GREAT USEFULNESS OF THE BANK--SURPRISING GROWTH OF QUODLIBET--SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM--ORIGIN OF HIS DEMOCRACY--HIS LOGICAL ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF THE POCKETING OF THE BILL TO REPEAL THE SPECIE CIRCULAR--THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE AS DEVELOPED IN THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM.
In the course of the first year after The Removal, or as I should say, in the year One--speaking after our manner in Quodlibet--the bank made itself very agreeable to everybody. Mr. Flam came home from Congress after the end of the long session, and found everything prospering beyond his most sanguine expectations. Nicodemus Handy had put a new weather-boarded room to the back of his office for the use of the Directors, and the banking business was transacted in the front apartment where Nicodemus used to sell lottery tickets. There was one thing that strangers visiting Quodlibet were accustomed to remark upon in a jocular vein, regarding the bank--and that was the sign which was placed, as it were parapet-wise, along the eaves of the roof, and being of greater longitude than the front of the building, projected considerably at either end. Quipes has been held responsible for this, but I know that he could not help it, on account of the length of the name, which, nevertheless, it is due to him to say he endeavored, very much to my discontent, to shorten, both by orthographical device and by abbreviation, having painted it thus--
THE PATRIOTI^{C} COPERPLAT^{E} BANK OF QUODLI^{bet};
notwithstanding which, it overran the dimensions of the tenement to which it was attached. I say strangers sometimes facetiously alluded to this discrepancy, by observing that the bank was like the old Hero himself, too great for the frame that contained it. And, truly, the bank did a great business! Mr. Handy, who is acknowledged to be a man of taste, procured one of the handsomest plates, it is supposed, that Murray, Draper & Fairman ever executed, and with about six bales of pinkish silk paper, and a very superior cylinder press, created an amount of capital which soon put to rest old Mr. Grant"s grumbling about the want of solidity in the bank, and fully justified the Secretary"s declaration of his confidence in its "established character as affording a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the public money intrusted to its keeping."
As a proof how admirably matters were conducted by Mr. Handy, the Directors soon found no other reason to attend at the Board than now and then to hold a chat upon politics and smoke a cigar; and the President, the Hon. Middleton Flam, having his October election on hand, was so thoroughly convinced of Nicodemus"s ability, that I do not believe he went into the bank more than half a dozen times during the whole season.
It was in the course of this year, and pretty soon after the bank got the deposits, that Mr. Handy began his row of four story brick warehouses on the Basin, which now goes by the name of Nicodemus Row. He also laid the foundation of his mansion on the hill, fronting upon Handy Place; and which edifice he subsequently finished, so much to the adornment of our Borough, with a Grecian portico in front, and an Italian veranda looking toward the garden. As his improvements advanced in this and the next year, he successively reared a Temple of Minerva on the top of the ice-house, a statue of Apollo in the center of the carriage-circle, a sun-dial on a marble pillar where the garden walks intersect, and a gilded dragon weather-c.o.c.k on the cupola of the stables. The new banking house was commenced early in the summer, and has been finished of very beautiful granite, being in its front, if I am rightly informed by Mr. Handy, an exact miniature copy of the Tomb of Osymandias: it is situated on Flam Street, the first after you leave the Basin, going northward. All the Directors, except Fog, followed the footsteps of their ill.u.s.trious predecessor, Mr. Handy, and went to work to build themselves villas on the elevated ground back of the Borough, now known by the name of Copperplate Ridge,--which villas were duly completed in all manner of Greek, Roman, and Tuscan fashions. These being likewise imitated, in turn, by many friends of the bank who migrated hither from all parts and cast their lines in our Borough, Quodlibet hath thereby, very suddenly, grown to be, in a figurative sense, a pattern card of the daintiest structures of the four quarters of the world. Perhaps I may be too fast in making so broad an a.s.sertion--cupio non putari mendacem--I am not quite sure that, as yet, we have any well ascertained specimen of the Asiatic: but if Nicodemus Handy"s paG.o.da, which he talked of building on the knoll in the center of his training course, had not been interrupted by an untoward event, of which it may become my duty to speak hereafter, I should, in that case, have made no difficulty in reiterating, with a clear conscience and without reservation, the remark which distrustfully and with claim of allowance I have ventured above.
My valuable patron not being resident actually within the Borough, and being, as I have said, very busy in the matter of his election during the greater part of the first year of the bank, had not much opportunity to devote himself to its concerns. But the Directors, partly aware of their own knowledge, how valuable was his influence with the Secretary, and partly persuaded thereof by the Cashier, established, with a liberality which Mr. Handy remarked at the time was exceedingly gentlemanlike, his salary as President at three thousand dollars a year--which sum, Mr. Flam himself has, more than once in my hearing, averred upon his honor, he did not consider one cent too much. And indeed, I feel myself bound to express my concurrence in this opinion, when I reflect upon the weight of his character, the antiquity of his family, the preponderance of his strong Democratic sentiments, and the expenses to which, as President, he was exposed in looking after the interests of the bank--more especially in the journeys to Washington, whereof I have heard him speak, for the purpose of explaining matters to the Secretary.
Connected with this matter of salary, and as having a natural propinquity to the subject, I may here cursorily, for I design to be more particular on this point hereafter, claim the privilege to enter a little into the family matters of my patron. And on this head, I would observe that the household of Mr. Flam is large. Of a truth, as some philosopher has remarked, mouths are not fed, nor bodies clad, without considerable of the wherewithal! There is Mrs. Flam, the venerated consort of our representative--a lady most honorably conducive to the multiplication of the strength and glory of this land; there is, likewise, Mr. Flam"s sister Janet--truly an honor to her s.e.x for instructive discourse and exemplary life; and there is Master Middleton, Junior, with his four sisters and three brothers, who may be all ranged into the semblance of a step-ladder. Great is Mr. Flam"s parental tenderness toward this happy progeny--the reduplication and retriplication, if I may so express it, of himself and their respectable mamma. Yielding to the solicitude inspired by this tenderness, almost the first thing which our representative did, after the establishment of the bank--the means having thereby come the better to his hand--was to send Master Middleton, Junior, who was very urgent in his entreaties to that point, to Europe, that the young gentleman, by two or three years travel, might witness the distresses and oppressions of monarchical government, and become confirmed in his democratic sentiments. A refinement of sensibility in Mr. Flam, which I might almost denominate fastidious, has also operated with him to require the education of his daughters to be conducted under his own roof. He would never hear, for one moment, any persuasion to trust them, even at their earliest age, in the public school--considerately fearful lest they might form intimacies unbecoming the station to which he destined them in after-life. They have consequently been placed under the special tuition of a most estimable lady, Mademoiselle Jonquille, a resident governess, who is enjoined to speak to them nothing but French. This lady, among other things, teaches them music, and is aided in the arduous duties allotted to her by a drawing-master of acknowledged ability in water-colors, and a very superior professor of dancing, who instructs them in the elegant accomplishment of waltzing and galloping, which, Mr. Flam says, is now-a-days held to be indispensable in the first Democratic circles at Washington, where it has always been his design to introduce the young ladies into high life.
It will not be out of place here to mention that the worthy subject of this desultory memoir, my patron and former pupil, inherited a large fortune from his father, the late Judge Flam, who was especially honored by old John Adams, or, as the better phrase is, the elder Adams, with an appointment to the bench on the night of the third of March, Anno Domini 1801; and I have often heard Mr. Middleton say that his father had, up to the day of his lamented departure from this world, which melancholy event happened in the year of our Lord 1825, the greatest respect for General Jackson; which liking for the Old Hero descended to his son, along with the family estate, and serves satisfactorily to account for my former pupil"s ardent attachment to Democratic principles, as in the sequel I shall make appear.
I do not desire to conceal the fact that Judge Flam, and even Mr.
Middleton himself, for some years after he came to man"s estate, were both reputed to belong to what was generally, at that time, denominated and known by the appellation of the Old Federal party, and what, in common parlance, has been sometimes scoffingly termed The Black c.o.c.kade; and that the Judge, who was always noted for being very stiff in his opinions, maintained his connection nominally with that party until the day of his death. I mention this not in derogation of Mr. Middleton our representative, but rather in the way of commendation, because I am by this fact the more strongly confirmed in my admiration of the greatness of his character--seeing that his conversion to Democracy is the pure result of reflection and conviction, which is more laudable, in my humble thinking, than to be "a born veteran Democrat," as I once heard a great man boast himself.
Now this conversion being a notable matter, I can by no means pretermit a veritable account of it, which happens to be fully within my power to disclose, I being, as I may say, a witness to the whole course of it.
Everybody remembers that most signal of all the literary productions of General Jackson"s various and ill.u.s.trious pen, his letter to Mr. Monroe, dated the 12th of November, Anno Domini 1816. It came--in the language of my venerated friend, Judge Flam--like the sound of a trumpet upon the ears of all of the Old Federalists. "Now is the time," says General Jackson, in that immortal letter, which I transcribed, as soon as I saw it in print, into my book of memorable things, and which I now quote _verbatim et literatim_:--
"Now is the time to exterminate that monster called Party Spirit.
By selecting characters most conspicuous for their probity, virtue, capacity, and firmness, without any regard to party, you will go far to, if not entirely, eradicate those feelings which, on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way, and perhaps have the pleasure and honor of uniting a people heretofore politically divided. The Chief Magistrate of a great and powerful nation should never indulge in party feelings. His conduct should be liberal and disinterested, always bearing in mind that he acts for the whole, and not a part of the community."
This letter of the last of the Romans was published in the National Intelligencer, and I happened to be with Judge Flam when it first met his eye. He was sipping his tea. The venerable Judge read it twice; took up the cup, and, in a musing, thoughtful mood, burnt his mouth with the hot liquid so badly that he was obliged to call for cold water.--Just at that moment, Middleton, his son, came into the parlor: he had been out shooting partridges.
"My dear Middleton, read that," said the Judge.
Middleton sat down and read it; and then looked intently at his father, waiting to hear what he would say.
"Middleton, my son," said he in a very deliberate and emphatic manner, "There"s our man. General Jackson has been called a Hero--he"s a Sage, a wise man, a very wise man. _We_ have been kept in the mire too long: these Jeffersons and Madisons, and Nicholases and Randolphs, and all that Virginia Junto (I think that was the very word he used) have trodden us in the dust. They, with all the Democracy at their back, have lorded it over us for sixteen years. We owe them an old grudge. _But our time is coming_, (this expression he repeated twice.) Remember, my son, if ever you get into a majority, stick to it. Bring up your children to it. You have a long account to settle:--_I shall bequeath to you the Vengeance of the Federal party_. We must rally at once upon Andrew Jackson. He will bring _us_ what it is fashionable to call "the people."--We shall bring _him_ the talent, the intelligence, and the patriotism of the land. In such an alliance how can it be otherwise but that we shall have all the power?--and then, if we fail to play our cards with skill, we shall deserve to lose the game. Let Jackson be our candidate for the next Presidency, and let our gathering word be, in the sentiment of this memorable letter, "The Union of the People and the extermination of the Monster of Party." Do not slumber, my son, but give your energies to this great enterprise."
Mr. Middleton took this advice of his venerable father greatly to heart.
"Up with Jackson, and down with Party!" said he, after a long rumination; "good, excellent--nothing can be better!" And several times that night, before he went to bed, he audibly uttered the same words, as he walked backward and forward across the room.
From this time Judge Flam wrote many letters to his friends, disclosing the views he had expressed to Middleton; and by degrees the matter ripened and ripened, until things were so contrived as to bring about what Judge Flam used to smile and say, was "a spontaneous, unpremeditated burst of popular feeling," in the nomination of the General. And the Judge used to laugh outright, when the papers took strong ground in the General"s favor, as the candidate who was brought out "without intrigue or party management." The Old Hero and Sage, we all know, was cheated out of his first election; which circ.u.mstance greatly embittered his early friends, who, from that time--Mr. Middleton among the rest--took a very decided stand for Reform, Retrenchment, Economy, and the Rights of the People.
The Judge did not live to witness this second effort which resulted so gloriously for the Democratic cause; but his son stuck close to the Old Hero, and was among his most ardent supporters to the last. When the General succeeded, his first care was to show his grat.i.tude to that disinterested band of patriots who so freely surrendered their old principles and abandoned their old comrades in his behalf. _He_ brought _them_ into office, just to show that he was determined to carry out the doctrine of his letter; and _they_ were loudest in their praise of _him_ for the sake of the _old grudge_, of which Judge Flam spoke to his son, and to indemnify their long suffering in the cause of the country, in the course of which they had, for so many years, been strangers to power. So between these two persuasions, it is not to be wondered at that they should have become the princ.i.p.al friends and most confidential advisers of the General.
Having thus got upon an elevation, from whence they could look backward upon their past errors, and forward to their future hopes, a new light dawned upon every man of them; and thereupon they straightway became sick and sorry for having so long sinned against Democracy, and grew ashamed of that black c.o.c.kade which George Washington wore in the Revolution; made open renunciation of their former pretended attachment to his principles; canonized Mr. Jefferson as a saint, whom they had formerly reviled as the chief of sinners; purged out their old Federal blood; took deep alterative draughts of detergent medicine; and, finally, like true patriots, came forth regenerated, thorough-bred whole-hog Democrats, sworn to follow the new Democratic principle through all its meanderings, traverses, dodgings, and duckings to the end. Indeed, Mr. Middleton Flam, our honorable representative, has more than once, in some of his later speeches before the people, contended, that although his father was attached to George Washington"s school of politics, which, as he remarked, naturally arose out of the prejudices created by the revolutionary war--in which the old Judge had served as a soldier--yet, that he, Middleton, never was truly an admirer of that gentleman"s theory of government or system of measures--but, on the contrary, held them in marked disesteem, and from his earliest youth had a strong inclination toward that freedom from restraint, which, in man and boy, is the best test of the new Democratic principle. In proof of this tendency of his youthful opinions, he mentioned, with most admirable effect, an exploit, in which, when not more than twelve years of age, he gallantly stood up at the head of a party of his school-fellows to bar out the tutor and take a holiday, on the ground of the indefeasible rights of man, with a view to attend a great political meeting of the friends of Jefferson, just previous to the second election of that Apostle of Democracy.
Be that as it may, our distinguished member of Congress is now, by force of reflection and conviction, as pure, unadulterated, and, as our people jocularly denote it, as patent a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat as Theodore Fog himself, whose attachment to popular principles, habits, and manners, and whose unalterable adhesion to the new Democratic theory, are written in every line of his face and in every movement of his body:--and so, Mr. Flam avers, is every one of his black-c.o.c.kade friends who have got an office. "Thus it is,"--if I may be allowed to quote a beautiful sentiment from one of Fog"s speeches--"thus it is, that by degrees, the errors of old opinions are washed out by the all-pervading ablution of the Democratic principle following in the footsteps of the march of intellect; and so true is it, that the body politic, like quicksilver, regurgitates and repudiates the feculence of Federalism."
Nicodemus Handy has an attachment for Mr. Flam, which is truly fraternal. It goes so far as to prevent him from ever contradicting Mr.
Middleton in any fact, or gainsaying him in any opinion--although I did think at one time, when Nicodemus was thought to be rich, that he was a little bold in his sentiments on two or three matters wherein our member differed from him. One I remember in particular; it was when the Old Hero pocketed the Specie Circular Bill. Mr. Handy thought, for a little while, that the circular was too hard upon the banks and the trading people, and he seemed to insinuate that the General was rather cornered by Congress, when they ordered its repeal by two-thirds of both Houses; and that, consequently, as a good Democrat, he ought to have submitted to the will of the people in that matter, and allowed them to have the law after it was pa.s.sed. Mr. Flam was diametrically opposed to him, and proved, I thought conclusively, that, according to the sound Quodlibetarian Democratic principle, the General was altogether right in putting the act of Congress aside and not allowing them to overset his plans by another vote of two-thirds. "For," he inquired with great force of argument, adopting the Socratic form, "what is Congress? The representatives of the people, by districts and by States. For whom can any one man in that body speak? For his own district, or for his own State--no more. Now, what is the President? Sir," said he, in that solemn and impressive tone in which he addresses the House at Washington, "the President himself has answered that question in his immortal Protest against the Senate--he is "_the direct representative of the American people_," and, as he took occasion once to say in his Message, "_It will be for those in whose behalf we all act, to decide whether the Executive Department of the Government, in the steps which it has taken on this subject, has been found in the line of its duty_."
The President, sir, is the representative of the _whole_ people--not of a district, not of a State, but of the _whole_ nation. Why should these representatives of _the parts_ undertake to dictate to the representative of _the whole_? It is for the people to decide whether, in putting that bill in his pocket, he was in the line of his duty. Sir, there is the broad b.u.t.tress upon which the Democratic principle reposes, and will repose forever. Jackson has determined, as representative of the people, that the Specie Circular shall not be repealed, and every true Democrat will of course say that he is right. I am surprised that you, Handy, should give any countenance to the factious doctrine set up by the Whigs, that Congress has a right to array itself against the clearly expressed will of the people, when uttered through the paramount representative of the whole nation."
Mr. Handy was evidently confounded by this unanswerable argument, and, of course, did not attempt to answer. I confess, for my own part, I listened with admiration and amazement at the dialectic skill with which so abstruse a subject was so briefly yet so clearly elucidated, and I inwardly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, in the language of the afflicted man of Uz, "How forcible are right words!"
My late pupil"s reflections were drawn to this question of the Specie Circular with more intensity of regard, from a very natural train of circ.u.mstances, which had great influence in inducing an elaborate study of the subject. Mr. Handy has often said that Mr. Flam was the very best customer our bank had from the beginning. Acting, as he always did, upon the principle that our first care is due to those who are nearest to us, or, according to the adage, that charity begins at home, the President of the bank refused to borrow from any other inst.i.tution, but determined exclusively to patronize his own. This principle he carried to the romantic extent of borrowing four times as much as anybody else; and as he always contended for it as the most approved theorem in banking, that the wider and the more remote the circulation of the paper of a bank, the better for its profit, he employed these funds in the purchase of a large quant.i.ty of the Chickasaw Reserve lands. By these means Mr. Flam became the proprietor of a vast number of acres in that Southwest country; and as the Specie Circular was a most laudable contrivance to stop overtrading and speculating in the public lands, it occurred to our worthy representative that the less the public lands were sold, the more his would come into the market at good prices; and so, with a view to the benefit of Quodlibet, where he expected to invest the profits, he became a strong advocate of the Circular. This set him to studying the question of the pocketing of the bill for its repeal, whereof I have spoken above, and enabled him to convince himself how deeply that matter was connected with the development of the Democratic principle in the manner put forth in his argument to Mr. Handy.
Thus does it come to pa.s.s that, step by step, as our government rolls on, its fundamental features are successively disclosed in the practical operations of that sublime system which so securely intrenches the good of the people in the doctrines of genuine Quodlibetarian Democracy, as now of late, for the first time, fully understood and practiced.
Ever after that notable discourse, Mr. Handy showed himself, both in private and at our public meetings, the stern, uncompromising champion of the Specie Circular and of the broad representative character of the President. The other questions upon which I have found him to differ occasionally with Mr. Flam, shared pretty nearly the same fate as this.
The Cashier ultimately fell into entire harmony of sentiment in all matters with the President; though, as I have insinuated before, in the flood-tide of Mr. Handy"s fortune, when he began to be accounted a man of wealth, he was, in accordance with a principle of human nature founded upon the corrupting and debasing influence of riches, much more difficult to bring into perfect conformity of opinion with Mr. Flam, than in the ebb. Yet, I would here remark that, almost in the same degree that Mr. Handy yielded his a.s.sent to the doctrines of the Hon.
Middleton Flam, did the rank and file of our st.u.r.dy and independent Democracy yield to Mr. Handy; the whole party being kept in a harmonious agreement and accord by what Fog terms "the electric diffusion of the Democratic principle through the whole circle of hand-in-hand, unflinching, unwavering, uncorruptible, and power-frowning-down yeomanry of the most virtuous and enlightened nation upon the terrestrial globe."
CHAPTER III.
FURTHER DISCOURSE RELATING TO THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM--CORRECTION IN THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF HIS FAMILY SEAT--HIS RESPECT FOR THE PEOPLE--VERY ORIGINAL VIEWS ENTERTAINED BY HIM ON THIS SUBJECT--HIS LIBERALITY IN MONEY MATTERS--AVERSION TO THE LAW REGARDING INTEREST--DEMOCRATIC VIEW OF THAT QUESTION--HIS ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY AND THE WORKING PEOPLE--INGENIOUS AND PROFOUND ILl.u.s.tRATION OF THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE.
Holding, as I do, our Democratic leader, the Hon. Middleton Flam, in the most deservedly profound respect, and knowing him to be, if I may be allowed the expression, a bright exemplar of Democracy, and containing in himself, metaphorically speaking, the epitome of all sound opinions, I am fully authorized by the common usage regarding public characters to bring him and his affairs conspicuously into the view of the world, not for censure, neither for praise, although no man is better ent.i.tled to the latter, but for instruction. Such is the destiny of distinguished men, that their lives are common property for the teaching of their generation. Duly acknowledging the weight of this maxim, I shall venture in the present chapter to give my reader a still closer insight into the private concerns of our representative; for which task I feel myself somewhat specially qualified, through the bountiful hospitality of that excellent gentleman, who has not only welcomed me to his board often on week days, and always on Sundays, but who has even flattered me, more than once, by the remark that he would not take umbrage at such impartial development of his life and opinions as he knew I, better than any other of his friends, (truly herein his kindness has overrated my worthiness,) had it in my power to make.
The old family seat of the Flams is about two miles from Quodlibet. It is upon the Bickerbray road; and, taking in all the grounds belonging to the domicile, the tract is somewhere about eight hundred acres; by far the greater portion of which is a flat range of woodland and field, watered by Gra.s.shopper Run, which falls into the Rumblebottom. The tract used to be called, in Judge Flam"s time, "The Poplar Flats," and the house, at that day, went by the name of "Quality Hall:" but ever since Mr. Middleton has had it, which, as may be gathered from what I have imparted in the last chapter, has been from the time that the old Black c.o.c.kades began to think of turning Democrats; ever since that day the spelling has been gradually changing, and the house now goes by the settled name of "Equality Hall," and the tract is always written by our people "The Popular Flats." Mr. Middleton greatly approves of this change, for two reasons which he has had occasion to take into his serious reflections--First; "Because," he says, "in the Quodlibetarian Democratic system, as now understood, words are things." "Not only things, sir," said he, in a discourse one day, at his own table, "but important and valuable things. I have observed," he continued, "in our country, especially among the unflinching, uncompromising Democrats, that a name is always half the battle. For instance, sir, we wish to destroy the bank; we have only to call it a Monster: we desire to put down an opposition ticket, and keep the offices among ourselves; all that we have to do is to set up a cry of Aristocracy. If we want to stop a ca.n.a.l, we clamor against Consolidation: if we wish it to go on, it is only to change the word--Develop the Resources. When it was thought worth our while to frighten Calhoun with the notion that we were going to hang him, we hurraed for the Proclamation; and after that, when we wanted to gain over his best friends to our side--State-Rights was the word. Depend upon it, gentlemen, with the true Quodlibetarian Democracy, names are things: that is the grand secret of the "New-Light system.""
Mr. Flam"s second reason for approving the change in the spelling of Poplar Flats and Quality Hall, did not depend upon such a philosophical subtlety as the first; it was simply because he had very nigh lost his first election to Congress from inattention to this material point of orthography. Quality Hall, some of the Democrats of our region were unreasonable and headstrong enough to say, was not so Democratic a name as their candidate ought to have for his place of residence; and if it had not been that our representative discovered this in time to convince them that it was an old-fashioned way of spelling Equality Hall, I believe, in my conscience, he would have made out very badly: but luckily for this district, and I may say, for the nation, this error in spelling was corrected in time to set all straight; and Mr. Flam, from that day, not only put the E before the Q, but, in token of that incident, and by way of a remembrancer, always spoke of Equality Hall as built upon Popular Flats, which sounded very well in the ears of the New Lights, and no doubt went a great way to keep him in Congress ever after. Therefore I repeat, after my patron and friend, words _are_ things;--and, democratically speaking, in the sense of a New Light, I might even say _better_ than things.
Equality Hall is a building which looks larger than it is, from the circ.u.mstance that it was originally a one-storied, irregular cottage of brick, but in the Judge"s time a second story was put to it; and, almost immediately after Mr. Middleton came to be the owner, he enlarged the eastern gable by widening it to nearly forty feet, and building it up considerably above the roof, and then adding to it a grand Grecian Temple porch with niches for statues, and with fluted Doric columns of wood, which thus const.i.tuted what Mr. Middleton calls his facade and princ.i.p.al front to the building. The effect of this piece of magnificence was to screen the old-cottage from view, and to impress the beholder with the idea of a grand building peeping out upon the Bickerbray road between the foliage of two weeping willows, which the old Judge put there before Mr. Jefferson"s election.
I have heard some fastidious, not to say malevolent critics, find fault with this new addition to the building, upon the score that it had too much pretense about it; and that one was always disappointed upon finding all this grandeur of outside to be but a mere piece of theatrical show, without having anything to correspond to it within. Mr.
Flam has heard the same objection, but he has always treated it with the contempt it deserved. "It _was_ intended for show," he observed one day addressing the people from the hustings, when he had occasion to notice a remark of one of these caviling gentlemen, who had said something about having walked behind the portico to find the house--and I shall never forget how his eye kindled and his form dilated as he spoke--"Show, sir! Of course, it was put there for show. What else could it be put for? What is any portico put up for? It faces toward the road, sir--it was designed to face toward the road. When I built that portico, I wished the people, sir, to see it; the best I have shall always be shown to the people. I trust, sir, that my respect for the people shall never so far abate, as to induce me to neglect _them_. My house, sir, intrinsically is that of an humble citizen; there are a dozen equal to it in this county; but that part of it which is intended to gratify the people is unsurpa.s.sed here or anywhere else. I have laid out, sir, a small fortune on that portico to gratify the people: all that I have comes from them--all that I ever expect to be, I hope to derive from them: who has so good a right as they to require me to put my best foot foremost, when they are the spectators? On the same principle, sir, when I appear in public, I dress in the most expensive attire, I drive the best horses, and procure the finest coach. My turnout is altogether elaborate, studiously particular--simply because I hold the people in too much esteem, to shab them off with anything of a secondary quality, while Providence has blessed me with the means of providing them the best. That, sir, is what I call a keystone principle in the arch of Democratic government: that is the sentiment, and that alone, which is to give perpetuity to this----"
"Fair fabric of freedom," said Theodore Fog, who was among the auditory, and perceived that Mr. Flam hesitated for a word to convey his idea.
"Thank you, my friend," courteously replied Mr. Flam, "I am indebted to you for the word--fair fabric of freedom."
Coming back from this digression, which I have the rather indulged because of the eloquence, as well as the just Democratic sentiment it breathes, I proceed with my sketch of the homestead of our distinguished leader of the politics of Quodlibet.
If I were asked what const.i.tuted the most striking feature in the arrangements of this very admirable establishment, I should say it was the judicious admixture of a laudable economy, with the greatest possible effect in the way of outward exhibition. For instance, the grounds were embellished with sundry structures, apparently at great cost, and producing a most satisfactory impression on the eye, but which, when examined, would be found to be, for the most part, painted imitations of a very cheap kind. Thus there was to be seen from the portico, peering above a thicket on the Gra.s.shopper Run, an old castle with ivy-crowned battlements, greatly enriching the view; at the end of the long walk in the garden, a magnificent obelisk rose forty feet above a bed of asparagus; the entrance to the stable-yard was through the Gothic archway of an old chapel, exceeding pleasant to behold; and the ice pond was guarded by a palisade composed of muskets, lances, swords, shields, and cannon, flanked at each end by a pile of drums and colors.
All these several embellishments a nice observation would determine to be executed in oil painting, upon wooden screens sawed into the requisite figures. But even this expense would, perhaps, have been avoided, had it not been that Quipes, our artist, owed Mr. Flam twenty-five dollars on account of a debt which Mr. Flam had to pay for him, to get him out of jail, for the sake of his vote, when we first elected our public-spirited representative to Congress. Owing to this circ.u.mstance, connected with the fact that Sam Hardesty, the joiner, became insolvent on his contract for building the big portico, whereby Mr. Flam was obliged to advance money to him in order to get it finished, our member conceived that it would be a good plan to work these debts out of his two friends, by setting them about the decorations I have described. Besides, he reasoned with himself that it was always well to give employment to the working people about him, with a view to encourage industry and afford a practical ill.u.s.tration of the benignant influence of the great Democratic principle upon society--a consideration which Mr. Flam on no occasion ever permitted himself to lose sight of. By this judicious management he accomplished a fourfold purpose: namely, the beautifying of Popular Flats; the execution of these rich specimens of art, at less than half their value; the employment of two very meritorious fragments of the people; and, above all, a most satisfactory development of the excellence and usefulness of the great New-Light Democratic principle.
Mr. Flam never was what you might call a moneyed man. For although his farms were very productive, and he had a considerable income from stock in the United States Bank; and although the expenses of his family were very far short of what the world might, from the show he made, suppose them to be; yet he was in the habit of parting with his money as fast as it came to hand. There were a great number of deserving but needy persons who were often at the Popular Flats, and who did not hesitate to borrow all the funds Mr. Flam could spare, (if he had a fault it was the generosity of his lendings,) and in this way to keep him, as he has often told me himself, very bare. To make sure against loss he had the prudence never to lend without bond and mortgage, with a power of attorney to confess judgment; and as he ever avowed what he called his most irrevocable opinion, that the interest law was exceedingly oppressive upon the industry of the country, he invariably made his own bargain on that point--sagaciously remarking, as I once heard him to Nicholas Hardup, the cattle dealer, who was under execution upon a judgment, and came to borrow the amount from Mr. Flam, "Money, sir, is a commodity like wheat or cattle; its value is regulated by the relations of supply and demand. Society will never prosper till that principle is universally recognized. _We_ go for it, Mr. Hardup, as cardinal in the Democratic creed. Labor, to be free, requires that the money contract also should be free. Why should the poor man pay six per cent. when money is worth but five? Why should he be prevented paying seven, eight, or nine, even, if he finds it his interest to give it--or cannot do without it? No, sir, Equal Rights, Liberty of Conscience, and Unrestricted Freedom of Contract--there is the b.u.t.tress of Democratic government!"
It often happened, as such things will happen, that Mr. Flam became the loser by his generosity; and as it was a maxim with him to inculcate the most rigid punctuality in all engagements, he has never felt himself at liberty to relax what he regarded this salutary rule; so that, on many occasions, he has been compelled to submit to the unpleasant and expensive operation of closing his accounts on the bond and mortgage, by taking possession of the mortgaged property; and in this way, as he sometimes feelingly complains to his friends, he has become enc.u.mbered with more land than he knows what to do with. He has, however, gradually got through a great deal of this trouble by renting out his farms; a course which he intends to persevere in until his children are able to take the management of them.
Mr. Handy has several times endeavored to persuade him to make his improvements rather more permanent, and to take down these embellishments I have been describing; rather rashly as I thought, calling them, to Mr. Flam"s face, pasteboard scenery, gingerbread nonsense, and twopenny gimcracks: and he insinuated that if our worthy representative would lay out some of his "accommodation" in a more solid manner upon Popular Flats, it would tell hereafter to his advantage. But Mr. Flam turns a deaf ear to all Nicodemus"s preaching. He says that the accommodation is better laid out in the Chickasaw Reserve, where he means to realize a large fortune; and as to what Mr. Handy is pleased to call _gimcracks_ and _gingerbread_, that, in fact, is the only kind of decoration in which a man, who respects the simplicity and purity of Democratic government, ought to indulge his taste. "If," said he, "my old castle, my obelisk, or my Gothic gateway were built of stone instead of white pine, a fair inference might be made against me of a lurking wish to restore the exploded aristocratic system of primogeniture and entails. It would be said I was building for my son and his eldest born.
Thank G.o.d, no such treasonable design can be inferred from this _gimcrack_ and _gingerbread_, as you wittily term it. When I go, sir, my estate is to be cut up as our Democratic republican laws ordain; and my gimcrack and gingerbread can be plowed in as easily as the dockweed.
Strange as it may sound to the ears of some, gimcrack and gingerbread are the elements of our new Democratic theory. Sir, our government should glory in it:--it does glory in it. There is no reproach in the fact that we neither build, legislate, think, nor determine for the next generation. We attend to _ourselves_--that is genuine New-Light Democracy. We oppose Vested Rights, we oppose Chartered Privileges, we oppose Pledges to bind future Legislatures, we oppose Tariffs, Internal Improvements, Colleges, and Universities, on the broad Democratic ground that we have nothing to do with Posterity. Posterity will be as free as we are. Let it take care of itself. I glory, sir, in saying New-Light Democracy riots in gimcrack and gingerbread."
This eloquent outburst of sentiment effectually silenced Mr. Handy, and brought him thoroughly into Mr. Flam"s opinion. I rejoice that my intimacy with this able statesman should have afforded me this opportunity to show the brilliancy with which his mind sparkles in the demonstration of political truth, and the wonderful power with which it converts apparently trivial thoughts into golden ill.u.s.trations of the Democratic theory as lately discovered and practiced.