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icler of the events as looking like blood. The gale was toward the East River, and the tendency of the destructive flames was in that direction, though the flames spread also toward the north and south. In all, seventeen blocks of buildings were burned, covering thirteen acres of ground. The number of buildings destroyed was 648. Ex-President Monroe died on the 4th of July, 1831, being the third president who died on Independence Day. His death took place at the home of his son-in-law, Samuel L. Gouverneur, in New York City. His remains were deposited with public honors in the Marble Cemetery on Second street, where they reposed until 1858, when they were removed to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. They rest in a beautiful place overlooking the James River Falls above Richmond, in a vault of brick and granite.

The following year Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, Maryland, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, died at the great age of ninety-six years. Within a short period Philip Freneau, the poet of the Revolution, also departed at the age of eighty. On the 24th of June, 1833, the famous John Randolph, of Roanoke, died in the city of Philadelphia. You have been told considerable about this remarkable man, whose wit and sarcasm were dreaded by every one with whom he came in contact. At his death he liberated all his slaves to the number of three hundred.

Chief Justice Marshall died in 1835, when he had reached the age of four score, and Ex-President Madison followed on the 28th of June, 1836. Madison was the last survivor of the signers of the constitution of the United States He was about eighty-five years old. His remains rest at Montpelier, four miles from Orange Court House, Virginia. The grave is in the center of a large field, in a lot about one hundred feet square, surrounded by a brick wall.

President Jackson, following the example of Washington, issued a farewell address. It was of the most patriotic character, and was the last of his public papers. His final official act, however, caused much dissatisfaction. With the purpose of checking speculation in foreign lands, a circular was sent out by the treasury department on the 11th of July, 1836, requiring all the collectors of the public revenues to receive nothing but gold and silver in payment. The result was such a hampering of business that early in 1837 Congress sanctioned a partial repeal. Jackson being resolved not to sign the bill, kept it in his possession until after Congress adjourned, thus preventing its becoming a law.

The presidential candidates in the fall of 1836 were Martin Van Buren, democrat, who received 170 electoral votes; William Henry Harrison, whig, 73 votes; Hugh L. White, whig, 26 votes; Daniel Webster, whig, 14 votes; W. P. Mangum, whig, 11 votes. No candidate for the vice-presidency having secured a majority in the electoral college, the senate elected Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, to that office.

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ARTIN VAN BUREN, the eighth president of the United States, was born at Kinderhook, N. Y., on the 5th of December, 1782, five days after the signing of the preliminary articles of peace between Great Britain and her former colonies, by which the independence of our country was secured. You will observe, therefore, that he was the first president not born a British subject. He received a limited education, became a student of law, and before reaching his majority, was an influential democratic politician. At the age of eighteen he was sent as a delegate to the nominating convention of that party. In 1812, and again in 1816, he was elected to the state senate, and from 1815 to 1819, was attorney-general of New York. From 1821 to 1828 he represented New York in the national senate, resigning during the latter year in order to accept the governorship of his native state. In 1829, he was appointed secretary of state by Andrew Jackson, holding the office until 1831, when he was made minister to England. In December of that year, however, when his nomination came before the senate, it was rejected through the influence of Calhoun, Clay and Webster, on the ground that while secretary of state he had pursued a weak course toward England, respecting the questions of trade between her West India colonies and America. Van Buren was then in England and he could not avoid the humiliating necessity of coming home. He had his revenge, however, for the same year that he arrived he became the candidate of his party for the vice-presidency, and was elected to preside over the very senate which a short time before refused to confirm him as minister to England.

Van Buren was a strong believer in the doctrine of state rights, but was opposed to universal suffrage. He thought every voter should have some qualification beside that of age, and believed that each elector should be a householder. These views were not popular with the masses, yet you will notice that he got along very well in the face of that fact. He was an opponent of Jackson when the latter first ran for the presidency, but became his ardent friend, and in 1828 did a great deal toward securing the support of New York for the hero of New Orleans. He abominated the principles of John Quincy Adams, and did such good services for Jackson that the latter not only rewarded him in the way of political appointments, but aided in making him president.

At Van Buren's inauguration on the 4th of March, 1837, he was escorted from the presidential mansion to the capitol by a body of infantry and cavalry and a large number of civilians. He and Jackson rode in a phaeton made from the wood of the frigate Constitution. John Forsyth, Jackson's secretary of state, was continued in that

office through Van Buren's administration, as were most of the members of the cabinet of his predecessor, while in the main the policy of the two were the same.

You must not forget that when Van Buren came into power, the Seminole war was at its height. Osceola was not yet taken prisoner, and many of the incidents of that war were yet to come.

The administration of Van Buren came at an unfortunate period for him. The bad effect of many of Jackson's despotic acts was not fully felt until his successor came into office. The removal of the public funds from the United States Bank in 1833-4,

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and the issue of the specie circular in 1836, bore their baleful fruit during Van Buren's term. Business was disarranged, unhealthy speculation prevailed, and borrowed capital was made the basis for vast operations. The surplus in the treasury of the United States, after the national debt was paid, was distributed among the different states, and this added to the craze for speculation. The credit system was adopted everywhere, and the banks of the country were multiplied to nearly seven hundred. Enormous issues of irredeemable money were set afloat, and the chances for fraud vastly increased.

Van Buren was hardly in office when the crash came. Mercantile houses failed by hundreds, the banks suspended specie payment, and disaster swept through every form

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REBELLION IN CANADA.

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of trade. During the months of March and April, 1837, the failures in New York and New Orleans alone amounted to a hundred and fifty million dollars.

A deputation of merchants and bankers waited on the president, early in May, and asked him to put off the collection of duties on imported goods, to rescind the specie circular, and to call an extraordinary session of Congress to adopt measures of relief. The president consented to defer the collection of duties, but he would not repeal the specie circular nor call an extra session of Congress. Two days later all the banks in the city of New York suspended specie payments, and the other banks through the country were prompt in doing the same. Within a week the legislature of New York passed an act authorizing the suspension of specie payments for a year. The depositbanks having stopped redeeming their notes in coin, the government found itself without the means of paying its own obligations, except by using the third installment of the surplus revenue which had been ordered to be paid to the several states.

The condition of the country became so alarming that the president convened Congress on the 4th of September. In his official message he proposed the establishment of an independent treasury for the safe-keeping of the public funds, and their entire separation from banking institutions. A bill to that effect passed the senate but was defeated in the lower house. It was afterward re-introduced, and became a law in 1840. During the extraordinary session, Congress passed a bill authorizing the issue of treasury notes to the extent of ten millions of dollars. This, in the nature of things, could be only a temporary expedient. The business of the country slowly righted itself as more healthy methods of trade were adopted. During the year 1838 most of the banks resumed specie payments; commercial affairs improved, though it was a long time before business recovered from the shock it had received. Discontent and suffering were wide spread, and perhaps it was no more than natural that the people should blame the administration for every thing.

In the latter part of 1837, a rebellion broke out in Canada. Lower Canada especially was disturbed. In 1791, the English Parliament divided Canada into an upper and a lower province. Each was constituted with a governor, an executive council nominated by the crown, a legislative council appointed for life in the same way, and a representative assembly elected for four years by popular vote. The powers of the state were illadjusted, and the assemblies of the two provinces became bitterly opposed to their governors and irresponsible councils. For five years no provision had been made by the legislature of Lower Canada to pay for administering the government in the province. During four years the payments in arrears had amounted to a large sum, the assembly refused to provide for it, and demanded an elected legislative council, and complete control over all branches of the government. The British Parliament was willing to make some concessions, but not to the extent demanded.

Naturally the people of the United States, and especially in New York, sympathized with the insurgents. Seven hundred men from that state seized and fortified Navy Island, in Niagara river. The loyalists of Canada tried to capture the place, but failed; but on the night of December 29, 1837, they cut loose and attacked the supply-steamer Caroline, killed twelve of the defenders, set the boat on fire and sent her over the falls.

This event increased the excitement, and there seemed danger that the peaceful relations between Great Britain and this country would be broken. The president issued a proclamation of neutrality, forbidding all interference with Canada, and General Wool was sent to the frontier with a force strong enough to compel an obedience to the proclamation. He obliged the New York insurgents on Navy Island to surrender, and the flurry was soon ended.

Quiet was no more than fairly restored when the people began to think about choosing the next president. The administration of Van Buren was one of the least brilliant in the history of our country. There seemed to be a reaction from the stirring vigor of Jackson's rule, and the president was blamed for the hard times, high prices, bankruptcy, and every thing that did not suit the people.

The Whigs met at Harrisburg, December 4, 1839, and the convention was an enthusiastic one. When the balloting began, Henry Clay received one hundred and three, General Harrison ninety-four, and General Scott fifty-seven votes. General Harrison gained the nomination on the fifth ballot, while John Tyler, of Virginia, was nominated for the vice-presidency.

On the 4th of May following, the democratic convention met in Baltimore and unanimously renominated Van Buren. No nomination for vice-president was made, but later Richard M. Johnson and James K. Polk were named in several of the states for that office.

On the day the democratic convention met in Baltimore to renominate Van Buren, the whigs held a popular gathering there, at which twenty thousand young men were present. They came from all parts of the country, fully a thousand going from the single state of Massachusetts. When the hurrahing young whigs adjourned, it was to meet in Washington on the following 4th of March, to attend the inauguration of Harrison.

The wild canvass was hardly under way, when the Baltimore Republican said of General Harrison that if some one would pension him with a few hundred dollars and give him a barrel of hard cider he would sit down in his log-cabin and be content for the rest of his life. You know how such an accidental expression has changed the course of events; and this was realized in the presidential canvass of 1884. The sneer at General Harrison was caught up, and became the key-note of the campaign. Log-cabins were erected in villages, towns and cities, and ardent whigs drank hard cider and sang and shouted for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." No one can estimate the amount of cider drank during that extraordinary campaign. It must have grieved thousands of good temperance folk that amid such orgies Harrison and Tyler were swept into the White House. The democrats carried Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Virginia and South Carolina, whose electoral votes amounted to sixty. The whigs triumphed in every other state, electing their candidates by a majority of two hundred and thirty-four. The democratic party, after holding the reins of government for nearly forty years, was displaced for a time.

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