He was justly conscious of a mandate from the people to
govern. He had against him a coalition of the politicians who had till
that moment monopolized power, and the public offices were naturally
full of their creatures. He knew that he would have a hard fight in any
case with the Senate against him and no very certain majority in the
House of Representation. If the machinery of the Executive failed him he
could not win, and, from his point of view, the popular mandate would be
betrayed.

For the most drastic measures he could take to strengthen himself and to
weaken his enemies left those enemies still very formidable. Of the
leading politicians, only Calhoun, who had been chosen as
Vice-President, was his ally, and that alliance was not to endure for
long. The beginning of the trouble was, perhaps, the celebrated "Eaton"
affair, which is of historic importance only as being illustrative of
Jackson's character. Of all his Cabinet, Eaton, an old Tennessee friend
and comrade in arms, probably enjoyed the highest place in the
President's personal affections. Eaton had recently married the daughter
of an Irish boarding-house keeper at whose establishment he stayed when
in Washington. She had previously been the wife of a tipsy merchant
captain who committed suicide, some said from melancholia produced by
strong drink, others from jealousy occasioned by the levity of his
wife's behaviour. There seems no real evidence that she was more than
flirtatious with her husband's guests, but scandal had been somewhat
busy with her name, and when Eaton married her the ladies of Washington
showed a strong disposition to boycott the bride. The matrons of the
South were especially proud of the unblemished correctitude of their
social code, and Calhoun's wife put herself ostentatiously at the head
of the movement. Jackson took the other side with fiery animation. He
was ever a staunch friend, and Eaton had appealed to his friendship.
Moreover, his own wife, recently dead, had received Mrs. Eaton and shown
a strong disposition to be friends with her, and he considered the
reflections on his colleague's wife were a slur on her, whose memory he
honoured almost as that of a saint, but who, as he could not but
remember, had herself not been spared by slanderers. He not only
extended in the most conspicuous manner the protection of his official
countenance to his friend's wife, but almost insisted upon his Cabinet
taking oath, one by one, at th