No one who was in Washington at the time of General Jackson's inauguration is likely to forget that period to the day of his death. To us, who had witnessed the quiet and orderly period of the Adams Administration, it seemed as if half the nation had rushed at once into the capital. It was like the inundation of the northern barbarians into Rome, save that the tumultuous tide came in from a different point of the compass. The West and the South seemed to have precipitated themselves upon the North and overwhelmed it. . . . Strange faces filled every public place, and every face seemed to bear defiance on its brow. It appeared to me that every Jackson editor in the country was on the spot. They swarmed, especially in the lobbies of the House, an expectant host, a sort of PrÊtorian band, which, having borne in upon their shields their idolized leader, claimed the reward of the hard-fought contest. The 4th of March dawned clear and balmy. "By ten o'clock," says an eye-witness, "the Avenue was crowded with carriages of every description, from the splendid baronet and coach, down to wagons and carts, filled with women and children, some in finery and some in rags, for it was the People's president." The great square which now separates the Capitol and the Library of Congress was in Jackson's day shut in by a picket fence. This enclosure was filled with people--"a vast agitated sea"--while in all directions the slopes of Capitol Hill were thickly occupied. At noon watchers on the west portico, looking down Pennsylvania Avenue, saw a group of gentlemen issue from the Indian Queen and thread its way slowly up the hill. All wore their hats except one tall, dignified, white-haired figure in the middle, who was quickly recognized as Jackson. Passing through the building, the party, reinforced by Chief Justice Marshall and certain other dignitaries, emerged upon the east portico, amid the deafening cheers of the spectators. The President-elect bowed gravely, and, stepping forward to a small cloth-covered table, read in a low voice the inaugural address; the aged Chief Justice, "whose life was a protest against the political views of the Jackson party," administered the oath of office; and the ceremony was brought to a close in the customary manner by the new Executive kissing the Bible. Francis Scott Key, watching the scene from one of the gates, was moved to exclaim: "It is beautiful, it is sublime."