as in good humor, however, as he
usually was when he dealt with his friends, or with women or children,
his eyes could be very kindly, and his grim lips could part in a smile
that was extremely attractive.

Not far away is the Treasury building. Were the horseman alive, by
merely turning his head he could see its outline through the trees.
There is a tradition in Washington that when this old man lived in the
White House, and Congress voted to erect a new Treasury building, the
old one being burned, there was some question of the exact spot on which
it should stand. The question was put to him when he happened to be
walking near the western end of Pennsylvania Avenue. He struck his cane
on the ground and said shortly, "Put it here, sir,"--and there it
stands. Whether or not the story is true, it is characteristic of the
man and in keeping with the history of his times; for when Andrew
Jackson was President most things were done at Washington just as he
ordered them to be done. His friends declared that this was so because
in most things his will stood for the will of the American people; his
enemies, that they were done for no good reason whatever, but only
because a despot commanded his slaves to do them.

To this day there is the same division of opinion. The historians still
fight the same battle over him and his doings which in former times was
fought out by famous orators in Congress, by the whole people at the
polls. It is doubtful, indeed, if there ever will be, until the end of
the Republic itself, an end of the dispute over the place which that
slender figure with the bristling hair ought to have in American
history. Had Andrew Jackson any good claim to statues and monuments, to
the first place in the Republic, to popularity such as no other man had
enjoyed since Washington, to power such as Washington himself had never
exercised? Did he prove himself worthy of the place and power he held?
To answer either yes or no with assurance one must patiently examine
more books than Andrew Jackson ever glanced through in his whole life.
This little book would hardly contain the full titles of them all. Yet
it may perhaps be large enough to let the reader see what manner of man
he was concerning whom so many bitter controversies have raged. Perhaps
it may serve to explain how a Scotch-Irish boy, born to the deepest
obscurity and the wretchedest poverty, and blessed, apparently, with no
remarkable gifts of mind or body, c