As explanatory of the above quotation, it will be remembered that next to President Jackson, the two most prominent leaders of the dominant party were Vice-President Calhoun and Secretary of State Van Buren. The political forces were even then gathering around one or the other of these great leaders, and there was little question in official circles that the successor to Jackson would be either Van Buren or Calhoun. It was equally certain that the successful aspirant would be the one who had the good fortune to secure the powerful influence of Jackson. Chief among the friends of Calhoun were the Cabinet officers Ingham, Branch, and Berrien. The incumbent of the office of PostmasterGeneral - now for the first time a Cabinet office was William T. Barry of Kentucky. He was the friend of Van Buren, and in the social controversy mentioned, he sided with the President and the Secretary of State as a champion of Mrs. Eaton. As to the views of the Vice-President upon the all-absorbing question, we have no information. Not being one of the official advisers of the President, he probably kept entirely aloof from a controversy no doubt in every way distasteful to him.

Meanwhile the relations between Secretary Eaton and his colleagues of the Treasury, Navy, and Department of Justice, became more and more unfriendly, until all communication other than of the most formal official character ceased. The soul of the President was vexed beyond endurance; and as under existing conditions harmony in his official family was impossible, he determined upon a reorganization of his Cabinet. To this end, the resignations of Van Buren, Eaton, and Barry were voluntarily tendered, and promptly accepted. A formal request from the President to Messrs. Ingham, Branch, and Berrien secured the resignation of these three official advisers; and thus was brought about what is known. in our political history as "the disruption of Jackson's Cabinet."

The three gentlemen whose resignations had been voluntarily tendered, were, in modern political parlance, at once "taken care of." Mr. Van Buren was appointed minister

to St. James, Barry to Madrid, and Eaton to the governorship of Florida Territory. No such good fortune, however, was in store for either Ingham, Branch, or Berrien. Each was, henceforth, persona non grata with President Jackson.

The end, however, was not yet. A publication by the retiring Secretary of the Treasury contained an uncomplimentary allusion to Mrs. Eaton, which resulted first in his receiving a challenge from her husband, and later in a street altercation.

The almost forgotten incidents just mentioned were rapidly leading up to matters of deep consequence. The true significance of the words of Webster last quoted will now appear. A rupture, never yet fully explained, now occurred between President Jackson and Mr. Calhoun. The intention of the former to secure to Mr. Van Buren the succession to the presidency was no longer a matter of doubt.

Van Buren, "the favorite," was meanwhile reposing upon no bed of roses. He was, in very truth, "in the thick of events." His confirmation as Minister was defeated by the casting vote of Vice-President Calhoun, after the formal presentation of his credentials to the Court to which he had been accredited. It was believed that this rejection would prove the death knell to Van Buren's Presidential hopes. But it was not so to be. His rejection aroused deep sympathy, secured his nomination upon the ticket with Jackson in 1832, and for four years he presided over the great body which had so lately rejected his nomination, and as is well known, four years later he was chosen to succeed Jackson as President. Unfortunately for Calhoun, one of the ablest and purest of statesmen, he had incurred the hostility of Jackson, and never attained the goal of his ambition.

During my interview with Mrs. Eaton I said to her, "Madam, you must have known General Jackson when he was President?" "Known General Jackson," she replied, “known General Jackson?" "Oh, yes," I said, "your husband was a member of his Cabinet and of course you must have known him. I would like to know what kind of a man General Jackson really was?" "What kind of a man," replied Mrs.

Eaton in a manner and tone not easily forgotten, "What kind of a man- a god, sir, a god." The spirit of the past seemed over her, as with trembling voice and deep emotion she spoke of the man whose powerful and unfaltering friendship had been her stay and bulwark during the terrible ordeal through which she had passed.

Accompanying her that evening to the humble home provided for her by a distant relative, she remarked, “I have seen the time, sir, when I could have invited you to an elegant home." She then said that when Major Eaton died, he left her an ample fortune but that some years later she unfortunately married a man younger than herself, who succeeded in getting her property into his hands and then cruelly deserted her.

Fiction indeed seems commonplace when contrasted with the story of real life such as this now penniless and forgotten woman had known. Once surrounded by all that wealth could give, herself one of the most beautiful and accomplished of women, her husband the incumbent of exalted official position, -now, wealth, beauty, and position vanished; the grave hiding all she loved; sitting in silence and desolation, the memories of the long past almost her sole companions. When in the tide of time has there been truer realization of the words of the great bard

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn,

Good and ill together?"

X

THE CODE OF HONOR

BLADENSBURG, A PLACE NOTORIOUS FOR DUELS FRANKLIN'S
OPINION OF DUELLING-NOTABLE MEN WHO FELL IN DUELS-
FATAL DUEL BETWEEN COMMODORES BARRON AND DECATUR
THE LAST DUEL FOUGHT AT BLADENSBURG ITS CAUSE A
MERE PUNCTILIO
THE WRITER'S INTERVIEW WITH ONE

OF THE SECONDS A DUEL IN REVOLUTION DAYS GEORGE WASHINGTON DISSUADES GEN. GREENE FROM ACCEPTING A CHALLENGE GEN. CONWAY, FOR CONSPIRING AGAINST WASHINGTON, WOUNDED BY COL. CADWALLADER GEN.

CHARLES LEE, ANOTHER CONSPIRATOR, WOUNDED BY COL. LAURENS DUEL BETWEEN CLINTON, "THE FATHER OF THE ERIE CANAL," AND MR. SWARTOUT THREE NOTABLE REPLIES ΤΟ CHALLENGES THE FATAL DUEL BETWEEN HAMILTON AND BURR UNHAPPINESS OF BURR'S OLD AGE DUEL BETWEEN SENATOR BRODERICK AND JUDGE TERRY A HARMLESS DUEL BETWEEN SENATOR GWIN AND MR. MCCORKLE · A MURDER UNDER THE GUISE OF A DUEL DUELLING BY ILLINOISANS LINCOLN'S INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PRELIMINARIES OF HIS DUEL WITH SENATOR SHIELDS.

T

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HE very name "Bladensburg" is suggestive of pistol and bullet, savors indeed of human blood. It is associated with tragic events that during successive generations stirred emotions of indignation and horror that have not yet wholly died out from the memories of men. As the words "Baden-Baden" and "Monte Carlo" bring before us the gambler "steeped in the colors of his trade," so the mere mention of Bladensburg calls to mind the duellist, pistol in hand, standing in front of his slain antagonist.

Personal difficulties are now rarely if ever in this country adjusted by an appeal to "the code." The custom, now universally condemned as barbarous, was at an early day practically upheld by an almost omnipotent public opinion. As is well known, in many localities to have declined an invitation to "the field of honor" from one entitled to the des

ignation of "gentleman" would have entailed not only loss. of social position, but to a public man have been a bar to future political advancement. Thanks to a higher civilization, and possibly a more exalted estimate of the sacredness of human life, the code in all our American States is a thing of the past.

And yet, revolting as the custom now appears, it held its place as a recognized method for the settlement of personal controversies among "gentlemen," to a time within the memories of men still living. The code, a heritage from barbaric times, lingered till it had caused more than one bloody chapter to be written, until it had taken from the walks of life more than one of our most gifted American statesmen.

Truer words were never written than those of Franklin at the time when the code was appealed to for the settlement of every dispute pertaining to personal honor: "A duel decides nothing; the man appealing to it, makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner." And yet, the startling record remains that in the State of New Jersey, one of the ablest and most brilliant of statesmen met death at the hands of an antagonist scarcely less gifted, who was at the time Vice-President of the United States. The survivor of an encounter equally tragic, occurring near the banks of the Cumberland in 1806, was a little more than a score of years later elevated to the Presidency. The valuable life of the Secretary of State during the administration of the younger Adams was saved only by his antagonist magnanimously refusing to return the fire which came within an ace of ending his own life. Thirteen years after the Clay and Randolph duel, a member of Congress from Maine perished in an encounter at Bladensburg with a representative from Kentucky. Sixty-six years ago, a challenge to mortal combat was accepted by one who in later years was twice elected to the Presidency. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence fell in a duel with an officer of the Colonial army, soon after that great event. There are many yet