measures it usually by results. By both tests General Jackson was undeniably one of the very greatest of our great men. Yet, in any just appraisement of his career and achievements, we may not overlook how deeply he was indebted to men like Coffee, Carroll, Claiborne, Crockett and Houston, his dauntless lieutenants on the field of battle, and to men like Livingston, Lewis, Eaton, Grundy, Barry, Blair and Benton, his invaluable aides and loyal supporters in the legislative, diplomatic and cabinet contests with which his pathway in politics was continually beset. Bearing in mind this outside aid and how far it went to insure success and to fortify his fame, I should be loath to close without attempting, through the medium of two or three impartial and discriminating tributes, to set before you some luminous glimpses of his extraordinary character and the secret of his enduring re

nown.

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"General Jackson', says President Wilson, from whose History of the American People I take these short, deft strokes, 'had been bred by the rough processes of the frontier; had been his own schoolmaster and tutor; had made himself a lawyer by putting his untaught sagacity and sense of right to the test in the actual conduct of suits in court, as he had made himself a soldier by tak ing the field in command of frontier volunteers as unschooled as himself in discipline and tactics. There was no touch of the charlatan or the demagogue about him. The action of his mind was as direct, as sincere, as unsophisticated as the action of the mind of an ingenuous child, though it exhibited also the sustained intensity and the range of the mature man. It had needed such a striking personality as this to bring parties to a head. They took form rapidly enough when he came upon the field. The men of the masses had become the stuff of politics. These men Jackson really represented, albeit with a touch of the Knight and chivalrous man of honor about him, which common men do not have; and the people knew it; felt that an aristocratic order was upset, and that they themselves had at last come to their own. It was a second democratization of the government. With all the intensity of his nature, General Jackson wished for the welfare of the country, the advancement of the Union, the success and permancy of its government; with all the terrible force of his will he purposed to secure both the one and the other. No doubt he had shown contempt for law, as Mr. Jefferson said, when he was upon the frontier, hampered by treaties and instructions; but his ideals were not those of the law-breaker. They were those of the ardent patriot.'

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'Autocrat as he was', says Parton, 'Andrew Jackson loved the people, the common people, the sons and daughters of toil, as truly as they loved him, and believed in them as they believed in him. He was in accord with his generation. He had a clear perception that the toiling millions are not a class in the community, but are the community. He knew and felt that govern

ment should exist only for the benefit of the governed; that the strong are strong only as they may aid the weak; that the rich are rightfully rich only when they may so combine and direct the labor of the poor as to make labor more profitable to the laborer.'

"Thomas Hart Benton, his life-time friend and unfailing champion has said:

*****

The character of his mind was that of judgment, with a rapid and almost intuitive perception, followed by an instant and decisive action. It was the nature of Andrew Jackson to finish whatever he undertook. He went for a clean victory or a clean defeat.'

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"No man in private life,' says George Bancroft, 'so possessed the hearts of all around him; no public man of this century ever returned to private life with an abiding mastery over the affections of the people. No man with truer instinct received American ideas; no man expressed them so completely, or so boldly, or so sincerely. History does not describe the man that equaled him in firmness or nerve. Not danger, not an army in battle array, not wounds, not widespread clamor, not age, not the anguish of disease, could impair in the least degree the vigor of his steadfast mind. The heroes of antiquity would have contemplated with awe the unmatched hardihood of his character; and Napoleon, had he possessed his disinterested will, could never have been vanquished.'

"From the pages of a painstaking and appreciative study by Professor William Garrott Brown, I have extracted and leave with you this deliberate and final estimate:

"The longest inquiry,' says Professor Brown, 'will not discover another American of his time who had in such ample measure the gifts of courage and will. Many had fewer faults, many superior talents, but none so great a spirit. He was the man who had his way. He was the American whose simple virtues his countrymen most clearly understood, whose trespasses they most readily forgave; and, until the Democrats of the twenties and 'thirties, will still vote for Jackson-for the poor boy who fought his way, step by step, to the highest station; for the soldier who always went to meet the enemy at the gate; for the President who never shirked a responsibility; for the man who would not think evil of a woman, or speak harshly to a child. Education, and training in statecraft, would have saved him many errors; culture might have softened the fierceness of his nature. But untrained, uncultivated, imperfect as he was, not one of his great contemporaries had so good a right to stand for American character.'

Isaac Shelby one of the greatest characters in American pioneer history. Fought at battle of Point Pleasant 1774; was on the Chickamauga Expedition; organized with Sevier the expedition to King's Mountain; declined offer of President Monroe to make him Secretary of War; was first Governor of Kentucky. This portrait published here for the first time is the property of Thomas Hart Shelby, Jr., and brother John Craig Shelby, both of Lexington, Ky., and great, great grand sons of Governor Shelby. Portrait was painted by Matthew Harris Jouett, 1788-1827, a Kentucky artist.

CHAPTER 25.

Rev. James Gallaher, pioneer preacher, knew Old
Hickory personally and gives his opinion of him

"The Western Sketch Book" by Reverend James Gallaher, copyrighted in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts in 1850, printed by Crocker and Brewster, Boston, is the title of a book whose author knew General Jackson all his life.

Reverend James Gallaher was a pioneer preacher in Tennessee, Kentucky, and other parts of the West, and he and his father were intimately acquainted with General Andrew Jackson. The Gallaher family were among the early settlers of Tennessee and their descendants are now living in Roane County, Tennessee, and engaged largely in farming and stock raising. They constitute a fine old family of honorable, high minded citizens. Reverend James Gallaher's book "The Western Sketch Book" consists of thirty-three sketches, in a large measure recording his experience as a pioneer preacher. It contains very valuable side lights on the early history of the State, and on Jackson, both before and after he became famous. He was evidently a well educated man. The style is clear, couched in correct English and indicates a man of strong mental capacity. He has recorded his "Recollections of General Jackson" and the author thinks that a reproduction of these recollections will have weight, coming from Mr. Gallaher, who with his family, had known Jackson for so many years.

"RECOLLECTIONS OF GENERAL JACKSON.

"Colonel Samuel M. Grant, of Northern Missouri, first waked up my mind to the importance of recording and preserving the testimony of General Jackson on the subject of the truth and value of the Christian religion. Said he, I was in Palmyra at the time the news was received of General Jackson's public profession of faith in Jesus Christ. A gentleman whom I had long known as a professed rejecter of the gospel, hailed me at the door of his office, and desired me to come in. I entered, and he held up a newspaper, and said, I have just been reading the account of General Jackson making a profession of the religion of Jesus Christ. It is long since my eyes have known a tear; but now I have been weeping freely in view of that venerable old man standing up in the church and confessing Christ as his Savior.' Such was Colonel Grant's account of this incident in Palmyra, which, he said, affected his heart much, as he had long known this gentleman, and had regarded him as hopelessly sunk in the vortex of infidelity; and now he was sur