American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

For those readers who have not endeavored to pick up a copy of Jon Meacham's new book, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, I encourage you to go out and purchase a copy or check one out from your local library. Meacham brings Jackson's White House years to life! Much of the books first chapters are spent discussing the Eaton Affair, which is very interesting. He also delves into Jackson being the first "people's" president and how that effected Congress then and how it shaped the power of the executive today. This is not your typical mundane Jackson biography. It is well written and is a very good read. I highly encourage you to read Meacham's work. Once I started reading, I could not put it down!

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A Petti Affair in Washington

Margaret O'Neale Eaton's marriage to Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War, John Henry Eaton, was the first major sexual scandal surrounding an American Executive.

The seventeen year old Margaret O'Neale married thirty-nine year old John Timberlake, a purser in the United States Navy, in 1816, and in 1818, Margaret was introduced to an up and coming young Tennessee Senator by the name of John Henry Eaton. John was the youngest United States Senator to ever be elected, being only twenty-eight years old upon taking the oath of office. Senator Eaton was boarding at at small tavern in Washington known as the "Franklin House" owned by Margaret's father.

It was during his stay here that John Timberlake and John Eaton were first acquainted. At some point Senator Eaton found out about Timberlake's rising financial debts. Senator Eaton vehemently tried to assist Timberlake by presenting petitions in Congress. The first petition brought before the Senate was by the Hon. Thomas Hill Williams of Mississippi on December 28,1818, presumably concocted by Eaton himself but presented by Williams. The petition was referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs but was tabled. Senator Eaton brought the next petition on March 1, 1820, and it was referred to the same committee and was withdrawn before the close of the session. After several other petitions, the claims to help recover Timberlake's debts were severally denied.

John Timberlake was forced back to sea due to being unable to recover his debts and was at sea when he reportedly committed suicide, presumably due to his defrauding the United States government to cover up debts incurred by his wife. The scuttlebutt around Washington was that Margaret Timberlake was actively demonstrating a rumor concerning her sexual habits by having an illicit relationship with Senator John H. Eaton. The rumor abounded when, on January 1, 1829, John H. Eaton and Margaret O'Neale Timberlake married. Prior to their nuptials, John Eaton approached his long time friend and confidant, the newly elected President of the United States, Andrew Jackson and asked his opinion on the matter of marriage. The president-elect gave the couple his blessing, which was exactly what Eaton wanted to hear. Louis McLane, a Senator from Delaware and future Secretary of the Treasury under Jackson, quipped, "Eaton has just married his mistress and the mistress of eleven doz.others" (McLane to James A. Bayard, February 19,1829, Bayard Papers, L.C.)...to be continued...

Has Your Congressman Ever Flashed??--Campaigning At Its Best!

This story has roots in the Compensation Act of 1816. The United States Congress began to believe its $6.00 per diem salary was inadequate and needed changing. Yeah, talk about a salary grab!! Well, I can kind of understand since there had been no pay increase since 1789, and by 1816, the average cost of living had doubled. In 1815, a House resolution to inquire about raising the salary was promptly defeated by a vote of 99-8.

This changed on March 4, 1816, when Congressman Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky proposed Congress receive a salary instead of a per diem rate. He said it would be “nothing extravagant, nothing prodigal.” Around March 11, the House voted 81-67 to pay themselves a salary of $1500 instead of the $6.00 per diem. On March 14, the Senate passed the bill 21-11, and President Madison signed it into law on March 19, 1816.

Unfortunately for these elected officials, the populace did not necessarily agree with this “salary grab” as it was being called. Nearly two-thirds of the Fourteenth Congress was not reelected; of the 81 House members who voted for the salary increase, only 15 were returned to serve in the Fifteenth Congress. One of those 15 members was the Honorable Henry Clay of Kentucky, the Speaker of the House.

As the story goes, while out campaigning for his reelection to the House, Henry Clay came upon an old hunter who was very much opposed to Congress’ raise.

“Have you a good rifle, my friend?” asked Mr. Clay.

“Yes.”

“Does it flash?”

“Once only,” he replied.

“What did you do with it-throw it away?”

“No, I picked the flint, tried it again, and brought down the game.”

“Have I ever flashed but on the compensation bill?”

“No.”

“Will you throw me away?”

“No, no.” exclaimed the hunter, with enthusiasm, nearly overpowered by his feelings.

“I will pick the flint, and try you again!” (Epes Sargent’s 1844 Life and Public Services of Henry Clay)

Needless to say, Congress repealed the Compensation Act during its next session and decided on an $8.00 per diem and $8.00 for every twenty miles traveled.

Times, They Are a Changing...

Hello everyone,

I suppose you have noticed at this point that the blog title has changed. I decided that in addition to politics, we needed to delve into a little more of what Mr. Dabney alluded to in his post; the secession convention and the peculiar institution that brought our nation to the brink of war. As you know, President Andrew Jackson spoke the words, "Our Federal Union, it must be preserved" during the nullification crisis in the early 1830s. We must look deeper into the drive behind the political leanings in both the North and the South; this means plantation culture and industrialization must be explored as well. Thanks for being patient as I refine the direction of this blog.

As an aside, I also had a relative, Simpson Bobo from Spartanburg District, South Carolina, who served as a representative to the secession convention that met in Charleston on December 20, 1860. the ordinance passed passed unanimously, 169-0

Dinwiddie County's Representative to the Secession Convention and one of my (white) ancestors

As promised, Chris, I am posting a little blurb about one of my (white) ancestors; James Boisseau, Jr. Boisseau was born June 10th 1822. He was a son of James Boisseau, a merchant of Petersburg, and Jane Turner. His father died when James, Jr. was two and Boisseau’s mother, Jane died when her son was five. Despite being born in Petersburg he spent most of his life in Dinwiddie County. He attended the College of William and Mary beginning in 1839 and from which he graduated in 1842.

He bought a farm, “Cedar Level” (and now the location of the new Dinwiddie County High School, which preserved the Boisseau family cemetery located on the property) which is south of Five Forks. He studied law at the University of Virginia and graduated in 1851.

The antebellum period found James Boisseau also busy in politics. He served as the county’s Commissioner of the Revenue, 1848-49 and 1850; the Commonwealth attorney 1852-53-54-55 and '56; Justice of the Peace, and Presiding Justice in 1860; and a Member of the State legislature in 1857-58.
By 1860, he owned a farm and was an attorney. His real property valued at $2000 and his personal property at $12,000. He owned nine male slaves and six female slaves. He also hired one male slave in 1860 from a Petersburg resident. Nine of the enslaved people on Boisseau’s farm in 1860 were between the ages of 2 months old and 9 years old. Seven of his slaves were listed as mulattos. Boisseau married Martha Elizabeth Cousins, daughter of Capt. William Henry Cousins (veteran of the War of 1812) of Dinwiddie on February 29, 1860. She was 24 at the time of the census.

Perhaps Boisseau’s greatest political service was as Dinwiddie County’s representative to the 1861 Secession Convention. Boisseau voted for secession on April 4th 1861; however this vote for secession was defeated 80-45. Boisseau voted for secession again on April 17, 1861, which this time passed 88 for secession and 55 against. Boisseau’s son, Sterling later noted that his father was a corporal in the Confederate army in Capt. B.J. Epes, Company. He was captured a short time before the surrender of Lee.

In the post-war years he served as the first judge of Dinwiddie County. The 1870 census lists him as 47 and the Judge of the County whose real estate was worth $2200 and his personal property decreased to just $100 (hey, that’s what happens when much of the antebellum personal property was evaluated in terms of the humans who took control of their lives in the aftermath of the war). His wife, familiarly called Betty on the census, was 34 and by then the mother of three children: Sterling (age 7 on the census), Ada Cousins (age 6 on the census), and Emma Robinson (age 1 on the census). The couple had a final son, Preston (who by the 1880 census was 7, remembering that the census listed children according to age on June 1, 1880, Preston must have been conceived in the final months of his father’s life), before James Boisseau Jr. died on Nov. 29th 1872.

FYI: I continue to work on the Boisseau side of my family so I have not pinpointed exactly when this race mixing occurred though I think it began long before James Boisseau, Jr. This of course, was not something that prominent slaveholders wrote down in their family bible so it will be daunting but I'll keep working.

Alabama's 3rd Congressional District

So, I have been interested in seeing who represented my current district during the Antebellum Period, and I felt I just had to share what I found. Two pretty imposing figures, one literal, represented Alabama's 3rd Congressional District.

Dixon Hall Lewis represented the district from 1829-1833 and again from 1841-1844 (he represented the 4th Congressional District from 1833-1841). In case some of you are not familiar with Congressman (later Senator) Lewis, he was, a strikingly obese man, weighting near 500 pounds. A specially constructed seat was made for Lewis, and his carriage was outfitted with heavy suspension springs. As an interesting aside, Lewis' colleagues stated that Alabama literally had the largest representation of any state in the U.S. Congress.

William Lowndes Yancey represented the district from 1844-1846. Now I don't believe I need to introduce this Fire-eater to you all, but if you are at all interested in finding out more about Congressman Yancey, Eric Walther's William Lowndes Yancey: The Coming of the Civil War is a very good book.

I would be very interested in knowing some of the famous Antebellum politicians from your own congressional districts.