Jackson was the first President to take the oath of office on the east portico of the Capitol, the place now generally used. He also was the first to read his speech before being sworn. He wore two pairs of spectacles,--a pair for looking at the crowd and a pair for reading; when he was using one pair, the other was perched aloft on his forehead. At the close of the exercises, he mounted a fine white horse and rode to the White House, again having to make his way through a mass of singing and shouting admirers. At the mansion a feast had been provided, and the gates thrown open to every one. The building was soon stuffed full; and, as the people waiting outside could hardly hope to force their way in, negro servants came to the doors with buckets of punch and salvers of cakes and ices and passed these out. Much of the food and drink was wasted, and much china and glassware smashed. Women fainted, men quarreled and bruised one another’s faces. At one stage the doorways became so blocked that people coming out had to climb through the windows and drop to the ground. The rabble inside, bent on shaking the hand of the President, jammed him against a wall to the serious peril of his ribs, till he succeeded in escaping through a back entry and taking refuge in the hotel where he had lately had his lodgings. The boisterous incidents of his first day in office were only an earnest of the stormy administration which lay before Jackson. Realizing how much he was indebted to New York for his election, and that Martin Van Buren had a powerful following there, he appointed Van Buren his Secretary of State. This proved a pretty lucky investment in human nature; for in the Peggy Eaton controversy, which broke out soon after Jackson began his term, Van Buren was a valuable ally. General John H. Eaton, a lifelong friend whom Jackson had appointed Secretary of War, had been boarding for several years with a local tavern-keeper named O’Neal. The publican’s daughter, Peggy, had grown up a pretty, but pert and forward girl, who flirted with her father’s patrons and married one of them, Purser Timberlake of the navy. Timberlake was addicted to drink, and during one of his cruises he ended a spree by suicide, leaving his wife and children destitute; and Eaton, whose name gossip had already linked with the widow’s, came to the front with an offer of marriage, which was accepted.