David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [79]
Crockett’s confidence as a stump speaker increased at every event he attended. Whenever he was in doubt, he just “relied on natural born sense,” an endless repertoire of anecdotes and jokes, and those “treats of liquor” for the potential voters with a thirst. The people who came to the barbecues, shooting matches, frolics, and rallies did not seem to care if Crockett avoided speaking about political issues but instead told them outrageously funny yarns that most of the time featured himself as the brunt of the joke. Crockett never put on airs. He was trying to represent the common men and women, just like himself, and not the landed gentry, creating an ethic for this western portion of Tennessee that challenged the hierarchical structure of the plantation culture. Crockett’s constituents had heavily calloused hands, sunburnt necks, and contrary dispositions if anybody—including the government—pushed them too hard.
During the busy campaign, on the second day of August, Elizabeth gave birth to her last child—a baby girl whom she and David named Matilda.14 That brought the number of children living under the cabin roof to eight. Two weeks after Matilda’s birth, her father turned thirty-five, the halfway mark to the biblical “threescore years and ten.” Later that month, a stream of voters rode or walked to the polls from first light until it got dark. When all the ballots were counted, Crockett was declared the winner. He had beaten his opponent by a two-to-one margin, or, as he more precisely put it: “I was elected, doubling my competitor, and nine votes over.”15
Not long after the election, Crockett visited with James Knox Polk, future president of the United States, at a political gathering in the town of Pulaski. Polk, just twenty-six, was an ardent admirer and lifelong supporter of Andrew Jackson, and served as the clerk of the State senate during Crockett’s first term in the legislature. Polk offered Crockett his congratulations—he was already well acquainted with him from appearances as a lawyer in Lawrence County—and then conjectured, “Well, colonel, I suppose we shall have a radical change of the judiciary at the next session of the Legislature.”16 According to Crockett, this rhetorical question from Polk caught him totally off guard. “Very likely, sir,” replied Crockett, who then quickly took his leave. “For I was afraid some one would ask me what the judiciary was; and if I knowed I wish I may be shot. I don’t indeed believe I had ever before heard that there was any such thing in all nature; but still I was not willing that the people there should know how ignorant I was about it.” It seems likely that this was yet another instance when Crockett exaggerated his supposed ignorance, the ploy that so pleased his supporters, who, of course, he hoped would read his autobiography.
Crockett was present and accounted for at the state capital in Murfressborough (as Murfreesboro was spelled at that time) when the first session of the Fourteenth General Assembly convened, on September 17, 1821.17 His first term as a state lawmaker—representing Hickman and Lawrence Counties—was relatively quiet. Crockett was appointed to only one committee, the rather inconsequential Standing Committee of Propositions and Grievances.
The opening days of the session were uneventful except for an incident on the floor of the chamber that proved to be a valuable lesson for Crockett and the other legislators. During debate, a nervous Crockett, still trying to get his bearings and unfamiliar with legislative procedure and protocol, rose with some nervousness to speak on behalf of a measure under consideration. When he finished and took his seat, James C. Mitchell, a leading criminal lawyer of the day and the representative for three Tennessee counties, rose to speak in opposition. In the course of rebutting Crockett’s remarks, Mitchell referred to Crockett as “the gentleman from the cane,” a term that many believed denoted a common person from the backwoods.18 Some of the other members chuckled