­ty.

“My con­stituents be­gan to look at both sides; and fi­nal­ly, at the end of two years, ap­prov­ing of my course, they sent me back to Congress–a cir­cum­stance which was tru­ly grat­ify­ing to me.

“Gen­tle­men, I op­posed An­drew Jack­son in his fa­mous In­di­an bill, where five hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars were vot­ed for ex­pens­es, no part of which has yet been ac­count­ed for, as I have seen. I thought it ex­trav­agant as well as im­politic. I thought the rights re­served to the In­di­ans were about to be frit­tered away; and events prove that I thought cor­rect.

“I had con­sid­ered a treaty as the sovereign law of the land; but now saw it con­sid­ered as a mat­ter of ex­pe­di­ence, or not, as it pleased the pow­ers that be. Geor­gia bid de­fi­ance to the treaty-​mak­ing pow­er, and set at nought the In­ter­course Act of 1802; she tram­pled it un­der foot; she nul­li­fied it: and for this, she re­ceived the smiles and ap­pro­ba­tion of An­drew Jack­son. And this in­duced South Car­oli­na to nul­li­fy the Tar­iff. She had a right to ex­pect that the Pres­ident was fa­vor­able to the prin­ci­ple: but he took up the rod of cor­rec­tion, and shook it over South Car­oli­na, and said at the same time to Geor­gia, ‘You may nul­li­fy, but South Car­oli­na shall not.’

“This was like his con­sis­ten­cy in many oth­er mat­ters. When he was a Sen­ator in Congress, he was a friend to in­ter­nal im­prove­ments, and vot­ed for them. Ev­ery­thing then that could ce­ment the States to­geth­er, by giv­ing them ac­cess the one to the oth­er, was right. When he got in­to pow­er, some of his friends had hard work to dodge, and fol­low, and shout. I called off my dogs, and quit the hunt. Yes, gen­tle­men, Penn­syl­va­nia, and Ohio, and Ten­nessee, and oth­er States, vot­ed for him, as a sup­port­er of in­ter­nal im­prove­ments.

“Was he not a Tar­iff man? Who dare de­ny it! When did we first hear of his op­po­si­tion? Cer­tain­ly not in his ex­pres­sion that he was in fa­vor of a ju­di­cious tar­iff. That was sup­posed to be a clinch­er, even in New Eng­land, un­til af­ter pow­er lift­ed him above the op­po­si­tion of the sup­port­ers of a tar­iff.

“He was for putting down the mon­ster ‘par­ty,’ and be­ing the Pres­ident of the peo­ple. Well, in one sense, this he tried to do: he put down ev­ery one he could who was op­posed to him, ei­ther by re­ward or pun­ish­ment; and could all have come in­to his no­tions, and bowed the knee to his im­age, I sup­pose it might have done very well, so far as he was con­cerned. Whether it would have been a fair read­ing of his fa­mous let­ter to Mr. Mon­roe, is rather ques­tion­able. “He was to re­form the Gov­ern­ment. Now, if ref­or­ma­tion con­sists in turn­ing out and putting in, he did it with a vengeance.

“He was, last of all, to re­trench the ex­pen­di­tures. Well, in time, I have no doubt, this must be done; but it will not con­sist in the abol­ish­ing use­less ex­pen­di­tures of for­mer Ad­min­is­tra­tions. No, gen­tle­men; the spoils be­longed to the vic­tor; and it would nev­er do to lessen the teats when the lit­ter was dou­bled. The trea­sury trough had to be ex­tend­ed, and the pap thick­ened; kin were to be pro­vid­ed for; and if all things keep on as they are, his own ex­trav­agances will have to be re­trenched, or you will get your tar­iff up again as high as you please.

“I rec­ol­lect a boy once, who was told to turn the pigs out of the corn-​field. Well, he made a great noise, hal­loo­ing and call­ing the dogs–and came back. By-​and-​by his mas­ter said, ‘Jim, you ras­cal! you didn’t turn out the pigs.’ ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I called the dogs, and set them a-​bark­ing.’

“So it was with that big Re­trench­ment Re­port, in 1828. Ma­jor Hamil­ton got Chilton’s place as chair­man–and called the dogs. In­gham worked hon­est­ly, like a beaver; Wick­liff was as keen as a cut­worm: all of them worked hard; and they did re­al­ly, I sup­pose, con­vince them­selves that they had found out a great deal of in­iq­ui­ty; or, what was more de­sir­able, con­vinced the peo­ple that An­drew Jack­son and his boys were the on­ly fel­lows to mend shoes for noth­ing, and find their own can­dles. Ev­erett and Sargeant, who made the mi­nor­ity re­port, were scout­ed at. What has come of all this? Noth­ing–worse than noth­ing. Jack­son used these very men like dogs: they knew too much, and must be got rid off, or they would stop his profli­ga­cy too. They were greased and swal­lowed: and he gave them up to the tor­ments of an an­ti-​Jack­son con­science.

“Yes, gen­tle­men, as long as you think with him, very well; but if not–clear out; make way for some fel­low who has saved his wind; and be­cause he has just be­gun to huz­za, has more wind to spare. Gen­er­al Jack­son has turned out more men for opin­ion’s sake, than all oth­er Pres­idents put to­geth­er, five times over: and the broom sweeps so low that it reach­es the hum­blest of­fi­cer who hap­pens to have a mean neigh­bor to re­tail any lit­tle sto­ry which he may pick up.

“I vot­ed for An­drew Jack­son be­cause I be­lieved he pos­sessed cer­tain prin­ci­ples, and not be­cause his name was An­drew Jack­son, or the Hero, or Old Hick­ory. And when he left those prin­ci­ples which in­duced me to sup­port him, I con­sid­ered my­self jus­ti­fied in op­pos­ing him. This thing of man-​wor­ship I am a stranger to; I don’t like it; it taints ev­ery ac­tion of life; it is like a skunk get­ting in­to a house–long af­ter he has cleared out, you smell him in ev­ery room and clos­et, from the cel­lar to the gar­ret.

“I know noth­ing, by ex­pe­ri­ence, of par­ty dis­ci­pline. I would rather be a rac­coon-​dog, and be­long to a ne­gro in the for­est, than to be­long to any par­ty, fur­ther than to do jus­tice to all, and to pro­mote the in­ter­ests of my coun­try. The time will and must come, when hon­esty will re­ceive its re­ward, and when the peo­ple of this na­tion will be brought to a sense of their du­ty, and will pause and re­flect how much it cost us to re­deem our­selves from the gov­ern­ment of one man. It cost the lives and for­tunes of thou­sands of the best pa­tri­ots that ev­er lived. Yes, gen­tle­men, hun­dreds of them fell in sight of your own city.

“I this day walked over the great bat­tle-​ground of Bunker’s Hill, and thought whether it was pos­si­ble that it was moist­ened with the sa­cred blood of our heroes in vain, and that we should for­get what they fought for.

“I hope to see our once hap­py coun­try re­stored to its for­mer peace and hap­pi­ness, and once more re­deemed from tyran­ny and despo­tism, which, I fear, we are on the very brink of. We see the whole coun­try in com­mo­tion: and for what? Be­cause, gen­tle­men, the true friends of lib­er­ty see the laws and Con­sti­tu­tion blot­ted out from the heads and hearts of the peo­ple’s lead­ers: and their re­quests for re­lief are treat­ed with scorn and con­tempt. They meet the same fate that they did be­fore King George and his par­lia­ment. It has been de­cid­ed by a ma­jor­ity of Congress, that An­drew Jack­son shall be the Gov­ern­ment, and that his will shall be the law of the land. He takes the re­spon­si­bil­ity, and ve­toes any bill that does not meet his ap­pro­ba­tion. He takes the re­spon­si­bil­ity, and seizes the trea­sury, and re­moves it from where the laws had placed it; and now, hold­ing purse and sword, has bid de­fi­ance to Congress and to the na­tion. 1

“Gen­tle­men, if it is for op­pos­ing those high-​hand­ed mea­sures that you com­pli­ment me, I say I have done so, and will do so, now and for­ev­er. I will be no man’s man, and no par­ty’s man, oth­er than to be the peo­ple’s faith­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tive: and I am de­light­ed to see the no­ble spir­it of lib­er­ty re­tained so bold­ly here, where the first spark was kin­dled; and I hope to see it shine and spread over our whole coun­try.

“Gen­tle­men, I have de­tained you much longer than I in­tend­ed: al­low me to con­clude by thank­ing you for your at­ten­tion and kind­ness to the stranger from the far West.”

The fol­low­ing ex­tract al­so shows the can­dor of his mind, his anx­iety to learn, and the progress his mind was mak­ing in the sci­ence of po­lit­ical econ­omy:

“I come to your coun­try to get a knowl­edge of things, which I could get in no oth­er way but by see­ing with my own eyes, and hear­ing with my aw­ful ears–in­for­ma­tion I can’t get, and no­body else, from book knowl­edge. I come, fel­low-​cit­izens, to get a knowl­edge of the man­ufac­tur­ing in­ter­est of New Eng­land. I was over-​per­suad­ed to come by a gen­tle­man who had been to Low­ell and seen the man­ufac­to­ries of your State–by Gen­er­al Thomas, of Louisiana. He per­suad­ed me to come and see.

“When I was first chose to Congress, I was op­posed to the pro­tect­ing sys­tem. They told me it would help the rich, and hurt the poor; and that we in the West was to be taxed by it for the ben­efit of New Eng­land. I sup­posed it was so; but when I come to hear it ar­gued in the Congress of the na­tion, I be­gun to have a dif­fer­ent opin­ion of it. I saw I was op­pos­ing the best in­ter­est of the coun­try: es­pe­cial­ly for the in­dus­tri­ous poor man. I told my peo­ple who sent me to Congress, that I should op­pose it no longer: that with­out it, we should be obliged to pay a tax to the British Gov­ern­ment, and sup­port them, in­stead of our own la­bor. And I am sat­is­fied of it the more since I have vis­it­ed New Eng­land. On­ly let the South­ern gen­tle­men come here and ex­am­ine the man­ufac­to­ries, and see how it is, and it would make more peace than all the leg­is­la­tion in Congress can do. It would give dif­fer­ent ideas to them who have been de­lud­ed, and spoke in strong terms of dis­solv­ing the Union.”

Crock­ett re­turned to Wash­ing­ton just in time to be present at the clos­ing scenes, and then set out for home. So much had been said of him in the pub­lic jour­nals, of his speech­es and his pe­cu­liar­ities, that his renown now filled the land.