By COLEMAN E. BISHOP.

II.—THE STATESMAN IN A STATE OF NATURE.

David Crockett was born in the wilds of Tennessee, August 17, 1786. He toughened rapidly, like a bear’s cub, but he showed in addition to the usual woodsman’s instincts the unusual qualities of great tenderness of feeling and generosity, with a remarkable gift of wit and love of fun. The incredible stories of his hardships at the age of twelve and thereafter we have not room to recount. In the best sense he was a tough boy. The closing scene of his home life—if a hut presided over by a drunken father, and a mother who left no impression on the boy’s character that showed itself in after years can be by any courtesy called a home—was a dissolving view of a ragged, bare-footed urchin of fourteen chased through the brush by a father with a large goad and a large load of liquor. Thus David Crockett set out upon the world for himself.

With Crockett’s story as a bear-hunter, nomadic woodsman, soldier and Indian-fighter, exciting and marvelous as are these incidents of the first thirty years of his life, we shall not much concern ourselves. But I do wonder that his life-like, quaint narrative of these has not become standard juvenile literature, along with Robinson Crusoe and Mayne Reid’s stories of adventure. Through all these exciting though isolated years, the young woodsman picked up a good deal of practical knowledge, not one scrap of which he ever forgot; and withal was developing a strange quality of unpretentious self-esteem. “The idea seemed never to have entered his mind that there was any one superior to David Crockett, or any one so humble that Crockett was entitled to look down upon him with condescension. He was a genuine democrat, and all were in his view equal. And this was not the result of thought, of any political or moral principle. It was a part of his nature, like his stature or complexion. This is one of the rarest qualities to be found in any man.”[H]

He also was developing oratorical powers. He acquired unbounded popularity at musters and frolics, in camp and in the chase by his fun-making qualities, his homely, kindly, keen wit. His retentive memory was an inexhaustible store-house of anecdote, and he always had an apt illustration for any point he wanted to make. He began to taste the sweet consciousness of power over his fellows, and to easily fall into the position of leadership, for which nature designed him.

His first official position came to him at about the age of thirty. There were a good many outlaws in the region where he at that time had his cabin and claim, and society began to cohere for self-protection. The settlers convened and appointed Crockett and others to be justices of the peace, and a corps of stalwart young men to be constables. These justices were really provost-marshals in power. There were no statute laws nor courts; but there was authority enough, and Crockett says everybody made laws according to his own notions of right. For shooting and appropriating a hog running at large, for instance, the sentence was to strip the thief, tie him to a tree and give him a flogging, burn down his cabin and drive him out of the country. Soon after, the new territory was organized into counties and Crockett was regularly commissioned a justice by the legislature. His account of his administration is interesting:

Crockett made his first stump speech when he was about thirty-four years old. A militia regiment was to be organized, and a Captain Mathews, after promising Crockett the majority of the regiment if he would support him for its colonel, turned against Crockett in favor of his own son. At a great muster prepared by Mathews, he made a stump speech in his own and his son’s favor. Crockett, entirely unabashed, mounted the stump as soon as Mathews finished, and on the captain’s own grounds proceeded to expose his duplicity and argue the total unfitness of both him and his son for the command. The speech was fluent, witty, full of anecdote, and carried the rude audience by storm. It effectually beat both father and son. The fame of this maiden effort traveled fast in a community where oratory was the great, if not the only engine of popular control, and the result was that a committee soon waited on Crockett and asked him to stand for the legislature then about to be elected (1821). Some of his first electioneering adventures illustrate the frankness and tact so queerly combined in him, and also show how he got his education in politics. Hickman county wanted to change its county seat. He says: “Here they told me that they wanted to move their town nearer to the center of the county, and I must come out in favor of it. I did not know what this meant, or how the town was to be moved, and so I kept dark, going on the same identical plan that I now find is called non-committal.”

On one occasion the candidates for governor of the State, Congress, and several for legislature, some of them able stump-speakers, were announced. As he listened, a sense of inferiority for the first time, probably, penetrated him; he drank in all they said, and remembered it. He says:

He was elected, and in the legislature proved a good story-teller, a formidable antagonist in repartee, and above all a good listener. He says the first thing that he took pains to learn was the meaning of the words “judiciary” and “government,” as up to that time he had “never heard that there was any such thing in all nature as a judiciary.” The halls of the Tennessee legislature were again brightened in 1823-24 by the wit and good sense of “the gentleman from the cane” as an opponent derisively dubbed him, very much to his subsequent regret.

Crockett was now so well known that he was put forward for Congress. His rapid advancement staggered even his self-sufficiency, and he objected, saying he “knowed nothing about Congress matters.” Fortunately, perhaps, he was given time to learn more, for he was beaten at the polls this time. It was claimed by his supporters the result was obtained by fraud, and as the adverse majority was small, he was urged to contest the election; but he declined, saying he did not care enough for office to take it unless the clearly expressed will of the people called him thereto. From hunting for men he turned with zest to hunting for bears; his endurance, hardihood and success, and the never-failing benevolence with which he divided the fruits of the hunt with poor settlers, or lent a helping hand in many other ways, made him more political capital than the best stump speeches could have done. He killed one hundred and five bears one season. Two years later (1827) he ran for Congress again and was triumphantly elected over two strong opponents. Thus the bear-hunting, Indian-fighting “gentleman from the cane,” barely able to write his name, so poor that he had to borrow money to pay his traveling expenses to Washington, became a law-maker of a great nation by sheer force of native talent and goodness of heart.

His fame preceded him to Washington. His prowess in arms, his dexterity in politics, and his quaint wit had been in the papers; all his sayings had been, as is the style of American journalism, exaggerated and embellished and distorted, until the general impression of him was that of a coarse, outlandish, swaggering yahoo. His appearance in Washington dispersed these illusions thence, but the misrepresentations did not cease in the prints. As in the case of Lincoln, every profane and vulgar thing that cheap wit could invent was attributed to Crockett, and received as his. Many of these false impressions survive to this day; it is therefore proper here to give a picture of the man as he was seen at home. It is thus reported by an intelligent gentleman who visited his cabin just after his election. The visitor penetrated to Crockett’s cabin eight miles through unbroken wilderness by a path blazed on the trees. He says:

He seemed to have a great horror of binding himself to any man or party. “I will pledge myself to no administration,” he said. “When the will of my constituents is known, that will be my law; when it is unknown my own judgment shall be my guide.” So clear and lofty an idea had this unlearned man formed of the duties of a representative! Well for the country if as high a standard of political duty even now prevailed among the best and wisest legislators!

Nothing is recorded of his first term in Congress except that he “brought down the house” every time he spoke, and once so discomfited a colleague that a duel was talked of; upon which Crockett gave out that if any one challenged him he should select as their weapons bows and arrows.

He was re-elected in 1829. This was the Jackson tidal wave—the inauguration of that craze of hero-worship and spoils-grabbing which entailed its curse upon our politics, even to this day. During this term came the turning point in Crockett’s career and a triumphant test of the strength of his character. At first he supported Jackson’s administration and acted with the party. But when that “constitutional democrat” blossomed out into an unconstitutional autocrat, one man of his party was found manly enough to act upon his own convictions. One of these unconstitutional measures was an act to vote half a million of dollars for disbursements made without color of law, and Crockett opposed it. The result is best told in his own words:

It proved as he had anticipated; he failed of re-election, but only by a majority of seventy votes. Two years of bear-hunting followed, during which Crockett thirsted for the nobler pursuit of ambition of which he had had a taste. Some of his predictions as to Jackson’s course had been verified, and many things conspired to open his constituents’ eyes to the high character of their representative’s course. In the canvass of 1833 he was elected the third time, winning one of the most remarkable political triumphs ever known in this country. He had against him all the education, talent and wealth of his district; the administration made it a test vote, and all that promises of reward, threats of punishment, political and social, unlimited money, the influence of the national banks, and every appliance that the most tyrannical disposition ever dominant in our affairs could bring to bear were used. Men of genius, eloquence, influence and fortune rode the district; whiskey was free as water. The entire press opposed Crockett with the ingenuity and abandon which only “patronage” can inspire. More than all this the common people of the district, with whom lay Crockett’s influence, if he had any, worshiped “Old Hickory,” under whom many of them had fought. Against these odds the impoverished, uneducated hunter, with no aid but his natural gifts and a clean record, canvassed the district of seventeen counties and 100,000 inhabitants and won. This remarkable victory in Jackson’s own State, when his popularity was at its height, gave Crockett a new and better title to respect than any he had before presented; and it increased the mystery hanging about this strange, uncultured genius. The world abandoned its preconceived notions of the back-woodsman when it saw his power; but it was at loss to conceive a true idea of him.

During this session of Congress (1833-34) Crockett wrote his autobiography. As might be expected, it is a very unique work. Its style is simple and vigorous; the language is Shaksperian in its monosyllables and short sentences, but the ensemble is graphic, and as the events narrated are of the most extraordinary kind, it makes very exciting reading. On the title page appears his famous motto:

Crockett submitted the manuscript of this work to a critic for revision; but he declared afterward that the reviser had not improved the work—probably because he toned down its vigorous language. Such expressions as “my son and me went,” occur, and spelling like this: “hawl,” “tuff,” “scaffled,” “clomb” (for climbed); “flower” (for flour). But he positively objected to some of the orthographical corrections, as he said “such spelling was contrary to nature.” He brought the narrative of his life up to the date, and concluded it as follows:

What would not senators and representatives of to-day give for the same independence? What health and manliness it would impart to public life, if every legislator were thus free of handcuffs and collars!

In the spring of 1834, Crockett made his famous “starring tour” through the East. From Philadelphia to Portland, and back to Washington, it was a continuous ovation. Crockett and the populace were mutually astonished; he at his receptions, and they at the actions, appearance, and utterances of the man who had been represented to them by his political opponents as a buffoon and semi-savage. He was more than all impressed with the developments of wealth and enterprise in the North; he frankly confessed the prejudices he had formed against the Yankees, and praised their thrift and principles. He spoke well and appropriately on each occasion, though—strange change in him!—with evident confusion at the lionizing. He wrote of the ovation he received on landing in Philadelphia:

In a happy little speech here, from the hotel balcony, he said:

At a grand banquet in New York City, Crockett having been toasted as “The undeviating supporter of the constitution and the laws,” made this neat and characteristic hit, as he reports it:

Most enthusiastic of all was his reception in Boston, where President Jackson’s policy was most unpopular. It was even proposed to confer on Crockett the degree of LL.D., an honor that had been awarded to Jackson: but, unlike Jackson, Crockett had the wit to decline an honor which neither of the two deserved.

The more he saw and heard the more humble he became. When called up for an after-dinner speech in Boston he burst out in his honest way—“I never had but six months’ schooling in all my life, and I confess I consider myself a poor tyke to be here addressing the most intelligent people in the world.” If he had not culture, he had what was far more rare in that age of truckling to one-man power—manhood. It seemed as if unlettered David Crockett was the only man in public life to stand up straight, and people acknowledged the power of true character. The culture and wealth of the East bowed to unspoiled manhood; it was a revelation fresh from Nature’s hand.

A few extracts from one of his more sustained and dignified efforts will illustrate the development Crockett had attained by simple observation. After praising New England he said:

He took his seat in Congress, a central object in the political field. His position was anomalous. Party ties were closely drawn, and party rancor bitter as it can be only when nothing but plunder is at stake between parties. The Democrats could not claim Crockett so long as he antagonized their god, Jackson; and the alliance of the Whigs he most distinctly repudiated. He was an independent, an “unattached statesman;” the prototype of an element which has now become formidable in our politics, but a character for whom there was no place in those times. He was, like all eccentrics, ahead or apart from his age, and was at first feared, then shunned, and then called crazy by the great body of public men, whose standard of sanity was to sacrifice manhood to party, to betray the Republic for spoils.

It was during this Congress that he created a sensation by antagonizing benevolence of representatives at government expense. A bill had been reported and was about to pass, appropriating a gratuity to a naval officer’s widow. Crockett made an unanswerable argument on the unconstitutionality of this and other such appropriations, and closed by offering, with other friends of the widow, to give her a week of his salary as congressman. Not a member dared to answer or to vote for the bill, and not one followed Crockett’s example of charity at his own expense.

But the independent, honest eccentric had reached the end of his public career. In the next congressional election he was beaten by tricks such as would not be tolerated at this time. One of these devices was to announce fictitiously a large number of public meetings in Crockett’s name on the same day. When he failed to appear, as announced, speakers of the Jackson party, who would always arrange to be present, denounced Crockett as afraid to face his constituents upon his “treacherous and corrupt record in Congress.” The defeat was a surprise to him; more, it almost broke his heart. He wrote, manfully, but pathetically, “I have suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace.” I may add, like the man in the play, “Crockett’s occupation’s gone.”

Shortly after he made a farewell address to his constituents, into which he compressed a good deal of plain speaking, or as he says, “I put the ingredients in the cup pretty strong, I tell you: and I concluded by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and that they might all go to hell and I would go to Texas.”

“When I returned home,” he adds, “I felt sort of cast down at the change that had taken place in my fortunes; sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. Such was my state of feeling that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took my pen in hand, and as usual, I went ahead.” This is

We can not follow our hero—for he was a moral hero—in his adventures while going across the country to Texas. Only one incident have we room for. On the way he rode apace with a circuit preacher, a man not less a hardy adventurer than himself. He narrates this:

Crockett reached Texas just in time to take part with the American filibusters in the famous defense of the fortress of the Alamo, against Santa Anna’s army. On the 6th of March, 1836, the citadel was carried by the Mexicans by assault, only six of the little garrison surviving, of whom Crockett was one. When captured he stood at bay in an angle of the fort, his shattered rifle in one hand and a bloody bowie-knife in the other; twenty Mexicans, dead or dying, were at his feet. His face was covered with blood flowing from a deep gash across his forehead. Santa Anna ordered the prisoners to be put to the sword. Crockett, hearing the order, though entirely unarmed, sprang like a tiger at the throat of the Mexican general, but a dozen swords interrupted him and cut off his life.

Thus in its prime was thrown away a life that in many respects was one of the most extraordinary in our annals. If he had enjoyed early advantages, he would have been one of the greatest of Americans. Nay, it is possible that if he had not been so deeply wounded by ingratitude, treachery and defeat, and had remained at home, he, instead of General Harrison, would have been the one to lead the popular revolution, when came the reaction from the unlicensed regime of Jackson and Van Buren.

David Crockett’s courage, independence, honesty, goodness of heart, made him shine “like a good deed in a naughty world.” He ought not to be forgotten by his countrymen, for a noble illustration of the capabilities that may be found among the common people, and of the career possible to even the lowliest-born American citizen.

When a man is called feeble, what is meant by the expression? Feebleness denotes a relative state; a relative state of the being to whom it is applied. He whose strength exceeds his necessities, though an insect, a worm, is a strong being; he whose necessities exceed his strength, though an elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, though a god, is a feeble being.—Rousseau.