Francis Scott
Key, watching the scene from one of the gates, was moved to exclaim:
"It is beautiful, it is sublime."
Thus far the people had been sufficiently impressed by the dignity of
the occasion to keep their places and preserve a reasonable silence.
But when the executive party started to withdraw, men, women, and
children rushed past the police and scrambled up the steps in a wild
effort to reach their adored leader and grasp his hand. Disheveled and
panting, the President finally reached a gate at which his horse was
in waiting; and, mounting with difficulty, he set off for the White
House, followed by a promiscuous multitude, "countrymen, farmers,
gentlemen, mounted and unmounted, boys, women, and children, black and
white."
The late President had no part in the day's proceedings. On arriving
in Washington, Jackson had refused to make the usual call of the
incoming upon the outgoing Executive, mainly because he held Adams
responsible for the news paper virulence which had caused Mrs. Jackson
such distress and had possibly shortened her life.
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