Crockett is asked to visit Harvard College, but refuses for quaint reasons of his own. Andrew Jackson has been made an LL. D. by Harvard, and Crockett says that "one LL. D. is enough for Tennessee." He is the guest of Lieutenant-governor Armstrong, and chronicles naïve surprise that Mr. Armstrong "did not charge him anything," for entertaining him. He states that in New England he found "more liberality than the Yankee generally gets credit for." He expresses his gratitude for the kindly reception accorded him in New England and chronicles his admiration for the thrift and industry of that country, which seems to have made a vivid impression on his mind, different as these scenes were from the wild surroundings in which he himself had grown up.
This trip into the North wrought epochal change for our bear hunter. He learns now about the tariff, studies and approves the doctrines of protection--rank heresy for a Southerner. Deep water for Davy now! He seems to have had no counsel of prudence, for now he loses no opportunity to chronicle his animosity toward General Jackson.
"Hero--that is a name that ought to be first in war and last in peace," says he. Commenting on the faithlessness of the government, he flames out: "I had considered a treaty as the sovereign law of the land, and now I hear it considered as a matter of expedience." This was in reference to the treatment accorded the southern Indians by the United States government.
"This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to," says he, with personal allusion, of course, to Jackson. In all these sayings he is, it may naturally be supposed, heartily applauded by the Northerners, who rejoice in this notable accession to their own ranks.
Davy Crockett, bear hunter and congressman, has now had his chance. He takes himself seriously, even when he jokes about his being the next president of the United States. Crockett represents now the success of perfect digestion, of the perfectly normal nervous system. Nothing irritates him. The world to him runs smoothly, as it does to any hardy animal. He cares not for the past and has no concern for the physical future. His big brain, so long fallow, so long unstirred, begins now to fill up with thoughts and ideas and comparisons and conclusions. His reason is clear and bright. He presents to the world the startling spectacle of a middle-aged man educating himself to the point of an intelligent statesmanship, and that within the space of a few brief months or years. He displays a clarity of vision nothing short of marvelous. His memory of names, of dates and data is something startling. The world of books remains closed to him, so that he learns by ear, like a child, but he surprises friends and foes alike. The husk of the chrysalis has been broken. The Westerner has been born into the American!