Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

534 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
toga to become ambassador to France and while abroad, as we have seen,
he received tribute honors from the great Napoleon. Returning to
America, he held for a short time the portfolio of war in President Madi
son's cabinet, after which, under both Madison and Monroe, he remained
continuously at the helm of the treasury department.
Mr. Crawford was a recognized power in national politics. As early
as 1822 a caucus of democratic members in the two houses of Congress
nominated him for president; but when the campaign opened there were
three other candidates in the field. These were: John Quincy Adams,
Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, all of whom were democrats like Mr.
Crawford, but the friends of these candidates had declined to go into the
caucus. Mr. Crawford's prospects of success were brightening every
moment when a sudden attack of paralysis dashed his political hopes to
the ground. It is said that an improper use of lobelia, prescribed by an
incompetent physician, was the cause of Mr. Crawford's unfortunate
illness. The time for holding the election was near at hand; and while
the exact nature of the malady was not generally known it was correctly
surmised that Mr. Crawford was an ill man. Nevertheless, under all the
circumstances, he polled an amazing vote. There was a deadlock in the
electoral college, in consequence of which it became necessary for the
House of Representatives to decide the contest; and chiefly through Mr.
Clay's influence, so it is claimed, John Quincy Adams was elected. Mr.
Crawford recovered his health sufficiently to render the state useful serv
ice on the Superior Court bench; but neither in mind nor in body was
he ever quite the same man upon whom Napoleon had looked with an
admiration akin to awe, nor did he ever again figure in national politics.
He died in 1834 and was buried at Woodlawn, his plantation near the
Town of Lexington. Under a massive horizontal slab, which has well
stood the test of time, though yellow with age, all that is mortal of this
great Georgian rests in the soil of his adopted state. Peace to his
slumbers!
Georgia warmly supported Mr. Crawford in the presidential contest
of 1824. Her choice for vice president was Martin Van Buren, of New
York. The electors chosen at this time were nine in number, to wit: from
the state at large, Elias Beall and William Matthews; district electors,
Thomas Gumming, John Mclntosh, John Floyd, John Rutherford, John
Harden, William Terrell and Warren Jordan.*
To succeed John Elliott whose term of office as United States senator
expired on March 4, 1825, the General Assembly elected John MacPher-
son Berrien, of Savannah, whose eloquence in this high forum caused him
in after years to be styled "the American Cicero." Judge Berrien was
a native of New Jersey. It was at the old Berrien homestead, near Prince-
ton, that Washington had issued his farewell address to the American
Army in 1783. Judge Berrien's father—the gallant Maj. John Berrien
—had been a soldier of the Revolution and, after coming to Georgia, had
filled the office of state treasurer. On his mother's side, Judge Berrien
was a MacPherson; and an uncle for whom he was named, Col. John
MacPherson, had served on General Montgomery's staff at Quebec.
Georgia's delegation in the Nineteenth Congress (1825-1827) was as
*Lanman's "Biog. Annals of the U. S. Govt.," pp. 521-522.