The Arkansas Advocate

VAN BUREN'S PORTRAIT.

No man was ever known by another more thoroughly and intimately than was Martin Van Buren by De Witt Clinton and truly Mr. Clinton had good reason to know him. At one period, when the star of Clinton was in the ascendant, and the horoscope pointed to the first honors of the Republic as within his grasp, he had few more zealous friends and adherents than little Van—then a busy pettifogger in the inferior New York courts, but already exhibiting the germs of those peculiar traits of character which have since rendered him so conspicuous. Professing to be a Republican, when the term meant something, he opposed the administration and the re-election of Mr. Madison, and united himself with the Federalists, in order to "push him from his stool," and to make way for his then divinity. Mr. Clinton failed, however, and, sinking even more rapidly than he had risen, little Van, with rat-like sagacity, deserted his friend and patron, and became leagued with his enemies. Again, however, Mr. Clinton became "the cynosure of all eyes,"—the stupendous project of inland communication, uniting the ocean with the lakes, which was conceived by his gigantic mind, and accomplished in the teeth of the most formidable opposition, superadded to its inherent difficulties, threw him again into public life, and bore him triumphantly into the Gubernatorial Chair—Who then, was more obsequious to Clinton than Van Buren? Not one of his most steady and uniform friends. In the revolutions of the wheel of politics, however, Clinton was again hurled to the nadir—and where was Van Buren then? Why, among the very first to plant his foot upon the neck of the prostrate man, whom, when wielding the patronage of his State, and distributing the spoils, he was the foremost to flatter and extol! We say he planted his foot upon Clinton's neck—How? Why he and his friends deprived him of the petty office of Canal Commissioner—an office, which, but for the genius and perseverance which called the Canal into existence, would never have been known—to confer it upon one of the retainers of the party, who fought for plunder! Truly, Mr. Clinton had good reason to know Van Buren—and in four lines, he has thoroughly sketched his character. Read it:

"A political Grimalkin, purring over petty schemes, and mousing over sinister designs—without dignity of mind, or elevation of character."