go to the provision box for their bottles and dinner. He enjoyed that more, he said, than the entertainments in Washington. He was wonderful in anecdote and had the dramatic power of a Garrick. He was a true and noble. gentleman. The Secretary of War, C. M. Conrad, of Louisiana, was a Virginian; Governor W. A. Graham, of North Carolina, was Secretary of the Navy; John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, another Virginian and graduate of Washington College at Lexington, was Attorney-General; Judge N. K. Hall, of New York, a former law partner of Mr. Fillmore, was Postmaster-General. Three of the Cabinet either died or resigned during his administration. When Mr. Webster died, Edward Everett of Massachusetts took his place. When Secretary Graham was nominated for Vice-President on the ticket with Winfield Scott, John P. Kennedy of Maryland took his place. When Postmaster-General Hall was appointed Circuit Judge, Samuel D. Hubbard of Connecticut took his place."

Mr. Stuart's annual reports and numerous written opinions on file in the Land, Pension and Indian Offices furnish abundant proof of the satisfactory manner in which he discharged the duties of his department. The task of organizing the Department of the Interior devolved largely upon Mr. Stuart, as his predecessor, Mr. Ewing had, during the few months that he had filled the office, been so much occupied by his general duties as a member of President Tyler's Cabinet, that he had not been able to give much attention to the details necessary to the complete organization of his special department.

CHAPTER IX

THE AMERICAN PARTY

FTER the defeat of General Winfield Scott and William A. Graham, the Whig candidates for President and Vice-President in 1852, the Whig party gradually disintegrated, leaving the Democratic party and the anti-slavery agitators in possession of the political field. Shortly after this time the American party was formed and it soon gained support throughout the country. At first its meetings were held in secret, but it soon threw off the garb of secrecy, and, as Mr. Stuart said in the first Madison Letter, presented itself "as an open organization in the full light of day with its principles emblazoned upon its banners, challenging the confidence, the admiration, and the affection of true patriots."

Mr. Stuart had been a zealous Whig all his life. He could not accept the policies of the Democratic party, which he had uniformly opposed, and the anti-slavery party was, of course, unthinkable. He therefore turned to the American party. His own words in reference to Mr. Fillmore, in Madison Letter number eleven, accurately describe his own situation:

"When the Whig party, after the defeat of 1852, retired from the field, Mr. Fillmore had to choose between the American party whose principles he had approved as early as 1844, as appears by his letter to Mr. Clay in that year, and the Democracy. I have no doubt that Mr. Fillmore was attached to the Whig party. He had been nurtured in its lap; he had been reared in its conservative principles; he had proudly borne its banner both in victory and defeat; he had learned wisdom at the feet of its great sages, Webster and Clay. Mr. Fillmore's opposition to Democracy was a matter of principle, not of expediency. It was

not a thing which he could pick up and lay down as interest or caprice might prompt. He had denounced its tyranny, its misrule, its disregard of the Constitution, and its reckless extravagance, from the conviction that his denunciations were just. He could not, therefore, when the old adversary of that party retired from the conflict, eat his own words, retract his own charges, and falsify his whole life, by affiliating with a party which he had contended to be unworthy of trust. Interest might have dictated such a course, but duty and patriotism forbade it. Mr. Fillmore saw the Democracy, in violation of all its pledges, renewing the agitation of the slavery question which he had composed; opening the floodgates of sectional strife; and endangering the peace and security of the Union. Knowing that the only available power to stay the torrent which threatened to overwhelm the country was the American party, with the energy and promptness which distinguished him, he extended the right hand of fellowship to it and sought to aid it in the fulfilment of its great mission of peace.'

Mr. Stuart did not espouse the cause of the American party upon a sudden impulse, but after the most mature consideration of its principles and from a firm conviction that the best interests of the country would be served by the triumph of those principles. The Democratic party and the anti-slavery party were so bitter in their denunciation of each other; and party and sectional feeling was so intemperate that he believed unless a new party, composed of the great mass of the conservative thinking people, gained control of the government there would soon be violence and an attempt at disunion.

On June 2nd, 1856, the Democratic party nominated James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, for President, and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for Vice-President. The antislavery party, organized for the first time under the name of "Republican," on June 17th nominated John F. Fremont, of California, and William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, while the American party named as their candidates for

these offices, Mr. Fillmore, of New York, and Andrew J. Donelson, of Tennessee. Such was the condition of political parties in 1856.

In April, 1856, Mr. Stuart wrote a series of twelve letters, signed "Madison," in defence of the American party which were originally published in the Richmond Whig. These letters were extensively copied in the newspapers of the country, and were afterwards issued in pamphlet form and used as campaign literature in the Presidential election of that year.

Cluskey1 says of the Madison Letters: "The contents under this caption contain the material portions of eleven or twelve letters, written over the signature of Madison in vindication of the American party. The editor has examined carefully all the defences of the American organization and considering this the most able of them all, written as it is said by the Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, of Virginia, he yields it a place in his work."

Political Text-Book, page 283.