The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-05-31
AN OLD SOCIAL FEUD.
A QUARREL THAT PLAYED a ARlGz PART
IN NATIONAL POLITICS.
It Started Soon After Jackson Was
Elected President and Subsequent
ly Indirectly Resulted In the For
nation of the yVhig Party.

Elected President and Subsequent
ly Indirectly Resulted In the For
NATION of the Whig Party.
An exciting quarrel between presi-
dent and chieftains of his party began
soon after Jackson went to the White
House. In this feud Calhoun WAS the
principal figure on the anti.Jac.son
side. The quarrel was melted bS t0,o
causes-Jackson' discovery that Gil
houn, who was secretary of war i'll alnn-
roe's cabinet. was hostile II, .i:.y,:-9ll
during the Florida wa, 81 ,M!.:ai'.'s
days, and the refusalcf j. Il
houn and those of the ,ne,uip,> '.f :. ~
son s cabinet in 1929 to rrcngEa Ms
Eaton, wife of .Jaclsons 8 secretary OF
war, socially.
The origin of the social war which
changed factors in politics and Indirect
" resulted in the formation Of the Wing
party was this:
John Il. Eaton, personal friend of
Jackson, was appointed by Jackson
secretary Of war and took his seat in the
cabinet in March, 1929, on Jackson's
entrance into the White House. Eaton
few months earlier married Mrs. Tim
berlake, whose maiden name was Mar.
garet L. O'Neill Commonly called Peg
gy 'ONeill). woman of great beauty,
of some accomplishments and Of un-
bounded ambition.
She was the daughter of a Washing
ton tavern keeper Gossip had been
free with her name during her welded
life with Timberlake. and when, after
Eaton s marriage to her and the intelli-
eence that he was to be member of
the cabinet reached the public, some of
Jackson S friends told him that Eaton s
entrance into the cabinet would cause
some embarrassment to the administra-
tion.
Jackson. who was creditably slow to
believe anything i'll of a woman, re-
sponded that Mrs. Eaton was not to be
in the cabinet He made it known to
his personal friends Immediately after
the administration began that he de-
sired that Mrs. Eaton should be accord
ed all the courtesies to which her sta
tion entitled her.
The wife of Vice President Calhoun
and the wives of all the members of the
cabinet who had any wives refused to
recognize Mrs. Eaton. jackson took up
her cause with his usual energy, and
the question entered politics Van Bu-
ren, the secretary of state, had no wife
Che was widower). He had no daugh-
ters. He was thus free to extend to Mrs.
Eaton the conventional courtesies, which
he did with the dignity and grace for
which be was noted.
This made Van Buren's political for
tune. There had been keen rivalry be-
tween Calhoun and Van Buren, previous
" for the succession to Jackson in the
presidency. The Democratic party was
invincible, and the man who got the
presidential cauGidacy was certain Of
election. jackson was the party's die
tator. Calhoun, by his position as vice
president and by his prominence in the
party, was popularity believed to stand
next in line to Jackson.
In the first year or two of Jackson s
first term Jackson's feeble health was
thought to be barrier in the way Of
his acceptance of nomination for q
second term, and Calhoun was popular
ly supposed to be his political heir The
discovery, through the Crawford dis
closures, of the unfriendliness Of Cal
houn for jackson in 1918, in the Mon
roe cabinet, and the quarrel which the
Mrs. Eaton incident brought, destroyed
this hope. Van Buren's championship
of Mrs Eaton's cause endeared him to
jackson.
Van Buren's call upon Mrs. Eaton at
her residence had mighty political con-
sequences. Like the shot of the ttembat-
tied farmers" at Concord bridge, the
sound of the silver knocker touched at
Mrs. Eaton's door by Martin Van Buren
was heard round the world, or at least
round that part Of the world comprised
in the United States.
AS a result Of the Peggy O'Neill war
Supplemented in Calhoun's case by the
Crawford disclosures Calhoun was shut
out from the presidency, was dwarfed
from national into sectional figure,
and his brooding over his effacement
probably assisted in inciting that sys-
tenn of political philosophy out of which
resulted secession and civil war.
Eaton and Van Buren, resigned in
April, 1881, in order to facilitate a
general reconstruction Of the cabinet
which would free Jackson from the
husbands of the wives who had disre-
garded his Eaton ukase-especially Of
Ingham, secretary Of the treasury
Branch, secretary of the navy, and
Berrien, attorney general
The country was convulsed, O large
fragment of the Democratic party was
cast off and united with the elements
which founded the Wing party, three
years later, and that party received o
strength which it would not otherwise
have gained at the outset. st. Louis
Globe-Democrat.
How Webster Evaded the Question.
G. T. Seward, formerly United States
consul general at Shanghai and minis
for at Pekinr tells the following anus