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THE

AMERICAN WHIG REVIEW.

No. LXXV.

FOR MARCH, 1851.

A REVIEW OF THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF

WILLIAM H. CRAWF O R D.*

PART ONE.

AMONG the public men of the past gen- to great and durable results. When the ends eration who may be styled representative for which he strove had been accomplished, characters, few stand higher on the list than he did not pause, like most other leading WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD. His name statesmen, to preserve the means of such ac and political character have been indelibly complishment. History, therefore, is barren impressed on the history of the country, and of his deeds, and perpetuates his name only. long succeeding generations will look to him It is true that, now and then, as we wade as an eminent republican exemplar. His fame, through ponderous tomes of the national therefore, will be permanent; but the re- archives, we stumble on some majestic record mains of his public career, owing to his pe- of his genius that shines forth from the dreary culiar temperament and habits of life, are waste with surpassing splendor; or that, like singularly intangible, and belong entirely, some towering column among ancient and as naturalists would say, to the fossil species. unidentified ruins, unbroken by age and There was nothing in his private or public erect amidst the crumbled masses around, character to invite the gossipry of history-tells of a giant race that have passed before. that surest method of emblazoning one's The sketch before us, understood to be reputation. He did not belong to that class from the pen of his accomplished son-in-law, of politicians whom crowds follow and ad- Mr. George M. Dudley, of Sumpter county, mire, of whom every penny writer has some-Georgia, was not designed, as its limits thing to say, and whose journeys form one evince, to be full or satisfactory. We must continuous and glaring pageant. He never say, however, that the deficiency appears acted for the multitude. If he had ambi- to have proceeded more from injudicious tion to be great, it was of that elevated order and unauthorized prunings by some witless that looked less to ephemeral popularity than | paragraphist, than from any original omission

* Sketch of the Life of William H. Crawford. National Portrait Gallery. Philadelphia. 1839.

VOL. VII. NO. III. NEW SERIES.

13

in the article itself. The arrangement does not quite indicate the tasteful handiwork and nice discrimination which we happen to know to be characteristics of the author. We have been informed, in fact, that the sketch was unwisely mutilated, and so sheared and nipped as to entirely pervert its chief purposes and intended historical effect. At all events, however, the world is indebted to Mr. Dudley for the only authentic biography of his illustrious relative. We have, therefore, chosen to make his sketch the text of the following article; with no view, let us say, to criticism, for, under the circumstances, that would be neither allowable nor tasteful,-though it is possible that we may take the liberty of dissenting, in an instance or two, from what we candidly think to be, perhaps, some of its too ready conclusions. We design, however, not so much to confine our objects to mere succinct biographical detail, as to briefly review the prominent features in the life of an individual reckoned among the greatest of his day, and of times which form an important epoch in the political history of the Republic. We address ourself to such task not without considerable embarrassment and distrust. The difficulties already intimated are very discouraging. Mr. Crawford left no materials on which to build any connected account of his life. His contemporaries are ready to expatiate largely concerning his greatness, but they can point to but few recorded monuments of his fame. Although twenty years have not elapsed since the period of his decease-although numbers even of the rising generation have seen and spoken with himyet is he already shelved as the Hortensius of his time-who, while glimmeringly acknowledged as a greater than Cicero, and whose name will be familiar through countless ages to come, has left "not a wreck" of his genius, and lives only in tradition and in the eulogies of his rival. This is not the only difficulty. The history of the period in which Mr. Crawford figured as a statesman, apart from its mere general features, has never been compiled; and it is not only undefined, but is quite obscured from ordinary research. It embraces much collateral interest that must be patiently gleaned from scanty and scattered remnants, and which we are obliged to introduce very detachedly in the course of this review. It extends through a period which witnessed a total dissolution and absorption of one of the ancient politi

cal parties, the re-construction of the other, and the establishment of a third of which he himself must be reckoned the principal founder, but which had not obtained its present identity and compactness when disease hurried him prematurely from the theatre of political life. It also embraces some points personal to himself, and to other distinguished public characters, which render their evisceration and discussion quite a delicate undertaking, but which, nevertheless, ought not to be passed over unnoticed—especially by the candid and privileged reviewer. Thus much we have deemed it necessary to premise, as well to explain the meagreness of what might be otherwise regarded a prolific subject, as to advertise the reader of the more immediate purposes of this article.

Crawford was born, as we are told, in Nelson county, Virginia, in February, 1772. While yet quite a youth his parents removed to Georgia,-first to near Augusta, and afterwards to Columbia county. Here he was sent to school, and learned the ordinary English branches of education. He had scarcely attained the sixteenth year of his age when his father died, leaving the family in very reduced circumstances. Young Crawford immediately turned his yet scanty learning to active account, and supported his mother and family by teaching school, until he was twenty-two years old. At this time he began to feel a desire to obtain a classical education, and was not at all deterred, even at his comparatively advanced age, from seeking its gratification. There was, in the same county as his own little school, an academy of high repute, under the superintendence of a teacher who afterwards became famous as the instructor of the leading statesmen of the South. Even then, his obscure literary realm contained subjects who, in after years, adorned the national councils, and filled the country with their fame. That retired academy was, in fact, the nursery of Georgia's most distinguished sons, in politics, literature, and religion. The rector was the Rev. Dr. Moses Waddell, who, at a subsequent period, became widely known as the founder of Willington Academy, in Abbeville District, South Carolina, celebrated as the matriculating font of John Caldwell Calhoun, as also of many others whose names are eminently renowned in the land.

In 1794 young Crawford entered Carmel Academy as a student. He soon obtained

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