Comic History of the United States

However, the victories on the Canadian border settled the war once more for the time, and cheered the Americans very much.

The Indians in 1813 fell upon Fort Mimms and massacred the entire garrison, men, women, and children, not because they felt a personal antipathy towards them, but because they—the red brothers—had sold their lands too low and their hearts were sad in their bosoms. There is really no fun in trading with an Indian, for he is devoid of business instincts, and reciprocity with the red brother has never been a success.

General Jackson took some troops and attacked the red brother, killing six hundred of him and capturing the rest of the herd. Jackson did not want to hear the Indians speak pieces and see them smoke the pipe of peace, but buried the dead and went home. He had very little of the romantic complaint which now and then breaks out regarding the Indian, but knew full well that all the Indians ever born on the face of the earth could not compensate for the cruel and violent death of one good, gentle, patient American mother.

Admiral Cockburn now began to pillage the coast of the Southern States and borrow communion services from the churches of Virginia and the Carolinas. He also murdered the sick in their beds.

Perhaps a word of apology is due the Indians after all. Possibly they got their ideas from Cockburn.

The battle of Lundy's Lane had been arranged for July 25, 1814, and so the Americans crossed Niagara under General Brown to invade Canada. General Winfield Scott led the advance, and gained a brilliant victory, July 5, at Chippewa. The second engagement was at Lundy's Lane, within the sound of the mighty cataract. Old man Lundy, whose lane was used for the purpose, said that it was one of the bloodiest fights, by a good many gallons, that he ever attended. The battle was, however, barren of results, the historian says, though really an American victory from the stand-point of the tactician and professional gore-spiller.

HIS RAINBOW SMILE.

In September, Sir George Prevost took twelve thousand veteran troops who had served under Wellington, and started for Plattsburg. The ships of the British at the same time opened fire on the nine-dollar American navy, and were almost annihilated. The troops under Prevost started in to fight, but, learning of the destruction of the British fleet on Lake Champlain, Prevost fled like a frightened fawn, leaving his sick and wounded and large stores of lime-juice, porridge, and plum-pudding. The Americans, who had been living on chopped horse-feed and ginseng-root, took a week off and gave themselves up to the false joys of lime-juice and general good feeling.

Along the coast the British destroyed everything they could lay their hands on; but perhaps the rudest thing they did was to enter Washington and burn the Capitol, the Congressional library, and the smoke-house in which President Madison kept his hams. Even now, when the writer is a guest of some great English dignitary, and perhaps at table picking the "merry-thought" of a canvas-back duck, the memory of this thing comes over him, and, burying his face in the costly napery, he gives himself up to grief until kind words and a celery-glass-full of turpentine, or something, bring back his buoyancy and rainbow smile. The hospitality and generous treatment of our English brother to Americans now is something beautiful, unaffected, and well worth a voyage across the qualmy sea to see, but when Cockburn burned down the Capitol and took the President's sugar-cured hams he did a rude act.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ADVANCE OF THE REPUBLIC

The administration now began to suffer at the hands of the people, many of whom criticised the conduct of the war and that of the President also. People met at Hartford and spoke so harshly that the Hartford Federalist obtained a reputation which clung to him for many years.

There being no cable in those days, the peace by Treaty of Ghent was not heard of in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, there having been two weeks of peace as a matter of fact when this hot and fatal battle was fought.

General Pakenham, with a force of twelve thousand men by sea and land, attacked the city. The land forces found General Jackson intrenched several miles below the city. He had used cotton for fortifications at first, but a hot shot had set a big bunch of it on fire and rolled it over towards the powder-supplies, so that he did not use cotton any more.

General Pakenham was met by the solid phalanx of Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen, who reserved their fire, as usual, until the loud uniform of the English could be distinctly heard, when they poured into their ranks a galling fire, as it was so tersely designated at the time. General Pakenham fell mortally wounded, and his troops were repulsed, but again rallied, only to be again repulsed. This went on until night, when General Lambert, who succeeded General Pakenham, withdrew, hopelessly beaten, and with a loss of over two thousand men.

The United States now found that an honorable peace had been obtained, and with a debt of $127,000,000 started in to pay it up by instalments, which was done inside of twenty years from the ordinary revenue.

In the six years following, one State per year was added to the Union, and all kinds of manufactures were built up to supply the goods that had been cut off by the blockade during the war. Even the deluge of cheap goods from abroad after the war did not succeed in breaking these down.

James Monroe was almost unanimously elected. He was generally beloved, and his administration was, in fact, known as the original "era of good feeling," since so successfully reproduced especially by the Governors of North and South Carolina. (See Appendix.)

Through the efforts of Henry Clay, Missouri was admitted as a slave State in 1821, under the compromise that slavery should not be admitted into any of the Territories west of the Mississippi and north of parallel 36° 30' N.

Clay was one of the greatest men of his time, and was especially eminent as an eloquent and magnetic speaker in the days when the record for eloquence was disputed by the giants of American oratory, and before the Senate of the United States had become a wealthy club of men whose speeches are rarely printed except at so much per column, paid in advance.

Clay was the original patentee of the slogan for campaign use.

Lafayette revisited this country in 1819, and was greeted with the greatest hospitality. He visited the grave of Washington, and tenderly spoke of the grandeur of character shown by his chief.

He was given the use of the Brandywine, a government ship, for his return. As he stood on the deck of the vessel at Pier 1, North River, his mind again recurred to Washington, and to those on shore he said that "to show Washington's love of truth, even as a child, he could tell an interesting incident of him relating to a little new hatchet given him at the time by his father." As he reached this point in his remarks, Lafayette noted with surprise that some one had slipped his cable from shore and his ship was gently shoved off by people on the pier, while his voice was drowned in the notes of the New York Oompah Oompah Band as it struck up "Johnny, git yer Gun."

Florida was ceded to the United States in the same year by Spain, and was sprinkled over with a light coating of sand for the waves to monkey with. The Everglades of Florida are not yet under cultivation.

Mr. Monroe became the author of what is now called the "Monroe doctrine,"—viz., that the effort of any foreign country to obtain dominion in America would thereafter and forever afterwards be regarded as an unfriendly act. Rather than be regarded as unfriendly, foreign countries now refrain from doing their dominion or dynasty work here.

The Whigs now appeared, and the old Republican party became known as the Democratic party. John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were Whigs, and John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson were Democrats. The Whigs favored a high protective tariff and internal improvement. The Democrats did not favor anything especially, but bitterly opposed the Whig measures, whatever they were.

BALD-HEADED MEN NOT APPRECIATED.

In 1825, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was elected President, and served one term. He was a bald-headed man, and the country was given four years of unexampled prosperity. Yet this experience has not been regarded by the people as it should have been. Other kinds of men have repeatedly been elected to that office, only to bring sorrow, war, debt, and bank-failures upon us. Sometimes it would seem to the thinking mind that, as a people, we need a few car-loads of sense in each school-district, where it can be used at a moment's notice.

Adams was not re-elected, on account of his tariff ideas, which were not popular at the South. He was called "The old man eloquent," and it is said that during his more impassioned passages his head, which was round and extremely smooth, became flushed, so that, from resembling the cue-ball on the start, as he rose to more lofty heights his dome of thought looked more like the spot ball on a billiard-table. No one else in Congress at that time had succeeded in doing this.

John Quincy Adams was succeeded in 1829 by Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans. Jackson was the first to introduce what he called "rotation in office." During the forty years previous there had been but seventy-four removals; Jackson made seven hundred. This custom has been pretty generally adopted since, giving immense satisfaction to those who thrive upon the excitement of offensive partisanship and their wives' relations, while those who have legitimate employment and pay taxes support and educate a new official kindergarten with every change of administration.

The prophet sees in the distance an eight-year term for the President, and employment thereafter as "charge-d'affaires" of the United States, with permission to go beyond the seas. Thus the vast sums of money and rivers of rum used in the intervening campaigns at present will be used for the relief of the widow and orphan. The ex-President then, with the portfolio of International Press Agent for the United States, could go abroad and be fêted by foreign governments, leaving dyspepsia everywhere in his wake and crowned heads with large damp towels on them.

Every ex-President should have some place where he could go and hide his shame. A trip around the world would require a year, and by that time the voters would be so disgusted with the new President that the old one would come like a healing balm, and he would be permitted to die without publishing a bulletin of his temperature and showing his tongue to the press for each edition of the paper.

South Carolina in 1832 passed a nullification act declaring the tariff act "null and void" and announcing that the State would secede from the Union if force were used to collect any revenue at Charleston. South Carolina has always been rather "advanced" regarding the matter of seceding from the American Union.

President Jackson, however, ordered General Scott and a number of troops to go and see that the laws were enforced; but no trouble resulted, and soon more satisfactory measures were enacted, through the large influence of Mr. Clay.

Jackson was unfriendly to the Bank of the United States, and the bank retaliated by contracting its loans, thus making money-matters hard to get hold of by the masses.

"When the public money," says the historian, "which had been withdrawn from the Bank of the United States was deposited in local banks, money was easy and speculation extended to every branch of trade. New cities were laid out; fabulous prices were charged for building-lots which existed only on paper" etc. And in Van Buren's time the people paid the violinist, as they have in 1893, with ruin and remorse.

Speculation which is unprofitable should never be encouraged. Unprofitable speculation is only another term for idiocy. But, on the other hand, profitable speculation leads to prosperity, public esteem, and the ability to keep a team. We may distinguish the one from the other by means of ascertaining the difference between them. If one finds on waking up in the morning that he experiences a sensation of being in the poor-house, he may almost at once jump to the conclusion that the kind of speculation he selected was the wrong one.

SCALPING A MAN BETWEEN THE SOUP AND THE REMOVE.

The Black Hawk War occurred in the Northwest Territory in 1832. It grew out of the fact that the Sacs and Foxes sold their lands to the United States and afterwards regretted that they had not asked more for them: so they refused to vacate, until several of them had been used up on the asparagus-beds of the husbandman.

The Florida War (1835) grew out of the fact that the Seminoles regretted having made a dicker with the government at too low a price for land. Osceola, the chief, regretted the matter so much that he scalped General Thompson while the latter was at dinner, which shows that the Indian is not susceptible to cultivation or the acquisition of any knowledge of table etiquette whatever. What could be in poorer taste than scalping a man between the soup and the remove? The same day Major Dade with one hundred men was waylaid, and all but four of the party killed.

Seven years later the Indians were subdued.

Phrenologically the Indian allows his alimentiveness to overbalance his group of organs which show veneration, benevolence, fondness for society, fêtes champêtres, etc., hope, love of study, fondness for agriculture, an unbridled passion for toil, etc.

France owed five million dollars for damages to our commerce in Napoleon's wars, and, Napoleon himself being entirely worthless, having said every time that the bill was presented that he would settle it as soon as he got back from St. Helena, Jackson ordered reprisals to be made, but England acted as a peacemaker, and the bill was paid. On receiving the money a trunk attached by our government and belonging to Napoleon was released.

Space here, and the nature of this work, forbid an extended opinion regarding the course pursued by Napoleon in this matter. His tomb is in the basement of the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, and you are requested not to fumer while you are there.

FITTED IN PARIS AT GREAT EXPENSE.

CHAPTER XXII.

MORE DIFFICULTIES STRAIGHTENED OUT

Van Buren, the eighth President, was unfortunate in taking the helm as the financial cyclone struck the country. This was brought about by scarcity of funds more than anything else. Business-men would not pay their debts, and, though New York was not then so large as at present, one hundred million dollars were lost in sixty days in this way.

The government had required the payments for public lands to be made in coin, and so the Treasury had plenty of gold and silver, while business had nothing to work with. Speculation also had made a good many snobs who had sent their gold and silver abroad for foreign luxuries, also some paupers who could not do so. When a man made some money from the sale of rural lots he had his hats made abroad, and his wife had her dresses fitted in Paris at great expense. Confidence was destroyed, and the air was heavy with failures and apprehension of more failures to come.

The Canadians rebelled against England, and many of our people wanted to unite with Canada against the mother-country, but the police would not permit them to do so. General Scott was sent to the frontier to keep our people from aiding the Canadians.

There was trouble in the Northeast over the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, but it was settled by the commissioners, Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton. Webster was a smart man and a good extemporaneous speaker.

LORD ASHBURTON AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

Van Buren failed of a re-election, as the people did not fully endorse his administration. Administrations are not generally endorsed where the people are unable to get over six pounds of sugar for a dollar.

General Harrison, who followed in 1841, died soon after choosing his Cabinet, and his Vice-President, John Tyler, elected as a Whig, proceeded to act as President, but not as a Whig President should. His party passed a bill establishing the United States Bank, but Tyler vetoed it, and the men who elected him wished they had been as dead as Rameses was at the time.

Dorr's justly celebrated rebellion in Rhode Island was an outbreak resulting from restricting the right of suffrage to those who owned property. A new Constitution was adopted, and Dorr chosen as Governor. He was not recognized, and so tried to capture the seat while the regular governor was at tea. He got into jail for life, but was afterwards pardoned out and embraced the Christian religion.

In 1844 the Anti-Rent War in the State of New York broke out among those who were tenants of the old "Patroon Estates." These men, disguised as Indians, tarred and feathered those who paid rent, and killed the collectors who were sent to them. In 1846 the matter was settled by the military.

TARRED AND FEATHERED FOR PAYING RENT.

In 1840 the Mormons had settled at Nauvoo, Illinois. They were led by Joseph Smith, and not only proposed to run a new kind of religion, but introduced polygamy into it. The people who lived near them attacked them, killed Smith, and drove the Mormons to Iowa, opposite Omaha.

In 1844 occurred the building of the magnetic telegraph, invented by Samuel F. B. Morse. The line was from Baltimore to Washington, or vice versa,—authorities failing to agree on this matter. It cost thirty thousand dollars, and the boys who delivered the messages made more out of it then than the stockholders did.

THE MESSENGER-BOYS MADE MORE OUT OF IT THAN THE STOCKHOLDERS.

Fulton having invented and perfected the steamboat in 1805 and started the Clermont on the North River at the dizzy rate of five miles per hour, and George Stephenson having in 1814 made the first locomotive to run on a track, the people began to feel that theosophy was about all they needed to place them on a level with the seraphim and other astral bodies.

Texas had, under the guidance of Sam Houston, obtained her independence from Mexico, and asked for admission to the Union. Congress at first rejected her, fearing that the Texas people lacked cultivation, being so far away from the thought-ganglia of the East, also fearing a war with Mexico; but she was at last admitted, and now every one is glad of it.

The Whigs were not in favor of the admission of Texas, and made that the issue of the following campaign, Henry Clay leading his party to a hospitable grave in the fall. James K. Polk, a Democrat, was elected. His rallying cry was, "I am a Democrat."

The Mexican War now came on. General Taylor's army met the enemy first at Palo Alto, where he ran across the Mexicans six thousand strong, and, though he had but two thousand men, drove them back, only losing nine men. This was the most economical battle of the war.

The next afternoon he met the enemy at Resaca de la Palma, and whipped him in the time usually required to ejaculate the word "scat!"

Next General Taylor proceeded against Monterey, September 24, and with six thousand men attacked the strongly-fortified city, which held ten thousand troops. The Americans avoided the heavy fire as well as possible by entering the city and securing rooms at the best hotel, leaving word at the office that they did not wish to be disturbed by the enemy. In fact, the soldiers did dig their way through from house to house to avoid the volleys from the windows, and thus fought to within a square of the Grand Plaza, when the city surrendered. The Grand Plaza is generally a sandy vacant lot, where Mexicans sell tamales made of the highly-peppered but tempting cutlets of the Mexican hairless dog.

The battle of Buena Vista took place February 23, 1847, General Santa Anna commanding the Mexicans. He had twenty thousand men, and General Taylor's troops were reduced in numbers. The fight was a hot one, lasting all day, and the Americans were saved by Bragg's artillery. Bragg used the old Colonial method of rolling his guns up to the nose of the enemy and then discharging an iron-foundry into his midst. This disgusted the enemy so that General Santa Anna that evening took the shreds of his army and went away.

THE FIGHT WAS A HOT ONE.

General Kearney was sent to take New Mexico and California. His work consisted mainly in marching for General Frémont, who had been surveying a new route to Oregon, and had with sixty men been so successful that on the arrival of Kearney, with the aid of Commodores Sloat and Stockton, California was captured, and has given general satisfaction to every one.

In March, 1847, General Scott, with twelve thousand men, bombarded Vera Cruz four days, and at the end of that time the city was surrendered.

At Cerro Gordo, a week later, Scott overtook the enemy under General Santa Anna, and made such a fierce attack that the Mexicans were completely routed. Santa Anna left his leg on the field of battle and rode away on a pet mule named Charlotte Corday. The leg was preserved and taken to the Smithsonian Institute. It is made of second-growth hickory, and has a brass ferrule and a rubber eraser on the end. General Taylor afterwards taunted him with this incident, and, though greatly irritated, Santa Anna said there was no use trying to kick.

Puebla resisted not, and the army marched into the city of Mexico August 7. The road was rendered disagreeable by strong fortifications and thirty thousand men who were not on good terms with Scott. The environments and suburbs one after another were taken, and a parley for peace ensued, during which the Mexicans were busy fortifying some more on the quiet.

September 8 the Americans made their assault, and carried the outworks one by one. Then the castle of Chapultepec was stormed. First the outer works were scaled, which made them much more desirable, and the moat was removed by means of a stomach-pump and blotting-pad, and then the escarpment was up-ended, the Don John tower was knocked silly by a solid shot, and the castle capitulated.

Thus on the 14th of September the old flag floated over the court-house of Mexico, and General Scott ate his tea in the palace of the Montezumas. Peace was declared February 2, 1848, and the United States owned the vast country southward to the Gila (pronounced Heeler) and west to the Pacific Ocean.

The Wilmot Proviso was invented by David Wilmot, a poor, struggling member of Congress, who moved that in any territory acquired by the United States slavery should be prohibited except upon the advice of a physician. The motion was lost.

Gold was discovered in the Sacramento Valley in August, 1848, by a workman who was building a mill-race. A struggle ensued over this ground as to who should own the race. It threatened to terminate in a race war, but was settled amicably.

In eighteen months one hundred thousand people went to the scene. Thousands left their skeletons with the red brother, and other thousands left theirs on the Isthmus of Panama or on the cruel desert. Many married men went who had been looking a long time for some good place to go to. Leaving their wives with ill-concealed relief, they started away through a country filled with death, to reach a country they knew not of. Some died en route, others were hanged, and still others became the heads of new families. Some came back and carried water for their wives to wash clothing for their neighbors.