“My republican feelings and principles forbid it;” Jackson’s letter continues, “the simplicity of our system of government forbids it. Every monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and statesmen ought to bear evidence of the economy and simplicity of our republican institutions and of the plainness of our republican citizens, who are the sovereigns of our glorious Union and whose virtue is to perpetuate it. True virtue can not exist where pomp and parade are the governing passions. It can only dwell with the people—the great laboring and producing classes—that form the bone and sinew of our confederacy.... I have prepared an humble depository for my mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife where, without any pomp or parade, I have requested, when my God calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid; for both of us there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the dead to judgment when we, I hope, shall rise together clothed with that heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Redeemer who died for us that we might live, and by whose atonement I hope for a blessed immortality.” [Illustration: Walnut desk used by General Jackson, with chair made from the wood of the frigate _Constitution_, presented to him by Levi Woodbury.] [Illustration: General Jackson’s office or library, showing his armchair, presented to him by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, beside the candle-stand where he customarily opened his mail. For thirty years this room was the political center of the United States.] When the new Hermitage was built in 1819 and the garden was laid out, one of General Jackson’s first acts was to walk out into the garden with Rachel and select the spot where their remains would rest side by side when life had passed. At this time the General’s health was precarious, racked as he was by eight years of almost continuous campaigning while in a debilitated physical condition, and he frankly expressed the belief that he would not live long. At that time it seemed highly improbable that he would outlive the blooming Rachel by nearly seventeen years.