It
was said in later times, that "General Jackson's popularity could
stand anything," and in one sense this was true: it could stand
anything that General Jackson was likely to do. Andrew Jackson could
never have done a cowardly act, or betrayed a friend, or knowingly
violated a trust, or broken his word, or forgotten a debt. He was
always so entirely certain that he, Andrew Jackson, was in the right,
his conviction on this point was so free from the least quaver of
doubt, that he could always convince other men that he was right, and
carry the multitude with him. His honesty, courage, and inflexible
resolution, joined to his ignorance, narrowness, intensity, and
liability to prejudice, rendered him at once the idol of his
countrymen and the plague of all men with whom he had official
connection. Drop an Andrew Jackson from the clouds upon any spot of
earth inhabited by men, and he will have half a dozen deadly feuds
upon his hands in thirty days.
Mr. Calhoun inherited a quarrel with Jackson from George Graham, his
_pro tempore_ predecessor in the War Department, This Mr.
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