290 ANDREW JACKSON 



but nothing was too bad for Jackson to believe of 

 these two men. It was quite like him to take all the 

 campaign lies about them as literally true ; and when 

 Tobias Watkins, the fourth auditor of the treasury, 

 was found to be delinquent in his accounts, it was easy 

 to suppose that many others were, in one way or 

 another, just as bad. In his wholesale removals, 

 Jackson doubtless supposed he was doing the country 

 a service by " turning the rascals out." The imme- 

 diate consequence of this demoralizing policy was a 

 struggle for control of the patronage between Calhoun 

 and Van Buren, who were rival aspirants for the suc- 

 cession to the presidency. 



A curious affair now came in to influence Jackson's 

 personal relations to these men. Early in 1829, John 

 Eaton, Secretary of War, married a Mrs. Timberlake, 

 with whose reputation gossip had been busy. It would 

 seem that this ill repute was deserved, but Jackson 

 was always slow to believe charges against a woman. 

 His own wife, who had been outrageously maligned by 

 the Whig newspapers during the campaign, had lately 

 died. My venerable friend, Colonel Edward Butler, of 

 St. Louis, the oldest living graduate of West Point, 

 was Jackson's ward, and more familiar with his private 

 life for forty years than any other man. He cherishes 

 Jackson's memory with a feeling akin to idolatry, and 

 I only wish I could begin to remember all the interest- 

 ing things he has told me about him. They tried to 

 keep newspaper lies from coming to Mrs. Jackson's 

 ears, but of course in vain. Many a time Colonel 

 Butler, coming suddenly into the room, would find the 

 poor old lady sitting absorbed in grief, with her great 

 quarto Bible in her lap and tears stealing down her 



