The Arkansas banner., 1845-08-06
GEO. BANCROfT,S GRAFTON ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF
 ANDREW JACKSON


 no more That age of creative power has passed away. The last surviving sgner of the Declaration of independence has long since left the earth. Washington lies near hls own Potomac, surrounded by his family and hls servants. Adams, the colossus of independence, reposes in the modest grave yard ot his native region. Jefferson sleeps on the heights of his own Monticello, whence his eye overlooked his beloved Virginia Madison, the last survivor of the men who made our constitution, lives only in our hearts, But who shall say that the heroes. m whom the image of God shone most brightly, dc not live forever? They were tllled with the vast conceptions which called America into being; they lived for those conceptions; and their deeds praise them.
 We are me- to comm emofate the virtues ol one who shed his blood for our indepen- dence, took part in winning the territory and forming the early institutions of the West, and was imbued with all the great ideas which constitute the moral force of our coun- try. On the spot where he gave his solemn lealty to the people--here. where he pledged himself before the world to freedom, to the constitution, and to the laws-we meet to pay our tribute to the memory of the last great name, which gathers round itself all the associations that form the glory of Amer ica.
 South Carolina gave a birthplace 10 An drew Jackson. On its remote frontier, far up on the forest-clad banks of the Catawba, m region where the settlers were just be- ginning to cluster, his eye first saw the light here his infancy sported iii the ancient for ests, and his mind was nursed to freedom by thelf influence. He was lhe youngest son oi an Irish emigrant, of Scottish origin, who, two years after the great war of Frederic of Prussia, fled to America for relief from indi- genee and oppression. His bnth was in l767, at time when the people of our land were but body of dependent colonists. scarcely more than two millions in number, scattered along an immense coast, with no army, or navy, or union; and exposed to the attempts ot England to control America by the aid of military force His hoyhood grew up in the midst of the contest with great Britain. The first great political truth that reached his heart, was that all men are free and equal; the first great fact that beamed on his understanding, was his country's in- dependence.
 The strife, as it increased, came near the shades of his own upland residence. As boy of thirteen, he witnessed the scenes of horror that accompany civil war; and when but year older, with an elder brother, he shoudered his muskei, and went forth to strike blow for his country.
 Joyous era for America and for humanity ! But for him, the orphan boy, the events were full of agony and grief. His father was no more. lis oldest brother fell victim to the war of the revolution; another his com panon in arms) died of wounds received in their joint captivity; his mother went down to the grave victim to grief and efforts to rescue her sons; and when peace came, he was alone in the world, with no kindred to cherish him, and little inheritance but his own untried powers.
 The nation which emancipated itself from British rule organizes itself: the confedera- ton gives way to the constitution the per iectlng of that constltuton-that grand event of the thorsand years of modern history
 
 pie, gains unity as a government, and takes its place as a nation among the powers of the earth.
 The next great office to be performed by America, is the taking possession of the will derness. The magnificent western valley cried out to the civilization of popular pow CT, that il must be occupied by cultivated man.
 Behold, then, our. orphan hero, sternly earnest, consecrated to humanity from child hood by sorrow, having neither father nor mother, nor sister, nor surviving brother, so young and yet so solitary. and therefore bound the more closely to collective man- behold him elect for his lot to go forth and assist in laying the foundations of society in the great valley of the Mississippi.
 At the very time when Washington was pledging his own and future generations 10 the support of the popular institutions which were to be the light of the human race-at the time when the institutions ot the Old World were rocking to their centre, and the mighty fabric that had come down from the middle ages were falling in-the adventurous Jackson, in the radiant glory and boundless hope and confident intrepldity of twenty-one, plunged into the wilderness. crossed the great mountain-barrier that divides the weS- tern waters from the Atlantic, followed the paths of the early hunters and tugtlves, and, not content with the nearer nelghborhood to his parent State. went still further and iurther to the west, till he found his home Ill the most beautiful region on the Cumberland.- There, from the first, he was recognised as the great pioneer: under his courage, the coming emgranls were sure to find a shleld.
 The lovers of adventure began to pour themselves into the territory, whose delicious climate and fertile soil invited the presence of social man. The hunter with his rifle and his axe, attended by his wife and chll- dren; the herdsman driving the few cattle that were to multiply as they bfowsed !; the cullivator of the soil all came to the lnVl- ting region. Wherever the bending noun tans opened pass-whereve the buiialoes and beasts of the forest had made trace, these sons of nature, children of humanity, in the highest sentiment of personal freedom come to occupy the beautiful wilderness whose prairies blossomed everywhere pro fusely with wild lowers-whose woods Tn spring put to shame, by their magnlicence, ,l,o .r, r,ions .,F ,,a,,