292 ANDREW JACKSON 



proved of Jackson's conduct in Florida. This was 

 quite true, but Calhoun had discreetly yielded his 

 judgment to that of the cabinet, led by Adams, and 

 thus had officially sanctioned Jackson's conduct 

 These facts, as handled by Eaton and Lewis, led Jack- 

 son to suspect Calhoun of treacherous double-dealing, 

 and the result was a quarrel which broke up the 

 cabinet. In order to get Calhoun's friends, Ingham, 

 Branch, and Berrien, out of the cabinet, the other 

 secretaries began by resigning. This device did not 

 succeed, and the ousting of the three secretaries en- 

 tailed further quarrelling, in the course of which the 

 Eaton affair and the Florida business were beaten 

 threadbare in the newspapers and evoked sundry 

 challenges to deadly combat. 1 In the spring and 



1 MRS. LEE TO COLONEL GANTT 



[Apropos of General Jackson's relations with Mrs. Eaton and Mr. Calhoun. The 

 original letter from which these extracts are taken is dated Silver Spring, May 23, 

 1889, and is preserved among Dr. Fiske's papers.] 



"... I shall relate chiefly what I heard when General Jackson visited 

 my Parents or when his guest. I was eleven years old when I first met 

 him, and twenty-three at our last parting. When my Parents removed 

 from Kentucky to Washington my brothers did not accompany us, conse- 

 quently I was more than ever their constant companion, being their only 

 daughter, and Mother my teacher. . . . The first time I ever heard Mrs. 

 Eaton's name mentioned was in a conversation between Mother and the 

 President, where he spoke of the annoyance given him by Mrs. Donelson's 

 refusal to be civil to Mrs. Eaton when she called at the White House ; he 

 thought Mrs. Eaton, as the wife of his friend and a member of the Cabinet, 

 ought to be politely received, but l Emily ' is influenced by her husband 

 who is under * Calhoun's thraldom.' This was the purport of his complaint, 

 and out of this domestic disagreement arose the gossip which was well 

 known to have been kept up by Mrs. Eaton, who enjoyed notoriety even at 

 the expense of her own reputation and of the truth. . . . Soon after 

 Major and Mrs. Donelson went to Tennessee for a short time. I after- 

 wards heard from my Parents that they repented of their position, and Mrs. 



