sary of the
battle of New Orleans, but on that day the last installment of the
national debt had been paid. Colonel Benton presided, and when
the cloth was removed he delivered an exulting speech. "The national
debt," he exclaimed, "is paid! This month of January, 1835, in
the fifty-eighth year of the Republic, Andrew Jackson being President,
the national debt is paid! and the apparition, so long unseen on
earth--a great nation without a national debt!--stands revealed to
the astonished vision of a wondering world! Gentlemen," he concluded,
"my heart is in this double celebration, and I offer you a sentiment
which, coming direct from my own bosom, will find its response in
yours: 'PRESIDENT JACKSON: May the evening of his days be as
tranquil and as happy for himself as their meridian has been
resplendent, glorious, and beneficent for his country.'"

A few weeks later, as President Jackson was leaving the Capitol,
where he had been to attend the funeral of Representative Davis,
of South Carolina, a man advanced toward him from the crowd, leveled
a pistol, and fired it. The percussion-cap exploded without
discharging the pistol, and the man, dropping it, raised a second
one, which also missed fire. General Jackson's rage was roused by
the explosion of the cap, and, lifting his cane, he rushed toward
his assailant, who was knocked down by Lieutenant Gedney, of the
Navy, before Jackson could reach him. The man was an English house-
painter named Lawrence, who had been for some months out of work,
and who, having heard that the opposition of General Jackson to
the United States Bank had paralyzed the industries of the country,
had conceived the project of assassinating him. The President
himself was not disposed to believe that the plot originated in
the crazy brain of Lawrence, whom he regarded as the tool of
political opponents. A protracted examination, however, failed to
afford the slightest proof of this theory, although General Jackson
never doubted it for a moment. He was fortified in this opinion
by the receipt of anonymous letters, threatening assassination,
all of which he briefly indorsed and sent to Mr. Blair for publication
in the _Globe_.

The heads of the executive departments, believing that "to the
victors belong the spoils," did not leave an acknowledged anti-
Jackson Democrat in office, either in Washington city or elsewhere,
with a very few exceptions. One of these was General Miller,
Col