26 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 1866, was graduated at Yale in 1828, studied law with Benjamin F. Butler, and was admitted to the bar at Albany in 1830. In the following year he accompanied his father to London as an attache of the legation. In February, 1845, he was elected attorney-general of the state of New York, serv ing till December 31, 1846. He took an active part in the political canvass of 1848 as an advocate of the exclusion of slavery from the territories, but did not remain with the Free-soil party in its later developments. He held high rank as a lawyer, appearing in the Edwin Forrest and many other important cases, was an eloquent pleader, and an effective political speaker. He died on the voyage from Liverpool to New York. He was popu larly known as "Prince John" * after his travels
- Walking in Broadway with Fitz-Greene Halleck the year before
the war, he exclaimed, "Ah! there s Little Van and Prince John!" when I saw approaching arm-in-arm the silvery-haired ex-president and his handsome son. The former was among the smallest, physical ly, of our chief magistrates, and it was a constant delight to his po litical opponents to designate him as "Little Van." In this respect, however, he in no way differed from the other twenty-two presidents, who without exception were labelled with more or less inimical or popular nicknames. Washington was called the "Father of his Coun try" and the "American Fabius"; John Adams, the "Colossus of In dependence"; Jefferson, the "Sage of Monticello," and "Long Tom" by his political opponents; Madison, "Father of the Constitution"; Monroe, "Last Cocked Hat," from the circumstance of his being the last of the revolutionary presidents to wear the cocked hat of that period; John Quincy Adams, the "Old Man Eloquent"; Jackson, the "Hero of New Orleans" and "Old Hickory"; Van Buren, the "Little Magician," in allusion to his political sagacity and astuteness, "King Martin the First," and "Little Van"; Harrison, the "Washington of
