He was fighting in the ranks as an adventurer or
soldier of fortune. He fought well; but would it do to promote a man
to high rank who knew the game so well, and upon whom no man could get
any _hold_? To him, in his secret soul, Martin Van Buren was nothing
(as he often said) but a country lawyer, who, by a dexterous use of
the party machinery, the well-timed death of De Witt Clinton, and
General Jackson's frenzy in behalf of Mrs. Eaton, had come to be the
chosen successor of the fiery chieftain. The canny Scotchman saw this
with horrid clearness, and saw nothing more. Political chiefs do not
like subalterns of this temper. Underneath the politician in Martin
Van Buren there was the citizen, the patriot, the gentleman, and the
man, whose fathers were buried in American soil, whose children were
to live under American institutions, who had, necessarily, an interest
in the welfare and honor of the country, and whose policy, upon the
whole, was controlled by that natural interest in his country's
welfare and honor. To our mocking Celt nothing of this was apparent,
nor has ever been.
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