g
the Adams men in New Hampshire, or of Amos Kendall, who had dared to
oppose Clay in Kentucky, or of General Duff Green, editor of "The
Telegraph," the Jackson organ. These men, personal friends of the
President, came to be called the "Kitchen Cabinet;" and at least three
of the four were shrewd enough to justify any President in consulting
them. Hill and Kendall were both New England men by birth, and had all
the industry and sharpness of mind proverbially characteristic of
Yankees. Even Major Lewis did not surpass Kendall in political
cleverness and far-sightedness; he was a "little whiffet of a man," but
before long the opposition learned to see his hand in every event of
political importance anywhere in the country. If a Democratic convention
in Maine framed a resolution, or a newspaper in New Orleans changed its
policy, men were ready to declare that it was Kendall who pulled the
wire. Historians are fond of saying that it was such men as Kendall and
Lewis who really ruled the country while Jackson was President; and it
is true that by skilful suggestions, by playing upon his likes and
dislikes, much could be done with him. But it is equally true that when
he was once resolved on any course his friends could no more stop him
than his enemies could. A clerk in the State Department won his favor by
a happy use of the phrase, "I take the responsibility," and from that
time was safe even against the displeasure of Secretary Van Buren. A
member of Congress began a successful intrigue for office by begging for
his father the pipe which the President was smoking, ashes and all. A
clerk in the War Department attracted his attention by challenging a man
to a duel, and so started himself on a career that ended in the Senate.
Secretary Van Buren called on Peggy Eaton and supplanted Calhoun as the
heir apparent to the presidency. Jackson in good humor was the easiest
of victims to an artful intriguer; but, unlike the weak kings whom
scheming ministers have shaped to their purposes, he could not be
stopped when once he was started.

It was Peggy Eaton who made a division between the married men and the
widower of the Cabinet. She was the wife of Senator Eaton, who was now
Secretary of War, and the widow of a naval officer named Timberlake. Her
father was a tavern-keeper named O'Neill, and both Jackson and Eaton had
lived at his tavern when they were Senators, and Mrs. O'Neill had been
kind to Mrs. Jackson. The O'Neills had no