signation is a literary as well as
a political curiosity. General Jackson, it is said, handed it to
Forsyth, with the remark "that he could not make head or tail of it;
and, by the eternal, Mr. Forsyth, I do not believe Van Buren can
himself." This was the forerunner of a general dismissal of the entire
Cabinet, save Eaton, who resigned. This rupture startled the whole
nation, but nothing Jackson could do, seemed capable of affecting his
growing popularity. A new Cabinet was organized, and soon after Mr.
Van Buren was sent minister to England, and Eaton minister to Spain.

The opposition were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay and
Webster. These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and Wright: the
wrestle was that of giants. The world, perhaps, never furnished a more
adroit debater than John Forsyth. He was the Ajax Telemon of his
party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the estimation of that
party. He hated Calhoun, and at times was at no pains to conceal it in
debate. In the warmth of debate, upon one occasion, he alluded in
severe terms, to the manner in which Mr. Crawford had been treated,
during his incumbency as Secretary of the Treasury, by a certain party
press in the interest of Mr. Calhoun. This touched the Vice-President
on the raw: thus stung, he turned and demanded if the senator alluded
to him. Forsyth's manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce:
turning from the Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the
imperiousness of an emperor: "By what right does the Chair ask that
question of me?" and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely
gleaming eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun. The power was with
the speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence. Slowly turning to
the Senate, every member of which manifested deep feeling, he
continued, as his person seemed to swell into gigantic proportions,
and his eye to sweep the entire chamber, "Let the galled jade wince,
our withers are unwrung," and went on with the debate.

The cause of the animosity of Jackson, toward Crawford was a report
which had reached Jackson, that Crawford, as a member of Mr. Monroe's
Cabinet, had insisted in Cabinet meeting upon the arrest of Jackson
for a violation of national law, in entering without orders, as the
commanding general of the army of the United States, the territory of
a friendly power, and seizing its principal city by military force.
General Jackson had entered Florida, then a depend