1824: The Arkansas War

N OVEMBER 6, 1824

" '-has it come to this? Are we so humbled, so low, so despicable, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Louisiana, lest, peradventure, we might offend some one or more of their imperial and royal majesties?' "

Standing at the window to his office listening to the attorney general quoting from Clay's speech of the day before, James Monroe barked a laugh. "Isn't that the same language he used a few months ago to excoriate us for refusing to intervene in the Greek rebellion?"

"It's almost identical," said John Quincy Adams, sitting in a chair nearby. "Oh, but it gets better. Please continue, Bill."

William Wirt scanned farther down the newspaper in his lap. "I'll skip a bit, Mr. President. There's some pure verbiage here, mixed in with the merely histrionic."

The attorney general cleared his throat and continued quoting from the speech. "Here's where he gets-finally-to the point. 'I would rather adjure the nation to remember that it contains a million freemen capable of bearing arms, and ready to exhaust their last drop of blood and their last cent, in defending their country, its institutions, and its liberty.' "

Wirt fell silent and lowered the newspaper.

President Monroe continued to look out the window, gazing at the country's capital city. After a few seconds, he said softly: "This is the same Henry Clay who praised us for our stance of forbidding any further European intervention in the New World. Albeit, to be sure, criticizing us for taking so long to do so. Am I not correct?"

Adams laughed sarcastically. "And adding into the bargain that he was prepared to wage a war against the whole world for it, even England. Somehow, a man of his undoubted intelligence failed to grasp what was clear to anyone with an ounce of sense with regard to foreign affairs: that our policy had the full if tacit support of that very same England he proposed to war against. Bah! He knew perfectly well, then, that his bombast with regard to England was as safe as a man threatening to wage war against the tide-when it is receding."

Adams pointed to the newspaper on Wirt's lap. "Just as he knows perfectly well, now, that threatening to wage war against the European powers should they dare to interfere in the Arkansas situation is every bit as safe. If an attack on the Confederacy is launched by the United States, it will be condemned the world over. But no one will send any ships or troops to support Arkansas. How could they get there, anyway?"

Monroe still hadn't turned around. "You have to admit it's a fascinating chain of logic," he mused, "even for Henry Clay. I'm still not quite sure how he managed to segue from the need to defend the bleeding Greek heroes against the Turk oppressor who rules Greece, to the need to defend the states of our nation from which a band of criminals sallied forth to conquer a neighboring country of ours, which hasn't threatened them at all. If you didn't know better, you'd think Louisiana and Mississippi were groaning under Arkansas occupation."

Finally the president turned around. "Has Jackson said anything?"

Wirt shook his head. "Not a word, sir. Not in public, anyway, and even his private thoughts seem a mystery to everyone. Possibly even his closest confidants."

"Any guesses?"

"With Jackson, Mr. President, it's always hard to know. Most people are assuming he'll side with Clay, if for no other reason than to keep Clay from undercutting his support in the West and the South. But:"

Monroe cocked an eyebrow. "But you're not so sure."

"No, sir, I'm not."

Adams had been listening intently. "Why, Bill? It's the obvious move to make, for a presidential candidate in his position."

Wirt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes, it would be. But I'll remind you that it would have been politically shrewd for Jackson to have opposed the tariff bill, too. But he didn't. In fact, he was one of the administration's strongest supporters in the Senate. That cost him in the Southern states, probably as much as he gained in the manufacturing ones."

Monroe shook his head. "Not the same thing. No one's ever doubted-not anyone who's politically educated, anyway-that Jackson is a firm supporter of the principle that the United States is a nation, not simply an aggregate of states. In that respect, he's quite unlike John Randolph or Crawford's Radicals. It still doesn't follow that in this instance he wouldn't take the same stance as Clay."

"You could even say that the very same nationalist principles called for it," Adams added. "If I might play devil's advocate for a moment, one could argue that the massacre at Arkansas Post was a humiliation of the United States that needed to be set right. As a matter of national pride, if nothing else."

Wirt gave him a level stare. Adams looked aside. "Well, you could.

"

"Finish the sentence, John," the attorney general said. It sounded a bit like a command, oddly enough.

Adams smiled crookedly. "If you weren't me. Or Andrew Jackson."

Wirt nodded. "Yes." He turned to Monroe. "And that's really my only point, Mr. President. There's simply no way to know what Jackson will do. His origins, his history, his background-certainly his temperament, which can be quite savage-will all be pulling him in one direction. But he's also the same man who outraged Louisiana's plantation owners by arming black freedmen in the war against Britain, don't forget."

Monroe's smile was almost as crooked as the one that had been on Quincy Adams's face a moment before. "Not to mention outraging the War Department when he gave that black gunner a field commission. Yes. I remember."

The president now looked at the secretary of state. John Quincy Adams had risen and was standing at the same window the president had been gazing through earlier.

"There's always that about Jackson," Monroe said softly. "One never quite knows, until the moment, exactly where his principles might fall. But he is a man of principle."

Adams made no response. He seemed completely preoccupied by the sight of the city beyond. Which was actually not that prepossessing, outside of the Capitol in the distance.

1824: TheArkansasWar