Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





Transcriber's note:

  The digraphs "ae" and "oe" are spelled out for clarity.

  The chapter summaries in the Table of Contents are repeated in the
  book at the start of each chapter.  At the end of each chapter is
  a facsimile autograph and a brief biography of the signer.  The
  running page titles are omitted.

  Vol. I, Chap. XLIII: "President's Message or" changed to "President's
  Message on"

  Vol. II, Chap. IX:  "Lamar" changed to "Lamon"

  A tabulation of the 1884 Presidential vote totals has been added.

  The typographical fist is represented by the right guillamet (»).

  LoC catalog number:  E179.P8


[Frontispiece:  perley.jpg]
Engr. by H. B. Hall's Sons, New York

[Signed] Faithfully yours,
  Ben: Perley Poore


PERLEY'S
REMINISCENCES
OF SIXTY YEARS IN THE
NATIONAL METROPOLIS

_Illustrating the Wit, Humor, Genius, Eccentricities, Jealousies,
Ambitions and Intrigues of the Brilliant Statesmen, Ladies, Officers,
Diplomats, Lobbyists and other noted Celebrities of the World that
gather at the Centre of the Nation; describing imposing Inauguration
Ceremonies, Gala Day Festivities, Army Reviews, &c., &c., &c._

BY BEN: PERLEY POORE.

_The Veteran Journalist, Clerk of the Senate Printing Records,
Editor of the Congressional Directory, and Author of Various Works._

Illustrated.

VOL. I.
HUBBARD BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, PHILADELPHIA.
Boston, Cincinnati, Kansas City; W. A. Houghton, New York; A. W.
Stolp, Chicago; A. W. Mills, Tecumseh, Mich.; E. Holdoway & Co.,
St. Louis; L. S. Varney & Co., Minneapolis; A. L. Bancroft & Co.,
San Francisco.


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by

BEN: PERLEY POORE,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

NOTICE TO BOOKSELLERS.
This book is sold exclusively by subscription, all agents being
strictly enjoined by contract from selling in any other way.  Any
evasion of this plan of sale will be a trespass upon the copyright
rights of the author.  HUBBARD BROS.


PREFACE.

The public favor with which the journalistic writings of the
subscriber have been received prompted the publication of these
volumes.  Their object is to give personal details concerning
prominent men and women in social and political life at the National
Metropolis since he has known it.  He has especially endeavored to
portray those who "in Congress assembled" have enacted the laws,
and those who have interpreted and enforced the provisions under
which the United States has advanced, during the past sixty years,
from comparative infancy into the vigor of mature manhood, and has
successfully defended its own life against a vigorous attempt at
its destruction.

In chronicling what has transpired within his personal recollection
at the National Metropolis, he has gathered what "waifs" he has
found floating on the sea of chat, in the whirlpools of gossip, or
in the quiet havens of conversation.  Some of these may be personal
--piquantly personal, perhaps--but the mighty public has had an
appetite for gossipings about prominent men and measures ever since
the time when the old Athenians crowded to hear the plays of
Aristophanes.

The subscriber is aware that some who write of prominent persons
and political events indulge too much in sycophantic flattery,
while others have their brains addled by brooding on some fancied
wrong, or their minds have lost their even poise by dwelling on
insane reforms or visionary projects.  All this may have its use,
but the subscriber has preferred to look at things in a more cheerful
way, to pluck roses rather than nettles, and neither to throw filth
nor to blow trumpets.

While the Republic has preserved with commendable pride the histories
of her statesmen and her martial defenders, it is well that the
memories of those of the gentler sex, who have from time to time
taken prominent part in shaping the destinies of the nation, should
also be remembered.  This work will give, it is hoped, an idea of stirring
events in both political and social life, of the great men and the
fascinating women who have figured in Washington during the past
six decades.  Those who were too well acquainted with these personal
details to think of recording them are fast passing away, and some
account of them cannot but interest younger generations, while it
will not fail to profit the older politicians, publicists, and
journalists.

The great difficulty in the compilation of the "Reminiscences" has
been the selection from the masses of material accumulated in
diaries, autograph letters, and scrap-books containing published
literary matter.  To have given a connected political and social
history of what has transpired at the National Metropolis during
the past sixty years would have required a dozen volumes, so the
most conspicuous features only have been here and there selected.

Confident of the exact truthfulness of the sketches here given,
this work is presented, without apologies, to a generous public as
the result of very extensive observation.

  BEN: PERLEY POORE.
  INDIAN HILL FARM,
  Near Newburyport, Mass.


CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BECOMES PRESIDENT.
The Tenth Presidential Election--A Political Bargain--Election of
President--A Scene in the House--Inauguration of J. Q. Adams--The
Adams Administration--The Mistress of the White House--The President's
Private Secretary--Social Life at the White House--President Adams'
Daily Life--Henry Clay as Secretary of State--The Rival Candidates
--The Death of Two Ex-Presidents.

CHAPTER II.
TRAVELING IN "YE OLDEN TIME."
Travel by Stage and Steamboat--Boston to Providence--The Old Town
of Providence--The Long Island Sound Steamers--New York City--New
York to Philadelphia--Philadelphia to Washington--Washington Hotel
Life--Expenses of Living--The Metropolis of the Union--The National
Capital--Works of Art--The Rotunda--Free-Masonry--The Morgan
Excitement--Theatrical--Division of the Friends' Society.

CHAPTER III.
JOURNALISM IN 1828.
Old Georgetown--The Union Tavern--A Natal African Salute--President
George Washington--Major L'Enfant--Newspaper Organs--The National
Intelligencer--The National Journal--Matthew L. Davis--James Gordon
Bennett--Mordecai M. Noah--Other Washington Correspondents--A
Notable Briton--Gambling-Houses--Senatorial Card Playing--Social
Games of Whist.

CHAPTER IV.
PROMINENT SENATORS OF 1827.
The Nineteenth Congress--Vice-President John C. Calhoun--Martin
Van Buren--Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina--Thomas Hart Benton
--Randolph, of Roanoke--Duel between Clay and Randolph--An Offended
Virginian--A Future President--Prominent Senators--Senatorial
Control of Society--The Dancing Assemblies--Fashionable Attire--
Belles of the Period--The Code of Honor.

CHAPTER V.
PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES OF 1827.
The Representatives' Hall--Admission of Ladies--Webster, of
Massachusetts--Edward Everett--McDuffie, of South Carolina--Rhode
Island's Bald Eagle--A Bargain Exposed--Retrenchment and Reform--
Prominent Representatives--The Supreme Court--Chief Justice Marshall
--Mr. Justice Washington--The Christmas Holidays.

CHAPTER VI.
THE POLITICAL MACHINE.
The Tenth Presidential Campaign--Election of General Jackson--Death
of Mrs. Andrew Jackson--The Inauguration of "Old Hickory"--Reception
at the White House--An Editorial Phalanx--The Civil Service--
Disciplining a Postmaster General--A Fortunate Mail Contractor--
The Sunday Mail Crusade.

CHAPTER VII.
THE KITCHEN CABINET.
Jackson's First Annual Message--The Kitchen Cabinet--Blair, of the
Globe--Washington Newspapers and News--The First Lady-Bird of the
Press--Nathaniel P. Willis--Peter Force--Social Enjoyments--Mrs.
Trollope on Washington Society--Attempt to Oust a Veteran from
Office--Payment of the Claims on France.

CHAPTER VIII.
BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.
The Great Senatorial Debate--Attack on New England--Webster's Reply
to Hayne--Nullification Nipped in the Bud--Society in Jackson's
Day--Mrs. General Eaton--A Chivalrous President--Theatricals--The
Great Tragedian--Minor Amusements--Executive Charity--Swartwouting
--The Star Spangled Banner.

CHAPTER IX.
STAMPING OUT OF NULLIFICATION.
Rejection of Martin Van Buren--The War against the United States
Bank--Nick Biddle, of the Bank--Re-election of General Jackson--
Financial Debate in the Senate--Calhoun, of South Carolina--Secession
Stamped Out--Union Proclamation--The Expunging Resolution--A
Senatorial Scene--An Appeal from the Chair.

CHAPTER X.
PROMINENT MEN OF JACKSON'S TIME.
Harry of the West--Tilt between Clay and Benton--Rebuke of a
Revolutionary Hero--Apt Oratorical Illustration--Daniel Webster's
Wit--An Excited Visitor--The House of Representatives--General
Houston Reprimanded--Eli Moore, of New York--Churchill C. Cambreleng
--Crockett, of Tennessee--Embryo Presidents--Other Distinguished
Representatives--A Jackson Democrat.

CHAPTER XI.
SOCIETY IN JACKSON'S TIME.
The Van Ness Mansion--A Benefactress--A Popular Citizen--A Much-
Talked-of Lawsuit--A Runaway Nun--General Jackson's Diplomacy--
Washington Society--Anecdotes told by Mr. Clay--Maelzel's Automata
--Condemned Literature.

CHAPTER XII.
JACKSON AND HIS ASSOCIATES.
Democratic Rejoicing--Attempt at Assassination--The Political
Guillotine--The Vicar of Bray--Daniel Webster's Memory--Bayard, of
Delaware--The Claytons--Pearce, of Maryland--The Classical and the
Vernacular--Boulanger's--Location of the New Treasury Building--
Hackett, the Comedian--A Jealous Artist--Sumner's First Visit to
Washington--The Supreme Court and its Justices.

CHAPTER XIII.
JACKSON'S LAST YEAR IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Van Buren as Vice-President--Henry Clay as Champion of the Bank--
Washington's Ceremonial Birthday--Removal of His Remains--The
Decapitation of General Jackson--The President at the Race-Track--
An Old-Time Cock Fight--Wedding at Arlington--The Public Gardener
--Miss Fanny Kemble--Cheese Reception at the White House.

CHAPTER XIV.
VAN BUREN'S STORMY ADMINISTRATION.
Inauguration of Van Buren--His First Reception--Departure of Jackson
for the Hermitage--Van Buren's Embarrassments--The Great Financial
Debate--Antagonism of Clay and Calhoun--An All Night Session--
Morning Excuses--The Graves and Cilley Duel--A Congressional
Comedian.

CHAPTER XV.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT.
The Slavery Agitation--Early Secession Movements--Webster on
Emancipation--His Idea of the Far West--Franklin Pierce's Position
--The Foremost of Orators--Joseph Holt--King, of Alabama--The
Buckshot War--Star Routes--Van Buren's Titles.

CHAPTER XVI.
POLITICAL INTRIGUES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS.
Presidential Hospitalities--Social Entertainments--A Gifted
Adventuress--Espy, the Weather King--A Foreign Indorsement--Van
Buren's Re-election--The Ogle Speech--Van Buren's New Year's
Reception.

CHAPTER XVII.
LOG-CABINS AND HARD CIDER.
The Harrison Campaign--Political Songs--Whig Conventions--Great
Paraders--Corwin's Reply to Crary--Crary's Complete Discomfiture--
The Campaign Paper--Horace Greeley--Henry Clay on the Stump--Amos
Kendall--The Fall Elections--Pipe Laying--The Whigs Triumphant.

CHAPTER XVIII.
ENTER WHIGS--EXIT DEMOCRATS.
The Fourteenth Presidential Election--Enter Harrison--Exit Van
Buren--The Harrison Cabinet--Attack upon Mr. Webster--"The Salt
Boiler of the Kanawha"--The other Cabinet Officers--Harrison's
Inaugural Message--The Inauguration--The Procession--Scenes at the
Capitol--The Inaugural Address--President Harrison's First Reception
--Inauguration Balls.

CHAPTER XIX.
HARRISON'S ONE MONTH OF POWER.
Civil Service Reform--Differences of Opinion--Difficulty between
Clay and King--Washington Correspondents--Verbatim Reports of
Debates--A Popular British Minister--Other Foreign Diplomats--
Quarrelsome Carolinians--Daniel Webster's Housekeeping--Illness of
President Harrison--Death--Funeral--The Last Honors.

CHAPTER XX.
THE KING IS DEAD--LONG LIVE THE KING.
"Le Roi Est Mort; Vive le Roi"--Extra Session of Congress--Trouble
in the Whig Camp--Edward Everett before the Senate--Thurlow Weed--
Dissensions among the Whigs--Cabinet Troubles--Congressional
Criticisms--Cushing and Adams, of Massachusetts--Wise, of Virginia
--Bagby, of Alabama.

CHAPTER XXI.
DIPLOMATIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF WEBSTER.
The Ashburton Treaty--Diplomatic Negotiations--Speech by Daniel
Webster--Webster's Social Life--Mr. Clay's Nightcaps--Administration
Organs--Justice to John Tyler.

CHAPTER XXII.
THE CAPITOL AND THE DRAWING ROOMS.
A Stormy Session--John Quincy Adams at Bay--The Code of Honor--The
Supreme Court--Visit of Charles Dickens--The Secretary of State's
Party--A Reception at the White House--The President's Ball for
Children--Diplomatic Hospitality--Ole Bull--A Troublesome
Congressman.

CHAPTER XXIII.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
The Accidental President--Virginia Hospitality--Second-Hand Style
--The Pathfinder's Marriage--Baron de Bodisco, of Russia--Mr. Fox,
of Great Britain--The Author of "Sweet Home"--The Daguerreotype--
The Electric Telegraph--The New York Tribune--Resignation of Mr.
Webster--Reconstruction of the Cabinet--Fatal Accident on the
Princeton--Marriage of President Tyler.

CHAPTER XXIV.
HOW TEXAS BECAME A STATE.
John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State--How Tyler was Managed--Admission
of Texas--Douglas, of Illinois--An Able House of Representatives--
An Exciting Campaign--President Tyler's Programme--Nomination of
Henry Clay--The Democratic Ticket--Surprise of George M. Dallas--
The Liberty Party--Exit John Tyler.

CHAPTER XXV.
PRESIDENT POLK'S ADMINISTRATION.
Inauguration of Polk--His Personal Appearance--Inauguration Balls
--Mrs. Polk--Secretary Buchanan--Governor Marcy, of New York--
Completion of the Cabinet--The Oregon Difficulty--The Mexican War
--A Change of Organist.

CHAPTER XXVI.
DEATH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Washington Society--An Old Whig Supper--Death of John Quincy Adams
--Abraham Lincoln in the House--Jefferson Davis as a Representative
--The Democratic Nomination--Lewis Cass, of Michigan--The Whig
Convention--Daniel Webster and Henry Clay--Nomination of General
Taylor--Letter of Acceptance--The Free-Soil Movement--Inception of
the Great Conspiracy.

CHAPTER XXVII.
MAKING THE MOST OF POWER.
President Taylor and His Secretary--Selection of the Taylor Cabinet
--The Taylor Family--Jefferson Davis--Inauguration Ceremonies--
Office Seekers--Patronage and Spoils--The Galphin, Gardiner, and
other Claims--The Taylor Administration--The White House.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE GREAT COMPROMISE DEBATE.
Stormy Scenes at the Capitol--Crimination and Recrimination--Taylor's
Only Message--Return of Mr. Clay to the Senate--The Great Compromise
Debate--Webster's Seventh of March Speech--The Last Days of Calhoun
--Jefferson Davis' Leadership--John P. Hale, of New Hampshire.

CHAPTER XXIX.
PROMINENT STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATS.
Sam Houston, of Texas--Seward, of New York--Buchanan, of Pennsylvania
--Agricultural Donations--Diplomatic Representatives--Social
Enjoyments--Winthrop's Farewell Supper--Fatal Illness of General
Taylor--Death of the President.

CHAPTER XXX.
FILLMORE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
President Fillmore--Funeral of General Taylor--Webster again
Secretary of State--The Compromise Measures--Mrs. Millard Fillmore
--A Proud Father--The Capitol Extension--The Library of Congress--
Washington Society--Public Amusements.

CHAPTER XXXI.
ARRAIGNMENT OF DANIEL WEBSTER.
Accusation Against Mr. Webster--The "Expounder of the Constitution"
Sore at Heart--Belligerent Mississippians--Painting and Sculpture
at the Capitol--Overland Explorations--A Washington Mob--A Washington
Correspondent.

CHAPTER XXXII.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE AND KNOW-NOTHINGISM.
"Filibustering"--The Hulsemann Letter--Kossuth, of Hungary--The
Know-Nothings--Boss Tweed, of New York--Butler, of South Carolina
--Other Prominent Senators--Exit Clay--Enter Sumner--The Officers
of the House.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
PLOTTING FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
President-Making--Political Intrigues--The Democratic Convention--
Nomination of General Pierce--The Whig Candidates--Rivalry Between
Webster and Fillmore--The Last Whig National Convention--Death of
Henry Clay--General Scott as a Candidate--General Frank Pierce, of
New Hampshire--Death of Daniel Webster--General Pierce Elected
President.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
PIERCE BECOMES PRESIDENT.
Inauguration of President Pierce--Vice-President King--The Cabinet
--Popularity of the New President--Pryor, of Virginia--Rare Old
Wines--Peale's Portraits of Washington--Brady's Portraits--Visit
of Thackeray--A Copyright Victim--Jullien's Concerts.

CHAPTER XXXV.
CHIVALRY, AT HOME AND ABROAD.
Executive Appointments--The Ostend Manifesto--Mr. Buchanan at London
--The Kansas-Nebraska Debate--Spicy Words Between Breckinridge and
Cutting--Diplomatic Card-Playing--Assistant-Secretary Thomas--The
Amoskeag Veterans.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Formation of the Republican Party--The Election of Speaker--Mr.
Banks Triumphant--Division of the Spoils--A Protracted Session--
Assault on Horace Greeley--Territorial Delegates--The Senate--The
Virginia Senators--"Hale," of New Hampshire.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
POLITICAL STORM AND SOCIAL SUNRISE.
Sumner, of Massachusetts--The Assault on Sumner--Troublous Times--
Congressional Courtesies--Senatorial Wit--Convention of Old Soldiers
--Social Routine at the White House--Society Gatherings.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
GROWTH OF THE METROPOLIS.
The Crampton Difficulty--Unsuccessful French Mediation--The Diplomatic
Corps--Information for Publication--Mr. Buchanan in England--
Washington Hotels--The New Hall of the House.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS.
Fessenden, of Maine--The Sterling Claim--Social Festivities--Marriage
of Judge Douglas--Congressional Scenes--Secretary of War Davis--
Art and Literature--George W. Childs--J. R. Bartlett.

CHAPTER XL.
EXCITING PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST.
Democratic Candidates for the Presidency--James Buchanan--Stephen
A. Douglas--Delegates to the Cincinnati Convention--The Struggle--
The Disorganized Democracy United--Opposition Nominations--The
Republican Convention--Election of Mr. Buchanan--Counting the Votes.

CHAPTER XLI.
MISS LANE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
President-elect Buchanan--Miss Harriet Lane--The New Cabinet and
the Message--The Newspaper Organs--Inauguration of President Buchanan
--The Inauguration Ball--The Dred Scott Decision--The Minority
Decision.

CHAPTER XLII.
DIPLOMACY, SOCIETY, AND CIVIL SERVICE.
Foreign Relations--Lord Napier, the British Minister--Sir William
Gore Ouseley--Society in Washington--A Fashionable Pretender--Civil
Service--Office Seeking--Choate's Handwriting--The Governors of
Kansas.

CHAPTER XLIII.
PRELUDE TO THE REBELLION.
Organization of the Senate--John Slidell, of Louisiana--Senator
Douglas Opposes the Administration--Ben Wade's Bon Mot--Meeting of
the House--Election of Speaker--Investigation of the Wolcott Attempts
at Bribery--Debates on the Admission of Kansas--Nocturnal Row in
the House--The North Victorious.

CHAPTER XLIV.
POLITICIANS, AUTHORS, AND HUMORISTS.
Wade, of Ohio--Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi--Johnson, of Arkansas
--Anthony, of Rhode Island--Trollope, of England--One of Mike
Walsh's Jokes--Albert Pike's Wake--The Sons of Malta.


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS [omitted]


LIST OF AUTOGRAPHS

ANDREW JACKSON
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
EDWARD EVERETT
HENRY CLAY
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN
SILAS WRIGHT, JR.
DANIEL WEBSTER
THOMAS HART BENTON
RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON
ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS
ANDREW STEVENSON
WILLIAM RUFUS KING
MARTIN VAN BUREN
TRISTRAM BURGESS
WILLIAM LEARNED MARCY
THOMAS CORWIN
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
THOMAS EWING
FRANKLIN PIERCE
RUFUS CHOATE
FELIX GRUNDY
CALEB CUSHING
STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS
JAMES KNOX POLK
HENRY STUART FOOTE
ZACHARY TAYLOR
ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD
MILLARD FILLMORE
ROBERT JAMES WALKER
JEFFERSON DAVIS
JOHN JORDAN CRITTENDEN
THADDEUS STEVENS
JOHN TYLER
LEWIS CASS
GEORGE WASHINGTON
ABBOTT LAWRENCE
NATHANIEL PRENTISS BANKS
WINFIELD SCOTT
JOHN BUCHANAN FLOYD
PETER FORCE
HOWELL COBB
GEORGE BANCROFT


PERLEY'S REMINISCENCES.

VOL. I.


CHAPTER I.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BECOMES PRESIDENT.

John Quincy Adams was elected President of the United States by
the House of Representatives on February 9th, 1825.  At the tenth
popular election for President, during the previous autumn, there
had been four candidates:  Andrew Jackson, then a Senator from
Tennessee, who received ninety-nine electoral votes; John Quincy
Adams, of Massachusetts, then Secretary of State under President
Monroe, who received eighty-four electoral votes; William H.
Crawford, of Georgia, then Secretary of the Treasury, who received
forty-one electoral votes, and Henry Clay, of Kentucky, then Speaker
of the House of Representatives, who received thirty-seven electoral
votes--in all two hundred and sixty-one electoral votes.  As neither
candidate had received the requisite majority of one hundred and
thirty-one electoral votes, the election of a President devolved
upon the House of Representatives, in which body each State would
have one vote.  As the Constitution required that the choice of the
House be confined to the three highest candidates on the list of those
voted for by the electors, and as Mr. Clay was not one of the three,
he was excluded.  Exercising, as he did, great control over his
supporters, it was within his power to transfer their strength to
either Adams or Jackson, thus deciding the election.  The Legislature
of his State, Kentucky, had to a certain degree instructed him, by
passing a joint resolution declaring its preference for Jackson over Adams,
and Jackson always believed that had he accepted overtures made to
him, for the promise of the Department of State to Mr. Clay, that
would have insured his election.

Mr. Clay decided, however, to request his friends to support Mr.
Adams.  To one of them he wrote:  "Mr. Adams, you well know, I
should never have selected if at liberty to draw from the whole
mass of our citizens for a President.  But there is no danger of
his election now or in time to come.  Not so of his competitor, of
whom I cannot believe that killing two thousand five hundred
Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the various, difficult,
and complicated duties of the Chief Magistracy."  Many believed,
however, that a bargain was made between Adams and Clay by which
the latter received, as a consideration for transferring to the
former the votes of Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri, the position of
Secretary of State.  The charge was distinctly made by Mr. George
Kremer, a Representative from Pennsylvania, and as positively denied
by Mr. Clay.  General Jackson wrote to Major Lewis:  "So, you see,
the Judas of the West has closed the contract and will receive the
thirty pieces of silver.  His end will be the same.  Was there ever
witnessed such a barefaced corruption in any country before?"

When the Senate and the House of Representatives met in joint
convention to count the electoral votes it was found (as every one
present had known for months) that no one had received the requisite
majority.  This was formally announced by Vice-President Daniel D.
Tompkins, who also declared that John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina,
had been elected Vice-President.  The Senate, headed by the Vice-
President and its Secretary, Charles Cutts, then retired, and the
House proceeded to ballot for President.

The election was by States.  Each State delegation appointed one
of their number to act as chairman, collect their votes, and report
the result.  Whoever in each delegation received the most votes
was reported as the choice of that delegation to the tellers--one
from each State--who sat in parties of twelve at two tables.  Daniel
Webster, the teller of Massachusetts, was appointed by the tellers
at one of the tables to announce the result of the ballot, and John
Randolph, the teller of Virginia, was appointed to the same service
at the other table.  The votes of most of the States were matters
of confident calculation, but those of others were in some degree
doubtful, and there was intense interest manifested as their votes
were counted.  At last, when the twenty-four States had voted, Mr.
Webster announced, in his deep voice, that thirteen States had
voted for John Quincy Adams, seven States had voted for Andrew
Jackson, and four States had voted for William H. Crawford.  Mr.
Speaker Clay then announced, in sonorous tones:  "John Quincy Adams,
having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected
President of the United States for four years, from the 4th of
March next ensuing."

A shout arose from the occupants of the galleries, which Mr. McDuffie
promptly asked might be cleared.  The vote was carried, and a young
man, who was Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, mounting to the broad stone
cornice, which ran around the hall outside of the floor of the
galleries, but on a level with them, exclaimed, as he walked along:
"The Speaker orders the galleries to be cleared; all must retire.
Clear the galleries!"  The command was obeyed, to the astonishment
of some of the foreign ministers present, who had been accustomed
to see armed guards at such assemblages, and often to witness their
unsuccessful attempts to move the populace.  The House soon afterward
adjourned.

That evening President Monroe gave a public reception at the White
House, which had just been rebuilt after having been burned by the
British army--in 1814.  The two candidates, Mr. Adams, the elect,
and General Jackson, the defeated, accidentally met in the East
Room.  General Jackson, who was escorting a lady, promptly extended
his hand, saying pleasantly:  "How do you do, Mr. Adams?  I give
you my left hand, for the right, as you see, is devoted to the
fair.  I hope you are very well, sir."  All this was gallantly and
heartily said and done.  Mr. Adams took the General's hand, and
said, with chilling coldness:  "Very well, sir; I hope General
Jackson is well!"  The military hero was genial and gracious, while
the unamiable diplomat was as cold as an iceberg.

The inauguration of Mr. Adams, on the 4th of March, 1825, was the
most imposing demonstration ever witnessed at Washington up to that
time.  President Monroe called for his successor and they rode
together to the Capitol, escorted by the District uniformed militia
and by a cavalcade of citizens marshaled by Daniel Carroll, of
Duddington, General John Mason, General Walter Smith, and General
Walter Jones, four prominent residents.  On reaching the Capitol
the President-elect was received with military honors by a battalion
of the Marine Corps.  He was then escorted by a committee of Senators
to the Senate Chamber, where the oath of office was administered
to the Vice-President-elect, John C. Calhoun.  The dignitaries
present then moved in procession to the hall of the House of
Representatives, on the floor of which were the Senators and
Representatives, the Supreme Court, the diplomatic corps, officers
of the army and navy, and many prominent officials, while the
galleries were filled with handsomely dressed ladies and gentlemen.
Mr. Adams read his inaugural address from the Speaker's desk, after
which the oath of office was administered to him by Chief Justice
Marshall.  Salutes were fired from the Navy Yard and the Arsenal,
and the new President was escorted to his house, on F Street, where
he that evening received his friends, for whom generous supplies
of punch and wines were hospitably provided.

President Adams, although at heart instigated by a Puritan intolerance
of those who had failed to conform with himself, was a true patriot,
and as a public man was moved by the highest moral motives.  He
was a great statesman in so far as the comprehension of the principles
of government and a mastery of a wide field of information were
concerned, but he could not practically apply his knowledge.
Instead of harmonizing the personal feuds between the friends of
those who had been candidates with him, he antagonized each one
with his Administration at the earliest possible moment, and before
the expiration of his first year in the White House he had wrecked
the Republican party left by Monroe, as completely as his father
had wrecked the Federal party established by Washington.

The President, when in London, had married Miss Louisa Catherine
Johnson.  Her father was an American by birth, but just before the
Revolution he went to England, where he resided until after the
independence of the Colonies had been recognized.  Mrs. Adams was
well educated, highly accomplished, and well qualified to preside
over the domestic affairs at the White House.  She had four children
--three sons and one daughter--of whom one only, Mr. Charles Francis
Adams, survived her.  It is related, as evidence of her good sense,
that on one occasion Mrs. Mason, of Analostan Island, called,
accompanied by two or three other ladies belonging to the first
families of Virginia, to enlist Mrs. Adams in behalf of her son-in-
law, Lieutenant Cooper (afterward Adjutant-General of the United
States Army, and subsequently of the Confederate forces), who wanted
to be detailed as an aide-de-camp on the staff of General Macomb.
Mrs. Adams heard their request and then replied:  "Truly, ladies,
though Madames Maintenon and Pompadour are said to have controlled
the military appointments of their times, I do not think such
matters appertain to women; but if they did and I had any influence
with Mr. Adams, it should be given to Mrs. Scott, with whom I became
acquainted while traveling last summer."
&&&
Mr. Adams' private secretary was his son, John Adams, who soon made
himself very obnoxious to the friends of General Jackson.  One
evening Mr. Russell Jarvis, who then edited the Washington _Telegraph_,
a newspaper which advocated Jackson's election, attended a "drawing
room" at the White House, escorting his wife and a party of visiting
relatives from Boston.  Mr. Jarvis introduced them courteously,
and they then passed on into the East Room.  Soon afterward they
found themselves standing opposite to Mr. John Adams, who was
conversing with the Rev. Mr. Stetson.  "Who is that lady?" asked
Mr. Stetson.  "That," replied Mr. John Adams, in a tone so loud
that the party heard it, "is the wife of one Russell Jarvis, and
if he knew how contemptibly he is viewed in this house they would
not be here."  The Bostonians at once paid their respects to Mrs.
Adams and withdrew, Mr. Jarvis having first ascertained from Mr.
Stetson that it was Mr. John Adams who had insulted them.  A few
days afterward Mr. Jarvis sent a note to Mr. John Adams, demanding
an explanation, by a friend of his, Mr. McLean.  Mr. Adams told
Mr. McLean that he had no apology to make to Mr. Jarvis, and that
he wished no correspondence with him.

A week later Mr. John Adams went to the Capitol to deliver messages
from the President to each house of Congress.  Having delivered
that addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, he
was going through the rotunda toward the Senate Chamber, when he
was overtaken by Mr. Jarvis, who pulled his nose and slapped his
face.  A scuffle ensued, but they were quickly parted by Mr. Dorsey,
a Representative from Maryland.  President Adams notified Congress
in a special message of the occurrence, and the House appointed a
select committee of investigation.  Witnesses were examined and
elaborate reports were drawn up, but neither the majority nor the
minority recommended that any punishment be inflicted upon Mr.
Jarvis.

Mr. John Adams was married, while his father occupied the White
House, to his mother's niece, Miss Mary Hellen, of Washington.
The ceremony was performed by Rev. Dr. Hawley, of St. John's Church,
and General Ramsey, who was one of the groomsmen, is authority for
the statement that the President, usually so grave and unsocial,
unbent for the nonce, and danced at the wedding ball in a Virginia
reel with great spirit.

The foreign diplomats were recognized as leaders in Washington
society, and one of the Secretaries of Legation created a sensation
by appearing on Pennsylvania Avenue mounted on a velocipede imported
from London.  Pennsylvania Avenue was then bordered with scraggy
poplar trees, which had been planted under the direction of President
Jefferson.

Mr. Adams found the furniture of the White House in a dilapidated
condition.  Thirty thousand dollars had been appropriated by Congress
for the purchase of new furniture during the Administration of Mr.
Monroe; but his friend, Colonel Lane, Commissioner of Public
Buildings, to whom he had intrusted it, became insolvent, and died
largely in debt to the Government, having used the money for the
payment of his debts, instead of procuring furniture.  When a
appropriation of fourteen thousand dollars was made, to be expended
under the direction of Mr. Adams, for furniture, he took charge of
it himself.  This was severely criticised by the Democratic press,
as was the purchase of a billiard table for the White House, about
which so much was said that Mr. John Adams finally paid the bill
from his own pocket.

Mrs. Adams won popularity at Washington by the graceful manner in
which she presided over the hospitalities of the White House.  The
stiff formalities of the "drawing-rooms" of Mrs. Washington and
Mrs. John Adams, and the free-and-easy "receptions" of Mr. Jefferson's
daughters, had been combined by Mrs. Madison into what she christened
"levees", at which all ceremonious etiquette was banished.  Mrs.
Monroe, who had mingled in the fashionable circles of London and
Paris, as well as of her native city of New York, had continued
these evening "levees," and Mrs. Adams, in turn, not only kept up
the custom, but improved the quality of the refreshments, which
were handed around on waiters by servants.

Mr. Adams used to rise between four and six o'clock, according to
the season, and either take a ride on horseback or walk to the
Potomac River, where he bathed, remaining in the water for an hour
or more in the summer.  Returning to the White House, he read two
chapters of the Bible and then glanced over the morning papers
until nine, when he breakfasted.  From ten until four he remained
in the Executive Office, presiding over Cabinet meetings, receiving
visitors, or considering questions of state.  Then, after a long
walk, or a short ride on horseback, he would sit down to dine at
half-past five, and after dinner resume his public duties.

On one occasion Mr. Adams imperiled his life by attempting to cross
the Potomac in a small boat, accompanied by his son John and by
his steward, Michael Antoine Ginsta, who had entered his service
at Amsterdam in 1814.  Intending to swim back, they had taken off
nearly all of their clothes, which were in the boat.  When about
half-way across, a gust of wind came sweeping down the Potomac,
the boat filled with water, and they were forced to abandon it and
swim for their lives to the Virginia Shore.  By taking what garments
each one had on, Antoine managed to clothe himself decently, and
started across the bridge to Washington.  During his absence, Mr.
Adams and his son swam in the river, or walked to and fro on the
shore.  At last, after they had been about three hours undressed,
Antoine made his appearance with a carriage and clothing, so they
were able to return to Washington.  Mr. Adams purchased that day
a watch, which he gave Antoine to replace one which he had lost in
the boat and alluded to the adventure in his journal that night as
"a humiliating lesson and a solemn warning not to trifle with
danger."  A few weeks later a Revolutionary veteran named Shoemaker,
went in to bathe at Mr. Adams' favorite spot, the Sycamores, was
seized with cramp, and was drowned.  The body was not recovered
until the next morning while Mr. Adams was in the water; but the
incident did not deter him from taking his solitary morning baths,
which he regarded as indispensable to health.  Mr. Adams took great
interest in arboriculture, and was a constant reader of Evelyn.
He had planted in the grounds of the White House the acorns of the
cork-oak, black walnuts, peach, plum, and cherry stones, apple and
pear seeds, and he watched their germination and growth with great
interest.  A botanic garden was established under his patronage,
and naval officers were instructed to bring home for distribution
the seeds of such grains and vegetables as it might seem desirable
to naturalize.  The seeds thus collected were carefully distributed
through members of Congress, and several important varieties of
vegetables were thus introduced.  Down to the present day the yearly
distribution of seeds to rural communities is an important item of
Congressional duty.

Henry Clay was the _premier_ and the most important member of Mr.
Adams' cabinet.  He evidently regarded the Department of State as
a stepping-stone to the Executive Mansion, and hoped that he would
be in time promoted, as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy
Adams.  The foreign policy of the Administration, which encouraged
the appointment of a Minister to represent the United States in
the Congress of American Republics at Panama, although in accordance
with the "Monroe Doctrine," was denounced as Federalism.  Mr. Clay,
who had never been a Federalist, did not wish to be regarded as a
restorer of the old Federal party, and he accordingly began to
create the Whig party, of which he naturally became the leader.

Mr. Clay made a good Secretary of State, but his place was in
Congress, for he was formed by nature for a popular orator.  He
was tall and thin, with a rather small head, and gray eyes, which
peered forth less luminously than would have been expected in one
possessing such eminent control of language.  His nose was straight,
his upper lip long, and his under jaw light.  His mouth, of generous
width, straight when he was silent, and curving upward at the
corners as he spoke or smiled, was singularly graceful, indicating
more than any other feature the elastic play of his mind.  When he
enchained large audiences, his features were lighted up by a winning
smile, the gestures of his long arms were graceful, and the gentle
accents of his mellow voice were persuasive and winning.  Yet there
has never been a more imperious despot in political affairs than
Mr. Clay.  He regarded himself as the head-centre of his party--
_L'état, c'est moi_--and he wanted everything utilized for his
advancement.

General Jackson was meanwhile being brought before the public,
under the direction of Aaron Burr, Martin Van Buren, and Edward
Livingston, as a "man of the people."  They had persuaded him to
resign his seat in the Senate of the United States, where he might
have made political mistakes, and retire to his farm in Tennessee,
while they flooded the country with accounts of his military exploits
and his social good qualities.  Daniel Webster told Samuel Breck,
as the latter records in his diary, that he knew more than fifty
members of Congress who had expended and pledged all they were
worth in setting up presses and employing other means to forward
Jackson's election.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of the three survivors of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, passed hence on the
Fourth of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of their signing
the Magna Charta of our Republic.  Their names had been inseparably
connected in the minds and upon the lips of the people, as their
labors were united in bringing about the events of the Revolution
and its final triumph.  Mr. Jefferson was the writer, Mr. Adams
the orator, of the Congress of '76.  The one penned the Declaration
of Independence, the other was pronounced "the pillar of its support
and its ablest advocate and defender."  Mr. Jefferson called Mr.
Adams "the Colossus of the Congress," the most earnest, laborious
member of the body, and its animating spirit.  For the loss of
these men, though they fell as a ripe shock of corn falleth--both
having arrived at an advanced age--Mr. Adams over ninety--the whole
nation clothed itself in mourning.


CHAPTER II.
TRAVELING IN "YE OLDEN TIME."

The old stage route between Boston and New York, before John Quincy
Adams was President, passed through Worcester, Springfield, Hartford,
and Norwalk.  Passengers paid ten dollars for a seat and were fifty-
six hours or more on the road.  This gave way about 1825 to the
steamboat line via Providence, which for five dollars carried
passengers from Boston to New York in twenty-four hours.

Stage books for the Providence line were kept in Boston at offices
in different parts of the city, where those wishing to go the next
day registered their names.  These names were collected and brought
to the central stage office in the Marlboro Hotel at ten o'clock
each night, where they were arranged into stage-loads, each made
up from those residing in the same part of the city.  At four
o'clock in the morning a man started from the stage office in a
chaise to go about and wake up the passengers, that the stage need
not be kept waiting.  The large brass door knockers were vigorously
plied, and sometimes quite a commotion was caused by "waking up
the wrong passenger."

In due time the stage made its appearance, with its four spirited
horses, and the baggage was put on.  Trunks, which were diminutive
in size compared with those now used, were put on the rack behind,
securely strapped; valises and packages were consigned to the depths
of a receptacle beneath the driver's seat, and bandboxes were put
on the top.  The back seat was generally given to ladies and elderly
gentlemen, while young men usually sought a seat on top of the
stage, by the side of the driver.  When the passengers had been
"picked up," the stages returned to the stage office, where they
way-bills were perfected and handed to the drivers.  As the Old
South clock was striking five, whips were cracked, and the coaches
started at the rate of ten miles an hour, stopping for breakfast
at Timothy Gay's tavern in Dedham, where many of the passengers
visited the bar to imbibe Holland gin and sugar-house molasses--a
popular morning beverage.

Breakfast over, away the stages went over the good turnpike road
at a rapid pace.  Those who were fellow passengers, even if strangers
to one another, gradually entered into conversation, and generally
some one of them was able to impart information concerning the
route.  Occasionally the stage would rattle into a village, the
driver giving warning blasts upon his long tin horn that he claimed
the right of way, and then dash up to a wayside inn, before which
would be in waiting a fresh team of horses to take the place of
those which had drawn the coach from the previous stopping-place.
Time was always afforded those passengers who desired to partake
of libations at the tavern bar, and old travelers used to see that
their luggage was safe.

Providence was in due time reached, and the procession of stages
whirled along the narrow street beneath the bluff, swaying heavily
with the irregularities of the road.  The steamboats lay at India
Point, just below the town, where immense quantities of wood were
piled up, for each boat consumed between thirty and forty cords on
a trip through Long Island Sound.

The stages used to reach India Point about half-past eleven o'clock,
and the boat would start for New York precisely at twelve.  There
were no state-rooms, the passengers occupying berths, and at the
dinner and supper the captain of the boat occupied the head of the
table, having seated near him any distinguished passengers.
Occasionally there was an opposition line with sharp rivalries,
and at one time a then rising New Yorker, Cornelius Vanderbilt,
carried passengers from New York to Boston for one dollar.

On arriving at New York, the passengers had to look out for their
luggage, and either engage hacks or hand-cartmen, who for twenty-
five cents would carry a trunk to any part of the city.  The city
then, be it remembered, did not reach up Manhattan Island above
the vicinity of Broome or Spring Streets, although there were beyond
that the villages of Greenwich, Bloomingdale, Yorkville, and Harlem.
The City Hotel, on Broadway, just above Trinity Churchyard, Bunker's
Hotel, lower down, and the Washington Hotel, which occupied the
site of the Stewart building above the Park, were the principal
public houses.  The Boston stages stopped at Hall's North American
Hotel, at the corner of Bayard Street and the Bowery, and there
were many boarding-houses where transient guests were accommodated.

From New York, travelers southward went by steamboat to Elizabethport,
where they were transferred to stages, and crossed New Jersey to
Bordentown on the Delaware River, where a steamer was in waiting
to transport them to Philadelphia.  This was a long and fatiguing
day's journey, and a majority of travelers remained over a day in
Philadelphia, where the hotels were excellent and there were many
objects of attraction.

Leaving Philadelphia in a steamboat, passengers went down the
Delaware to New Castle, whence they crossed in stages to Frenchtown
on the Elk River, and there re-embarked on steamers, which took
them down and around to Baltimore, another long and fatiguing day's
trip.  At each change from boat to stage, or from stage to boat,
passengers had to see that their luggage was transferred, and it
was generally necessary to give a quarter to the porter.  Baggage
checks and the checking of baggage were then unknown.

Between Baltimore and Washington there were opposition lines of
stages and a good turnpike road.  There had been, when I first went
over the road, some daring robberies by "road agents," and the mail
coaches were protected by a guard, who occupied a perch on the roof
over the boot and was armed with a blunderbuss.  This weapon had
a funnel-shaped barrel, a flint lock, took about half a pint of
buckshot for a charge, and was capable of destroying a whole band
of robbers at once.  In due time the flat, wide dome of the Capitol,
which resembled an inverted wash-bowl, was visible, and the stage
was soon floundering through the broad expanse of mud or of dust
known as Pennsylvania Avenue, taking passengers to the doors of
the hotels or boarding-houses which they had previously indicated.

When Congress first met at Washington there was but one hotel there
and one in Georgetown.  Others were, however, soon erected, and
fifty-eight years ago there were half a dozen.  The favorite
establishment was the Indian Queen Hotel, which occupied the site
of the present Metropolitan Hotel and was designated by a large
swinging sign upon which figured Pocahontas, painted in glaring
colors.  The landlord, Jesse Brown, who used to come to the curbstone
to "welcome the coming guests," was a native of Havre-de-Grace and
had served his apprenticeship to tavern-keeping in Hagerstown and
in Alexandria.  A glance at the travelers as they alighted and were
ushered by him into the house would enable him mentally to assign
each one to a room, the advantages of which he would describe ere
sending its destined occupant there under the pilotage of a colored
servant.  When the next meal was ready the newly arrived guest was
met at the door of the dining-room by Mr. Brown, wearing a large
white apron, who escorted him to a seat and then went to the head
of the table, where he carved and helped the principal dish.  The
excellencies of this--fish or flesh or fowl--he would announce as
he would invite those seated at the table to send up their plates
for what he knew to be their favorite portions; and he would also
invite attention to the dishes on other parts of the table, which
were carved and helped by the guests who sat nearest them.  "I have
a delicious quarter of mutton from the Valley of Virginia," Mr.
Brown would announce in a stentorian tone, which could be heard
above the clatter of crockery and the din of steel knives and forks.
"Let me send you a rare slice, Mr. A."  "Colonel B., will you not
have a bone?"  "Mrs. C., send up your plate for a piece of the
kidney."  "Mrs. D., there is a fat and tender mongrel goose at the
other end of the table."  "Joe, pass around the sweet potatoes."
"Colonel E., will you help to that chicken-pie before you?"

The expense of living at the Indian Queen was not great.  The price
of board was one dollar and seventy-five cents per day, ten dollars
per week, or thirty-five dollars per month.  Transient guests were
charged fifty cents for breakfast, the same for supper, and seventy-
five cents for dinner.  Brandy and whisky were placed on the dinner-
table in decanters, to be drink by the guests without additional
charge therefor.  A bottle of real old Madeira imported into
Alexandria was supplied for three dollars; sherry, brandy, and gin
were one dollar and a half per bottle, and Jamaica rum one dollar.
At the bar toddies were made with unadulterated liquor and lump
sugar, and the charge was twelve and a half cents a drink.

On the Fourth of July, the 22d of February, and other holidays,
landlord Brown would concoct foaming egg-nogg in a mammoth punch-
bowl once owned by Washington, and the guests of the house were
all invited to partake.  The tavern-desk was behind the bar, with
rows of large bells hanging by circular springs on the wall, each
with a bullet-shaped tongue, which continued to vibrate for some
minutes after being pulled, thus showing to which room it belonged.
The barkeeper prepared the "drinks" called for, saw that the bells
were answered, received and delivered letters and cards, and answered
questions by the score.  He was supposed to know everybody in
Washington, where they resided, and at what hour they could be seen.

The city of Washington had then been called by an observing foreigner
"the city of magnificent distances," an appellation which was well
merited.  There was a group of small, shabby houses around the Navy
Yard, another cluster on the river bank just above the Arsenal,
which was to have been the business centre of the metropolis, and
Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to Georgetown, with the
streets immediately adjacent, was lined with tenements--many of
them with shops on the ground floor.  The Executive Departments
were located in four brick edifices on the corners of the square,
in the centre of which was the White House.  The imposing building
now occupied by the Department of the Interior had not been begun
nor had the General Post-Office replaced a large brick structure
intended for a hotel, but which the pecuniary necessities of the
projector forced him to dispose of in a lottery before it was
completed.  The fortunate ticket was held by minors, whose guardian
could neither sell the building nor finish it, and it remained for
many years in a dilapidated condition.

The Capitol was pronounced completed in 1825.  The two wings, which
were the only portions of the building finished when the British
occupied Washington, were burned with their contents, including
the Congressional Library and some works of art.  When Congress
was convened in special session after the invasion, the two Houses
assembled in the unfinished hotel previously mentioned, but soon
occupied a brick building erected for their temporary use, which
was afterward known as the Old Capitol Prison.

The tympanum of the eastern pediment of the Capitol was ornamented
by a historical group which Mr. John Quincy Adams designed when
Secretary of State.  It was executed in marble by Luigi Persico,
an Italian sculptor, whose work gave such satisfaction to Mr. Adams
that he secured for him an order for the two colossal statues which
now flank the central doorway.  War is represented by a stalwart
gymnast with a profuse development of muscle and a benign expression
of countenance, partially encased in ancient Roman armor, while
Peace is a matronly dame, somewhat advanced in life and heavy in
flesh, who carries an olive branch as if she desired to use it to
keep off flies.

The then recently completed _rotunda_ of the Capitol--Mr. Gales
took pains to have it called _rotundo_ in the _National Intelligencer_
--was a hall of elegant proportions, ninety-six feet in diameter
and ninety-six feet in height to the apex of its semicircular dome.
It had been decorated with remarkable historical bas-reliefs by
Cappellano, Gevelot, and Causici, three Italian artists--two of
them pupils of Canova.  They undoubtedly possessed artistic ability
and they doubtless desired to produce works of historical value.
But they failed ignominiously.  Their respective productions were
thus interpreted by Grizzly Bear, a Menominee chief.  Turning to
the eastern doorway, over which there is represented the landing
of the Pilgrims, he said:  "There Ingen give hungry white man corn."
Then turning to the northern doorway, over which is represented
William Penn making a treaty with the Indians, he said:  "There
Ingen give white man land."  Then turning to the western doorway,
over which is represented Pocahontas saving the life of Captain
Smith, he said:  "There Ingen save white man's life."  And then
turning to the Southern doorway, over which is represented Daniel
Boone, the pioneer, plunging his hunting-knife into the heart of
a red man while his foot rests on the dead body of another, he
said:  "And there white man kill Ingen.  Ugh!"

When Congress was in session, the rotunda presented a busy and
motley scene every morning prior to the convening of the two houses.
It was a general rendezvous, and the newspaper correspondents were
always in attendance to pick up the floating rumors of the day.

The visit of General Lafayette to Washington gave a great impetus
to Free-Masonry there.  The corner-stone of a new Masonic Temple
was laid, and many of the leading citizens had taken the degrees,
when the rumored abduction of William Morgan was made the basis of
a political and religious anti-Masonic crusade.  It was asserted
that Morgan, who had written and printed a book which professed to
reveal the secrets of Free-Masonry, had been kidnapped, taken to
Fort Niagara, and then plunged into the river, "with all his
imperfections on his head."  Many well-informed persons, however,
are of the opinion that Morgan was hired to go to Smyrna, where he
lived some years, and then died; but his real or supposed assassination
awakened a profound popular indignation.  Some good men who belonged
to the "mystic tie" felt it their duty to dissolve their connection
with it, and the Anti-Masonic party was at once got up by a goodly
number of hopeful political aspirants.  As General Jackson and Mr.
Clay were both "Free and Accepted Masons," Mr. Adams had at first
some hopes that he might secure his own re-election as the Anti-
Masonic candidate.

A small theatre at Washington was occasionally opened by a company
of actors from Philadelphia, who used to journey every winter as
far south as Savannah, performing in the intermediate cities as
they went and returned.  The Jeffersons, the Warrens, and the Burkes
belonged to this company, in which their children were trained for
histrionic fame, and President Adams first saw the elder Booth when
that tragedian accompanied one of these dramatic expeditions as
its brightest star.  On another occasion he saw Edwin Forrest, then
unknown to fame, and enjoyed the finished acting of Cooper, as
Charles Surface, in the "School for Scandal."  The popular performance
at that time was "Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," and the flash
sayings of Corinthian Tom and Bob Logic were quoted even in
Congressional debates.

The Friends, or Quakers, as "the world's people" call them, had a
society at Washington formed principally by the clerks of that
persuasion who had come from Philadelphia when the seat of government
was removed from there.  Their harmony was, however, disturbed in
1827, when a number of the most influential among them left the
"Orthodox" or old belief and followed Elias Hicks, of New York,
who founded what has since been known as Hicksite Friends.  The
Friends believed in a free gospel ministry, and did not recognize
either water-baptism or the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.  At
their meetings the elders and preachers occupied a platform at one
end of the meeting-houses, the men sitting on unpainted benches on
one side and the women on the other.  The congregation would sit
quietly, often for an hour, until the Spirit moved some preacher,
male or female, to speak or to offer prayer.  There was no singing,
and often long intervals of silence.  Marriages were solemnized at
the monthly meetings, the ceremony consisting simply of a public
acknowledgment by the man and woman, after due inquiry of their
right to be united.  After they had stood up in meeting and publicly
taken one another to be man and wife, a certificate of the ceremony
was publicly read by one of the elders, and then signed by the
contracting parties and witnesses.

[Facsimile]
  John Quincy Adams
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS--son of John Adams--was born at Braintree,
Massachusetts, July 11th, 1767; Minister to the Netherlands and
Prussia, 1794-1801; United States Senator, 1803-1808; Professor at
Harvard College, 1808-1809; Minister to Russia, 1809-1817; negotiating
the treaty of Ghent in 1815; Secretary of State, 1817-1825; President,
1825-1829; Representative in Congress, 1831, until stricken by
death in the Capitol, February 23d, 1848.


CHAPTER III.
JOURNALISM IN 1828.

Georgetown, now called "West Washington," was originally laid out
as a town in 1751, and settled by the Scotch agents of English
mercantile houses, whose vessels came annually to its wharves.
They brought valuable freights of hardware, dry goods, and wines,
and they carried back tobacco, raised in the surrounding country,
and furs, brought down the Potomac by Indian traders.  There were
also lines of brigs and schooners running to New York, Boston,
Salem, Newburyport, and the West Indies.  Two principal articles
of import were sugar and molasses, which were sold at auction on
the wharves.  Business in these staples has been entirely superseded
by the coal and flour trade.

The main street of Georgetown was generally filled every week-day
with the lumbering Conestoga six-horse wagons, in which the farmers
of Maryland and Central Pennsylvania brought loads of wheat and of
corn, taking back dry goods, groceries, salt, and, during the
fishing season, fresh shad and herring.  Another source of trade
was the Potomac River, which was navigable above Georgetown as far
as Cumberland in long, flat-bottomed boats, sharp at both ends,
called "gondolas."  These boats were poled down the Potomac to the
Great Falls, twelve miles above Georgetown, where a canal with
locks was constructed, running around the falls and back to the
river.  The same plan of avoiding the rapids was suggested by George
Washington, who was once president of the company.  The canal was
finished in 1793, but it never yielded a sufficient revenue to pay
expenses.

The "gondolas" brought down considerable quantities of flour, corn,
pork, and iron, much of which was shipped at Georgetown to other
ports.  During the year 1812 several hundred hogsheads of Louisiana
sugar were brought by way of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the
Potomac Rivers to Georgetown.  This was a realization of Washington's
idea that the city which he founded and which bore his name would
become an _entrepot_ for the products of the Mississippi Valley
destined for shipment abroad.  He displayed his faith in this belief
by the purchase of wharf lots, which would not to-day bring what
he paid for them.

The Union Tavern at Georgetown was a well-patronized and fashionable
inn during the first quarter of the present century.  Among the
distinguished men who were its guests were Louis Philippe, Count
Volney, Baron Humboldt, Fulton (the inventor), Talleyrand, Jerome
Bonaparte, Washington Irving, General St. Clair, Lorenzo Dow (the
eccentric preacher), Francis S. Key (author of the "Star Spangled
Banner"), with John Randolph and scores of other Congressmen, who
used to ride to and from the Capitol in a large stagecoach with
seats on the top and called the "Royal George."

When my mother was born in Georgetown, in 1799, the neighbors were
startled by the repeated firing of a heavily charged musket beneath
the window of her mother's room.  It was a welcome-into-the-world
salute fired by "Old Yarrah," a very aged Mahometan, who had been
brought as a slave from Guinea to Georgetown, where my grandfather
had shown him some kindness, which he thus acknowledged after the
custom of his own people.

General Washington used to pass through Georgetown on his journeys
between the North and Mount Vernon, and I have heard my grandfather
describe the interest which he took when the "Federal City" was
located.  On one occasion he rode over to visit David Burns, who
owned a farm on which the Executive Mansion and the Departments
now stand.  Washington agreed with the Commissioners that what is
now Lafayette Square should be a reservation, but Burns disliked
to donate any more building lots for the public good.  Finally
Washington lost his temper and left, saying, as he crossed the
porch:  "Had not the Federal City been laid out here, you would
have died a poor tobacco planter."  "Aye, mon!" retorted Burns, in
broad Scotch, "an' had ye nae married the widow Custis, wi' a' her
nagurs, you would hae been a land surveyor to-day, an' a mighty
poor ane at that."  Ultimately, however, the obstinate old fellow
donated the desired square of ground.

When Major L'Enfant came to Georgetown to lay out the Federal
District he brought a letter of introduction to my grandfather,
who had a great deal of trouble in endeavoring to adjust the
difficulties between the fiery French officer and the Commissioners
appointed to govern the infant metropolis.  The Major, who was very
imperious, claimed supreme authority, which the Commissioners would
not submit to.  On one occasion, a Mr. Carroll had commenced the
erection of a large brick house, which Major L'Enfant found encroached
on one of the proposed streets.  Summoning his chain bearers and
axmen, he demolished the trespassing structure and filled up the
cellar, against Mr. Carroll's earnest protests.

He was a favorite with Washington, but Jefferson disliked him on
account of his connection with the Society of the Cincinnati, and
availed himself of his difficulty with the Commissioners to discharge
him.

The Major then became an unsuccessful petitioner before Congress
for a redress of his real and fancied wrongs, and he was to be seen
almost every day slowly pacing the rotunda of the Capitol.  He was
a tall, thin man, who wore, toward the close of his life, a blue
military surtout coat, buttoned quite to the throat, with a tall,
black stock, but no visible signs of linen.  His hair was plastered
with pomatum close to his head, and he wore a napless high beaver
bell-crowned hat.  Under his arm he generally carried a roll of
papers relating to his claim upon the Government, and in his right
hand he swung a formidable hickory cane with a large silver head.
A strict Roman Catholic, he received a home in the family of Mr.
Digges, near Washington, in whose garden his remains were interred
when he died.

Newspaper "organs" formed an important feature of the early political
machinery at Washington.  Railroads, as well as the magnetic
telegraph, were then unknown, and it took two days or more for the
transmission of intelligence between the Federal Metropolis and
New York, while it was a week or two in reaching Portland, St.
Louis, New Orleans, or Savannah.  This made it advisable for each
successive Administration to have a newspaper published at Washington
which would reliably inform the subordinate officials what was
being done and keep alive a sympathy between them and the President.

The _National Intelligencer_ was never devoted to Mr. Adams, as
its proprietor had a kind regard for Mr. Clay, but it was always
hostile to the election of General Jackson.  Mr. Joseph Giles, its
editor, wrote ponderous leaders on the political questions of the
day, and occasionally reported, in short-hand, the speeches of
Congressional magnates.  His partner, Colonel William Winstead
Seaton, was by trade a printer, and his generous hand was ever
ready to aid those of his fellow-craftsmen who were in destitute
circumstances--indeed, the superannuated compositors of the _National
Intelligencer_ always received "half pay."  Coming here when
Washington was only just "staked out," he was honorably identified
with the growth of Washington City, and his administration as Mayor
is favorably spoken of by the citizens of all classes and parties.

The _National Intelligencer_ had been established as a Catholic
organ, with John Agg, an Englishman of great ability, as its editor,
and Richard Houghton, afterward the popular editor of the Boston
_Atlas_, as its Congressional reporter.  In 1825 the paper was
purchased by Peter Force and became the "hand-organ" of all the
elements of opposition to General Jackson.  Such abusive articles
and scurrilous remarks as the dignified _National Intelligencer_
would not publish appeared in the _National Journal_.  Some of
these articles reflected upon Mrs. Jackson and gave great offense
to her husband, who was persuaded that they were inspired by
President Adams.

Matthew L. Davis, who was probably the most influential of Washington
correspondents, was a New York printer.  He had entered political
life in 1790 and joined the Democratic party, which came into power
by the election of Jefferson as President and Burr as Vice-President.
Davis went to Washington shortly afterward, and was boasting that
the elevation of Mr. Jefferson was brought about solely by the
management of Tammany Hall.  Mr. Jefferson was a philosopher, and
soon after caught a very large fly, calling the attention of Mr.
Davis to the remarkable fact of the great disproportion in size of
one portion of the insect to its body.  Mr. Davis took the hint,
and left the President, in doubt as to whether Mr. Jefferson intended
the comparison to apply to New York or to him (Davis) as an
individual.

Mr. Davis was at one time wealthy, having cleared over one hundred
thousand dollars in the South American trade; but he became poor,
and for many years he was the correspondent at Washington of the
_Courier and Enquirer_, of New York, under the signature of "The
Spy in Washington."  He was also the correspondent of the London
_Times_, under the signature of "The Genevese Traveler."  On one
occasion Mr. Davis was presented to the British Minister at Washington
(Lord Ashburton) as the author of those letters in the _Times_.
"I am delighted to see you," said the Envoy.  "They are extraordinary
letters.  I have read them with great pleasure.  I hope, sir, that
you are well paid by the _Times_.  If not, sir, let me know it; I
will take care that you are paid handsomely."  Mr. Davis begged
not to be misunderstood, and said that he was amply paid by the
_Times_.  He received two guineas for each letter.

James Gordon Bennett in 1828, when in his thirtieth year, became
the Washington correspondent of the New York _Enquirer_, which was
then on the topmost round of the journalistic ladder.  It is related
of him that during his stay in this position he came across a copy
of _Walpole's Letters_ and resolved to try the effect of a few
letters written in a similar strain.  The truth of this is doubtful.
It is more probably that the natural talents of the man were now
unfettered, and he wrote without fear of censorship and with all
the ease which a sense of freedom inspires.  He was naturally witty,
sarcastic and sensible.  These letters were lively, they abounded
in personal allusions, and they described freely, not only Senators,
but the wives and daughters of Senators, and they established Mr.
Bennett's reputation as a light lance among the hosts of writers.

Major M. M. Noah was for many years a leading New York journalist,
who occasionally visited Washington, where he was always welcome.
Major Noah was born in Philadelphia, where he was apprenticed, as
he grew up, to learn the carver's trade, but he soon abandoned it
for political pursuits.  Receiving the appointment of Consul to
Tunis, he passed several years in Northern Africa, and on his return
wrote a very clever book containing his souvenirs of travel.  About
the year 1825 he conceived the idea of collecting the scattered
Jews and of rebuilding Jerusalem.  Grand Island, in the Niagara
River, above Niagara falls, was designated as the rendezvous, and
Major Noah's proclamation, which he sent to all parts of the world,
created quite a sensation among the Children of Israel.  He
subsequently was connected with the evening press of New York and
was then appointed to a Government office by President Jackson.
He was a man of fine personal appearance and great conversational
powers.

Another New York journalist, just coming before the public, was
Thurlow Weed, a tall man, with an altogether massive person.  His
large head was at that time covered with dark hair, and he had
prominent features and gray eyes, which were watchful and overhung
by shaggy eyebrows.  He was a man of great natural strength of
character, deep penetration as regards human nature, and a good
sense, judgment, and cheerfulness in his own characteristics which
conduced to respect and popularity.  He was most happy in his
intercourse with men, for he had, when a mere youth, a geniality
and tact which drew all toward him, and it has been said that he
never forgot a face or a fact.  There has never been a better
example of the good old stock of printer-editors, who seemed to
have an intuitive capacity for public affairs, and never to love
political success well enough to leave their newspapers in order
to pursue the glittering attraction of public life.

Among the other newspaper men in Washington were William Hayden,
Congressional reporter for the _National Intelligencer_, who
afterward succeeded Mr. Houghton as editor of the Boston _Atlas_;
Lund Washington, equally famed as a performer on the violin and
writer of short-hand; Samuel L. Knapp, a graduate of Dartmouth
College, who abandoned the law for journalism and corresponded with
the Boston _Gazette_, and James Brooks, a graduate of Waterville,
afterward the founder of the New York _Express_ and a Representative
in Congress, who was the correspondent of the Portland _Advertiser_
and other papers.

Prominent as an adopted citizen of Washington and as a personal
friend of President Adams was Dr. William F. Thornton, Superintendent
of the Patent Office, who had by personal appeals to his conquering
countrymen, in 1814, saved the models of patents from the general
conflagration of the public buildings.  He was also a devoted lover
of horse-racing, and on one occasion, when he expected that a horse
of his would win the cup, Mr. Adams walked out to the race-course
to enjoy the Doctor's triumph, but witnessed his defeat.  After
the death of Dr. Thornton and of his accomplished wife, it became
known that she was the daughter of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd, of
London, who was executed for forgery in 1777.  Her mother emigrated
to Philadelphia soon afterward, under the name of Brodeau, and
brought her infant daughter with her.  In Philadelphia she opened
a boarding-school, which was liberally patronized, as she had
brought excellent letters of recommendation and displayed great
ability as a teacher.  The daughter grew up to be a lady remarkable
for her beauty and accomplishments and married Dr. Thornton, who
brought her to Washington in 1800.

Congress had placed on the statute-book stringent penal laws against
gambling, but they were a dead letter, unless some poor dupe made
a complaint of foul play, or some fleeced blackleg sought vengeance
through the aid of the Grand Jury; then the matter was usually
compounded by the repayment of the money.  The northern sidewalks
of Pennsylvania Avenue between the Indian Queen Hotel and the
Capitol gate, was lined with faro banks, where good suppers were
served and well-supplied sideboards were free to all comers.  It
was a tradition that in one of these rooms Senator Montford Stokes,
of North Carolina, sat down one Thursday afternoon to play a game
of brag with Mountjoy Bailey, then the Sergeant-at-Arms of the
Senate.  That body had adjourned over, as was then its custom, from
Thursday until Monday, so the players were at liberty to keep on
with their game, only stopping occasionally for refreshments.  The
game was continued Friday night and Saturday, through Saturday
night and all day Sunday and Sunday night, the players resting for
a snatch of sleep as nature became exhausted.  Monday morning the
game was in full blast, but at ten o'clock Bailey moved an adjournment,
alleging that his official duties required his presence in the
Senate Chamber.  Stokes remonstrated, but the Sergeant-at-Arms
persisted, and rose from the table, the Senator grumbling and
declaring that he had supposed that Stokes would have thus prematurely
broken up the game he would not have sat down to play with him.

Whist was regularly played at many of the "Congressional messes,"
and at private parties a room was always devoted to whist-playing.
Once when the wife of Henry Clay was chaperoning a young lady from
Boston, at a party given by one of his associates in the Cabinet,
they passed through the card-room, where Mr. Clay and other gentlemen
were playing whist.  The young lady, in her Puritan simplicity,
inquired:  "Is card-playing a common practice here?"  "Yes," replied
Mrs. Clay, "the gentlemen always play when they get together."
"Don't it distress you," said the Boston maiden, "to have Mr. Clay
gamble?"  "Oh! dear, no!" composedly replied the statesman's wife,
"he 'most always wins."

There were only a few billiard-rooms, mostly patronized by the
members of the foreign legations or visiting young men from the
Northern cities.  Ten-pin alleys were abundant, and some of the
muscular Congressmen from the frontier would make a succession of
"ten strikes" with great ease, using the heaviest balls.  Some of
the English residents organized a cricket club, and used to play
on a level spot in "the slashes," near where the British Legation
was afterward built, but the game was not popular, and no American
offered to join the club.

[Facsimile]
  Your obedt servt.
  William H. Crawford
William Harris Crawford was born in Virginia, February 24th, 1772;
was United States Senator 1807-1813; Minister to France, 1813-1815;
Secretary of War, 1815-1816; Secretary of the Treasury, 1816-1825;
Judge of the Northern Circuit Court of Georgia, 1827, until he died
at Elberton, Georgia, September 15th, 1834.


CHAPTER IV.
PROMINENT SENATORS OF 1827.

The old Senate Chamber, now used by the Supreme Court, was admirably
adapted for the deliberations of the forty-eight gentlemen who
composed the upper house of the Nineteenth Congress.  Modeled after
the theatres of ancient Greece, it possessed excellent acoustic
properties, and there was ample accommodation in the galleries for
the few strangers who then visited Washington.  The Senate used to
meet at noon and generally conclude its day's work by three o'clock,
while adjournments over from Thursday until the following Monday
were frequent.

John C. Calhoun was Vice-President of the United States, and
consequently President of the Senate--a position which was to him
very irksome, as he was forced to sit and dumbly listen to debates
in which he was eager to participate.  He had been talked of by
some of the best men in the country as a candidate during the then
recent Presidential election, but the North had not given him any
substantial support.  Regarding each Senator as an Ambassador from
a sovereign State, he did not believe that as Vice-President he
possessed the power to call them to order for words spoken in
debate.  Senator John Randolph abused this license, and one day
commenced one of his tirades by saying:  "_Mr. Speaker!  I mean
Mr. President of the Senate and would-be President of the United
States, which God in His infinite mercy avert_," and then went on
in his usual strain of calumny and abuse.

Mr. Calhoun was tall, well-formed, without an ounce of superfluous
flesh, with a serious expression of countenance rarely brightened
by a smile, and with his black hair thrown back from his forehead,
he looked like an arch-conspirator waiting for the time to come
when he could strike the first blow.  In his dress Mr. Calhoun
affected a Spartan simplicity, yet he used to have four horses
harnessed to his carriage, and his entertainments at his residence
on Georgetown Heights were very elegant.  His private life was
irreproachable, although when Secretary of War under Mr. Monroe,
he had suffered obloquy because of a profitable contract, which
had been dishonestly awarded during his absence by his chief clerk
to that official's brother-in-law.

The prime mover of the Senate of that day was Martin Van Buren, of
New York, who was beginning to reap the reward of years of subservient
intrigues.  Making the friends of Calhoun and of Crawford believe
that they had each been badly treated by the alliance between Adams
and Clay, he united them in the support of General Jackson, and
yet no one suspected him.  When Mr. Van Buren had first been elected
to Congress, Rufus King, of his State, had said to G. F. Mercer,
also a member, "Within two weeks Van Buren will become perfectly
acquainted with the views and feelings of every member, yet no
man will know his."

This prediction was verified, and Mr. Van Buren soon became the
directing spirit among the friends of General Jackson, although no
one was ever able to quote his views.  Taking Aaron Burr as his
political model, but leading an irreproachable private life, he
rose by his ability to plan and execute with consummate skill the
most difficult political intrigues.  He was rather under the medium
height, with a high forehead, a quick eye, and pleasing features.
He made attitude and deportment a study, and when, on his leaving
the Senate, his household furniture was sold at auction it was
noticed that the carpet before a large looking-glass in his study
was worn and threadbare.  It was there that he had rehearsed his
speeches.

The "Father of the Senate" was Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina,
who had served in the ranks during the Revolution, and then in the
Senate of North Carolina.  He was elected to the Second Congress,
taking his seat in October, 1791, and after having been re-elected
eleven times, generally without opposition, he was transferred to
the Senate in 1815, and re-elected until he declined in 1828, making
thirty-seven years of continuous Congressional service.  At the
very commencement of his Congressional career he energetically
opposed the financial schemes of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary
of the Treasury, and throughout his political career he was a
"strict, severe, and stringent" Democrat.  Personally Mr. Macon
was a genial companion.  He had none of that moroseness at the
fireside which often accompanies political distinction, and it was
said that at his home he was the kindest and most beloved of slave-
masters.

Colonel Thomas Hart Benton, who had earned the military title in
the army during the war with Great Britain, was a large, heavily
framed man, with black curly hair and whiskers, prominent features,
and a stentorian voice.  He wore the high, black-silk neck-stock
and the double-breasted frock-coat of his youthful times during
his thirty years' career in the Senate, varying with the seasons
the materials of which his pantaloons were made, but never the
fashion in which they were cut.  When in debate, outraging every
customary propriety of language, he would rush forward with blunt
fury upon every obstacle, like the huge, wild buffaloes then ranging
the prairies of his adopted State, whose paths, he used to subsequently
assert, would show the way through the passes of the Rocky Mountains.
He was not a popular speaker, and when he took the floor occupants
of the galleries invariably began to leave, while many Senators
devoted themselves to their correspondence.  In private life Colonel
Benton was gentleness and domestic affection personified, and a
desire to have his children profit by the superior advantages for
their education in the District of Columbia kept him from his
constituents in Missouri, where a new generation of voters grew up
who did not know him and who would not follow his political lead,
while he was ignorant of their views on the question of slavery.

Senator Randolph, of Virginia, attracted the most attention on the
part of strangers.  He was at least six feet in height, with long
limbs, an ill-proportioned body, and a small, round head.  Claiming
descent from Pocahontas, he wore his coarse, black hair long, parted
in the middle, and combed down on either side of his sallow face.
His small, black eyes were expressive in their rapid glances,
especially when he was engaged in debate, and his high-toned and
thin voice would ring through the Senate Chamber like the shrill
scream of an angry vixen.  He generally wore a full suit of heavy,
drab-colored English broadcloth, the high, rolling collar of his
surtout coat almost concealing his head, while the skirts hung in
voluminous folds about his knee-breeches and the white leather tops
of his boots.  He used to enter the Senate Chamber wearing a pair
of silver spurs, carrying a heavy riding-whip, and followed by a
favorite hound, which crouched beneath his desk.  He wrote, and
occasionally spoke, in riding-gloves, and it was his favorite
gesture to point the long index finger of his right hand at his
opponent as he hurled forth tropes and figures of speech at him.
Every ten or fifteen minutes, while he occupied the floor, he would
exclaim in a low voice, "Tims, more porter!" and the assistant
doorkeeper would hand him a foaming tumbler of potent malt liquor,
which he would hurriedly drink, and then proceed with his remarks,
often thus drinking three or four quarts in an afternoon.  He was
not choice in his selection of epithets, and as Mr. Calhoun took
the ground that he did not have the power to call a Senator to
order, the irate Virginian pronounced President Adams "a traitor,"
Daniel Webster "a vile slanderer," John Holmes "a dangerous fool,"
and Edward Livingston "the most contemptible and degraded of beings,
whom no man ought to touch, unless with a pair of tongs."  One day,
while he was speaking with great freedom of abuse of Mr. Webster,
then a member of the House, a Senator informed him in an undertone
that Mrs. Webster was in the gallery.  He had not the delicacy to
desist, however, until he had fully emptied the vials of his wrath.
Then he set upon Mr. Speaker Taylor, and after abusing him soundly
he turned sarcastically to the gentleman who had informed him of
Mrs. Webster's presence, and asked, "Is Mrs. Taylor present also?"

Henry Clay was frequently the object of Mr. Randolph's denunciations,
which he bore patiently until the "Lord of Roanoke" spoke, one day,
of the reported alliance between the President and the Secretary
of State as the "coalition of Bilfil and Black George--the combination,
unheard of till then, of the Puritan and the blackleg."  Mr. Clay
at once wrote to know whether he had intended to call him a political
gambler, or to attach the infamy of such epithets to his private
life.  Mr. Randolph declined to give any explanation, and a duel
was fought without bloodshed.

Mr. Randolph, on another occasion, deliberately insulted Mr. James
Lloyd, one of "the solid men of Boston," then a Senator from
Massachusetts, who had, in accordance with the custom, introduced
upon the floor of the Senate one of his constituents, Major Benjamin
Russell, the editor of the _Columbian Sentinel_.  The sight of a
Federal editor aroused Mr. Randolph's anger, and he at once insolently
demanded that the floor of the Senate be cleared, forcing Major
Russell to retire.  Mr. Lloyd took the first opportunity to express
his opinion of this gratuitous insult, and declared, in very forcible
language, that, as he had introduced Major Russell on the floor,
he was responsible therefor.  Mr. Randolph indulged in a little
gasconade, in which he announced that his carriage was waiting at
the door to convey him to Baltimore, and at the conclusion of his
remarks he left the Senate Chamber and the city.  Mr. Calhoun, who
had not attempted to check Mr. Randolph, lamented from the chair
that anything should have happened to mar the harmony of the Senate,
and again declared that he had not power to call a Senator to order,
nor would he for ten thousand worlds look like a usurper.

Senator Tazewell, Mr. Randolph's colleague, was a first-class
Virginia abstractionist and an avowed hater of New England.  Dining
one day at the White House, he provoked the President by offensively
asserting that he had "never known a Unitarian who did not believe
in the sea-serpent."  Soon afterward Mr. Tazewell spoke of the
different kinds of wines, and declared that Tokay and Rhenish wine
were alike in taste.  "Sir," said Mr. Adams, "I do not believe that
you ever drank a drop of Tokay in your life."  For this remark the
President subsequently sent an apology to Mr. Tazewell, but the
Virginia Senator never forgot or forgave the remark.

William Henry Harrison, a tall, spare, gray-haired gentleman, who
had gone from his Virginia home into the Western wilderness as aid-
de-camp to General Anthony Wayne, had been elected a Senator from
the State of Ohio, but probably never dreamed that in years to come
he would be elected President by an immense majority, with John
Tyler on the ticket as Vice-President.  Colonel Richard M. Johnson,
of Kentucky, had, however, begun to electioneer for the Democratic
nomination for the Vice-Presidency, basing his claim upon his having
shot Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, and he was finally
successful.  He was of medium size, with large features, and light
auburn hair, and his private life was attacked without mercy by
his political opponents.

John Henry Eaton, of Tennessee, was General Jackson's henchman,
who had come to the Senate that he might better electioneer for
his old friend and commander.  William Hendricks, a Senator from
Indiana, was the uncle of Thomas A. Hendricks, of a subsequent
political generation.  The New Hampshire Senators were Levi Woodbury
and John Bell, men of decided ability and moral worth.  Georgia
supplied a polished and effective orator in J. McPherson Berrien.
Vermont was represented by portly and good-looking Dudley Chase,
who was the uncle of Chief Justice Chase, and by Horatio Seymour,
of Middlebury.  Maine's stalwart, blue-eyed Senator, Albion Keith
Parris, was said to have filled more public offices than any other
man of his age, and his colleague, John Holmes, although rude in
speech and at times vulgar, was the humorous champion of the North.
Ever on the watch for some unguarded expression by a Southern
Senator, no sooner would one be uttered than he would pounce upon
it and place the speaker in a most uncomfortable position.  John
Tyler one day thought that he could annoy Mr. Holmes, and asked
him what had become of that political firm once mentioned in debate
by John Randolph as "James Madison, Felix Grundy, John Holmes, and
the Devil."  Mr. Holmes rose at once.  "I will tell the gentleman,"
said he, "what has become of the firm.  The first member is dead,
the second has gone into retirement, the third now addresses you,
and the last has gone over to the Nullifiers, and is now electioneering
among the gentleman's constituents.  So the partnership is legally
dissolved."

The Senators were rather exclusive, those from the South assuming
the control of "good society," which was then very limited in its
extent and simple in its habits.  Few Senators and Representatives
brought their wives to cheer their Congressional labors, and a
parlor of ordinary size would contain all of those who were accustomed
to attend social gatherings.  The diplomats, with the officers of
the army and navy stationed at headquarters, were accompanied by
their wives, and there were generally a few visitors of social
distinction.

The Washington assemblies were very ceremonious and exclusive.
Admission was obtained only by cards of invitation, issued after
long consultations among the Committeemen, and, once inside the
exclusive ring, the beaux and belles bowed beneath the disciplinary
rule of a master of ceremonies.  No gentleman, whatever may have
been his rank or calling, was permitted on the floor unless in full
evening dress, with the adornment of pumps, silk stockings, and
flowing cravat, unless he belonged to the army or the navy, in
which case complete regimentals covered a multitude of sins.  The
ball, commencing with the stroke of eight precisely, opened with
a rollicking country dance, and the lady selected for the honor of
opening the festivities was subsequently toasted as the reigning
divinity of fashion for the hour.  The "_minuet de la cour_" and
stately "quadrille," varied by the "basket dance," and, on exceptional
occasions, the exhilarating "cheat," formed the staple for saltatorial
performance, until the hour of eleven brought the concluding country
dance, when a final squad of roysterers bobbed "up the middle and
down again" to the airs of "Sir Roger de Coverly" or "Money Musk."

The music was furnished by colored performers on the violin, except
on great occasions, when some of the Marine Band played an
accompaniment on flutes and clarinets.  The refreshments were iced
lemonade, ice-cream, port wine negus, and small cakes, served in
a room adjoining the dancing-hall, or brought in by the colored
domestics, or by the cavalier in his own proper person, who ofttimes
appeared upon the dancing-floor, elbowing his way to the lady of
his adoration, in the one hand bearing well-filled glasses, and in
the other sustaining a plate heaped up with cake.

The costume of the ladies was classic in its scantiness, especially
at balls and parties.  The fashionable ball dress was of white
India crape, and five breadths, each a quarter of a yard wide, were
all that was asked for to make a skirt, which only came down to
the ankles, and was elaborately trimmed with a dozen or more rows
of narrow flounces.  Silk or cotton stockings were adorned with
embroidered "clocks," and thin slippers were ornamented with silk
rosettes and tiny buckles.

Those gentlemen who dressed fashionably wore "Bolivar" frock-coats
of some gay-colored cloth, blue or green or claret, with large
lapels and gilded buttons.  Their linen was ruffled; their "Cossack"
trousers were voluminous in size, and were tucked into high "Hessian"
boots with gold tassels.  They wore two and sometimes three
waistcoats, each of different colors, and from their watch-pockets
dangled a ribbon, with a bunch of large seals.  When in full dress,
gentlemen wore dress-coats with enormous collars and short waists,
well-stuffed white cambric cravats, small-clothes, or tight-fitting
pantaloons, silk stockings, and pumps.

Duels were very common, and a case of dueling pistols was a part
of the outfit of the Southern and Western Congressmen, who used to
spend more or less time in practicing.  Imported pistols were highly
prized, but the best weapons were made by a noted Philadelphia
gunsmith named Derringer, who gave his name to a short pistol of
his invention to be carried in the trouser's pocket for use in
street fights.  Some of the dueling pistols were inlaid with gold,
and they all had flint-locks, as percussion caps had not been
invented, nor hair triggers.

[Facsimile]
  Edward Everett.
EDWARD EVERETT.  Born in Massachusetts April 11th, 1794; was a
Unitarian clergyman, and a professor at Harvard College, until
elected a Representative from Massachusetts, 1825-1835; Governor
of Massachusetts, 1836-1840; Minister to Great Britain, 1841-1843;
President of Harvard College, 1846-1849; Secretary of State under
President Fillmore, 1852-1853; United States Senator from Massachusetts,
1853-1854; died at Boston, January 15th, 1865.


CHAPTER V.
PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES OF 1827.

The Hall of the House of Representatives (now used as a National
Gallery of Statuary) was a reproduction of the ancient theatre,
magnificent in its effect, but so deficient in acoustic properties
that it was unfit for legislative occupation.  It was there that
Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House, had welcomed General Lafayette
as "the Nation's Guest."  The contrast between the tall and graceful
Kentuckian, with his sunny smile and his silver-toned voice, and
the good old Marquis, with his auburn wig awry, must have been
great.  His reply appeared to come from a grateful heart, but it
was asserted that the Speaker had written both his own words of
welcome and also Lafayette's acknowledgment of them, and it became
a subject of newspaper controversy, which was ended by the publication
of a card signed "H. Clay," in which he positively denied the
authorship, although he admitted that he had suggested the most
effective sentences.

Ladies had been excluded from the galleries of the House originally,
in accordance with British precedent.  But one night at a party a
lady expressed her regret to Hon. Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts,
that she could not hear the arguments, especially his speeches.
Mr. Ames gallantly replied that he knew of no reason why ladies
should not hear the debates.  "Then," said Mrs. Langdon, "if you
will let me know when next you intend to speak, I will make up a
party of ladies and we will go and hear you."  The notice was given,
the ladies went, and since then Congressional orators have always
had fair hearers--with others perhaps not very fair.

The House was really occupied, during the administration of John
Quincy Adams, in the selection of his successor.  At first the
political outlook was rather muddled, although keen eyes averred
that they could perceive, moving restlessly to and fro, the indefinite
forms of those shadows which coming events project.  Different
seers interpreted the phantasmal appearances in different fashions,
and either endeavored to form novel combinations, or joined in
raking common sewers for filth wherewith to bespatter those who
were the rivals of their favorite candidates.  It was then that
Congressional investigating committees became a part of the political
machinery of the day.  The accounts of President Adams when, in
former years, he was serving the country in Europe as a diplomatist;
the summary execution of deserters by order of General Jackson,
when he commanded the army in Florida; the bills for refurnishing
the White House; the affidavits concerning the alleged bargain
between the President and his Secretary of State, and the marriage
of General Jackson to Mrs. Robards before she had been divorced
from Mr. Robards, were, with many other scandals, paraded before
the public.

Daniel Webster had been recognized in advance as the leader of the
House by his appointment as chairman of the committee to inform
Mr. Adams that he had been elected President.  This Mr. Webster
did verbally, but Mr. Adams had prepared a written reply, which
had been copied by a clerk and bore his autograph signature.

Mr. Webster was at that period of his life the embodiment of health
and good spirits.  His stalwart frame, his massive head, crowned
with a wealth of black hair, his heavy eye-brows, overhanging his
great, expressive, and cavernous eyes, all distinguished him as
one of the powers of the realm of the intellect--one of the few to
whom Divinity has accorded a royal share of the Promethian fire of
genius.  His department was ceremonious, and he made a decided
impression on strangers.  When Jenny Lind first saw him, she was
much impressed by his majestic appearance, and afterward exclaimed,
"I have seen a man!"

His swarthy complexion gained him the epithet of "Black Dan."  He
was very proud of his complexion, which he inherited from his
grandmother, Susannah Bachelder (from whom the poet Whittier also
claimed descent), and he used to quote the compliment paid by
General Stark, the hero of Bennington, to his father, Colonel
Ebenezer Webster:  "He has the black Bachelder complexion, which
burnt gunpowder will not change."  Although majestic in appearance,
Mr. Webster was not really a very large man; in height he was only
about five feet ten inches.  His head looked very large, but he
wore a seven and five-eighth hat, as did Mr. Clay, whose head
appeared much smaller.  His shoulders were very broad and his chest
was very full, but his hips and lower limbs were small.

Mr. Webster had his first great sorrow then.  His eldest, and at
that time his only, daughter died at Washington, and the next year
her mother followed her to the grave.  This estimable lady, whose
maiden name was Grace Fletcher, was one year older than Mr. Webster,
and was the daughter of a New Hampshire clergyman.  While on her
way to Washington with her husband, the December after he had been
re-elected United States Senator by a nearly two-thirds vote in
each branch of the "General Court" of Massachusetts, she was taken
fatally ill at the house of Mr. Webster's friend, Dr. Perkins,
where they were guests.

Mr. Webster had begun at that time to be disturbed about his money
matters, although he should have been in a prosperous pecuniary
condition.  His professional income could not have been less than
twenty thousand dollars a year, and he had just received seventy
thousand dollars as his five per cent. fee as counsel for the
claimants before the Commissioners on Spanish Claims, but he had
begun to purchase land and was almost always harassed for ready
money.

Edward Everett, who was a member of the Massachusetts delegation
in the House, had won early fame as a popular preacher of the
gospel, as a professor at Harvard College, and as the editor of
the _North American Review_.  Placed by his marriage above want,
he became noted for his profound learning and persuasive eloquence.
At times he was almost electrical in his utterances; his reasoning
was logical and luminous, and his remarks always gave evidence of
careful study.  As a politician Mr. Everett was not successful.
The personification of self-discipline and dignity, he was too much
like an intellectual icicle to find favor with the masses, and he
was deficient in courage when any bold step was to be taken.

George McDuffie, who represented the Edgefield District of South
Carolina, had been taken from labor in a blacksmith's shop by Mr.
Calhoun and became the grateful champion of his patron in the House.
He was a spare, grim-looking man, who was an admirer of Milton,
and who was never known to jest or to smile.  As a debater he had
few equals in the House, but he failed when, during the discussion
of the Panama Mission question, he opened his batteries upon Mr.
Webster.  The "expounder of the Constitution" retorted with great
force, reminding the gentleman from South Carolina that noisy
declamation was not logic, and that he should not apply coarse
epithets to the President, who could not reply to them.  Mr. Webster
then went on to say that he would furnish the gentleman from South
Carolina with high authority on the point to which he had objected,
and quoted from a speech by Mr. Calhoun which effectively extinguished
Mr. McDuffie.

Tristram Burgess, of Rhode Island, who had a snowy head and a Roman
nose, was called "the bald eagle of the House."  Although under
fifty years of age, his white hair and bent form gave him a
patriarchal look and added to the effect of his fervid eloquence
and his withering sarcasm.  A man of iron heart, he was ever anxious
to meet his antagonists, haughty in his rude self-confidence, and
exhaustive in the use of every expletive of abuse permitted by
parliamentary usage.  In debate he resembled one of the old soldiers
who fought on foot or on horseback, with heavy or light arms, a
battle-axe or a spear.  The champion of the North, he divided the
South and thrashed and slashed as did old Horatius, when with his
good sword he stood upon the bridge and with his single arm defended
Rome.

George Kremer, of Pennsylvania, was probably the most unpopular
man in the House.  An anonymous letter had appeared just before
the election of President [Adams] by the Representatives denouncing
an "unholy coalition" between Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, by which the
support of the friends of the latter had been transferred to the
former, "as the planter does his negroes, or the farmer his team
and horses."  Mr. Clay at once published a card, over his signature,
in which he called the writer "a base and infamous calumniator, a
dastard, and a liar."  Mr. Kremer replied, admitting that he had
written the letter, but in such a manner that his political friends
were ashamed of his cowardice, while the admirers of Mr. Clay were
very indignant--the more so as they suspected that Mr. James Buchanan
had instigated the letter.

Mr. Henry W. Dwight, of Massachusetts, a good specimen of "a sound
mind in a sound body," gave great attention to the appropriation
bills, and secured liberal sums for carrying on the various
departments of the Government.  His most formidable antagonist was
a self-styled reformer and physical giant, Mr. Thomas Chilton, of
Kentucky, who had been at one period of his life a Baptist preacher.
He declared on the floor in debate that he was pledged to his
constituents to endeavor to retrench the expenses of the General
Government, to diminish the army and navy, to abridge the number
of civil and diplomatic officials, and, above all, to cut down the
pay of Congressmen.  He made speeches in support of all these
"reforms," but did not succeed in securing the discharge of a
soldier, a sailor, a diplomatist, or a clerk, neither did he reduce
the appropriations one single cent.  The erratic Mr. David Crockett
was then a member of the House, but had not attracted public
attention, although the Jackson men were angry because he, one of
Old Hickory's officers in the Creek War, was a devoted adherent of
Henry Clay for the Presidency.  One of his colleagues in the
Tennessee delegation was Mr. James K. Polk, a rigid and uncompromising
Presbyterian, a political disciple of Macon, and a man of incorruptible
honesty.

Prominent among the Representatives from the State of New York were
Messrs. Gulian C. Verplanck and Thomas J. Oakley, members of the
legal profession, who were statesmen rather than politicians.  Mr.
George C. Washington, of Maryland, was the great-nephew of "the
Father of his country," and had inherited a portion of the library
at Mount Vernon, which he subsequently sold to the Boston Athenaeum.
Messrs. Elisha Whittlesey and Samuel Vinton, Representatives from
Ohio, were afterwards for many years officers of the Federal
Government and residents at Washington.  Mr. Jonathan Hunt, of
Vermont, a lawyer of ability, and one of the companions chosen by
Mr. Webster, was the father of that gifted artist, William Morris
Hunt, whose recent death was so generally regretted.  Mr. Silas
Wright, of New York, was then attracting attention in the Democratic
party, of which he became a great leader, and which would have
elected him President had he not shortened his life by intemperance.
He was a solid, square-built man, with an impassive, ruddy face.
He claimed to be a good farmer, but no orator, yet he was noted
for the compactness of his logic, which was unenlivened by a figure
of speech or a flight of fancy.

The Supreme Court then sat in the room in the basement of the
Capitol, now occupied as a law library.  It has an arched ceiling
supported by massive pillars that obstruct the view, and is very
badly ventilated.  But it is rich in traditions of hair-powder,
queues, ruffled shirts, knee-breeches, and buckles.  Up to that
time no Justice had ever sat upon the bench in trousers, nor had
any lawyer ventured to plead in boots or wearing whiskers.  Their
Honors, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices, wearing silk
judicial robes, were treated with the most profound respect.  When
Mr. Clay stopped, one day, in an argument, and advancing to the
bench, took a pinch of snuff from Judge Washington's box, saying,
"I perceive that your Honor sticks to the Scotch," and then proceeded
with his case, it excited astonishment and admiration.  "Sir," said
Mr. Justice Story, in relating the circumstance to a friends, "I
do not believe there is a man in the United States who could have
done that but Mr. Clay."

Chief Justice John Marshall, who had then presided in the Supreme
Court for more than a quarter of a century, was one of the last
survivors of those officers of the Revolutionary Army who had
entered into civil service.  He was a tall, gaunt man, with a small
head and bright black eyes.  He used to wear an unbrushed long-
skirted black coat, a badly fitting waistcoat, and knee-breeches,
a voluminous white cambric cravat, generally soiled, and black
worsted stockings, with low shoes and silver buckles.  When upward
of seventy years of age he still relished the pleasures of the
quoit club or the whist table, and to the last his right hand never
forgot its cunning with the billiard cue.

Nor did the Chief Justice ever lose his relish for a joke, even at
his own expense.  In the Law Library one day he fell from a step-
ladder, bruising himself severely and scattering an armful of books
in all directions.  An attendant, full of alarm, ran to assist him,
but his Honor drily remarked, "That time I was completely floored."

Bushrod Washington, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court by
President John Adams, was by inheritance the owner of Mount Vernon,
where his remains now lie, near those of his illustrious uncle,
George Washington.  He was a small, insignificant-looking man,
deprived of the sight of one eye by excessive study, negligent of
dress, and an immoderate snuff-taker.  He was a rigid disciplinarian
and a great stickler for etiquette, and on one occasion he sat for
sixteen hours without leaving the bench.  He was also a man of rare
humor.

Christmas was the popular holiday season at Washington sixty years
ago, the descendants of the Maryland Catholics joining the descendants
of the Virginia Episcopalians in celebrating the advent of their
Lord.  The colored people enjoyed the festive season, and there
was scarcely a house in Washington in which there was not a well-
filled punch bowl.  In some antique silver bowls was "Daniel Webster
punch," made of Medford rum, brandy, champagne, arrack, menschino,
strong green tea, lemon juice, and sugar; in other less expensive
bowls was found a cheaper concoction.  But punch abounded everywhere,
and the bibulous found Washington a rosy place, where jocund mirth
and joyful recklessness went arm in arm to flout vile melancholy,
and kick, with ardent fervor, dull care out of the window.  Christmas
carols were sung in the streets by the young colored people, and
yule logs were burned in the old houses where the fireplaces had
not been bricked up.

[Facsimile]
  With great respect
  I am yrs. v. truly. [?]
  H. Clay
HENRY CLAY, born in Virginia, April 12th, 1777; United States
Senator from Kentucky, 1806-1807, and again 1810-1811; Representative
from Kentucky, 1811-1814; negotiator of the treaty of Ghent, 1815;
Representative in Congress, 1815-1820, and 1823-1825; Secretary of
State under President Adams, 1825-1829; United States Senator from
Kentucky, 1831-1842, and 1844, until he died at Washington City,
June 29th, 1852.


CHAPTER VI.
THE POLITICAL MACHINE.

As the time for another Presidential election approached, the
friends of General Jackson commenced active operations in his
behalf.  The prime mover in the campaign was General John Henry
Eaton, then a Senator from Tennessee.  He had published in 1818 a
brief life of the hero of New Orleans, which he enlarged in 1824
and published with the title, "The Life of Andrew Jackson, Major-
General in the Service of the United States, comprising a History
of the War in the South from the Commencement of the Creek Campaign
to the Termination of Hostilities Before New Orleans."  The facts
in it were obtained from General Jackson and his wife, but every
incident of his life calculated to injure him in the public estimation
was carefully suppressed.  It was, however, the recognized text-
book for Democratic editors and stump speakers, and although entirely
unreliable, it has formed the basis for the lives of General Jackson
since published.

President Adams enjoined neutrality upon his friends but some of
them, acting with Democrats who were opposed to the election of
General Jackson, had published and circulated, as an offset to
General Eaton's book, a thick pamphlet entitled, "Reminiscences;
or, an Extract from the Catalogue of General Jackson's Youthful
Indiscretions, between the Age of Twenty-three and Sixty," which
contained an account of Jackson's fights, brawls, affrays, and
duels, numbered from one to fourteen.  Broadsides, bordered with
wood-cuts of coffins, and known as "coffin hand-bills," narrated
the summary and unjust execution as deserters of a number of
militiamen in the Florida campaign whose legal term of service had
expired.  Another handbill gave the account of General Jackson's
marriage to Mrs. Robards before she had been legally divorced from
her husband.

General Jackson's friends also had printed and circulated large
editions of campaign songs, the favorite being "The Hunters of
Kentucky," which commenced:

  "You've heard, I s'pose of New Orleans,
  'Tis famed for youth and beauty,
   There're girls of every hue, it seems,
   From snowy white to sooty,
   Now Packenham had made his brags,
   If he that day was lucky,
   He'd have those girls and cotton-bags
   In spite of old Kentucky.
   But Jackson, he was wide awake,
   And was not scared at trifles,
   For well he knew Kentucky's boys,
   With their death-dealing rifles.
   He led them down to cypress swamp,
   The ground was low and mucky,
   There stood John Bull in martial pomp,
   And here stood old Kentucky.

  "Oh! Kentucky, the hunters of Kentucky!"

After a political campaign of unprecedented bitterness, General
Jackson was elected, receiving one hundred and seventy-eight
electoral votes against eighty-three cast for John Quincy Adams,
and so a new chapter was commenced in the social as well as the
political chronicles of the National Capital.  Those who had known
the Presidential successors of Washington as educated and cultivated
gentlemen, well versed in the courtesies of private life and of
ceremonious statesmanship, saw them succeeded by a military chieftain,
whose life had been "a battle and a march," thickly studded with
personal difficulties and duels; who had given repeated evidences
of his disregard of the laws when they stood in the way of his
imperious will; and who, when a United States Senator, had displayed
no ability as a legislator.  His election was notoriously the work
of Martin Van Buren, inspired by Aaron Burr, and with his inauguration
was initiated a sordidly selfish political system entirely at
variance with the broad views of Washington and of Hamilton.

It was assumed that every citizen had his price; that neither virtue
nor genius was proof against clever although selfish corruption;
that political honestly was a farce; and that the only way of
governing those knaves who elbowed their way up through the masses
was to rule them by cunning more acute than their own and knavery
more subtle and calculating than theirs.

Before leaving his rural home in Tennessee, General Jackson had
been afflicted by the sudden death of his wife.  "Aunt Rachel," as
Mrs. Jackson was called by her husband's personal friends, had
accompanied him to Washington when he was there as a Senator from
Tennessee.  She was a short, stout, unattractive, and uneducated
woman, though greatly endeared to General Jackson.  While he had
been in the army she had carefully managed his plantation, his
slaves, and his money matters, and her devotion to him knew no
bounds.  Her happiness was centered in his, and it was her chief
desire to smoke her corn-cob pipe in peace at his side.  When told
that he had been elected President of the United States, she replied,
"Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake I am glad of it, but for myself I am
not."  A few weeks later she was arrayed for the grave in a white
satin costume which she had provided herself with to wear at the
White House.  After her funeral her sorrow-stricken husband came
to Washington with a stern determination to punish those who had
maligned her during the preceding campaign.  Having been told that
President Adams had sanctioned the publication of the slanders, he
did not call at the White House, in accordance with the usage, but
paid daily visits to old friends in the War Department.  Mr. Adams,
stung by this neglect, determined not to play the part of the
conquered leader of the inauguration, and quietly removed to the
house of Commodore Porter, in the suburbs, on the morning of the
3d of March.

The weather on the 4th of March, 1829, was serene and mild, and at
an early hour Pennsylvania Avenue, then unpaved, with a double row
of poplar trees along its centre, was filled with crowds of people,
many of whom had journeyed immense distances on foot.  The officials
at Washington, who were friends of Mr. Adams, had agreed not to
participate in the inaugural ceremonies, and the only uniformed
company of light infantry, commanded by Colonel Seaton, of the
_National Intelligencer_, had declined to offer its services as an
escort.  A number of old Revolutionary officers, however, had
hastily organized themselves, and waited on General Jackson to
solicit the honor of forming his escort to the Capitol, an offer
which was cordially accepted.  The General rode in an open carriage
which had been placed at his disposal, and was surrounded by these
gallant veterans.  The assembled thousands cheered lustily as their
favorite passed along, every face radiant with defiant joy, and
every voice shouting "Hurrah for Jackson!"

After the installation of John C. Calhoun as Vice-President in the
Senate Chamber, the assembled dignitaries moved in procession
through the rotunda to the east front of the Capitol.  As the tall
figure of the President-elect came out upon the portico and ascended
the platform, uplifted hats and handkerchiefs waved a welcome, and
shouts of "Hurrah for Jackson!" rent the air.  Looking around for
a moment into ten thousand upturned and exultant human faces, the
President-elect removed his hat, took the manuscript of his address
from his pocket, and read it with great dignity.  When he had
finished, Chief Justice Marshall administered the oath, and as the
President, bending over the sacred Book, touched it with his lips,
there arose such a shout as was never before heard in Washington,
followed by the thunder of cannons, from two light batteries near
by, echoed by the cannon at the Navy Yard and at the Arsenal.  The
crowd surged toward the platform, and had it not been that a ship's
cable had been stretched across the portico steps would have captured
their beloved leader.  As it was, he shook hands with hundreds,
and it was with some difficulty that he could be escorted back to
his carriage and along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
Meanwhile Mr. Adams, who had refused to participate in the pageant,
was taking his usual constitutional horseback exercise when the
thunders of the cannon reached his ears and notified him that he
was again a private citizen.

The broad sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue were again packed as
the procession returned from the Capitol.  "I never saw such a
crowd," wrote Daniel Webster to a friend.  "Persons have come five
hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think
that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger."  Hunters
of Kentucky and Indian fighters of Tennessee, with sturdy frontiersmen
from the Northwest, were mingled in the throng with the more cultured
dwellers on the Atlantic slope.

On their arrival at the White House, the motley crowd clamored for
refreshments and soon drained the barrels of punch, which had been
prepared, in drinking to the health of the new Chief Magistrate.
A great deal of china and glassware was broken, and the East Room
was filled with a noisy mob.  At one time General Jackson, who had
retreated until he stood with his back against the wall, was
protected by a number of his friends, who formed a living barrier
about him.  Such a scene had never before been witnessed at the
White House, and the aristocratic old Federalists saw, to their
disgust, men whose boots were covered with the red mud of the
unpaved streets standing on the damask satin-covered chairs to get
a sight at the President of their choice.

Late in the afternoon President Jackson sat down to dinner with
Vice-President Calhoun and a party of his personal friends, the
central dish on the table being a sirloin from a prize ox, sent to
him by John Merkle, a butcher of Franklin Market, New York.  Before
retiring that night, the President wrote to the donor:  "Permit
me, sir, to assure you of the gratification which I felt in being
enabled to place on my table so fine a specimen of your market,
and to offer you my sincere thanks for so acceptable a token of
your regard for my character."  This was the commencement of a
series of presents which poured in on General Jackson during the
eight years of his administration.

The Democratic journalists of the country were also well represented
at the inauguration, attracted by this semi-official declaration
in the _Telegraph_:  "We know not what line of policy General
Jackson will adopt.  We take it for granted, however, that he will
reward his friends and punish his enemies."

The leader of this editorial phalanx was Amos Kendall, a native of
Dunstable, Massachusetts, who had by pluck and industry acquired
an education and migrated westward in search of fame and fortune.
Accident made him an inmate of Henry Clay's house and the tutor of
his children; but many months had not elapsed before the two became
political foes, and Kendall, who had become the conductor of a
Democratic newspaper, triumphed, bringing to Washington the official
vote of Kentucky for Andrew Jackson.  He found at the National
metropolis other Democratic editors, who, like himself, had labored
to bring about the political revolution, and they used to meet
daily in the house of a preacher-politician, Rev. Obadiah B. Brown,
who had strongly advocated Jackson's election.  Mr. Brown, who was
a stout, robust man, with a great fund of anecdotes, was a clerk
in the Post Office department during the week, while on Sundays he
performed his ministerial duties in the Baptist Church.

Organizing under the lead of Amos Kendall, whose lieutenants were
the brilliant but vindictive Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire; the
scholarly Nathaniel Greene, of Massachusetts; the conservative
Gideon Welles, of Connecticut; the jovial Major Mordecai M. Noah,
of New York, and the energetic Dabney S. Carr, of Maryland, the
allied editors claimed their rewards.  They were not to be appeased
by sops of Government advertising, or by the appointment of publisher
of the laws of the United States in the respective States, but they
demanded some of the most lucrative public offices in their share
of the spoils.  No sooner did General Jackson reach Washington then
they made a systematic attack upon him, introducing and praising
one another, and reciprocally magnifying their faithful services
during the canvass so successfully ended.  The result was that soon
after the inauguration nearly fifty of those editors who had
advocated his election were appointed to official Federal positions
as rewards for political services rendered.

Up to that time the national elections in the United States had
not been mere contests for the possession of Federal offices--there
was victory and there was defeat; but the quadrennial encounters
affected only the heads of departments, and the results were matters
of comparative indifference to the subordinate official drudges
whose families depended on their pay for meat and bread.  A few of
these department clerks were Revolutionary worthies; others had
followed the Federal Government from New York or Philadelphia; all
had expected to hold their positions for life.  Some of these desk-
slaves had originally been Federalists, others Democrats; and while
there was always an Alexander Hamilton in every family of the one
set, there was as invariably a Thomas Jefferson in every family of
the other set.  But no subordinate clerk had ever been troubled on
account of his political faith by a change of the Administration,
and the sons generally succeeded their fathers when they died or
resigned.  Ordinarily, these clerks were good penmen and skillful
accountants, toiling industriously eight hours every week day
without dreaming of demanding a month's vacation in the summer, or
insisting upon their right to go to their homes to vote in the
fall.  National politics was to them a matter of profound indifference
until, after the inauguration of General Jackson, hundreds of them
found themselves decapitated by the Democratic guillotine, without
qualifications for any other employment had the limited trade of
Washington afforded any.  Many of them were left in a pitiable
condition, but when the _Telegraph_ was asked what these men could
do to ward off starvation, the insolent reply was, "Root, hog, or
die!"  Some of the new political brooms swept clean, and made a
great show of reform, notably Amos Kendall, who was appointed Fourth
Auditor of the Treasury, and who soon after exulted over the
discovery of a defalcation of a few hundred dollars in the accounts
of his predecessor, Dr. Tobias Watkins.

Postmaster-General McLean, of Ohio, who had been avowedly a Jackson
man while he was a member of Mr. Adams' Administration, rebelled
against the removal of several of his most efficient subordinates,
because of their political action during the preceding Presidential
campaign.  At last he flatly told General Jackson that if he must
remove those postmasters who had taken an active part in politics,
he should impartially turn out those who had worked to secure the
election of General Jackson, as well as those who had labored to
re-elect Mr. Adams.  To his General Jackson at first made no reply,
but rose from his seat, puffing away at his pipe; and after walking
up and down the floor two or three times, he stopped in front of
his rebellious Postmaster-General, and said, "Mr. McLean, will you
accept a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court?"  The judicial
position thus tendered was accepted with thanks, and the Post-Office
Department was placed under the direction of Major Barry, who was
invited to take a seat in the Cabinet (never occupied by his
predecessors), and who not only made the desired removals and
appointments, but soon plunged the finances of the Department into
a chaotic state of disorder.

Prominent among those "Jackson men" who received lucrative mail
contracts from Postmaster-General Barry, was "Land Admiral" Reeside,
an appellation he owed to the executive ability which he had
displayed in organizing mail routes between distant cities.  He
was a very tall man, well formed, with florid complexion, red hair,
and side whiskers.  Very obligingly, he once had a horse belonging
to a Senator taken from Pittsburg to Washington tied behind a stage,
because the owner had affixed his "frank" to the animal's halter.
He was the first mail contractor who ran his stages between
Philadelphia and the West, by night as well as by day, and Mr.
Joseph R. Chandler, of the United States _Gazette_, said that "the
Admiral could leave Philadelphia on a six-horse coach with a hot
johnny-cake in his pocket and reach Pittsburg before it could grow
cold."  He used to ridicule the locomotives when they were first
introduced, and offer to bet a thousand dollars that no man could
build a machine that would drag a stage from Washington to Baltimore
quicker than his favorite team of iron-grays.

Mail robberies were not uncommon in those days, although the crime
was punishable with imprisonment or death.  One day one of Reeside's
coaches was stopped near Philadelphia by three armed men, who
ordered the nine passengers to alight and stand in a line.  One of
the robbers then mounted guard, while the other two made the
terrified passengers deliver up their money and watches, and then
rifled the mail bags.  They were soon afterward arrested, tried,
convicted, and one was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary,
while the other two were condemned to be hung.  Fortunately for
one of the culprits, named Wilson, he had some years previously,
at a horse-race near Nashville, Tennessee, privately advised General
Jackson to withdraw his bets on a horse which he was backing, as
the jockey had been ordered to lose the race.  The General was very
thankful for this information, which enabled him to escape a heavy
loss, and he promised his informant that he would befriend him
whenever an opportunity should offer.  When reminded of this promise,
after Wilson had been sentenced to be hanged, Jackson promptly
commuted the sentence to ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary.

When Admiral Reeside was carrying the mails between New York and
Washington, there arose a formidable organization in opposition to
the Sunday mail service.  The members of several religious
denominations were prominent in their demonstrations, and in
Philadelphia, chains, secured by padlocks, were stretched across
the streets on Sundays to prevent the passage of the mail-coaches.
The subject was taken up by politicians, and finally came before
the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee
on Post-Roads, of which Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was then
the chairman.  The Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had meanwhile been
promoted in the Post-office Department, wrote a report on the
subject for Colonel Johnson, which gave "the killer of Tecumseh"
an extended reputation, and was the first step toward his election
as Vice-President, a few years later.

[Facsimile]
  J. C. Calhoun
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN was born in South Carolina, March 18th, 1782:
was a Representative in Congress, 1811-1817; Secretary of War, 1817-
1825; Vice-President, 1825-1832; United States Senator, 1833-1843;
Secretary of State, 1844-1845; United States Senator from 1845
until his death at Washington City, March 31st, 1850.


CHAPTER VII.
THE KITCHEN CABINET.

When the Twenty-first Congress assembled, on the 7th of December,
1829, General Jackson sent in his first annual message, which
naturally attracted some attention.  Meeting his old and intimate
friend, General Armstrong, the next day, the President said, "Well,
Bob, what do the people say of my message?"  "They say," replied
General Armstrong, "that it is first-rate, but nobody believes that
you wrote it."  "Well," good-naturedly replied Old Hickory, "don't
I deserve just as much credit for picking out the man who could
write it?"  Although the words of this and of the subsequent messages
were not General Jackson's, the ideas were, and he always insisted
on having them clearly expressed.  It was in his first message, by
the way, that he invited the attention of Congress to the fact that
the charter of the United States bank would expire in 1836, and
asserted that it had "failed in the great end of establishing a
uniform and sound currency."  This was the beginning of that fierce
political contest which resulted in the triumph of General Jackson
and the overthrow of the United States Bank.

General Jackson rarely left the White House, where he passed the
greater portion of his time in his office in the second story, smoking
a corn-cob pipe with a long reed stem.  He was at the commencement
of his Presidential term sixty-two years of age, tall, spare, with
a high forehead, from which his gray hair was brushed back, a
decisive nose, searching, keen eyes, and, when good-natured, an
almost childlike expression about his mouth.  A self-reliant,
prejudiced, and often very irascible old man, it was a very difficult
task to manage him.  Some of his Cabinet advisers made it a point
to be always with him, to prevent others from ingratiating themselves
into his good will, and they were thus chronicled in a ballad of
the time:

  "King Andrew had five trusty 'squires,
   Whom he held his bid to do;
   He also had three pilot-fish,
   To give the sharks their cue.
   There was Mat and Lou and Jack and Lev,
   And Roger, of Taney hue,
   And Blair, the book,
   And Kendall, chief cook,
   And Isaac, surnamed the true."

Mat. Van Buren was Secretary of State, Lou. McLane Secretary of
the Treasury, John Branch was Secretary of the Navy, Lev. Woodbury
was his successor, and Roger B. Taney was Attorney-General.  Blair,
Kendall, and Isaac Hill were also known as "the kitchen cabinet."

The confidential advisers of General Jackson lost no time in
establishing a daily newspaper which would speak his sentiments
and sound a key-note for the guidance of his followers.  The
_Washington Globe_ was accordingly started on an immense paying
basis, as it had the name of every Federal office-holder whose
salary exceeded one thousand dollars on its subscription list.
The paper was sent them, and in due time the bill for a year.  If
a remittance was made, well and good; if payment was refused, the
delinquent was told informally that he could pay his subscription
to the _Globe_, or be replaced by some one else who would pay it.
It was owned and edited by Blair & Rives, Rives attending to the
business department of the establishment.  Mr. Blair had been the
partner of Amos Kendall in the publication of the Frankfort _Argus_,
and they had both deserted Henry Clay when they enlisted in the
movement which gave the electoral vote of Kentucky to General
Jackson, and joined in the cry of "bargain and corruption" raised
against their former friend.  It is related that the first interview
between Clay and Blair after this desertion was a very awkward one
for the latter, who felt that he had behaved shabbily.  Clay had
ridden over on horseback from Lexington to Frankfort, in the winter
season, on legal business, and on alighting from his horse at the
tavern door he found himself confronting Blair, who was just leaving
the house.  "How do you do, Mr. Blair?" inquired the great commoner,
in his silvery tones and blandest manner, at the same time extending
his hand.  Blair mechanically took the tendered hand, but was
evidently nonplussed, and at length said, with an evident effort,
"Pretty well, I thank you, sir.  How did you find the roads from
Lexington to here?"  "The roads are very bad, Mr. Blair," graciously
replied Clay, "very bad; and I wish, sir, that you would mend your
ways."

Mr. Blair made it a rule to defend in the columns of the _Globe_
the acts of Jackson's Administration, right or wrong, and he waged
merciless warfare against those who opposed them.  When Colonel
William R. King, of Alabama, once begged him to soften an attack
upon an erring Democrat, Mr. Blair replied, "No! let it tear his
heart out."  With all his political insolence, however, he possessed
remarkable kindness, and a more indulgent father was never known
in Washington.

The Washington papers, up to this time, contained very little of
what has since been known as local news.  A parade, an inauguration,
or the funeral of a distinguished person would receive brief mention,
but the pleasant gossip of the day was entirely ignored.  It was
then necessary for the correspondent of a paper in a northern city
to mail his letter at the post-office before twelve o'clock at
night to insure its departure by the early morning's mail northward.
Letters written to New York did not, consequently, appear until
the second day after they were written, while those sent to Boston
rarely appeared before the fourth day.  The people then were better
posted as to what transpired at the Nation's Capital than they are
now, when dispatches can be sent in a few moments at any time of
day or night.

Mrs. Anne Royall began an enterprise in personal literature.  She
managed to secure an old Ramage printing-press and a font of battered
long-primer type, with which, aided by runaway apprentices and
tramping journeymen printers, she published, on Capitol Hill, for
several years, a small weekly sheet called the _Huntress_.  Every
person of any distinction who visited Washington received a call
from Mrs. Royall, and if they subscribed for the _Huntress_ they
were described in the next number in a complimentary manner, but
if they declined she abused them without mercy.  When young she
was a short, plump, and not bad-looking woman, but as she advanced
in years her flesh disappeared, and her nose seemed to increase in
size; but her piercing black eyes lost none of their fire, while
her tongue wagged more abusively when her temper was roused.  John
Quincy Adams described her as going about "like a virago-errant in
enchanted armor, redeeming herself from the cramps of indigence by
the notoriety of her eccentricities and the forced currency they
gave to her publications."

Mrs. Royall's tongue at last became so unendurable that she was
formally indicted by the Grand Jury as a common scold, and was
tried in the Circuit Court before Judge Cranch.  His Honor charged
the jury at length, reviewing the testimony and showing that, if
found guilty, she must be ducked, in accordance with the English
law in force in the District of Columbia.  The jury found her
guilty, but her counsel begged his Honor, the Judge, to weigh the
matter and not be the first to introduce a ducking-stool.  The plea
prevailed and she was let off with a fine.

The first "Society Letters," as they were called, written from
Washington, were by Nathaniel P. Willis, to the New York _Mirror_.
Willis was at that time a foppish, slender young man, with a
profusion of curly, light hair, and was always dressed in the height
of fashion.  He had, while traveling in Europe, mingled with the
aristocratic classes, and he affected to look down upon the masses;
but with all his snobbishness he had a wonderful faculty for endowing
trifling occurrences with interest, and his letters have never been
surpassed.  He possessed a sunny nature, full of poetry, enthusiasm,
and cheerfulness, and was always willing to say a pleasant word
for those who treated him kindly, and never sought to retaliate on
his enemies.

Willis first introduced steel pens at Washington, having brought
over from England some of those made by Joseph Gillott, at Birmingham.
Before this goose-quill pens had been exclusively used, and there
was in each House of Congress and in each Department a penmaker,
who knew what degree of flexibility and breadth of point each writer
desired.  Every gentleman had to carry a penknife, and to have in
his desk a hone to sharpen it on, giving the finishing touches on
one of his boots.  Another new invention of that epoch was the
lucifer match-box, which superseded the large tin tinder-box with
its flint and steel.  The matches were in the upper portion of a
pasteboard case about an inch in diameter and six inches in length
and in a compartment beneath them was a bottle containing a chemical
preparation, into which the brimstone-coated end of the match was
dipped and thus ignited.

The Mayor of Washington, during a portion of the Jackson Administration,
was Peter Force, a noble specimen of those who, before the existence
of trades unions, used to serve an apprenticeship to the "art
preservative of arts," and graduate from the printing office
qualified to fill any political position.  Fond of American history,
Mr. Force, while printing the _Biennial Register_, better known as
the Blue Book from the color of its binding, began to collect
manuscripts, books, and pamphlets, many of which had been thrown
away in the executive departments as rubbish, and were purchased
by him from the dealers in waste paper.  In 1833 he originated the
idea of compiling and publishing a documentary history of the
country, under the title of the _American Archives_, and issued a
number of large folio volumes, the profits going to the politicians
who secured the necessary appropriations from Congress.  He was
emphatically a gentleman--tall, stalwart, with bushy black hair,
and large, expressive eyes, which would beam with joy whenever a
friend brought him a rare autograph or pamphlet.

Assemblies were held once a week between Christmas Day and Ash
Wednesday, to which all of the respectable ladies of the city who
danced were invited.  It was also customary for those of the Cabinet
officers and other high officials who kept house to give at least
one evening party during each session of Congress, invitations for
which were issued.  The guests at these parties used to assemble
at about eight o'clock, and after taking off their wraps in an
upper room they descended to the parlor, where the host and hostess
received them.  The older men then went to the punch-bowl to
criticise the "brew" which it contained, while the young people
found their way to the dining-room, almost invariably devoted to
dancing.  The music was a piano and two violins, and one of the
musicians called the figures for the cotillions and contra-dances.
Those who did not dance elbowed their way through the crowd,
conversing with acquaintances, the men frequently taking another
glass of punch.  At ten the guests were invited to the supper-table,
which was often on the wide back porch which every Washington house
had in those days.  The table was always loaded with evidences of
the culinary skill of the lady of the house.  There was a roast
ham at one end, a saddle of venison or mutton at the other end,
and some roasted poultry or wild ducks midway; a great variety of
home-baked cake was a source of pride, and there was never any lack
of punch, with decanters of Madeira.  The diplomats gave champagne,
but it was seldom seen except at the legations.  At eleven there
was a general exodus, and after the usual scramble for hats, cloaks,
and over-shoes the guests entered their carriages.  Sometimes a
few intimate friends of the hostess lingered to enjoy a contra-
dance or to take a parting drink of punch, but by midnight the last
guest departed, and the servants began to blow out the candles with
which the house had been illuminated.

In Jackson's first Administration the country was shocked by the
appearance of a book entitled, _The Domestic Manners of Americans_,
by Mrs. Frances Trollope.  She was a bright little Englishwoman,
who had come to this country and established a bazaar at Cincinnati,
which proved a failure.  So she sought revenge and wealth by a
caricature sketch of our pioneer life, founded on fact, but very
unpalatable.  Expectoration was her pet abomination, and she was
inclined to think that this "most vile and universal habit of
chewing tobacco" was the cause of a remarkable peculiarity in the
male physiognomy of Americans, the almost uniform thinness and
compression of their lips.  So often did Mrs. Trollope recur to
this habit that she managed to give one the impression that this
country was in those days a sort of huge spittoon.

Mrs. Trollope first called attention to the fact that American
women did not consult the season in either the colors or style of
their costumes, never wore boots, and walked in the middle of winter
with their pretty little feet pinched into miniature slippers
incapable of excluding as much moisture as might bedew a primrose.

Removals from office that places might be provided for Jackson men
were the order of the day, but President Jackson was not disposed
to displace any veteran soldier.  Among other victims designated
for removal by the politicians was General Solomon Van Rensselaer,
whose gallant services against Great Britain in the War of 1812
had been rewarded by an election to the House of Representatives,
followed by his appointment as Postmaster of Albany.  He was a
decided Federalist and the petition for his removal was headed by
Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright.

Visiting Washington, General Van Rensselaer received a cordial
greeting from General Jackson at a public reception, and then,
taking a seat in a corner, he waited until the room was cleared,
when he again approached the President, saying:  "General Jackson,
I have come here to talk to you about my office.  The politicians
want to take it from me, and they know I have nothing else to live
on."  The President made no reply, till the aged Postmaster began
to take off his coat in the most excited manner, when Old Hickory
broke out with the inquiry:  "What in Heaven's name are you going
to do?  Why do you take off your coat here?"  "Well, sir, I am
going to show you my wounds, which I received in fighting for my
country against the English!"  "Put it on at once, sir!" was the
reply; "I am surprised that a man of your age should make such an
exhibition of himself," and the eyes of the iron President were
suffused with tears, as, without another word, he bade his ancient
foe good evening.

The next day Messrs. Van Buren and Wright called at the White House
and were shown up into the President's room, where they found him
smoking a clay pipe.  Mr. Wright soon commenced to solicit the
removal of General Van Rensselaer, asserting that he had been known
as a very active advocate of John Quincy Adams; that he had literally
forfeited his place by his earnest opposition to the Jackson men,
and that if he were not removed the new Administration would be
seriously injured.  He had hardly finished the last sentence, when
Jackson sprang to his feet, flung his pipe into the fire, and
exclaimed with great vehemence, "I take the consequences, sir; I
take the consequences.  By the Eternal!  I will not remove the old
man--I cannot remove him.  Why, Mr. Wright, do you not know that
he carries more than a pound of British lead in his body?"  That
settled the question, and General Van Rensselaer remained undisturbed
as Postmaster at Albany through the Jackson Administration, although
Martin Van Buren, when he came into power, promptly "bounced" him.

General Jackson's defiant disposition was manifested when, in a
message to Congress, he recommended that a law be passed authorizing
reprisals upon French property in case provision should not be made
for the payment of the long-standing claims against France at the
approaching session of the French Chambers.  Some of his Cabinet,
having deemed this language too strong, had prevailed upon the
President's private secretary, Major Donelson, to modify it, and
to make it less irritating and menacing.  No sooner was it discovered
by General Jackson than he flew into a great excitement, and when
Mr. Rives entered his private office to obtain it for printing, he
found the old General busily engaged in re-writing it according to
the original copy.  "I know them French," said he.  "They won't
pay unless they're made to."

The French people were indignant when this message reached Paris,
and when the Chamber of Deputies finally provided for the payment
of the claims, a proviso was inserted ordering the money to be
withheld until the President of the United States had apologized
for the language used.  This General Jackson flatly refused to do,
and the "Ancient Allies" of the Revolution were on the verge of
hostilities, when both nations agreed to submit their differences
to Great Britain.  The affair was speedily arranged, and France
paid five millions of dollars for French spoilations into the
Treasury of the United States, where it has since remained.

[Facsimile]
  Silas Wright Jr.
SILAS WRIGHT, JR., was born at Amherst, Massachusetts, May 24th,
1795; was a Representative from New York in Congress, 1827-1829;
Comptroller of New York, 1829-1833; United States Senator, 1833-
1844; Governor of New York, 1844-1846; retired to his farm at
Canton, New York, and died there, August 27th, 1847.


CHAPTER VIII.
BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.

An unimportant resolution concerning the public lands, introduced
into the Senate early in 1830 by Senator Foote, of Connecticut (the
father of Admiral Foote), led to a general debate, which has been
since known as "the battle of the giants."  The discussion embraced
all the partisan issues of the time, especially those of a sectional
nature, including the alleged rights of a State to set the Federal
Government at defiance.  The State Rights men in South Carolina,
instigated by Mr. Calhoun, had been active during the preceding
summer in collecting material for this discussion, and they had
taken especial pains to request a search for evidence that Mr.
Webster had shown a willingness to have New England secede from
the Union during the second war with Great Britain.  The vicinity
of Portsmouth, where he had resided when he entered public life,
was, to use his own words, "searched as with a candle.  New Hampshire
was explored from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills."

Nor had Mr. Webster been idle.  He was not an extemporaneous speaker,
and he passed the summer in carefully studying, in his intervals
of professional duties, the great constitutional question which he
afterward so brilliantly discussed.  A story is told at Providence
about a distinguished lawyer of that place--Mr. John Whipple--who
was at Washington when Webster replied to Hayne, but who did not
hear the speech, as he was engaged in a case before the Supreme
Court when it was delivered.  When a report of what Mr. Webster
had said appeared in print, Mr. Whipple read it, and was haunted
by the idea that he had heard or read it before.  Meeting Mr.
Webster soon afterward, he mentioned this idea to him and inquired
whether it could possibly have any foundation in fact.  "Certainly
it has," replied Mr. Webster.  "Don't you remember our conversations
during the long walks we took together last summer at Newport,
while in attendance on Story's court?"  It flashed across Mr.
Whipple's mind that Mr. Webster had then rehearsed the legal argument
of his speech and had invited criticism.

As the debate on the Foote resolution progressed, it revealed an
evident intention to attack New England, and especially Massachusetts.
This brought Mr. Webster into the arena, and he concluded a brief
speech by declaring that, as a true representative of the State
which had sent him into the Senate, it was his duty and a duty
which he should fulfill, to place her history and her conduct, her
honor and her character, in their just and proper light.  A few
days later, Mr. Webster heard his State and himself mercilessly
attacked by General Hayne, of South Carolina, no mean antagonist.
The son of a Revolutionary hero who had fallen a victim to British
cruelty, highly educated, with a slender, graceful form, fascinating
deportment, and a well-trained, mellifluous voice, the haughty
South Carolinian entered the lists of the political tournament like
Saladin to oppose the Yankee Coeur de Lion.

When Mr. Webster went to the Senate Chamber to reply to General
Hayne, on Tuesday, January 20th, 1830, he felt himself master of
the situation.  Always careful about his personal appearance when
he was to address an audience, he wore on that day the Whig uniform,
which had been copied by the Revolutionary heroes--a blue dress-
coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and a high, white
cravat.  Neither was he insensible to the benefits to be derived
from publicity, and he had sent a request to Mr. Gales to report
what he was to say himself, rather than to send one of his
stenographers.  The most graphic account of the scene in the Senate
Chamber during the delivery of the speech was subsequently written
virtually from Mr. Webster's dictation.  Perhaps, like Mr. Healy's
picture of the scene, it is rather high-colored.

Sheridan, after his forty days' preparation, did not commence his
scathing impeachment of Warren Hastings with more confidence that
was displayed by Mr. Webster when he stood up, in the pride of his
manhood, and began to address the interested mass of talent,
intelligence, and beauty around him.  A man of commanding presence,
with a well-knit, sturdy frame, swarthy features, a broad, thoughtful
forehead, courageous eyes gleaming from beneath shaggy eyebrows,
a quadrangular breadth of jawbone, and a mouth which bespoke strong
will, he stood like a sturdy Roundhead sentinel on guard before
the gates of the Constitution.  Holding in profound contempt what
he termed spread-eagle oratory, his only gesticulations were up-and-
down motions of his arm, as if he were beating out with sledge-
hammers his forcible ideas.  His peroration was sublime, and every
loyal American heart has since echoed the last words, "Liberty and
union--now and forever--one and inseparable!"

Mr. Webster's speech, carefully revised by himself, was not published
until the 23d of February, and large editions of it were circulated
throughout the Northern States.  The debate was continued, and it
was the 21st of May before Colonel Benton, who had been the first
defamer of New England, brought it to a close.  The Northern men
claimed for Mr. Webster the superiority, but General Jackson praised
the speech of Mr. Hayne, and deemed his picture worthy to occupy
a place in the White House, thus giving expression to the general
sentiment among the Southerners.  This alarmed Mr. Van Buren, who
was quietly yet shrewdly at work to defeat the further advancement
of Mr. Calhoun, and he lost no time in demonstrating to the imperious
old soldier who occupied the Presidential chair that the South
Carolina doctrine of nullification could but prove destructive to
the Union.

Mr. Calhoun was not aware of this intrigue, and, in order to
strengthen his State Rights policy, he organized a public dinner
on the anniversary of Jefferson's birthday, April 13th, 1830.  When
the toasts which were to be proposed were made public in advance,
according to the custom, it was discovered that several of them
were strongly anti-tariff and State Rights in sentiment--so much
so that a number of Pennsylvania tariff Democrats declined to
attend, and got up a dinner of their own.  General Jackson attended
the dinner, but he went late and retired early, leaving a volunteer
toast, which he had carefully prepared at the White House, and
which fell like a damper upon those at the dinner, while it
electrified the North, "The Federal Union--it must and shall be
maintained!"  This toast, which could not be misunderstood, showed
that General Jackson would not permit himself to be placed in the
attitude of a patron of doctrines which could lead only to a
dissolution of the Federal Government.  But the Committee on
Arrangements toned it down, so that it appeared in the official
report of the dinner, "Our Federal Union--it must be preserved!"

This was a severe blow to Mr. Calhoun, who had labored earnestly
to break down Mr. Adams' Administration, without respect to its
measures, that a Democratic party might be built up which would
first elect General Jackson, and then recognize Calhoun as legitimate
successor to the Presidential chair.  His discomfiture was soon
completed by the publication of a letter from Mr. Crawford, which
informed the President that Calhoun, when in the Cabinet of Monroe,
proposed that "General Jackson should be punished in some form"
for his high-handed military rule in Florida.  Van Buren secretly
fanned the flames of General Jackson's indignation, and adroitly
availed himself of a "tempest in a tea-pot" to complete the downfall
of his rival.

The woman used as a tool by Mr. Van Buren for the overthrow of Mr.
Calhoun's political hopes was a picturesque and prominent figure
in Washington society then and during the next fifty years.  The
National Metropolis in those days resembled, as has been well said,
in recklessness and extravagance, the spirit of the English
seventeenth century, so graphically portrayed in _Thackeray's
Humorist_, rather than the dignified caste of the nineteenth cycle
of Christianity.  Laxity of morals and the coolest disregard possible
characterized that period of our existence.

Mrs. General Eaton ruled Andrew Jackson as completely as he ruled
the Democratic party.  She was the daughter of William O'Neill, a
rollicking Irishman, who was in his day the landlord of what was
then the leading public house in Washington City.  Among other
Congressmen who were guests here was Andrew Jackson, then a Senator
from Tennessee.  It was here he became interested in the landlord's
brilliant daughter Margaret, called by her friends "Peg" O'Neill.
Before she was sixteen years of age she married a handsome naval
officer, John Bowie Timberlake.  He died--some say that he committed
suicide--at Port Mahon, in 1828, leaving his accounts as purser in
a very mixed condition.  After the death of Timberlake, Commodore
Patterson ordered Lieutenant Randolph to take the purser's books
and perform the duties of purser.  On the return home of the
Constitution it was discovered that Timberlake or Randolph was a
defaulter to the Government to a very large amount.  A court of
inquiry was held on Randolph and he was acquitted, but Amos Kendall,
the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury Department, charged the defalcation
to Randolph.  President Jackson, notwithstanding the decision of
the court, dismissed Lieutenant Randolph from the Navy, and refused
to give him a hearing.

The Lieutenant, infuriated by his disgrace and pecuniary ruin, in
a state of excitement pulled the President's nose in the cabin of
a steamboat at the Alexandria wharf.  He was immediately seized
and thrust on shore, the President declaring that he was able to
punish him.  He charged that Jackson dismissed him and sustained
Kendall's decision in order to save General Eaton, who was Timberlake's
bondsman, from having to make good the defalcation.

General Eaton, who had boarded with his friend, General Jackson,
at O'Neill's tavern, soon afterward married the Widow Timberlake,
who was then one of those examples of that Irish beauty, which,
marked by good blood, so suggests both the Greek and the Spaniard,
and yet at times presents a combination which transcends both.
Her form, of medium height, straight and delicate, was of perfect
proportions.  Her skin was of that delicate white, tinged with red,
which one often sees among even the poorer inhabitants of the Green
Isle.  Her dark hair, very abundant, clustered in curls about her
broad, expressive forehead.  Her perfect nose, of almost Grecian
proportions, and finely curved mouth, with a firm, round chin,
completed a profile of faultless outlines.  She was in Washington
City what Aspasia was in Athens--the cynosure by whose reflected
radiance

  "Beauty lent her smile to wit,
   And learning by her star was lit."

General Jackson had come to Washington with a sad heart, breathing
vengeance against those who had defamed his wife during the
Presidential canvass, thereby, as he thought, hastening her death.
This made him the sworn and unyielding foe of all slanderers of
women, and when some of the female tabbies of the Capital began to
drag the name of his old friend "Peg," then the wife of General
Eaton, through the mire, he was naturally indignant, and showed
his respect for her by having her a frequent guest at the White
House.  Enchanting, ambitious, and unscrupulous, she soon held the
old hero completely under her influence, and carried her griefs to
him.  Mr. Van Buren adroitly seconded her, and the gallant old
soldier swore "by the Eternal" that the scandalmongers who had
embittered the last years of his beloved wife, Rachel, should not
triumph over his "little friend Peg."

This was Van Buren's opportunity.  He was a widower, keeping house
at Washington, and as Secretary of State he was able to form an
alliance with the bachelor Ministers of Great Britain and Russia,
each of whom had spacious residences.  A series of dinners, balls,
and suppers was inaugurated at these three houses, and at each
successive entertainment Mrs. Eaton was the honored guest, who led
the contra-dance, and occupied the seat at table on the right of
the host.  Some respectable ladies were so shocked by her audacity
that they would leave a room when she entered it.  She was openly
denounced by clergymen, and she found herself in positions which
would have covered almost any other woman in Washington with shame.
Mrs. Eaton, who apparently did not possess a scruple as to the
propriety of her course, evidently enjoyed the situation, and used
to visit General Jackson every day with a fresh story of the insults
paid her.  Yet she gave no evidences of diplomacy nor of political
sagacity, but was a mere beautiful, passionate, impulsive puppet,
held up by General Jackson, while Mr. Van Buren adroitly pulled
the strings that directed her movements.

Mr. Calhoun, whose wife was foremost among those ladies who positively
refused to associate with Mrs. Eaton, said to a friend of General
Jackson's, who endeavored to effect a reconciliation, that "the
quarrels of women, like those of the Medes and Persians, admitted
of neither inquiry nor explanation."  He knew well, however, that
it was no women's quarrel, but a political game of chess played by
men who were using women as their pawns, and he lost the game.
Van Buren and Eaton next tendered their resignations as Cabinet
officers, which General Jackson refused to accept; whereupon the
Cabinet officers whose wives declined to call on Mrs. Eaton resigned,
and their resignations were promptly accepted.  The whole city was
in a turmoil.  Angry men walked about with bludgeons, seeking
"satisfaction;" duels were talked of; old friendships were severed;
and every fresh indignity offered his "little friend Peg" endeared
her the more to General Jackson, who was duly grateful to Van Buren
for having espoused her cause.  "It is odd enough," wrote Daniel
Webster to a personal friend, "that the consequences of this dispute
in the social and fashionable world are producing great political
effects, and may very probably determine who shall be successor to
the present Chief Magistrate."

Junius Brutus Booth was the delight of the Washington playgoers in
the Jackson Administration.  His wonderful impersonations of Richard
III., Iago, King Lear, Othello, Shylock, and Sir Giles Overreach
were as grand as his private life was intemperate and eccentric.
He was a short, dumpy man, with features resembling those of the
Roman Emperors, before his nose was broken in a quarrel, and his
deportment on the stage was imperially grand.  He had a farm in
Maryland, and at one time he undertook to supply a Washington hotel
with eggs, milk, and chickens, but he soon gave it up.  His instant
and tremendous concentration of passion in his delineations
overwhelmed his audience and wrought it into such enthusiasm that
it partook of the fever of inspiration surging through his own
veins.  He was not lacking in the power to comprehend and portray
with marvelous and exquisite delicacy the subtle shades of character
that Shakespeare loved to paint, and his impersonations were a
delight to the refined scholar as well as the uncultivated backwoodsmen
who crowded to his performances.

The Washington Theatre was not well patronized, but the strolling
proprietors of minor amusements reaped rich harvests of small silver
coins.  The circus paid its annual visit, to the joy of the rural
Congressmen and the negroes, who congregated around its sawdust
ring, applauding each successive act of horsemanship and laughing
at the repetition of the clown's old jokes; a daring rope-dancer,
named Herr Cline, performed his wonderful feats on the tight rope
and on the slack wire; Finn gave annual exhibitions of fancy glass-
blowing; and every one went to see "the living skeleton," a tall,
emaciated young fellow named Calvin Edson, compared with whom
Shakespeare's starved apothecary was fleshy.

General Jackson turned a deaf ear to the numerous applications made
to him for charity.  At one time when he was President a large
number of Irish immigrants were at work on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal in Georgetown, and, the weather being very hot, many of them
were prostrated by sunstroke and bilious diseases.  They were
without medical aid, the necessities of life, or any shelter except
the shanties in which they were crowded.  Their deplorable condition
led to the formation of a society of Irish-Americans, with the
venerable Mr. McLeod, a noted instructor, as president.  A committee
from this Society waited on the President for aid, and Mr. McLeod
made known the object of their visit.  General Jackson interrupted
him by saying that he "entirely disapproved of the Society; that
the fact of its existence would induce these fellows to come one
hundred miles to get the benefit of it; that if the treasury of
the United States were at his disposal it could not meet the demands
that were daily made upon him, and he would not be driven from the
White House by a beggar-man, like old Jim Monroe."

Colonel Samuel Swartwout, of Hoboken, was an old personal friend
of General Jackson, and when "the Hickory Broom" began to sweep
out the old office-holders, in obedience to the maxim, "To the
victors belong the spoils," the Colonel was an applicant for the
then lucrative position of Collector of the Port of New York.  Van
Buren was against him, and used many arguments with Jackson to
prevent the appointment; but after a patient hearing, Old Hickory
closed the case by bringing his fist down upon the table and
exclaiming, "By the Eternal!  Sam, Swartwout _shall_ be Collector
of the Port of New York!"  He was appointed and became the prey of
political swindlers, spending the public moneys right regally until
his accounts were overhauled, and he "Swartwouted" (to use a word
coined at the time) to avoid a criminal prosecution.  He remained
abroad for many years, and I think died in Europe.

Francis S. Key was United States Attorney for the district of
Washington during the Jackson Administration.  He was a small,
active man, having an earnest and even anxious expression of
countenance, as if care sat heavily upon him.  In composing the
heroic song of the "Star-Spangled Banner," after he had witnessed
the unsuccessful night attack of the British on Fort McHenry, he,
in a measure, associated himself with the glory of his country.
He was a man of very ardent religious character, and some of the
most poetic and popular of the hymns used in religious worship were
from his pen.

[Facsimile]
  Danl Webster
DANIEL WEBSTER was born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18th,
1782; was a Representative from New Hampshire in Congress, 1813-
1817, and removing to Boston, a Representative from Massachusetts,
1823-1827; United States Senator, 1827-1841; Secretary of State
under Presidents Harrison and Tyler, 1841-1843; United States
Senator, 1845-1850; Secretary of State under President Fillmore
from 1850 until his death at Marshfield, Massachusetts, October
14th, 1852.


CHAPTER IX.
THE STAMPING OUT OF NULLIFICATION.

The rejection by the Senate of the nomination of Martin Van Buren
as Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, was an act of
retributive justice, carried out on the very spot where, five years
before, he had formed the combination which overthrew the Administration
of John Quincy Adams.  John C. Calhoun, who was the organizer of
the rejection of Mr. Van Buren, thought that he had obtained pledges
of a sufficient number of votes; but just before the ayes and noes
were called Mr. Webster left the Senate Chamber, and going down
into the Supreme Court room remained there until the vote had been
taken.  Mr. Calhoun consequently found himself one vote short, and
had to give the casting vote, as President of the Senate, which
rejected the nomination of his rival, who was already in England,
where he had been received with marked attention.

Returning to the United States, Mr. Van Buren was warmly welcomed
at the White House as a victim of Mr. Calhoun's opposition to the
President, and he was soon recognized by the Democratic party as
their heir-apparent to the Presidency.  His appearance at that time
was impressive.  He was short, solidly built, with a bald head,
and with bushy side-whiskers, which framed his florid features.
He added the grace and polish of aristocratic English society to
his natural courtesy, and it was his evident aim never to provoke
a controversy, while he used every exertion to win new friends and
retain old ones.  After he had been elected Vice-President, he sat
day after day in the chair of the Senate, apparently indifferent
alike to the keen thrusts of Calhoun, the savage blows of Webster,
and the gibes of Clay.  He well knew that General Jackson would
regard every assault on him as aimed at the Administration, and
that his chances for the succession would thereby be strengthened.
Charges of political chicanery were brought against him in shapes
more varied than that of Proteus and thick as the leaves that strew
the vale of Valombrosa; but he invariably extricated himself by
artifice and choice management, earning the sobriquet of "the Little
Magician."  He could not be provoked into a loss of temper, and he
would not say a word while in the chair except as connected with
his duties as presiding officer, when he spoke in gentle but
persuasive tones, singularly effective from the clearness of his
enunciation and his well-chosen emphasis.

Mr. Van Buren, who was then a widower, kept house on Pennsylvania
Avenue, about half way between the White House and Georgetown,
where he not only gave dinner parties to his political friends,
but entertained their wives and daughters at evening whist parties.
Gentlemen and ladies were alike used for the advancement of his
schemes for the succession and for retaining his position in the
estimation of General Jackson.  On one occasions he said to Mrs.
Eaton that he had been reading much and thinking deeply on the
characters of great men, and had come to the conclusion that General
Jackson was the greatest man that had ever lived--the only man
among them all who was without a fault.  "But," he added, "don't
tell General Jackson what I have said.  I would not have him know
it for all the world."  Of course, it was not long before Mrs.
Eaton repeated the conversation to General Jackson.  "Ah, madam!"
said Old Hickory, the tears starting in his eyes, "that man loves
me; he tries to conceal it, but there is always some way fixed by
which I can tell my friends from my enemies."

Mr. Van Buren was noted for his willingness to sign applications
for office, and he used to tell a good story illustrating his
readiness to oblige those who solicited his aid.  When Governor of
the State of New York, a lawyer called upon him to get a convict
pardoned from the penitentiary, and stated the case, which was a
clear one.  "Have you the papers?" he asked.  "If so, I will sign
them."  "Here they are," said the lawyer, producing a bulky document,
and the Governor indorsed them:  "Let pardon be granted.  M. Van
Buren."  He then left for the office of the Secretary of State,
but soon returned.  "Governor," said he, "I made a mistake, and
you indorsed the wrong paper."  He had presented for the official
indorsement the marriage settlement of an Albany belle about to
marry a spendthrift.

To ingratiate himself further with General Jackson, and to strengthen
the Democratic party, whose votes he relied upon to elevate him to
the Presidency, Mr. Van Buren organized the war against the United
States Bank.  General Jackson was opposed to this institution before
he became President, and it was not a difficult task to impress
upon his mind that the Bank was an unconstitutional monopoly, which
defied the legislative acts of sovereign States, which was suborning
the leading newspapers and public men of the country, and which
was using every means that wealth, political chicanery, and legal
cunning could devise to perpetuate its existence.  All this the
honest old soldier in time believed, and it was then not difficult
to impress him with a desire to combat this "monster," as he called
the bank, and to act as the champion of the people in killing the
dragon which was endeavoring to consume their fortunes.  When a
committee of wealthy business men from Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia waited on him with a remonstrance against his financial
policy, he gave them such a reception that they felt very uncomfortable
and were glad to get away.

The Democratic politicians and presses heartily seconded their
chieftain in this war, promising the people "Benton mint-drops
instead of rag-money."  Jackson clubs were everywhere organized,
having opposite to the tavern or hall used as their headquarters
a hickory-tree, trimmed of all its foliage except a tuft at the
top.  Torch-light processions, then organized for the first time,
used to march through the streets of the city or village where they
belonged, halting in front of the houses of prominent Jackson men
to cheer, while before the residences of leading Whigs they would
often tarry long enough to give six or nine groans.  Editors of
newspapers which supported the Administration were forced to advocate
its most ultra measures and to denounce its opponents, or they were
arraigned as traitors, and if satisfactory excuses could not be
made, they were read out of the party.  Among these thus excommunicated
was Mr. James Gordon Bennett, who had edited the Philadelphia
_Pennsylvanian_.

Nicholas Biddle, its president, managed the affairs of the Bank of
the United States with consummate ability.  His trials in the bitter
contest waged against him and the institution which he represented
were almost as manifold as those that tested the patience of Job;
and he bore them with equal meekness so far as temper was concerned,
but when duty required he never failed to meet his opponents with
decision and effect.  The Bank had to discount the worthless notes
of a number of Congressmen and editors, whose support, thus purchased,
did more harm than good.  Mr. Biddle had also incurred the hostility
of Isaac Hill and other influential Jackson men because he would
not remove the non-partisan presidents and cashiers of the branches
of the Bank in their respective localities, and appoint in their
places zealous henchmen of the Administration.

General Jackson was triumphantly re-elected in November, 1832,
receiving two hundred and nineteen of the two hundred and eighty-
eight electoral votes cast, while Martin Van Buren received one
hundred and eighty-nine electoral votes for Vice-President.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, and
Kentucky cast forty-nine electoral votes for Henry Clay and John
Sargent.  Vermont gave her seven electoral votes for the anti-
Masonic candidates, William Wirt and William Ellmaker, while South
Carolina bestowed her eleven electoral votes on John Floyd, of
Virginia, and Henry Lee, of Massachusetts, neither of whom were
nullifiers.  Some of the Jackson newspapers, while rejoicing over
his re-election, nominated him for a third term, and William Wirt
wrote:  "My opinion is that he may be President for life if he
chooses."

The ordeal of re-election having been passed, President Jackson
and his supporters carried out the programme which had before been
decided upon.  The removal of the Government deposits from the
United States Bank gave rise to stormy debates in Congress, and
the questionable exercise of Executive authority met with a fierce,
unrelenting opposition from the Whigs.

The debates in the Senate on the Bank and attendant financial
questions were very interesting, but the audiences were necessarily
small.  The circumscribed accommodations of the Senate Chamber were
insufficient, and while the ladies generally managed to secure
seats, either in the galleries or on the floor, the gentlemen had
to content themselves with uncomfortable positions, leaning against
pillars or peeping through doorways.  Mr. Van Buren, as Vice-
President, presided with great dignity, and endeavored to conciliate
those Senators who were his rivals for the succession, but he had
often to hear his political course mercilessly criticised by them.

John C. Calhoun, who resigned the position of Vice-President that
he might be elected a Senator from South Carolina, differed from
his great contemporaries in the possession of a private character
above reproach.  Whether this arose from the preponderance of the
intellectual over the animal in his nature, or the subjection of
his passions by discipline, was never determined by those who knew
the gifted South Carolinian best; but such was the fact.  His
enemies could find no opprobrious appellation for him but "Catiline,"
instead of "Caldwell," which was his middle name--no crime but
ambition.  He disregarded the unwritten laws of the Senate, which
required Senators to appear in dress suits of black broadcloth,
and asserted his State pride and State independence by wearing,
when the weather was warm, a suit of nankeen, made from nankeen
cotton grown in South Carolina.  Mr. Calhoun had a pale and attenuated
look, as if in bad health; his long black hair was combed up from
his forehead and fell over the back of his head, and his thin lips
increased the effect of the acute look with which he always regarded
those around him.  His personal intercourse with friends was
characterized by great gentleness of manner; he was an affectionate
and a devoted husband and father, and Webster truly remarked of
him that "he had no recreations, and never seemed to feel the
necessity of amusement."

Disappointed in his aspirations for the Presidency of the United
States, Mr. Calhoun conceived the idea of dissolving the Union and
establishing a Southern Confederacy, of which he would be the Chief
Executive.  One of his projects, fearing that the success of the
main plot would be too long delayed for any benefit to inure to
him, was a proposed amendment to the Constitution, to make two
Presidents exist at the same time--one from the South and the other
from the other sections--and no act in regard to the interests of
the South was to be passed without the consent of the President
for that section.  Of course, his plan was looked upon as puerile,
if not mischievous, and failed to attract much attention.  His
whole soul was then bent on his main scheme, and he enlisted warm,
ardent, and talented followers in behalf of it; but little headway
was made in it outside of South Carolina.

President Jackson knew well what was going on, and was determined
that the law should be put into execution, not against misguided
followers, but against Calhoun, the chief conspirator.  Calhoun,
hearing that Jackson had resolved upon his prosecution and trial,
and, if convicted, his execution for treason, sent Letcher, of
Kentucky, to confer with him and to learn his real intentions.
The President received Letcher with his usual courtesy; but that
mild blue eye, which at times would fill with tears like that of
a woman, was kindled up that night with unwonted fire.  He explained
the situation to Letcher, and concluded by telling him that if
another step was taken, "by the Eternal!" he would try Calhoun for
treason, and, if convicted, he would hang him on a gallows as high
as Haman.

Letcher saw that Jackson was terribly in earnest, and hastened to
the lodgings of Calhoun, who had retired, but received him sitting
up in bed with his cloak around him.  Letcher detailed all that
had occurred, giving entire the conversation with Jackson, and
described the old hero as he took that oath.

There sat Calhoun, drinking in eagerly every word, and, as Letcher
proceeded, he turned pale as death, and, great as he was in intellect,
trembled like an aspen leaf, not from fear or cowardice, but from
the consciousness of guilt.  He was the arch traitor, who like
Satan in Paradise, "brought death into the world and all our woe."
Within one week he came into the Senate and voted--voted for every
section of Mr. Clay's bill--and President Jackson was prevailed
upon not to prosecute him for his crime.

During the last days of General Jackson at the Hermitage, while
slowly sinking under the ravages of consumption, he was one day
speaking of his Administration, and with glowing interest he inquired
of the physician:

"What act in my Administration, in your opinion, will posterity
condemn with the greatest severity?"

The physician replied that he was unable to answer, that it might
be the removal of the deposits.

"Oh! no," said the General.

"Then it may be the specie circular?"

"Not at all!"

"What is it, then?"

"I can tell you," said Jackson, rising in his bed, his eyes kindling
up--"I can tell you; posterity will condemn me more because I was
persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any
other act in my life."

Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne was made the key-note of the
resistance by the Administration to Jefferson's assertion adopted
by Calhoun, "Where powers have been assumed which have not been
delegated, nullification is the rightful remedy."  President
Jackson's proclamation against this doctrine of nullification--the
germ of secession--was written by Edward Livingston, his Secretary
of State, and it has been said that it followed, throughout, the
doctrine maintained by Mr. Webster in his reply to Hayne, in 1830.
So remarkable was this adoption of Mr. Webster's argument, that
popular opinion at that time regarded it as a manifest, but of
course a very excusable, plagiarism.  Mr. Webster, when the
proclamation was issued, was on his way to Washington, ignorant of
what had occurred.  At an inn in New Jersey he met a traveler just
from Washington.  Neither of them was known to the other.  Mr.
Webster inquired the news.  "Sir," said the gentleman, "the President
has issued a proclamation against the nullifiers, taken entirely
from Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne."  In the course of the ensuing
session, and not long after Mr. Webster reached the capital it
became necessary for the Administration to act.  Mr. Webster was
in the opposition, and, excepting in regard to the integrity of
the Union and the just power of the Government, there was a wide
gulf between the Administration and him.  He was absent from his
seat for several days when the Force bill was about to be introduced
as an Administration measure.  A portion of General Jackson's
original supporters hung back from that issue.  At this juncture
there was much inquiry among the President's friends in the House
as to where Mr. Webster was.  At length a member of General Jackson's
Cabinet went to Mr. Webster's rooms, told him the nature of the
bill about to be introduced, and asked him, as a public duty, to
go into the Senate and defend the bill and the President.  It is
well known to the whole country that Mr. Webster did so; and it is
known to me that General Jackson personally thanked him for his
powerful aid, that many of the President's best friends afterward
sought to make a union between him and Mr. Webster, and that nothing
continued to separate them but an irreconcilable difference of
opinion about the questions relating to the currency.

While Mr. Calhoun was undoubtedly the leading Democrat in the
Senate, after his return to that body, Mr. Benton was the recognized
leader of President Jackson's adherents in that body.  His fierce
opposition to "Biddle and the Bank," with his prediction that the
time would come when there would be no paper money, but when every
laboring man would have a knit silk purse, through the meshes of
which the gold coin within could be seen, obtained for him the
sobriquet of "Old Bullion."  His greatest triumph was the passage
of a resolution by the Senate "expunging" from its journal a
resolution censuring General Jackson for the removal of deposits
from the Bank of the United States.  This expunging resolution was
kept before the Senate for nearly three years, and was then passed
by only five majority.  The closing debate was able and exhaustive,
Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, Thomas Ewing, William C. Rives,
William Hendricks, John M. Niles, Richard H. Bayard, and others
participating, while Daniel Webster read a protest signed by himself
and his sturdy colleague, John Davis.  The Democrats had provided
a bountiful supply of refreshments in the room of the Committee on
Finance, and several Senators showed by their actions that they
were not members of the then newly organized Congressional Temperance
Society, before which Mr. Webster had delivered a brief address.
After the final vote--twenty-four years and nineteen nays--had been
taken, Mr. Benton moved that the Secretary carry into effect the
order of the Senate.  Then the Secretary, Mr. Asbury Dickens,
opening the manuscript journal of 1834, drew broad black lines
around the obnoxious resolution and wrote across its face:  "Expunged
by order of the Senate, this 16th day of January, in the year of
our Lord 1837."

No sooner had he concluded than hisses were heard, and Mr. King,
of Alabama, who occupied the chair, ordered the galleries to be
cleared, while Mr. Benton, in a towering rage, denounced the
offenders and demanded their arrest.  "Here is one," said he, "just
above me, that may be easily be identified--the bank ruffian."
Mr. King revoked his order to clear the galleries, but directed
the arrest of the person pointed out by Mr. Benton, who was soon
brought before the bar of the Senate.  It was Mr. Lloyd, a practicing
lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not permitted to say a word in
his own defense, but was soon discharged, after which the Senate
adjourned.

[Facsimile]
  Thomas H. Benton
THOMAS HART BENTON was born near Hillsborough, North Carolina,
March 14th, 1782; was United States Senator from Missouri, 1821-
1851; a Representative in Congress from Missouri, 1853-1855; was
defeated as a candidate for re-election to Congress in 1854, and
as candidate for Governor of Missouri in 1856, and died at Washington
City, April 10th, 1858.


CHAPTER X.
PROMINENT MEN OF JACKSON'S TIME.

Henry Clay, after his return to the Senate, was the recognized
leader of the Whig Senators, for he would recognize no leader.
His oratory was persuasive and spirit-stirring.  The fire of his
bright eyes and the sunny smile which lighted up his countenance
added to the attractions of his unequaled voice, which was equally
distinct and clear, whether at its highest key or lowest whisper--
rich, musical, captivating.  His action was the spontaneous offspring
of the passing thought.  He gesticulated all over.  The nodding of
his head, hung on a long neck, his arms, hands, fingers, feet, and
even his spectacles, his snuff-box, and his pocket-handkerchief,
aided him in debate.  He stepped forward and backward, and from
the right to the left, with effect.  Every thought spoke; the whole
body had its story to tell, and added to the attractions of his
able arguments.  But he was not a good listener, and he would often
sit, while other Senators were speaking, eating sticks of striped
peppermint candy, and occasionally taking a pinch of snuff from a
silver box that he carried, or from one that graced the table of
the Senate.

Occasionally, Mr. Clay was very imperious and displayed bad temper
in debate.  Once he endeavored to browbeat Colonel Benton, bringing
up "Old Bullion's" personal recontre with General Jackson, and
charging the former with having said that, should the latter be
elected President, Congress must guard itself with pistols and
dirks.  This Colonel Benton pronounced "an atrocious calumny."
"What," retorted Mr. Clay, "can you look me in the face, sir, and
say that you never used that language?"  "I look," said Colonel
Benton, "and repeat that it is an atrocious calumny, and I will
pin it to him who repeats it here."  Mr. Clay's face flushed with
rage as he replied:  "Then I declare before the Senate that you
said the very words!"  "False! false! false!" shouted Colonel
Benton, and the Senators interfered, Mr. Tazewell, who was in the
chair, calling the belligerents to order.  After some discussion
of the questions of order, Colonel Benton said:  "I apologize to
the Senate for the manner in which I have spoken--but not to the
Senator from Kentucky."  Mr. Clay promptly added:  "To the Senate
I also offer an apology--to the Senator from Missouri, none!"  Half
an hour afterwards they shook hands, as lawyers often do who have
just before abused each other in court.

On another occasion, General Smith, of Baltimore, a Revolutionary
hero upward of eighty years of age, who had been a member of Congress
almost forty years, was one day the object of Henry Clay's wrath.
The old General, who had fought gallantly in the Revolutionary
struggle and taken up arms again in the War of 1812, was offensively
bullied by Mr. Clay, who said:  "The honorable gentleman was in
favor of manufactures in 1822, but he has turned--I need not use
the word--he has thus abandoned manufactures.  Thus

  "'Old politicians chew on wisdom past
    And totter on, in blunders, to the last.'"

The old General sprang to his feet.  "The last allusion," said he,
"is unworthy of a gentleman.  Totter, sir, I totter!  Though some
twenty years older than the gentleman, I can yet stand firm, and
am yet able to correct his errors.  I could take a view of the
gentleman's course, which would show how consistent he has been."
Mr. Clay exclaimed, angrily:  "Take it, sir, take it--I dare you!"
Cries of "Order."  "No, sir," said Mr. Smith, "I will not take it.
I will not so far disregard what is due to the dignity of the
Senate."

While Mr. Clay was generally imperious in debate, and not overcautious
in his choice of phrases and epithets, he was fond of a joke, and
often indulged, in an undertone, in humorous comments on the remarks
by other Senators.  Sometimes he would be very happy in his
illustrations, and make the most of some passing incident.  One
afternoon, when he was replaying to a somewhat heated opponent, a
sudden squall came up and rattled the window curtain so as to
produce a considerable noise.  The orator stopped short in the
midst of his remarks and inquired aloud, what was the matter; and
then, as if divining the cause of the disturbance, he said:  "Storms
seem to be coming in upon us from all sides."  The observation,
though trivial as related, was highly amusing under the circumstances
which gave rise to it and from the manner in which it was uttered.

When Henry Clay returned to the Senate, Daniel Webster yielded to
him the leadership of the Whigs in that body, but in no way sacrificed
his own independence.  "The Great Expounder of the Constitution,"
as he was called, was then in the prime of life, and had not began
those indulgences which afterward exercised such injurious effects
upon him.  He would also occasionally indulge in a grim witticism.
On one occasion, when a Senator who was jeering another for some
pedantry said, "The honorable gentleman may proceed to quote from
Crabbe's Synonyms, from Walker and Webster"--"Not from Walker and
Webster," exclaimed the Senator from Massachusetts, "for the
authorities may disagree!"  At another time, when he was speaking
on the New York Fire bill, the Senate clock suddenly began to
strike, and after it had struck continuously for about fourteen or
fifteen times, Mr. Webster stopped, and said to the presiding
officer, "The clock is out of order, sir--I have the floor."  The
occupant of the chair looking rebukingly at the refractory time-
piece, but in defiance of the officers and rules of the House, it
struck about forty before the Sergeant-at-Arms could stop it, Mr.
Webster standing silent, while every one else was laughing.

On another occasion, while Mr. Webster was addressing the Senate
in presenting a memorial, a clerical-looking person in one of the
galleries arose and shouted:  "My friends, the country is on the
brink of destruction!  Be sure that you act on correct principles.
I warn you to act as your consciences may approve.  God is looking
down upon you, and if you act on correct principles you will get
safely through."  He then deliberately stepped back, and retired
from the gallery before the officers of the Senate could reach him.
Mr. Webster was, of course, surprised at this extraordinary
interruption; but when the shrill voice of the enthusiast had
ceased, he coolly resumed his remarks, saying, "As the gentleman
in the gallery has concluded, I will proceed."

Mr. Cuthbert, of Georgia, was much provoked, one day, by a scathing
denunciation of his State by Mr. Clay for the manner in which she
had treated the Cherokee Indians.  As the eloquent Kentuckian dwelt
more in sorrow than in anger upon the wrongs and outrages perpetrated
in Georgia upon the unoffending aborigines within her borders, many
of his hearers were affected to tears, and he himself was obviously
deeply moved.  No sooner did Mr. Clay resume his seat than Mr.
Cuthbert sprang to his feet, and in an insolent tone alluded to
what he called the theatrical manner of the speaker.  "What new
part will Roscius next enact?" said the Senator from Georgia, coming
forward from his desk and standing in the area of the hall.  He
was a man of about the ordinary height, with a round face pitted
with the smallpox, small, dark eyes, and a full forehead.  As he
spoke he twirled his watch-key incessantly with his right hand,
while his left was flung about in the most unmeaning and awkward
gestures.  He twisted his body right and left, forward and backward,
as if he were a Chinese mandarin going through a stated number of
evolutions before his emperor; in fact, he had "all the contortions
of the sybil, without her inspiration."  To this display Mr. Clay
seemed entirely oblivious, but after Judge White, of Tennessee,
had discussed the pending question, Mr. Clay rose, saying, that he
would reply to this gentleman's remarks as "they alone were worthy
of notice."

In the House of Representatives, during the Jackson Administration,
sectional topics were rife, sectional jealousies were high, and
partisan warfare was unrelenting.  Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia,
who was triumphantly re-elected as Speaker for four successive
terms, understood well how to keep down the boiling caldron, and
to exercise stern authority, tempered with dignity and courtesy,
over heated passions of the fiercest conflicting character.  When
he was transferred from the Speaker's chair to the Court of St.
James, John Bell, of Tennessee, an old supporter of General Jackson,
became his successor for the remainder of that session, but at the
commencement of the next Congress Mr. Van Buren secured the election
of James K. Polk.  Mr. Bell, on his next visit to Nashville, threw
down the gauntlet, in an able speech, and nominated Judge White.
This was the foundation of the White party, which had, as its
editorial henchman, the Rev. Mr. Brownlow, known as "the fighting
Parson," who soon acquired a national reputation by his defiant
personalities in debate and by his trenchant editorial articles in
the newspapers of East Tennessee.  Mr. Brownlow was at that time
a tall, spare man, with long, black hair, black eyes, and a sallow
complexion.  He was devoted to the Methodist Church and to the
White--afterward the Whig--party, and the denominational doctrines
of immersion and the political dogmas of emancipation from slavery
were objects of his intense hatred.

While Mr. Stevenson was Speaker, General Samuel Houston, who had
been residing among the Indians on the Southwestern frontier for
several years, came to Washington.  Taking offense at some remarks
made in debate by Mr. Vance, a representative from Ohio, Houston
assaulted and severely pounded him.  The House voted that Houston
should be brought before the bar and reprimanded by the Speaker,
which was done, although Mr. Stevenson's reprimand was really
complimentary.  That night a friend of General Houston, with a
bludgeon and a pistol, attacked Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, who had
been active in securing the reprimand, but the latter soon got the
best of the encounter.

The first man elected to Congress as a representative of the rights
of the laboring classes was Eli Moore, a New York journeyman printer,
who had organized trades unions and successfully engineered several
strikes by mechanics against their employers.  He was a thin,
nervous man, with keen, dark hazel eyes, long black hair brushed
back behind his ears, and a strong, clear voice which rang through
the hall like the sound of a trumpet.  He especially distinguished
himself in a reply to General Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina,
who had denounced the mechanics of the North as willing tools of
the Abolitionists.  With impetuous force and in tones tremulous
with emotion, he denounced aristocracy and advocated the equality
of all men.  The House listened with attention, and a Southern
politician exclaimed to one of his old colleagues, "Why, this is
the high-priest of revolution singing his war song."  What added
to the effect of this remarkable speech was its dramatic termination.
Just as he had entered upon his peroration he grew deathly pale,
his eyes closed, his outstretched hands clutched at vacancy, he
reeled forward, and fell insensible.  His friends rushed to his
support, and his wife, who was in the gallery, screamed with terror.
His physician positively prohibited his speaking again, and in
subsequent years, when the Democratic party was in power, he enjoyed
the positions of Indian Agent under Polk, and of Land Agent under
Pierce.

Ransom H. Gillet, of the Ogdensburgh district, was one of the old
"Jackson Democratic War-Horses."  He was a man of commanding
presence, a ready speaker, and a famous manipulator of opinion at
Conventions.

By birth a North Carolinian, Churchill C. Cambreleng was by adoption
a New Yorker, and by strict attention to business he had become
one of the merchant princes of the commercial metropolis.  Thirty
years of age, with a commanding presence, a good voice, a ready
command of language, and a practical knowledge of financial matters,
he made an excellent Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means
and leader of the Jackson men in the House.

He carried business habits into Congress, and passed much of his
time at his desk, laboriously answering every letter addressed to
him by his constituents or others, or carefully examining papers
referred to his Committee.  But he was always on the alert, and if
in debate any political opponent let slip a word derogatory to the
Administration, Mr. Cambreleng was at once on his feet with a
pertinent retort or a skillful explanation.  He was noted for his
liberality, and neither the district charities or his needy
constituents ever appealed to him in vain.

The Whigs, during the Jackson Administration, made much of David
Crockett, of Tennessee, who was a thorn in the sides of the Democrats,
and they succeeded in having him defeated for one Congress, but he
was successful at the next election.  He was a true frontiersman,
with a small dash of civilization and a great deal of shrewdness
transplanted in political life.  He was neither grammatical nor
graceful, but no rudeness of language can disguise strong sense
and shrewdness, and a "demonstration," as Bulwer says, "will force
its way through all perversions of grammar."  Some one undertook
to publish his life, but he promptly denied the authenticity of
the work, and had a true memoir of himself written and published.
This was a successful literary venture, and he next published a
burlesque life of Van Buren, "heir apparent to the Government, and
appointed successor of Andrew Jackson," which, in the mixture of
truth, error, wit, sense, and nonsense in about equal parts, has
certainly the merit even at this day of being entertaining.
Crockett's favorite expression was, "Be sure you're right, then go
ahead."  When Texas commenced its struggle for independence he went
there, and was killed while gallantly fighting at San Antonio.
His son, John W. Crockett, served two terms in Congress, was Attorney-
General of Tennessee, edited a paper at New Orleans, and died at
Memphis in 1852.

Among the other members of the House of Representatives in Jackson's
time were several who afterward occupied high positions in the
Federal Government.  Franklin Pierce, a courteous gentleman, the
son of a brave Revolutionary soldier, had been sent from New
Hampshire by a large majority, and laid the foundation of personal
friendships upon which he afterward entered the White House as
President.  Millard Fillmore, hale and hearty in personal appearance,
represented his home at Buffalo.  He soon acquired a reputation
for performing his committee work with scrupulous fidelity, and
winning the confidence of his colleagues, while advancing on all
proper occasions the interests of his constituents, who rejoiced
when he became President after the death of Taylor.  James Knox
Polk, of Tennessee, a rigid Presbyterian, an uncompromising Democrat,
and a zealous Freemason, was another Representative who subsequently
became President.

There were several other prominent men in the House:  Richard Mentor
Johnson, a burly and slightly educated Kentucky Indian-fighter,
who enjoyed the reputation of having killed Tecumseh at the battle
of the Thames, was elected a few years later on the Van Buren ticket
Vice-President of the United States, but was defeated in the Harrison
campaign four years later; and John Bell, a Whig of commanding
presence and great practical sagacity, who was afterward Senator
and Secretary of War, and who was defeated when he ran on the
Presidential ticket of the Constitutional Union party, in 1860.
Elisha Whittlesey, of Ohio, who after sixteen years of Congressional
service became an auditor, and was known as "the Watch Dog of the
Treasury."  Tom Corwin, of the same State, with a portly figure,
swarthy complexion, and wonderful facial expression, and an
inexhaustible flow of wit, who was not a buffoon, but a gentleman
whose humor was natural, racy, and chaste.  Gulian C. Verplanck
and Thomas J. Oakley, two members of the New York bar, who represented
that city, were statesmen rather than politicians.  John Chambers,
of Kentucky, a gigantic economist, was ever ready to reform small
expenditures and willing to overlook large ones.  And then there
was the ponderous Dixon H. Lewis, of Alabama, the largest man who
ever occupied a seat in Congress--so large that chairs had to be
made expressly for his use.

General James Findlay, who had served creditably in the War of
1812, was a Jackson Democratic Representative in the days of the
contest between "Old Hickory" and "Biddle's Bank."  He was a type
of a gentleman of the old school, and he recalled Washington Irving's
picture of the master of Bracebridge Hall.  The bluff and hearty
manner, the corpulent person, and the open countenance of the
General, his dress of the aristocratic blue and buff, and his gold-
headed cane, all tallied with the descriptions of the English
country gentleman of the olden time.  He was greatly beloved in
Ohio, and several anecdotes are told of his kindness in enforcing
the claims of the United States, when he was Receiver of the District
Land Office, for lands sold on credit, as was the custom in those
days.  Upon one occasion there had been a time of general tightness
in money matters, and many farms in the region northeast of Cincinnati
but partly paid for were forfeited to the Government.  In the
discharge of his official duty General Findlay attended at the
place of sale.  He learned, soon after his arrival there, that many
speculators were present prepared to purchase these lands.  Mounting
a stump, he opened the sale.  He designated the lands forfeited,
and said that he was there to offer them to the highest bidder.
He said that the original purchasers were honest men, but that in
consequence of the hard times they had failed to meet their
engagements.  It was hard, thus to be forced from their homes
already partly paid for.  But the law was imperative, and the lands
must be offered.  "And now," continued he, "I trust that there is
no gentleman--no, I will not say that, I hope there is no rascal--
here so mean as to buy his neighbor's home over his head.  Gentlemen,
I offer this lot for sale.  Who bids?"  There was no forfeited land
sold that day.

A spirited bronze statue of Jefferson, by his admirer, the French
sculptor, David d'Angers, was presented to Congress by Lieutenant
Uriah P. Levy, but Congress declined to accept it, and denied it
a position in the Capitol.  It was then reverentially taken in
charge by two naturalized Irish citizens, stanch Democrats, and
placed on a small pedestal in front of the White House.  One of
these worshipers of Jefferson was the public gardener, Jemmy Maher,
the other was John Foy, keeper of the restaurant in the basement
of the Capitol, and famous for his witty sayings.  Prominent among
his _bon mots_ was an encomium of Representative Dawson, of Louisiana,
who was noted for his intemperate habits, the elaborate ruffles of
his shirts, and his pompous strut.  "He came into me place," said
Foy, "and after ateing a few oysters he flung down a Spanish dollar,
saying, 'Niver mind the change, Mr. Foy; kape it for yourself.'
Ah! there's a paycock of a gintleman for you."

[Facsimile]
  Richard Johnson
RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON was born at Bryant's Station, Kentucky,
October 17th, 1781; distinguished himself in the second war with
Great Britain, and in the Indian wars; was a Representative in
Congress from Kentucky, 1807-1813; was a United States Senator,
1820-1829; was again a Representative, 1829-1837; was Vice-President,
1837-1841; died at Frankfort, November 19th, 1850.


CHAPTER XI.
SOCIETY IN JACKSON'S TIME.

The most elegant estate in Washington in Jackson's time was the
Van Ness mansion, built on the bank of the Potomac, at the foot of
Seventeenth Street.  Mr. John Van Ness, when a member of the House
from the State of New York, had married Marcia, the only child of
David Burns, one of the original proprietors of the land on which
the Federal City was located.  At that time every able-bodied man
between eighteen and forty-five (with a few exceptions) had to
perform militia duty, and the District Volunteers, organizing
themselves into a battalion, complimented Mr. Van Ness by electing
him Major.  The President commissioned him, but so strict were the
Congressmen of those days that the House investigated his case,
and declared that he had forfeited his seat as a Representative by
accepting a commission from the General Government.  For the empty
honor of wearing a militia uniform three or four times a year, and
paying a large share of the music assessments, Major Van Ness lost
his seat in Congress.

David Burns died soon after his daughter's marriage, and she
dutifully conveyed to her husband, through the intervention of a
trustee, her paternal inheritance.  With a portion of the fortune
thus acquired, Major Van Ness built near the old Burns cottage a
villa which cost thirty thousand dollars, and was a palace fit for
a king.  Entertainments the most costly were inaugurated and
maintained in it; wit and song were heard within it, and elegance
and distinction assembled under its hospitable shelter.  From its
door-step one could see ships from Europe moored to the docks of
Alexandria, while gliding by daily on the river beside it were
merchantmen from the West Indies, laden for the port of Georgetown.

Major Van Ness and Marcia Burns lived very happily together and
had one child, a daughter, who grew into womanhood, married, and
died a year after her marriage, ere the flowers in her bridal wreath
had faded.  Mrs. Van Ness loved her daughter with a love that was
idolatry, and with her death she received a blow from which she
never recovered.  She abandoned all the gayeties of the world, and
laid aside her sceptre and crown as queen of society.  In the
charity school and orphan-asylum, by the bedside of the sick and
dying, and in the homes of poverty, relieving its wants, she was
found to the day of her death.  Her last words to her grief-stricken
husband and friends assembled about her bedside were:  "Heaven
bless and protect you; never mind me."  The Mayor and City Government
passed appropriate resolutions, and attended her funeral.

Major Van Ness erected a mausoleum after the pattern of the Temple
of Vesta, at a cost of thirty-four thousand dollars, and placed
within it his wife's remains and those of her father and mother.
The stately pile stood in a large inclosure for years on H Street,
beside the orphan asylum which Mrs. Van Ness richly endowed.
Finally the march of improvement, needing all the space available
within the city limits, necessitated the removal of the mausoleum
to Oak Hill Cemetery, in Georgetown, where the remains of John
Howard Payne were subsequently re-interred.

Major Van Ness himself enjoyed everything that worldly preferment
could bestow.  By turns he was president of a bank and Mayor of
Washington, yet with his ample fortune he was always short of ready
money.  He was never pressed by suit, however, for his good nature
was as irresistible as the man was fascinating; the dun who came
with a bill and a frown went away with a smile and--his bill.  He
lived to be seventy-six years of age, when--like the patriarchs of
old--he died, full of honor and greatness, and, leaving no direct
issue, his property passed into the hands of collateral heirs.
They were sensible heirs, who did not seek to intervention of courts
and lawyers for a distribution of their interests, but wisely and
amicably distributed them themselves.  The law, however, was
determined not to be entirely shunned.  If the heirs would not go
to law, the law was accommodating--it would come to them, and it
came with a romance.

One day, soon after the death of Major Van Ness, a buxom, matronly
looking dame, in heavy mourning and with tear-dimmed eyes, came
upon the scene and claimed a share of the estate.  They naturally
inquired her name and address, and she modestly, but firmly, told
them she was the widow of the deceased by virtue of a clandestine
marriage which had occurred in Philadelphia.  The heirs mistook
her modesty for an attempt at blackmail, and acted as defendants
in the suit which she instituted.  The trial is one of the celebrated
cases of the District of Columbia.  It lasted upward of a month.
Eminent counsel were in it, and many witnesses came to prove the
truth of opposite facts.  There was no doubt that Van Ness had
known the widow and had visited her, for love letters were read in
court from him to her; there was no doubt that some ceremony,
sanctioned by a minister's presence, had been performed and assisted
at by both together, but the requisite formalities to constitute
a valid marriage were not fully proven, and the jury disagreed.
The matronly dame in heavy mourning did not murmur: luck was against
her, and she accepted her luck.  She left Washington and never
pressed her suit to a second trial, nor further harassed the heirs.

Miss Ann G. Wright, a cousin of Mrs. Van Ness, created a great
sensation in Washington by coming to her house for a home.  She
was a runaway nun from the Convent of the Visitation in Georgetown,
and had been known in the community as Sister Gertrude.  No one
ever knew rightly the cause of her sudden departure from the convent.
Some said it was disappointed ambition in not being appointed
superioress; others, that it was a case of love; but she never
told, and the ladies of the convent were just as reticent.  She
became an inmate of the elegant Van Ness mansion and was a noted
and brilliant women in society.  It is said that she had written
a book, exposing the inner life of the convent, to be published
after her death, but I have never heard of its appearance.  A few
years after she left the convent she accompanied the family of the
American Minister to Spain, and resided for some time at Madrid,
where she was a great favorite in Court circles.

General Jackson was not cultured or accomplished, but he had a
strong, well-balanced mind, and he would go through forests of
sophistry and masses of legal opinions straight to the point.
Governor Wise, who admired him greatly, used to tell a story
illustrative of the rough bark of Old Hickory's character.  During
the Administration of President Monroe, General Jackson, in command
of some troops, invaded Florida and captured Arbuthnot and Ambrister,
two Englishmen, who, it was charged incited the Indians to
depredations.  He at once ordered a court-martial and had them
hanged, with but little time to prepare for their future place of
abode.  He was arraigned for the offense before the Cabinet of Mr.
Monroe, and Mr. Adams, the Secretary of State, defended him on the
high ground of international law as expounded by Grotius, Vattel,
and Puffendorf.  Jackson, who had quarreled with Mr. Monroe, was
disposed to regard the matter as entirely personal.  "Confound
Grotius! confound Vattel! confound Puffendorf!" said he; "this is
a mere matter between Jim Monroe and me."

Having received a complimentary letter from President Bustamente,
of Mexico, General Jackson sent it to the Department of State with
this indorsement:  "Mr. Van Buren will reply to this letter of
General Bustamente with the frankness of a soldier."  When this
reached Mr. Van Buren he laughed heartily, as he was neither a
soldier nor remarkable for frankness, and the clerks could not keep
a secret.

Although many old citizens, whose relatives and near friends had
been turned out of their pleasant offices by the Jackson Administration,
kept quite aloof from the White House, there was no lack of social
enjoyments at Washington.  Mr. Forsyth, the Secretary of State,
gave a series of balls, and there were large parties at the residences
of Mr. Dickerson, Secretary of the Navy, Major-General Macomb,
General Miller, and other prominent men, each one in numbers and
guests almost a repetition of the other.  Mr. Van Buren was at all
of them, shaking hands with everybody, glad to see everybody, asking
about everybody's friends, and trusting that everybody was well.
Colonel Richard M. Johnson was also to be seen at all public
gatherings, looking, in his scarlet waistcoat and ill-fitting coat,
not as the killer of Tecumseh, but as the veritable Tecumseh himself.
Mr. Webster was seldom seen at public parties, but Messrs. Clay
and Calhoun were generally present, with the foreign Ministers and
their suites, who were the only wearers of mustaches in those days.
There were the magnates of the Senate and the House, each one great
in his own estimation, with the _chevaliers a'industrie_, who lived
as by their wits, upon long credits and new debts, and there were
strangers congregated from all sections of the country, some having
business before Congress, and others having come to see how the
country was governed.  Every one, on his arrival, would take a
carriage and leave cards for the heads of departments, foreign
Ministers, leading army and navy officers, and prominent members
of Congress.  This would bring in return the cards of these magnates
and invitations to their next party.

Mr. Clay was a good _raconteur_, and always had a story to illustrate
his opinions advanced in conversation.  One day, when he had been
complimented on his neat, precise handwriting, always free from
blots, interlineations, and erasures, he spoke about the importance
of writing legibly, and told an amusing story about a Cincinnati
grocery-man, who, finding the market short of cranberries, and
under the impression that the fruit could be purchased cheaply at
a little town in Kentucky, wrote to a customer there acquainting
him with the fact and requesting him to send "one hundred bushels
per Simmons" (the wagoner usually sent).  The correspondent, a
plain, uneducated man, had considerable difficulty in deciphering
the fashionable scrawl common with merchants' clerks of late years,
and the most important word, "cranberries," he failed to make out,
but he did plainly and clearly read--one hundred bushels persimmons.
As the article was growing all around him, all the boys in the
neighborhood were set to gathering it, and the wagoner made his
appearance in due time in Cincinnati with eighty bushels, all that
the wagon body would hold, and a line from the country merchant
that the remainder would follow the next trip.  An explanation soon
ensued, but the customer insisted that the Cincinnati house should
have written _by_ Simmons and not _per_ Simmons.  Who paid the loss
history doth not record.

One more of Mr. Clay's stories which he used to tell with dramatic
effect:  As he was coming here one November the stage stopped for
the passengers to get supper at a little town on the mountain side,
where there had been a militia muster that afternoon.  When the
stage was ready to start, the Colonel, in full regimentals, but
somewhat inebriated, insisted on riding with the driver, thinking,
doubtless, that the fresh air would restore him.  It was not long,
though, before he fell off into the mud.  The coach stopped, of
course, for the Colonel to regain his seat.  He soon gathered up,
when the following colloquy ensued:  "Well, driver (hic), we've
had quite a turn (hic) over, haint we?"  "No, we have not turned
over at all."  "I say (hic) we have."  "No, you are mistaken, you
only fell off."  "I say we (hic) _have;_ I'll leave it (hic) to
the com-(hic)-pany.  Haven't we (hic) had a turn (hic) over,
gentlemen?"  Being assured they had not, "Well, driver (hic)," said
he, "if I'd known that (hic) I wouldn't a got out."

The automaton chess-player and other pieces of mechanism exhibited
by Monsieur Maelzel were very popular at Washington.  The chess-
player was the figure of a Turk of the natural size, sitting behind
a chest three feet and a-half in height, to which was attached the
wooden seat on which the figure sat.  On the top of the chest was
an immovable chess-board, upon which the eyes of the figure were
fixed.  Its right hand and arm were extended on the chest, and its
left, somewhat raised, held a pipe.  Several doors in the chest
and in the body of the figure having been opened, and a candle held
within the cavities thus displayed, the doors were closed, the
exhibitor wound up the works, placed a cushion under the arm of
the figure, and challenged any individual of the company present
to play.

In playing, the automaton always made choice of the first move and
the white pieces.  It also played with the left arm--the inventor,
as it was said, not having perceived the mistake till his work was
too far advanced to alter it.  The hand and fingers opened on
touching the piece, which it grasped and conveyed to the proper
square.  After a move made by its antagonist, the automaton paused
for a few moments, as if contemplating the game.  On giving check
to the king, it made a signal with its head.  If a false move was
made by its antagonist it tapped on the chest impatiently, replaced
the piece, and claimed the move for itself as an advantage.  If
the antagonist delayed any considerable time the automaton tapped
smartly on the chest with the right hand.  At the close of the game
the automaton moved the knight, with its proper motion, over each
of the sixty-three squares of the board in turn, without missing
one, and without a single return to the same square.

Although positive proof was wanting, it was generally believed that
the movements of the figure were directed by a slender person
adroitly concealed behind what was apparently a mass of machinery.
This machinery was always exhibited when in a fixed state, but
carefully excluded from view when in motion.  It was noticed by
anxious observers that no variation ever took place in the precise
order in which the doors were opened, thus giving the concealed
player an opportunity to change his position.  In what was apparently
the winding up of the machine the key always appeared limited to
a certain number of revolutions, however different the number of
moves in the preceding game might have been.  On one occasion sixty-
three moves were executed without winding up, and once it was
observed that it was wound up without the intervention of a single
move.

Monsieur Maelzel also exhibited an automaton trumpeter, life size,
attired in a full British uniform.  It was rolled out before the
audience and performed several marches and patriotic airs.  A
miniature rope-dancer performed some curious feats, and small
figures, when their hands were shaken, ejaculated the words, "Papa!"
and "Mamma!" in a life-like manner.  But the crowning glory of
Monsieur Maelzel's exhibition was a panorama, scenic and mechanical,
of the "Burning of Moscow."  The view of the Russian capital, with
its domes and minarets, was a real work of art.  Then the great
bell of the Kremlin began to toll, and the flames could be seen
making their way from building to building.  A bridge in the
foreground was covered with figures, representing the flying citizens
escaping with their household treasures.  They were followed by a
regiment of French infantry, headed by its band, and marching with
the precision of veterans.  Meanwhile the flames had begun to ascend
the spires and domes, and the deep tolling of the bells was echoed
by the inspiring strains of martial music.  At last, as the last
platoon of Frenchmen crossed the bridge, the Kremlin was blown up
with a loud explosion, and the curtain fell.

Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, the widow of the founder of our financial
system, passed a good portion of the latter part of her life at
Washington, and finally died there.  She was the first to introduce
ice-cream at the national metropolis, and she used to relate with
rare humor the delight displayed by President Jackson when he first
tasted it.  He liked it much, and swore, "By the Eternal!" that he
would have ices at the White House.  The guests at the next reception
were agreeably surprised with this delicacy, especially those from
the rural districts, who, after approaching it suspiciously, melting
each spoonful with their breath before consuming it, expressed
their satisfaction by eating all that could be provided.  Mrs.
Hamilton was very much troubled by the pamphlet which her husband
had published when Secretary of the Treasury, in which he avowed
an intrigue with the wife of one of his clerks, to exculpate himself
from a charge that he had permitted this clerk to speculate on the
action of the Treasury Department.  Mrs. Hamilton for some years
paid dealers in second-hand books five dollars a copy for every
copy of this pamphlet which they brought her.  One year the number
presented was unusually large, and she accidentally ascertained
that a cunning dealer in old books in New York had had the pamphlet
reprinted, and was selling her copies at five dollars each which
had cost him but about ten cents each.  She possessed a good many
souvenirs of her illustrious husband, one of which, now in the
writer's possession, was the copper camp-kettle which General
Hamilton had while serving on the staff of the illustrious
Washington.

[Facsimile]
  Alexander Stephens
ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS was born in Wilkes County, Georgia,
February 11th, 1812; was a member of the House of Representatives,
December 4th, 1843 to March 3d, 1859; was Vice-President of the
Southern Confederacy; was again a member of the United States
Congress, October 15th, 1877, to January 1st, 1882; was Governor
of Georgia, and died at Crawfordsville, Georgia, March 4th, 1883.


CHAPTER XII.
JACKSON AND HIS ASSOCIATES.

President Jackson's friends celebrated the 8th of January, 1835,
by giving a grand banquet.  It was not only the anniversary of the
battle of New Orleans, but on that day the last installment of the
national debt had been paid.  Colonel Benton presided, and when
the cloth was removed he delivered an exulting speech.  "The national
debt," he exclaimed, "is paid!  This month of January, 1835, in
the fifty-eighth year of the Republic, Andrew Jackson being President,
the national debt is paid! and the apparition, so long unseen on
earth--a great nation without a national debt!--stands revealed to
the astonished vision of a wondering world!  Gentlemen," he concluded,
"my heart is in this double celebration, and I offer you a sentiment
which, coming direct from my own bosom, will find its response in
yours:  'PRESIDENT JACKSON:  May the evening of his days be as
tranquil and as happy for himself as their meridian has been
resplendent, glorious, and beneficent for his country.'"

A few weeks later, as President Jackson was leaving the Capitol,
where he had been to attend the funeral of Representative Davis,
of South Carolina, a man advanced toward him from the crowd, leveled
a pistol, and fired it.  The percussion-cap exploded without
discharging the pistol, and the man, dropping it, raised a second
one, which also missed fire.  General Jackson's rage was roused by
the explosion of the cap, and, lifting his cane, he rushed toward
his assailant, who was knocked down by Lieutenant Gedney, of the
Navy, before Jackson could reach him.  The man was an English house-
painter named Lawrence, who had been for some months out of work,
and who, having heard that the opposition of General Jackson to
the United States Bank had paralyzed the industries of the country,
had conceived the project of assassinating him.  The President
himself was not disposed to believe that the plot originated in
the crazy brain of Lawrence, whom he regarded as the tool of
political opponents.  A protracted examination, however, failed to
afford the slightest proof of this theory, although General Jackson
never doubted it for a moment.  He was fortified in this opinion
by the receipt of anonymous letters, threatening assassination,
all of which he briefly indorsed and sent to Mr. Blair for publication
in the _Globe_.

The heads of the executive departments, believing that "to the
victors belong the spoils," did not leave an acknowledged anti-
Jackson Democrat in office, either in Washington city or elsewhere,
with a very few exceptions.  One of these was General Miller,
Collector of the Port of Salem, Massachusetts.  The leading Jackson
Democrats in Massachusetts petitioned the President for his removal
as incompetent and a political opponent, and they presented the
name of a stanch Jackson Democrat for the position.  The appointment
was made, and the name of the new Collector was sent to the Senate
for confirmation.  Colonel Benton, who had been made acquainted
with the facts, requested that no action be taken until he could
converse with the President.  Going to the White House the next
morning, he said to General Jackson, "Do you know who is the
Collector of Customs at Salem, Mr. President, whom you are about
to remove?"  "No, sir," replied General Jackson; "I can't think of
his name, but Nat. Green and Ben. Hallett have told me that he is
an incompetent old New England Hartford Convention Federalist."
"Mr. President," said Colonel Benton, "the man you propose to turn
out is General Miller, who fought so bravely at the battle of
Bridgewater."  "What!" exclaimed General Jackson, "not the brave
Miller who, when asked if he could take the British battery,
exclaimed 'I'll try,'"  "It is the same man, Mr. President,"
responded Benton.  General Jackson rang his bell, and when a servant
appeared, said, "Tell Colonel Donelson I want him, quick!"  When
the private secretary entered, the President said, "Donelson, I
want the name of the fellow I nominated for Collector of Salem
withdrawn instantly.  Then write a letter to General Miller and
tell him that he shall be Collector of Salem as long as Andrew
Jackson is President."

Learning that some of the Pension Agents had been withholding
portions of the pensions due to Revolutionary veterans, General
Jackson had the charges thoroughly investigated, and a list of the
pensioners printed, showing what each one was entitled to receive.
This disclosed the fact that some of the Pension Agents had been
continuing to draw the pensions of deceased soldiers for years
after their death, besides retaining portions of the pensions of
others.  Robert Temple, Pension Agent in Vermont, on hearing of
the proposed investigation, hastened to Washington, where he
endeavored to bribe a clerk to falsify the list made out for the
printer.  The clerk obtained from him a list of sixty names of
deceased soldiers whose pensions he had continued to draw, and gave
it to the Secretary of War.  Temple, on learning this, committed
suicide.

There were a few veteran office-holders at Washington, whose
ancestors had been appointed under Federal rule, but who had managed
to veer around into Jackson Democracy.  Mr. Webster, in speaking
one day of a Philadelphia family which had thus kept in place, said
that they reminded him of Simeon Alleyn, Vicar of Bray, in Old
England, who steered his bark safely through four conflicting
successive reigns.  A bland gentleman, he was first a Papist, then
a Protestant, next a Papist, and lastly a Protestant again.  "He
must have been at times," said Mr. Webster, "terribly confused
between gowns and robes, and," continued the Senator, "I can fancy
him listening at his window to the ballad written on him, as trolled
forth by some graceless varlets:

  "'To teach my flock I never missed;
    Kings were by God appointed,
    And they are damned who dare resist
    Or touch the Lord's anointed;
    And this in law I will maintain
    Until my dying day, sir,
    That whosoever king shall reign,
    I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.'"

Mr. Webster was not only fond of repeating quotations from the old
English poets, but also verses from the old Sternhold and Hopkins
hymn-book, which he had studied in the Salisbury meeting-house when
a boy, and sometimes when alone he would sing, or rather chant,
them in his deep voice, without a particle of melody.  His favorite
verses were the following translation of the xviiith Psalm:

  "The Lord descended from above,
   And bow'd the heavens high;
   And underneath His feet He cast
   The darkness of the sky.

  "On cherubs and on cherubims
   Full royally He rode,
   And on the wings of all the winds
   Came flying all abroad."

Late in the Jackson Administration, Richard H. Bayard came to
Washington as a Senator from Delaware, to fill a vacancy caused by
the resignation of Arnold Naudain.  He was the son of James Asheton
Bayard, originally a stanch Federalist, who had followed his father-
in-law, Richard Bassett, as a Senator from Delaware, and whose vote
had made Thomas Jefferson President of the United States instead
of Aaron Burr.  He had afterward been one of the Commission which
negotiated the treaty of Ghent, and he educated his sons to succeed
him in the Senate, and in turn to qualify a grandson to represent
his State in the upper branch of the National Council.  No one
family has furnished so many United States Senators, and they have
all been inspired by the knightly courtesy of the Bayard of the
olden time, who was "without fear and without reproach."

The Democratic Bayards were antagonized in Jackson's time by the
Whig Claytons, the other Delaware chair in the United States Senate
having been occupied since 1829 by John Middleton Clayton.  He was
an accomplished lawyer, and one of the leaders of the Whig party.
Under his direction Delaware was a Whig State, and had it been a
larger one, Mr. Clayton would doubtless have been nominated to the
Vice-Presidency, if not to the Presidency.  He was zealously devoted
to his party, and when, later in life, a delegation waited on him
to question some of his acts as not in accordance with Whig
principles, he rose, and drawing himself up to his full height,
exclaimed:  "What! unwhig me?  Me, who was a Whig when you gentlemen
were riding cornstalk horses in your fathers' barnyards?"  The
delegation asked his pardon for having doubted his party loyalty,
and at once withdrew.

James Alfred Pearce, of Maryland, entered the House of Representatives
during the Jackson Administration, and was successively re-elected
(with the exception of a single term) until he was transferred to
the Senate in 1843, and served in that body until his death in
1862.  He was another "wheel horse" of the Whig party, although he
shrank from political controversy.  His home friends, who were very
proud of his reputation, brought him forward at one time as a
candidate for the Presidency.  But he refused to permit his name
to be used, on the ground that the burdens of the White House were
too costly a price to pay for its honors.

Mr. Pearce was a devoted friend of the Congressional Library, and
during his long service on the Committee having it in charge he
selected the books purchased.  In doing this he excluded all works
calculated in his opinion to engender sectional differences, and
when the _Atlantic Monthly_ was established he refused to order it
for the Library.  He was the founder of the Botanic Garden, and
the Coast Survey was another object of his especial attention and
favor.

Mr. Pearce's care in the choice of books was my no means a notion
of his own.  From the founding of the Library it was the policy of
many of its warmest friends to exclude every publication which
would engender and foster sectional differences.  They went on the
principle of concealing difficulties, rather than of facing them
squarely.  Very different is the broader policy now maintained in
this great library, on whose shelves every copyrighted book of the
United States now finds a place.

Mr. Pearce was a type of the gentleman of the old school.  Tall,
with a commanding figure, expressive features, blue eyes, and light
hair, he was a brilliant conversationalist and a welcome guest at
dinner.

Senator William C. Preston, of South Carolina, was not only one of
the foremost orators in the Senate, but a delightful conversationalist,
with an inexhaustible fund of reminiscence and anecdote.  One of
his colleagues in the House of Representatives, Mr. Warren R. Davis,
of the Pendleton district, was equally famed as a story-teller,
and when they met at a social board they monopolized the conversation,
to the delight of the other guests, who listened with attention
and with admiration.

One evening--as the story is told--at a dinner-party, over the
Madeira and walnuts, which formed the invariable last course in
those days, Mr. Preston launched forth in a eulogium on the
extraordinary power of condensation, in both thought and expression,
which characterized the ancient Greek and Latin languages, beyond
anything of the kind in modern tongues.  On it he literally
"discoursed eloquent music," adorning it with frequent and apt
illustration, and among other examples citing the celebrated
admonition of the Spartan mother to her warrior son on the eve of
battle--"With your shield or upon it!"  The whole party were
delighted with the rich tones and the classic teachings of the
gifted colloquist, except his equally gifted competitor for
conversational laurels, who, notwithstanding his enforced admiration,
sat uneasily under the prolonged disquisition, anxiously waiting
for an opportunity to take his place in the picture.  At length a
titillation seizing the olfactory nerve of Mr. Preston, he paused
to take a pinch of snuff, and Mr. Davis immediately filled up the
_vacuum_, taking up the line of speech in this wise:

"I have listened," said he, "with equal edification and pleasure
to the classic discourse of our friend, sparkling with gems alike
of intellect and fancy, but I differ from him _toto caelo_.  He
may say what he will as to the supreme vigor and condensation of
thought and speech characteristic of classic Greece and Rome; but,
for my part, I think there is nothing equal to our own _vernacular_
in these particulars, and I am fortunately able, although from a
humble source, to give you a striking and conclusive example and
illustration of the fact.

"As I was returning home from Congress, some years since, I approached
a river in North Carolina which had been swollen by a recent freshet,
and observed a country girl fording it in a merry mood, and carrying
a piggin of butter on her head.  As I arrived at the river's edge
the rustic Naiad emerged from the watery element.  'My girl,' said
I, 'how deep's the water and what's the price of butter?'  'Up to
your waist and nine pence,' was the prompt and significant response!
Let my learned friend beat that if he can, in brevity and force of
expression, by aught to be found in all his treasury of classic
lore!"

A roar of laughter followed this humorous explosion, and a unanimous
vote in favor of the _vernacular_ awarded the palm to the distinguished
and successful wag over his classical but crest-fallen competitor.

The first restaurant established in Washington was by a Frenchman
named Boulanger, who was a pupil of the famous Chevet, of the Palais
Royal at Paris.  His cozy establishment was on G Street, just west
of the War Department, where he used to serve good cheer to General
Jackson, Van Buren, Clay, Sir Charles Vaughan, and other notables.
His soups were gastronomic triumphs, and he was an adept in serving
oysters, terrapin, reed-birds, quails, ortolan, and other delicacies
in the first style of culinary perfection.  His brandies, of his
own importation, were of the choicest "bead and brand," and he
obtained from Alexandria some of the choice old Madeira which had
been imported before the Revolution in return for cargoes of oak
staves.  Boulanger did not cherish flattering recollections of
General Jackson's taste, but Mr. Van Buren used to compliment his
savory repasts and enjoy artistic cheer.

The Treasury Department, which had been destroyed by fire, was
rebuilt on a plan approved by President Jackson.  The eastern front,
of Virginia sandstone, was a colonnade copied from the Temple of
Minerva Pallas, at Athens, three hundred and thirty-six feet long,
with thirty Ionic columns.  The artist was Robert Mills, and he
wished to set the building back some fifty feet from the line of
the street, to give more effect to the architecture, but General
Jackson directed him to bring it forward to the building line of
the street, and stuck his cane in the ground to show where this
was.  Of course, he was obeyed.

John Quincy Adams used to occasionally attend the theatre, and he
was especially pleased with Hackett as Falstaff.  Hackett looked
the fat knight well, and his face interpreted many of his remarks
and situations explicitly.  He delivered the soliloquy upon honor
with fine effect, and the scenes at Gad's Hill with Bardolph and
his nose, with Mrs. Quickly, and with the Prince when detected in
his exaggeration, were very humorous and well pointed.

When Mr. Hackett took his benefit it was announced that at the
particular request of Colonel David Crockett, of Tennessee, the
comedian would appear on the boards in his favorite character of
"Nimrod Wildfire," in the play called "The Kentuckian; or, a Trip
to New York."  This brought out a house full to overflowing.  At
seven o'clock the Colonel was escorted by the manager through the
crowd to a front seat reserved for him.  As soon as he was recognized
by the audience they made the very house shake with hurrahs for
Colonel Crockett, "Go ahead!"  "I wish I may be shot!"  "Music!
let us have Crockett's March!"  After some time the curtain rose,
and Hackett appeared in hunting costume, bowed to the audience,
and then to Colonel Crockett.  The compliment was reciprocated by
the Colonel, to the no small amusement and gratification of the
spectators, and the play then went on.

When Hiram Powers came to Washington, on his way to Italy, he was
rather mortified by the remark of a jealous Italian artist, who
saw in him a rival:  "When you have been ten years in Italy, you
may, perhaps, be able to chisel a little;" before, however, a fourth
of that time had elapsed, Powers had finished, from the rough marble
block, the admirable bust of Chief Justice Marshall which now graces
the hall of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Among the visitors to Washington early in 1834 was Charles Sumner,
then a tall, slim, ungainly young man, twenty-three years of age,
who was a student at law in Boston, but not admitted to practice.
He was introduced by his friend, Mr. Justice Story, to Chief Justice
Marshall and Justices Thompson, Duval, and McLean, and was invited
to dine with them.  It is not known whether Justice Story told him
--as he told Edmund Quincy--that the Court was so aesthetic that
they denied themselves wine, except in wet weather.  "But," added
the commentator on the Constitution, "what I say about wine, sir,
gives you our rule, but it does sometimes happen that the Chief
Justice will say to me, when the cloth is removed, 'Brother Story,
step to the window and see if it does not look like rain.'  If I
tell him that the sun is shining, Judge Marshall will reply:  'All
the better, for our jurisdiction extends over so large a territory
that the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it must be
raining somewhere, and it will be safe to take something.'"

Mr. Sumner used to attend the sittings of the Supreme Court, which
were commenced at eleven and generally lasted until half-past three.
The Senate and House of Representatives met at noon and continued
in session until four and sometimes five o'clock.  The Senate
generally adjourned over from Thursday until Monday, and the House
rarely sat on Saturday.

Among those with whom young Sumner became acquainted at Washington
was Dr. Francis Lieber, a well-educated German, who had fought at
Waterloo.  He was for more than twenty years a professor in the
University of South Carolina, vouched for as "sound on the slavery
question," but he afterward became a bitter opponent of the South
and of its "peculiar institution."  He was a prolific contributor
to the press, and he never hesitated about enlisting the services
of friends and acquaintances when they could produce materials for
his use.

[Facsimile]
  A. Stevenson
ANDREW STEVENSON was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, in 1784;
was a Representative from Virginia in Congress, 1823-1834; was
Minister to Great Britain, 1836-1841; died in Albemarle County,
Virginia, January 25th, 1857.


CHAPTER XIII.
JACKSON'S LAST YEAR IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Mr. Van Buren, like his predecessor, Mr. Calhoun, suffered mental
martyrdom while presiding over the Senate as Vice-President.  His
manner was bland, as he thumped with his mallet when the galleries
were out of order, or declared that "The ayes have it," or, "The
memorial is referred."  He received his fusillade of snubs and
sneers as the ghost of Chreusa received the embraces of AEneas--he
heeded them not.  He leaned back his head, threw one leg upon the
other, and sat as if he were a pleasant sculptured image, destined
for that niche of his life.

Henry Clay, then in his prime, was the champion of the United States
Bank in the Senate.  One day in debate he broke out in the most
violent appeal to Martin Van Buren, then presiding in the Senate,
to go to the President and represent to him the actual condition
of the country.  "Tell him," said Clay, "that in a single city more
than sixty bankruptcies, involving a loss of upward of fifteen
millions of dollars, have occurred.  Tell him of the alarming
decline in the value of all property.  Tell him of the tears of
helpless widows, no longer able to earn their bread, and of unclad
and unfed orphans who have been driven by his policy out of the
busy pursuits in which but yesterday they were gaining an honest
livelihood."

The centennial birthday of George Washington was duly honored in
the city which he had founded and which bore his name.  Divine
services were performed at the Capitol, and there was a dinner at
Brown's Hotel, at which Daniel Webster prefaced the first toast in
honor of the Father of his Country by an eloquent speech of an hour
in length.  In the evening there were two public balls--"one for
the gentry at Carusi's saloon, and the other for mechanics and
tradesmen at the Masonic Temple."

Congress had proposed to pay signal homage to the memory of Washington
on the centennial anniversary of his birth by removing his remains
to the crypt beneath the dome of the Capitol.  Mr. Custis, the
grandson of Mrs. Washington, had given his assent, but John A.
Washington, then the owner of Mount Vernon, declined to permit the
removal of the remains.

Congress purchased Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Washington, and
the House ordered a full length picture of him from Vanderlyn, a
celebrated New York artist.  A commission was also given to Horatio
Greenough for a colossal statue of Washington in a sitting posture,
to be placed on a high pedestal in the centre of the rotunda of
the Capitol.  The Washington National Monument Association, after
consultation with men of acknowledged artistic taste, selected from
among the numerous designs submitted a simple obelisk, five hundred
feet in height, for the erection of which the American people began
at once to contribute.

When "the solid men of Boston" ascertained that General Jackson
had actually signed the order for the removal of the deposits from
the Bank of the United States while enjoying their hospitalities
they were very angry.  Not long afterward they learned that the
United States frigate Constitution, a Boston-built vessel, which
was being repaired at the Charlestown Navy Yard, was to be ornamented
with a full-length figure of General Jackson as a figure-head.
This was regarded as an insult, and the carver who was at work on
the figure was requested to stop working on it.  This he declined
to do, and had his half-carved block of wood taken to the Navy
Yard, where he completed his task under the protection of a guard
of marines.  When the figure-head was completed it was securely
bolted to the cutwater of the Constitution, which was then hauled
out to her anchorage, and a vessel was stationed on either side of
her.

The Bostonians grew more and more indignant, and finally a daring
young mariner from Cape Cod, Captain Samuel Dewey, determined that
he would decapitate the obnoxious image.  The night which he selected
was eminently propitious, as a severe rain storm raged, accompanied
by heavy thunder and sharp lightning.  Dewey sculled his boat with
a muffled oar to the bow of the frigate, where he made it fast,
and climbed up, protected by the head boards, only placed on the
vessel the previous day.  Then, with a finely tempered saw, he cut
off the head, and returned with it to Boston, where a party of his
friends were anxiously waiting for him at Gallagher's Hotel.  He
was at once made a lion of by the Whigs, and Commodore Elliott was
almost frantic with rage over the insult thus offered to his chief.

Dewey soon afterward went to Washington, where he exhibited the
grim features of the head to several leading Whigs, and finally
carried it, tied up in a bandana handkerchief, to the Navy Department.
Sending in his card to Mr. Mahlon Dickerson, then the Secretary of
the Navy, he obtained an audience.  He was a short, chunky sailor-
man, with resolute blue-gray eyes, which twinkled as he said, "Have
I the honor of addressing the Secretary of the Navy?"

"You have," replied Mr. Dickerson, "and, as I am very busy, I will
thank you to be brief."

"Mr. Dickerson," said the Captain, "I am the man who removed the
figure-head from the Constitution, and I have brought it here to
restore it."

Secretary Dickerson threw himself back in his chair and looked with
astonishment at the man who had cast such an indignity on the
Administration.

"Well, sir," said he, in an angry tone, "you are the man who had
the audacity to disfigure Old Ironsides?"

"Yes, sir, I took the responsibility."

"Well, sir, I will have you arrested immediately," and the Secretary
reached toward his bell to summon his messenger.

"Stop, Mr. Secretary," said Captain Dewey; "you, as a lawyer, know
that there is no statute against defacing a ship-of-war, and all
you can do is to sue me for trespass, and that in the county where
the offense was committed.  If you desire it, I will go back to
Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and stand my trial."

Mr. Dickerson reflected a moment and said:  "You are right; and
now tell me how you took away the head."

Dewey told his story, and the story goes that Secretary Dickerson
asked him to wait while he stepped over to the White House, followed
by a messenger carrying the head.  When General Jackson saw it,
and heard the Secretary's story, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable
laughter.  "Why, that," he cried at length--"why, that is the most
infernal graven image I ever saw.  The fellow did perfectly right.
You've got him, you say; well, give him a kick and my compliments,
and tell him to saw it off again."  Dewey was after this frequently
at Washington, and he finally obtained the appointment of Postmaster
in a small Virginia town.  He used to have on his visiting cards
the representation of a handsaw, under which was inscribed, "I
came, I saw, I conquered."

General Jackson always liked the physical excitement of a horse-
race, where a large assemblage thrills with but one thought from
the word "Go!" until the winning horse reaches the goal, and he
was always to be seen at the races over the National Course, just
north of Washington City.  Delegations of sporting men from the
Atlantic cities crowded into the metropolis during the race weeks;
there were jockey-club dinners and jockey-club balls; and the course
resounded to the footfalls of noted horses, especially Boston, Sir
Charles, Emily, and Blue Dick.  In 1836 General Jackson had a filly
of his own raising brought from the Hermitage and entered for a
race by Major Donelson, his private secretary.  Nor did he conceal
his chagrin when the filly was beaten by an imported Irish colt
named Langford, owned by Captain Stockton, of the navy, and he had
to pay lost wagers amounting to nearly a thousand dollars, while
Mr. Van Buren and other devoted adherents who had bet on the filly
were also losers.

Baillie Peyton, of Tennessee, used to narrate an amusing account
of a visit which he made to the National Race Course with General
Jackson and a few others to witness the training of some horses
for an approaching race.  They went on horseback, General Jackson
riding his favorite gray horse, and wearing his high white fur hat
with a broad band of black crape, which towered above the whole
group.  The General greatly enjoyed the trials of speed, until a
horse named Busiris began to rear and plunge.  This stirred Old
Hickory's mettle, and he rode forward to give some energetic advice
to the jockey, but just then he saw that the Vice-President was
ambling along at his side on an easy-going nag.  "Mr. Van Buren,"
he exclaimed, "get behind me, sir!  They will run over you, sir!"
and the Little Magician, with his characteristic diplomacy, which
never gave offense, gracefully retired to the rear of his chief,
which, Mr. Peyton used to say, was his place.

President Jackson used to visit his stable every morning, until he
became feeble, and he paid especial attention to the manner in
which his horses were shod.  He never, after he became President,
played cards or billiards, nor did he read anything except the
_Daily Globe_ and his private correspondence.  When he received a
letter that he desired one of his Cabinet to read, he would indorse
on the back "_Sec. of_ ----, A. J."  He used to smoke a great deal,
using either a new clay pipe with a long stem, or a pipe made from
a piece of corn-cob, with a reed stem.

Cock-fighting had been one of General Jackson's favorite home
amusements, and he had become the possessor of a breed of fowl that
was invincible in Tennessee.  He had some of these pugnacious birds
brought to Washington, and one spring morning he rode out toward
Bladensburg, with a select party of friends, to see "a main" fought
between the Hermitage and the Annapolis cocks.  The birds were not
only trained to fight, but were equipped for their bloody work.
Their heads and necks were plucked, their tail feathers were closely
trimmed, and their natural spurs were cut off and replaced by
"gaffs," or sharp blades of finely tempered steel.  Each bird had
his trainer, ready to administer stimulants and to sponge the blood
from the wounds inflicted by the gaffs.  General Jackson was very
confident that his favorites would again be victorious, but there
was no fight, to the great disappointment of all present, who
doubtless possessed what has been called "the devil's nerve," which
thrills with base enjoyment in the visible pain of man, beast, or
bird.  The long confinement in coops on the stages, or some other
unknown cause, appeared to have deprived the Hermitage birds of
their wonted pluck, and the Annapolis cocks crowed in triumph.

There was a grand wedding at Arlington in Jackson's time, when
Lieutenant Robert Edward Lee, fresh from West Point, came up from
Fortress Monroe to marry the heiress of the estate, Mary Custis.
Old Mr. Custis was delighted with his soldier son-in-law, whose
father had said of Washington that he was "First in war, first in
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."  The Marshalls,
the Carters, the Fitzhughs, the Taylors, and other "first families
of Virginia" were represented at the wedding, and the happy young
couple went, after the ceremony, to old Fortress Monroe, where they
resided for a while in a casement fitted up as officers' quarters.
The next year Lieutenant Lee brought his bride back to Arlington,
which was their happy home until he was persuaded to enlist under
the "stars and bars" of the Southern Confederacy.

One of General Jackson's favorites was Jemmy Maher, an Irishman,
whom he had appointed public gardener, a position of some responsibility
in those days, when its holder had to look after the gardens at
the White House, the Capitol, and the Departments.  Jemmy's father
had been forced to flee to this country to avoid punishment for
participation in the Irish rebellion of '98, and the son regarded
all Englishmen as his foes.  General Jackson, who had "whipped the
British" at New Orleans, was the object of his especial adoration,
especially as he used to forgive him when the Superintendent of
Public Buildings occasionally complained that he drank whisky rather
too freely.  "Shure, Mr. President," he would say, "I niver drink
unless I am dry, and it would be mane in me not to invite me frinds
to jine and take a drap with me."

General Jackson was not fond of the theatre, but he went to see
the widely heralded performance of Miss Fanny Kemble.  The niece
of Mrs. Siddons, and the daughter of Charles Kemble, she had been
trained from early childhood to sustain the reputation of her
distinguished theatrical family.  A good-looking young woman, with
large, dark eyes, a profusion of dark hair, a low forehead, and
healthy strawberry-and-cream complexion, she was personally
attractive, and wonderfully effective.  Every movement, gesture,
and inflection of voice had been carefully studied, and when making
an ordinary remark in conversation she would deliver her words with
a deliberate attempt at stage effect.  Her Juliet with her father's
Romeo, was her best character, but they failed signally as Lady
Teazle and Charles Surface in the _School for Scandal_.

Miss Kemble did not remain long on the American stage, as she became
the wife of Mr. Pierce Butler, a wealthy slave-owner, in 1834.
The next year her _Journal_ appeared, in which she criticised what
she had seen and heard with a free hand, but "'twas pretty Fanny's
way," and no one got angry over her silly twaddle.  One of the fair
author's predictions concerning the fate of our polity yet awaits
fulfillment.  "It is my conviction," said she, "that America will
be a monarchy before I am a skeleton."  Fifty years have passed
since these words were written, and the prophetess has developed
into a portly matron, anything but a skeleton, and very unlike the
slender Miss of Jackson's time.

When Jefferson was President, the agricultural town of Cheshire,
in Western Massachusetts, which had been drilled by its Democratic
pastor, named Leland, into the unanimous support of the Sage of
Monticello, determined to present him with the biggest cheese that
had ever been seen.  So on a given day every cow-owner brought his
quota of freshly made curd to a large cider-press, which had been
converted into a cheese-press, and in which a cheese was pressed
that weighted one thousand six hundred pounds.  It was brought to
Washington in the following winter on a sled, under the charge of
Parson Leland, and in the name of the people of Cheshire, was
formally presented to President Jefferson in the then unfinished
East Room.  Jefferson, of course, returned thanks, and after having
a great wedge cut from the cheese, to send back to the donors, he
invited all present to help themselves.  The cheese was variegated
in appearance, owing to so many dairies having contributed the
curd, but the flavor was pronounced the best ever tasted in
Washington.

Jackson's admirers thought that every honor which Jefferson had
ever received should be paid to him, so some of them, residing in
a rural district of New York, got up, under the superintendence of
a Mr. Meacham, a mammoth cheese for "Old Hickory."  After having
been exhibited at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, it was
kept for some time in the vestibule at the White House, and was
finally cut at an afternoon reception on the 22d of February, 1837.
For hours did a crowd of men, women, and boys hack at the cheese,
many taking large hunks of it away with them.  When they commenced,
the cheese weighted one thousand four hundred pounds, and only a
small piece was saved for the President's use.  The air was redolent
with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else
was talked about at Washington that day.  Even the scandal about
the wife of the President's Secretary of War was forgotten in the
tumultuous jubilation of that grand occasion.

General Jackson received that day for the last time at the White
House, and was so feeble that he had to remain seated.  Mrs. Donelson
stood on one side, and on the other was Van Buren, who was inaugurated
as President a fortnight later.

[Facsimile]
  your obt. sert.
  William R. King
WILLIAM RUFUS KING was born in North Carolina, April 1st, 1786;
was a Representative in Congress from Alabama from November 4th,
1811, until he resigned to accompany William Pinkney to Russia as
Secretary of Legation, April 23d, 1816; was United States Senator
from Alabama from March 4th, 1819, until he resigned to go as
Minister to France, April 9th, 1844; was again United States Senator
from December 7th, 1846 to March 4th, 1853; was elected Vice-
President on the Pierce ticket in 1852, as a Democrat, receiving
two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes, against forty-two
electoral votes for W. R. Graham, a Whig; having gone to Europe
for his health, he took the oath of office near Havana, March 4th,
1853; returning to his home at Catawba, Alabama, where he died,
April 18th, 1853, the day following his arrival.


CHAPTER XIV.
VAN BUREN'S STORMY ADMINISTRATION.

While the electoral votes for the eighth President of the United
States were being counted, in the presence of the two Houses of
Congress, Senator Clay remarked to the Vice-President Van Buren,
with courteous significance, "It is a cloudy day, sir!"

"The sun will shine on the 4th of March, sir!" was the Little
Magician's confident reply.

The prediction was fulfilled, for on Van Buren's inaugural morning,
March 4th, 1837, the sun shone brightly, and there was not a cloud
to be seen.  Washington was crowded with strangers from all parts
of the country, and in anticipation of the time set for the ceremony
great numbers began to direct their way at an early hour to the
Capitol.  Congregating before the eastern portico of the Capitol,
the dense mass of humanity reminded those who had traveled abroad
of the assembled multitude in front of St. Peter's on Easter Sunday
waiting to receive the Papal blessing.

President Jackson and President-elect Van Buren were escorted from
the White House to the Capitol by a volunteer brigade of cavalry
and infantry and by several Democratic political organizations.
General Jackson and his successor rode in an elegant phaeton,
constructed of oak from the original timber of the frigate
Constitution.  It had been made at Amherst, Massachusetts, and was
presented by sixty admirers.  It had one seat, holding two persons,
and a high box for the driver in front, bordered with a deep hammer-
cloth.  The unpainted wood was highly polished, and its fine grain
was brought out by a coat of varnish, while on a panel on either
side was a representation of "Old Ironsides" under full sail.  The
phaeton was drawn by General Jackson's four iron-grey carriage-
horses, with elaborate brass-mounted harness.

Arriving at the Capitol, General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren went to
the Senate Chamber, where they witnessed Colonel Johnson take his
oath of office as Vice-President.  They then repaired to a platform
erected over the steps of the eastern portico, followed by the
Diplomatic Corps, the Senators, and the principal executive officers.
A cheer greeted the old hero, who had risen from a sick-bed, against
the protest of his physician, that he might grace the scene, and
a smile of satisfaction lit up his wan, stern features as he stood
leaning on his cane with one hand and holding with the other his
crape-bound white fur hat, while he acknowledged the compliment
paid him by a succession of bows.  Mr. Van Buren then advanced to
the front of the platform, and with impressive dignity read in a
clear, distinct voice his inaugural address.  His manner and emphasis
were excellent, yet the effect upon the multitude was not what
might have been expected from so great a collection of men devoted
to his support.  When he had concluded Chief Justice Taney administered
the oath of office, and no sooner had Van Buren kissed the Bible,
as a pledge of his assent, than General Jackson advanced and shook
him cordially by the hand.  The other dignitaries on the platform
followed with their congratulations, the populace cheered, and the
bands played "Hail to the Chief!"

President Van Buren and ex-President Jackson were then escorted
back to the White House, where for three hours a surging tide of
humanity swept past the new Chief Magistrate, congratulating him
on his inauguration.  The assemblage was a promiscuous one, and
the reception was as disorderly an affair as could well be imagined.
At four o'clock in the afternoon the members of the Diplomatic
Corps called in a body, wearing their court dresses, and Don Calderon
de la Barca, who was their Dean, presented a congratulatory address.
In his reply, Mr. Van Buren made his only known _lapsus linguae_
by addressing them as the "Democratic corps."  It was not until
after his attention had been called to the mistake that he corrected
himself, and stated that he had intended to say "Diplomatic Corps."
In that evening two inauguration balls were given.

Many strangers had been unable to find conveyances to take them
away and could not obtain lodging places.  It was interesting,
toward nightfall, to witness the gathering anxiety in many a good
citizen's countenance as he went from boarding-house to hotel, and
from hotel to private residence, seeking lodgings in vain.  Money
could indeed procure the most luxurious dishes and the rarest
beverages; but while the palate could be gratified there was no
rest for weary limbs.  "Beds! beds! beds!" was the general cry.
Hundreds slept in the market-house on bundles of hay, and a party
of distinguished Bostonians passed the night in the shaving-chairs
of a barber's shop.

General Jackson soon left for Tennessee, relieved from the cares
of the Presidential station, and exhibiting an unwonted gaiety of
spirit.  During the previous winter he had not expected to live
until the conclusion of his term, and he could but feel buoyant
and happy in finding himself sufficiently recovered to undertake
the journey, with the prospect of enjoying some years at the
Hermitage, in the midst of the agricultural occupations of which
he was so fond.

President Van Buren was the first President who had not been born
a British subject, yet he was at heart a monarchist, opposed to
universal suffrage, and in favor of a strong central government,
although he had reached his exalted position by loud professions
of democracy.  He endeavored to establish a personal intimacy with
every one presented to him, and he ostensibly opened his heart for
inspection.  The tone of his voice was that of a thorough frankness,
accompanied by a pleasant smile, but a fixed expression at the
corners of his mouth and the searching look of his keen eyes showed
that he believed, with Talleyrand, that language was given to
conceal thought.  He found himself saddled at the commencement of
his Administration with national financial embarrassments, bequeathed
as a legacy by his "illustrious predecessor," as he designated
General Jackson in one of his messages.  The destruction of the
United States Bank had forced the transfer of the national funds,
which it had held on deposit, to the State banks.  They had loaned
these funds on securities, often of doubtful value or worthless,
and when the day of reckoning came general bankruptcy ensued.
Manufacturers were obliged to discharge their workmen; provisions
were scarce and dear in the Atlantic States, because funds could
not be obtained for the removal eastward of the Western crops; and
there was much actual distress in the large cities on the sea coast.

To quiet the popular clamor, President Van Buren convened Congress
in an extra session, and in his message to that body on its assembling
he proposed the establishment of an independent Treasury, with sub-
Treasuries in different cities, for the safe keeping of the public
money, entirely separate from the banks.  The Whigs opposed this
independent Treasury scheme, but, to the surprise of those with
whom he had of late been politically affiliated, it received the
cordial support of Mr. Calhoun.  When Congress began to discuss
this measure, he became its champion in the Senate, and soon "locked
horns" with Mr. Clay, who led its opponents.  The debate was
continued session after session, and in time Messrs. Clay and
Calhoun passed from their discussion of national finances into an
acrimonious reciprocal review of the acts, votes, and motions of
each other during the preceding thirty years.

During the debate in the House on the bill authorizing the issue
of Treasury notes there was an all-night session.  The Democrats
had determined in caucus to "sit out the bill," and whenever a Whig
moved to adjourn his motion was promptly negatived.  As darkness
came on the lamps were lighted and trimmed, candles were brought
into the hall, and the older and feebler members "pairing off,"
took their cloaks and hats and left.  The House being in Committee
of the Whole, whenever they found no quorum voting, were obliged
by the parliamentary usage to rise and report that fact to the
House.  When this was done, and the House was again in session as
a House, behold, a quorum instantly appeared; and then, by the same
law, they were obliged to return into Committee again.  This happened
so often that at length gentlemen of the Administration side became
irritated, remonstrated, demanded that members should be counted
in their seats, whether they had voted or no, and at length came
to insist that individuals, by name, be compelled to vote.  Such
a motion having been made in one case, a voice cried out in the
confusion which filled the chamber:  "How are you going to do it?"
and the query was succeeded by shouts of laughter, mingled with
sounds of vexation.

As midnight approached it was curious to watch the various effects
produced by the scene on different temperaments.  Some yawned
fearfully; others cursed and swore; others shook their sides with
merriment; others reasoned and remonstrated with their neighbors;
some very composedly stretched themselves upon the sofas, having
first borrowed chair-cushions enough to support their somnolent
heads; other bivouacked on three chairs, while some, not finding
a convenient couch, stretched themselves flat on the floor of the
House, with, perhaps, a volume of the Laws of the United States as
their pillow.

At half-past one a call of the House was ordered, the doors were
closed, and one hundred and forty-nine members were found to be
present.  This House went into Committee of the Whole to come out
of it again, and the yeas and nays were called until the clerk grew
hoarse.  Thus rolled the hours away.  Candles burned down to their
sockets, forming picturesque grottoes of spermaceti as they declined;
lamps went out in suffocating fumes.  Some insisted on having a
window up, others on having it down.

When the morning light began to dawn through the large south windows
of the Representatives' Hall, it contrasted strongly with the glare
of lights, the smoke of the lamps, and all the crowded tumult
within.  At four o'clock the Sergeant-at-Arms arrived with Corwin,
Giddings, and a dozen other captured absentees, who were, one by
one, required to account for their absence by the Speaker, who
would say:  "Mr. A. B., you have absented yourself from the House
during its sittings, contrary to law, and without leave of the
House; what excuse have you to offer?"  And then the unfortunate
men made out the best story they could.  Some had been sick; others
had a sick wife; others had got a bad headache from the late session;
some had witnessed such night scenes on former occasions, and did
not wish to see the like again; one had told the Sergeant that he
would come if he would send a hack for him, and no hack had been
sent; while one very cavalierly informed the House that the reason
why he had been absent was that he had not been there.  Many were
excused altogether; others discharged from custody on paying their
fines (about two dollars each to the Sergeant for his fee of arrest).
One batch having thus been disposed of, the officer was dispatched
to make another haul, and in the meantime the old game was continued;
and, as neither party would yield, the unprofitable contest was
prolonged, not till broad daylight merely, but down to eleven
o'clock, when, all propositions of compromise having been rejected,
the debate was regularly renewed.  Finally, at a quarter before
five o'clock, the House adjourned, quite fagged out.

Among other evidences of the bitter and ferocious spirit which
characterized political contests in those days was the duel between
Representative Cilley, of Maine, and Representative Grimes, of
Kentucky, in which the former fell.  Mr. Cilley, in a speech
delivered in the House of Representatives, criticised a charge of
corruption brought against some unnamed Congressman in a letter
published in the New York _Courier and Enquirer_, over the signature
of "A Spy in Washington," and indorsed in the editorial columns of
that paper.  Mr. James Watson Webb, the editor of the _Courier and
Enquirer_, immediately visited Washington and sent a challenge to
Mr. Cilley by Mr. Graves, with whom he had but a slight acquaintance.
Mr. Cilley declined to receive the hostile communication from Mr.
Graves, without making any reflection on the personal character of
Mr. Webb.  Mr. Graves then felt himself bound by the unwritten code
of honor to espouse the cause of Mr. Webb, and challenged Mr. Cilley
himself.  This challenge was accepted, and the preliminaries were
arranged between Mr. Henry A. Wise, as the second of Mr. Graves,
and Mr. George W. Jones, as the second of Mr. Cilley.  Rifles were
selected as the weapons, and Mr. Graves found difficulty in obtaining
one, but was finally supplied by his friend, Mr. Rives, of the
_Globe_.  The parties met, the ground was measured, and the combatants
were placed; on the fourth fire Mr. Cilley fell, shot through the
body, and died almost instantly.  Mr. Graves, on seeing his antagonist
fall, expressed a desire to render him some assistance, but was
told by Mr. Jones, "My friend is dead, sir!"  Mr. Cilley, who left
a wife and three young children, was a popular favorite, and his
tragic end caused a great excitement all over the country.  Mr.
Wise was generally blamed for having instigated the encounter;
certainly he did not endeavor to prevent it.

The Capitol had its comedies as well as its tragedies, and the
leading comedian was Thomas Corwin, a Representative from Ohio,
who was a type of early Western culture and a born humorist.  He
was a middle-sized, somewhat stout man, with pleasing manners, a
fine head, sparkling hazel eyes, and a complexion so dark that on
several occasions--as he used to narrate with great glee--he was
supposed to be of African descent.  "There is no need of my working,"
said he, "for whenever I cannot support myself in Ohio, all I should
have to do would be to cross the river, give myself up to a Kentucky
negro-trader, be taken South, and sold for a field hand."  He always
had a story ready to illustrate a subject of conversation, and the
dry manner in which he enlivened his speeches by pungent witticism,
without a smile on his own stolid countenance, was irresistible.

He was once addressing a Whig mass meeting at Marietta, Ohio, and
was taking especial pains not to say anything that could offend
the Abolitionists, who were beginning to throw a large vote.  A
sharp witted opponent, to draw him out asked:  "Shouldn't niggers
be permitted to sit at the table with white folks, on steamboats
and at hotels?"  "Fellow-citizens," exclaimed Corwin, his swarthy
features beaming with suppressed fun, "I ask you whether it is
proper to ask such a question of a gentleman of my color?"  The
crowd cheered and the questioner was silenced.

[Facsimile]
  M. Van Buren
MARTIN VAN BUREN was born at Kinderhook, New York, December 5th,
1782; was a United States Senator from New York from December 3d,
1821, to December 20th, 1828, when he resigned to accept the office
of Governor of New York; this position he resigned on the 12th of
March, 1829, having been appointed by President Jackson Secretary
of State of the United States; this position he resigned August
1st, 1831, having been appointed by President Jackson Minister to
Great Britain, but the Senate rejected his nomination; was elected
Vice-President on the Jackson ticket in 1832; was elected President
in 1836; was defeated as the Democratic candidate for President in
1840; was the candidate of the Anti-Slavery party for President in
1848, and died at Kinderhook, New York, July 24th, 1862.


CHAPTER XV.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT.

It was during the Administration of Mr. Van Buren that the English
Abolitionists first began to propagate their doctrines in the
Northern States, where the nucleus of an anti-slavery party was
soon formed.  This alarmed the Southerners, who, under the lead of
Mr. Calhoun, threatened disunion if their "peculiar institution"
was not let alone.  The gifted South Carolinian having in January,
1838, paid a high compliment in debate to John Randolph for his
uncompromising hostility to the Missouri Compromise, Mr. Clay said:
"I well remember the Compromise Act and the part taken in that
discussion by the distinguished member from Virginia, whose name
has been mentioned, and whose death I most sincerely lament.  At
that time we were members of the other House.  Upon one occasion,
during a night session, another member from Virginia, through
fatigue and the offensive exhalations from one of the surrounding
lamps, fainted in his seat and was borne to the rear of the
Representatives' Hall.  Calling some one to the Speaker's chair,
I left my place to learn the character and extent of his illness.
Returning to the desk, I was met in one of the aisles by Mr.
Randolph, to whom I had not spoken for several weeks.  'Ah, Mr.
Speaker,' said he, 'I wish you would leave Congress and go to
Kentucky.  I will follow you there or anywhere else.'  I well
understood what he meant, for at that time a proposition had been
made to the Southern members, and the matter partly discussed by
them, of leaving Congress in the possession of the Northern members
and returning home, each to his respective constituents.  I told
Mr. Randolph that I could not then speak to him about the matter,
and requested him to meet me in the Speaker's room early the next
morning.  With his usual punctuality he came.  We talked over the
Compromise Act, he defending his favorite position and I defending
mine.  We were together an hour, but to no purpose.  Through the
whole he was unyielding and uncompromising to the last.  We parted,
shook hands, and promised to be good friends, and I never met him
again during the session.  Such," continued Mr. Clay, "was the part
Mr. Randolph took in that discussion, and such were his uncompromising
feelings of hostility to the North and all who did not believe with
him.  His acts came near shaking this Union to the centre and
desolating this fair land.  The measures before us now, and the
unyielding and uncompromising spirit are like then, and tend to
the same sad and dangerous end--dissolution and desolation, disunion
and ruin."

On the same day, in 1838, Mr. Webster gave in his opinion that
Congress had the power to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia.  That power, he said, was granted in the most express,
explicit, and undoubted terms.  It declared that Congress should
have "exclusive jurisdiction over all subjects whatsoever in the
District of Columbia."  Mr. Webster said that he had searched and
listened for some argument or some law to controvert this position.
he had read and studied carefully the act of cession of the ten
miles square from Maryland and Virginia, and he could find nothing
there, and nowhere else, to gainsay the plain and express letter
of the Constitution.  This inspired the Abolitionists with hope
that Mr. Webster would become the leader of the crusade against
slavery that they had decided to inaugurate.  At that time he
unquestionably leaned toward emancipation, not only in the District
of Columbia, but everywhere in the United States.  This was noticed
by the Southern leaders, who began to tempt him--with promises of
support for the Presidency--promises which were subsequently broken
again and again that a more subservient and available tool might
be placed in power.

Before allying himself with the South, Mr. Webster endeavored to
identify himself with the West by investing largely in a city laid
out on paper in a township in Rock Island County, Illinois.  It
was at the mouth of Rock River, and it was to have borne the name
of Rock Island City.  Fletcher Webster went out there and remained
for a time, I think, accompanied by his friend, George Curson.
Caleb Cushing was also interested in the embryo city, but somehow
it was not a success.

Mr. Webster had, however, a very vague idea of the "Great West" of
his day.  On one occasion when he was in the Senate a proposition
was before it to establish a mail-route from Independence, Mo., to
the mouth of the Columbia River, some three thousand miles, across
plains and mountains, about the extent of which the public then
knew no more than they did of the interior of Tibet.  Mr. Webster,
after denouncing the measure generally, closed with a few remarks
concerning the country at large.  "What do we want?" he exclaimed,
"with this vast, worthless area?  This region of savages and wild
beasts, of deserts of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of
cactus and prairie dogs?  To what use could we ever hope to put
these great deserts, of those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable
and covered to their very base with eternal snow?  What can we ever
hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles,
rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbor on it?  What
use have we for this country?"

Franklin Pierce, who had served two terms in the House of
Representatives, was then elected to the Senate.  He proved a
valuable recruit for the Southern ranks, as when in the House he
had risen one day to a question of privilege, and warmly resented
the reading by Mr. Calhoun in the Senate of an article from the
Concord _Herald of Freedom_, which declared that the Abolitionists
in New Hampshire were as one to thirty.  This journal, Mr. Pierce
said, "was too insignificant, too odious, in the eyes of his
constituents, to be cited as authority.  No age or country had ever
been free from fanatics, and with equal justice might the whole
people of New York be charged with being followers of Matthias as
the people of New Hampshire for favoring the designs of the Knapps
and Garrisons and Thompsons."

Sergeant Smith Prentiss, who came to Washington during the Van
Buren Administration to claim a seat in Congress as a Representative
from Mississippi, was the most eloquent speaker that I have ever
heard.  The lame and lisping boy from Maine had ripened, under the
Southern sun, into a master orator.  The original, ever-varying,
and beautiful imagery with which he illustrated and enforced his
arguments impressed Webster, Clay, Everett, and even John Quincy
Adams.  But his forte lay in arraigning his political opponents,
when his oratory was "terrible as an army with banners;" nothing
could stand against the energy of his look, gesture, and impassioned
logic, when once he was fairly under way, in denouncing the tricks
and selfish cunning of mere party management.  The printed reports
of his speeches are mere skeletons, which give but a faint idea of
them.  Even the few rhetorical passages that are retained have lost
much of their original form and beauty.  The professional stenographers
confessed themselves utterly baffled in the attempt to report him,
and he was quite as unfitted to report himself.  Indeed, he complained
that he never could reproduce the best thoughts, still less the
exact language, of his speeches.

The principal antagonist of Mr. Prentiss, in the courts of Mississippi,
was Joseph Holt, a young Kentucky lawyer, who had acquired a national
reputation for oratory by a speech which he made in the National
Democratic Convention of 1836, when he advocated the nomination of
Colonel Richard M. Johnson in a speech of great beauty and power.
His arguments were persuasive, the tones of his voice were melodious,
and he insinuated himself and his cause into the hearts of his
audience, rather than carried them by storm.  Devoted to the South
and its peculiar institution, he was welcomed in the State of
Mississippi, and soon took a prominent position at the bar of its
higher courts.

William Rufus King, of Alabama, who was elected President _pro
tempore_ of the Senate while Colonel Johnson was Vice-President,
was a prim, spare bachelor, known among his friends as "Miss Nancy
King."  When a young man he had accompanied the Minister to Russia,
William Pinkney, to St. Petersburg, as Secretary of the Legation
of the United States.  Residing there for two years, he acquired
the formal manners of the Court of the Emperor Alexander, with a
diplomatic craftiness which he always retained.  He was a courteous
presiding officer, as was thus oddly exemplified while he occupied
the chair.  The two Senators from the State of Arkansas pronounced
the name of their State differently.  Mr. King punctiliously observed
the difference, invariably recognizing one as "the gentleman from
Ar-kan-sas," and the other as "the gentleman from Ark-an-sas."

Mr. Van Buren was much exercised by a difficulty in the Pennsylvania
Legislature, which the State militia was called out to quell, and
which it was thought might result in a demand for the intervention
of United States troops.  Thaddeus Stevens, then an ardent Whig,
was a leader in the attempt to force eleven illegally elected
members into the House at the point of the bayonet, the troops
having their muskets loaded with buckshot.  When the enterprise
collapsed, Stevens jumped from a back window of the Capitol and
ran off to Gettysburg, where he remained without claiming his seat
for about a month, when he came in and offered to take the oath,
but the House resolved, with great solemnity, that the seat was
vacant, although others who had been out nearly as long were admitted
without hesitation.

A prominent young Virginia lawyer, named William Smith, who practiced
at Culpepper Court-House, became interested in a mail-route between
Washington City and Milledgeville, Georgia, and he grew to be an
extensive contractor.  Many of his mail-routes were but little more
than bridle-paths, over which the mails were carried on horseback.
With an eye to the main chance, and with a laudable desire to extend
the mail facilities of Virginia, Mr. Smith managed to secure a
large number of "expeditions" through Parson Obadiah Bruin Brown,
commonly called "Parson Obadiah Bruin Beeswax Brown," the Superintendent
of the contract office of the Post-office Department.  In place of
the horseback system stage lines would be substituted, and this
service would be frequently "expedited" without much of a view to
"productiveness," from one trip to three or six trips per week.
All of these "expeditions" were noted by stars (* *) at the bottom
of Smith's vouchers, which, interpreted, meant "extra allowance."
So frequently did these stars appear in the Virginia contractor's
accounts that he soon came to be known in the Post-office Department
as "Extra Billy" Smith, and it adhered to him in after life, when
he became a member of the House of Representatives and afterward
Governor of Virginia.  He still lives at Warrenton, a hale and
hearty old man.

Mr. Van Buren had an abundance of political nicknames.  He was "the
sweet little fellow" of Mr. Ritchie of the _Richmond Inquirer_,
and "the Northern man with Southern principles" of the _Charleston
Courier;_ Mr. Clinton baptized him "the Political Grimalkin;" Mr.
Calhoun, "the Weazel;" while he helped himself to the still less
flattering name of "the follower in the footsteps"--that is, the
successor of his predecessor, a sort of masculine _Madame Blaize_,

  "Who strove the neighborhood to please,
   With manners wondrous winning,
   And never followed wicked ways,
   Except when she was sinning."

who clad all the hungry and naked office-holders "that left a pledge
behind" of supporting him; and, like that good dame, led the way
to all those who came behind her.

The Southern nullifiers, who had been "squelched" by General Jackson,
began to revive under the more genial rule of Mr. Van Buren, and
they established an "organ" called the Washington _Chronicle_.  It
was edited by Richard K. Cralle, who came from Leesburg, Virginia.
He was a well-educated gentleman, ultra in his opinions on free
trade and Southern rights; but those who were enthusiastic in their
praises of his editorials did not subscribe to the _Chronicle_, or
if they did, never condescended to pay their subscriptions.  So
the paper ruined its printers and then gave up the ghost, Mr.
Calhoun securing a department clerkship for Mr. Cralle.

[Facsimile]
  Tristram Burgess
TRISTRAM BURGESS was born at Rochester, Massachusetts, February
26th, 1770; was a Representative in Congress from Rhode Island from
December 1st, 1825, until March 3d, 1835; was defeated as the Whig
candidate for Congress, and afterward as the Whig candidate for
Governor, and died at Providence, Rhode Island, October 13th, 1853.


CHAPTER XVI.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE AT WASHINGTON.

President Van Buren's wife (by birth Miss Hannah Hoes, of Columbia
County, New York) had been dead nineteen years when he took possession
of the White House, accompanied by his four sons, and presided over
the official receptions and dinner parties with his well-known tact
and politeness.  In the November following his inauguration, his
eldest son and private secretary, Colonel Abraham Van Buren (who
was a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, and who had
served on the staff of General Worth), was married to Miss Angelica
Singleton, a wealthy South Carolina lady, who had been educated at
Philadelphia, and who had passed the preceding winter at Washington
in the family of her relative, Senator Preston.  On the New Year's
day succeeding the wedding Mrs. Van Buren, assisted by the wives
of the Cabinet officers, received with her father-in-law, the
President.  Her rare accomplishments, superior education, beauty
of face and figure, grace of manner, and vivacity in conversation
insured social success.  The White House was refurnished in the
most expensive manner, and a code of etiquette was established
which rivaled that of a German principality.

The President endeavored to restore the good feeling between the
Administration and Washington "society," which had been ruptured
during the political rule of General Jackson.  He gave numerous
entertainments at the White House, and used to attend those given
by his Cabinet, which was regarded as an innovation, as his
predecessors had never accepted social invitations.  Ex-President
Adams, the widow of President Madison, and the widow of Alexander
Hamilton each formed the centre of a pleasant coterie, and the
President was open in the expression of his desire that the members
of his Cabinet and their principal subordinates should each give
a series of dinner-parties and evening receptions during the
successive sessions of Congress.

The dinner-parties were very much alike, and those who were in
succession guests at different houses often saw the same table
ornaments, and were served by the same waiters, while the fare was
prepared by the same cook.  The guests used to assemble in the
parlor, which was almost invariably connected with the dining-room
by large folding doors.  When the dinner was ready the doors were
thrown open, and the table was revealed, laden with china and cut-
glass ware.  A watery compound called vegetable soup was invariably
served, followed by boiled fish, overdone roast beef or mutton,
roast fowl or game in season, and a great variety of puddings,
pies, cakes, and ice-creams.  The fish, meat, and fowl were carved
and helped by the host, while the lady of the house distributed
the vegetables, the pickles, and the dessert.  Champagne, without
ice, was sparingly supplied in long, slender glasses, but there
was no lack of sound claret, and with the dessert several bottles
of old Madeira were generally produced by the host, who succinctly
gave the age and history of each.  The best Madeira was that labeled
"The Supreme Court" as their Honors, the Justices, used to make a
direct importation every year, and sip it as they consulted over
the cases before them every day after dinner, when the cloth had
been removed.  Some rare specimens of this wine can still be found
in Washington wine-cellars.

At the evening parties the carpet was lifted from the room set
apart for dancing, and to protect the dancers from slipping the
floor was chalked, usually in colors.  The music was almost invariably
a first and second violin, with flute and harp accompaniments.
Light refreshments, such as water-ices, lemonade, negus, and small
cakes were handed about on waiters between every two or three
dances.  The crowning glory of the entertainment, however, was the
supper, prepared under the supervision of the hostess, aided by
some of her intimate friends, who also loaned their china and
silverware.  The table was covered with _a la mode_ beef, cold
roast turkey, duck, and chicken, fried and stewed oysters, blanc-
mange, jellies, whips, floating islands, candied oranges, and
numerous varieties of tarts and cakes.  Very often the older men
would linger after the ladies had departed, and even reassemble
with those, and discuss the wines _ad libitum_, if not _ad nauseam_,
while the young men, after having escorted the ladies to their
respective homes, would meet again at some oyster-house or go out
on a lark, in imitation of the young English bloods in the favorite
play of Tom and Jerry.  Singing, or rather shouting, they would
break windows, wrench off knockers, call up doctors, and transpose
sign-boards; nor was there a night watchman to interfere with their
roistering.

A decided sensation was created at Washington during the Van Buren
Administration by the appearance there of a handsome and well-
educated Italian lady, who called herself America Vespucci and
claimed descent from the navigator who gave his name to this
continent.  Ex-President Adams and Daniel Webster became her especial
friends, and she was soon a welcome guest in the best society.  In
a few weeks after her arrival she presented a petition to Congress
asking, first, to be admitted to the rights of citizenship; and,
secondly, to be given "a corner of land" out of the public domain
of the country which bore the name of her ancestor.  An adverse
report, which was soon made, is one of the curiosities of Congressional
literature.  It eulogized the petitioner as "a young, dignified,
and graceful lady, with a mind of the highest intellectual culture,
and a heart beating with all our own enthusiasm in the cause of
America and human liberty."  The reasons why the prayer of the
petitioner could not be granted were given, but she was commended
to the generosity of the American people.  "The name of America--
our country's name--should be honored, respected, and cherished in
the person of the interesting exile from whose ancestor we derive
the great and glorious title."

A subscription was immediately opened by Mr. Haight, the Sergeant-
at-Arms of the Senate, and Judges, Congressmen, and citizens vied
with one another in their contributions.  Just then it was whispered
that Madame Vespucci had borne an unenviable reputation at Florence
and at Paris, and had been induced by a pecuniary consideration to
break off an intimacy with the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's
oldest son, and come to Washington.  Soon afterward the Duke's
younger brother, the Prince de Joinville, came to this country,
and refused to recognize her, which virtually excluded her from
reputable society.  For some years subsequently she resided in
luxurious seclusion with a wealthy citizen of New York, in the
interior of that State, and after his death she returned to Paris.

During the Van Buren Administration James P. Espy came to Washington
to initiate what has grown into the Weather Signal Service.  He
was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and so poor in early life that when
seventeen years of age he had not been able to learn to read.  He
subsequently mastered the English language and the classics, and
long before he knew why began to study the mystery of the moving
clouds and to form his storm theories.  At last he asked of Congress
an appropriation of five thousand dollars a year for five years,
but he was met with jibes and ridicule.  Senator Preston, of South
Carolina, said Espy was a madman, too dangerous to be at large,
and the Senator would vote a special appropriation for a prison in
which to confine him.  Espy was in the Senate gallery at the time.
Wounded to the quick, he left the Capital and went to New York,
where he delivered a course of lectures with great success.  They
were repeated in Boston, and he made money enough to enable him to
visit Europe.

Not long after reaching Liverpool, January 6th, 1839, a great storm
occurred.  He went to Lloyd's, consulted the newspapers as they
arrived, noted the direction of the wind as given at different
places, and from these data constructed the first great storm map
ever prepared, with the hour points marked.  Every line and curve
and point exemplified his theory.  He was at no loss now for
audiences.  He appeared before the British Association of Scientists
at London, at which Sir John Herschel was present, an interested
auditor.  He crossed the channel to Paris, and the Academy of
Sciences appointed a committee, composed of the illustrious Arago,
"to report upon his observations and theory."  The effect of this
report, when it reached Washington, was not much different from
that which followed, afterward, the announcement of Morse's first
transmitted message over the wire from Washington to Baltimore.

Aided by General Jackson and the "machinery" of the Democratic
party, engineered by Amos Kendall, Mr. Van Buren secured for himself
the re-nomination for the Presidency.  But he had great obstacles
to contend with.  The financial condition of the country, deranged
by the absence of the controlling power of the United States Bank,
grew worse and worse.  There was a total stagnation of business
throughout the Union, and from every section came tidings of
embarrassment, bankruptcy, and ruin.  There were no available funds
for the purchase of Western produce and its transportation to the
Atlantic markets, so it remained in the hands of the farmers, who
could not dispose of it except at great sacrifice.  In Ohio, for
example, pork was sold at three dollars a hundred pounds, and wheat
at fifty cents per bushel, while the price of agricultural labor
was but thirty-seven and a-half cents a day.

The campaign was carried on with great bitterness in Congress,
where the leading Whigs cordially united in a decisive warfare on
the Democrats.  General Harrison was eulogized as a second Cincinnatus
--plowman, citizen, and general--and the sneering remark that he
resided in a log-cabin was adopted as a partisan watch-word.  The
most notable speech was by Mr. Ogle, of Pennsylvania, who elaborately
reviewed the expensive furniture, china, and glassware which had
been imported for the White House by order of President Van Buren.
He dwelt on the gorgeous splendor of the damask window curtains,
the dazzling magnificence of the large mirrors, chandeliers, and
candelabra; the centre-tables, with their tops of Italian marble;
the satin-covered chairs, tabourets, and divans; the imperial
carpets and rugs, and, above all, the service of silver, including
a set of what he called gold spoons, although they were of silver-
gilt.  These costly decorations of the White House were described
in detail, with many humorous comments, and then contrasted with
the log-cabins of the West, where the only ornamentation, generally
speaking, was a string of speckled birds'-eggs festooned about a
looking-glass measuring eight by ten inches, and a fringed window
curtain of white cotton cloth.

Having described the furniture and the table service of the White
House, as purchased by direction of the President, Mr. Ogle proceeded
to sketch Van Buren's New Year receptions.  "Instead," said he,
"of weekly receptions, when all the people were at liberty to
partake of the good cheer of the President's house, there had been
substituted one cold, stiff, formal, and ceremonious assembly on
the first day of every year.  At this annual levee, notwithstanding
its pomp and pageantry, no expense whatever is incurred by the
President personally.  No fruits, cake, wine, coffee, hard cider,
or other refreshments of any kind are tendered to his guests.
Indeed, it would militate against all the rules of court etiquette,
now established at the palace, to permit vulgar eating and drinking
on this grand gala day.  The Marine Band, however, is always ordered
from the Navy Yard and stationed in the spacious front hall, from
whence they swell the rich saloons of the palace with 'Hail to the
Chief!' 'Wha'll be King but Charley?' and other humdrum airs, which
ravish with delight the ears of warriors who have never smelt
powder.  As the people's cash, and not his own, pays for all the
services of the Marine Band, its employment at the palace does not
conflict with the peculiar views of the President in regard to the
obvious difference between public and private economy.

"At these 'annual State levees,' the great doors of the 'East Room,'
'Blue Elliptical Saloon,' 'Green Drawing Room,' and 'Yellow Drawing
Room' are thrown open at twelve o'clock 'precisely' to the anxious
feet of gayly appareled noblemen, honorable men, gentlemen, and
ladies of all the nations and kingdoms of the earth, many of whom
appear ambitiously intent upon securing an early recognition from
the head of the mansion.  The President, at the 'same instant of
time,' assumes his station about four feet within the 'Blue Elliptical
Saloon,' and facing the door which looks out upon the spacious
front hall, but is separated from it, as before remarked, by a
screen of Ionic columns.  He is supported on the right and left by
the Marshal of the District of Columbia and by one of the high
officers of the Government.  The Marine Band having been assigned
their position at the eastern end of the hall, with all their fine
instruments in full tune, 'at the same identical moment' strike up
one of our most admired 'national airs;' and forthwith a current
of life flows in at the wide-spread outer door of the palace, and
glides with the smoothness of music through the spacious hall by
the Ionic screen into the royal presence.  Here (to drop for a
moment my liquid figure) each and every individual is presented
and received with a gentle shake of the hand, and is greeted with
that 'smile eternal' which plays over the soft features of Mr. Van
Buren, save when he calls to mind how confoundedly 'Old Tip' chased,
caught, and licked Proctor and Tecumseh.  Immediately after the
introduction or recognition the current sets toward the 'East Room'
and thus this stream of living men and women continues to flow and
flow and flow, for about the space of three hours--the 'Democratic
President' being the only orb around which all this pomp, pride,
and parade revolve.  To him all these lesser planets turn, 'as the
sunflower turns' to the sun, and feel their colors brightened when
a ray of favor or a 'royal smile' falls upon them."

[Facsimile]
  W. L. Marcy
WILLIAM LEARNED MARCY was born at Sturbridge, Massachusetts, December
12th, 1786; was United States Senator from New York from December
5th, 1831, to July, 1832, when he resigned; was Governor of the
State of New York, 1833-1839; was Secretary of War under President
Polk, March 5th, 1845, to March 3d, 1849; was Secretary of State
under President Pierce, March 7th, 1853, to March 4th, 1857, and
died at Ballston Spa, New York, July 4th, 1857.


CHAPTER XVII.
THE LOG CABIN AND HARD CIDER CAMPAIGN.

The Presidential campaign of 1840 surpassed in excitement and
intensity of feeling all which had preceded it, and in these respects
it has not since been equaled.  It having been sneeringly remarked
by a Democratic writer that General Harrison lived in a log cabin
and had better remain there, the Whigs adopted the log cabin as
one of their emblems.  Log cabins were raised everywhere for Whig
headquarters, some of them of large size, and almost every voting
precinct had its Tippecanoe Club with its choristers.

For the first time in our land the power of song was invoked to
aid a Presidential candidate, and immense editions of log cabin
song-books were sold.  Many of these songs were parodies on familiar
ballads.  One of the best compositions, the authorship of which
was ascribed to George P. Morris, the editor of the New York
_Mirror_, was a parody on the Old Oaken Bucket.  The first verse
ran:

  "Oh! dear to my soul are they days of our glory,
   The time-honored days of our national pride;
   When heroes and statesmen ennobled our story,
   And boldly the foes of our country defied;
   When victory hung o'er our flag, proudly waving,
   And the battle was fought by the valiant and true
   For our homes and our loved one, the enemies braving,
   Oh! then stood the soldier of Tippecanoe--
   The iron-armed soldier, the true-hearted soldier
   The gallant old soldier of Tippecanoe."

Mass conventions were held by the Whigs in the larger cities and
in the central towns at the great West.  They were attended by
thousands, who came from the plow, the forge, the counter, and the
desk, at a sacrifice of personal convenience and often at considerable
expense, to give a hearty utterance to their deep-felt opposition
to the party in power.  Delegations to these conventions would
often ride in carriages or on horseback twenty-five or thirty miles,
camping out during the excursion.  They carried banners, and often
had a small log cabin mounted on wheels, in which was a barrel of
hard cider, the beverage of the campaign.  On the day of the
convention, and before the speaking, there was always a procession,
in which the delegations sang and cheered as they marched along,
sometimes rolling balls on which were the names of the States,
while the music of numerous bands aided in imparting enthusiasm.

The speaking was from a platform, over which floated the national
flag, and on which were seated the invited guests, the local
political magnates, the clergymen of the place, and generally a
few Revolutionary soldiers, who were greeted with loud applause.
The principal orators during the campaign were Henry Clay, Daniel
Webster, William C. Preston, Henry A. Wise, Thomas Corwin, Thomas
Ewing, Richard W. Thompson, and scores of less noted names.  General
Harrison took the stump himself at several of the Western gatherings,
and spoke for over an hour on each occasion.  His demeanor was that
of a well-bred, well-educated, venerable Virginia gentleman,
destitute of humor and fond of quoting from the classic authors.

The favorite campaign document, of which hundreds of thousands were
circulated through the mails under the franks of the Whig Congressmen,
was the reply in the House of Representatives by Thomas Corwin, of
Ohio, to an attack upon Harrison's military record made by Mr.
Isaac E. Crary.  A native of Connecticut, Mr. Crary had migrated
to Michigan, and was the first and the only Representative from
that recently admitted State.  Anxious to distinguish himself, he
undertook to criticise the military career of General Harrison with
great unfairness and partisan vigor.  Mr. Corwin replied the next
day in one of the most wonderful speeches ever delivered at
Washington.  For vigorous argument and genuine wit the speech has
rarely been equaled.  Those who heard it agree that his defense of
Harrison was overwhelming and the annihilation of Crary complete.
The House was convulsed with laughter at the richness and originality
of the humor, and at times almost awed by the great dignity and
profound arguments of the orator.  The pages of history were
ransacked for illustrations to sustain the speaker, and all were
poured in rapid profusion upon the head of poor Crary, who sat
amazed and stupefied at the storm he had provoked.  As Corwin
proceeded the members left their seats and clustered thickly about
him, the reporters laid down their pens, and everybody gave themselves
up to the enjoyment of the hour.  As Mr. Corwin painted in mock
heroic style the knowledge of military affairs which the lawyer
member from Michigan had acquired from reading _Tidd's Practice_
and _Espinasse's Nisi Prius_, studies so happily adapted to the
art of war, the House fairly roared with delight.

He drew a mirth-provoking picture of Crary in his capacity of a
militia brigadier at the head of his legion on parade day, with
his "crop-eared, bushy-tailed mare and sickle hams--the steed that
laughs at the shaking of the spear, and whose neck was clothed with
thunder," and likened Crary to Alexander the Great with his war-
horse, Bucephalus, at the head of his Macedonian phalanx.

He traced all the characteristic exploits of the assembled throng
on those old-time mustering occasions.  The wretched diversity in
height and build of the marshaled hosts; the wild assortment of
accoutrements, from the ancient battle-ax to the modern broom-stick,
the trooping boys, the slovenly girls, the mock enthusiasm of the
spectators, all were painted with a master's hand.  Finally, after
reciting Crary's deeds of valor and labor during the training day,
Corwin left him and his exhausted troop at a corner grocery assuaging
the fires of their souls with copious draughts of whisky drank from
the shells of slaughtered watermelons.  When Mr. Corwin came to
give the history of General Harrison and defend his military record,
he rose to the height of pure eloquence, and spoke with convincing
force and unanswerable logic.  The fate of Crary was sealed.
Probably no such personal discomfiture was ever known from the
effect of a single speech.  He never recovered from the blow, and
was known at home and abroad as "the late General Crary."  Even at
home the farmers and the boys, in watermelon season, would always
offer him the fruit with sly jests and jeers and a joke at his
military career; but his public life and usefulness were at an end.

In May, 1840, there was received at Washington the initial number
of _The Log Cabin_, a campaign paper published at New York by Horace
Greeley.  It was printed at the office of the _New Yorker_, then
edited by Mr. Greeley, on a thin super-royal sheet, and the price
for twenty-eight weekly issues was fifty cents for a single copy--
larger numbers much less.  It contained a few illustrations bearing
on the election, plans of General Harrison's battle-grounds, and
campaign songs set to music.

Mr. Greeley's paper was recommended to leading Whigs at Washington
by Thurlow Weed, and he obtained eighty thousand subscribers, the
Whig Congressmen recommending the paper to their constituents.
The _Log Cabin_ was the foundation of the _Tribune_, and thenceforth
until his death Mr. Greeley was well known at the National Capital.
He was a man of intense convictions and indomitable industry, and
he wielded an incisive, ready pen, which went straight to the point
without circumlocution or needless use of words.  Although he was
a somewhat erratic champion of Fourierism, vegetarianism, temperance,
anti-hanging, and abolition, there was a "method in his madness,"
and his heretical views were evidently the honest convictions of
his heart.  Often egotistical, dogmatic, and personal, no one could
question his uprightness and thorough devotion to the noblest
principles of progressive civilization.  Inspired by that true
philanthropy that loves all mankind equally and every one of his
neighbors better than himself, he was often victimized by those
whose stories he believed and to whom he loaned his hard-earned
savings.  The breath of slander did not sully his reputation, and
he never engaged in lobbying at Washington for money, although
friendship several times prompted him to advocate appropriations
for questionable jobs--the renewal of patents which were monopolies,
and the election of Public Printers who were notoriously corrupt.

Mr. Clay "sulked in his tent" until August, when he went to Nashville
and addressed a Whig Convention.  "Look," said he, in conclusion,
"at the position of Tennessee and Kentucky.  They stood side by
side, their sons fought side by side, at New Orleans.  Kentuckians
and Tennesseans now fight another and a different kind of battle.
But they are fighting now, as then, a band of mercenaries, the
cohorts of power.  They are fighting a band of office-holders, who
call General Harrison a coward, an imbecile, an old woman!

"Yes, General Harrison is called a coward, but he fought more
battles than any other General during the last war and never
sustained a defeat.  He is no statesman, and yet he has filled more
civil offices of trust and importance than almost any other man in
the Union."

A man in the crowd here cried out, "Tell us of Van Buren's battles!"

"Ah!" said Mr. Clay, "I will have to use my colleague's language
and tell you of Mr. Van Buren's '_three_ great battles!'  He says,
that he fought General Commerce and conquered him; that he fought
General Currency and conquered him, and that, with his Cuban allies,
he fought the Seminoles and got conquered!"

Mr. Kendall came to the aid of President Van Buren, and resigned
the office of Postmaster-General that he might sustain the
Administration with his powerful pen.  He thus brought upon himself
much malignant abuse, but in the many newspaper controversies in
which he was engaged he never failed to vindicate himself and
overwhelm his assailant with a clearness and vigor of argument and
a power of style with which few pens could cope.  He was not only
assailed with the rudest violence of newspaper denunciation, but
he was alluded to by Whig speakers in scornful terms, while
caricaturists represented him as the Mephistopheles of the Van
Buren Administration, and Log Cabin Clubs roared offensive campaign
songs at midnight before his house, terrifying his children by the
discharges of a small cannon.  Defeat stared him in the face, but
he never quailed, but faced the storm of attack in every direction,
and zealously defended the Democratic banner.

The Whigs of Maine led off by electing Edward Kent Governor, and
five of her eight Congressmen, including William Pitt Fessenden
and Elisha H. Allen, who afterward, when Minister from the Sandwich
Islands to the United States, fell dead at a New Year's reception
at the White House.  Delaware, Maryland, and Georgia soon afterward
followed suit, electing Whig Congressmen and State officers.  In
October the Ohio Whigs elected Thomas Corwin Governor, by a majority
of nearly twenty thousand over Wilson Shannon, and it was evident
that the triumphant election of Harrison and Tyler was inevitable.
In New York William H. Seward was re-elected Governor, but he ran
over seven thousand votes behind General Harrison, owing to certain
local issues.

For some months before the election the Democrats mysteriously
intimated that at the last moment some powerful engine was to be
put into operation against the Whig cause.  Mr. Van Buren himself
was reported as having assured an intimate friend, who condoled
with him on his gloomy prospects, that he "had a card to play yet
which neither party dreamed of."  The Attorney-General and the
District Attorneys of New York and Philadelphia were as mysterious
as Delphic oracles, while other Federal officers in those cities
were profound and significant in their head-shakings and winks in
reference to disclosures which were to be made just before the
Presidential election, and which were to blow the Whigs "sky high."

At last the magazine was exploded with due regard to dramatic
effect.  Carefully prepared statements, supported by affidavits,
were simultaneously published in different parts of the country,
showing that a man named Glentworth had been employed by some
leading New York Whigs in 1838 to procure illegal votes from
Philadelphia.  The men were ostensibly engaged in laying pipe for
the introduction of Croton water.

Messrs. Grinnell, Blatchford, Wetmore, Draper, and other leading
New York Whigs implicated promptly published affidavits denying
that they had ever employed Glentworth to supply New York with Whig
voters from Philadelphia.  It was proven, however, that he had
received money and had taken some thirty Philadelphians to New York
the day before the election.  There was no evidence, however, that
more than one of them had voted, and the only effect of the disclosure
was to add the word "pipe-laying" to the political vocabulary.

The Whigs fought their battle to the end with confidence of success,
and displayed an enthusiasm and harmony never witnessed in this
country before or since.  Commencing with the harmonious selection
of General Harrison as their candidate, they enlisted Clay and
Webster, his defeated rivals, in his support, and, having taken
the lead, they kept it right through, really defeating the Democrats
in advance of the campaign.  The South were not satisfied with Mr.
Van Buren's attitude on the admission of Texas, which stood knocking
for admission at the door of the Union, and "the Northern man with
Southern principles" was not the recipient of many Southern votes:

  "Then hurrah for the field where the bald eagle flew,
   In pride o'er the hero of Tippecanoe!"

[Facsimile]
  Tho. Corwin
THOMAS CORWIN was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, July 29th,
1794; was a Representative in Congress from Ohio from December 5th,
1831, to 1840, when he resigned and was elected Governor of Ohio;
was defeated for Governor of Ohio in 1842; was a Senator from Ohio
from December 1st, 1845, to July 22d, 1850, when he resigned, having
been appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Taylor, and
served until March 3d, 1853; was again a Representative in Congress
from Ohio, December 5th, 1859, to March 3d, 1861; was Minister to
Mexico, March 22d, 1861, to September 1st, 1864; died suddenly at
Washington City, December 18th, 1865.


CHAPTER XVIII.
ENTER WHIGS--EXIT DEMOCRATS.

In 1840 many of the States voted for Presidential electors on
different days, which rendered the contest more exciting as it
approached its close.  There was no telegraphic communication, and
there were but few lines of railroad, so that it was some time
after a large State had voted before its complete and correct
returns could be received.  At last all the back townships had been
heard from and the exultant Whigs were certain that they had elected
their candidates by a popular majority of over one hundred thousand!
Twenty States had given Harrison and Tyler two hundred and thirty-
four electoral votes, while Van Buren and Johnson had received but
sixty electoral votes in six States.  The log cabins were the scenes
of great rejoicing over this unparalleled political victory, and
the jubilant Whigs sang louder than before:

  "Van, Van, Van is a used-up man."

General William Henry Harrison was by birth and education a Virginian.
His father, Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, was the largest man in the old Congress of the
Confederation, and when John Hancock was elected President of that
body Harrison seized him and bore him in his arms to the chair.
On reaching manhood William Henry Harrison migrated to Ohio, then
the far West, and for forty years was prominently identified with
the interests, the perils, and the hopes of that region.  Universally
beloved in the walks of peace, and somewhat distinguished by the
ability with which he had discharged the duties of a succession of
offices which he had filled, yet he won his greatest renown in
military service.  But he had never abjured the political doctrines
of the Old Dominion, and his published letters and speeches during
the Presidential campaign which resulted in his election showed
that he was a believer in what the Virginians called a strict
construction of financial questions, internal improvements, the
veto-power, and the protection of negro slavery.  His intellect
was enriched with classical reminiscences, which he was fond of
quoting in writing or in conversation.  When he left his residence
on the bank of the Ohio for the seat of Government he compared his
progress to the return of Cicero to Rome, congratulated and cheered
as he passed on by the victorious Cato and his admiring countrymen.

On General Harrison's arrival at Washington, on a stormy afternoon
in February, 1841, he walked from the railroad station (then on
Pennsylvania Avenue) to the City Hall.  He was a tall, thin, careworn
old gentleman, with a martial bearing, carrying his hat in his
hand, and bowing his acknowledgments for the cheers with which he
was greeted by the citizens who lined the sidewalks.  On reaching
the City Hall, the President-elect was formally addressed by the
Mayor, Colonel W. W. Seaton, of the _National Intelligencer_, who
supplemented his panegyric by a complimentary editorial article in
his newspaper of the next morning.

Before coming East General Harrison visited Henry Clay, at Ashland,
and tendered him the position of Secretary of State, which Mr. Clay
promptly declined, saying that he had fully determined not to hold
office under the new Administration, although he intended cordially
to support it.  General Harrison thanked Mr. Clay for his frankness,
expressing deep regret that he could not accept the portfolio of
the Department of State.  He further said that if Mr. Clay had
accepted this position it was his intention to offer the portfolio
of the Treasury Department to Mr. Webster; but since Mr. Clay had
declined a seat in the Cabinet, he should not offer one to Mr.
Webster.

Mr. Clay objected to this conclusion, and remarked that while Mr.
Webster was not peculiarly fitted for the control of the national
finances, he was eminently qualified for the management of the
foreign relations.  Besides, the appointment of Mr. Webster as
Secretary of State would inspire confidence in the Administration
abroad, which would be highly important, considering the existing
critical relations with Great Britain.  General Harrison accepted
the suggestion, and on his return to North Bend wrote to Mr. Webster,
offering him the Department of State and asking his advice concerning
the other members of the Cabinet.  The "solid men of Boston," who
had begun to entertain grave apprehensions of hostilities with
Great Britain, urged Mr. Webster to accept, and pledged themselves
to contribute liberally to his support.

No sooner was it intimated that Mr. Webster was to be the Premier
of the incoming Administration than the Calhoun wing of the Democratic
party denounced him as having countenanced the abolition of slavery,
and when his letter resigning his seat in the Senate was read in
that body, Senator Cuthbert, of Georgia, attacked him.  The Georgian's
declamation was delivered with clenched fist; he pounded his desk,
gritted his teeth, and used profane language.  Messrs. Clay, Preston,
and other Senators defended Mr. Webster from the attack of the
irate Georgian, and his friends had printed at Washington a large
edition of a speech which he had made a few months before on the
portico of the Capitol at Richmond before a vast assemblage.
"Beneath the light of an October sun, I say," he then declared,
"there is no power, directly or indirectly, in Congress or the
General Government, to interfere in the slightest degree with the
institutions of the South."

General Harrison, to quiet the cry of "Abolitionist," which had
been raised against him as well as Mr. Webster, made a visit to
Richmond prior to his inauguration, during which he availed himself
of every possible occasion to assert his devotion to the rights,
privileges, and prejudices of the South concerning the existence
of slavery.  On his return he took a daily ride on the picturesque
banks of Rock Creek, rehearsing portions of his inaugural address.

The portfolio of the Treasury Department was given to Thomas Ewing,
of Ohio (familiarly known from his early avocation as "the Salt
Boiler of the Kanawha") who was physically and intellectually a
great man.  He was of medium height, very portly, his ruddy complexion
setting off his bright, laughing eyes to the best advantage.  On
"the stump" he had but few equals, as in simple language and without
apparent oratorical effort he breathed his own spirit into vast
audiences, and swayed them with resistless power.  He resided in
a house built by Count de Menou, one of the French Legations, and
his daughter Ellen, now the wife of General Sherman, attended school
at the academy attached to the Convent of the Sisters of the
Visitation, in Georgetown.

The coming Secretary of War was John Bell, of Tennessee, a courtly
Jackson Democrat in years past, who had preferred to support Hugh
L. White rather than Martin Van Buren, and had thus drifted into
the Whig ranks.  He had served as a Representative in Congress
since 1827, officiating during one term as Speaker, and he was
personally very popular.

For Secretary of the Navy George E. Badger, of North Carolina, was
selected.  He had been graduated from Yale College, but had never
held other than local offices.  His sailor-like figure and facetious
physiognomy were very appropriate for the position, and he soon
became a decided favorite at the Washington "messes," where he was
always ready to contribute freely from his fund of anecdotes.

Francis Granger, of New York, who was to be Postmaster-General,
was also a graduate of Yale College.  He had been a member of the
New York State Legislature and of Congress, and the unsuccessful
Whig candidate for Vice-President in 1836.  He was a genial, rosy-
faced gentleman, whose "silver gray" hair afterward gave its name
to the party in New York which recognized him as its leader.

The Attorney-General was J. J. Crittenden, a Kentuckian, whose
intellectual vigor, integrity of character, and legal ability had
secured for him a nomination to the bench of the Supreme Court by
President Adams, which, however, the Democratic Senate failed to
confirm.  Kept in the shade by Henry Clay, he became somewhat
crabbed, but his was one of the noblest intellects of his generation.
His persuasive eloquence, his sound judgment, his knowledge of the
law, his lucid manner of stating facts, and his complete grasp of
every case which he examined had made him a power in the Senate
and in the Supreme Court, as he was destined to be in the Cabinet.

The inaugural message had been prepared by General Harrison in
Ohio, and he brought it with him to Washington, written in his
large hand on one side of sheets of foolscap paper.  When it was
submitted to Mr. Webster, he respectfully suggested the propriety
of abridging it, and of striking from it some of the many classical
allusions and quotations with which it abounded.  He found, however,
that General Harrison was not disposed to receive advice, and that
he was reluctant to part with any evidence of his classic scholarship.
Colonel Seaton used to relate with great gusto how Mr. Webster once
came late to a dinner party at his house, and said, as he entered
the dining-room, when the soup was being served:  "Excuse my
tardiness, but I have been able to dispose of two Roman Emperors
and a pro-Consul, which should be a sufficient excuse."

General Harrison was inaugurated on Thursday, March 4th, 1841.
The city had filled up during the preceding night, and the roar of
the morning salutes was echoed by the bands of the military as they
marched to take their designated places.  The sun was obscured,
but the weather was mild, and the streets were perfectly dry.  At
ten o'clock a procession was formed, which escorted the President-
elect from his temporary residence, by way of Pennsylvania Avenue,
to the Capitol.  No regular troops were on parade, but the uniformed
militia of the District of Columbia, reinforced by others from
Philadelphia and Baltimore, performed escort duty in a very creditable
manner.  A carriage presented by the Whigs of Baltimore, and drawn
by four horses, had been provided for the President-elect, but he
preferred to ride on horseback, as the Roman Emperors were wont to
pass along the Appian Way.  The old hero made a fine appearance,
mounted, as he was, on a spirited white charger.  At his right,
slightly in the rear, rode Major Hurst, who had been his aid-de-
camp at the Battle of the Thames; at his left, in a similar position,
rode Colonel Todd, another aid-de-camp at the same battle.  An
escort of assistant marshals, finely mounted, followed.  Although
the weather was chilly, the General refused to wear an overcoat,
and he rode with his hat in his hand, gracefully bowing acknowledgments
of cheers from the multitudes on the sidewalks, and of the waving
of white handkerchiefs by ladies at the windows on either side.

Behind the President-elect came Tippecanoe Clubs and other political
associations, with music, banners, and badges.  The Club from Prince
George County, Maryland, had in its ranks a large platform on
wheels, drawn by six white horses, on which was a power-loom from
the Laurel Factory, with operatives at work.  Several of the clubs
drew large log cabins on wheels, decked with suitable inscriptions,
cider-barrels, 'coonskins, and other frontier articles.  A feature
of the procession was the students of the Jesuits' College at
Georgetown, who appeared in uniform, headed by their faculty, and
carrying a beautiful banner.

An immense crowd had gathered at the Capitol, and at ten o'clock
ladies who had tickets were admitted into the gallery of the Senate
Chamber, and were provided with comfortable seats.  The east door
leading to the Senate gallery was soon opened, when at least five
thousand persons rushed to that point.  Less than a thousand were
enabled to reach the seats provided.  Soon after the galleries were
filled, the foreign Ambassadors, wearing the court dresses and
insignia, were introduced on the floor.  The members of the Senate
took their seats, after which the Senate was called to order by
the Clerk, and Senator King was chosen President _pro tem_.  The
newly elected Senators were sworn, Vice-President Tyler, of Virginia,
entered arm-in-arm with ex-Vice-President Johnson, and after the
oath of office had been administered to him he took the chair and
called the Senate to order.

The President-elect was then ushered into the Senate Chamber by
the Committee, of which Mr. Preston was chairman.  The Judges of
the Supreme Court, wearing their black silk robes, had taken their
seats in front, below the Speaker's chair.  The President-elect
shook hands cordially with a number of the Senators and Judges,
and appeared much younger than many who were his juniors in years.

At half-past twelve o'clock the signal was given, and the officers
in the Senate Chamber formed in procession and proceeded to the
eastern front of the Capitol, where there was a platform some
fifteen feet high and large enough to accommodate an immense crowd.
The President-elect took his seat in front, Chief Justice Taney
and his associates by his side, the Senators and Ambassadors on
the left, and the ladies at the sides.  The large area below was
filled with an immense multitude of probably not less than from
forty to fifty thousand persons.  General Harrison, as "the observed
of all observers," was greeted with prolonged cheers when he rose
to deliver his address.  When the uproar had subsided he advanced
to the front of the platform, and there was a profound stillness
as he read, in a loud and clear voice, his inaugural address.  He
stood bare-headed, without overcoat or gloves, facing the cold
northeast wind, while those seated on the platform around him,
although warmly wrapped, suffered from the piercing blasts.  All
were astonished at the power and compass of his voice.  He spoke
until two P. M.--one and a half hours--with a clearness that was
truly surprising.  So distinctly were his words heard that he was
cheered at the closing of every sentiment, particularly where he
said that he would carry out the pledge that he had made, that
under no circumstances would he run for another term.  Just before
the close of the inaugural he turned to Chief Justice Taney, who
held the Bible, and in a clear and distinct voice repeated the oath
required.  It was a singular fact that when the President took the
oath this multitude of spectators before him spontaneously uncovered
their heads, while the pealing cannon announced to the country that
it had a new Chief Magistrate.  As soon as the ceremony was over
the immense concourse turned their faces from the Capitol, and
filed down the various walks to Pennsylvania Avenue.  The procession
formed anew and marched to the White House, cheered as it passed
by the waiting crowds.

Entering the White House, President Harrison took his station in
the reception-room, and the multitude entered the front portal,
passed through the vestibule into the reception-room, where they
had an opportunity to shake hands with the President, then passed
down the rear steps and out through the garden.  At night there
were three inauguration balls, the prices of admission suiting
different pockets.  At one, where the tickets were ten dollars for
gentlemen, the ladies being invited guests, there was a representation
from almost every State in the Union.  President Harrison,
notwithstanding the fatigues of the day, remained over an hour,
and was attended by several members of his Cabinet.  Mr. Webster
was in excellent spirits, and chatted familiarly with Mr. Clay at
the punch-bowl, where libations were drunk to the success of the
new Administration.

Thus the new Administration was inaugurated.  The Democrats
surrendered the power which they had so despotically wielded for
twelve years, and their opponents, consolidated under the Whig
banner, took the reins of government.  Passing over Webster and
Clay, their recognized leaders, they had elected Harrison as a more
available candidate, he having been a gallant soldier and having
but few enemies.  For Vice-President they had elected John Tyler,
for the sole reason that his Democratic affiliations would secure
the electoral vote of Virginia.

[Facsimile]
  Wm H Harrison
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON was born in Charles County, Virginia, February
9th, 1773; was Delegate in Congress from the Northwest Territory,
December 2d, 1790, to March, 1800; was Governor of Indiana, 1801-
1813; was a Representative in Congress from Ohio, December 2d,
1816, to March 3d, 1819; was United States Senator, December 5th,
1825, to May 20th, 1828; was Minister to Colombia, May 24th, 1828,
to September 26th, 1829; became President of the United States,
March 4th, 1841, and died in Washington City, April 4th, 1841.


CHAPTER XIX.
HARRISON'S ONE MONTH OF POWER.

Government officials at Washington, nearly all of whom had received
their positions as rewards for political services, and many of whom
had displaced worthy men whose only fault was that they belonged to
a different party, were somewhat encouraged by the declarations of
President Harrison touching the position of office-holders.  It
was known from a speech of his at Baltimore, prior to his inauguration,
that he intended to protect the right of individual opinion from
official interference, and in a few days after he became President
his celebrated civil-service circular was issued by Daniel Webster,
as Secretary of State.  It was addressed to the heads of the
Executive Departments, and it commenced thus:

"SIR:--The President is of the opinion that it is a great abuse to
bring the patronage of the General Government into conflict with
the freedom of elections; and that this abuse ought to be corrected
wherever it may have been permitted to exist, and to be prevented
for the future."

It would have been fortunate for the country if these views of
President Harrison, so clearly stated by Daniel Webster in this
circular, could have been honestly carried out; but the horde of
hungry politicians that had congregated at Washington, with racoon-
tails in their hats and packages of recommendations in their pockets,
clamored for the wholesale action of the political guillotine, that
they might fill the vacancies thereby created.  Whigs and Federalists,
National Republicans and strict constructionists, bank and anti-
bank men had coalesced under the motto of "Union of the Whigs for
the Whigs for the sake of the Union," but they had really united
"for the sake of office."  The Administration found itself forced
to make removals that places might be found for this hungry horde,
and to disregard its high position on civil service.  Virginia was
especially clamorous for places, and Vice-President Tyler became
the champion of hundreds who belonged to the first families, but
who were impecunious.

Direct conflict soon arose between the President and his Cabinet,
he asserting his right to make appointments and removals, while
they took the ground that it was simply his duty to take such action
as they chose to dictate.  The Cabinet were sustained by the opinion
of Attorney-General John C. Crittenden, and they also under his
advice claimed the right to review the President's nominations
before they were sent to the Senate.  To the President, who had as
Governor and as General been in the habit of exercising autocratic
command, these attempts to hamper his action were very annoying,
and at times he "kicked over the traces."

One day, after a rather stormy Cabinet meeting, Mr. Webster asked
the President to appoint one of his political supporters, General
James Wilson, of New Hampshire, Governor of the Territory of Iowa.
President Harrison replied that it would give him pleasure to do
so had he not promised the place to Colonel John Chambers, of
Kentucky, his former aid-de-camp, who had been acting as his private
secretary.  The next day Colonel Chambers had occasion to visit
the Department of State, and Mr. Webster asked him if the President
had offered to appoint him Governor of Iowa.  "Yes, sir," was the
reply.  "Well, sir," said Mr. Webster with sour sternness, a cloud
gathering on his massive brow, while his unfathomable eyes glowed
with anger, "you must not take that position, for I have promised
it to my friend, General Wilson."  Colonel Chambers, who had been
a member of Congress, and was older than Mr. Webster, was not
intimidated, but replied, "Mr. Webster, I shall accept the place,
and I tell you, sir, not to undertake to dragoon me!"  He then left
the room, and not long afterward Mr. Webster received from the
President a peremptory order to commission John Chambers, of
Kentucky, as Governor of the Territory of Iowa, which was complied
with.

Mr. Clay undertook to insist upon some removals, that personal
friends of his might be appointed to the offices thus vacated, and
he used such dictatorial language that after he had left the White
House President Harrison wrote him a formal note, requesting that
he would make any further suggestions he might desire to submit in
writing.  Mr. Clay was very much annoyed, and Mr. King, of Alabama,
making some remarks in the Senate soon afterward which might be
construed as personally offensive, the great Commoner opened his
batteries upon him, saying in conclusion that the assertions of
the Senator from Alabama were "false, untrue, and cowardly."

Mr. King immediately rose and left the Senate Chamber.  Mr. Levin,
of Missouri, was called out, and soon returned, bringing a note,
which he handed to Mr. Clay, who read it, and then handed it to
Mr. Archer.  Messrs. Levin and Archer immediately engaged in an
earnest conversation, and it was soon known that a challenge had
passed, and they as seconds were endeavoring amicably to arrange
the affair.  After four days of negotiation, Mr. Preston, of South
Carolina, and other Senators, acting as mediators, the affair was
honorably adjusted.  Mr. King withdrew his challenge, Mr. Clay
declared every epithet derogatory to the honor of the Senator from
Alabama to be withdrawn, and Mr. Preston expressed his satisfaction
at the happy termination of the misunderstanding between the
Senators.  While Mr. Preston was speaking Mr. Clay rose, walked to
the opposite side of the Senate Chamber, and stopping in front of
the desk of the Senator from Alabama, said, in a pleasant tone,
"King, give us a pinch of your snuff?"  Mr. King, springing to his
feet, held out his hand, which was grasped by Mr. Clay and cordially
shaken, the Senators and spectators applauding the pacific
demonstration.

The leading Washington correspondent at that time was Dr. Francis
Bacon, brother of the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, of New Haven,
Connecticut.  He wrote for the New York _American_, then edited by
Charles King, signing his articles R. M. T. H.--Regular Member
Third House.  Dr. Bacon wielded a powerful pen, and when he chose
so to do could condense a column of denunciation, satire, and
sarcasm in to a single paragraph.  He was a fine scholar, fearless
censor, and terse writer, giving his many readers a clear idea of
what was transpiring at the Federal metropolis.

A new-comer among the correspondents during the Harrison Administration
was Mr. Nathan Sargent, whose correspondence to the Philadelphia
_United States Gazette_, over the signature of "Oliver Oldschool,"
soon became noted.  His carefully written letters gave a continuous
narrative of important events as they occurred, and he was one who
aided in making the Whig party, like the Federal party, which had
preceded it, eminently respectable.

Washington correspondents, up to this time, had been the mediums
through which a large portion of the citizens of the United States
obtained their information concerning national affairs.  The only
reports of the debates in Congress appeared in the Washington
newspapers often several weeks after their delivery.  James Gordon
Bennett, who had then become proprietor of the New York _Herald_,
after publishing President Harrison's call for an extra session of
Congress in advance of his contemporaries, determined to have the
proceedings and debates reported for and promptly published in his
own columns.  To superintend the reporting, he engaged Robert
Sutton, who organized a corps of phonographers, which was the
nucleus of the present able body of official reporters of the
debates.  Sutton was a short, stout, pragmatical Englishman, whose
desire to obtain extra allowances prompted him to revise, correct,
and polish up reports which should have been verbatim, and thus to
take the initiative in depriving official reports of debates of a
large share of their value.  Since then, Senators and Representatives
address their constituents through the reports, instead of debating
questions among themselves.

The diplomatic representative of Great Britain, during the greater
part of the Jackson Administration, was the Right Honorable Charles
Richard Vaughan, who was a great favorite among Congressmen and
citizens at Washington, many of whom were his guests at the Decatur
Mansion, then the British Legation.  He was a well-educated and
well-informed gentleman, with the courteous manners of the old
school.  When recalled after ten years' service at Washington, he
was a jovial bachelor of fifty, fond of old Madeira wine and a
quiet rubber of whist.

A good story is told of General Roger Weightman, when Mayor of the
city, who sent by mistake an invitation to Sir Charles Vaughan to
attend a Fourth-of-July dinner, at which speeches were invariably
made abusive of the British and their Vandalism in the recent war.
Sir Charles, who was a finished diplomat, might have construed the
invitation into an insult, but he wrote a very polite response,
saying that he thought he should be "indisposed" on the Fourth of
July.

Russia was then represented by the Baron de Krudener, who resided
in a large house built by Thomas Swann, a wealthy Baltimorean.
Amicable relations with "our ancient ally," France, had been
interrupted by the brusque demand of General Jackson for the payment
of the indemnity.  Monsieur Serruvier was recalled, leaving the
Legation in charge of Alphonso Pageot, the Secretary.  He also was
recalled, but after the Jackson Administration was sent back as
Chargè.

It was expected that the session of the Twenty-sixth Congress,
which terminated on the day of the inauguration of General Harrison,
would have been followed by a duel between Mr. Edward Stanley, of
North Carolina, and Mr. Francis W. Pickens, of South Carolina.
Mr. Stanley had been criticised in debate by Mr. Pickens, and he
retorted mercilessly.  "The gentleman," said he, "compares my speech
to the attempt of a 'savage shooting at the sun.'  It may be so,
sir.  But the Committee will remember that in the remarks I made
I did not address myself to the gentleman who has so unnecessarily
interposed in this debate.  And why did I not, sir?  Not because
I thought I should be as powerless as he describes me, but because
I had seen him so often so unmercifully kicked and cuffed and
knocked about, so often run over on this floor, that I thought he
was beneath my notice, and utterly insignificant.  Sir, the gentleman
says he is reminded by my speech of the 'nursery rhyme,'

  'Who shot Cock Robin?
  "I," said the Sparrow,
  "With my bow and arrow,
   I shot Cock Robin."'

Well, sir, I am willing to be the sparrow for this cock robin, this
chivalrous gentleman; and let me tell the gentleman, if he will
not deem me vain, I feel fully able, with my bow and arrow, to run
through a 'cowpen full' of such cock robins as he is.  In conclusion,
I have only to say, sir, to the gentleman from South Carolina, that
though my arm may be 'pigmy,' though I may be but a sparrow in the
estimation of one 'born insensible to fear,' I am able, sir,
anywhere, as a sparrow from North Carolina, to put down a dozen
such cock robins as he is.  'Come one, come all,' ye South Carolina
cock robins, if you dare; I am ready for you."  Mr. Pickens wrote
a challenge, but friends interposed, and the difficulty was honorably
arranged.

When Mr. Webster became Secretary of State, under President Harrison,
his friends in Boston and New York raised a purse to enable him to
purchase the Swann House, facing Lafayette Square.  Mr. Webster
preferred, however, to purchase land at Marshfield, and after he
had occupied the house during the negotiations of the Ashburton
Treaty, the property passed into the hands of Mr. W. W. Corcoran,
who has since resided there.

Mr. Webster was his own purveyor, and was a regular attendant at
the Marsh Market on market mornings.  He almost invariably wore a
large, broad-brimmed, soft felt hat, with his favorite blue coat
and bright buttons, a buff cassimere waistcoat, and black trousers.
Going from stall to stall, followed by a servant bearing a large
basket in which purchases were carried home, he would joke with
the butchers, fish-mongers, and green-grocers with a grave drollery
of which his biographers, in their anxiety to deify him, have made
no mention.  He always liked to have a friend of two at his dinner-
table, and in inviting them, _sans ceremonie_, he would say, in
his deep, cheery voice, "Come and dine with me to-morrow.  I
purchased a noble saddle of Valley of Virginia mutton in market
last week, and I think you will enjoy it."  Or, "I received some
fine cod-fish from Boston to-day, sir; will you dine with me at
five o'clock and taste them?"  Or, "I found a famous possum in
market this morning, sir, and left orders with Monica, my cook, to
have it baked in the real old Virginia style, with stuffing of
chestnuts and surrounded by baked sweet potatoes.  It will be a
dish fit for the gods.  Come and taste it."

President Harrison, who was an early riser, used to go to market,
and he invariably refused to wear an overcoat, although the spring
was cold and stormy.  One morning, having gone to the market thus
thinly attired, he was overtaken by a slight shower and got wet,
but refused to change his clothes.  The following day he felt
symptoms of indisposition, which were followed by pneumonia.  At
his Ohio home he had lived plainly and enjoyed sleep, but at
Washington he had, while rising early, rarely retired before one
o'clock in the morning, and his physical powers, enfeebled by age,
had been overtaxed.  At the same time, the President's mental powers
had undergone a severe strain, as was evident when he became somewhat
delirious.  Sometimes he would say, "My dear madam, I did not direct
that your husband should be turned out.  I did not know it.  I
tried to prevent it."  On other occasions he would say, in broken
sentences, "It is wrong--I won't consent--'tis unjust!"  "These
applications--will they never cease!"  The last time that he spoke
was about three hours before his death, when his physicians and
attendants were standing over him.  Clearing his throat, as if
desiring to speak audibly, and as though he fancied himself addressing
his successor, or some official associate in the Government, he
said:  "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the
Government.  I wish them carried out.  I ask nothing more."

"One little month" after President Harrison's inauguration multitudes
again assembled to attend his funeral.  Minute-guns were fired
during the day, flags were displayed at half staff, and Washington
was crowded with strangers at an early hour.  The buildings of
either side of Pennsylvania Avenue, with scarcely an exception,
and many houses on the contiguous streets, were hung with festoons
and streamers of black.  Almost every private dwelling had crape
upon its door, and many of the very humblest abodes displayed some
spontaneous signal of the general sorrow.  The stores and places
of business, even such as were too frequently seen open on the
Sabbath, were all closed.

Funeral services were performed in the Executive Mansion, which,
for the first time, was shrouded in mourning.  The coffin rested
on a temporary catafalque in the centre of the East Room.  It was
covered with black velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and over it was
thrown a velvet pall with a deep golden fringe.  On this lay the
sword of Justice and the sword of State, surmounted by the scroll
of the Constitution, bound together by a funeral wreath, formed of
the yew and the cypress.  Around the coffin stood in a circle the
new President, John Tyler, the venerable ex-President, John Quincy
Adams, Secretary Webster, and the other members of the Cabinet.
The next circle contained the Diplomatic Corps, in their richly
decorated court-suits, with a number of members of both houses of
Congress, and the relatives of the deceased President.  Beyond this
circle a vast assemblage of ladies and gentlemen filled up the
room.  Silence, deep and undisturbed, even by a whisper, prevailed.
When, at the appointed hour, the officiating clergyman said, "I am
the resurrection and the life," the entire audience rose, and joined
in the burial service of the Episcopalian Church.

After the services the coffin was carried to a large funeral car
drawn by six white horses, each having at its head a black groom
dressed in white, with white turban and sash.  Outside of the grooms
walked the pall-bearers, dressed in black, with black scarves.
The contrast made by this slowly moving body of white and black,
so opposite to the strong colors of the military around it, struck
the eye even from the greatest distance.

The funeral procession, with its military escort, was two miles in
length, and eclipsed the inauguration pageant which had so recently
preceded it.  The remains were escorted to the Congressional Burying-
Ground, where they were temporarily deposited in the receiving-
vault, to be taken subsequently to the banks of the Ohio, and there
placed in an unmarked and neglected grave.  The troops present all
fired their volleys in such a ludicrously straggling manner as to
recall the dying request of Robert Burns that the awkward squad
might not fire over his grave.  Then the drums and fifes struck up
merry strains, the military marched away, and only the scene of
the public bereavement remained.

[Facsimile]
  T. Ewing
THOMAS EWING was born near West Liberty, Virginia, December 28th,
1779; was United States Senator from Ohio, December 5th, 1831, to
March 3d, 1837; was Secretary of the Treasury under President
Harrison, March 5th, 1841, to September 13th, 1841; was Secretary
of the Interior under President Taylor, March 7th, 1849, to July
25th, 1850; was again Senator from Ohio, July 27th, 1850, to March
3d, 1851, and died at Lancaster, Ohio, October 26th, 1871.


CHAPTER XX.
THE KING IS DEAD--LONG LIVE THE KING.

John Tyler, having found that his position as Vice-President gave
him no voice in the distribution of patronage, had retired in
disgust to his estate in Prince William County, Virginia, when Mr.
Fletcher Webster brought him a notification, from the Secretary of
State, to hasten to Washington to assume the duties of the President.
Mr. Webster reached Richmond on Sunday--the day following General
Harrison's death--chartered a steamboat, and arrived at Mr. Tyler's
residence on Monday at daybreak.  Soon afterward, Mr. Tyler,
accompanied by his two sons, left with Mr. Webster, and arrived at
Washington early Tuesday morning.

The Cabinet had arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Tyler should be
officially styled, "Vice-President of the United States, acting
President," but he very promptly determined that he would enjoy
all of the dignities and honors of the office which he had inherited
under the Constitution.  Chief Justice Taney was then absent, so
Mr. Tyler summoned Chief Justice Cranch, of the Supreme Court of
the District of Columbia, to his parlor at Brown's Indian Queen
Hotel, and took the oath of office administered to previous
Presidents.  The Cabinet officers were soon made to understand that
he was Chief Magistrate of the Republic, and the Whig magnates
began to fear that their lease of power would soon terminate.  In
conversation with Mr. Nathan Sargent, a prominent Whig correspondent,
soon after his arrival, Mr. Tyler significantly remarked:  "If the
Democrats and myself ever come together, they must come to me; I
shall never go to them."  This showed that he regarded his connection
with the Whigs as precarious.

The extra session of Congress, which had been convened by General
Harrison before his death, was not acceptable to his successor,
who saw that its legislation would be inspired and controlled by
Henry Clay.  When the two houses were organized, he sent them a
brief message, in which the national bank question was dexterously
handled, "with the caution and ambiguity of a Talleyrand."  Mr.
Clay lost no time in presenting his programme for Congressional
action; and in a few days its first feature, the repeal of the sub-
Treasury Act, was enacted.  That night a thousand or more of the
jubilant Washington Whigs marched in procession from Capitol Hill
to the White House, with torches, music, transparencies, and
fireworks, escorting a catafalque on which was a coffin labeled,
"The sub-Treasury."  As the procession moved slowly along Pennsylvania
Avenue, bonfires were kindled at the intersecting streets, many
houses were illuminated, and there was general rejoicing.  On the
arrival of the procession at the Executive Mansion, President Tyler
came out and made a few remarks, while Mr. Webster and the other
members of the Cabinet bowed their thanks for the cheers given
them.  The hilarious crowd of mock-mourners then repaired to the
house of Mrs. Brown, at the corner of Seventh and D Streets, where
Mr. Clay boarded, and received his grateful acknowledgments for
the demonstration.  The next measure on Mr. Clay's programme, the
bill for the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public
lands among the States, was also promptly enacted and as promptly
approved by the President.  Next came the National Bankrupt Act,
which was stoutly opposed by the Democrats, but it finally passed,
and was approved by Mr. Tyler.

When Congress enacted a bill creating a National Bank, however,
and sent it to the President for his approval, he returned it with
his veto.  This created much discontent among the Whigs, while the
Democrats were so rejoiced that a considerable number of their
Congressmen called at the Executive Mansion.  The President received
them cordially, and treated them to champagne, in which toasts were
drunk not very complimentary to the Whig party, or to its leader,
Mr. Clay.  The Kentucky Senator soon saw that it was of no use to
temporize with his vacillating chieftain, who evidently desired to
become his own successor, so he determined to force the Administration
into a hostile attitude toward the Whigs, while he himself should
step to the front as their recognized leader.  Haughty and imperious,
Mr. Clay was nevertheless so fascinating in his manner when he
chose to be that he held unlimited control over nearly every member
of the party.  He remembered, too, that Tyler had been nominated
for Vice-President in pursuance of a bargain made by Clay's own
friends in the Legislature of Virginia, where they had joined the
Van Buren members in electing Mr. Rives to the Senate.  This bargain
Mr. Clay had hoped would secure for him the support of the State
of Virginia in the nominating convention, and although Harrison
received the nomination for President, Clay's friends were none
the less responsible for the nomination of Tyler as Vice-President.
He was consequently very angry when he learned what had taken place
at the White House, and he availed himself of the first opportunity
to speak of the scene in the Senate, portraying the principal
personages present with adroit sarcasm.

Some of his descriptions were life-like, especially that of Mr.
Calhoun, "tall, careworn, with fevered brow, haggard cheek, and
eye intensely gazing, looking as if he were dissecting the last
and newest abstraction which sprung from some metaphysician's brain,
and muttering to himself, in half uttered words, 'This is indeed
a crisis!'"  The best word-portrait, however, was that of Senator
Buchanan, whose manner and voice were humorously imitated while he
was described as presenting his Democratic associates to the
President.  Mr. Buchanan pleasantly retorted, describing in turn
a caucus of disappointed Whig Congressmen, who discussed whether
it would be best to make open war upon "Captain Tyler," or to resort
to strategem, and, in the elegant language of Mr. Botts, "head him,
or die."

The mission to Great Britain had been tendered by President Harrison
to John Sargent, a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, who had been
the candidate for Vice-President on the unsuccessful Whig ticket
headed by Henry Clay in 1836.  Mr. Sargent having declined, President
Harrison appointed Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, who accepted
and his name came before the Senate for confirmation.  Mr. Everett
was among the most conservative of New England politicians, but he
had once, in reply to inquiries from Abolitionists, expressed the
opinion that Congress had power to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia.  When the nomination came before the Senate, it was
opposed by Mr. Buchanan and Mr. King, of Alabama, and advocated by
Mr. Choate and Henry Clay.  Mr. King, who would have received the
appointment had Mr. Everett's rejection created a vacancy, concluded
a bitter speech by saying that if Mr. Everett, holding views in
opposition to the South, was confirmed, the Union would be dissolved!
Mr. Clay sprang to his feet, and pointing his long arm and index
finger at Mr. King, said:  "And I tell you, Mr. President, that if
a gentleman so pre-eminently qualified for the position of Minister
should be rejected by the Senate, and for the reason given by the
Senator from Alabama, this Union is dissolved already."

The nomination of Mr. Everett was confirmed by a vote of twenty-
three to nineteen.  Every Democrat who voted, and two Southern
Whigs, voted against him, and several Northern Democrats dodged,
among them Pierce, of New Hampshire, Williams, of Maine, and Wright,
of New York.  The Southern Whigs who stood their ground for Mr.
Everett were Clay, Morehead, Berrien, Clayton, Mangum, Merrick,
Graham, and Rives.

A second fiscal agent bill was prepared in accordance with the
President's expressed views, and he said to Mr. A. H. H. Stuart,
then a Representative from Virginia, holding him by the hand:
"Stuart, if you can be instrumental in getting this bill through
Congress, I shall esteem you as the best friend I have on earth."
An attempt was made in the Senate to amend it, which Mr. Choate,
who was regarded as the mouth-piece of Daniel Webster, opposed.
Mr. Clay endeavored to make him admit that some member of the
Administration had inspired him to assert that if the bill was
amended it would be vetoed, but Mr. Choate had examined too many
witnesses to be forced into any admission that he did not choose
to make.  Persisting in his demand, Mr. Clay's manner and language
became offensive.  "Sir," said Mr. Choate, "I insist on my right
to explain what I did say in my own words."

"But I want a direct answer," exclaimed Mr. Clay.  "Mr. President,"
said Mr. Choate, "the gentleman will have to take my answer as I
choose to give it to him."  Here the two Senators were called to
order, and both of them were requested to take their seats.  The
next day Mr. Clay made an explanation, which was satisfactory to
Mr. Choate.

This second bank or fiscal agent bill was passed by Congress without
the change of a word or a letter, yet the President vetoed it.
When the veto message was received in the Senate there were some
hisses in the gallery, which brought Mr. Benton to his feet.
Expressing his indignation, he asked that the "ruffians" be taken
into custody, and one of those who had hissed was arrested, but,
on penitently expressing his regret, he was discharged.  Tyler's
Cabinet first learned that he intended to veto this bank bill
through the columns of a New York paper, and such was their
indignation that all, with the exception of Mr. Webster, resigned.
Mr. Ewing, who had been appointed Secretary of the Treasury by
President Harrison, and who had been continued in office by Mr.
Tyler, published his letter of resignation, which gave all the
facts in the case.  The Whig Senators and Representatives immediately
met in caucus and adopted an address to the people.  It was written
by Mr. John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, and it set forth in temperate
language the differences between them and the President, his
equivocations and tergiversations, and in conclusion they repudiated
the Administration.

Caleb Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, then serving his
fourth term in the House, espoused the cause of President Tyler,
and boldly opposed the intolerant action of his Whig associates.
Years afterward Franklin Pierce told his most intimate friend,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, that Caleb Cushing had such mental variety
and activity that he could not, if left to himself, keep hold of
one view of things, but needed the influence of a more stable
judgment to keep him from divergency.  His fickleness was intellectual,
not moral.  Mr. Cushing was at that time forty-one years of age,
of medium height, with intellectual features, quick-glancing dark
eyes, and an unmusical voice.  He spoke with ease and fluency, but
his speeches read better than they sounded.  His knowledge was vast
and various, and his style, tempered by foreign travel, was classical.
He had mastered history, politics, law, jurisprudence, moral science,
and almost every other branch of knowledge, which enabled him to
display an erudition as marvelous in amount as it was varied in
kind.

The Southern Representatives, who had regarded Mr. Cushing with
some apprehension as a possible leader of the coming struggle for
the abolition of slavery, were well pleased when they saw him
breaking away from his Northern friends.  When an attempt was made
to depose John Quincy Adams from the Chairmanship of the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, because he had stood up manfully for
the right of petition, the irate ex-President asserted in the House
that the position had been offered to Mr. Cushing, who was also a
member.  This Mr. Cushing denied, but Mr. Adams, his bald head
turning scarlet, exclaimed:  "I had the information from the
gentleman himself."

In this debate, Mr. Adams went to some length into the history of
his past life, his intercourse and friendship with Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, during their successive Presidential
terms.  He spoke of their confidence in himself, as manifested by
the various important offices conferred upon him, alluding to
important historical facts in this connection.  He knew that they
all abhorred slavery, and he could prove it, if it were desired,
from the testimony of Jefferson, Madison, and Washington themselves.
There was not an Abolitionist of the wildest character, the ex-
President affirmed, but might find in the writings of Jefferson,
at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and during his
whole life, down to its very last year, a justification for everything
their party says on the subject of slavery, and a description of
the horrors of slavery greater then they had power to express.

Henry A. Wise had been Mr. Clay's instrument in securing the
nomination of Mr. Tyler as Vice-President, and was the most
influential adviser at the White House.  He was then in the prime
of his early manhood, tall, spare, and upright, with large,
lustreless, gray-blue eyes, high cheek bones, a large mouth, a
complexion saffron-hued, from his inordinate use of tobacco, and
coarse, long hair, brushed back from his low forehead.  He was
brilliant in conversation, and when he addressed an audience he
was the incarnation of effective eloquence.  No one has ever poured
forth in the Capitol of the United States such torrents of words,
such erratic flights of fancy, such blasting insinuations, such
solemn prayers, such blasphemous imprecations.  Like Jeremiah of
old, he felt the dark shadow of coming events; and he regarded the
Yankees as the inevitable foes of the old Commonwealth of Virginia.
He had hoped that the caucus of Whig Representatives, at the
commencement of the session, would have nominated him for Speaker.
But John White, of Kentucky, had received the nomination, Mr. Clay
having urged his friends to vote for him, and Mr. Wise, goaded on
by disappointed ambition, sought revenge by endeavoring to destroy
the Whig party.  He hoped to build on its ruins a new political
organization composed of Whigs and of such Democrats as might be
induced to enlist under the Tyler banner by a lavish distribution
of the "loaves and fishes."  President Tyler's vanity made it easy
to secure him as a figure-head, and it was an easy task to array
him in direct opposition to the Clay Whigs, when John M. Botts
wrote an insulting letter, in which he recommended his political
associates to "head Captain Tyler, or die."

As the close of the extra session approached, the breach between
President Tyler and the Whig party was widened, and those who had
elected him saw their hopes blasted, and the labors of the campaign
lost, by his ambitious perfidy.  Nearly all of his nominations for
office were promptly rejected, and those who for place had espoused
his cause found themselves disappointed.  A few days before the
final adjournment, it was announced that Senator Bagby, of Alabama,
would the next afternoon expose the shortcomings of the Whig party.
He was a type of the old-school Virginia lawyers, who had removed
to the Gulf States, and there acquired political position and
fortune.  He was a large man, with a bald head, a strong voice,
and a watch-seal dangling from his waistband.

The "Corporal's Guard" who sustained Mr. Tyler were all on hand
and prominently seated to hear him abuse the Whigs, and they
evidently had great expectations that he might eulogize the President.
Upshur, Cushing, Wise, Gilmer, with the President's sons, Robert
and John, were on the floor of the Senate, and they were evidently
delighted as the eloquent Alabamian handled the Whig party without
gloves.  He undertook to show that they were for and against a
National Bank, in favor of and opposed to a tariff, pro-slavery
and anti-slavery, according to their location, but all united by
a desire to secure the Federal offices.

Proceeding in a strain of fervid eloquence, he all at once turned
to Senator Smith, of Indiana, who was sitting in front of him, and
asked, in stentorian tones:  "Why don't you Whigs keep your promises
to the American people?  I pause for an answer!"  Mr. Smith promptly
replied:  "Because _your_ President won't let us."  Mr. Bagby stood
still for a moment and then contemptuously exclaimed:  "_Our_
President!  OUR President!  Do you think that we would go to the
most corrupt party that was ever formed in the United States, and
then take for our President the meanest renegade that ever left
the party?"  He then went on to castigate Mr. Tyler, while the
"Corporal's Guard," sadly disappointed, one by one, "silently stole
away," and had no more faith in Mr. Bagby.

Junius Brutus Booth still continued to be the leading star at the
Washington Theatre, and President Tyler used often to enjoy his
marvelous renderings, especially his "Sir Giles Overreach," "King
Lear," "Shylock," "Othello," and "Richard the Third."  Booth, at
this time, was more than ever a slave to intoxicating drink, so
much so that he would often disappoint his audiences, sometimes
wholly failing to appear, yet his popularity remained unabated.

[Facsimile]
  Franklin Pierce
FRANKLIN PIERCE was born at Hillsborough, New Hampshire, November
23d, 1804; was a Representative from New Hampshire, December 2d,
1833, to March 3d, 1837; was United States Senator from New Hampshire,
September 4th, 1837 - 1842, when he resigned; declined the position
of Attorney-General, offered him by President Polk in 1846; served
in the Mexican War as brigadier-general; was President of the United
States, March 4th, 1853, to March 3d, 1857, and died at Concord,
New Hampshire, October 8th, 1860.


CHAPTER XXI.
DIPLOMATIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF WEBSTER.

Mr. Webster's great work as Secretary of State--indeed, he regarded
it as the greatest achievement of his life--was the negotiation of
a treaty with Great Britain adjusting all existing controversies.
To secure this had prompted Mr. Webster to enter the Cabinet of
General Harrison, and when Mr. Tyler became President Mr. Webster
pledged himself to his wealthy friends in Boston and New York not
to resign until the troubles with the mother country had been
amicably adjusted.  His position soon became very unpleasant.  On
the one hand President Tyler, whose great desire was the annexation
of Texas, wanted him to resign; on the other hand, many influential
Whigs began to regard him with distrust for remaining in the enemy's
camp.  But Mr. Webster kept on, regardless of what was said by
friend or foe.

The appointment of Lord Ashburton to represent the British Government
was especially gratifying to Mr. Webster, who had become personally
acquainted with him when he visited England in 1839.  Lord Ashburton's
family name was Alex. Baring.  He had visited Philadelphia when it
was the seat of the Federal Government as the representative of
his father's banking house.  Among those to whom he had letters of
introduction was Mr. John A. Bingham, a wealthy merchant and United
States Senator, who lived in great style.  Miss Maria Matilda
Bingham, the Senator's only daughter, who was but sixteen years of
age, had just been persuaded by the Count de Tilly, a profligate
French nobleman, to elope with him.  They were married, but the
Count soon intimated that he did not care for the girl if he could
obtain some of her prospective fortune.  He finally accepted five
thousand pounds in cash and an annuity of six hundred pounds, and
left for France.  A divorce was obtained, and Senator Bingham was
well pleased soon afterward when young Mr. Baring wooed and won
his daughter.  With the fortune her father gave her he was enabled
on his return to London to enter the House of Baring Brothers as
a partner, and on retiring from business in 1835 he was created a
Baron, with the title of Lord Ashburton.  When appointed on a
special mission to Washington Lord Ashburton wrote to Mr. Webster,
asking him to rent a suitable house for the accommodation of himself
and suite.  Mr. Webster accordingly rented the spacious and thoroughly
equipped mansion erected by Matthew St. Clair Clarke, Clerk of the
House, in his prosperous days.  The price paid was twelve thousand
dollars rent for ten months, and an additional thousand dollars
for damages.

Mr. Webster, who had received full powers from President Tyler to
conduct the negotiations on the part of the United States, occupied
the Swann House, near that occupied by Lord Ashburton.  Much of
the preliminary negotiation was carried on at the dinner-tables of
the contracting parties, and Congressional guests were alike charmed
by the hospitable attentions of the "fine old English gentleman"
and the Yankee Secretary of State.  Lord Ashburton offered his
guests the cream of culinary perfection and the gastronomic art,
with the rarest wines, while at Mr. Webster's table American
delicacies were served in American style.  Maine salmon, Massachusetts
mackerel, New Jersey oysters, Florida shad, Kentucky beef, West
Virginia mutton, Illinois prairie chickens, Virginia terrapin,
Maryland crabs, Delaware canvas-back ducks, and South Carolina rice-
birds were cooked by Monica, and served in a style that made the
banker diplomat admit their superiority to the potages, sauces,
entremets, ragouts, and desserts of his Parisian white-capped
manipulator of casse-roles.

Lord Ashburton was about five feet ten inches in height, and was
heavily built, as Mr. Webster was.  He had a large head, a high
forehead, dark eyes, with heavy eyebrows, and a clear red and white
complexion.  His principal secretary and adviser was Mr. Frederick
William Adolphus Bruce, then in the Foreign Office, who, after a
brilliant diplomatic career, was appointed a Knight Commander of
the Bath, and came again to Washington in 1865 as the British
Minister.  Another secretary was Mr. Stepping, a fair-complexioned
little gentleman, who was a great wit, and who made a deal of sport
for the Congressional guests.

The treaty, as finally agreed upon, settled a vexatious quarrel
over our Northeastern boundary, it overthrew the British claim to
exercise the right of search, and it established the right of
property in slaves on an American vessel driven by stress of weather
into a British port.  But the treaty did not settle the exasperating
controversy over the fisheries on the North Atlantic coast or the
disputed Northwestern boundary.  When the treaty finally reached
the Senate, it was debated for several weeks in executive session,
Mr. Benton leading a strong opposition to it.  Near the close of
the debate Mr. Calhoun made a strong speech in favor of ratification,
in which he praised both Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster.  This
speech secured the ratification of the treaty.

Having concluded the Ashburton Treaty, Mr. Webster started for New
England to enjoy the rural life so dear to him on his farm at
Franklin, New Hampshire, and at Marshfield, Massachusetts.  He
announced, before he left Washington, that on his arrival at Boston
he should address his friends in Faneuil Hall, and there was an
intense desire to her what he might have to say on public affairs.
The leaders of the Whig party hoped that he would announce a
resignation of his office as Secretary of State, denounce the
duplicity of President Tyler, and come gracefully to the support
of Henry Clay, who had imperiously demanded the Presidential
nomination.  But Mr. Webster declined to accept the advice given
him, and spoke his mind very freely and frankly.  There was--said
one who heard the speech--no sly insinuation of innuendo, but a
straightforward, independent expression of truth, a copious outpouring
of keen reproof, solemn admonition, and earnest entreaty.

Among those former home-friends whose behavior was very annoying
to Mr. Webster at this time was Mr. Abbott Lawrence, a Boston
merchant, who, having amassed a large fortune, coveted political
honors, and was a liberal contributor to the campaign fund of his
party.  Astute and observing, he imagined himself a representative
of the merchant-princes of Venice under the Doges and England under
the Plantagenets, and he spoke in a measured, stately tone, advancing
his ideas with a positiveness that would not brook contradiction.
On several occasions he had been one of the "solid men of Boston"
who had contributed considerable sums for the pecuniary relief of
Mr. Webster, and this emboldened him to assume a dictatorial tone
in advising the Secretary of State to resign after the Ashburton
Treaty had been negotiated.  The command was treated with sovereign
contempt, and thenceforth Mr. Lawrence looked upon Mr. Webster as
ungrateful, and as standing in the way of his own political
advancement.  But Mr. Webster defied the would-be cotton-lord,
saying:  "I am a Whig--a Faneuil Hall Whig--and if any one undertakes
to turn me out of that communion, let him see to it who gets out
first."

While Mr. Webster had been negotiating the Ashburton Treaty, and
after he had found rest at Marshfield, he displayed the same
sprightly humor and tender sweetness which so endeared him to those
who were permitted to enjoy intimate social relations with him.
He always rose with the sun, visiting his farm-yards at Marshfield,
and going to market at Washington, before breakfast, with a visit
at either place to the kitchen, where he would gravely discuss the
culinary programme of the day with Monica, a cook of African descent,
whose freedom he had purchased.  After breakfast, he would study
or write or fish all day, dressing for a late dinner, after which
he gave himself up to recreation; sometimes, as Colonel Seaton's
daughter has pleasantly told us, singing hymns or songs, generally
impartially to the same tune; or gravely essaying the steps of a
_minuet de la cour_, which he had seen danced in the courtly
Madisonian era; or joining in the jests of the gay circle, magnificent
teeth gleaming, his great, living coals of eyes--"sleeping furnaces,"
Carlyle called them--soft as a woman's; or his rare, tender smile
lighting up the dusky grandeur of his face.  Mr. Webster was not,
at that period of his life, an intemperate drinker, although, like
many other gentlemen of that day, he often imbibed too freely at
the dinner-table.

An amusing account has been given of an after-dinner speech by Mr.
Webster at a gathering of his political friends, when he had to be
prompted by a friend who sat just behind him, and gave him successively
phrases and topics.  The speech proceeded somewhat after this
fashion:  Prompter:  "Tariff."  Webster:  "The tariff, gentlemen,
is a subject requiring the profound attention of the statesman.
American industry, gentlemen, must be ----" (nods a little).
Prompter:  "National Debt."  Webster:  "And, gentlemen, there's
the national debt--it should be paid (loud cheers, which rouse the
speaker); yes, gentlemen, it should be paid (cheers), and I'll be
hanged if it sha'n't be--(taking out his pocket-book)--I'll pay it
myself!  How much is it?"  This last question was asked of a
gentleman near him with drunken seriousness, and, coupled with the
recollection of the well-known impecuniosity of Webster's pocket-
book it excited roars of laughter, amidst which the orator sank
into his seat and was soon asleep.

Prominent among the Whig Senators was Nathan F. Dixon, of Westerly,
Rhode Island.  He was one of the old school of political gentlemen.
His snow-white hair was tied in a long queue, he had a high forehead,
aquiline nose, wide mouth, and dark eyes, which gleamed thorough
his glasses.  Respecting the body of which he was a member, he used
to appear in a black coat and knee-breeches, with a ruffled shirt,
white waistcoat, and white silk stockings.  He was the Chairman of
the Whig Senatorial caucus, and on the last night of the extra
session Mr. Clay had complimented him, in rather equivocal language,
on the ability with which he had presided.  When the laughter had
subsided, Senator Dixon rose, and with inimitable humor thanked
the Senator from Kentucky.  "I am aware," said he, "that I never
had but one equal as a presiding officer, and that was the Senator
from Kentucky.  Some of you may have thought that he was not in
earnest, but did you know him as well as I do, you would credit
any remark he may make before ten o'clock at night--after that,
owing to the strength of his night-caps, there may be doubts."
Roars of laughter followed, and the Senate caucus adjourned, as
the Senate had done, _sine die_.

President Tyler had great faith in the power of the newspaper press,
and he secured, at an early period of his Administration, by a
lavish distribution of the advertising patronage of the Executive
Departments, an "organ" in nearly every State.  The journals thus
recompensed for their support of the Administration were generally
without political influence, but Mr. Tyler prized their support,
and personally looked after their interests.  Alluding to them in
a letter to a friend, he said:  "Their motives may be selfish, but
if I reject them for that, who among the great mass of office-
holders can be trusted?  They give one all the aid in their power,
and I do not stop to inquire into motives."  In another letter he
complains of an official at New Orleans, saying:  "I have felt no
little surprise at the fact that he should have thrown into the
_Bee_ [a most abusive paper] advertisements of great value, and
refused to give them to the _Republican_, a paper zealous and able
in the cause of the Administration."  The central "organ," from
which the others were to take their cues, was the _Madisonian_,
originally established by Thomas Allen.  He disposed of it after
he married the handsome and wealthy Miss Russell, of Missouri,
whose tiara and necklace of diamonds had been the envy of all the
ladies at Washington.  John B. Johnson, the author of _Wild Western
Scenes_, then became the editor, and wrote ponderous editorials
advocating "Justice to John Tyler," which the minor organs all over
the country were expected to copy.

[Facsimile]
  Rufus Choate
RUFUS CHOATE was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, October 1st, 1819;
was a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, 1831-1834;
was United States Senator, 1841-1845, and died at Halifax, Nova
Scotia, July 13th, 1859.


CHAPTER XXII.
THE CAPITOL AND THE DRAWING-ROOM.

When the Twenty-seventh Congress met in December, 1841, it was
evident that there could be no harmonious action between that body
and the President, but he was not disposed to succumb.  Writing to
a friend, he said the coming session was "likely to prove as
turbulent and fractious as any since the days of Adam.  But [he
added] I have a firm grip on the reins."  In this he was mistaken,
or, rather, he had been deceived by the sycophants around him.
Neither House paid any attention to the recommendations which he
made in his messages, and only a few of his nominations were
confirmed.  The Whigs, who had elected the President, repudiated
all responsibility for his acts and treated him as a traitor, and
the Democrats, while they accepted offices from him, generally
spoke of him with contempt.

The Senate contained at that time many able men.  Henry Clay was
in the pride of his political power, but uneasy and restive as a
caged lion.  John C. Calhoun was in the full glory of his intellectual
magnificence and purity of personal character.  Preston's flexible
voice and graceful gestures invested his eloquence with resistless
effect over those whom it was intended to persuade, to encourage,
or to control.  Barrow, of Louisiana, the handsomest man in the
Senate, spoke with great effect.  Phelps, of Vermont, was a somewhat
eccentric yet forcible debater.  Silas Wright, Levi Woodbury, and
Robert J. Walker were laboring for the restoration of the Democrats
to power.  Benton stood sturdily, like a gnarled oak-tree, defying
all who offered to oppose him.  Allen, whose loud voice had gained
for him the appellation of "the Ohio gong," spoke with his usual
vehemence.  Franklin Pierce was demonstrating his devotion to the
slave-power, while Rufus Choate poured forth his wealth of words
in debate, his dark complexion corrugated by swollen veins, and
his great, sorrowful eyes gazing earnestly at his listeners.

In the House of Representatives there were unusually brilliant and
able men.  John Quincy Adams, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs, was the recognized leader.  Mr. Fillmore, of New York, a
stalwart, pleasant-featured man, with a remarkably clear-toned
voice, was Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means.  Henry A.
Wise, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, was able to secure
a large share of patronage for the Norfolk Navy Yard.  George N.
Briggs (afterward Governor of Massachusetts), who was an earnest
advocate of temperance, was Chairman of the Postal Committee.
Joshua R. Giddings, who was a sturdy opponent of slavery at that
early day, was Chairman of the Committee on Claims.  John P. Kennedy,
of Maryland, an accomplished scholar and popular author, was Chairman
of the Committee on Commerce; Edward Stanley, of North Carolina,
was Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs; Leverett
Saltonstall, of the Committee on Manufactures; indeed, there was
not a Committee of the House that did not have a first-class man
as its chairman.

But the session soon became a scene of sectional strife.  Mr. Adams,
in offering his customary daily budget of petitions, presented one
from several anti-slavery citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts,
praying for a dissolution of the Union, which raised a tempest.
The Southern Representatives met that night, in caucus, and the
next morning Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, offered a series of
resolutions deploring the presentation of the obnoxious petition
and censuring Mr. Adams for having presented it.  An excited and
acrimonious debate, extending over several days, followed.  The
principal feature of this exciting scene was the venerable object
of censure, then nearly four-score years of age, his limbs trembling
with palsy, his bald head crimson with excitement, and tears dropping
from his eyes, as he for four days stood defying the storm and
hurling back defiantly the opprobrium with which his adversaries
sought to stigmatize him.  He was animated by the recollection that
the slave-power had prevented the re-election of his father and of
himself to the Presidential chair, and he poured forth the hoarded
wrath of half a century.  Lord Morpeth, who was then in Washington,
and who occupied a seat in the floor of the House near Mr. Adams
during the entire debate, said that "he put one in mind of a fine
old game-cock, and occasionally showed great energy and power of
sarcasm."

Mr. Wise became the prosecutor of Mr. Adams, and asserted that both
he and his father were in alliance with Great Britain against the
South.  Mr. Adams replied with great severity, his shrill voice
ringing through the hall.  "Four or five years ago," said he, "there
came to this house a man with his hands and face dripping with the
blood of murder, the blotches of which are yet hanging upon him,
and when it was proposed that he should be tried by this House for
the crime I opposed it."  After this allusion to the killing of
Mr. Cilley in a duel, Mr. Adams proceeded to castigate Mr. Wise
without mercy.

At the spring races, in 1842, over the Washington Course, Mr.
Stanly, of North Carolina, accidentally rode so close to the horse
of Mr. Wise as to jostle that gentleman, who gave him several blows
with a cane.  Mr. Stanly at once sent a friend to Mr. Wise with an
invitation to meet him at Baltimore, that they might settle their
difficulty, and then left for that city.  Mr. Wise remained in
Washington, where he was arrested the next day, under the anti-
dueling law, and placed under bonds to keep the peace.  Mr. Stanly
remained at Baltimore for several days, expecting Mr. Wise.  He
was the guest of Mr. Reverdy Johnson, under whose instruction he
practiced with dueling-pistols, firing at a mark.  One morning Mr.
Johnson took a pistol himself and fired it, but the ball rebounded
and struck him in the left eye, completely destroying it.  Mr.
Stanly returned the next day to Washington, where mutual friends
adjusted the difficulty between Mr. Wise and himself.

The vaulted arches of the old Supreme Court room in the basement
of the Capitol (now the Law Library) used to echo in those days
with the eloquence of Clay, Webster, Choate, Sargent, Binney,
Atherton, Kennedy, Berrien, Crittenden, Phelps, and other able
lawyers.  Their Honors, the Justices, were rather a jovial sort,
especially Judge Story, who used to assert that every man should
laugh at least an hour during each day, and who had himself a great
fund of humorous anecdotes.  One of them, that he loved to tell,
was of Jonathan Mason, of whom he always spoke in high praise.  It
set forth that at the trial of a Methodist preacher for the alleged
murder of a young girl, the evidence was entirely circumstantial,
and there was a wide difference of opinion concerning his guilt.
One morning, just before the opening of the court, a brother preacher
stepped up to Mason and said:  "Sir, I had a dream last night, in
which the angel Gabriel appeared and told me that the prisoner was
not guilty."  "Ah!" replied Mason, "have him subpoenaed immediately."

Charles Dickens first visited Washington in 1842.  He was then a
young man.  The attentions showered upon the great progenitor of
Dick Swiveller turned his head.  The most prominent men in the
country told him how they had ridden with him in the _Markis of
Granby_, with old Weller on the box and Samivel on the dickey; how
they had played cribbage with the Marchioness and quaffed the rosy
with Dick Swiveller; how they had known honest Tim Linkwater and
angelic Little Nell, ending with the welcome words of Sir John
Falstaff, "D'ye think we didn't know ye?  We knew ye as well as
Him that made ye."

Mr. Webster gave a party on the night of January 26th, 1842, which
was the crowning entertainment of the season.  Eight rooms of his
commodious house were thrown open to the guests, and were most
dazzlingly lighted.  There had not been in two Administrations so
large and brilliant an assemblage of female beauty and political
rank.  Among the more distinguished guests were the President, Lord
Morpeth, Mr. Fox, the British Minister, M. Bacourt, the French
Minister, Mr. Bodisco, the Russian Minister, and most of the
Diplomatic Corps attached to the several legations, besides several
Judges of the Supreme Court and many members of Congress.  The
honorable Secretary received his numerous guests with that dignity
and courtesy which was characteristic of him, and seemed to be in
excellent spirits.  There no dancing, not even music.  There was,
however, plenty of lively conversation, promenades, eating of ices,
and sipping of rich wines, with the usual spice of flirtation.

President Tyler's last reception of the season of 1842, on the
night of the 15th of March, gathered one of the greatest crowds
ever assembled in the White House.  There was every variety of the
American citizen _et citoyenne_ present--those of every form, shape,
length, breadth, complexion, and dress.  There were old ladies
decked in the finery of their youthful days, and children in their
nurses' arms.  "Boz" was the lion of the evening, and he stood like
Patience on a monument.  He totally eclipsed Washington Irving,
who was then at Washington to receive his instructions as Minister
to Spain.  The President's Cabinet, Foreign Ministers, some of the
Judges of the Supreme Court, a sprinkling of Senators, two or three
scores of Representatives, and fifteen hundred man, women, and
children, in every costume, and from every nook and corner of the
country, made up the remainder of the medley.

A children's fancy ball was given at the White House by President
Tyler, in honor of the birthday of his eldest granddaughter.
Dressed as a fairy, with gossamer wings, a diamond star on her
forehead, and a silver wand, she received her guests.  Prominent
among the young people was the daughter of General Almonte, the
Mexican Minister, arrayed as an Aztec Princess.  Master Schermerhorn,
of New York, was beautifully dressed as an Albanian boy, and Ada
Cutts, as a flower-girl, gave promise of the intelligence and beauty
which in later years led captive the "Little Giant" of the West.
The boys and girls of Henry A. Wise were present, the youngest in
the arms of its mother, and every State in the Union was
represented.

After old Baron Bodisco's marriage to the young and beautiful Miss
Williams, the Russian Legation at Georgetown became the scene of
brilliant weekly entertainments, given, it was asserted, by especial
direction of the Emperor Nicholas, who had a special allowance made
for table-money.  At these entertainments there was dancing, an
excellent supper, and a room devoted to whist.  Mr. Webster, Mr.
Clay, General Scott, and several of the Diplomatic Corps were
invariably to be seen handling "fifty-two pieces of printed
pasteboard," while the old Baron, though not a good player, as the
host of the evening, was accustomed to take a hand.  One night he
sat down to play with those better acquainted with the game, and
he lost over a thousand dollars.  At the supper-table he made the
following announcement, in a sad tone:  "Ladies and gentlemens:
It is my disagreeable duty to make the announce that these receptions
must have an end, and to declare them at an end for the present,
because why?  The fund for their expend, ladies and gentlemens, is
exhaust, and they must discontinue."

Ole Bull, the renowned violinist, then gave a concert at Washington,
which was largely and fashionably attended.  In the midst of one
of his most exquisite performances, while every breath was suspended,
and every ear attentive to catch the sounds of his magical instrument,
the silence was suddenly broken and the harmony harshly interrupted
by the well-known voice of General Felix Grundy McConnell, a
Representative from the Talladega district of Alabama, shouting,
"None of your high-falutin, but give us Hail Columbia, and bear
hard on the treble!"  "Turn him out," was shouted from every part
of the house, and the police force in attendance undertook to remove
him from the hall.  "Mac," as he was called, was not only one of
the handsomest men in Congress, but one of the most athletic, and
it was a difficult task for the policemen to overpower him, although
they used their clubs.  After he was carried from the hall, some
of his Congressional friends interfered, and secured his release.

The publication of verbatim reports of the proceedings of Congress
was systematically begun during Polk's Administration by John C.
Rives, in the _Congressional Globe_, established a few years
previously as an offshoot from the old Democratic organ.  This
unquestionably had a disastrous effect upon the eloquence of
Congress, which no longer hung upon the accents of its leading
members, and rarely read what appeared in the report of the debates.
Imitating Demosthenes and Cicero, Chatham and Burke, Mirabeau and
Lamartine, the Congressmen of the first fifty years of the Republic
poured forth their breathing thoughts and burning words in polished
and elegant language, and were listened to by their colleagues and
by spectators so alive to the beauties of eloquence that they were
entitled to the appellation of assemblages of trained critics.
The publication of verbatim reports of the debates put an end to
this, for Senators and Representatives addressed their respective
constituents through the _Congressional Globe_.

[Facsimile]
  Felix Grundy
FELIX GRUNDY was born in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West
Virginia), September 11th, 1777; was a Representative from Tennessee,
1811-1814; was United States Senator, 1829-1838; was Attorney-
General under President Van Buren, 1838-1840; was again elected
Senator in 1840, and died at Nashville, December 19th of the same
year.


CHAPTER XXIII.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

John Tyler, who was fifty-one years of age when he took possession
of the Executive Mansion, was somewhat above the medium height,
and of slender figure, with long limbs and great activity of
movement.  His thin auburn hair turned white during his term of
office, his nose was large and prominent, his eyes were of a bluish-
gray, his lips were thin, and his cheeks sunken.  His manners were
those of the old school of Virginia gentlemen, and he was very
courteous to strangers.  The ceremonious etiquette established at
the White House by Van Buren vanished, and the President lived
precisely as he had on his plantation, attended by his old family
slaves.  He invariably invited visitors with whom he was acquainted,
or strangers who were introduced to him, to visit the family dining-
room and "take something" from a sideboard well garnished with
decanters of ardent spirits and wines, with a bowl of juleps in
the summer and of egg-nog in the winter.  He thus expended nearly
all of his salary, and used to regret that it was not larger, that
he might entertain his guests more liberally.

One day President Tyler joked Mr. Wise about his little one-horse
carriage, which the President styled "a candle-box on wheels," to
which the Representative from the Accomac district retorted by
telling Mr. Tyler that he had been riding for a month in a second-
hand carriage purchased at the sale of the effects of Mr. Paulding,
the Secretary of the Navy under Mr. Van Buren, and having the
Paulding coat-of-arms emblazoned on the door-panels.  The President
laughed at the sally, and gave orders at once to have the armorial
bearings of the Pauldings painted over.  Economy also prompted the
purchase of some partly worn suits of livery at the sale of the
effects of a foreign Minister, and these were afterward worn by
the colored waiters in state dinners.

"Beau" Hickman, as he called himself, made his appearance at
Washington toward the close of the Tyler Administration.  He was
of middle size, with long hair, and an inoffensive, cadaverous
countenance.  It was his boast that he was born among the slashes
of Hanover County, Virginia, and he was to be seen lounging about
the hotels, fashionably, yet shabbily, dressed, generally wearing
soiled white kid gloves and a white cravat.  It was considered the
proper thing to introduce strangers to the Beau, who thereupon
unblushingly demanded his initiation fee, and his impudence sometimes
secured him a generous sum.  He was always ready to pilot his
victims to gambling-houses and other questionable resorts, and for
a quarter of a century he lived on the blackmail thus levied upon
strangers.

One of the most agreeable homes in Washington was that of Colonel
Benton, the veteran Senator from Missouri, whose accomplished and
graceful daughters had been thoroughly educated under his own
supervision.  He was not willing, however, that one of them, Miss
Jessie, should receive the attentions of a young second lieutenant
in the corps of the Topographical Engineers, Mr. Fremont, and the
young couple, therefore, eloped and were married clandestinely.
The Colonel, although terribly angry at first, accepted the situation,
and his powerful support in Congress afterward enabled Mr. Fremont
to explore, under the patronage of the General Government, the vast
central regions beyond the Rocky Mountains, and to plant the national
flag on Wind River Peak, upward of thirteen thousand feet above
the Gulf of Mexico.

A very different wedding was that of Baron Alexander de Bodisco,
the Russian Minister Plenipotentiary, and Miss Harriet Williams,
a daughter of the chief clerk in the office of the Adjutant-General.
The Baron was nearly fifty years of age, with dyed hair, whiskers,
and moustache, and she a blonde schoolgirl of "sweet sixteen,"
celebrated for her clear complexion and robust beauty.  The ceremony
was performed at her father's house on Georgetown Heights, and was
a regular May and December affair throughout.  There were eight
groomsmen, six of whom were well advanced in life, and as many
bridesmaids, all of them young girls from fourteen to sixteen years
of age, wearing long dresses of white satin damask, donated by the
bridegroom.  The question of precedence gave the Baron much trouble,
as he could not determine whether Mr. Fox, then the British Minister
and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, or Senator Buchanan, who had been
Minister to Russia, should be the first groomsman.  This important
question was settled by having the groomsmen and bridesmaids stand
in couples, four on either side of the bridegroom and bride.  The
ceremony was witnessed at the bride's residence by a distinguished
company, and the bridal party then went in carriages to the Russian
Legation, where an elegant entertainment awaited them, and where
some of the many guests got gloriously drunk in drinking the health
of the happy couple.

Queen Victoria's diplomatic representative at Washington at that
time, the Honorable Henry Stephen Fox, was a son of General Fox,
of the British Army, who fought at the battle of Lexington in 1775,
and a nephew of the eminent statesman, Charles James Fox.  He had
served in the British Diplomatic Corps for several years, and was
thoroughly acquainted with his duties, but he held the least possible
intercourse with the Department of State and rarely entered a
private house.  He used to rise about three o'clock in the afternoon,
and take his morning walk on Pennsylvania Avenue an hour or two
later.  Miss Seaton says that a gentleman on one occasion, meeting
him at dusk in the Capitol grounds, urged him to return with him
to dinner, to which Mr. Fox replied that "he would willingly do
so, but his people were waiting breakfast for him."  On the occasion
of the funeral of a member of the Diplomatic Corps, turning to the
wife of the Spanish Minister, he said:  "How very old we all look
by daylight!" it being the first time he had seen his colleagues
except by candle-light.  He went to bed at daylight, after watering
his plants, of which he was passionately fond.

John Howard Payne visited Washington to solicit from President
Tyler a foreign consulate.  He was then in the prime of life,
slightly built, and rather under the medium height.  His finely
developed head was bald on the top, but the sides were covered with
light brown hair.  His nose was large, his eyes were light blue,
and he wore a full beard, consisting of side-whiskers and a moustache,
which were always well-trimmed.  He was scrupulously neat in his
dress, and usually wore a dark brown frock coat and a black vest,
while his neck was covered with a black satin scarf, which was
arranged in graceful folds across his breast.  Despite his unpretending
manner and his plain attire, there was something about his appearance
which never failed to attract attention.  His voice was low and
musical, and when conversing on any subject in which he was deeply
interested he spoke with a degree of earnestness that enchained
the attention and touched the hearts of his listeners.  After much
solicitation by himself and his friends, he obtained the appointment
of United States Consul at Tunis, and left for his post, where he
died, his remains being finally brought to the Capital and buried
in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Among the curiosities of Washington about this time was the studio
of Messrs. Moore & Ward, in one of the committee-rooms at the
Capitol, where likenesses were taken--as the advertisement read--
"with the Daguerreotype, or Pencil of Nature."  The "likenesses,
by diffused light, could be taken by them in any kind of weather
during the daytime, and sitters were not subjected to the slightest
inconvenience or unpleasant sensation."  The new discovery gradually
supplanted the painting of miniatures on ivory in water-colors,
and the cutting of silhouettes from white paper, which were shown
on a black ground.  Another novel invention was the electric, or,
as it was then called, the magnetic telegraph.  Mr. Morse had a
model on exhibition at the Capitol, and the beaux and belles used
to hold brief conversations over the mysterious wire.  At last the
House considered a bill appropriating twenty-five thousand dollars,
to be expended in a series of experiments with the new invention.

In the brief debate on the bill, Mr. Cave Johnson undertook to
ridicule the discovery by proposing that one-half of the proposed
appropriation be devoted to experiments with mesmerism, while Mr.
Houghton thought that Millerism (a religious craze then prevalent)
should be included in the benefits of the appropriation.  To those
who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a chimera, a visionary
dream like mesmerism, rather to be a matter of merriment than
seriously entertained.  Men of character, men of erudition, men
who, in ordinary affairs, had foresight, were wholly unable to
forecast the future of the telegraph.  Other motions disparaging
to the invention were made, such as propositions to appropriate
part of the sum to a telegraph to the moon.  The majority of Congress
did not concur in this attempt to defeat the measure by ridicule,
and the bill was passed by the close vote of eighty-nine to eighty-
three.  A change of three votes, however, would have consigned the
invention to oblivion.  Another year witnessed the triumphant
success of the test of its practicability.  The invention vindicated
its character as a substantial reality; it was no longer a chimera,
a visionary scheme to extort money from the public coffers.  Mr.
Morse was no more subjected to the suspicion of lunacy, nor ridiculed
in the Halls of Congress, but he had to give large shares of its
profits to Amos Kendall and F. O. J. Smith before he could make
his discovery of practical value.

The New York _Tribune_ was first published during the Tyler
Administration by Horace Greeley, who had very successfully edited
the _Log Cabin_, a political newspaper, during the preceding
Presidential campaign.  The _Tribune_, like the New York _Herald_
and _Sun_ was then sold at one cent a copy, and was necessarily
little more than a brief summary of the news of the day.  But it
was the germ of what its editor lived to see it become--a great
newspaper.  It soon had a good circulation at Washington, where
the eminently respectable _National Intelligencer_ and the ponderous
_Globe_ failed to satisfy the reading community.

Mr. Webster remained in the Cabinet until the spring of 1843, when
the evident determination of President Tyler to secure the annexation
of Texas made it very desirable that Webster should leave, so he
was "frozen out" by studied reserve and coldness.  By remaining in
the Cabinet he had estranged many of his old political associates,
and Colonel Seaton, anxious to bring about a reconciliation, gave
one of his famous "stag" supper-parties, to which he invited a
large number of Senators and members of the House of Representatives.
The convivialities had just commenced when the dignified form of
Webster was seen entering the parlor, and as he advanced his big
eyes surveyed the company, recognizing, doubtless, some of those
who had become partially alienated from him.  On the instant, up
sprang a distinguished Senator from one of the large Southern
States, who exclaimed:  "Gentlemen, I have a sentiment to propose
--the health of our eminent citizen, the negotiator of the Ashburton
Treaty."  The company enthusiastically responded.  Webster instantly
replied:  "I have also a sentiment for you,--The Senate of the
United States, without which the Ashburton Treaty would have been
nothing, and the negotiator of that treaty less than nothing."
The quickness and fitness of this at once banished every doubtful
or unfriendly feeling.  The company clustered around the magnate,
whose sprightly and edifying conversation never failed to excite
admiration, and the remainder of the evening was spent in a manner
most agreeable to all.

Immediately after the resignation of Mr. Webster the Cabinet was
reconstructed, but a few months later the bursting of a cannon on
the war-steamer Princeton, while returning from a pleasure excursion
down the Potomac, killed Mr. Upshur, the newly appointed Secretary
of State, Mr. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy, with six others, while
Colonel Benton narrowly escaped death and nine seamen were injured.
The President had intended to witness the discharge of the gun,
but was casually detained in the cabin, and so escaped harm.  This
shocking catastrophe cast a gloom over Washington, and there was
a general attendance, irrespective of party, at the funeral of the
two Cabinet officers, who were buried from the White House.

One of those killed by the explosion on the Princeton was Mr.
Gardiner, a New York gentleman, whose ancestors were the owners of
Gardiner's Island, in Long Island Sound.  His daughter Julia, a
young lady of fine presence, rare beauty, and varied accomplishments,
had for some time been the object of marked attention from President
Tyler, although he was in his fifty-fifth year and she but about
twenty.  Soon after she was deprived of her father they were quietly
married in church at New York, and President Tyler brought his
young bride to the White House.

Mrs. Lydia Dickinson, wife of Daniel F. Dickinson, a Senator from
New York, was the recognized leader of Washington society during
the Administration of President Tyler.  She was the daughter of
Dr. Knapp, and, when a school girl, fell in love with Dickinson,
then a smart young wool-dresser, and discerning his talents, urged
him to study law and to fit himself for a high political position
in life.  She was gratified by his unexampled advancement, and when
he came here a United States Senator, she soon took a prominent
part in the social life of the metropolis.

[Facsimile]
  CCushing
CALEB CUSHING was born at Salisbury, Massachusetts, January 7th,
1800; was a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, 1835-
1843; was Commissioner to China, 1843-1845; served in the Mexican
War as Colonel and Brigadier-General, 1847-1848; was Attorney-
General of the United States under President Pierce, 1853-1857;
was counsel for the United States before the Geneva tribunal of
arbitration on the Alabama claims, 1871; was Minister to Spain,
1874-1877, and died at Newburyport, Massachusetts, January 2d, 1879.


CHAPTER XXIV.
HOW TEXAS BECAME A STATE.

President Tyler was encouraged in his desire to have Texas admitted
as a State of the Union by Henry A. Wise, his favorite adviser,
and by numerous holders of Texan war scrip and bonds.  Before the
victims of the Princeton explosion were shrouded, Mr. Wise called
upon Mr. McDuffie, a member of the Senate, who represented Mr.
Calhoun's interests at Washington, and informed him that the
distinguished South Carolinian would be appointed Secretary of
State.  Mr. Wise urged the Senator to write to Mr. Calhoun at once,
begging him not to decline the position should he be nominated and
confirmed.  Mr. McDuffie did not ask Mr. Wise if he spoke by Mr.
Tyler's authority, but evidently believed that he was so authorized,
and promised to write to Mr. Calhoun by that afternoon's mail.

Mr. Wise then went to the Executive Mansion, where he found Mr.
Tyler in the breakfast room, much affected by the account of the
awful catastrophe of the previous day.  Mr. Wise told him rather
abruptly that it was no time for grief, as there were vacancies in
the Cabinet to be filled, in order that urgent matters then under
his control might be disposed of.  "What is to be done?" asked
President Tyler.  Mr. Wise had an answer ready:  "Your most important
work is the annexation of Texas, and the man for that work is John
C. Calhoun, as Secretary of State.  Send for him at once."

"No, sir!" replied the President, rather coldly.  "The annexation
of Texas is important, but Mr. Calhoun is not the man of my choice."
This was rather a damper on Mr. Wise, but he resolutely insisted
on Mr. Calhoun's appointment, and finally the President yielded.
The nomination was sent to the Senate and confirmed without
opposition.  Mr. Calhoun came to Washington, and was soon installed
as Secretary of State.  It took him only from February 28th to
April 12th to conclude the negotiation which placed the "Lone Star"
in the azure field of the ensign of the Republic.  The treaty of
annexation was signed and sent to the Senate for ratification, but
after a protracted discussion it was rejected by a vote of sixteen
yeas to thirty-five nays.  Stephen A. Douglas, who had just entered
Congress as one of the seven Representatives from Illinois, came
to the front at that time as the principal advocate for the remission
of a fine which had been imposed upon General Jackson by Judge Hall
at New Orleans twenty-five years before.

This was the first move made by Mr. Douglas in his canvass for the
Presidency, but he was soon prominent in that class of candidates
of whom Senator William Allen, of Ohio, said, "Sir! they are going
about the country like dry-goods drummers, exhibiting samples of
their wares."  Always on the alert to make new friends and to retain
old ones, he was not only a vigorous hand-shaker, but he would
throw his arms fondly around a man, as if that man held the first
place in his heart.  No statement was too chary of truth in its
composition, no partisan manoeuvre was too openly dishonest, no
political pathway was too dangerous, if it afforded an opportunity
for making a point for Douglas.  He was industrious and sagacious,
clothing his brilliant ideas in energetic and emphatic language,
and standing like a lion at bay when opposed.  He had a herculean
frame, with the exception of his lower limbs, which were short and
small, dwarfing what otherwise would have been a conspicuous figure,
and he was popularly known as "the Little Giant."  His large, round
head surmounted a massive neck, and his features were symmetrical,
although his small nose deprived them of dignity.  His dark eyes,
peering from beneath projecting brows, gleamed with energy, mixed
with an expression of slyness and sagacity, and his full lips were
generally stained at the corners of his mouth with tobacco juice.
His voice was neither musical nor soft, and his gestures were not
graceful.  But he would speak for hours in clear, well-enunciated
tones, and the sharp Illinois attorney soon developed into the
statesman at Washington.

The House of Representatives, at that period, could boast of more
ability than the Senate.  Among the most prominent members were
the accomplished Robert C. Winthrop, who so well sustained the
reputation of his distinguished ancestors; Hamilton Fish, the
representative Knickerbocker from the State of New York; Alexander
Ramsey, a worthy descendant of the Pennsylvania Dutchmen; the
loquacious Garrett Davis, of Kentucky; the emaciated Alexander H.
Stephens of Georgia, who apparently had not a month to live, yet
who rivaled Talleyrand in political intrigue; John Wentworth, a
tall son of New Hampshire, transplanted to the prairies of Illinois;
Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, a born demagogue and self-constituted
champion of the people; John Slidell, of New Orleans; Robert Dale
Owen, the visionary communist from Indiana; Howell Cobb, of Georgia,
and Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, who were busily laying the
foundations for the Southern Confederacy, "with slavery as its
corner-stone;" the brilliant Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio, and the
genial Isaac E. Holmes, of South Carolina, who softened the asperities
of debate by many kindly comments made in an undertone.

One of General Schenck's stories was told by him to illustrate the
"change of base" by those Whigs who had enlisted in the Tyler guard,
yet declared that they had not shifted their position.  "Many years
previous," he said, "when silk goods were scarce and dear, an old
lady in Ohio purchased a pair of black silk stockings.  Being very
proud of this addition to her dress, she wore them frequently until
they became quite worn out; as often, however, as a hole appeared
in these choice articles, she very carefully darned it up; but for
this purpose, having no silk, she was obliged to use white yarn.
She usually appropriated Saturday evenings to this exercise.
Finally, she had darned them so much that not a single particle of
the original material or color remained.  Yet such was the force
of habit with her that as often as Saturday evening came she would
say to her granddaughter, 'Anny, bring me my black silk stockings.'"

The Presidential campaign of 1844 was very exciting.  Mr. Van
Buren's friends did not entertain a shade of a doubt that he would
be nominated, and his opponents in the Democratic ranks had almost
lost hope of defeating him in the nominating convention, when, at
the suggestion of Mr. Calhoun, he was adroitly questioned on the
annexation of Texas in a letter written to him by Mr. Hamett, a
Representative from Mississippi.  Mr. Van Buren was too sagacious
a politician not to discover the pit thus dug for him, and he
replied with great caution, avowing himself in favor of the annexation
of Texas when it could be brought about peacefully and honorably,
but against it at that time, when it would certainly be followed
by war with Mexico.  This was what the Southern conspirators wanted,
and their subsequent action was thus narrated in a letter written
a few years afterward by John Tyler, which is here published for
the first time:

"Texas," wrote Mr. Tyler, "was the great theme that occupied me.
The delegates to the Democratic Convention, or a very large majority
of them, had been elected under implied pledges to sustain Van
Buren.  After his letter repudiating annexation, a revulsion had
become obvious, but how far it was to operate it was not possible
to say.  A majority of the delegates at least were believed still
to remain in his favor.  If he was nominated the game to be played
for Texas was all over.  What was to be done?

"My friends," Mr. Tyler went on to say, "advised me to remain at
rest, and take my chances in the Democratic Convention.  It was
impossible to do so.  If I suffered my name to be used in that
Convention, then I became bound to sustain the nomination, even if
Mr. Van Buren was the nominee.  This could not be.  I chose to run
no hazard, but to raise the banner of Texas, and convoke my friends
to sustain it.  This was but a few weeks before the meeting of the
Convention.  To my surprise, the notice which was thus issued
brought together a thousand delegates, and from every State in the
Union.  Many called on me on their way to Baltimore to receive my
views.  My instructions were, 'Go to Baltimore, make your nomination,
then go home, and leave the thing to work its own results.'  I said
no more, and was obeyed.  The Democratic Convention felt the move.
A Texan man or defeat was the choice left, and they took a Texan
man.  My withdrawal at a suitable time took place, and the result
was soon before the world.  I acted to insure the success of a
great measure, and I acted not altogether without effect.  In so
doing I kept my own secrets; to have divulged my purposes would
have been to have defeated them."

The National Whig Convention assembled at Baltimore, and Henry Clay
was nominated with great enthusiasm, ex-Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen,
of New Jersey, being nominated as Vice-President.  The next day a
hundred thousand Whigs, from every section of the Republic, met in
mass convention at Baltimore, with music, banners, and badges, to
ratify the ticket.  Mr. Webster, with true magnanimity, was one of
the speakers, and advocated the election of Clay and Frelinghuysen
with all the strength of his eloquence.  The Whigs were jubilant
when their chosen leader again took the field, and the truants
flocked back to the standard which they had deserted to support
John Tyler.  Harmony once more prevailed among the leaders and in
the ranks, and the Whig party was again in good working order.

Three weeks later the National Democratic Convention met in Baltimore
and remained in session three days.  A majority of the delegates
advocated the nomination of ex-President Van Buren, but he was
defeated by permitting his opponents to pass the two-thirds rule,
and on the third day James K. Polk was nominated.  Silas Wright
was nominated as Vice-President, but he positively declined, saying
to his friends that he did not propose to ride behind on the black
pony [slavery] at the funeral of his slaughtered friend, Mr. Van
Buren.  Mr. George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was then nominated.

Governor Fairfield, of Maine, on his return from Philadelphia on
the first of June, 1844, whither he had gone as Chairman of a
Committee of the Democratic Convention to inform Mr. Dallas of his
nomination as Vice-President, gave an amusing account of the scene.
The Committee reached Philadelphia about three o'clock in the
morning, and were piloted to Mr. Dallas' house by his friend,
Senator Robert J. Walker.  Loud knocks at the door brought Mr.
Dallas to his chamber window.  Recognizing Mr. Walker, and fearing
that his daughter, who was in Washington, was ill, he hastened down-
stairs, half dressed and in slippers, when, to his utter amazement,
in walked sixty or more gentlemen, two by two, with the tread of
soldiers, passing him by and entering his front parlor, all
maintaining the most absolute silence.  Mr. Dallas, not having the
slightest conception of their object, stood thunderstruck at the
scene.  Mr. Walker then led him into the back parlor.  "My dear
Walker," said he, in amazement, "what is the matter?"  "Wait, one
moment, if you please, Dallas, wait one moment, if you please."
In a few moments the folding-doors connecting the parlors were
thrown back, and in the front parlor (which had meanwhile been
lighted up) Mr. Dallas saw a semi-circle of gentlemen, who greeted
him with applause.  Governor Fairfield then stepped forward, and
briefly informed Mr. Dallas what the action of the convention had
been.  The candidate for Vice-President, who had recovered from
his momentary surprise, eloquently acknowledged the compliment paid
him, and promised to more formally reply by letter.  He then opened
his sideboard, and all joined in pledging "success to the ticket."

Mr. Clay unfortunately wrote a Texas letter, which fell like a wet
blanket upon the Whigs, and enabled the Democratic managers to
deprive him of the vote of New York by organizing the Liberty party,
which nominated James G. Birney, of Michigan, as President, and
Thomas Morris, of Ohio, as Vice-President.  This nomination received
the support of the anti-slavery men, of many disappointed adherents
of Mr. Van Buren, and of the anti-Masonic and anti-rent factions
of the Whig party of New York.  The consequence was that over sixty
thousand votes were thrown away on Birney, nine-tenths of them
being drawn from the Whig ranks, thus securing a complete triumph
for the Democrats.

At the "birthnight ball," on the 22d of February, 1845, President
Tyler was accompanied by President-elect Polk.  Mrs. Madison also
was present with Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, and the members of the
Diplomatic Corps wore their court uniforms.  A few nights afterward
President Tyler gave a "parting ball" at the White House, his young
and handsome wife receiving the guests with distinguished grace.
Mr. Polk was prevented from attending by the indisposition of his
wife, but the Vice-President-elect, Mr. Dallas, with his splendid
crown of white hair, towered above all other guests except General
Scott and "Long John" Wentworth.  There was dancing in the East
Room, Mrs. Tyler leading off in the first set of quadrilles with
Mr. Wilkins, the Secretary of War, as her partner.  This entertainment
concluded the "Cavalier" reign within the White House, which was
soon ruled with Puritan austerity by Mr. Polk.

Near the close of the session of Congress with which the Administration
of John Tyler terminated, a joint resolution legislating Texas into
the Union was introduced.  When it had been passed by the House
after determined resistance, it was discussed, amended, and passed
by the Senate.  It reached the President on the 2d of March, received
his immediate approval, and the next day a messenger was started
for Texas, to have it accepted, and thus secure annexation.

On the morning of the 4th of March, 1845, Mr. Tyler left the White
House, not caring to assist in the inauguration of his successor.
As the Potomac steamer was about to swing away from the wharf,
which was crowded with people who were glad to see the ex-President
depart, he came along with his family, a squadron of colored
servants, and a great lot of luggage.  As they alighted from their
carriages at the head of the wharf the whistle sounded, the boat's
bell rang, and she began slowly to move away.  Some one in the
crowd sang out, "Hello! hello! Captain, hold on there, ex-President
Tyler is coming.  Hold on!"  The captain, an old Clay Whig, standing
near the stern of the boat on the upper deck, looked over the rail,
saw the Presidential crowd coming, but pulled his engine bell
violently and shouted, "Ex-President Tyler be dashed! let him stay!"
This scene was lithographed and copies hung for years in many of
the saloons and public houses of Washington.

[Facsimile]
  S. A. Douglas
STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS was born at Brandon, Vermont, April 23d,
1813; was a Representative in Congress from Illinois, 1843-1847;
was United States Senator from 1847 until his death at Chicago,
June 3d, 1861.


CHAPTER XXV.
RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRATS.

James Knox Polk was inaugurated as the eleventh President of the
United States on the 4th of March, 1845, a rainy, unpleasant day.
Had any method of contesting a Presidential election been provided
by the Constitution or the laws, the fraudulent means by which his
election was secured, would have been brought forward to prevent
his taking his seat.  But the Constitution had made no such provision,
and Congress had not been disposed to interfere; so Mr. Polk was
duly inaugurated with great pomp, under the direction of the dominant
party.  A prominent place was assigned in the inaugural procession
for the Democratic associations of Washington and other cities.
The pugilistic Empire Club from New York, led by Captain Isaiah
Rynders, had with it a small cannon, which was fired at short
intervals as the procession advanced.

The Chief Marshal of the procession having issued orders that no
carriages should enter the Capitol grounds, the diplomats were
forced to alight at a side gate in the rain, and to walk through
the mud to the Senate entrance, damaging their feathered chapeaux
and their embroidered uniforms, to their great displeasure.
Conspicuous in the group around the President was Vice-President
Dallas, tall, erect, and dignified, with long, snow-white hair
falling over his shoulders.  The President-elect read his inaugural,
which few heard, and when he had concluded Chief Justice Taney
administered the oath of office.  As Mr. Polk reverentially kissed
the Bible, the customary salutes boomed forth at the Navy Yard and
at the Arsenal.  The new President was then escorted to the White
House, the rain having made Pennsylvania Avenue so slippery with
mud that not a few of the soldiers fell ingloriously on the march.

The cry, "Who is James K. Polk?" raised by the Whigs when he was
nominated, was unwarranted, for he was not an unknown man.  He had
been a member of the House from 1825 to 1839, Speaker from 1835 to
1837, and chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means during a
portion of his membership.  He had been a Jackson leader in the
House, and as such he had manifested not only zeal and skill as a
party manager, but also substantial qualities of a respectable
order.  It seems certain that Polk was selected by the Southern
Democracy some time before the Convention met in 1844, and that he
was heartily in sympathy with the movement for conquering a portion
of Mexico to be made into slave States.  Polk entered heartily into
this business, and worked harmoniously with the instigators of
conquest, except that he became self-willed when his vanity was
touched.

President Polk was a spare man, of unpretending appearance and
middle stature, with a rather small head, a full, angular brow,
penetrating dark gray eyes, and a firm mouth.  His hair, which he
wore long and brushed back behind his ears, was touched with silver
when he entered the White House and was gray when he left it.  He
was a worthy and well-qualified member of the fraternity of the
Freemasons, and a believer in the creed of the Methodists, although,
out of deference to the religious opinions of his wife, he attended
worship with her at the First Presbyterian Church.  Calm, cold,
and intrepid in his moral character, he was ignorant of the beauty
of moral uprightness in the conduct of public affairs, but was
ambitious of power and successful in the pursuit of it.  He was
very methodical and remarkably industrious, always finding time to
listen patiently to the stories of those who came to him as
petitioners for patronage and place.  But his arduous labors impaired
his health and doubtless shortened his life.  Before his term of
office had half expired his friends were pained to witness his
shortened and enfeebled step, and the air of languor and exhaustion
which sat upon him.

There were two inauguration balls in honor of the new President's
accession to power--one at ten dollars a ticket, and the other at
two dollars.  The ten-dollar ball was at Carusi's saloon, and was
attended by the leaders of Washington society, the Diplomatic Corps,
and many officers of the Army and Navy.  Madame de Bodisco, wife
of the Russian Minister, in a superb court dress, which she had
worn while on her bridal visit to St. Petersburg, attracted much
attention and contrasted strongly with Mrs. Polk, whose attire was
very plain.  The ball at the National Theatre was more democratic,
and was attended by an immense crowd, whose fight for the supper
was emblematical of the rush and scramble about to be made for the
loaves and fishes of office.  When the guests began to depart, it
was found that the best hats, cloaks, and canes had been taken
early in the evening, and there was great grumbling.  Commodore
Elliot had his pocket picked at the White House on inauguration
day, the thief depriving him of his wallet, which contained several
valued relics.  One was a letter from General Jackson, congratulating
him on his restoration to his position in the service, and containing
a lock of "Old Hickory's" hair; another was a letter from Mrs.
Madison, inclosing a lock of Mr. Madison's hair.

Mrs. Polk was a strict Presbyterian, and she shunned what she
regarded as "the vanities of the world" whenever it was possible
for her to do so.  She did not possess the queenly grace of Mrs.
Madison or the warm-hearted hospitality of Mrs. Tyler, but she
presided over the White House with great dignity.  She was of medium
height and size, with very black hair, dark eyes and complexion,
and formal yet graceful deportment.  At the inauguration of her
husband she wore a black silk dress, a long black velvet cloak with
a deep cape, trimmed with fringe and tassels, and a purple velvet
bonnet, trimmed with satin ribbon.  Her usual style of dress was
rich, but not showy.

Mrs. Polk would not permit dancing at the White House, but she did
all in her power to render the Administration popular.  One morning
a lady found her reading.  "I have many books presented to me by
their writers," said she, "and I try to read them all; at present
this is not possible; but this evening the author of this book
dines with the President, and I could not be so unkind as to appeared
wholly ignorant and unmindful of his gift."  At one of her evening
receptions a gentleman remarked, "Madame, you have a very genteel
assemblage to-night."  "Sir," replied Mrs. Polk, with perfect good
humor, but very significantly, "I have never seen it otherwise."

Mr. James Buchanan, the newly appointed Secretary of State, was at
this time in the prime of life, and his stalwart frame, fair
complexion, light blue eyes, courtly manners, and scrupulously neat
attire prompted an English visitor, Mrs. Maury, to say that he
resembled a British nobleman of the past generation, when the grave
and dignified bearing of men of power was regarded as an essential
attribute of their office.  Although a bachelor, he kept house on
F Street next to the abode of John Quincy Adams, where his accomplished
niece presided at his hospitable board.  He faithfully carried out
the foreign policy of President Polk, but never let pass an
opportunity for advancing, with refreshing humility, his own claims
to the succession.  In a letter written to a friend he alluded to
a prediction that he would be the next President, and went on to
say:  "I or any other man may disappear from the political arena
without producing a ripple upon the surface of the deep and strong
current which is sweeping the country to its destiny.  Nothing has
prevented me from removing myself from the list of future candidates
for the Presidency, except the injury this might do to the Democratic
cause in Pennsylvania.  On this subject I am resolved, and whenever
it may be proper I shall make known my resolution.  Nothing on
earth could induce me again to accept a Cabinet appointment."  Yet
never did a wily politician more industriously plot and plan to
secure a nomination than Mr. Buchanan did, in his still-hunt for
the Presidency.

William Learned Marcy, the Secretary of War, was the "wheel-horse"
of President Polk's Cabinet.  Heavily built, rather sluggish in
his movements, and always absorbed with some subject, he was not
what is generally termed "companionable," and neither bores nor
office-seekers regarded him as an amiable man.  He used to write
his most important dispatches in the library of his own house.
When thus engaged he would at once, after breakfast, begin his work
and write till nearly noon, when he would go to the Department,
receive calls, and attend to the regular routine duties of his
position.  During hours of composition he was so completely engrossed
with the subject that persons might enter, go out, or talk in the
same room without in the least obtaining his notice.  He usually
sat in his dressing-gown, with an old red handkerchief on the table
before him, and one could judge of the relative activity of his
mind by the frequency of his application to the snuff-box.  In
truth, he was an inveterate snuff-taker, and his immoderate
consumption of that article appeared to have injuriously affected
his voice.

President Polk, anxious to placate his defeated rival, Mr. Van
Buren, tendered the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury to
Silas Wright.  He declined it, having been elected Governor of the
State of New York, but recommended for the position Mr. A. C. Flagg.
Governor Marcy objected to the appointment of Mr. Flagg, then to
the appointment of Mr. George Bancroft, the historian, and finally
accepted himself the place of Secretary of War.  Mr. Robert J.
Walker, a Pennsylvanian by birth and a Mississippian by adoption,
who had in the United States Senate advocated the admission of
Texas and opposed the protection of American industries by a high
tariff, was made Secretary of the Treasury.  Mr. George Bancroft
was appointed Secretary of the Navy, and Cave Johnson, of Tennessee,
Postmaster-General.

Mr. John Y. Mason, who had been the Secretary of the Navy in Tyler's
Cabinet, was retained by Polk as his Attorney-General, having made
earnest appeals that he might not be disturbed.  He wrote to an
influential friend at Washington that he desired to remain in office
on account of his financial wants.  "Imprudence amounting to
infatuation," he went on to say, "while in Congress, embarrassed
me, and I am barely recovering from it.  The place is congenial to
my feelings, and the salary will assist Virginia land and negroes
in educating six daughters.  Although I still own a large estate,
and am perfectly temperate in my habits, I have felt that the folly
of my conduct in another respect may have led to the report that
I was a sot--an unfounded rumor, which originated with a Richmond
paper."  Governor Marcy used to joke Mr. Mason a good deal on the
forwardness of the Old Dominion, the mother of Presidents, in urging
the claims of her children for Federal office--a propensity which
was amusingly illustrated at a private dinner where they were both
in attendance.  "How strange it is, Mason," said he, "that out of
the thousands of fat appointments we have had to make, there is
not one that Virginia does not furnish a candidate for, and that
every candidate is backed up by the strongest testimonials that he
was expressly educated for that particular post!"  Mason bore the
joke very well, contenting himself with the observation that the
people of the United States seemed to know where to look for great
men.

Mr. Polk had been elected President on the platform of "the whole
of Oregon or none" and "54° 40', or fight."  But Mr. McLean, who
was sent to England, negotiated a treaty fixing the boundary at 49°,
and "54° 40'" was abandoned without the promised fight.  Another
troublesome legacy inherited by John Tyler was not so easily
arranged, and the Mexican War was inaugurated.  To the more
intelligent portion of the Northern Whigs the contest was repulsive,
and the manner in which it was used for the advancement of Democratic
politicians was revolting.  But few forgot their allegiance to this
country in the face of the enemy.  Congress, repeatedly appealed
to by the President, voted men and money without stint to secure
the national success and to maintain the national honor.  Whig
States which, like Massachusetts, had no sympathy for the war,
contributed the bravest of their sons, many of whom, like a son of
Daniel Webster, fell victims to Mexican malaria or Mexican bullets.

While President Polk endeavored to gratify each of the component
factions of the Democratic party in the composition of his Cabinet,
he ruthlessly deposed the veteran Francis P. Blair from the editorship
of the _Globe_ to gratify the chivalry of South Carolina, who made
it the condition upon which he could receive the electoral vote of
their State, then in the hands of the General Assembly, and controlled
by the politicians.  Blair & Rives had loaned ten thousand dollars
to General Jackson, who was very indignant when he learned that
his old friends were to be shelved, but the Nullifiers were
inexorable.  The _Globe_ ceased to be the editorial organ of the
Administration, and "Father Ritchie," who had for many years edited
the Richmond _Inquirer_, was invited to Washington, where he
established the _Union_, which became the mouthpiece of President
Polk.  "The _Globe_," says Colonel Benton, "was sold and was paid
for; it was paid for out of public money--the same fifty thousand
dollars which were removed to the village bank at Middletown, in
the interior of Pennsylvania.  Three annual installments made the
payment, and the Treasury did not reclaim the money for three
years."

The first congressional assembly attended by President Polk was
graced by the presence of General Felix Grundy McConnell, of Alabama,
who appeared arrayed in a blue swallow-tailed coat, light cassimere
pantaloons, and a scarlet waistcoat.  His female acquaintances at
Washington not being very numerous, he had invited to accompany
him two good-looking French milliner girls from a shop in the lower
story of the house in which he boarded.  The young women were
dressed as near to the Parisian style of ball dress as their means
would permit, and the trio attracted much attention as they promenaded
the hall.  When the President arrived, the General marched directly
to him, and exclaimed in his stentorian voice:  "Mr. Polk, allow
me the honor of introducing to you my beautiful young friend,
Mamselle--Mamselle--Mamselle--_parley vous Francais_--whose name
I have forgotten!"  Then, turning to the other lady, he asked,
"Will you introduce your friend?"  The President, seeing General
Mac's embarrassment, relived him by shaking hands cordially with
each of the young ladies.

[Facsimile]
  James K. Polk
JAMES KNOX POLK was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
November 2d, 1795; was a Representative in Congress from Tennessee,
1825-1839; was Governor of Tennessee, 1839; was President of the
United States, 1845-1849, and died at Nashville, Tennessee, June
15th, 1849.


CHAPTER XXVI.
DEATH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

The metropolis was not very gay during the latter portion of Mr.
Polk's Administration.  There were the usual receptions at the
White House, and at several of the foreign legations the allowance
of "table money" was judiciously expended, but there were not many
large evening parties or balls.  One notable social event was the
marriage of Colonel Benton's daughter Sarah to Mr. Jacob, of
Louisville.  The bridegroom's family was related to the Taylors
and the Clays, so Henry Clay, who had been re-elected to the Senate,
was present, and escorted the bride to the supper-table.  There
was a large attendance of Congressmen, diplomats, and officials,
but the absence of officers of the army and navy, generally so
prominent at a Washington entertainment, was noticeable.  They were
in Mexico.

Another interesting entertainment was given by Colonel Seaton, at
his mansion on E Street, to the Whig members of Congress and the
journalists.  The first homage of nearly all, as they entered, was
paid to John Quincy Adams, who sat upon a sofa, his form slightly
bowed by time, his eyes weeping, and a calm seriousness in his
expression.  Daniel Webster was not present, having that day received
intelligence of the death of his son Edward, who was major of a
Massachusetts regiment, and died in Mexico of camp-fever.  Henry
Clay, however, was there, with kind words and pleasant smiles for
all his friends.  Crittenden, Corwin, and other Whig Senatorial
paladins were present, and Mr. Speaker Winthrop, that perfect
gentleman and able presiding officer, headed a host of talented
Representatives.  Commodore Stockton and General Jones represented
the Army and Navy, while Erastus Brooks and Charles Lanman appeared
for the press.  There was a sumptuous collation, with much drinking
of healths and many pledges to the success of the Whig cause.

The reunion at Colonel Seaton's was on Friday night, February 18th,
1848.  The following Sunday John Quincy Adams attended public
worship at the Capitol, and on Monday, the 21st, he was, as usual,
in his seat when the House was called to order.  During the
preliminary business he was engaged in copying a poetical invocation
to the muse of history for one of the officials, and he appeared
to be in ordinarily good health.  A resolve of thanks to the generals
of the Mexican War came up, and the clerk had read, "Resolved by
the House that"--when he was arrested by the cry of "Look to Mr.
Adams!"  Mr. David Fisher, of Ohio, who occupied the desk on Mr.
Adams' right, saw him rise as if he intended to speak; then clutch
his desk with a convulsive effort, and sink back into his chair.
Mr. Fisher caught him in his arms, and in an instant Dr. Fries and
Dr. Nes, both members, were at his side.

It was a solemn moment, for a cry went from more than one, "Mr.
Adams is dying!"  It was thought that, like Pitt, he would give up
the ghost "with harness on," on the spot which his eloquence had
hallowed.  "Stand back!"  "Give him air!"  "Remove him!"  Every
one seemed panic-stricken except Mr. Speaker Winthrop, who quietly
adjourned the House, and had his insensible colleague removed on
a sofa--first into the rotunda, and then into the Speaker's room.
Cupping, mustard poultices, and friction were resorted to, and
about an hour after his attack Mr. Adams said, "This is the last
of earth, but I am content."  He then fell into a deep slumber,
from which he never awoke.  Mrs. Adams and other relatives were
with him, and among the visitors was Henry Clay, who stood for some
time with the old patriarch's hand clasped in his, and gazed intently
on the calm but vacant countenance, his own eyes filled with tears.
Mr. Adams lingered until the evening of the 23d of February, when
he breathed his last.  The funeral services were very imposing,
and a committee of one from each State accompanied the remains to
Boston, where they lay in state at Faneuil Hall, and were then
taken to Quincy for interment.  The Committee returned to Washington
enthusiastic over the hospitalities extended to them while they
were in Massachusetts.

Abraham Lincoln was a member of the last Congress during the Polk
Administration.  He made no mark as a legislator, but he established
his reputation as a story-teller, and he was to be found every
morning in the post-office of the House charming a small audience
with his quaint anecdotes.  Among other incidents of his own life
which he used to narrate was his military service in the Black Hawk
War, when he was a captain of volunteers.  He was mustered into
service by Jefferson Davis, then a lieutenant of dragoons, stationed
at Fort Dixon, which was near the present town of Dixon, Illinois,
and was under the command of Colonel Zachary Taylor.  Mr. Lincoln
served only one term, and before its expiration he began to take
steps for appointment as Commissioner of the General Land-office,
two years afterward, should the Whigs then come into power.  A
number of prominent Whig Senators and Representatives indorsed his
application, but he was not successful.

Jefferson Davis was a Representative from Mississippi until he
resigned to accept the command of a regiment of riflemen, with
which he rendered gallant services at Buena Vista, under his father-
in-law, General Taylor, with whom he was not at that time on speaking
terms.  In appearance his erect bearing recalled his service as an
officer of dragoons, while his square shoulders and muscular frame
gave proof of a training at West Point.  His high forehead was
shaded by masses of dark hair, in which the silvery threads began
to show; his eyes were a bluish-gray, his cheekbones prominent,
his nose aquiline, and he had a large, expressive mouth.  He was
an ardent supporter of State sovereignty and Southern rights, and
he was very severe on those Congressmen from the slave-holding
States, who were advocates of the Union, especially Mr. A. H.
Stephens, whom he denounced as "the little pale star from Georgia."

The Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore on the 22d of
May, 1848.  There was a prolonged contest over the rival claims of
delegates from New York, terminated by the admission of the "hards."
General James M. Commander, the solitary delegate from South
Carolina, was authorized to cast the nine votes of that State.
The two-thirds rule was adopted, and on the fourth day of the
convention, Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was nominated on the fourth
ballot, defeating James Buchanan and Levi Woodbury.  Having nominated
a Northern candidate, a Southern platform was adopted, which covered
the entire ground of non-interference with the rights of slave-
holders, either in the States or Territories.

General Cass was then in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and had
passed forty years in the public service.  His knowledge was ample
but not profound.  He was ignorant on no subject, and was deeply
versed on none.  The world to him was but a playhouse, and that
drama with him was best which was best performed.

When the Whig National Convention met at Philadelphia, on the 7th
of June, there was a bitter feeling between the respective friends
of Webster and Clay, but they were all doomed to disappointment.
The Northern delegates to the Whig National Convention might have
nominated either Webster, Clay, Scott, or Corwin, as they had a
majority of fifty-six over the delegates from the Southern States,
and cast twenty-nine votes more than was necessary to choose a
candidate.  But they refused to unite on any one, and on the fourth
ballot sixty-nine of them voted with the Southern Whigs and secured
the nomination of Zachary Taylor.  While the friends of Mr. Clay
made a desperate rally in his behalf, knowing that it was his last
chance, some of those who had smarted under the lash which he
wielded so unsparingly in the Senate rejoiced over his defeat.
"Thank Providence!" exclaimed ex-Senator Archer, of Virginia, "we
have got rid of the old tyrant at last."

As the Whig National Convention had adjourned without passing a
single declaration of the party's principles, General Taylor's
letter of acceptance was awaited with intense interest.  It was
believed that he would outline some policy which would be accepted
and which would unite the Whig party.  A month elapsed, and no
letter of acceptance was received by Governor Morehead, who had
presided over the Convention, but the Postmaster at Baton Rouge,
where General Taylor lived, addressed the Postmaster-General a
letter, saying that with the report for the current quarter from
that office, two bundles of letters were forwarded for the Dead-
Letter Office, they having been declined on account of the non-
payment of the postage by the senders.  It was in the ten-cent and
non-prepayment time.  Of the forty-eight letters thus forwarded to
the Dead-Letter Office, the Baton Rouge Postmaster said a majority
were addressed to General Taylor, who had declined to pay the
postage on them and take them out of the office, because his mail
expenses had become burdensome.  The General had since become aware
that some of the letters were of importance, and asked for their
return.  In due course, the letters were sent back to Baton Rouge,
and among them was Governor Morehead's letter notifying the General
of the action of the Philadelphia Convention.

General Taylor's letter of acceptance was thus dated a month and
five days after the letter of notification had been written.  It
was "short and sweet."  He expressed his thanks for the nomination,
said he did not seek it, and that he were elected President, for
which position he did not think he possessed the requisite
qualifications, he would do his best.  He discussed nothing, laid
down no principles, and gave no indications of the course he would
pursue.  Thurlow Weed was not satisfied with this letter, and sent
the draft of another one, more explicit, and indorsed by Mr.
Fillmore.  This General Taylor had copied, and signed it as a letter
addressed to his kinsman, Captain Allison.  In it he pledged himself
fully to Whig principles, and it was made the basis of an effective
campaign.

Mr. Webster, who at first denounced the nomination as one "not fit
to be made," was induced, by the payment of a considerable sum of
money, to make a speech in favor of the ticket.  Nathaniel P. Willis
wrote a stirring campaign song, and at the request of Thurlow Weed,
the writer of these reminiscences wrote a campaign life of the
General, large editions of which were published at Boston and at
Albany for gratuitous distribution.  It ignored the General's views
on the anti-slavery question.  Meanwhile, the Massachusetts
Abolitionists and ultra-Webster men, with the Barn-burner wing of
the Democratic party in New York, and several other disaffected
factions, met in convention at Buffalo.  They there nominated Martin
Van Buren for President and Mr. Charles Francis Adams for Vice-
President, and adopted as a motto, "Free Speech, Free Soil, Free
Labor, and Free Men."  This party attracted enough votes from the
Democratic ticket in the State of New York to secure the triumph
of the Whigs, and Martin Van Buren, who had been defeated by the
Southern Democrats, had in return the satisfaction of effecting
their defeat.

Mr. Calhoun, soured by his successive failures, but not instructed
by them, sought revenge.  "The last days of Mr. Polk's Administration,"
says Colonel Benton, "were witness to an ominous movement, nothing
less than nightly meetings of large numbers of members from the
slave States to consider the state of things between the North and
the South, to show the aggressions and encroachments (as they were
called) of the former upon the latter, to show the incompatibility
of their union, and to devise measures for the defense and protection
of the South."

[Facsimile]
  H. S. Foote
HENRY STUART FOOTE was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, September
20th, 1800; commenced the practice of law at Tuscumbia, Alabama,
and removed to Mississippi; was United States Senator, 1847-1852;
was Governor of Mississippi, 1852-1854, and died May 29th, 1880.


CHAPTER XXVII.
MAKING THE MOST OF POWER.

General Zachary Taylor was, of all who have filled the Presidential
chair by the choice of the people, the man least competent to
perform its duties.  He had been placed before his countrymen as
a candidate in spite of his repeated avowals of incapacity,
inexperience, and repugnance to all civil duties.  Although sixty-
four years of age, he had never exercised the right of suffrage,
and he was well aware that he was elected solely because of his
military prowess.  But no sooner did he learn that he had been
chosen President than he displayed the same invincible courage,
practical sense, and indomitable energy in the discharge of his
new and arduous civil duties which had characterized his military
career.

The President-elect was fortunate in having as a companion, counselor,
and friend Colonel William Wallace Bliss, who had served as his
chief of staff in the Mexican campaign, and who became the husband
of his favorite daughter, Miss Betty.  Colonel Bliss was the son
of Captain Bliss, of the regular army, and after having been reared
in the State of New York he was graduated at West Point, where he
served afterward as acting professor of mathematics.

On his way to Washington from his Louisiana plantation, General
Taylor visited Frankfort, and personally invited Mr. John J.
Crittenden, then Governor of Kentucky, to become his Secretary of
State.  Governor Crittenden declined, and General Taylor then
telegraphed to Mr. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, tendering him the
position, which that gentleman promptly accepted.

Mr. Abbott Lawrence, of Boston, solicited the appointment of the
Secretary of the Treasury, and was offered the Navy Department,
which he declined.  Mr. Robert Toombs, supported by Representative
Stephens and Senator Dawson, succeeded in having Mr. George W.
Crawford, of Georgia, appointed Secretary of War.

Mr. William M. Meredith, of Pennsylvania, was rather forced upon
General Taylor as Secretary of the Treasury by Mr. Clayton and
other Whigs, partly on account of his acknowledged talents, but
chiefly to exclude objectionable Pennsylvanians, among them Mr.
Josiah Randall, who, more than any other, had contributed to the
nomination and election of the General.  A contest between Messrs.
Corwin and Vinton, of Ohio, for a seat in the Cabinet was settled
by the appointment of Mr. Thomas Ewing, of that State, as Secretary
of the Interior.  Mr. Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, who had been an
unsuccessful competitor with Mr. Upham for a seat in the Senate,
and had been recommended by the Legislature of his state as Attorney-
General, was made Postmaster-General.

General Taylor came to Washington impressed with the idea that he
was politically indebted to George Lunt, of Massachusetts, and
William Ballard Preston, of Virginia.  He appointed Mr. Lunt District
Attorney for the district of Massachusetts, and it was soon understood
that he proposed to invite Mr. Preston to a seat in his Cabinet as
Attorney-General.  The Whig Senators remonstrated, urging Preston's
lack of great legal ability and learning, but all to no purpose.
Finally Senator Archer, of Virginia, called and asked if there was
any foundation for the report that his friend Preston was to be
made Attorney-General.  "Yes!" answered General Taylor, "I have
determined on that appointment."  "Are you aware, General," said
the Senator, "that the Attorney-General must represent the Government
in the Supreme Court?"  "Of course!" responded the General.  "But
did you know that he must there meet Daniel Webster, Reverdy Johnson,
and other leading lawyers?"  "Certainly.  What of it?"  "Nothing,
General, except that they will make a blank fool of your Attorney-
General."  The Virginia Senator then took his leave, and the next
morning's papers contained the announcement that the President had
decided to appoint Mr. Preston Secretary of the Navy, and Mr.
Reverdy Johnson Attorney-General.

Mrs. Taylor regretted the election of her husband, and came to
Washington with a heavy heart.  She was a native of Calvert County,
Maryland, and was born on the estate where the father of Mrs. John
Quincy Adams had formerly resided.  Her father, Mr. Walter Smith,
was a highly respectable farmer, and her brother, Major Richard
Smith, of the Marine Corps, was well remembered at Washington for
his gallant bearing and his social qualities.  The eldest daughter
of General Taylor had married Mr. Jefferson Davis.  A second daughter
was the wife of Dr. Wood, of the army, who was at that time stationed
at Baltimore, as was General Taylor's brother, Colonel Taylor.
Mrs. Taylor, with her younger daughter, Mrs. Bliss, went directly
from Louisiana to Baltimore some weeks prior to the inauguration.
They broke up housekeeping at Baton Rouge, and took with them
William Oldham, a faithful colored man, who had been the body-
servant of General Taylor for many years, the parade horse, "Old
Whitey," which he had ridden in the Mexican campaign, and a favorite
dog.

General Taylor was inaugurated on Monday, March 5th.  He was escorted
from Willard's Hotel by an imposing procession, headed by twelve
volunteer companies.  The President-elect rode in an open carriage
drawn by four gray horses, and he was joined at the Irving House
by President Polk, who sat at his right hand.  One hundred young
gentlemen, residents of the District of Columbia, mounted on spirited
horses, formed a body-guard, and kept the crowd from pressing around
the President's carriage.  Then came the "Rough-and-Ready" clubs
of Washington, Georgetown, Alexandria, and Baltimore, with banners,
badges, and music, while the students of the Georgetown College
brought up the rear.

The personal appearance of General Taylor as he read his inaugural
address from a platform erected in front of the eastern portico of
the Capitol was not imposing.  His figure was somewhat portly, and
his legs were short; his thin, gray hair was unbrushed; his whiskers
were of the military cut then prescribed; his features were weather-
bronzed and care-furrowed; and he read almost inaudibly.  It was
evident, however, that he was a popular favorite, and when he had
concluded the vociferous cheering of the assembled thousands was
answered by the firing of cannon and the music of the bands.  His
praises were on all lips, and his soubriquets of "Rough and Ready"
and "Old Zach." were sounded with all honor.

The inaugural message showed that General Taylor regarded the Union
as in danger, and that he intended to use every possible exertion
for its preservation.  Mr. Calhoun had requested, through Mr.
Clayton, that nothing should be said in the inaugural on this
subject, which had prompted the addition of a paragraph, in which
the incoming President declared that a dissolution of the Union
would be the greatest of calamities, and went on to say:  "Whatever
dangers may threaten it, I shall stand by it, and maintain it in
its integrity, to the full extent of the obligations imposed and
the power conferred upon me by the Constitution."

In December, 1849, when Congress assembled, the President aroused
the violent opposition of Southern members by recommending, in his
message, that California be admitted as a free State, and that the
remaining Territories be allowed to form Constitutions to suit
themselves.  So indignant were some of the Southerners that the
dissolution of the Union was openly threatened.  To allay this
agitation Clay's compromise measures were proposed, but Taylor did
not live to see the bill passed.

The horde of office-seekers which invaded Washington after the
inauguration of President Taylor recalled the saying of John
Randolph, when it was asserted that the patronage of the Federal
Government was overrated:  "I know," said the sarcastic Virginian,
"that it may be overrated; I know that we cannot give to those who
apply offices equal to their expectations; and I also know that
with one bone I can call five hundred dogs."  The Democratic motto,
that "To the victors belong the spoils," was adopted by the Taylor
Administration.  Unexceptionable men were removed from office, that
their places might be filled with officers of Rough and Ready clubs
or partisan orators.  Veterans like General Armstrong and even the
gifted Hawthorne, were "rotated" without mercy from the offices
which they held.  In the Post-Office Department alone, where Mr.
Fitz Henry Warren, as Assistant Postmaster-General, worked the
political guillotine, there were three thousand four hundred and
six removals during the first year of the Taylor Administration,
besides many hundred clerks and employees in the post-offices of
the larger cities.

In the dispensation of "patronage" there was a display of shameless
nepotism.  A brother-in-law of Senator Webster was made Navy Agent
at New York.  Sons of Senators Crittenden, Clay, and Davis received
important appointments abroad, and the son-in-law of Senator Calhoun
was retained in the diplomatic service.  Two sons-in-law of Senator
Benton were offered high places.  A nephew of Senator Truman Smith
was made one of the United States Judges in Minnesota, and a nephew
of Secretary Clayton was made purser at the Washington Navy Yard.
The assurance of the President that he had "no friends to reward"
was apparently forgotten, and he was hedged in by a little circle
of executive councilors, who ruled all things.

While the Administration was profligate in this abuse of patronage,
the conduct of several of the Secretaries was such as to give the
President great uneasiness as he became acquainted with what was
going on.  Old claims were revived, approved by the Secretaries,
and paid.  Prominent among them was the Galphin claim, the Chickasaw
claim, the De la Francia claim, the Gardiner claim, and many others.
From the Galphin claim Mr. Crawford, Secretary of War, received as
his share one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.  The lawyers
in Congress declared that the Secretary acted professionally, but
others censured him severely.  Judge Cartter, then a Representative
from Ohio, was severe in his comments on the monstrous corruption
of the allowance of interest, the payment of which he said that he
disliked "both as an exaction of the part of the capitalists, and
on account of its origin with the Jews, who killed the Saviour."

President Taylor, although a Southerner by birth and a slave-owner,
took prompt steps to thwart the schemes of Mr. Calhoun and his
fellow-conspirators.  Military officers were ordered to California,
Utah, and New Mexico, which had no governments but lynch law; and
the people of the last-named province, which had been settled two
hundred years before Texas asserted her independence, were assured
that her domain would be guaranteed by the United States against
the claim of the Lone Star State.

Socially, President Taylor enjoyed himself, and he used to take
morning walks through the streets of Washington, wearing a high
black silk hat perched on the back of his head, and a suit of black
broadcloth, much too large for him, but made in obedience to his
orders, that he might be comfortable.  Mrs. Taylor used to sit
patiently all day in her room, plying her knitting-needles, and
occasionally, it was said, smoking her pipe.  Mrs. Bliss was an
excellent housekeeper, and the introduction of gas into the Executive
Mansion, with new furniture and carpets, enabled her to give it a
more creditable appearance.  It was said that she did the honors
of the establishment "with the artlessness of a rustic belle and
the grace of a duchess."

General Taylor found it difficult to accustom himself to the
etiquette and the restraint of his new position.  One day when the
bachelor ex-Secretary of State called with a number of fair
Pennsylvania friends to present them to the President, General
Taylor remarked:  "Ah! Mr. Buchanan, you always pick out the
prettiest ladies!"  "Why, Mr. President," was the courtly reply,
"I know that your taste and mine agree in this respect."  "Yes,"
said General Taylor, "but I have been so long among Indians and
Mexicans that I hardly know how to behave myself, surrounded by so
many lovely women."

[Facsimile]
  ZTaylor
ZACHARY TAYLOR was born in Orange County, Virginia, November 24th,
1784; never cast a vote or held a civil office until he was
inaugurated as President, March 5th, 1849; died at the White House,
after a few days' illness, July 9th, 1850.


CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE GREAT COMPROMISE DEBATE.

The Thirty-first Congress, which met on the first Monday in the
December following the inauguration of President Taylor, contained
many able statesmen of national prominence.  The organization of
the House was a difficult task, nine "free-soil" or anti-slavery
Whigs from the North and six "State-rights" or pro-slavery Whigs
from the South, refusing to vote for that accomplished gentleman,
Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, who was the Whig candidate for Speaker.
On the first ballot, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, had one hundred and
three votes, against ninety-six votes for Robert C. Winthrop, eight
votes for David Wilmot, six votes for Meredith P. Gentry, two votes
for Horace Mann, and a number of scattering votes.  The tellers
announced that these was no choice, and the balloting was continued
day after day, amid great and increasing excitement.  After the
thirty-ninth ballot, Mr. Winthrop withdrew from the contest,
expressing his belief that the peace and the safety of the Union
demanded that an organization of some sort should be effected
without delay.

The Southern Whigs who had opposed Mr. Winthrop were vehement and
passionate in their denunciation of the North.  "The time has come,"
said Mr. Toombs, his black, uncombed hair standing out from his
massive head, as if charged with electricity, his eyes glowing like
coals of fire, and his sentences rattling forth like volleys of
musketry--"the time has come," said he, "when I shall not only
utter my opinions, but make them the basis of my political action
here.  I do not, then, hesitate to avow before this House and the
country, and in the presence of the living God, that if, by your
legislation, you seek to drive us from the Territories of California
and New Mexico, and to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,
I am for disunion; and if my physical courage be equal to the
maintenance of my convictions of right and duty, I will devote all
I am and all I have on earth to its consummation."

Such inflammatory remarks provoked replies, and after a heated
debate Mr. Duer, of New York, remarked that he "would never, under
any circumstances, vote to put a man in the Speaker's chair who
would, in any event, advocate or sanction a dissolution of the
Union."  This brought a dozen Southerners to their feet, with angry
exclamations, and Mr. Bayly, of Virginia, who was near Mr. Duer,
said "There are no disunionists."  "There are!" exclaimed Mr. Duer.
"Name one!" shouted Mr. Bayly.  At that moment Mr. Meade, of
Virginia, rose and passed directly before Mr. Duer, who pointed to
him and shouted, "There's one!"  "It is false!" replied Mr. Meade,
angrily.  "You lie, sir!" responded Mr. Duer, in tones which rang
through the hall; and, drawing himself up, he stood unmoved, while
his political friends and foes clustered angrily about him, every
man of them talking and gesticulating most furiously.

Fortunately, Mr. Nathan Sergeant (known as a newspaper correspondent
over the signature of Oliver Oldschool), who was the Sergeant-at-
Arms of the House, was in his seat at the Speaker's right hand.
Seizing the "mace," which represents the Roman fasces, or bundle
of rods, bound by silver bands and surmounted by an eagle with
outstretched wings, which is the symbol of the authority of the
House, he hastened to Mr. Duer and stood at his side, as if to
protect him.  His official interposition was immediately respected
by all concerned in the disorder, and even the most tumultuous
began at once to subside, so that no forcible measures were needed
to prevent further violence.

Quiet was restored, and the excited Representatives, one by one,
obeyed the sharp raps of the Speaker's gavel, accompanied by the
peremptory order, "Gentlemen will take their seats."  Mr. Duer,
who had recovered his usual composure, then addressed the Chair,
and having been recognized, apologized to the House for having been
provoked into the use of the unparliamentary expression, but
justified himself by referring to a speech which Mr. Meade had just
made and printed, which contained disunion sentiments.  Mr. Meade
promptly challenged Mr. Duer, who showed no indisposition to fight,
but with some difficulty friends secured an amicable settlement of
the quarrel.

Finally, after three weeks of angry recriminations, it was voted
that a plurality should elect, and on the sixty-second ballot Mr.
Howell Cobb, of Georgia, having received one hundred and two votes
against one hundred votes for Mr. Winthrop, was declared the Speaker
of the House.  He did not have that sense of personal dignity and
importance which belonged to Sir John Falstaff by reason of his
knighthood, but he displayed the same rich exuberance of animal
enjoyment, the same roguish twinkle of the eye, and the same
indolence which characterized the fat Knight.

President Taylor's first and only message to Congress was transmitted
on the Monday following the organization of the House, December
24th, and the printed copies first distributed contained the
sentence, "We are at peace with all the nations of the world and
the rest of mankind."  A revised edition was soon printed, in which
the corrected sentence read, "We are at peace with all the nations
of the world, and seek to maintain our cherished relations of amity
with them."  The blunder caused much diversion among the Democrats,
and greatly annoyed Colonel Bliss, who, as the President's private
secretary, had superintended the publication of the message.  The
message contained no allusion to the slavery question, but the
President had declared himself in favor of the untrammeled admission
of California into the Union, while, on the other hand, he did not
approve the "higher law" doctrine which Mr. Seward was advocating
as a nucleus for a new political party in the North.

Meanwhile, Henry Clay had reappeared at Washington as a Senator
from Kentucky, and occupied his old quarters at the National Hotel,
a large stockholder in which, Mr. Calvert, of Maryland, was one of
Clay's many friends.  Although in his seventy-third year, Mr. Clay
was apparently hale and hearty, but showed his age.  His head, bald
on the top, was fringed with long, iron-gray hair, his cheeks were
somewhat sunken, his nose had a pinched look, but his wide mouth
was, as in years past, wreathed in genial smiles.  He always was
dressed in black, and from a high black satin stock, which enveloped
his long neck, emerged a huge white shirt collar, which reached to
his ears.  He mingled in society, generally kissed the prettiest
girls wherever he went, and enjoyed a quiet game of cards in his
own room, with a glass of toddy made from Bourbon County whisky.

At the commencement of the session Mr. Clay requested that he might
be excused from service on any of the standing committees of the
Senate, and his wish was granted.  It was not long, however, before
he evinced a desire to re-enter the arena of debate as a leader of
the Whig party, but not as a follower of President Taylor.  Presenting
a series of resolutions which would consolidate the settlement of
the eight different questions involving slavery, then before
Congress, into what he expected would prove a lasting compromise,
he moved their reference to a select committee of thirteen, with
instructions to report them in one bill.  The Committee was
authorized, but not without opposition, and Mr. Webster's vote
secured for Mr. Clay the chairmanship.  A general compromise bill
was speedily prepared, and the "battle of the giants" was recommenced,
Clay, Webster, and Calhoun engaging for the last time in a gladitorial
strife, which exhibited the off-hand genial eloquence of the
Kentuckian, the ponderous strength of the Massachusetts Senator,
and the concentrated energies of South Carolina's favorite son.
Mr. Clay was the leader in the debate, which extended over seven
months, and during that time he was ever on the alert, sometimes
delivering a long argument, sometimes eloquently replying to other
Senators, and sometimes suggesting points to some one who was to
speak on his side.  Indignant at the treatment which he had received
from the Whig party he stood unsubdued, and so far from retreating
from those who had deserted him, he intended to make the Taylor
Administration recall its pledges, break its promises, and become
national, or pro-slavery, Whigs.

Mr. Webster was equally grieved and saddened by the faithlessness
of Massachusetts men who had in years past professed friendship
for him, but of whose machinations against him he had obtained
proof during the preceding autumn.  He also ascertained that, to
use the words of Mr. Choate, "the attention of the public mind
began to be drawn a little more directly to the great question of
human freedom and human slavery."  If he responded to the beatings
of the New England heart, and resisted the aggressions and usurpations
of the slave power, he would have to follow the lead of the
Abolitionists, for whom he had always expressed a profound contempt.
Dejected and depressed, Mr. Webster would at that time have been
glad to take the mission to England, and thus terminate his career
of public service; but he was defeated by the claims of Mr. Abbott
Lawrence, who, having been recently disappointed in not receiving
the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury, refused to be comforted
unless he could be the successor of George Bancroft at the Court
of St. James.

Thaddeus Stevens and Joshua R. Giddings asserted, after the decease
of Mr. Webster, that he prepared a speech, the manuscript of which
they had read, which was a powerful exposition and vindication of
Northern sentiment upon the compromise measures, especially the
fugitive-slave bill.  If this was true, he was doubtless induced
to "change front" by pledges of Southern support for the Presidency;
but he is reported by Theodore Parker as having said to a fellow
Senator, on the morning of the 7th of March, "I have my doubts that
the speech I am going to make will ruin me."  He should have
remembered that he himself said of the Emperor Napoleon, "His
victories and his triumphs crumbled to atoms, and moldered to dry
ashes in his grasp, because he violated the general sense of justice
of mankind."

At this time Webster's far-seeing mind was doubtless troubled by
the prospects of a bloody civil war, with the breaking up of the
Union he loved so well.  He stood by the old compromises rather
than bring on a sectional conflict, and in his opinion there was
no sacrifice too great to avert a fratricidal contest.  "I speak
to-day," said he, "for the preservation of the Union!"  His words
were in after years the key-notes of many appeals for the protection
and the preservation of the United States.

Mr. Calhoun's health had gradually failed, and at last he was
supported into the Senate Chamber wrapped in flannels, like the
great Chatham, and requested that his friend, Senator Mason, might
read some remarks which he had prepared.  The request was, of
course, granted, and while Mr. Mason read the defiant pronunciamento
its author sat wrapped in his cloak, his eyes glowing with meteor-
like brilliancy as he glanced at Senators upon whom he desired to
have certain passages make an impression.  When Mr. Mason had
concluded, Mr. Calhoun was supported from the Senate and went back
to his lodgings at Mr. Hill's boarding-house, afterward known as
the Old Capitol, to die.

Mr. Jefferson Davis aspired to the leadership of the South after
the death of Mr. Calhoun, and talked openly of disunion.  "Let the
sections," said he, in the Senate Chamber, "part, like the patriarchs
of old, and let peace and good-will subsist among their descendants.
Let no wound be inflicted which time cannot heal.  Let the flag of
our Union be folded up entire, the thirteen stripes recording the
original size of our family, untorn by the unholy struggles of
civil war, its constellation to remain undimmed, and speaking to
those who come after us of the growth and prosperity of the family
whilst it remained united.  Unmutilated, let it lie among the
archives of the Republic, until some future day, when wiser counsels
shall prevail, when men shall have been sobered in the school of
adversity, again to be unfurled over the continent-wide Republic."

Senator Hale, who, with Salmon P. Chase, was not named on any of
the committees of the Senate, was a constant target for the attacks
of the Southerners, but the keenest shafts of satire made no more
impression upon him than musket-balls do upon the hide of a
rhinoceros.  One day when Senator Clemens had asserted that the
Union was virtually dissolved, Mr. Hale said, "If this is not a
matter too serious for pleasant illustration, let me give you one.
Once in my life, in the capacity of Justice of the Peace--for I
held that office before I was Senator--I was called on to officiate
in uniting a couple in the bonds of matrimony.  They came up, and
I made short work of it.  I asked the man if he would take the
woman whom he held by the hand to be his wedded wife; and he replied,
'To be sure I will.  I came here to do that very thing.'  I then
put the question to the lady whether she would have the man for
her husband.  And when she answered in the affirmative, I told them
they were man and wife then.  She looked up with apparent astonishment
and inquired, 'Is that all?'  'Yes,' said I, 'that is all.'  'Well,'
said she, 'it is not such a mighty affair as I expected it to be,
after all!'  If this Union is already dissolved, it has produced
less commotion in the act than I expected."

[Facsimile]
  Robt. C. Winthrop
ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP was born at Boston, Massachusetts, May
12th, 1809; was a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts
from December 5th, 1842, to July 30th, 1850, when, having been
appointed a United States Senator from Massachusetts, he took his
seat in the Senate, serving until February 7th, 1851; was Speaker
of the House during the Thirtieth Congress, and a part of the Thirty-
first Congress.


CHAPTER XXIX.
PROMINENT STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATS.

A prominent figure at Washington during the Taylor Administration
was General Sam Houston, a large, imposing-looking man, who generally
wore a waistcoat made from the skin of a panther, dressed with the
hair on, and who generally occupied himself during the sessions of
the Senate in whittling small sticks of soft pine wood, which the
Sergeant-at-Arms provided for him.  His life had been one of romantic
adventure.  After having served with distinction under General
Jackson in the Creek War, he had become a lawyer, and then Governor
of the State of Tennessee.  Soon after his inauguration he had
married an accomplished young lady, to whom he one day intimated,
in jest, that she apparently cared more for a former lover than
she did for him.  "You are correct," said she, earnestly, "I love
Mr. Nickerson's little finger better than I do your whole body."
Words ensued, and the next day Houston resigned his Governorship,
went into the Cherokee country, west of the Arkansas River, adopted
the Indian costume, and became an Indian trader.  He was the best
customer supplied from his own whisky barrel, until one day, after
a prolonged debauch, he heard from a Texas Indian that the Mexicans
had taken up arms against their revolted province.  A friend agreeing
to accompany him, he cast off his Indian attire, again dressing
like a white man, and never drank a drop of any intoxicating beverage
afterward.  Arriving in Texas at a critical moment, his gallantry
was soon conspicuous, and in due time he was sent to Washington as
United States Senator.  His strong points, however, were more
conspicuous on the field than in the Senate.

William H. Seward entered the Senate when General Taylor was
inaugurated as President, and soon became the directing spirit of
the Administration, although Colonel Bullit, who had been brought
from Louisiana to edit the _Republic_, President Taylor's recognized
organ, spoke of him only with supercilious contempt.  Senator Foote
sought reputation by insulting him in public, and was himself
taunted by Mr. Calhoun with the inconsistent fact of intimacy with
him in private.  The newly elected Senator from New York persisted
in maintaining amicable relations with his revilers, and quietly
controlled the immense patronage of his State, none of which was
shared by the friends of Vice-President Fillmore.  He was not at
heart a reformer; he probably cared but little whether the negro
was a slave or a freeman; but he sought his own political advancement
by advocating in turn anti-Masonry and abolitionism, and by
politically coquetting with Archbishop Hughes, of the Roman Catholic
Church, and Henry Wilson, a leading Know-Nothing.  Personally he
was honest, but he was always surrounded by intriguers and tricksters,
some of whose nests he would aid in feathering.  The most unscrupulous
lobbyists that have ever haunted the Capitol were well known as
devoted adherents of William H. Seward, and he swayed them as a
sovereign.

Mr. James Buchanan had not shed many tears over the defeat of his
rival, General Cass, and when the Whigs came into power he retired
from the Department of State to his rural home, called Wheatland,
near Lancaster, Pa.  He used to visit Washington frequently, and
was always welcomed in society, where he made an imposing appearance,
although he had the awkward habit of carrying his head slightly to
one side, like a poll-parrot.  He always attempted to be facetious,
especially when conversing with young ladies, but when any political
question was discussed in his presence, he was either silent, or
expressed himself with great circumspection.  From his first entry
into the House of Representatives, in 1821, he had entertained
Presidential aspirations, and had sought to cultivate friendships
that would be of service to him in obtaining the object of his
ambition, protesting all the while that he was indifferent on the
subject.  After his retreat to Wheatland he began to secure strength
for the coming National Democratic Convention of 1851, industriously
corresponding with politicians in different sections of the country,
and he was especially attentive to Mr. Henry A. Wise, with whose
aid he hoped to secure the votes of the delegates from Virginia in
the next National Democratic Convention.

Mr. Wise, recalling the time when he was a power behind the throne
of John Tyler, encouraged Mr. Buchanan to bid for Southern support,
and intimated a readiness to "coach" him so as to make him a favorite
in the slave States.  His counsels were kindly taken and in return
Mr. Buchanan wrote to the fiery "Lord of Accomac," in his most
precise handwriting:  "Acquire more character for prudence and
moderation, and under the blessing of Heaven you may be almost
anything in this country which you desire.  There is no man living
whose success in public and in private life would afford me more
sincere pleasure than your own.  You have every advantage.  All
you have to do is to go straight ahead, without unnecessarily
treading upon other people's toes.  I know you will think, if you
don't say, 'What impudence it is for this childless old bachelor
of sixty years of age to undertake to give me advice!  Why don't
he mind his own business?'  General Jackson once told me that he
knew a man in Tennessee who had got rich by minding his own business;
but still I urged him, and at last with success, which he never
regretted."

The free distribution of plants and seeds to Congressmen for their
favored constituents has made it an equally easy matter for the
Commissioner of Agriculture to obtain liberal appropriations for
his Department and the publication of enormous editions of his
Reports.  Indeed, the Bureau of Agriculture has grown under these
fostering influences to one of immense magnitude, and its beautiful
building, erected in Lincoln's time, is one of the ornaments of
the city.

The first of the Agricultural Reports was issued by Edmund Burke,
while he was commissioner of Patents during the Polk Administration.
On the incoming of the Taylor Administration Mr. Burke was succeeded
by Thomas Ewbank, of New York City, and Congress made an appropriation
of three thousand five hundred dollars for the collection of
agricultural statistics.  When Mr. Ewbank's report appeared the
Southern Congressmen were (to quote the words used by Senator
Jefferson Davis, in debate) amazed to find that it was preceded by
what he termed "an introduction by Horace Greeley, a philosopher
and philanthropist of the strong Abolition type."  "The simple
fact," he continued, "that Mr. Greeley was employed to write the
introduction is sufficient to damn the work with me, and render it
worthless in my estimation."  This view was held by many other
Southerners.

Notwithstanding this fierce denunciation, however, the public
appreciated just such work as had been undertaken, and so rapid
was the growth of interest in this direction that the Department
of Agriculture was fully organized in 1862.  It has continued to
issue immense numbers of Reports, which are standing objects of
jest and complaint, but the fact still remains that they contain
splendid stores of valuable information.

Queen Victoria accredited as her Minister Plenipotentiary to
President Tyler the Right Honorable Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, an
accomplished diplomat, slender, and apparently in ill health.  He
was afterward, for many years, the British Minister at Constantinople,
where he defeated the machinations of Russia, and held in cunning
hand the tangled thread of that delicate puzzle, the Eastern
Question.  His private secretary while he was at Washington was
his nephew, Mr. Robert Bulwer (a son of the novelist), who has
since won renown as Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India, and as the author
--Owen Meredith.

The bitter political discussions at the Capitol during the first
six months of 1850 prevented much social enjoyment.  There were
the customary receptions at the White House, and "hops" at the
hotels, but few large parties were given.  Tea-parties were numerous,
at which a succession of colored waiters carried trays heaped with
different varieties of home-made cakes and tarts, from which the
beaux supplied the belles, and at the same time ministered to their
own wants, balancing a well-loaded plate on one knee, while they
held a cup and saucer, replete with fragrant decoctions from the
Chinese plant "which cheers, but not inebriates."

The reigning belles were the queen-like widow Ashley, of Missouri,
who afterward married Senator Crittenden, and her beautiful daughter,
who became the wife of Mr. Cabell, of Florida.  Mrs. Fremont and
her sisters made the home of their father, Colonel Benton, very
attractive; General Cass's daughter, who afterward married the
Dutch Minister, had returned from Paris with many rare works of
art, and the proscribed Free-soilers met with a hearty welcome at
the house of Dr. Bailey, editor of the _New Era_, where Miss Dodge
(Gail Hamilton), passed her first winter in Washington.

On the evening of the 4th of July, 1850, a large reception was
given by ex-Speaker Winthrop to his gentlemen friends, without
distinction of party or locality.  At the supper-table Mr. Winthrop
had at his right hand Vice-President Fillmore, and at his left hand
Mr. Speaker Cobb.  Webster and Foote, Benton and Horace Mann, the
members elect from California, with Clingman and Venable, who were
trying to keep them out, were seen in genial companionship.  Most
of the Cabinet and the President's private secretary, Colonel Bliss,
were there, side by side with those who proposed to impeach them.
The only drawback to the general enjoyment of the occasion was the
understanding that it was the farewell entertainment of Mr. Winthrop,
who had given so many evidences of his unselfish patriotism and
eminent ability, and whose large experience in public affairs should
have entitled him to the continued confidence of the people of
Massachusetts.  President Taylor was absent, and Colonel Bliss
apologized for his non-attendance, saying that he was somewhat
indisposed.

The old hero had that day sat in the sun at the Washington Monument
during a long spread-eagle address by Senator Foote, with a tedious
supplementary harangue by George Washington Parke Custis.  While
thus exposed to the midsummer heat for nearly three hours, he had
drank freely of ice-water, and on his return to the White House he
had found a basket of cherries, of which he partook heartily,
drinking at the same time several goblets of iced milk.  After
dinner he still further feasted on cherries and iced milk against
the protestations of Dr. Witherspoon, who was his guest.  When it
was time to go to Mr. Winthrop's he felt ill, and soon afterward
he was seized with a violent attack of cholera morbus.  This was
on Thursday, but he did not consider himself dangerously ill until
Sunday, when he said to his physician, "In two days I shall be a
dead man."  Eminent physicians were called in, but they could not
arrest the bilious fever which supervened.  His mind was clear,
and on Tuesday morning he said to one of the physicians at his
bedside, "You have fought a good fight, but you cannot make a
stand."  Soon afterward he murmured, "I have endeavored to do my
duty," and peacefully breathed his last.  His sudden death was
immediately announced by the tolling of the bell in the Department
of State, and in a few moments the funereal knell was echoed from
every church steeple in the district.

[Facsimile]
  William H. Seward
WILLIAM H. SEWARD was born at Florida, New York, May 16th, 1801;
was Governor of New York, 1838-1842; was United States Senator from
New York from March 4th, 1849, until he entered the Cabinet of
President Lincoln as Secretary of State, March 5th, 1861; remained
Secretary of State under President Johnson until March 3d, 1869;
traveled around the world in 1870-1871, and died at Auburn, New
York, October 10th, 1872.


CHAPTER XXX.
FILLMORE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

On the tenth of July, 1850, the day after the death of General
Taylor, Mr. Fillmore appeared in the Representatives' Hall at the
Capitol, where both houses of Congress had met in joint session,
took the oath of office, and immediately left.  The new President
was then fifty years of age, of average height, florid features,
white hair, shrewd, gray eyes, and dignified yet courteous manners.
He had risen from the humble walks of life, by incessant toil, to
the highest position in the Republic.  Always animated by an
indomitable spirit and by that industry and perseverance which are
the sure guarantees of success, he was undoubtedly a man of ability,
but his intellect seemed, like that of Lord Bacon, to lack to
complement of heart.  A blank in his nature, where loyalty to the
public sentiment of the North should have been, made him a willing
instrument to crush out the growing determination north of Mason
and Dixon's line that freedom should be national, slavery sectional.

Mr. Fillmore had given satisfaction to the Senators by the impartial
manner in which he had presided as Vice-President over their
deliberations.  They had, by a unanimous vote, approved of his
ruling, which reversed the decision of Mr. Calhoun, twenty-three
years before, that the Vice-President had no right to call a Senator
to order for words spoken in debate, and they had ordered his
explanatory remarks to be entered upon the journal.  By Mr. Seward
and Mr. Weed, however, he was treated with marked contempt, and
under their direction the Taylor Administration had given him the
cold shoulder.  Even his requests that two of his personal friends
should be appointed Collector of the Port and Postmaster at Buffalo
had been formally refused, and the places had been given to partisans
of Mr. Seward.  The unexpected death of General Taylor was an
element which even Mr. Seward had never taken into account, and
the first consequence was undisguised confusion among the supporters
of the Administration.  The members of the Cabinet promptly tendered
their resignations, and it was plainly visible that the sudden
removal of the President had checkmated the plans so carefully
made, and forced the chief player to feel the bitterness of political
death.  Mr. Fillmore was known to be amiable in private life, but
it was evident that he would show little regard for those who had
snubbed and slighted him in his less powerful position.

The remains of the deceased President lay in state for several days
in the East Room at the White house, and were then interred with
great pomp.  Religious services were held at the White House, where
the distinguished men of the nation were grouped around the coffin.
At the funeral there was a large military escort of regulars and
volunteers, commanded by General Scott, who was mounted on a spirited
horse and wore a richly embroidered uniform, with a high chapeau
crowned with yellow plumes.  The ponderous funeral car was drawn
by eight white horses.  Behind the car was led "Old Whitey," the
charger ridden by General Taylor in Mexico.  He was a well-made
horse, in good condition, and with head erect, as if inspired by
the clang of martial music, he followed to the grave the remains
of him whom he had so often borne to victory.  When the artillery
and infantry fired the parting salute at the cemetery, the old war-
horse pricked up his ears and looked around for his rider.

Mr. Fillmore tendered the Secretary of State's portfolio to Mr.
Webster, who promptly accepted it.  He had been assured that if he
would advocate the compromises he would create a wave of popular
sentiment that would float him into the White House in 1856, against
all opposition, and that no Democratic aspirant would stand in his
way.  Believing all this, Mr. Webster had committed himself in his
7th of March speech, and had found that many of his life-long
friends and constituents refused to follow his lead.  Faneuil Hall
had been closed to him, and he was glad to escape from the Senate
Chamber into the Department of State.  Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren had found that Department
a convenient stepping-stone to the Presidential chair, and why
should not he?

Mr. Webster was a great favorite in the Department of State, for
he made no removals, and his generous and considerate treatment of
the clerks won their affection.  His especial favorite was Mr.
George J. Abbott, a native of New Hampshire, who had been graduated
at Exeter and Cambridge, and had then come to Washington to take
charge of a boys' school.  He was an accomplished classical scholar,
and he used to hunt up Latin quotations applicable to the questions
of the day, which Mr. Webster would commit to memory and use with
effect.  His private secretary was Mr. Charles Lanman, a young
gentleman of literary and artistic tastes, who was a devoted disciple
of Isaak Walton.  Mr. Webster and he would often leave the Department
of State for a day of piscatorial enjoyment at the Great Falls of
the Potomac, when the Secretary would throw off public cares and
personal pecuniary troubles to cast his lines with boyish glee,
and to exult loudly when he succeeded in hooking a fish.  Another
clerk in the Department who enjoyed Mr. Webster's esteem was Mr.
Zantzinger, the son of a purser in the Navy, who possessed rare
accomplishments.  Whenever Mr. Webster visited his estates in New
Hampshire or Massachusetts, he was accompanied by one of these
gentlemen, who had the charge of his correspondence, and who, while
enjoying his fullest confidence, contributed largely to his personal
enjoyment.

Mr. Webster's Washington home was a two-story brick house on
Louisiana Avenue, next to the Unitarian Church.  His dining-room
was in the basement story, and it was seldom that he had not friends
at his hospitable table.  Monica, the old colored woman, continued
to be his favorite cook, and her soft-shell crabs, terrapin, fried
oysters, and roasted canvas-back ducks have never been surpassed
at Washington, while she could make a regal Cape Cod chowder, or
roast a Rhode Island turkey, or prepare the old-fashioned New
Hampshire "boiled dinner," which the "expounder of the Constitution"
loved so well.  Whenever he had to work at night, she used to make
him a cup of tea in an old britannia metal teapot, which had been
his mother's and he used to call this beverage his "Ethiopian
nectar."  The teapot was purchased of Monica after Mr. Webster's
death by Henry A. Willard, Esq., of Washington, who presented it
to the Continental Museum at Indian Hill Farm, the author's
residence.

Under the influence of the new Administration, Congress passed the
several compromise measures in Mr. Clay's bill as separate acts.
The debate on each one was marked by acrimony and strong sectional
excitement, and each one was signed by President Fillmore amid
energetic protests from the Northern Abolitionists and the Southern
Secessionists.  The most important one, which provided for the
rendition of fugitive slaves, he referred to Attorney-General
Crittenden before signing it, and received his opinion that it was
constitutional.  When it was placed on the statute book, the Union
members of the House of Representatives organized a serenade to
President Fillmore and his Secretary of State, Daniel Webster.
The President bowed his acknowledgments from a window of the
Executive Mansion, but Mr. Webster came out on the broad doorstep
of his home, with a friend on either side of him holding a candle,
and, attired in a dressing gown, he commenced a brief speech by
saying, "Now is the summer--no!  Now is the winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this son of York."  This ended the speech
also.

The wife of President Fillmore was the daughter of the Rev. Lemuel
Powers, a Baptist clergyman.  She was tall, spare, and graceful,
with auburn hair, light blue eyes, and a fair complexion.  Before
her marriage she had taught school, and she was remarkably well-
informed, but somewhat reserved in her intercourse with strangers.
She did not come to Washington until after her husband became
President, and her delicate health prevented her mingling in society,
though she presided with queenly grace at the official dinner-
parties.

The President's father, "Squire Fillmore," as he was called, visited
his son at the White House.  He was a venerable-looking man, tall,
and not much bowed by his eighty years, his full gray hair and
intelligent face attracting much attention.  When he was about to
leave, a gentleman asked him why he would not remain a few days
longer.  "No, no!" said the old gentleman, "I will go.  I don't
like it here; it isn't a good place to live; it isn't a good place
for Millard; I wish he was at home in Buffalo."

The corner-stone of one of the "extensions" of the Capitol was laid
on the seventy-sixth anniversary of our national independence, July
4th, 1851, by the fraternity of Free Masons in "due and ample form."
President Fillmore, the Cabinet, the Diplomatic Corps, several
Governors of States, and other distinguished personages occupied
seats on a temporary platform, which overlooked the place where
the corner-stone was laid, Major B. B. French, Grand Master of the
Masons of the District of Columbia, officiating.  Mr. Webster was
the orator of the day, and delivered an eloquent, thoughtful, and
patriotic address, although he was evidently somewhat feeble, and
was forced to take sips of strong brandy and water to sustain him
as he proceeded.  Among the vast audience were three gentlemen who
had, fifty-eight years previously, seen General Washington aid his
brother Free Masons in laying the corner-stone of the original
Capitol.

Later in that year, the large hall which contained the library of
Congress, occupying the entire western side of the centre of the
Capitol, was destroyed by fire, with almost all of its valuable
contents.  The weather was intensely cold, and, had not the firemen
and citizens (including President Fillmore) worked hard, the entire
Capitol would have been destroyed.  Congress soon afterward made
liberal appropriations, not only for reconstructing the library of
cast-iron, but for the purchase of books, so that the library soon
rose, phoenix-like, from its ashes.  But the purchases were made
on the old plan, under the direction of the Congressional Joint
Committee on the Library, the Chairman of which then, and for
several previous and subsequent sessions, was Senator Pearce, of
Maryland, a graduate of Princeton College.  There was not in the
Library of Congress a modern encyclopaedia, or a file of a New York
daily newspaper, or of any newspaper except the venerable daily,
_National Intelligencer_, while _DeBow's Review_ was the only
American magazine taken, although the London _Court Journal_ was
regularly received, and bound at the close of each successive year.

Jenny Lind created a great sensation at Washington, and at her
first concert Mr. Webster, who had been dining out, rose majestically
at the end of her first song and made an imposing bow, which was
the signal for enthusiastic applause.  Lola Montez danced in her
peculiar style to an audience equally large, but containing no
ladies.  Charlotte Cushman appeared as _Meg Merrilies_, Parodi and
Dempster sang in concerts, Burton and Brougham convulsed their
hearers with laughter, Booth gave evidence of the undiminished glow
of his fiery genius by his masterly delineation of the "wayward
and techy" _Gloster_, and Forrest ranted in _Metamora_, to the
delight of his admirers.  Colonel John W. Forney told a good story
about a visit which he paid with Forrest to Henry Clay soon after
the passage of the compromise measure.  The Colonal unguardedly
complimented a speech made by Senator Soulé, which made Clay's eyes
flash, and he proceeded to criticise him very severely, ending by
saying:  "He is nothing but an actor, sir--a mere actor!"  Then,
suddenly recollecting the presence of the tragedian, he dropped
his tone, and turning toward Mr. Forrest, said, with a graceful
gesture, "I mean, my dear sir, a mere French actor!"  The visitors
soon afterward took their leave, and as they descended the stairs,
Forrest turned toward Forney and said, "Mr. Clay has proved by the
skill with which he can change his manner, and the grace with which
he can make an apology, that he is a better actor than Soulé."

[Facsimile]
  Millard Fillmore
MILLARD FILLMORE was born at Summer Hill, New York, January 7th,
1800; was a Representative in Congress from New York, 1837-1843;
was defeated as a Whig candidate for Governor of New York, 1844;
was elected State Comptroller, 1847; was elected Vice-President on
the Whig ticket headed by Z. Taylor in 1848, receiving one hundred
and thirty-six electoral votes, against one hundred and twenty-
seven electoral votes for W. O. Butler; served as President of the
United States from July 9th, 1850 to March 3d, 1853; was defeated
as the National American candidate for President in 1856; and died
at Buffalo, New York, March 8th, 1874.


CHAPTER XXXI.
ARRAIGNMENT OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

Mr. Clayton, when Secretary of State, had received a proposition
from August Belmont, as the agent of the Rothschilds, to pay the
Mexican indemnity in drafts, for which four per cent. premium would
be allowed.  Then Mr. Webster became Secretary of State, and he
entered into an agreement with an association of bankers, composed
of the Barings, Corcoran & Riggs, and Howland & Aspinwall, for the
negotiation of the drafts by them at a premium of three and a-half
per cent.  The difference to the Government was about forty thousand
dollars, but the rival sets of bankers had large interests at stake,
based on their respective purchases of Mexican obligations at
depreciated values, and a war of pamphlets and newspaper articles
ensued.  The dispute was carried into Congress, and during a debate
on it in the House, Representative Cartter, of Ohio, afterward
Chief Justice of the Courts in the District of Columbia, was very
emphatic in his condemnation of all the bankers interested.  "I
want the House to understand," said he, with a slight impediment
in his speech, "that I take no part with the house of Rothschild,
or of Baring, or of Corcoran & Riggs.  I look upon their scramble
for money precisely as I would upon the contest of a set of blacklegs
around a gaming-table over the last stake.  They have all of them
grown so large in gormandizing upon money that they have left the
work of fleecing individuals, and taken to the enterprise of fleecing
nations."

Mr. Charles Allen, of the Worcester district of Massachusetts,
availed himself of the opportunity offered by this debate on the
payment of the Mexican indemnity to make a long-threatened malignant
attack on Daniel Webster.  He asserted that he would not intrust
Mr. Webster with the making of arrangements to pay the three millions
of Mexican indemnity.  He stated that it was notorious that when
he was called to take the office of Secretary of State he entered
into a negotiation by which twenty-five thousand dollars was raised
for him in State Street, Boston, and twenty-five thousand dollars
in Wall Street, New York.  Mr. Allen trusted that the Democratic
party had yet honor enough left to inquire into the matter, and
that the Whigs even, would not palliate it, if satisfied of the
fact.

Mr. George Ashmun, Representative from the Springfield district,
retorted that Mr. Allen had eaten salt with Mr. Webster and received
benefits from him, and that he was the only one who dared thus
malignantly to assail him.  Mr. Ashmun alluded to a letter from
Washington, some time previously published in the Boston _Atlas_,
stating that a member of the House had facts in his possession upon
which to found a resolution charging a high officer with "corruption
and treason," and he traced a connection between that letter and
Mr. Allen's insinuations.

Mr. Henry W. Hilliard, of Alabama, followed Mr. Ashmun with a
glowing eulogy of Mr. Webster, in which he declared that, although
Massachusetts might repudiate him, the country would take him up,
for he stood before the eyes of mankind in a far more glorious
position than he could have occupied but for the stand which he
had taken in resisting the legions which were bearing down against
the rights of the South.  This elicited a bitter rejoinder from
Mr. Allen, who alluded to the fact that Mr. Hilliard was a clergyman,
and said that he had found out how to serve two masters.  Mr.
Ashmun, asking Mr. Allen if he had not published confidential
letters addressed to him by Mr. Charles Hudson, received as a reply,
"No, sir! no, sir!  You are a scoundrel if you say that I did!"
The debate between Messrs. Ashmun and Allen finally became so bitter
that Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, and other Representatives objected
to its continuance, and refused to hear another word from either
of them.  The next day Mr. Lewis, of Philadelphia, improved an
opportunity for eulogizing Mr. Webster, provoking a scathing reply
from Mr. Joshua Giddings.

Immediately after this debate, Mr. Ashmun wrote to Mr. Hudson to
inquire whether the statement was true or false, and received the
following telegraphic dispatch:

"BOSTON, March 3d, 1851.

"HON. GEORGE ASHMUN:  I wrote a confidential letter to Hon. Charles
Allen just before the Philadelphia Convention in 1848.  He read
the letter in a public meeting at Worcester and published it in
the Worcester _Spy_.  (Signed)  CHARLES HUDSON."

Mr. Ashmun declared on the floor of the House, by the authority of
Mr. Webster, that the statement of Mr. Allen was "false in all its
length and breadth, and in all its details," but there was doubtless
a foundation for the statement.  The friends of Mr. Webster admitted
that a voluntary contribution had been tendered him as a compensation
for the sacrifices he had made in abandoning his profession to
accept the office of Secretary of State, and they justified his
acceptance of the money on the ground that after having devoted
the labors of a long life to his profession, and attained in it a
high rank, which brought large fees, he should not be asked to
relinquish those professional emoluments without, in justice to
his obligations to his family, accepting an equivalent.  Without
indorsing this State-Street view of the case, it is to be regretted
that the charges were made, to trouble Mr. Webster's spirit and
sour his heart.

Mr. Webster often sought consolation in his troubles from the grand
old poetry of the Hebrew Bible, which awakened peaceful echoes in
his own poetic soul.  His chosen "crony" in his latter years, though
much younger than himself, was Charles Marsh, a New Hampshire man.
Well educated, polished by travel, and free from pecuniary hamper,
Marsh was a most delightful companion, and his wit, keen as Saladin's
cimeter, never wounded.  Fletcher Webster was also a great favorite
with his father, for he possessed what Charles Lever called "the
lost art of conversation."  Sometimes, when Mr. Webster's path had
been crossed, and he was black as night, Marsh and Fletcher would,
by humorous repartees and witticisms, drive the clouds away, and
gradually force him into a conversation, which would soon become
enlivened by the "inextinguishable laughter of the gods."

That Mr. Webster felt keenly the attacks upon him was undeniable,
and atonement could not afterward be made by eulogizing him.  It
has been well said, that if charity is to be the veil to cover a
multitude of sins in the dead as well as in the living, cant should
not lift that veil to swear that those sins were virtues.  Mr.
Webster was sorely troubled by the attitude taken by many Massachusetts
men at a time when he needed their aid to secure the Presidency,
which he undoubtedly believed would be tendered him by the Southern
Whigs, seconded by many Southern Democrats.  He lost flesh, the
color faded from his cheeks, the lids of his dark eyes were livid,
and he was evidently debilitated and infirm.  At times he would be
apparently unconscious of those around him, then he would rally,
and would display his wonderful conversational qualities.  Yet it
was evident to those who knew him best that he was "stumbling down,"
as Carlyle said of Mirabeau, "like a mighty heathen and Titan to
his rest."

One pleasant afternoon in March, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, delivered
a long speech in the House upon the politics of that State, in
which he defended the State Rights party and ridiculed the Union
movement as un-necessary, no one then being in favor of either
disunion or secession.  This, one of his colleagues, Mr. Wilcox,
denied.  "Do you mean," said Mr. Brown, "to assert that what I have
said is false?"  "If you say," bravely responded Mr. Wilcox, "that
there was no party in Mississippi at the recent election in favor
of secession or disunion, you say what is false!"  The last word
was echoed by a ringing slap from Brown's open hand on the right
cheek of Wilcox, who promptly returned the blow, and then the two
men clinched each other in a fierce struggle.  Many of the members,
leaving their seats, crowded around the combatants, while Mr.
Seymour, of Connecticut, who temporarily occupied the chair, pounded
with his mallet, shouting at the top of his voice, "Order! order!"
The Sergeant-at-Arms was loudly called for, but he was absent, and
before he could be found the parties had been separated.  The
Speaker resumed the chair, and in a few moments the contestants,
still flushed, apologized to the House--not to each other.  A duel
was regarded as inevitable, but mutual friends intervened, and the
next day it was formally announced in the House that the difficulty
"had been adjusted in a manner highly creditable to both parties,
who again occupied the same position of friendship which had existed
between them previous to the unpleasant affair of the day before."
Thus easily blew over the terrific tempests of honorable members.

Mr. Leutze, a talented artist, petitioned Congress to commission
him to paint for the Capitol copies of his works, "Washington
Crossing the Delaware," and "Washington Rallying his Troops at
Monmouth," but without success.  Mr. Healy was equally unsuccessful
with his proposition to paint two large historical paintings for
the stairways of the extension of the Capitol, one representing
the "Destruction of the Tea in Boston Harbor," and the other the
"Battle of Bunker Hill;" but subsequently he received an order to
paint the portraits of the Presidents which now grace the White
House.  Mr. Martin, a marine artist of recognized ability, also
proposed in vain to paint two large pictures, one representing the
famous action between the Constitution and the Guerriere, and the
other the night combat between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis.
Indeed, there have been scores of meritorious works of art offered
to and declined by Committees of Congress, which have expended
large sums in the purchase of daubs disgraceful to the Capitol of
the nation.  The recognition refused these painters at Washington
was freely accorded elsewhere, however.  Leutze's "Columbus Before
the Council at Salamanca" is justly deemed one of the gems of the
Old World, and has given him an imperishable name.  Among the really
great works of our own country is Healy's painting, "Webster's
Reply to Hayne," now in Faneuil Hall.

So with sculpture.  Hiram Powers endeavored, without success, to
obtain an order for his colossal statue of America, which was highly
commended by competent judges, while Mr. Mills was liberally
remunerated for his effigy of General Jackson balancing himself on
a brass rocking-horse.  Powers wrote:  "I do not complain of
anything, for I know how the world goes, as the saying is, and I
try to take it calmly and patiently, holding out my net, like a
fisherman, to catch salmon, shad, or pilchards, as they may come.
If salmon, why, then, we can eat salmon; if shad, why, then, the
shad are good; but if pilchards, why, then, we can eat them, and
bless God that we have a dinner at all."

The honors secured for Colonel Fremont by his father-in-law, Mr.
Benton, for his path-findings across the Rocky Mountains, inspired
other young officers of the army, and some civilians, with a desire
to follow his example.  Returning to Washington, each one had
wonderful tales of adventure to relate.  Even the old travelers,
who saw the phoenix expire in her odoriferous nest, whence the
chick soon flew forth regenerated, or who found dead lions slain
by the quills of some "fretful porcupine," or who knew that the
stare of the basilisk was death--even those who saw unicorns graze
and who heard mermaids sing--were veracious when compared with the
explorers of railroad routes across the continent.  Senator Jefferson
Davis did much to encourage them by having their reports published
in quarto form, with expensive illustrations, and Cornelius Wendell
laid the foundation of his fortune by printing them as "Pub. Docs."

The _National Era_, edited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, was a source of
great annoyance to the pro-slavery men, and one occasion they
excited an attack on his house by a drunken mob.  Dr. Bailey was
a small, slender man, with a noble head, and a countenance on which
the beautiful attributes of his character were written.  Taking
his life in his hands, he went to his door-way, attended by his
wife, and bravely faced the infuriated crowd.  He denied that he
had any agency in a recent attempt to secure the escape of a party
of slaves to the North, and then called the attention of his hearers
to the fact that at a public meeting of the citizens of Washington,
not very long before that night, resolutions had been passed
denouncing the French Government for having fettered the press,
yet they were proposing to do in his case what their fellow-citizens
had condemned when done by others.  His remarks produced an effect,
but the leaders of the mob raised the cry, "Burn the _Era_ office!"
and a movement was made toward that building, when Dan Radcliffe,
a well-known Washington lawyer with Southern sympathies, sprang
upon Dr. Bailey's doorstep and made a eloquent appeal in behalf of
a free press, concluding with a proposition that the assemblage go
to the house of the Mayor of Washington and give him three cheers.
This was done, Radcliffe's good nature prevailing, and the mob
dispersed peacefully.

Dr. Bailey was, however, no novice in dealing with mobs.  Ten years
before he came to Washington he resided in Cincinnati, where, in
conjunction with James G. Birney, he published _The Philanthropist_,
a red-hot anti-slavery sheet.  During his first year in this
enterprize his office was twice attacked by a mob, and in one of
their raids the office was gutted and the press thrown into the
river.  These lively scenes induced a change of base and settled
the good Doctor in the national metropolis.

The ablest newspaper correspondent at Washington during the Fillmore
Administration was Mr. Erastus S. Brooks, one of the editors and
proprietors of the New York _Express_.  He was then in the prime
of life, rather under the average height, with a large, well-balanced
head, bright black eyes, and a swarthy complexion.  What he did
not know about what was going on in political circles, before and
behind the scenes, was not worth knowing.  His industry was
proverbial, and he was one of the first metropolitan correspondents
to discard the didactic and pompous style which had been copied
from the British essayists, and to write with a vigorous, graphic,
and forcible pen.  Washington correspondents in those days were
neither eaves-droppers nor interviewers, but gentlemen, who had a
recognized position in society, which they never abused.

[Facsimile]
  R. J. Walker
ROBERT J. WALKER was born at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, July
19th, 1801; removed to Mississippi in 1826, and commenced the
practice of law; was United States Senator from Mississippi, 1836-
1845; was Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, 1845-
1849; was appointed, by President Buchanan, Governor of Kansas in
1857, but soon resigned, and died at Washington City, November
11th, 1869.


CHAPTER XXXII.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE AND KNOW-NOTHINGISM.

The forcible acquisition of territory was the means by which the
pro-slavery leaders at the South hoped to increase their territory,
and they defended this scheme in the halls of Congress, in their
pulpits, and at their public gatherings.  Going back into sacred
and profane history, they would attempt to prove that Moses, Joshua,
Saul, and David were "filibusters," and so were William the Conqueror,
Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon.  Walker simply followed
their example, except that they wore crowns on their heads, while
he, a new man, only carried a sword in his hand.  Was it right,
they asked, when a brave American adventurer, invited by the
despairing victims of tyranny in Cuba or of anarchy in Central
America, threw himself boldly, with a handful of comrades, into
their midst to sow the seeds of civilization and to reconstruct
society--was it right for the citizens of the United States,
themselves the degenerate sons of filibustering sires, to hurl at
him as a reproach what was their ancestors' highest merit and glory?

General Walker, the "gray-eyed man of destiny," was the leading
native filibuster, but foremost among the foreign adventurers--the
Dugald Dalgettys of that epoch--who came here from unsuccessful
revolutions abroad to seek employment for their swords, was General
Heningen.  He had served with Zumala-Carreguy, in Spain, with
Schamyl, in the Caucasus, and with Kossuth, in Hungary, chronicling
his exploits in works which won him the friendship of Wellington
and other notables.  Going to Central America, he fought gallantly,
but unsuccessfully, at Grenada, and he then came to Washington,
where he was soon known as an envoy of "Cuba Libre."  He married
a cultivated woman, and his tall, soldier-like figure was to be
seen striding along on the sunny sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue
every pleasant morning, until in later years he went South to "live
or die in Dixie."

President Tyler having sent Mr. Dudley Mann as a confidential agent
to Hungary to obtain reliable information concerning the true
condition of affairs there, the Austrian Government instructed its
diplomatic representative at Washington, the Chevalier Hulsemann,
to protest against this interference in its internal affairs, as
offensive to the laws of propriety.  This protest was communicated
to Mr. Webster after he became Secretary of State, and in due time
the Chevalier received an answer which completely extinguished him.
It carefully reviewed the case, and in conclusion told the protesting
Chevalier in plain Anglo-Saxon that nothing would "deter either
the Government or the people of the United States from exercising,
at their own discretion, the rights belonging to them as an
independent nation, and of forming and expressing their own opinion
freely and at all times upon the great political events which might
transpire among the civilized nations of the earth."  The paternity
of this memorable letter was afterward ascribed to Edward Everett.
It was not, however, written either by Mr. Webster or Mr. Everett,
but by Mr. William Hunter, then the Chief Clerk of the Department
of State.

Meanwhile, Kossuth had been released from his imprisonment within
the dominion of the Sublime Porte, by request of the Government of
the United States, and taken to England in the war steamer Mississippi.
In due time the great Behemoth of the Magyar race arrived at
Washington, where he created a marked sensation.  The distinguished
revolutionist wore a military uniform, and the steel scabbard of
his sword trailed on the ground as he walked.  He was about five
feet eight inches in height, with a slight and apparently not
strongly built frame, and was a little round-shouldered.  His face
was rather oval; a pair of bluish-gray eyes gave an animated and
intelligent look to his countenance.  His forehead, high and broad,
was deeply wrinkled, and time had just begun to grizzle a head of
dark, straight hair, a heavy moustache, and whiskers which formed
a beard beneath his chin.  Whether from his recent captivity or
from constitutional causes, there was an air of lassitude in his
look to which the fatigues of his voyage not improbably contributed.
Altogether, he gave one the idea of a visionary or theoretical
enthusiast rather then of a great leader or soldier.

Kossuth was the guest of Congress at Brown's Hotel, but those
Senators and Representatives who called to pay their respects found
members of his retinue on guard before the door of his apartments,
armed with muskets and bayonets, while his anteroom was crowded
with the members of his staff.  They had evidently been reared in
camps, as they caroused all day and then tumbled into their beds
booted and spurred, furnishing items of liquors, wines, cigars,
and damaged furniture for the long and large hotel bill which
Congress had to pay.  Mr. Seward entertained the Hungarian party
at an evening reception, and a number of Congressmen gave Kossuth
a subscription dinner at the National Hotel, at which several of
the known aspirants for the Presidency spoke.  Mr. Webster was, as
became the Secretary of State, carefully guarded in his remarks,
and later in the evening, when the champagne had flowed freely, he
indulged in what appeared to be his impromptu individual opinions,
but he unluckily dropped at his seat a slip of paper on which his
gushing sentences had been carefully written out.  General Houston
managed to leave the table in time to avoid being called upon to
speak, and General Scott, who regarded Kossuth as a gigantic humbug,
had escaped to Richmond.  Kossuth was invited to dine at the White
House, and on New Year's day he held a reception, but he failed in
his attempt to secure Congressional recognition or material aid.

A number of the leading public men at Washington were so disgusted
by the assumption and arrogance displayed by Kossuth, and by the
toadyism manifested by many of those who humbled themselves before
him, that they organized a banquet, at which Senator Crittenden
was the principal speaker.  "Beware," said the eloquent Kentuckian,
in the words of Washington, "of the introduction or exercise of a
foreign influence among you!  We are Americans!  The Father of our
Country has taught us, and we have learned, to govern ourselves.
If the rest of the world have not learned that lesson, how shall
they teach us?  We are the teachers, and yet they appear here with
a new exposition of Washington's Farewell Address.  For one, I do
not want this new doctrine.  I want to stand _super antiquas vias_
--upon the old road that Washington traveled, and that every
President from Washington to Fillmore has traveled."

The main effect of Kossuth's visit to the United States was an
extraordinary impetus given to "The Order of United Americans,"
from which was evolved that political phenomenon, the American, or
Know-Nothing, party.  The mysterious movements of this organization
attracted the curiosity of the people, and members of the old
political organizations eagerly desired to learn what was carefully
concealed.  Secretly-held lodges, with their paraphernalia, pass-
words, and degrees, grips, and signs, tickled the popular fancy,
and the new organization became fashionable.  Men of all religions
and political creeds fraternized beneath the "stars and stripes,"
and solemnly pledged themselves to the support of "our country,
our whole country, and nothing but our country."

The leaders of this Know-Nothing movement, who in the delirium of
the hour were intrusted with dictatorial authority, were in no way
calculated to exercise a permanent, healthful control.  They were
generally without education, without statesmanship, without knowledge
of public affairs, and, to speak plainly, without the abilities or
genius which might enable them to dispense with experience.  Losing
sight of the cardinal principle of the American Order, that only
those identified with the Republic by birth or permanent residence
should manage its political affairs, these leaders fell back upon
a bigoted hostility to the Church of Rome, to which many of their
original members in Louisiana and elsewhere belonged.  The result
was that the mighty organization had begun to decay before it
attained its growth, and that the old political leaders became
members that they might elbow the improvised chieftains from power
when the effervescence of the movement should subside.  A number
of Abolitionists, headed by Henry Wilson and Anson Burlingame, of
Massachusetts, sought admission into the lodges, knelt at the
altars, pledged themselves by solemn oaths to support the "Order,"
and then used it with great success for the destruction of the Whig
party.

Another noted person who visited Washington early in the Administration
of Mr. Fillmore was William M. Tweed, of New York, who came as
foreman of the Americus Engine Company, Number Six, a volunteer
fire organization.  Visiting the White House, the company was
ushered into the East Room, where President Fillmore soon appeared,
and Tweed, stepping out in front of his command, said:  "These are
Big Six's boys, Mr. President!"  He then walked along the line with
Mr. Fillmore, and introduced each member individually.  As they
were leaving the room, a newspaper reporter asked Tweed why he had
not made a longer speech.  "There was no necessity," replied the
future pillager of the city treasury of New York, "for the Company
is as much grander than any other fire company in the world as
Niagara Falls is grander than Croton dam."  Two years afterward,
Tweed, profiting by a division in the Whig ranks in the Fifth
District of New York, returned to Washington as a Representative
in Congress.  He was a regular attendant, never participating in
the debates, and always voting with the Democrats.  Twice he read
speeches which were written for him, and he obtained for a relative
the contract for supplying the House with chairs for summer use,
which were worthless and soon disappeared.

Senator Andrew Pickens Butler was a prominent figure at the Capitol
and in Washington society.  He was a trifle larger round at the
waistband than anywhere else, his long white hair stood out as if
he were charged with electric fluid, and South Carolina was legibly
written on his rubicund countenance.  The genial old patriarch
would occasionally take too much wine in the "Hole in the Wall" or
in some committee-room, and then go into the Senate and attempt to
bully Chase or Hale; but every one liked him, nevertheless.

Then there was Senator Slidell, of Louisiana, a New Yorker by birth,
with a florid face, long gray hair, and prominent eyes, forming a
striking contrast in personal appearance with his dapper little
colleague, Senator Benjamin, whose features disclosed his Jewish
extraction.  General Taylor had wished to have Mr. Benjamin in his
Cabinet, but scandalous reports concerning Mrs. Benjamin had reached
Washington, and the General was informed that she would not be
received in society.  Mr. Benjamin then rented a house at Washington,
furnished it handsomely, and entertained with lavish hospitality.
His gentlemen friends would eat his dinners, but they would not
bring their wives or daughters to Mrs. Benjamin's evening parties,
and she, deeply mortified, went to Paris.

On the first day of December, 1851, Henry Clay spoke in the Senate
for the last time, and General Cass presented the credentials of
Charles Sumner, who had been elected by one of the coalitions
between the anti-slavery Know-Nothings and the Democrats, which
gave the latter the local offices in New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts,
and elected Seward, Chase, and Sumner to the United States Senate.
Soon after Mr. Sumner took his seat in the arena which had been
made famous by the political champions of the North, the South,
and the West, Mr. Benton said to him, with a patronizing air, "You
have come upon the stage too late, sir.  Not only have our great
men passed away, but the great issues have been settled also.  The
last of these was the National Bank, and that has been overthrown
forever.  Nothing is left you, sir, but puny sectional questions
and petty strifes about slavery and fugitive-slave laws, involving
no national interests."

Mr. Sumner had but two coadjutors in opposing slavery and in
advocating freedom when he entered the Senate, but before he died
he was the recognized leader of more than two-thirds of that body.
He was denounced by a leading Whig newspaper of Boston when he left
that city to take his seat as "an agitator," and he was refused a
place on any committee of the Senate, as being "outside of any
healthy political organization," but he lived to exercise a
controlling influence in Massachusetts politics and to be Chairman
of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.  He had learned from
Judge Story the value of systematic industry, and while preparing
long speeches on the questions before the Senate he also applied
himself sedulously to the practical duties of a Senator, taking
especial pains to answer every letter addressed to him.

Mr. Speaker Linn Boyd used to preside with great dignity, sitting
on an elevated platform beneath a canopy of scarlet curtains.
Seated at his right hand, at the base of the platform beside the
"mace," was Andrew Jackson Glossbrenner, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and
on the opposite side was Mr. McKnew, the Doorkeeper.  Mr. John W.
Forney officiated at the Clerk's table, having been elected by a
decided majority.  His defeat two years previous had been very
annoying to his Democratic friends at the North, who were expected
to aid the Southern wing of the party with their votes, and yet
were often deserted when they desired offices.  "It is," said one
of them, "paying us a great compliment for our principles, or great
contempt for our pliancy."  Mr. Buchanan wrote to a Virginia
Democratic leader, "Poor Forney deserves a better fate than to be
wounded 'in the house of his friends,' and to vote for a Whig in
preference to him was the unkindest cut of all.  It will, I am
confident, produce no change in his editorial course, but I dread
its effect."  Mr. Forney did not permit his desertion to influence
his pen, and his loyalty to the party was rewarded by his election,
two years after this defeat, as Clerk of the House.

[Facsimile]
  [illegible]
JEFFERSON DAVIS was born in Christian County, Kentucky, June 3d,
1808; graduated at West Point in 1828; was an officer in the United
States Army, 1828-1835; was a Representative from Mississippi,
December 1st, 1845 to June, 1846, when he resigned to command the
First Regiment of Mississippi Riflemen in the war with Mexico; was
United States Senator, December 4th, 1847, to November 1851; was
defeated as the Secession candidate for Governor of Mississippi in
1851 by H. S. Foote, Union candidate; was Secretary of War under
President Pierce, March 7th, 1853, to March 3d, 1857; was again
United States Senator, March 4th, 1857, until he withdrew, January
21st, 1861; was President of the Confederate States; was captured
by the United States troops, May 10th, 1865, imprisoned two years
at Fortress Monroe, and then released on bail.


CHAPTER XXXIII.
PLOTTING FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

The first session of the Thirty-second Congress, which began on
the 1st of August, 1852, was characterized by sectional strife,
and was devoted to President-making.  President Fillmore, who had
traveled in the Northern States during the preceding summer, felt
confident that he would receive the Whig nomination, and so did
Mr. Webster, who "weighed him down"--so Charles Francis Adams wrote
Henry Wilson--"as the Old Man of the Sea did Sinbad."  Meanwhile
Mr. Seward and his henchman, Mr. Weed, were very active, and the
latter afterward acknowledged that he had himself intrigued with
the Democratic leaders for the nomination of Governor Marcy, who
would be sure to carry the State of New York, and thus secure the
defeat of the Whig candidate.  "Holding President Fillmore and his
Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, responsible for a temporary
overthrow of the Whig party," says Mr. Weed, "I desired to see
those gentlemen left to reap what they had sown.  In other words,
I wanted either Mr. Fillmore or Mr. Webster to be nominated for
President upon their own issues.  I devoted several weeks to the
removal of obstacles in the way of Governor Marcy's nomination for
President by the Democratic National Convention."

General Cass, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Buchanan were equally active in
the Democratic ranks, and their respective friends became so angry
with each other that it was an easy matter to win the nomination
with what the politicians call "a dark horse."

The sessions of the National Democratic Convention were protracted
and stormy, and on the thirty-fifth ballot the name of General
Franklin Pierce was brought forward, for the first time, by the
Virginia delegation.  Several other States voted for the New
Hampshire Brigadier, but it did not seem possible that he could be
nominated, and the next day, on the forty-eighth ballot, Virginia
gave her vote for Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York.  It was received
with great applause, but Mr. Dickinson, who was a delegate pledged
to the support of Cass, was too honorable a man to accept what he
thought belonged to his friend.  Receiving permission to address
the Convention, he eloquently withdrew his own name and pleaded so
earnestly for the nomination of General Cass, that he awakened the
enthusiasm of the audience, and received a shower of bouquets from
the ladies in the galleries, to which he gracefully alluded "as a
rose-bud in the wreath of his political destiny."

The Convention at last, on the forty-ninth ballot, nominated General
Pierce (Purse, his friends called him) a gentleman of courteous
temper, highly agreeable manners, and convivial nature.  He had
served in the recent war with Mexico; he had never given a vote or
written a sentence that the straightest Southern Democrat could
wish to blot; and he was identified with the slave-power, having
denounced its enemies as the enemies of the Constitution.  William
R. King, at the time president _pro tempore_ of the Senate, was
nominated for Vice-President, receiving every vote except the eleven
given by the delegation from Illinois, which were for Jefferson
Davis.  Cass and Douglas were at first much provoked by the action
of the Convention, but Buchanan gracefully accepted the situation.

Daniel Webster felt and asserted that he was entitled to receive
the Whig nomination.  More than thirty years of public service had
made him the ablest and the most conspicuous member of his party
then on the stage, and neither Fillmore nor Scott could compare
with him in the amount and value of public services rendered.  He
had worked long, assiduously, and faithfully to deserve the honors
of his party and to qualify himself for the highest distinction
that party could bestow upon him.  He must receive its nomination
now or never, as he was then upward of sixty years of age, and his
vigorous constitution had shown signs of decay.  He engaged in the
campaign, however, with the hope ad the vigor of youth, writing
letters to his friends, circulating large pamphlet editions of his
life and of his speeches, and entertaining at his table those
through whose influence he hoped to receive the Southern support
necessary to secure his success.  No statesman ever understood the
value of printers' ink better than did Mr. Webster, and he always
took care to have a record of what he did and said placed before
the country.  Unfortunately for his printers, much of his last
campaign work was done on credit, and never was paid for.

President Fillmore, meanwhile, was quietly but steadily using the
patronage of the Federal Government to secure the election of
delegates to the Whig National Convention friendly to his own
nomination.  Mr. Webster counted on the support of the President's
friends, but he never received from Mr. Fillmore any pledges that
it would be given.  On the contrary, the leading office-holders
asserted, weeks prior to the assembling of the Convention, that
the contest had already been narrowed down to a question between
Fillmore and Scott.  Mr. Seward's friends were of the same opinion,
and urged the support of Scott as the only way to defeat the
nomination of Fillmore.  Horace Greeley wrote from Washington to
Thurlow Weed:  "If Fillmore and Webster will only use each other
up, we may possibly recover--but our chance is slim.  There is a
powerful interest working hard against Douglas; Buchanan will have
to fight hard for his own State; if he gets it he may be nominated;
Cass is nowhere."

The Whig National Convention, the last one held by that party, met
in Baltimore on Wednesday, the 16th of June, 1852.  Two days were
spent in effecting an organization and in preparing a "platform,"
after which, on proceeding to ballot for a Presidential candidate,
General Scott had one hundred and thirty-four votes, Mr. Fillmore
one hundred and thirty-three, and Mr. Webster twenty-nine, every
one of which was cast by a Northern delegate.  Not a Southern vote
was given to him, despite all the promises made, but Mr. Fillmore
received the entire Southern strength.  The balloting was continued
until Saturday afternoon without any change, and even the eloquence
of Rufus Choate failed to secure the vote of a single Southern
delegate for his cherished friend.  After the adjournment of the
Convention from Saturday until Monday, Mr. Choate visited Washington,
hoping to move Mr. Fillmore; but the President "made no sign," and
Mr. Webster saw that the Presidency, to which he had so long aspired,
was to pass beyond his reach.  He was saddened by the disappointment,
and especially wounded when he was informed that Mr. Clay had
advised the Southern delegates to support Mr. Fillmore.

A nomination was finally made on the fifty-third ballot, when twenty-
eight delegates from Pennsylvania changed their votes from Fillmore
to General Scott.  That evening a party of enthusiastic Whigs at
Washington, after serenading President Fillmore, marched to the
residence of Mr. Webster.  The band performed several patriotic
airs, but some time elapsed before Mr. Webster appeared, wearing
a long dressing-gown, and looking sad and weary.  He said but a
few words, making no allusion to General Scott, and when, in
conclusion, he said that, for one, he should sleep well and rise
with the lark the next morning, and bade them good-night, the
serenaders retired as if they had had a funeral sermon preached to
them.  Thenceforth Mr. Webster was a disappointed, heart-stricken
man, and he retired to Marshfield profoundly disgusted with the
insincerity of politicians.

The noisy rejoicings by the Whigs at Washington over the nomination
of General Scott disturbed Henry Clay, who lay on his death-bed at
the National Hotel, attended only by one of his sons, Thomas Hart
Clay, and a negro servant.  The "Great Commoner" was very feeble,
and a few days later he breathed his last, as a Christian philosopher
should die.  His hope continued to the end, though true and real,
to be tremulous with humility rather than rapturous with assurance.
On the evening previous to his departure, sitting an hour in silence
by his side, the Rev. Dr. Butler heard him, in the slight wanderings
of his mind to other days and other scenes, murmuring the words,
"My mother! mother! mother!" and saying "My dear wife," as if she
were present.

"Broken with the storms of life," Henry Clay gave up the ghost,
and his remains were escorted with high funeral honors to his own
beloved Commonwealth of Kentucky, where they rest beneath an imposing
monument.  Twice a candidate for the Presidency, and twice defeated,
his death was mourned by an immense number of attached personal
friends, and generally regretted by the people of the United States.

The Whigs were greatly embarrassed by General Scott, who persisted
in making campaign speeches, some of which did him great harm.
Their mass meetings proved failures, notably one on the battleground
of Niagara, but they endeavored to atone for these discouraging
events by a profuse distribution of popular literature.  They
circulated large editions of a tract by Horace Greeley, entitled,
"Why am I a Whig?" and of campaign lives of "Old Chapultepec,"
published in English, French, and German.  Mr. Buchanan was unusually
active in his opposition to the Whig ticket.  "I should regard
Scott's election," he wrote to a friend, "as one of the greatest
calamities which could befall the country.  I know him well, and
do not doubt either his patriotism or his integrity; but he is vain
beyond any man I have ever known, and, what is remarkable in a vain
man, he is obstinate and self-willed and unyielding.  His judgment,
except in conducting a campaign in the field, is perverse and
unsound; and when, added to all this, we consider that, if elected
at all, it will be under the auspices of Seward and his Abolition
associates, I fear for the fate of this Union."  General Scott was
mercilessly abused by the Democratic orators and writers also, who
even ridiculed the establishment of the Soldiers' Home at Washington,
with the contribution levied on the City of Mexico when captured
by him, as the creation of an aristocratic body of military paupers.

The Democratic party, forgetting all previous differences, rallied
to the support of their candidate.  A campaign life of him was
written by his old college friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and eloquent
speakers extolled his statesmanship, his military services, and
his devotion to the compromise measures which were to avert the
threatened civil war.  A good estimate of his character was told
by the Whig speakers, as having been given to an itinerant lecturer
by the landlord of a New Hampshire village inn.  "What sort of a
man is General Pierce?" asked the traveler.  "Waal, up here, where
everybody knows Frank Pierce," was the reply, "and where Frank
Pierce knows everybody, he's a pretty considerable fellow, I tell
you.  But come to spread him out over this whole country, I'm afraid
that he'll be dreadful thin in some places."

The death of Mr. Webster aided the Democratic candidate.  The broken-
down and disappointed statesman died at his loved rural home on
the sea-shore, where, by his request, his cattle were driven beneath
his window so that he could gaze on them once more before he left
them forever.  He wrestled with the great Destroyer, showing a
reluctance to abandon life, and looking into the future with
apprehension rather than with hope.  When Dr. Jeffries repeated to
him the soothing words of Sacred Writ, "Thy rod and Thy staff they
comfort me," the dying statesman exclaimed, "Yes; that is what I
want, Thy rod; Thy staff!"  He was no hypocrite, and although he
prayed often and earnestly, he did not pretend that he felt that
peace "which passeth all understanding," but he did exhibit a
devoted submission and a true reliance on Almighty God.  Craving
stimulants, he heard Dr. Jeffries tell an attendant, "Give him a
spoonful of brandy in fifteen minutes, another in half an hour,
and another in three quarters of an hour, if he still lives."
These directions were followed with exactness until the arrival of
the time last mentioned, when the attendants were undecided about
administering another dose.  It was in the midst of their doubts
that the dying statesman, who had been watching a clock in the
room, partly raised his head and feebly remarked:  "I still live."
The brandy was given to him, and he sank into a state of tranquil
unconsciousness, from which he never rallied.

Those who attended the funeral at Marshfield saw Mr. Webster's
remains lying in an open iron coffin, beneath the shade of a large
elm tree before the house.  The body was dressed in a blue coat
with gilt buttons, white vest, cravat, pantaloons, gloves, and
shoes with dark cloth gaiters.  His hand rested upon his breast,
and his features wore a sad smile familiar to those who had known
him in his later years.  The village pastor conducted the services,
after which the upper half of the coffin was put on, and on a low
platform car, drawn by two black horses, it was taken to the burial-
ground on the estate.  On either side of the remains walked the
pall-bearers selected by the deceased--six sturdy, weather-bronzed
farmer-fishermen, who lived in the vicinity--while General Pierce,
the Mayor of Boston, Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, and other
distinguished personages followed as they best could.  There were
many evidences of grief among the thousands of Mr. Webster's friends
present, and yet death was for him a happy escape from trouble.
He was painfully aware that he had forfeited the political confidence
of the people of Massachusetts and gained nothing by so doing; he
had found that he could not receive a nomination for the Presidency,
even from the party which he had so long served, and his pecuniary
embarrassments were very annoying.  Neither could he, under the
circumstances, have continued to hold office under Mr. Fillmore,
who, after Webster's funeral, appointed Edward Everett as his
successor in the Department of State.

When the nineteenth Presidential election was held, General Scott
received only the electoral votes of Massachusetts, Vermont,
Kentucky, and Tennessee; Pierce and King received two hundred and
fifty-four votes against forty-two votes for Scott and Graham.

[Facsimile]
  JJCrittenden
JOHN JORDAN CRITTENDEN  was born in Woodford County, Kentucky,
September 10th, 1786; was United States Senator from Kentucky,
December 1st, 1817, to March 3d, 1819, and again December 7th,
1835, to March 3d, 1841; was Attorney-General under President
Harrison, March 5th, 1841, to September 13th, 1841; was again United
States Senator, March 31st, 1842 - 1848; was Governor of Kentucky,
1848-1850; was Attorney-General under President Fillmore, July
20th, 1850, to March 3d, 1853; was again United States Senator,
December 3d, 1855, to March 3d, 1861; was a Representative in
Congress, July 4th, 1861, to March 3d, 1863, and died at Frankfort,
Kentucky, July 26th, 1863.


CHAPTER XXXIV.
PIERCE AT THE HELM.

General Pierce received a severe blow after his election, a railroad
accident in Massachusetts depriving him of his only child, a
promising boy, to whom he was devotedly attached.  A week before
the inauguration he escorted his sorrow-stricken wife to Baltimore,
where he left her, and then went to Washington, accompanied by his
private secretary, Mr. Sidney Webster.  President Fillmore invited
them to dine socially at the White House, and in the evening they
were present at a numerously attended public reception in the East
Room.

The inauguration of General Pierce attracted crowds from the cities
on the Atlantic coast, with some from the western slope of the
Alleghanies.  It was a cold, raw day, and the President-elect rode
in a carriage with President Fillmore, surrounded by a body-guard
of young gentlemen, mounted on fine horses, and serving for that
day as Deputy United States Marshals.  There was a military escort,
composed of the Marine Corps, the uniformed militia of the District,
and visiting companies from Baltimore and Alexandria.  Behind the
President's carriage marched several political associations and
the mechanics at the Navy Yard, with a full-rigged miniature vessel.

As William R. King, the Vice-President elect, was in Cuba, hoping
to benefit his health, the Senate elected David J. Atchison, of
Missouri, President _pro tempore_.  The Senate, accompanied by the
Diplomatic Corps and officers of the army and of the navy, all in
full uniform, then moved in procession to the east front of the
Capitol.  When the cheers with which the President-elect was received
had subsided, he advanced to the front of the platform and delivered
his inaugural address, which he had committed to memory, although
he held the manuscript in his hands.

The personal appearance of General Pierce was dignified and winning,
if not imposing, although he was but five feet nine inches high,
slenderly built, and without that depth of chest or breadth of
shoulder which indicate vigorous constitutions.  His complexion
was pale and his features were thin and care-worn, but his deportment
was graceful and authoritative.  It was evident that he belonged
to that active, wiry class of men capable of great endurance and
physical fatigue.

The inaugural was a plain, straightforward document, intensely
national in tone, and it stirred the hearts of the vast audience
which heard it like the clarion notes of a trumpet.  The new
President had an abiding confidence in the stability of our
institutions.  Snow began to fall before he had concluded his
address and taken the oath of office, which was administered by
Chief Justice Taney.

William Rufus King took the oath of office as Vice-President on
the 4th of March, 1853, at a plantation on the highest of the hills
that surround Matanzas, with the luxuriant vegetation of Cuba all
around, the clear, blue sky of the tropics overhead, and a delicious
sea breeze cooling the pure atmosphere.  The oath was administered
by United States Consul Rodney, and at the conclusion of the
ceremonies the assembled creoles shouted, "_Vaya vol con Dios!_"
(God will be with you), while the veteran politician appeared calm,
as one who had fought the good fight and would soon lay hold of
eternal light.  Reaching his home at Cahaba, Ala., on the 17th of
April, he died the following day, and his remains were buried on
his plantation, known as the "Pine Hills."

President Pierce formed a Cabinet of remarkable ability.  He had
wanted Caleb Cushing as his Secretary of State, but the old anti-
slavery utterances of the Massachusetts Brigadier had not been
forgotten, and Pierce could make him only his Attorney-General.
Governor Marcy was placed at the head of the Department of State,
and he invited Mr. George Sumner, a brother of the Senator, to
become Assistant Secretary of State, but the invitation was declined.
James Guthrie, a stalwart, clear-headed Kentuckian, was made
Secretary of the Treasury, with Peter G. Washington, a veteran
District politician, as Assistant Secretary.  Jefferson Davis
solicited and received the position of Secretary of War, James C.
Dobbin, of North Carolina, was made Secretary of the Navy; Robert
McClelland, of Michigan, was designated by General Cass for Secretary
of the Interior, and James Campbell, of Pennsylvania, was appointed
Postmaster-General, with thirty thousand subordinate places to be
filled, its progressive improvements to be looked after, and a
general desire on the part of the public for a reduction of postage.
An abler Cabinet never gathered around the council-table at the
White House.

Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War, entertained more than any
of his associates.  His dinner-parties, at which six guests sat
down with the host and hostess, were very enjoyable, and his evening
receptions, which were attended by the leading Southerners and
their Northern allies, were brilliant affairs with one exception.
On that occasion, owing, it was to said, to a defect in the gas
meter, every light in the house suddenly ceased to burn.  It was
late, and with great difficulty lamps and candles were obtained to
enable the guests to secure their wraps and make their departure.

No other President ever won the affections of the people of Washington
so completely as did General Pierce.  Such was the respect entertained
for him by citizens of all political creeds, that when he took his
customary "constitutional" walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the
Capitol and back one could mark his progress by the uplifting of
hats as he passed along.  He and Mrs. Pierce, disregarding the
etiquette of the White House, used to pay social visits to the
families of New Hampshire friends holding clerkships, and to have
them as guests at their family dinner-table.  The President's
fascinating courtesy and kindness were irresistible.

Roger A. Pryor first figured at Washington in the spring of 1853.
He was an editorial contributor to the Washington _Union_, the
Democratic organ, and he wrote a scathing review of _The War of
Ormuzd and Ahriman_, by Henry Winter Davis, of Baltimore, which
set for the United States and Russia as the respective champions
of the principles of liberty and of despotism, and claimed to
foresee in the distant future a mighty and decisive conflict between
these persistent combatants.  This Mr. Pryor pronounced impossible,
asserting that "in every element of national strength and happiness
Russia is great and prosperous beyond any other country in Europe,"
and that the United States and Russia, instead of becoming enemies,
"will consolidate and perpetuate their friendly relations by the
same just and pacific policy which has regulated their intercourse
in times past."  This article was very distasteful to the Democratic
readers of the _Union_, and the editor denounced it.  Mr. Pryor
came back at him in the _Intelligencer_, declaring that he was not
the eulogist of the Russian Empire, but setting forth at great
length the good-will of Russia toward the United States, and
especially announcing that "in Russia the maudlin, mock philanthropy
of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ is an unknown disease."  It was the general
belief in Washington that Mr. Pryor had been inspired by some one
connected with the Russian Legation.

Old Madeira wine has always been very popular in Washington,
especially on the tables of their Honors the Justices of the Supreme
Court.  For many years supplies were obtained from the old mercantile
houses in Alexandria, which had made direct importations prior to
the Revolution.  During the Fillmore Administration many Washington
cellars were replenished at the sale of the private stock of wines
and liquors of the late Josiah Lee, of Baltimore.  Fifty demijohns
of various brands of Madeira were sold at prices ranging from twenty-
four dollars to forty-nine dollars per gallon; and one lot of twenty-
two bottles commanded the extreme price of fifteen dollars and
fifty cents per bottle, which at five bottles to the gallon is at
the rate of seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents per gallon.

Mr. Brady came from New York and opened a "daguerrean saloon" at
Washington, and the dim portraits produced on burnished metal were
regarded with silent astonishment.  Up to that time the metropolis
had been visited every winter by portrait and miniature painters,
but their work required long sittings and was expensive.  The
daguerreotypes, which could be produced in a few moments and at a
comparatively small cost, became very popular, and Brady's gallery
was thronged every morning with distinguished visitors.  Mr. Brady
was a man of slight figure, well proportioned, with features somewhat
resembling the portraits of Vandyke.  He possessed wonderful
patience, artistic skill, and a thorough acquaintance with the
mechanical and chemical features of sun-painting.  For the next
thirty years he took portraits of almost all the prominent persons
who visited Washington City, and in time his reminiscences of them
became very interesting.

The citizens of Washington enjoyed a rare treat when Thackeray came
to deliver his lectures on the English essayists, wits, and humorists
of the eighteenth century.  Accustomed to the spread-eagle style
of oratory too prevalent at the Capitol, they were delighted with
the pleasing voice and easy manner of the burly, gray-haired, rosy-
cheeked Briton, who made no gestures, but stood most of the time
with his hands in his pockets, as if he were talking with friends
at a cozy fireside.  He did not deal, like Cervantes, with the
ridiculous extravagance of a fantastic order, nor, like Washington
Irving, with the faults and foibles of men, but he struck at the
very heart of the social life of his countrymen's ancestors with
caustic and relentless satire.  Some of the more puritanical objected
to the moral tendencies of Thackeray's lectures, and argued that
the naughty scapegraces of the British court should not have been
thus exhumed for the edification of an American audience.

Thackeray made himself at home among the working journalists at
Washington, and was always asking questions.  He was especially
interested in the trial of Herbert, a California Congressman, who
had shot dead at a hotel table a waiter who had not promptly served
him, and he appeared to study old Major Lane, a "hunter from
Kentucky," "half horse and half alligator," but gentlemanly in his
manners, and partial to rye-whisky, ruffled shirts, gold-headed
canes, and draw-poker.  The Major had fought--so he said--under
Jackson at New Orleans, under Houston at San Jacinto, and under
Zach. Taylor at Buena Vista, and he was then prosecuting a claim
before Congress for his services as an agent among the Yazoo Indians.
It was better than a play to hear him talk, and to observe Thackeray
as he listened.

Rembrandt Peale visited Washington during the Pierce Administration,
and greatly interested those who met him with his reminiscences.
His birth took place while his father, Charles Wilson Peale, was
in camp at Valley Forge.  After the War of the Revolution, and
while Washington was a resident of Philadelphia, Charles Wilson
Peale painted several portraits of him.  Young Rembrandt used to
pass much of his time in the studio, and in 1786, when the best of
the portraits was painted, he stood at the back of his father's
chair watching the operation.  In 1795, when he was but seventeen
years of age, he had himself become a good painter, and Washington
then honored him with three sittings of three hours each.  The
young artist, who was naturally timid and nervous in such a presence
and at such a work, got his father to begin a portrait at the same
time, and to keep the General in conversation while the work went
on.  The study of Washington's head then painted by Rembrandt Peale
served as the basis of the famous portrait of him which he afterward
painted, and which was pronounced by contemporaries of Washington
his best likeness.  It was exhibited to admiring crowds in Europe
and the United States, and in 1832 was purchased for two thousand
dollars by the Federal Government, to be hung in the Capitol.

Rev. Charles W. Upham, who represented the Essex district of
Massachusetts in Congress, was at one time a victim to our copyright
laws.  He had compiled with care a life of George Washington, from
his own letters, which was, therefore, in some sense, an autobiography.
The holders of copyright in Washington's letters, including, if I
am not mistaken, Judge Washington and Dr. Sparks, considered the
publication of this book by Marsh, Capen & Lyons, of Boston, who
had no permission from them, as an infringement of their copyright.
The curious question thus presented was tried before Judge Story,
who held that it was an infringement, and granted an injunction
against the sale of the book.  The plates, thus becoming worthless
here, were sold to an English house, which printed them.

Jullien, the great musician, gave two concerts at the National
Theatre, Washington, in the fall of 1853, with his large orchestra
and a galaxy of glorious stars.  The effect of many of their
performances was overpowering, and the enraptured multitude often
for a moment appeared to forget their accustomed restraints, and
arose to wave their scarfs or hats in triumph, or blended their
shouts of applause with the concluding strains of the "Quadrille
Nationale," and other entrancing pieces.  The solos were all
magnificent and the entire performance was a triumphant success.

[Facsimile]
  Thaddeus Stevens
THADDEUS STEVENS was born at Peacham, Vermont, April 4th, 1792;
was a Representative from Pennsyvlania, December 3d, 1849, to March
1st, 1853, and again December 5th, 1859, to August 11th, 1868, when
he died at Washington City.


CHAPTER XXXV.
CHIVALRY, AT HOME AND ABROAD.

President Pierce, seconded by Secretary Marcy, made his foreign
appointments with great care.  Mr. Buchanan was sent as Minister
to the Court of St. James, a position for which he was well qualified,
and John Y. Mason, of Virginia, was accredited to France.  The
support given to the Democratic party by the adopted citizens of
the Republic was acknowledged by the appointment of Mr. Soulé, a
Frenchman, who had been expelled from his native land as a
revolutionist, as Minister to Spain; Robert Dale Owen, an Englishman,
noted for his agrarian opinions, as Minister to Naples, and Auguste
Belmont, Austrian born, Minister to the Netherlands.

The civil appointments, of every official grade, large in their
number and extended in their influence upon various localities and
interests, were made with distinguished ability and sagacity, and
were received with general and widespread satisfaction.  The
President's thorough knowledge of men, his intimate acquaintance
with the relations of sections heretofore temporarily separated
from the great mass of the Democracy, and his quick perception of
the ability and character essential to the faithful performance of
duty were active throughout, and he kept constantly in sight his
avowed determination to unite the Democratic party upon the principles
by which he won his election.  Where so many distinguished names
were presented for his consideration, and where disappointment was
the inevitable fate of large numbers, a degree of complaint was
unavoidable.  But no sooner was the fund of Executive patronage
well-nigh exhausted than might be heard, "curses, not loud but
deep."  Presently, as the number of disappointed place-hunters
increased, the tide of indignation began to swell, and the chorus
of discontent grew louder and louder, until the whole land was
filled with the clamors of a multitudinous army of martyrs.  For
the first three months after the inauguration the Democratic party
was a model of decorum, harmony, and contentment.  All was delight
and enthusiasm.  Frank Pierce was the man of the time; his Cabinet
was an aggregation of the wisdom of the country; his policy the
very perfection of statesmanship.  Even the Whigs did not utter
one word of discontent.  Frank Pierce was still President, his
Cabinet unchanged, his policy the same, but all else, how changed!
But it was no fault of his.  He had but fifty thousand offices to
dispense, which, in the nature of things, could go but a short way
to appease the hunger of two hundred thousand applicants.  For
every appointment there were two disappointments, for every friend
secured he made two enemies.  A state of universal satisfaction
was succeeded by a state of violent discontent, and the Administration,
without any fault of its own, encountered the opposition of those
who but a few weeks previously were loudest in its praise.

In order to re-enlist public favor and to reunite the Democratic
party, Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé, United States Ministers
respectively to England, France, and Spain, were ordered by the
President, through Mr. Marcy, to meet at Ostend.  There, after
mature deliberations, and in obedience to instruction from Washington,
they prepared, signed, and issued a brief manifesto, declaring that
the United States ought to purchase Cuba with as little delay as
possible.  Political, commercial, and geographical reasons therefor
were given, and it was asserted in conclusion that "the Union can
never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security, so long as Cuba
is not embraced within its boundaries."  This was carrying out the
views of Mr. Buchanan, who, when Secretary of State, in June, 1848,
had, under the instructions of President Polk, offered Spain one
hundred million of dollars for the island.

Mr. Buchanan had accepted the mission to England, that he might
from a distance pull every available wire to secure the nomination
in 1856, coyly denying all the time that he wanted to be President.
In a heretofore unpublished letter of his, dated September 5th,
1853, which is in my collection of autographs, he says:  "You
propounded a question to me before I left the United States which
I have not answered.  I shall now give it an answer in perfect
sincerity, without the slightest mental reservation.  I have neither
the desire nor the intention again to become a candidate for the
Presidency.  On the contrary, this mission is tolerable to me alone
because it will enable me gracefully and gradually to retire from
an active participation in party politics.  Should it please
Providence to prolong my days and restore me to my native land, I
hope to pass the remnant of my life at Wheatland, in comparative
peace and tranquillity.  This will be most suitable both to my age
(now past sixty-two) and my inclinations.  But whilst these are
the genuine sentiments of my heart, I do not think I ought to say
that in no imaginable state of circumstances would I consent to be
nominated as a candidate."

Mr. Buchanan was greatly exercised over the court costume which he
was to wear, and finally compromised by adopting a black evening
dress suit, with the addition of a small sword, which distinguished
him from the servants at the royal palace.  He had always been
jealous of Governor Marcy, then Secretary of State, and instead of
addressing his despatches to the Department of State, as is customary
for foreign Ministers, he used to send them directly to the President.
It is said that General Pierce rather enjoyed seeing his chief
Cabinet officer thus snubbed, and that he used to answer Mr.
Buchanan's communications himself.

The proposition to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and to
admit Kansas and Nebraska as States, with or without slavery, as
their citizens might respectively elect, gave rise to exciting
debates.  The North was antagonistic to the South, and the champions
of freedom looked defiantly at the defenders of slavery.  One of
the most exciting scenes in the House of Representatives was between
Mr. John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Mr. Francis B. Cutting,
a New York lawyer, who had defeated Mr. James Brooks, who then was
editor of the _Express_.

Mr. Cutting was advocating the passage of the Senate bill, and
complaining that the friends of the Administration not only wanted
to consign it to the Committee of the Whole--that tomb of the
Capulets--but they had encouraged attacks in their organs upon him
and those who stood with him.  Mr. Breckinridge interrupted him
while he was speaking, to ask if a remark made was personal to
himself, but Mr. Cutting said that it was not.  Mr. Breckinridge,
interrupting Mr. Cutting a second time, said that while he did not
want to charge the gentleman from New York with having intentionally
played the part of an assassin, he had said, and he could not now
take it back, that the act, to all intents, was like throwing one
arm around it in friendship, and stabbing it with the other--to
kill the bill.  As to a statement by the gentleman that in the hour
of his greatest need the "Hards" of New York had come to his
assistance, he could not understand it, and asked for an
explanation.

"I will give it," replied Mr. Cutting.  "When, during the last
Congressional canvass in Kentucky, it was intimated that the friends
of the honorable Representative from the Lexington district needed
assistance to accomplish his election, my friends in New York made
up a subscription of some fifteen hundred dollars and transmitted
it to Kentucky, to be employed for the benefit of the gentleman,
who is now the peer of Presidents and Cabinets."

"Yes, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Breckinridge, springing to his feet, "and
not only the peer of Presidents and Cabinets, but the peer of the
gentleman from New York, fully and in every respect."

A round of applause followed this assertion, and ere it had subsided
the indomitable Mike Walsh availed himself of the opportunity to
give his colleague a rap.  "When [he said] we came here we protested
against the Administration interfering in the local affairs of the
State of New York, and now my colleague states that a portion of
his constituents have been guilty of the same interference in the
affairs of the people of Kentucky."  "Is that all," said Mr. Cutting,
in a sneering tone, "that the gentleman from New York rose for?"
"That's all," replied Mr. Walsh, "but I will by on hand by and by,
though."

Mr. Breckinridge, his eyes flashing fire, remarked in measured
tones that the gentleman from New York should have known the truth
of what he uttered before he pronounced it on the floor.  He (Mr.
B.) was not aware that any intimations were sent from Kentucky that
funds were needed to aid in his election, nor was he aware that
they were received.  He did not undertake to say what the fact
might be in regard to what the gentleman had said, but he had no
information whatever of that fact.  He (Mr. B.) came to Congress
not by the aid of money, but against the use of money.  The gentleman
could not escape by any subtlety or by any ingenuity a thorough
and complete exposure of any ingenious device to which he might
resort for the purpose of putting gentlemen in a false position,
and the sooner he stopped that game the better.

Mr. Cutting, who was also very much excited, made an angry reply,
in which he stated "that he had given the gentleman an opportunity
of indulging in one of the most violent, inflammatory, and personal
assaults that had ever been known upon this floor; and he would
ask how could the gentleman disclaim any attack upon him.  The
whole tenor and scope of the speech of the gentleman from Kentucky
was an attack upon his motives in moving to commit the bill.  It
was in vain for the gentleman to attempt to escape it by disclaiming
it; the fact was before the Committee.  But he would say to the
gentleman that he scorned his imputation.  How dare the gentleman
undertake to assert that he had professed friendship for the measure
with a view to kill it, to assassinate it by sending it to the
bottom of the calendar?  And then, when he said that the Committee
of the Whole had under its control the House bill upon this identical
subject, which the Committee intended to take up, discuss, amend,
and report to the House, the gentleman skulked behind the Senate
bill, which had been sent to the foot of the calendar!"

"Skulked!" hissed Mr. Breckinridge.  "I ask the gentleman to withdraw
that word!"

"I withdraw nothing!" replied Mr. Cutting.  "I have uttered what
I have said in answer to one of the most violent and most personal
attacks that has ever been witnessed upon this floor."

"Then," said Mr. Breckinridge, "when the gentleman says I skulked,
he says what is false!"  The Southern members began to gather around
the excited Kentuckian, and the Speaker, pounding with his gavel,
pronounced the offensive remark out of order.

"Mr. Chairman," quietly remarked Mr. Cutting, "I do not intend upon
this floor to answer the remark which the gentleman from Kentucky
has thought proper to employ.  It belongs to a different region.
It is not ere that I will desecrate my lips with undertaking to
retort in that manner."

This settled the question, and a duel appeared to be inevitable.
The usual correspondence followed, but President Pierce and other
potent friends of the would-be belligerents interfered, and the
difficult was amicably adjusted, under "the code of honor," without
recourse to weapons.

Governor Marcy, President Pierce's Secretary of State, was a great
card-player, and Mr. Labouchere tells a good story which happened
when he was Secretary of the British Legation at Washington.  "I
went," said he, "with the British Minister, to a pleasant watering-
place in Virginia, where we were to meet Mr. Marcy, the then United
States Secretary of State, and a reciprocity treaty between Canada
and the United States was to be quietly discussed.  Mr. Marcy, the
most genial of men, was as cross as a bear.  He would agree to
nothing.  'What on earth is the matter with your chief?' I said to
a secretary who accompanied him.  'He does not have his rubber of
whist,' answered the secretary.  After this every night the Minister
and I played at whist with Mr. Marcy and his secretary, and every
night we lost.  The stakes were very trifling, but Mr. Marcy felt
flattered by beating the Britishers at what he called their own
game.  His good humor returned, and every morning when the details
of the treaty were being discussed we had our revenge, and scored
a few points for Canada."  A true account of the money designedly
lost at Washington by diplomats, heads of departments, and Congressmen
would give a deep insight into the secret history of legislation.
What Representative could vote against the claim of a man whose
money he had been winning, in small sums, it is true, all winter?

General John A. Thomas, of New York, who was Assistant Secretary
of State during a part of President Pierce's Administration, was
a fine, soldierly looking man, very gentlemanly in his deportment.
He was a native of Tennessee, and was for several years an officer
in the United States Army, commanding at one time the corps of
cadets.  He married a Miss Ronalds, who belonged to an old New York
family, and he took her with him when he went abroad as Solicitor
to the Board of Commissioners appointed by the President to adjust
the claims of American citizens upon the British Government.  Mr.
Buchanan was the American Minister at the Court of St. James, and
Mr. Sickles Secretary of Legation.  Mrs. Thomas having expressed
a wish to be presented at court, Mr. Buchanan assented, and, when
the day for presentation arrived, requested Mrs. Thomas to place
herself under the charge of Mrs. Sickles, who would accompany her
to the palace of St. James.  This arrangement Mrs. Thomas decidedly
declined, and by so doing gave so much offense to Mr. Buchanan that
she was never presented at court at all.  Nor did the matter end
here.  When Mr. Buchanan came to the Presidency he found General
Thomas filling the office of Assistant Secretary of State.  From
this office he immediately ejected him, for the old grudge he bore
Mrs. Thomas for refusing to go to court with Mrs. Sickles, as
General Thomas declared to his friends.  Mr. Buchanan was always
very fond of Mr. Sickles and his wife, and it was said that he
narrowly escaped being in the Sickles' house when Barton Key was
shot down after coming from it.

The Amoskeag Veterans, of Manchester, New Hampshire, a volunteer
corps which wore the Continental uniform and marched to the music
of drums and fifes, came to Washington to pay their respects to
the President, who received them with lavish hospitality.  They
visited Mount Vernon under escort of a detachment of volunteer
officers, and were escorted by the venerable G. W. P. Custis around
the old home of his illustrious relative.  At a ball given in the
evening the "old man eloquent" wore the epaulettes originally
fastened on his shoulders by him who was "first in war, first in
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."  The sword given
him by General Washington Mr. Custis had presented to his son-in-
law, Captain Robert E. Lee, of the Engineer Corps, during the
Mexican campaign.

[Facsimile]
  John Tyler
JOHN TYLER was born in Charles County, Virginia, March 29th, 1790;
was a Representative in Congress from Virginia, December 17th,
1816, to March 3d, 1821; was United States Senator from Virginia,
December 3d, 1827, to February 28th, 1836; was elected Vice-President
on the Harrison ticket in 1840; became President, after the death
of President Harrison, April 4th, 1841; was a delegate to the Peace
Convention of 1861, and its President; was a delegate to the
Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, which assembled at
Richmond in July, 1861; was elected a Representative from Virginia
in the first Confederate Congress, but died at Richmond, Virginia,
before taking his seat, January 17th, 1862.


CHAPTER XXXVI.
CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the enactment of the
Fugitive Slave Law re-opened the flood-gates of sectional controversy.
The Native American organization was used at the North by the
leading Abolitionists for the disintegration of the Whigs, and they
founded a new political party, with freedom inscribed upon its
banners.  The Free-Soil Democrats who had rebelled against Southern
rule, with the Liberty Whigs, and those who were more openly arrayed
against slavery, united, and were victorious at the Congressional
elections in the Northern States in the autumn of 1854.  "The moral
idea became a practical force," and the "Irrepressible Conflict"
was commenced.  "As Republicans," said Charles Sumner, "we go forth
to encounter the oligarchs of slavery."

The great contest was opened by a struggle in the House of
Representatives over the Speakership.  Nathaniel Prentiss Banks,
a Democrat, who had joined the Know-Nothings, was the Northern
candidate, although Horace Greeley, with Thurlow Weed and William
Schouler as his aides-de-camp, endeavored to elect Lewis D. Campbell,
an Ohio American.  The Southern Know-Nothings voted at one time
for Henry M. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, but they dropped him like a
hot potato when they learned that he had accepted a place on the
Republican Committee of his State.  William Aiken, a large slaveholder
in South Carolina, was the favorite Southern candidate, although
the vote of the solid South was successively given to several
others.  Meanwhile, as day after day passed, the President's message
was withheld, and all legislation was at a dead-lock.  The Sergeant-
at-Arms, Colonel Glossbrenner, an ex-member of the House, obtained
a loan of twenty thousand dollars from a bank in Pennsylvania,
which enabled him to make advances to impecunious members of both
parties, and thus to insure his re-election.

Early in January an attempt was made to "sit it out," and all night
the excited House seethed like a boiling cauldron; verdant novices
were laughed down as they endeavored to make some telling point,
while sly old stagers lay in ambush to spring out armed with "points
of order."  Emasculate conservatives were snubbed by followers of
new prophets; belligerent Southrons glared fiercely at phlegmatic
Yankees; one or two intoxicated Solons gabbled sillily upon every
question, and sober clergymen gaped, as if sleepy and disgusted
with political life.  Banks, unequaled in his deportment, was as
cool as a summer cucumber; Aiken, his principal opponent, was
courteous and gentlemanlike to all; Giddings wore a broad-brimmed
hat to shield his eyes from the rays of the gas chandelier; Stephens,
of Georgia, piped forth his shrill response, and Senator Wilson
went busily about "whipping-in."  Soon after midnight the South
Americans began to relate their individual experience in true camp-
meeting style, the old-line Democrats were rampant, the few Whigs
were jubilant, and the bone of Catholicism was pretty will picked
by those who had been peeping at politics through dark-lanterns,
and who were "know-nothings" about what they had done.  In short,
every imaginable topic of discussion, in order or out of order,
was lugged in to kill time.

Meanwhile the supply of ham at the eating-counter below-stairs was
exhausted, the oysters were soon after minus, and those who had
brought no lunch had to mumble ginger-cakes.  It was remarked by
good judges that as the morning advanced the coffee grew weaker,
suggesting a possibility that the caterer could not distinguish
between cocoa and cold water, and only replenished his boiler with
the latter.  There were more questions of order, more backing people
up to vote, and an increase of confusion.  Men declared that they
would "stick," while they entreated others to shift, and as daylight
streamed in upon the scene, the political gamesters had haggard
and careworn countenances.  The result of the night's work was no
choice.

At last, after nine long, tedious weeks, the agony was over, and
Massachusetts furnished the Thirty-fourth Congress with its Speaker.
Although what was termed "Americanism" played an important though
concealed part in the struggle, the real battle was between the
North and the South--the stake was the extension of slavery.  When
the decisive vote was reached the galleries were packed with ladies,
who, like the gentle dames in the era of chivalry, sat interested
lookers-on as the combating parties entered the arena.  On the one
side was Mr. Aiken, a Representative from the chivalric, headstrong
State of South Carolina, the son of an Irishman, the inheritor of
an immense wealth, and the owner of eleven hundred slaves.  Opposed
to him was Mr. Banks, of Massachusetts, a State which was the very
antipodes of South Carolina in politics, who, by his own exertions,
unaided by a lineage or wealth or anything save his own indomitable
will, had conquered a position among an eminently conservative
people.  Voting was commenced, and each minute seemed to be an age,
as some members had to explain their votes, but at length the
tellers began to "foot up."  It had been agreed that the result
should be announced by the teller belonging to the party of the
successful candidate, and when the sheet was handed to Mr. Benson,
of Maine, the "beginning of the end" was known.  Radiant with joy,
he announced that Nathaniel P. Banks, Jr., had received one hundred
and three votes; William Aiken, one hundred; H. M. Fuller, six; L.
D. Campbell, four; and Daniel Wells, Jr., of Wisconsin, one.  The
election was what a Frenchman would call an "accomplished fact,"
and hearty cheers were heard on all sides.

Magnanimity is not a prominent ingredient in political character,
and some factious objections were made, by Mr. Aiken soon put a
stop to them.  Rising with that dignity peculiar to wealthy and
portly gentlemen of ripe years, he requested permission to conduct
the Speaker-elect to the chair.  This disarmed opposition, and
after some formalities, he was authorized, by a large majority
resolve, to perform the duty, accompanied by Messrs. Fuller and
Campbell.  Cheer after cheer, with waving of hats and ladies'
handkerchiefs, announced that on the one hundred and thirty-third
vote the Speaker's chair was occupied.  The mace, emblem of the
Speaker's authority, was brought from its resting-place and elevated
at his side.  The House was organized.

The address of Mr. Banks, free from all cant, and delicately alluding
to those American principles to which he owed his office, was
happily conceived and admirably delivered.  Then old Father Giddings,
standing beneath the large chandelier, with his silvery locks
flowing picturesquely around his head, held up his hand and
administered the oath of office.  The authoritative gavel was handed
up by Colonel Forney, who was thanked by a resolution complimenting
him for the ability with which he had presided during the protracted
contest, and then the House adjourned.

It then became necessary to divide the spoils, and after an exciting
contest, Cornelius Wendell, a Democratic nominee, was elected
Printer of the House by Republican votes, in consideration of
certain percentages of his profits paid to designated parties.
The House binding was given to Mr. Williams, editor of the Toledo
_Blade_, a lawyer by profession, who had never bound a book in his
life.  Mr. Robert Farnham paid him a considerable sum for his
contract, and the work was done by Mr. Tretler, a practical
bookbinder.  Mr. Simon Hanscomb, who had been efficient in bringing
about the nomination of Mr. Banks, received a twelve-hundred dollar
sinecure clerkship, and others who had aided in bringing about the
result were cared for.  One Massachusetts Representative had his
young son appointed a page by the doorkeeper, but when Speaker
Banks learned of it, he ordered the appointment to be canceled.
Luckily for the lad, the father was enabled to secure for him an
appointment as a cadet at West Point, and he became a gallant
officer.

The first session of the Thirty-fourth Congress was protracted
until the 18th of August, 1856, and it was distinguished by
acrimonious debate.  The most remarkable speaker was Mr. Stephens,
of Georgia, of whom it might be said, as of St. Paul, "his bodily
presence is weak," while his shrill, thin voice, issuing as it were
by jerks from his narrow chest, recalled John Randolph.  Contrasting
widely in size was the burly Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, who
had won laurels in the Mexican War, as had the gallant General
Quitman, a Representative from Mississippi.  Henry Winter Davis,
of Baltimore, and Anson Burlingame, of Boston, were the most eloquent
and enthusiastic of those who had been washed into Congress by the
Know-Nothing wave, and with them had come some ignorant and bigoted
fellows.  Equally prominent, but better qualified, on the other
side was John Kelly, who had defeated the candidates brought out
by "Sam" and "Sambo" to oppose him.  The venerable Joshua R.
Giddings, of Ohio, who led the abolition forces, was as austerely
bitter as Cato was in ancient Utica when he denounced the Fugitive
Slave Law, under the operations of which many runaway slaves were
captured at the North and returned to their Southern masters.

The eloquence of Mr. Clingman, who represented North Carolina, was
alternately enlivened by epigrammatic wit or envenomed by scorching
reply.  Mr. Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont, was commencing a long
and useful Congressional career.  Mr. Schuyler Colfax, an editor-
politician, represented an Indiana district.  The veteran Mr.
Charles J. Faulkner, with his choleric son-in-law, Mr. Thomas S.
Bocock, and the erratic and chivalrous Judge Caskie, represented
Virginia districts.  Mr. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, sat near
his brother, Israel D. Washburne, of Maine.  Mr. Lyman Trumbull,
of Illinois, was then an ardent Republican, and so was Mr. Francis
E. Spinner, of New York, whose wonderful autograph afterward graced
public securities.

Mr. Albert Rust, one of the Representatives from Arkansas, won some
notoriety by attacking Horace Greeley at his hotel.  The next day
he was brought before Justice Morsell, and gave bonds to appear at
the next session of the Criminal Court.  He appeared to glory in
what he had done.  Mr. Greeley was evidently somewhat alarmed, and
during the remainder of his sojourn at Washington his more stalwart
friends took care that he should not be unaccompanied by a defender
when he appeared in public.

The Territory of Utah was represented in the House by Mr. John N.
Burnhisel, a small, dapper gentleman, who in deportment and tone
of voice resembled Robert J. Walker.  It was very rarely that he
participated in debate, and his forte was evidently taciturnity.
In private conversation he was fluent and agreeable, defending the
peculiar domestic institutions of his people.  The delegate from
Oregon was Mr. Joseph Lane, who had served bravely in the Mexican
war, gone to Oregon as its first Governor, and been returned as
its first Territorial Delegate.  He was a keen-eyed, trimly built
man, of limited education, but the possessor of great common sense.
Henry M. Rice, the first Delegate from the Territory of Minnesota,
had been for years an Indian trader in connection with the American
Fur Company, and was thoroughly acquainted with the people he
represented, and whose interests he faithfully served.  New Mexico,
then a _terra incognita_, was represented by Don José Manuel
Gallegos, a native of the Territory, who had been educated in the
Catholic schools of Mexico, and who was devoted to the Democratic
party.  He had as a rival Don Miguel A. Otero, also a native of
New Mexico, who had been educated at St. Louis, and whose Democracy
was of the more liberal school.  He successfully contested the seat
of Mr. Gallegos in the Thirty-fourth Congress, and secured his re-
election in the two ensuing ones.

The Senate was behind the House in entering into the "irrepressible
conflict."  The death of Vice-President King having left the chair
of the presiding officer vacant, it was filled _pro tempore_ by
Mr. Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana.  He was a man of fine presence,
fair abilities, and a fluent speaker, thoroughly devoted to the
Democratic party as then controlled by the South.  He regarded the
anti-slavery movement as the offspring of a wanton desire to meddle
with the affairs of other people, and to grasp political power, or
--to use the words of one who became an ardent Republican--as the
product of hypocritical selfishness, assuming the mask and cant of
philanthropy merely to rob the South and to enrich New England.
The rulings of the Chair, while it was occupied by Senator Bright,
were all in favor of the South and of the compromises which had
been entered into.  The Secretary of the Senate, its Sergeant-at-
Arms, its door-keepers, messengers, and even its little pages, were
subservient to the South.

Mr. James Murray Mason, a type of the old patrician families of
Virginia, was one of the few remaining polished links between the
statesmen of those days and of the past.  His first ancestor in
Virginia, George Mason, commanded a regiment of cavalry in the
Cavalier army of Charles Stuart (afterward Charles II) in the
campaign against the Roundhead troops of Oliver Cromwell.  After
the defeat of the royal forces at the battle of Worcester, Colonel
Mason escaped to Virginia, and soon afterward established a plantation
on the Potomac, where his lineal descendants resided generation
after generation.  The future Senator was educated at Georgetown,
in the then infant days of the Federal city, and the society of
such statesmen as then sat in the councils of the republic was in
itself an education.  He possessed a stalwart figure, a fine,
imposing head covered with long gray hair, a pleasing countenance,
and a keen eye.  No Senator had a greater reverence for the peculiar
institutions of the South, or a more thorough contempt for the
Abolitionists of the North.  His colleague, Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter,
was of less aristocratic lineage, but had received a more thorough
education.  He had served in the Twenty-sixth Congress as Speaker
of the House, and he was thoroughly acquainted with parliamentary
law and usages.  He had also paid great attention to finance and
to the tariff questions.  Solidly built, with a massive head and
a determined manner, he was very impressive in debate, and his
speeches on financial questions were listened to with great
attention.

John P. Hale was a prominent figure in the Senate, and never failed
to command attention.  The keen shafts of the Southerners, aimed
at him, fell harmlessly to his feet, and his wonderful good nature
disarmed malicious opposition.  Those who felt that he had gone
far astray in his political opinions did not accuse him of selfish
motives, sordid purposes, or degraded intrigues.  His was the
"chasseur" style of oratory--now skirmishing on the outskirts of
an opponent's position, then rallying on some strange point, pouring
in a rattling fire, standing firm against a charge, and ever
displaying a perfect independence of action and a disregard of
partisan drill.

President Pierce felt very unkindly toward Mr. Hale.  At an evening
reception, when the Senator from New Hampshire approached, escorting
his wife and daughters, the President spoke to the ladies, but
deliberately turned his back upon Mr. Hale.  This action by one so
courteous as was General Pierce created much comment, and was the
subject of earnest discussion in drawing-rooms as well as at the
Capitol.

[Facsimile]
  Lewis Cass
LEWIS CASS was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, October 9th, 1782;
crossed the Allegheny Mountains on foot when seventeen years of
age to Ohio, where he commenced the practice of law; was colonel
of the Third Ohio Volunteers, which was a part of General Hull's
army, surrendered at Detroit, August 16th, 1812; was Governor of
Michigan Territory, 1813-1831; was Secretary of War under President
Jackson, 1831-1836; was Minister to France, October 4th, 1836, to
November 12th, 1842; was United States Senator from Michigan,
December 1st, 1845, to May 29th, 1848; was defeated as the Democratic
candidate for President in the fall of 1848; was elected to fill
the vacancy in the Senate, occasioned by his own resignation,
December 3d, 1849, to March 3d, 1857; was Secretary of State under
President Buchanan, March 4th, 1857, to December 17th, 1860, when
he resigned; retired to Detroit, Michigan, where he died, June
17th, 1866.


CHAPTER XXXVII.
POLITICAL STORM AND SOCIAL SUNSHINE.

Charles Sumner had not spoken on the slavery question immediately
on taking his seat in the Senate, and some of his abolition friends
in Boston had began to fear that he, too, had been enchanted by
the Circe of the South.  Theodore Parker said, in a public speech:
"I wish he had spoken long ago, but it is for him to decide, not
us.  'A fool's bolt is soon shot,' while a wise man often reserves
his fire."  But Senator Seward, who had been taught by experience
how far a Northern man could go in opposition to the slave-power,
advised him that "retorted scorn" would be impolitic and perhaps
unsafe.

Mr. Sumner, however, soon began to occupy the floor of the Senate
Chamber when he could get an opportunity.  His speeches were able
and exhaustive disquisitions, polished and repolished before their
delivery, and arraigning the South in stately and measured sentences
which contained stinging rebukes.  The boldness of his language
soon attracted public attention, and secured his recognition as
the chosen champion of Freedom.  One afternoon, while he was
speaking, Senator Douglas, walking up and down behind the President's
chair in the old Senate Chamber and listening to him, remarked to
a friend:  "Do you hear that man?  He may be a fool, but I tell
you that man has pluck.  I wonder whether he knows himself what he
is doing?  I am not sure whether I should have the courage to say
those things to the men who are scowling around him."

Mr. Sumner was at that time strikingly prepossessing in his
appearance:

  "Not that his dress attracted vulgar eyes,
   With Fashion's gewgaws flauntingly display'd;
   He had the bearing of the gentleman;
   And nobleness of mind illumined his mien,
   Winning at once attention and respect."

He was over six feet in stature, with a broad chest and graceful
manners.  His features, though not perhaps strictly regular, were
classical, and naturally of an animated cast; his hazel eyes were
somewhat inflamed by night-work; he wore no beard, except a small
pair of side-whiskers, and his black hair lay in masses over his
high forehead.  I do not remember to have ever seen two finer-
looking men in Washington than Charles Sumner and Salmon P. Chase,
as they came together to a dinner-party at the British Legation,
each wearing a blue broadcloth dress-coat with gilt buttons, a
white waistcoat, and black trowsers.

The conservative Senators soon treated Mr. Sumner as a fanatic
unfit to associate with them, and they refused him a place on any
committee, as "outside of any political organization."  This
stimulated him in the preparation of a remarkable arraignment of
the slave-power, which he called the "crime against Kansas."  It
was confidentially printed before its delivery that advance copies
might be sent to distant cities, and nearly every one permitted to
read it, including Mr. William H. Seward, advised Mr. Sumner to
tone down its offensive features.  But he refused.  He was not, as
his friend Carl Schurz afterward remarked, "conscious of the stinging
force of the language he frequently employed, . . . and he was not
unfrequently surprised, greatly surprised, when others found his
language offensive."  He delivered the speech as it had been written
and printed, occupying two days, and he provoked the Southern
Senators and their friends beyond measure.

Preston S. Brooks, a tall, fine-looking Representative from South
Carolina, who had served gallantly in the Mexican war, was incited
to revenge certain phrases used by Mr. Sumner, which he was told
reflected upon his uncle, Senator Butler.  Entering the Senate
Chamber one day after the adjournment, he went up to Mr. Sumner,
who sat writing at his desk, with his head down, and dealt him
several severe blows in the back of his head with a stout gutta-
percha cane as he would have cut at him right and left with a
dragoon's broadsword.

Mr. Sumner's long legs were stretched beneath his desk, so that he
was pinioned when he tried to rise, and the blood from his wound
on his head blinded him.  In his struggle he wrenched the desk from
the floor, to which it had been screwed, but before he could gain
his feet his assailant had gratified his desire to punish him.
Several persons had witnessed this murderous assault without
interfering, and when Mr. Sumner, stunned and bleeding, was led to
a sofa in the anteroom, Mr. Brooks was congratulated on what he
had done.

For two years Mr. Sumner was a great sufferer, but the people of
Massachusetts, recognizing him as their champion, kept his empty
chair in the Senate ready for him to occupy again when he became
convalescent.  A chivalrous sympathy for him as he endured the
cruel treatment prescribed by modern science contributed to his
fame, and he became the leading champion of liberty in the impending
conflict for freedom.  Mr. Seward regarded the situation with a
complacent optimism, Mr. Hale good-naturedly joked with the Southern
Senators, and Mr. Chase drifted along with the current, all of them
adorning but not in any way shaping the tide of events.  With Mr.
Sumner it was different, for he possessed that root of statesmanship
--the power of forethought.  Although incapacitated for Senatorial
duties, his earnest words, like the blast of a trumpet, echoed
through the North, and he was recognized as the martyr-leader of
the Republican party.  The injury to his nervous system was great,
but the effect of Brooks' blows upon the slave-holding system was
still more injurious.  Before Mr. Sumner had resumed his seat both
Senator Butler and Representative Brooks had passed away.

The debate in the House of Representatives on a resolution censuring
Mr. Brooks for his murderous attack (followed by his resignation
and unanimous re-election) was marked by acrimonious altercations,
with threats of personal violence by the excited Southerners, who
found themselves on the defensive.  Henry Wilson and other Northern
Congressmen went about armed with revolvers, and gave notice that
while they would not fight duels, they would defend themselves if
attacked.  Mr. Anson Burlingame, who had come from Michigan to
complete his studies at Harvard College, married the daughter of
a wealthy Boston merchant, and had been elected to Congress by the
Know-Nothings and Abolitionists, accepted a challenge from Mr.
Brooks.  He selected the Clifton House, on the Canadian shore of
Niagara Falls, as the place of meeting, which the friends of Mr.
Brooks declared was done that the duel could not take place, as
Mr. Brooks could not pass through the Northern States, where he
was so universally hated.  Mr. Lewis D. Campbell, who was Mr.
Burlingame's second, repelled this insinuation, and was confident
that his principal "meant business."

During the administration of President Pierce, Congress created
the rank of Lieutenant-General, and General Scott received the
appointment.  He established his head-quarters at Washington, and
appeared on several occasions in full uniform riding a spirited
charger.  Colonel Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, and "Old
Chapultepec," as Scott was familiarly called by army officers, did
not get along harmoniously, and the President invariably sided with
his Secretary of War.  Mr. Seward, meanwhile, busily availed himself
of the opportunity to alienate General Scott from his Southern
friends.

While the Northern and Southern politicians "bit their thumbs" at
each other, the followers and the opponents of Senator Douglas in
the Democratic ranks became equally hostile, and in some instances
belligerent.  I was then the associate editor of the _Evening Star_,
a lively local sheet owned and edited by Mr. Douglas Wallach.
Walking along Pennsylvania Avenue one afternoon, I saw just before
me Mr. Wallach engaged in an excited controversy with an elderly
gentleman, who I afterward learned was Mr. "Extra Billy" Smith, an
ex-Representative in Congress, who had grown rich by the extra
allowances made to him as a mail contractor.  Each was calling the
other hard names in a loud tone of voice, and as I reached them
they clinched, wrestled for a moment, and then Smith threw Wallach
heavily to the sidewalk.  Sitting on his prostrate foe, Smith began
to pummel him, but at the first blow Wallach got one of his
antagonist's thumbs into his mouth, where he held it as if it were
in a vise.  Smith roared, "Let go my thumb! you are eating it to
the bone!"  Just then up came Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, and
Mr. Bocock, of Virginia, who went to the rescue of Smith, Keitt
saying:  "This is no way for gentlemen to settle their disputes,"
as he forced Wallach's jaws apart, to release the "chawed-up" thumb.
Wallach was uninjured, but for several weeks he went heavily armed,
expecting that Smith would attack him.

One day Mr. McMullen, of Virginia, in advocating the passage of a
bill, alluded to some previous remarks of the gentleman from Ohio,
not the one (Mr. Giddings) "who bellowed so loudly," he said, "but
to his sleek-headed colleague" (Mr. Taylor).  Mr. Taylor, who was
entering the hall just as this allusion was made to him, replied
that the would rather have a sleek head than a blockhead.

Mr. McMullen then said:  "I intended nothing personally offensive,
which no one ought to have known better than the gentleman himself.
I made use of the remark at which the gentleman exhibited an undue
degree of excitement to produce a little levity; neither of us
ought to complain of our heads.  If united, there would not be more
brains than enough for one common head."

Senator Jones, of Tennessee, generally called "Lean Jimmy Jones,"
was the only Democrat who ever tried to meet Mr. John P. Hale with
his own weapons--ridicule and sarcasm.  One day, after having been
worsted in a verbal tilt, Mr. Jones sought revenge by telling a
story as illustrating his opponent's adroitness.  There was a
Kentuckian, he said, whose name was Sam Wilson, who settled on the
margin of the Mississippi River.  He had to settle upon high lands,
near swamps from ten to twenty miles wide.  The swamps were filled
with wild hogs, which were considered a species of public property
that every man had a right to shoot, but they did not have a right
thereby to shoot tame ones.

Sam had a very large family, and was known to entertain a mortal
aversion to work.  Yet he always lived well and had plenty of meat.
It was inquired how Sam had always so much to eat?  Nobody saw him
work.  He used to hunt and walk about, and he had plenty of bacon
constantly on hand.  People began to suspect that Sam was not only
shooting wild hogs, but sometimes tame ones; so they watched him
a good deal to see whether they could not catch him.  Sam, however,
was too smart for them, and always evaded, just (said Mr. Jones)
as the honorable Senator from New Hampshire does.  Finally, old
man Bailey was walking out one day looking after his hogs at the
edge of the swamp, and he saw Sam going along quietly with his gun
on his shoulder.  Presently Sam's rifle was fired.  Bailey walked
on to the cane-brake, as he knew he had a very fine hog there, and
looking over he found Sam in the act of drawing out his knife to
butcher it.  Old man Bailey, slapping Sam on the shoulder, said,
"I have caught you at last."  "Caught thunder!" said Sam; "I will
shoot all your blasted hogs that come biting at me in this way."
"That is the way," Senator Jones went on to say, "that the Senator
from New Hampshire gets out of his scrapes."

Mrs. Pierce came to the White House sorrow-stricken by the sad
death of her only child, but she bravely determined not to let her
private griefs prevent the customary entertainments.  During the
sessions of Congress there was a state dinner once a week, to which
thirty-six guests were invited, and on other week-days half-a-dozen
guests partook of the family dinner, at which no wine was served.
There was also a morning and an evening reception every week in
the season, at which Mrs. Pierce, dressed in deep mourning, received
with the President.

The evening receptions, which were equivalent to the drawing-rooms
of foreign courts, were looked forward to with great interest by
strangers and the young people, taxing the busy fingers of mantua-
makers, while anxious fathers reluctantly loosened their purse-
strings.  Carriages and camelias were thenceforth in demand; white
kid gloves were kept on the store counters; and hair-dressers wished
that, like the fabulous monster, they could each have a hundred
hands capable of wielding the curling-tongs.  When the evening
arrived, hundreds of carriages might be seen hastening toward the
spacious portico of the White House, under which they drove and
sat down their freights.  In Europe, it would have required at
least a battalion of cavalry to have preserved order, but in
Washington the coaches quietly fell into the file, and patiently
awaited their turn.  At the door, the ladies turned into the private
dining-room, used as a dressing-room, from whence they soon emerged,
nearly all of them in the full glory of evening toilet and radiant
with smiles.  Falling into line, the visitors passed into the
parlors, where they were received by President Pierce and his wife.
Between the President and the door stood District Marshal Hoover
and one of his deputies, who inquired the name of each unknown
person, and introduced each one successively to the President.
The names of strangers were generally misunderstood, and they were
re-baptized, to their annoyance, but President Pierce, with winning
cordiality, shook hands with each one, and put them directly at
ease, chatting pleasantly until some one else came along, when he
introduced them to his wife.

Leaving the Presidential group and traversing the beautiful Green
Drawing-room, the guests entered the famed East Room, which was
filled with the talent, beauty, and fashion of the metropolis.
Hundreds of either sex occupied the middle of the room or congregated
around its walls, which enshrined a maelstrom of beauty, circling
and ever changing, like the figures in a kaleidoscope.  A prominent
figure in these scenes was Edward Everett, cold-blooded and
impassible, bright and lonely as the gilt weather-cock over the
church in which he officiated ere he became a politician.  John
Van Buren--"Prince John"--he was called--was another notable, his
conversation having the double charm of seeming to be thoroughly
enjoyed by the speaker and at the same time to delight the hearer.
General Scott, in full uniform, was the beau ideal of a military
hero, and with him were other brave officers of the army and of
the navy, each one having his history ashore or afloat.

The members of the Diplomatic Corps were marked by the crosses and
ribbons which they wore at their buttonholes.  Mr. Crampton, who
represented Queen Victoria, was a noble specimen of the fine old
English gentleman, personally popular, although he did not get
along well with Secretary Marcy.  The Count de Sartiges, who had
recently married Miss Thorndike, of Boston, was an embodiment of
French character, as Baron Von Geroldt was of the Prussian, and
the little Kingdom of Belgium had its diplomatist in the august
person of Monsieur Henri Bosch Spencer.  Senor Don Calderon de la
Barca, the Spanish Minister, was very popular, as was his gifted
wife, so favorably known to American literature.  As for the South
American Republics, their representatives were generally well
dressed and able to put a partner through a polka in a manner
gratifying to her and to her anxious mamma.

Then there were the office-seekers, restless, anxious, yet confident
of obtaining some place of profit; the office-holders, many of whom
saw in passing events the handwriting on the wall which announced
their dismissal; the verdant visitors who had come to Washington
to see how the country was governed; and generally a score of
Indians with gay leggings, scarlet blankets, pouches worked with
porcupine quills, and the full glory of war paint.  The Marine Band
discoursed sweet music, but no refreshments were offered, so, many
of the gentlemen, after having escorted the ladies to their homes,
repaired to the restaurants, where canvas-back ducks, wild turkeys,
and venison steaks were discussed, with a running fire of champagne
corks and comments on the evening.

Secretary McClelland's series of evening receptions were thronged
with the elite of the South, and at Secretary Guthrie's one could
see the majestic belles of Kentucky.  The finest diplomatic
entertainment was given by the Brazilian Minister, in honor of the
birthday of his imperial master, and the evenings when Madame
Calderon de la Barca was "at home" always found her attractive
drawing-rooms crowded.  General Almonte, the Mexican Minister, was
noted for his breakfast-parties, as was Senor Marcoleta, of Nicaragua,
who was trying hard to have an interoceanic canal cut through his
country.  Among the Congressmen, Governor Aiken, of South Carolina,
gave the most elegant entertainments, at which the supper-table
was ornamented with a silver service, "looted" in after years by
soldiers, with the exception of a large solid silver waiter, which
was found in a swamp, propped up on four stones, and with a fire
under it, some deserters having used it to fry bacon in.  A gloom
was cast over this gay society, however, by the sad fate of the
wife of Mr. Justice Daniels, of the Supreme Court, whose clothes
accidentally took fire, and burned her so terribly that she survived
but a few hours.

[Facsimile]
  Gº:Washington
GEORGE WASHINGTON was born February 22d, 1732, in Westmoreland
County, Va.; was public Surveyor when sixteen years of age; when
nineteen was Military Inspector of one of the districts of Virginia;
participated in the French and Indian war, 1753; Commander-in-Chief
of the Colonial forces in 1755; married Mrs. Martha Custis, 1759;
member of the Continental Congress, 1774; Commander-in-Chief of
the Continental forces, 1775; resigned command, December 23d, 1783;
President of the United States, April 30th, 1789, to March 4th,
1797; died at Mount Vernon, December 14th, 1799.


CHAPTER XXXVIII.
GROWTH OF THE METROPOLIS.

Mr. Cushing conceived the idea of getting up a difficulty with
Great Britain, as likely to advance the prospects of President
Pierce for re-election, and to divert the attention of the people
from the anti-slavery question.  The pretext was the recruiting in
the United States, under the direction of the British diplomatic
and consular representatives of the Crown, of men for the regiments
engaged in the Crimean War.

Mr. Crampton, the British Minister, was a large, well-built man,
with white hair and side whiskers, courtly manners and great
conversational powers.  His father had been a celebrated surgeon
in Ireland, from whom he afterward inherited considerable property.
He lived at Carolina Place, on Georgetown Heights, in good style,
entertained liberally, rather cultivated the acquaintance of American
artists and journalists, and was often seen going on an angling
expedition to the Great Falls of the Potomac.  He undoubtedly
directed the objectionable recruiting without the slightest diplomatic
skill.  He seemed to go to work in the roughest and rudest manner
to violate our laws, as if he did not care a copper whether he was
discovered or not, and to comment in coarse terms upon our
institutions.

Mr. Marcy, as Secretary of State, sent all the facts to Great
Britain, his dispatch closing with a peremptory demand for the
recall of Mr. Crampton and the British Consuls at New York,
Philadelphia, and Cincinnati.  Accompanying the despatch was an
elaborate opinion by Attorney-General Cushing, who cited numerous
precedents, and declared that the demand for the recall of those
who had been accomplices in the violation of municipal and
international laws should not be taken as a cause of offense by
Great Britain.

Monsieur de Sartiges, the French Minister, undertook to mediate
between Mr. Crampton and Secretary Marcy.  Calling at the Department
of State, he represented that the continuance of peaceful relations
between England and the United States was the earnest wish of his
master, the Emperor, who, after his accession to the throne of
France, had personally, and through his representatives, evinced
on every possible occasion a friendship to the Union.  Mr. Marcy
expressed satisfaction at the assurance given, and remarked that
it did not correspond with other official statements which the
United States had received from parties of reputable standing in
their own country.

The Minister promptly interposed and denied in the firmest manner
the truth of any report adverse to the one which he had just made.
The scene at this moment, according to representation, must have
been one of interest, for Mr. Marcy, rising from his seat, excused
his absence for a moment.  He returned in a short time from an
adjoining room with an original despatch in his hand, addressed to
the Secretary of War, Mr. Davis, which he opened, and by permission
of M. Sartiges, commenced reading extracts.

"Now," said Mr. Marcy, closing the document, "what I have just read
to you is from a report of an army commission which was sent out
by this Government for the benefit of science, and am I to understand
from the free assurance that you have given, that his Majesty, the
Emperor, was ignorant of the language used by his War Secretary to
the officers of this mission, to whom he only declined extending
the courtesies solicited, but added to the refusal an expression
hoping 'that when they met it might be at the cannon's mouth'?"
Mr. Marcy continued:  "This language is further corroborated by a
despatch to this department from our Minister at Paris."

De Sartiges took a hurried leave, but sought revenge by making
himself generally disagreeable.  He had a row with Mr. Barney, a
venerable ex-member of the House and a gentleman of the old school.
At evening parties before leaving he would enter the drawing-room
where ladies and gentlemen were assembled, with his hat on and a
cigar in his mouth, which he would light by the chandelier.  He
also persisted in firing at cats and rats from the back windows of
his house, thus endangering the lives of persons in the adjacent
back yards.

Mr. Crampton was recalled and received a diplomatic promotion,
going to St. Petersburg as Sir John Crampton.  While there, in
1861, he married a young daughter of Balfe, who afterward procured
a divorce, after a curious suit at law, tried before "a jury of
matrons."

England was forced to admit that Mr. Crampton's conduct was
"notoriously at war with the rights of neutrality and national
honor."  This was not altogether pleasant to some of the old Nestors
of the Senate, who wanted once more to sound the war tocsin.
General Cass, who had had a bad fall on the outside steps of the
Department of the Interior, was "eager for the fray;" the valiant
Clayton, of Delaware, saw an opportunity to wipe out the stigma
cast upon his treaty; and although the patriarchal Butler (owner
of men-servants and maid-servants, flocks and herds) displayed the
lily flag of peace in the Senatorial debate, it was as eccentric
as were his weird-like white locks.  Lord Clarendon had then his
hands full, but his successors took their revenge in 1862, when
attempts were made to obtain recruits in Ireland for the Union
Army.  Mr. Cushing's elaborate arguments against enlistments for
a foreign power were copied and sent back to the Department of
State at Washington.

The diplomatic representatives of Queen and Czar, Emperor and
Kaiser, were greatly troubled during the Crimean and other European
wars, and it would not answer for them to be seen in friendly
relations with each other.  These foreign diplomats delude themselves
with the belief that they play an important political part at
Washington.  So they do in the opinion of the marriageable damsels,
who are flattered with their flirtations, and in the estimation of
snobbish sojourners, who glory in writing home that they have shaken
hands with a lord, had a baron to dine with them, or loaned an
_attache_ a hundred dollars.  But, in reality, they are the veriest
supernumeraries in the political drama now being performed on the
Washington stage.  Should any difficulty arise with the foreign
powers they represent, special Ministers would be appointed to
arrange it, and meanwhile the _Corps Diplomatique_ "give tone to
society," and is a potent power--in its own estimation.

The various legations all exhibit their national characteristics.
The British attaches represent the Belgravian of the London magazines;
their hair parted just a line off the exact centre, their soft eye
only one degree firmer than those of their sisters', while their
beautiful, long side-whiskers are wonderful to behold.  The Spanish
gentlemen one recognizes by their close-shorn black heads and smooth
faces, all courtesy, inevitable pride and secretiveness, eyes that,
like those of their women, betray a hundred intrigues, because they
seek to conceal so much.  The exquisite politeness of the South
Americans make you wonder if you rally can be dust and ashes after
this perfect deference, and their manners are marked by more vivacity
than those of the Spanish people.  The Russian diplomatists have
generally been on the most friendly terms with Congressmen and
citizens generally, while the Prussians and the Frenchmen have had
several little difficulties with the Department of State and with
the residents of Washington.

Although Mr. Marcy was unwilling to cater for the favor of the
press to the extent which characterized the conduct of many other
public men, he generally had a good word for the reporters and
correspondents whom he met.  "Well, Mr. ----," he would say, as he
walked up the steps of his office in the morning, to some member
of the press, who affected or had a great acquaintance with the
secrets of State--"Well, what is the news in the State Department?
You know I have always to go to the newspaper men to find out what
is going on here."  At another time he would suggest a paragraph
which, he would quizzically intimate, might produce an alarm in
political circles, improvising, for example, at a party of Senator
Seward's, some story in the ordinary letter-writer style about
Seward and Marcy being seen talking together, and ending with
ominous speculations as to an approaching coalition, etc., in doing
which he would happily hit off the writers for the press.

Mr. Cushing was more accommodating.  He would converse freely with
those correspondents in whom he had confidence, and permit them to
copy his opinions in advance of their delivery upon their pledges
that they should not be printed before they were officially made
public.  He wrote a great many editorials, somewhat ponderous and
verbose, for the Washington _Union_, and the elaborate statements
on executive matters made by the correspondents who enjoyed his
favor were often dictated by him.

Mr. Buchanan, removed from the intrigues of home politics, kept up
an active correspondence with his friends.  "I expected," he wrote
to Mr. Henry A. Wise, "ere this to have heard from you.  You ought
to remember that I am now a stranger in a strange land, and that
the letters of so valued a friend as yourself would be to me a
source of peculiar pleasure.  I never had any heart for this mission,
and I know that I shall never enjoy it.  Still, I am an optimist
in my philosophy, and shall endeavor to make my sojourn here as
useful to my country and as agreeable to myself as possible.

"I have been in London," Mr. Buchanan went on to say, "long enough
to form an opinion that the English people generally are not friendly
to the United States.  They look upon us with jealous eyes, and
the public journals generally, and especially the Leviathan _Times_,
speak of us in terms of hostility.  The _Times_ is particularly
malignant, and as it notoriously desires to be the echo of public
opinion, its language is the more significant.  From all I can
learn, almost every person denounces what they are pleased to call
the crime of American slavery, and ridicules the idea that we can
be considered a free people whilst it shall exist.  They know
nothing of the nature and character of slavery in the United States,
and have no desire to learn.  Should any public opportunity offer,
I am fully prepared to say my say upon this subject, as I have
already done privately in high quarters."

The first hotel in the District of Columbia was Suter's Tavern, a
long, low wooden building in Georgetown, kept by John Suter.  Next
came the Union Hotel there, kept by Crawford.  The National Hotel
in Washington was for some years under the management of Mr. Gadsby,
who had previously been a noted landlord in Alexandria, and what
was afterward the Metropolitan Hotel was the Indian Queen, kept by
the Browns, father and sons.  Another hotel was built nearer the
White House by Colonel John Tayloe, and was inherited by his son,
Mr. B. Ogle Tayloe.  It was not, however, pecuniarly successful,
as it was thought to be too far up-town.  Mrs. Tayloe, who was born
at the North, used to visit her childhood's home every summer, and
in traveling on one of those floating palaces, the day-boats on
the Hudson River, she was struck with the business energy and desire
to please everybody manifested by the steward.  On her return
Colonel Tayloe mentioned the want of success which had attended
his hotel, and she remarked that if he could get Mr. Willard, the
steward of the Albany steamer, as its landlord, there would be no
fear as to its success.  Mr. Tayloe wrote to Mr. Willard, a native
of Westminster, Vermont, who came to Washington, and was soon, in
connection with his brother, F. D. Willard, in charge of Mr. Tayloe's
hotel, then called the City Hotel.  The Willards gave to this
establishment the same attention which had characterized their
labors on board of the steamboat.  They met their guests as they
alighted from the stages in which they came to Washington.  They
stood at the head of their dinner-tables, wearing white linen
aprons, and carved the joints of meat, the turkeys, and the game.
They were ever ready to courteously answer questions, and to do
all in their power to make a sojourn at the City Hotel homelike
and agreeable.

Success crowned these efforts to please the public, and the City
Hotel soon took the first rank among the _caravanserais_ of the
national metropolis.  Mr. E. D. Willard retired, and Mr. Henry A.
Willard took into partnership with him Mr. Joseph C. Willard, while
another brother, Mr. Caleb C. Willard, became the landlord of the
popular Ebbitt House.  In time it was determined to rebuild the
hotel, which was done under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Willard,
who was designed by nature for an architect.  When the house was
completed it was decided that it should be called henceforth
Willard's Hotel, and about one hundred gentlemen were invited to
a banquet given at its opening.  After the cloth was removed, the
health of the Messrs. Willard was proposed as the first toast, and
then Mr. Edward Everett was requested to make a reply.  He spoke
with his accustomed ease, saying that there are occasions when
deeds speak louder than words, and this was one of them.  Instead
of Mr. Willard returning thanks to the company present, it was the
company that was under obligations to him.  In fact, he thought
that in paying their respects to Mr. Willard, they were but doing
a duty, though certainly a duty most easily performed.  "There are
few duties in life," said Mr. Everett, "that require less nerve
than to come together and eat a good dinner.  There is very little
self-denial in that.  Indeed, self-denial is not the principle
which generally carries us to a hotel, although it sometimes happens
that we have to practice it while there."  Mr. Everett went on to
say that under the roof which sheltered them he had passed a winter
with John Quincy Adams, Chief Justice Marshall, Judge Story, Mr.
Calhoun, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster.  These were all gone, but with
them he could name another now living, and not unworthy to be
associated with them, Washington Irving.  "Think of men like these
gathered together at the same time around the festive board under
this roof!  That was, indeed, the feast of reason, not merely the
flash of merriment, which set the table in a roar, but that gushing
out of convivial eloquence; that cheerful interchange of friendly
feeling in which the politician and the partisan are forgotten.
Yes, gentlemen," Mr. Everett went on to say, "there were giants in
those days; giants in intellect, but in character and spirit they
were gentlemen, and in their familiar intercourse with each other
they had all the tenderness of brethren."

The new hall of the House of Representatives was finished about
this time.  It was throughout gayly decorated, and its ceiling
glittered with gilding, but it was walled in from all direct
communication with fresh air and sunlight.  Captain Meigs, of the
Engineer Corps, who had been intrusted by Secretary Davis with the
erection of the wings, had added to the architect's plans an
encircling row of committee-rooms and clerical offices.  Instead
of ventilating the hall by windows, a system was adopted patterned
after that tried in the English House of Commons, of pumping in
air heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and Captain
Meigs had thermometers made, each one bearing his name and rank,
in which the mercury could only ascend to ninety degrees and only
fall to twenty-four degrees above zero.  He thought that by his
system of artificial ventilation it would never be hotter or colder
than their limits; but he was woefully mistaken, and immense sums
have since been expended in endeavoring to remedy the deficient
ventilation.  The acoustic properties of the new hall were superior
to those of the classic and grand old hall, but with that exception,
the gaudily embellished new hall was less convenient, not so well
lighted and ventilated, and far inferior in dignified appearance
to the old one.

[Facsimile]
  Abbott Lawrence
ABBOTT LAWRENCE was born at Groton, Massachusetts, December 16th,
1792; was a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, 1835-
1837, and 1839-1840; was Minister to Great Britain, 1849.


CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS.

The entrance of William Pitt Fessenden into the Senate Chamber was
graphically sketched years afterward by Charles Sumner.  "He came,"
said the Senator from Massachusetts, "in the midst of that terrible
debate on the Kansas and Nebraska bill, by which the country was
convulsed to its centre, and his arrival had the effect of a
reinforcement on a field of battle.  Those who stood for freedom
then were few in numbers--not more than fourteen--while thirty-
seven Senators in solid column voted to break the faith originally
plighted to freedom, and to overturn a time-honored landmark,
opening that vast Mesopotamian region to the curse of slavery.
Those anxious days are with difficulty comprehended by a Senate
where freedom rules.  One more in our small number was a sensible
addition.  We were no longer fourteen, but fifteen.  His reputation
at the bar, and his fame in the other House, gave assurance which
was promptly sustained.  He did not wait, but at once entered into
the debate with all those resources which afterward became so
famous.  The scene that ensued exhibited his readiness and courage.
While saying that the people of the North were fatigued with the
threat of disunion, that they considered it as 'mere noise and
nothing else,' he was interrupted by Mr. Butler, of South Carolina,
always ready to speak for slavery, exclaiming, 'If such sentiments
as yours prevail I want a dissolution, right away'--a characteristic
intrusion doubly out of order.  To which the newcomer rejoined,
'Do not delay it on my account; do not delay it on account of
anybody at the North.'  The effect was electric; but this incident
was not alone.  Douglas, Cass, and Butler interrupted only to be
worsted by one who had just ridden into the lists.  The feelings
on the other side were expressed by the Senator from South Carolina,
who, after one of the flashes of debate which he had provoked,
exclaimed:  'Very well, go on; I have no hope of you!'  All this
will be found in the _Globe_ precisely as I give it, but the _Globe_
could not picture the exciting scene--the Senator from Maine, erect,
firm, immovable as a jutting promontory, against which the waves
of ocean tossed and broke in a dissolving spray.  There he stood.
Not a Senator, loving freedom, who did not feel on that day that
a champion had come."

A most extraordinary claim was presented at Washington during the
Pierce Administration by Mr. Francis B. Hayes, a respectable
attorney, who had Reverdy Johnson as his legal adviser.  It was
from the heirs of Sir William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, who
was regarded as the most brilliant man in the courts of James VI.
and of Charles I.  He received from these monarchs grants of an
immense domain in North America, including, in addition to Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, and Canada, a
considerable portion of Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin, together
with a strip of land reaching from the headwaters of Lake Superior
to the Gulf of California, and "the lands and bounds adjacent to
the said Gulf on the west and south, whether they be found a part
of the continent or mainland, or an island," as it was thought they
were, which was commonly called and distinguished by the name of
California.

The immensity of this land-claim was sufficient to defeat it, and
it was asserted that the claimant, whose father had established
his title to the Earldom of Stirling in the Scotch courts, was a
pretender, and that the most important papers substantiating the
claim were forgeries.  Just then there appeared in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ an elaborate article of more than sixty pages, showing
up the worthlessness of the claim, and the _North American Review_
published a reply, in which it said:  "If the present claimant is
indeed (as we believe him to be) the legal representative of the
first Earl, there can be no doubt that he is, morally speaking,
entitled to the principal and interest of the debt secured by royal
bond to his ancestor, and that it would not be unworthy the
magnanimity of both the British Government and our own to tender
him some honorable consideration for the entire loss to his family,
through the fortunes of war, of revenue and benefit from the _bona
fide_ and, for the times, immense outlay of his ancestor in the
colonization of the Western wilderness."  No capitalists were found,
however, who were willing to advance the funds for the prosecution
of the claim, and Lord Stirling finally accepted a department
clerkship, which he creditably filled.

The last winter of President Pierce's Administration was a very
gay one at Washington.  In addition to the official and public
entertainments at the White House, Secretaries McClelland and Davis,
and several of the foreign Ministers, gave elegant evening parties,
the Southern element predominating in them.  Senator Seward and
Speaker Banks also gave evening receptions, and the leading
Republicans generally congregated at the pleasant evening tea-
parties at the residence of Mr. Bailey, the editor of the _Era_,
where Miss Dodge, afterward known in literature as "Gail Hamilton,"
enlivened the cozy parlors with her sparkling conversation.

The wedding of Judge Douglas was a social event.  His first wife
had been Miss Martin, a North Carolina lady, who was the mother of
his two young sons, who inherited from her a plantation which had
belonged to her father in Lawrence County, Mississippi, on which
there were upward of a hundred slaves.  The "Little Giant's" second
wife was Miss Ada Cutts, a Washington belle, the daughter of Richard
Cutts, who was for twelve years a Representative from Maine when
it was a district of Massachusetts, and afterward Comptroller of
the Treasury.  Miss Cutts was tall, very beautiful, and well
qualified by education and deportment to advance her husband's
political interests.  She was a devout Roman Catholic, and they
were married in a Roman Catholic Church, where the bridegroom did
not seem at home.  She had no children, and after having been for
some years a widow, she was married a second time to Colonel
Williams, of the Adjutant General's Department of the Army.

The last session under the Pierce Administration was a stormy one.
Vice-President Breckinridge delivered an eloquent address when the
Senate removed into its new chamber, which was followed by angry
debates on the tariff, the Pacific Railroad, the fish bounties,
the admission of Minnesota, and the submarine telegraph to England.

In the House Mr. Banks won laurels as Speaker, displaying a thorough
acquaintance with the intricacies of parliamentary rules and prompt
action in those cases when excited Representatives sought to set
precedence at defiance.  There was an investigation into a charge
of bribery and corruption, made by Mr. Simonton, the correspondent
of the New York _Times_, and he was kept in the custody of the
Sergeant-at-Arms for not giving the facts upon which he had based
his charges.  It was evident to all, however, that Mr. Simonton
was correct when he stated that "a corrupt organization of Congressmen
and certain lobby-agents existed."

With the exception of a few favored ones, the officers of the army
were glad when the termination of the term of service of Colonel
Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War approached.  He had acted as
though he was Commander-in-Chief, treating the heads of bureaus as
if they were his orderlies, and directing everything, from a review
down to the purchase of shoe-blacking.  He also changed the patterns
of uniforms, arms, and equipments several times, and it was after
one of these changes that he received a communication from Lieutenant
Derby, well known in literary circles as John Phoenix, suggesting
that each private have a stout iron hook projecting from a round
plate, to be strongly sewed on the rear of his trousers.  Illustrations
showed the uses to which this hook could be put.  In one, a soldier
was shown on the march, carrying his effects suspended from this
hook; in another, a row of men were hung by their hooks on a fence,
fast asleep; in a third, a company was shown advancing in line of
battle, each man having a rope attached to his hook, the other end
of which was held by an officer in the rear, who could restrain
him if he advanced too rapidly, or haul him back if he was wounded.
When Secretary Davis received this he was in a towering rage, and
he announced that day at a Cabinet meeting that he intended to have
Lieutenant Derby tried before a court-martial "organized to convict"
and summarily dismissed.  But the other Secretaries, who enjoyed
the joke, convinced him that if the affair became public he would
be laughed at, and he abandoned the prosecution of the daring artist-
author.

Mr. Healy came to Washington in the last winter of the Pierce
Administration, and painted several capital portraits.  Mr. Ames,
of Boston, who exhibited a life-like portrait of Daniel Webster,
and Mr. Powell also set up their easels, to execute orders.  Captain
Eastman, of the army, was at work on the sketches for the illustrations
of Schoolcraft's great work on the Indians, and Mr. Charles Lanman,
the author-artist, added to his already well-filled portfolios of
landscapes.  Mr. George West, known to fame as a painter of Chinese
life, was engaged by Captain Meigs to paint prominent naval events
in spaces in the elaborate frescoing on the walls of the Senate
Committee on Naval Affairs, but after he had completed two he
refused to submit to the military rule of Meigs, and stopped work.
What he had done was then painted out.  An Italian fresco-painter,
Mr. Brimidi, was more obedient to orders and willing to answer the
roll-calls, so he was permitted to cover the interior walls of the
new Capitol with his work--allegorical, historical, diabolical,
and mythological.

President Pierce was the most popular man personally that ever
occupied the Presidential chair.  When, in 1855, the Orange and
Alexandria Railroad was completed to Culpepper Court-House, Virginia,
John S. Barbour, president of the road, invited a number of gentlemen
to inspect it and partake of a barbecue.  President Pierce, Mr.
Bodisco, the Russian Minister, and other distinguished officials
were of the invited guests.  The party went to Alexandria by steamer,
and on landing there found a train awaiting them, with a baggage-
car fitted up as a lunch-room.  The President was in excellent
spirits, and when the excursionists reached the place where the
barbecue was held, he enjoyed a succession of anecdotes told by
the best story tellers of the party.  The feast of barbecued meats
was afterward enjoyed, and early in the afternoon the party again
took the cars to return.  On the return trip a gentleman with an
enormous beard, having imbibed very freely, leaned his head on the
back of the seat and went to sleep.  A blind boy got in at one of
the stations, and moving along the aisle of the car, his hand came
in contact with the man's beard, which he mistook for a lap-dog,
and began to pat, saying "Pretty puppy, pretty puppy."  This
attention disturbed the sleeper, who gave a loud snort, when the
boy jumped back and said, "You wouldn't bite a blind boy, would
you?"  President Pierce was much amused with this occurrence, and
often spoke of it when he met those who had witnessed it with him.

Mr. George W. Childs, then a courteous and genial book publisher
in Philadelphia, endeavored to obtain from Congress an order for
an edition of Dr. Kane's work on the Arctic regions.  The House
passed the requisite resolution, but the Senate refused to concur,
although it had ordered the publication of several expensive accounts
of explorations at the far West.  The Congressional _imprimatur_
was also refused to the report of the Hon. J. R. Bartlett, who was
the civilian member of the Joint Commission which had established
the new boundary between the United States and Mexico.  He had
refused to bow down and worship the "brass coats and blue buttons"
of his military associates, so his valuable labors were ignored,
while an enormous sum was expended in illustrating and publishing
the work of Major Emory, the ranking army officer on the Commission.

[Facsimile]
  Nathl P. Banks
NATHANIEL PRENTISS BANKS was born at Waltham, Massachusetts, January
30th, 1816; was a Representative in Congress, December 5th, 1853,
to December 4th, 1857, when he resigned, having served as Speaker
in the Thirty-fourth Congress; was Governor of Massachusetts,
January 1858, to January, 1861; served throughout the war as major-
general of volunteers; was a Representative in Congress, December
4th, 1865, to March 3d, 1873, and again December 6th, 1875, to
March 3d, 1877; was appointed United States Marshal for the district
of Massachusetts.


CHAPTER XL.
EXCITING PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST.

As the time for the Presidential election of 1856 approached, the
Democrats, thoroughly alarmed by the situation, determined to make
a last struggle for Southern supremacy, and Washington was agitated
by the friends of the prominent candidates for the Democratic
nomination for months before the National Convention at Cincinnati.

President Pierce earnestly desired a renomination, and had distributed
"executive patronage" over the country in a way which he hoped
would secure him a majority of the delegates.  He had done all in
his power to promote the interests of the South, but success had
not crowned his efforts, and he was ungratefully dropped, as Daniel
Webster had been before him.

James Buchanan, then in the sixty-fifth year of his age, had started
in public life as a Federalist, and in 1819 had united in a call
for a public meeting to protest against the admission of Missouri
as a slave State.  But he had become converted to pro-slavery
Democracy, and although he had been defeated three times in Democratic
Conventions as a candidate for the Presidential nomination, he was
regarded as the most "available" candidate by those who had been
in past years identified with the Whigs.  His political views are
summed up in the following extract from one of his speeches in
Congress:  "If I know myself, I am a politician neither of the West
nor the East, of the North nor of the South.  I therefore shall
forever avoid any expressions the direct tendency of which must be
to create sectional jealousies, and at length disunion--that worst
of all political calamities."  That he endeavored in his future
career to act in accordance with this uncertain policy no candid
mind can doubt.

Stephen A. Douglas' doctrine of "squatter sovereignty" was repudiated
by the Southern Democrats with but few exceptions.  Bold, dashing,
and energetic in all that he undertook, with almost superhuman
powers of physical endurance, he even forced the admiration of men
who did not agree with his opinions.  No man ever lived in this
country who could go before the masses "on the stump," and produce
such a marked effect, and his personal magnetism won him many
friends.  One day the "Little Giant," going up to Beverly Tucker,
a prominent Virginia politician, threw his arm on his shoulder,
and said, in his impulsive way, "Bev., old boy, I love you."
"Douglas," says Tucker, "will you _always_ love me?"  "Yes," says
Douglas, "I will."  "But," persisted Tucker, "will you love me when
you get to be President?"  "If I don't, may I be blanked!" says
Douglas.  "What do you want me to do for you?"  "Well," says Tucker,
"when you get to be President, all I want you to do for me is to
pick some public place, and put your arm around my neck, just as
you are doing now, and _call me Bev.!_"  Douglas was much amused,
and used to relate the circumstance with great glee.

General Cass had a few faithful friends, and Henry A. Wise, of
Virginia, who was a blatant Buchanan man, was not without hope that
he himself might receive the nomination.

Many of the delegates to the Cincinnati Convention passed some time
in Washington City.  Massachusetts sent Charles Gordon Greene, the
veteran editor of the Boston _Post;_ Benjamin F. Butler, then known
as a smart Lowell lawyer, and the old anti-Mason, Ben. F. Hallet,
then United States District Attorney.  Among the Kentuckians were
the gallant John C. Breckinridge, the pugnacious Charles A. Wickliffe,
J. W. Stevenson, and T. C. McCreery, afterward Governors and
Senators, and the courteous William C. Preston, afterward Minister
to Spain.  From Louisiana were Senators Slidell and Benjamin,
prominently connected with the Rebellion a few years later, and
Pierre Soulé.  Florida was to be represented by Senator Yulee, of
Israelitish extraction, who in early life spelled his name L-e-v-i.
Then there were Vallandingham, of Ohio; Captain Isaiah Rynders,
of New York; James S. Green, of Missouri; James A. Bayard, of
Delaware, and other party magnates, who all expressed their desire
to sink all personal grievances to secure victory.

The Democrats met in Convention at Cincinnati, where the friends
of each candidate had their headquarters, that of Mr. Douglas being
graced by Dan Sickles, Tom Hyer, Isaiah Rynders, and other New York
politicians, while at a private house leased by Mr. S. M. Barlow,
the claims of Buchanan were urged by Senators Bayard, Benjamin,
Bright, and Slidell.  General Pierce had few friends beyond the
holders of Federal offices, and General Cass received a cold support
from a half-dozen old friends.

The first two days were occupied in settling the claims of contestants
to seats.  The anti-Benton delegates from Missouri were admitted,
and the New York wrangle was finally settled by adopting the minority
report of the Committee on Credentials, which admitted both the
"Hards" and the "Softs," giving each half a vote.  On the first
ballot, Buchanan had one hundred and thirty-five votes, Pierce one
hundred and twenty-three, Douglas thirty-three, and Cass five.
The balloting was continued during four days, when, on the sixteenth
ballot (the name of Pierce having been withdrawn), Buchanan received
one hundred and sixty-eight votes, Douglas one hundred and twenty-
one, and Cass four and a half.  Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, then
withdrew the name of Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Buchanan was unanimously
nominated.  The Convention then balloted for a candidate for Vice-
President, and on the second ballot John C. Breckinridge was
nominated.

The Native Americans and the Republicans flattered themselves that
the Democratic party had been reduced to a mere association of men,
whose only aim was the spoils of victory.  Indeed, Mr. Lewis D.
Campbell, of Ohio, asserted in a public speech that "were President
Pierce to send out all his force of marshals and deputy marshals
to find such a party, each one provided with a national search-warrant,
they would fail to discover the fugitive!  It, too, has departed!
His marshals would have to make returns upon their writs similar
to that of the Kentucky constable.  A Kentucky fight once occurred
at a tavern on 'Bar Grass!'  One of the combatants broke a whisky
bottle over the head of his antagonist.  The result was a State's
warrant.  The defendant fled through a corn-field, over the creek,
into a swamp, and there climbed a stump.  Seating himself in the
fork, he drew his 'bowie,' and as the constable approached in
pursuit, he addressed him:

"'Now, Mr. Constable, you want to take me, and I give you fair
warning that if you attempt to climb this stump, by the Eternal!
I'll take you!'  The constable, who had been about the court-house
enough to learn some of the technical terms used in returning writs,
went back to the 'Squire's office, and indorsed upon the warrant:
'Non est inventus! through fieldibus, across creekum, in swampum,
up stumpum, non comeatibus!'  So it is with the old Jackson Democratic
party--'non comeatibus!'"

The Democratic party, however, was in a better condition than its
opponents imagined.  President Pierce entered heartily into the
campaign, Jefferson Davis and Stephen A. Douglas worked shoulder
to shoulder, and Mr. Buchanan proved to be a model candidate.  When
his old friend, Mr. Nahum Capen, of Boston, sent to him a campaign
life for his indorsement he declined, saying:  "After reflection
and consultation, I stated in my letter of acceptance substantially
that I would make no issues beyond the platform, and have, therefore,
avoided giving my sanction to any publications containing opinions
with which I might be identified and prove unsatisfactory to some
portions of the Union.  I must continue to stand on this ground."

The Governors of the Southern States were satisfied with the
nomination of Mr. Buchanan, although the leading secessionists
avowed their intention to avail themselves of the opportunity for
organizing a rebellion which they hoped would prove a revolution.
Officers of the army and navy, born at the South, or who had married
Southern wives, were appealed to stand by the States to which they
first owed allegiance, and accessions to those willing to desert
the Union when their States called for their services were announced.
Prominent among those officers who intimated that their intention
was to serve Virginia rather than the Federal Government was Colonel
Robert E. Lee.  A Virginian by birth, he had married the only child
of George Washington Parke Custis, and when not on duty away from
Washington he resided at "Arlington."  On Sundays he worshiped in
Christ Church, at Alexandria, occupying the family pew in which
George Washington used to sit.

The National American Convention had met at Philadelphia on the
19th of February, and (after an exciting discussion of the slavery
question, followed by the withdrawal of the Abolitionists) nominated
Fillmore and Donelson.  This ticket was adopted at an eminently
respectable convention of the Whig leaders, then without followers,
held at Baltimore on the 17th of September.

Some of Mr. Seward's friends desired to have him nominated by the
Republicans at their National Convention, to be held at Philadelphia
on the 17th of June, but Thurlow Weed saw that he could not receive
as many votes as were cast for Scott in 1852, and advocated the
nomination of John C. Fremont, the "Pathfinder," whose young and
pretty daughter might be seen every pleasant afternoon riding on
horseback on Pennsylvania Avenue with her old grandfather, Colonel
Thomas H. Benton.  "Old Blair, of the _Globe_," and his two sons,
Preston King, of New York, John Van Buren, and David Wilmot, with
other distinguished and disgruntled Democrats, with several clever
young journalists, created a great enthusiasm for Colonel Fremont.
Mr. Bailey, of the Washington _Era_, with a few old Whigs, advocated
the nomination of Judge McLean, while Burlingame, at the head of
the "Young America," or Know-Nothing branch of the party, endeavored
to get up enthusiasm for Mr. Speaker Banks, "the bobbin-boy."

When the Republican National Convention met there were self-styled
delegates from Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia, but it
was, in fact, a convention of nearly a thousand delegates from the
free States.  An informal ballot showed that Fremont had a large
majority and he was unanimously nominated.  Mr. Dayton, of New
Jersey, was nominated as Vice-President, defeating Nathaniel P.
Banks, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, and David Wilmot.

The Republicans endeavored to revive the excitements of the Log
Cabin campaign, and a considerable zeal was manifested by the
Americans, the Democrats, and the Whigs, but Mr. Buchanan received
the electoral votes of five large free States, and of every Southern
State with the exception of Maryland, which gave its vote for Mr.
Fillmore.  Colonel Fremont received the vote of every Northern
State with the exception of California, Illinois, Indiana, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania.  Mr. Buchanan was astonished at the large
vote which he had received, and he regarded this as a proof that
what he called "Abolition fanaticism" had at last been checked.

The electoral votes for President and Vice-President were counted,
in accordance with the established custom, in the Hall of the House
of Representatives.  The Senators went there in procession, advanced
up the middle aisle, and took seats provided for them in the area
in front of the Speaker's chair, the Representatives receiving them
"standing and in silence."  Mr. Speaker Banks handed his "gavel"
to Judge Mason, President of the Senate _pro tempore_, and the
venerable old fogies took arm-chairs in the area before the table.
Senator Bigler, of Pennsylvania, with Messrs. Jones, of Tennessee,
and Howard, of Ohio duly appointed tellers, then took possession
of the clerk's desk, and the proceedings commenced.  State by State,
the Chairman took the packages, broke the seals, and handed the
documents to the tellers, by one of whom they were read.  Maine
led off with "Fremont and Dayton," and for awhile it was all that
way.  But the Pathfinder stuck in the sands of New Jersey, and then
"Old Buck" began to make a showing, varied by the Maryland vote
for Millard Fillmore.  Everything went along "beautiful," and the
vote had been announced by the tellers, when objection was made to
the vote of Wisconsin, which was one day late, owing to a snow
storm.

A regular scene of confusion ensued, in which their high mightinesses,
the Senators, became intensely aroused.  The great Michigander
growled like an angry bear, and old Judge Butler became terribly
excited, his long hair standing out in every direction, like that
of a doll charged with electric fluid.  At last he led the van,
and the Senators withdrew in great dudgeon, to cool off as they
passed through the Rotunda.  In due time they returned, however,
and after a little talk the vote was officially announced.  The
Senate then retired, the House adjourned, and the country turned
its expectant eyes toward the coming Administration.

[Facsimile]
  Winfield Scott
    Lieut Genl U. S.
WINFIELD SCOTT was born at Petersburg, Virginia, June 13th, 1786;
received a liberal education; was admitted to the bar and practiced
a few years; entered the army in 1808 as a captain of light artillery;
commanded on the northern frontier and won the battles of Chippewa
and Lundy's Lane in 1814; defeated Black Hawk in 1812; commanded
in the Mexican campaign, which resulted in the capture of the City
of Mexico in September, 1847; was defeated as the Whig candidate
for President in 1852; was commissioned as Lieutenant-General in
1855, and died at New York, May 29th, 1866.


CHAPTER XLI.
MISS LANE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

After the election of Mr. Buchanan, his home at Lancaster, "Wheatland,"
was a political Mecca, to which leading Democrats from all sections
made pilgrimages.  Mr. Buchanan, who was experienced in public
affairs, appointed his nephew, Mr. J. Buchanan Henry, a well-informed
young gentleman, recently admitted to the Philadelphia bar, as his
private secretary, and made him indorse brief statements of their
contents on each of the numerous letters of recommendation for
office which he received.

A few weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Buchanan visited Washington,
that he might confer with his leading political friends.  He
entertained a large party of them at dinner at the National Hotel,
after which nearly all of those present suffered from the effects
of poison taken into their systems from an impure water supply,
and some of them never recovered.

Mr. Buchanan was accompanied, when he left his home to be inaugurated,
by Miss Harriet Lane, his niece, a graceful blonde with auburn hair
and violet eyes, who had passed a season in London when her uncle
was the American Minister there, and who was as discreet as she
was handsome, amiable, and agreeable.  With her, to aid in keeping
house in the Executive Mansion, was "Miss Hetty" Parker, who had
for years presided over Mr. Buchanan's bachelor's-hall, and his
private secretary, Mr. J. Buchanan Henry.

On his arrival at Washington, Mr. Buchanan was taken to a suite of
rooms prepared for him at the National Hotel, but he soon after
went to the house of Mr. W. W. Corcoran, the generous founder of
the Corcoran Gallery of Art, where he remained until his inauguration.
On the morning after his arrival, the _National Intelligencer_ gave
the following as the probable composition of his Cabinet:  Secretary
of State, Lewis Cass, of Michigan; Secretary of the Treasury, Howell
Cobb, of Georgia; Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, of Virginia;
Secretary of the Navy, Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee; Secretary of
the Interior, J. Thompson, of Mississippi; Postmaster-General, J.
Glancy Jones, of Pennsylvania; Attorney-General, Isaac Toucey, of
Connecticut.  It was also said that Mr. Jones had declined, and
that the position of Postmaster-General had been tendered to W. C.
Alexander, of New Jersey.  This programme, arranged by Mr. Buchanan
before he had left his home, was but slightly changed.  Mr. Toucey
was made Secretary of the Navy, Aaron V. Brown, Postmaster-General,
and Jere Black was brought in as Attorney-General.  But these
carefully made arrangements failed to beget confidence.  Republicans
were defiant, as were men of the dominant party, and everywhere
there were apprehensions.

The inaugural message had been written at Wheatland, where Mr. J.
Buchanan Henry had copied Mr. Buchanan's drafts and re-copied them
with alterations and amendments, until the document was satisfactory.
It met the approval of the selected Cabinet when read to them at
Washington, the only change being the insertion of a clause shadowing
the forthcoming Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court as one
that would dispose of a vexed and troublesome topic by the highest
authority.

It was also arranged that Mr. Buchanan's friend, Mr. John Appleton,
who had represented the Portland district in Congress, and had
served as Minister to Bolivia and as Secretary of Legation at Paris,
should edit the Washington _Union_, which was to be the "organ" of
the new Administration.  Mr. Appleton's salary, with the other
expenses of the paper above its receipts, were to be paid by Mr.
Cornelius Wendell, as a consideration for the printing and binding
for the Executive Departments.

Major Heiss, who had made sixty thousand dollars on the public
printing, and then lost forty thousand dollars in publishing the
New Orleans _Delta_, established a paper called _The States_, which
was to be the organ of the filibusters and the secessionists.  He
was aided by Major Harris, a son-in-law of General Armstrong, who
had made his fortune while Senate Printer, other parties doing the
work for about half of what was paid for it.  Mr. Henri Watterson,
who had been born at Washington, while his father represented a
Tennessee district in the House, commenced his brilliant editorial
career as a reporter on _The States_.

At midnight on the third of March, the fine band of P. S. Gilmore,
which had accompanied the Charlestown City Guard to Washington,
formed in front of Mr. Corcoran's house, beneath the windows of
the chamber occupied by Mr. Buchanan, and played "Hail to the
Chief," followed by the "Star Spangled Banner" and "Hail Columbia."
The city was filled that night with strangers, many of whom could
not find sleeping-places.  Every hotel was crammed, every boarding-
house was crowded, private houses were full, and even the circus
tent was turned into a dormitory at fifty cents a head.

Congress was in session all night, and the Capitol was crowded.
Just prior to the final adjournment of the House, the newspaper
correspondents, who had received many courtesies from Mr. Speaker
Banks, united in writing him a letter of thanks.  In his reply he
said:  "The industry and early intelligence which gave value to
your labors are often the subject of commendation, and to this I
am happy to add that, so far as I am able to judge, you have been
guided as much by a desire to do justice to individuals as to
promote the public weal."

The sun rose in a fog and was greeted by a salute from the Navy
Yard and the Arsenal, while the rattling notes of the "reveille"
were heard on all sides, and hundreds of large American flags were
displayed from public and private buildings.  The streets were
filled with soldiers, firemen, badge-bedecked politicians, and
delighted negroes.  Well-mounted staff officers and marshals galloped
to and fro, directing military and civic organizations to their
positions in the procession.  The departments were closed, and the
clerks were anxiously discussing the probability of a rotation in
office which would force them to seek other employment.

As noon approached, carriages conveyed the privileged few to the
Capitol, where, at "high twelve," the gallant and gifted John C.
Breckinridge solemnly swore to protect and defend the Constitution.
He then administered the same oath to Jefferson Davis and other
new Senators.

Meanwhile that gallant Mexican War veteran, General Quitman, who
commanded the military, had been formally received, and had given
the word "March!"  Colonel W. W. Selden, the Chief Marshal, had at
least thirty gentlemen as aides, all finely mounted and handsomely
attired, with uniform sashes and saddlecloths, forming a gallant
troop.  At the head of the column was the Light Battery K, of the
First Regular Artillery, commanded by Major William H. French.
Next came a battalion of marines, headed by the full Marine Band,
in their showy scarlet uniforms.  Twenty-four companies of volunteer
militia followed, prominent among them the Albany Burgess Corps,
with Dodworth's Band; the Charlestown City Guard, with Gilmore's
Band; the Lancaster Fencibles; the Willard Guard, from Auburn, New
York; the Law Grays, and a German Rifle Company, from Baltimore.

Following the escort, in an open carriage drawn by two fine gray
horses, sat President Pierce and President-elect Buchanan.  Flowers
were thrown into the carriage as it passed along, and cheers drowned
the music of the bands.  The carriage was followed by political
clubs from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Lancaster, each
having its band and banners.  The Washington Democratic Association
had a decorated car, drawn by six horses, from which rose a liberty
pole seventy feet high, carrying a large American flag.  This and
a full-rigged miniature ship-of-war were gotten up at the Washington
Navy Yard.

On reaching the Capitol, Mr. Buchanan was escorted to the Senate
Chamber.  Mr. Breckinridge had been sworn in as Vice-President,
and a procession was soon formed with him at its head, which moved
to the platform erected in the usual place over the steps of the
eastern portico.  As he came out, dressed with his habitual precision
in a suit of black, and towering above the surrounding throng, the
thoughtful gravity of his features hushed the impatient crowd.
There was a second of intense quiet, then cheer after cheer rent
the air.  Soon he was surrounded by the magnates of the land, civil,
military, and naval, with the Diplomatic Corps and a number of
elegantly dressed ladies.  Advancing to the front of the platform
he read his inaugural address from manuscript in a clear, distinct
tone, and when he had concluded, reverentially took the oath of
office, which, as with several of his predecessors, was administered
by the venerable Chief Justice Taney.  The cheers of the multitude
were echoed by a President's salute, fired by the Light Artillery
near by, and repeated at the Navy Yard and at the Arsenal.  The
procession was then re-formed and escorted the President to the
White House, where he held an impromptu reception.

As there was no hall in Washington large enough to contain more
than six hundred people, a temporary annex to the City Hall was
erected by the managers of the Inauguration Ball.  The interior
was decorated with the flags of all nations, and the ceiling was
of white cloth, studded with golden stars, which twinkled as they
were moved in unison with the measure of the dancers below, and
reflected the blaze of light from large gas chandeliers.

Mr. Buchanan arrived about eleven o'clock, accompanied by Miss
Lane, and was received by Major Magruder, who very discreetly spared
him the infliction of a speech.  Miss Lane wore a white dress
trimmed with artificial flowers, similar to those which ornamented
her hair, and clasping her throat was a necklace of many strands
of sea pearls.  She was escorted by Senator Jones and the venerable
General Jessup in full uniform.

The most beautiful among the many ladies present was the wife of
Senator Douglas, who was dressed in bridal white, with a cluster
of orange-blossoms on her classically formed head.  Senators Cameron
and Dixon, with their wives, were the only Republican members of
the upper house present, but there was no lack of those from sunnier
climes, with their ladies, among whom Mrs. Slidell, who was something
of an oracle in political circles, was conspicuous.  Mrs. Senator
Thompson, of New Jersey, dressed in white, with silver ornaments,
was much admired.  The ladies of the Diplomatic Corps were elegantly
attired, especially Madame de Sartiges, the wife of the French
Minister.  President Buchanan and suite were first admitted, with
the Committee, to the supper-table.  Dancing was kept up until
daylight, and although the consumption of punch, wines, and liquors
was great, there were no signs of intoxication.

Two days after Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated Chief Justice Taney,
of the Supreme Court, gave a decision in the Dred Scott case, in
which he virtually declared that "negroes have no rights which
white men are bound to respect."  Dred Scott had been a slave in
Missouri, belonging to Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the United States
Army, who had taken him, in the performance of his official duties,
to Illinois, and thence to Minnesota.  Returning with him to
Missouri, Dred Scott was whipped, and claiming that he had secured
his freedom by a residence in a free State and a free Territory,
he brought suit for assault and battery.  Meanwhile Dr. Emerson
died, leaving to his widow and to his only daughter a considerable
slave property, among them Dred Scott.  Mrs. Emerson afterward
married Dr. Calvin C. Chaffee, who came into Congress on the Know-
Nothing wave and afterward became a Republican.  The suit brought
by Dred Scott was defended by the administrator of the Emerson
estate, on behalf and with the consent of the wife of Dr. Chaffee
and the daughter, who were the heirs-at-law.  The final decision of
the Supreme Court that Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United
States and could not sue in the United States Court remanded him
and his family to the chattelhood of Mrs. Chaffee.  This decision
was a great victory for the South, as it not only reduced all
persons of African descent to a level with inanimate property, but
asserted that a slave-holder could go to any part of the country,
taking his slaves and preserving his ownership in them.

Mr. Justice B. R. Curtis, who had been appointed by President
Fillmore on the recommendation of Daniel Webster, dissented.  He
furnished a copy of his dissenting opinion for publication in the
newspapers, but the majority opinion was not forthcoming, and the
clerk of the court said that the Chief Justice had forbidden its
delivery.  Shortly afterward, Judge Curtis, having heard that
extensive alterations had been made in the majority opinion, sent
from Boston to Washington, being himself then in Massachusetts,
for a copy.  He was refused.  A long and bitter correspondence
ensued between him and Judge Taney.  He claimed the right, which
he undoubtedly possessed, to consult the record for the further
discharge of his official duties.  Judge Taney denied the right,
and obtained an order of court forbidding anybody to see the opinion
before its official publication in the Reports.  The clerk of the
court finally offered to supply manuscript copies of the decision
at seven hundred and fifty dollars each, but the indefatigable
Cornelius Wendell succeeded in obtaining a copy and printed a large
edition in pamphlet form for gratuitous distribution.

[Facsimile]
  John B. Floyd
JOHN BUCHANAN FLOYD was born in Montgomery County, Va., in 1805;
was Governor of Virginia, 1850-1853; was Secretary of War under
President Buchanan, 1857-1860; was a Confederate brigadier-general,
1861-1863; died at Abingdon, Va., August 26th, 1863.


CHAPTER XLII.
DIPLOMACY, SOCIETY, AND CIVIL SERVICE.

President Buchanan was virtually his own Secretary of State, although
he had courteously placed his defeated rival, General Cass, at the
head of the State Department.  Nearly all of the important diplomatic
correspondence, however, was dictated by Mr. Buchanan, who had,
like Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, served as Secretary of State,
and who was thoroughly versed in foreign relations.  General Thomas,
the Assistant Secretary of State, was soon dismissed, and Mr. John
Appleton was persuaded to leave the editorial chair of the Washington
_Union_ and take his place.

The British Government, which had pleasant personal recollections
of Mr. Buchanan, promptly sent Lord Napier as Minister Plenipotentiary,
no successor to the dismissed Sir John Crampton having being
accredited during the Administration of President Pierce.  The new
Minister was a Scotchman by birth, slender in figure, with light
hair and blue eyes, and thoroughly trained in British diplomacy.
He was an especial protégé of Lord Palmerston, and Lord Clarendon
had placed the olive-branch in his hand with his instructions.
The press of England proclaimed that he had instructions to render
himself acceptable to the Government and the people of the United
States, and to do all in his power to promote kind feelings between
the two countries.  Soon after he landed at New York he made a
speech at the annual dinner of the St. George's Society, in which
he repudiated the previous distrustful and vexatious policy of the
British Foreign Office towards the United States, and declared that
the interests of the two countries were so completely identified
that their policy should never be at variance.

The claim by Great Britain of the right to search vessels belonging
to the United States which her naval officers might suspect to be
slave-traders, and the establishment of a British protectorate over
the Mosquito coast, in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine, were knotty
questions.  Lord Napier, evidently, was not capable of conducting
the negotiations on them in a manner satisfactory to Lord Palmerston,
who sent to Washington as his adviser Sir William Gore Ouseley, a
veteran diplomat.  He was not in any way accredited to the United
States Government, but was named Special Minister to Central America,
and stopped at Washington on his way there, renting the Madison
House, on Lafayette Square, and entertaining there with great
liberality.

Sir William Gore Ouseley, who was a Knight Commander of the Bath,
had resided at Washington as an attaché to the British Legation
forty years previously, while Mr. Vaughan was Minister, and had
then entered personally into a treaty of permanent peace and amity
with the United States by marrying the daughter of Governor Van
Ness, of Vermont.  Miss Van Ness was a young lady of great beauty,
residing at the metropolis with her uncle, General Van Ness, at
one time the Mayor of Washington.  Sir William afterward visited
Persia as the historian of the embassy of his uncle, Sir Gore
Ouseley, and his published work contained much new information in
relation to that then almost unknown portion of the world.  He had
afterward been connected with the British Legations in Spain,
Brazil, and Buenos Ayres, and his acquaintance with the Spanish
race, language, and literature was probably equal, if not superior,
to that of any other Englishman.  He was the author of a valuable
work on the United States, and also of an expensive and illustrated
volume on the scenery of Brazil.

It was doubtless due to considerations such as there, the special
acquaintanceship of this veteran diplomat with the character,
circumstances, and views of the several nationalities involved in
the difficulties to be arranged, which had prevailed over mere
political affinities and induced his selection by Lord Palmerston
for the errand on which he came to Washington.  His personal
relations with Lord Napier were very friendly, and Mr. Buchanan
was the friend of both, having known Lady Ouseley before her
marriage.  For some months the Ouseleys were prominent in Washington
society.  Lady Ouseley frequently had the honor of being escorted
by the President in her afternoon walks, sometimes attended by her
daughter, who wore the first crimson balmoral petticoat seen in
Washington.  When President Buchanan and Miss Lane took their summer
flight for Bedford Springs, the Ouseleys were their traveling
companions, sharing their private table, and their entertainments
at Washington were numerous and expensive.

At one of these, Lady Ouseley wore a rich, blue brocade trimmed
with Honiton lace, with a wreath of blue flowers upon her hair,
fastened at each side by a diamond brooch; Miss Lane, the President's
niece, wore a dress of black tulle, ornamented with bunches of gold
leaves, and a head-dress of gold grapes; Miss Cass, the stately
daughter of the Premier of the Administration, was magnificently
attired in pearl-colored silk, with point-lace flounces but wore
no jewelry of any kind; Mrs. Brown, the wife of the Postmaster-
General, wore a rich pink silk dress, with pink roses in her hair;
Mrs. Thompson, the wife of the Secretary of the Interior, wore a
pink silk dress with lace flounces, and a head-dress of pink flowers;
Madame Sartiges, the wife of the French Minister, wore a rich chene
silk, and was accompanied with her niece, dressed in pink tarlatan;
Madame Stoeckl, the wife of the Russian Minister, looked as stately
as a queen and beautiful as a Hebe in a dress of white silk, with
black lace flounces, cherry-colored flowers, and gold beads; Miss
Schambaugh, of Philadelphia, who was called the handsomest woman
in the United States, wore a white-flounced tarlatan dress trimmed
with festoons of dark chenille, with a head-dress of red japonicas;
Mrs. Pendleton, the wife of the Representative from the Cincinnati
District, wore a white silk skirt with a blue tunic trimmed with
bright colors; Mrs. McQueen, the wife of a South Carolina
Representative, wore a rich black velvet, and Mrs. Boyce, from the
same State, wore a lilac silk dress trimmed with black illusion;
Mrs. Sickles, wife of the Representative from New York, wore a blue
silk dress, with rich point lace flowers, and was accompanied by
her mother, who wore a lavender brocade dress, woven with gold and
silver flowers, and Miss Woodbury, a daughter of the late Judge
Woodbury, wore a black tarlatan dress over black silk, with a head-
dress of gilt beads.

Among the gentlemen present were Lord Napier, Edward Everett,
Secretary Thompson, Senator Mason, Representatives Keitt, Miles,
Boyce, McQueen, Clingman, and Ward; Captains Ringgold and Goldsborough,
of the navy; General Harney and Colonel Hardee, of the army, and
a number of others.

The commencement of Mr. Buchanan's Administration was distinguished
by the number of social entertainments given in Washington.  It
was then as in Paris just before the Revolution of 1830, when
Talleyrand said to the crafty Louis Philippe, at one of his Palais
Royal balls:  "We are dancing on a volcano."  The hidden fires of
coming revolution were smoldering at the Capitol; but in the drawing-
rooms of the metropolis the Topeka Guelphs cordially fraternized
with the Lecompton Ghibellines night after night, very much as the
lawyers of Western circuits who, after having abused each other
all day in bad English, met at night in the judge's room to indulge
in libations of bad liquor.  Even when Lent came, instead of going
to church, in obedience to the chimes of consecrated bells, society
kept on with its entertainments.

Among the most prominent houses were those of the Postmaster-General,
Mr. Aaron V. Brown, whose wife was assisted by the daughter of her
first marriage, Miss Narcissa Sanders.  At Secretary Thompson's a
full-length portrait of "Old Hickory," by Sully, kept watch and
ward of the refreshment table.  The connected houses occupied by
Secretary Cass, afterward the Arlington Hotel, were adorned with
many rare works of art, brought by him from the Old World.  Senators
Gwin, of California, Thompson, of New Jersey, and Clay, of Alabama,
with Governor Aiken, of South Carolina, also entertained frequently
and generously.  At the supper-tables wild turkeys, prairie-hens,
partridges, quails, reed birds, chicken and lobster salads, terrapin,
oysters, ice-creams and confectionery were furnished in profusion,
while champagne, sherry, and punch were always abundant.

Among choice bits of scandal then afloat was one at the expense of
a lady who prided herself on the exclusiveness of the society which
graced her _salons_.  A _double-distilled-F.-F.-V._, no one could
obtain invitations to her parties whose _ecusson_ did not bear the
quartering of some old family, and thus these entertainments were
accused of resembling the tournaments of ancient times, to which
the guests were led, not from any prospect of amusement, but merely
to prove their right to _ennuyer_ themselves _en bonne compagnie_.
Foreigners, however, were always welcome, and one of the "pets,"
a romantic looking young Frenchman, who was quite handsome and made
a great sensation in fashionable society, avoided the Legation as
representing a usurper, and therefore quite unworthy the attention
of one like himself, of the "vielle roche."  The young man, enveloping
himself somewhat in mystery, assumed the dignity of Louis Quatorze
in his earlier days, and his decisions on all fashionable matters
were law.  Where he lived no one exactly knew, as his letters were
left in Willard's card-basket, but his aristocratic protector
persuaded Gautier to let her look at the furnaces of his restaurant-
kitchen, and there--must it be said?--she found M. le Compte, in
white apron and paper cap, constructing a _mayonnaise_.  "This
young man is my best cook," said Gautier, but the lady did not wait
to receive his salutation.

The wild hunt after office was kept up during the summer and fall
after Mr. Buchanan's inauguration, fortunate men occasionally
drawing place-prizes in the Government lottery.  One of the best
jokes about applicants for office was told at the expense of a
Bostonian, who presented, among other papers, a copy of a letter
to Mr. Buchanan from Rufus Choate, with a note stating that he sent
a copy because he knew that the President could never decipher the
original, and he had left blanks for some words which he could not
himself transcribe.

Governor Geary had returned from Kansas, disgusted with the condition
of things there, and had been replaced as Governor by Robert J.
Walker, who was expected to play the part of "wrong's redresser,"
as the Prince did in Verona when called to settle the difficulties
between the Montagues and the Capulets.

[Facsimile]
  Peter Force
PETER FORCE was born at Passaic Falls, N. J., November 26th, 1790;
became a printer and journalist at Washington; collected and
published many volumes of American documentary history; was Mayor
of Washington, 1836-1840; died at Washington, D. C., January 23d,
1868.


CHAPTER XLIII.
PRELUDE TO THE REBELLION.

General Thomas J. Rusk, United States Senator from Texas, who had
fought bravely at the battle of San Jacinto, had committed suicide
during the summer.  He had been elected President _pro tempore_ of
the Senate, and the Senate elected as his successor Senator
Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, a tall, fine-looking man, whose wife was
a great favorite in Washington society.  He received twenty-eight
votes, Mr. Hamlin receiving nineteen votes, and voting himself for
Mr. Seward, which showed the Republican strength in the Senate to
be twenty.

The leader of the Southern forces in the Senate was Mr. John Slidell,
who was born in New York, but found his way, when young, to New
Orleans, where he soon identified himself with the Creole population
and became noted as a political manager.  His organization of the
colonization of Plaquemine Parish, by a steamboat load of roughs
from New Orleans, secured the defeat of Henry Clay in Louisiana
and virtually prevented his election as President.  Wealthy, and
without conscientious scruples on political matters he was well-
fitted for the leading position in the formation of the Southern
Confederacy, which he obtained; but President Davis took good care
to send him abroad, knowing that if he could not rule the Confederacy
he would take the first occasion to ruin it.  What he lacked in
positive intellect he more than made up in prudence, industry, and
energy.

On the third day of the session Mr. Douglas gave notice that he
would the next afternoon define his position on the Kansas question.
The announcement brought crowds to the Senate Chamber.  Every
Senator was in his seat; every past or present dignitary who could
claim a right "to the floor" was there, and the galleries were
packed with spectators, Mrs. Douglas prominent among the fairer
portion of them.  The "Little Giant" was neatly dressed in a full
suit of black, and rose to speak at his seat, which was about in
the middle of the desks on the right of the President's chair,
where the Democrats sat.  He spoke boldly and decidedly, though
with a studied courtesy toward the President.  There was a great
difference between the question of popular sovereignty as advocated
by Mr. Douglas, and the great question of human freedom for which
Mr. Sumner and other Representatives of Northern sentiments were
stoutly battling.  After Mr. Douglas had concluded, Mr. Brown, of
Mississippi, congratulated Mr. Henry Wilson on the "new Republican
ally," and many other bitter things were said about him by the
Southrons, but the _bon mot_ of the day was by Senator Wade:
"Never," said he, "have I seen a slave insurrection before."

There was a large attendance at the organization of the House, when
the roll-call showed that two hundred and twenty-five were present.
Then Mr. Phelps gracefully moved that the House proceed to the
election of a Speaker, thereby showing that he was not a candidate.
Mr. Jones nominated James L. Orr of South Carolina; Governor Banks
nominated Galusha A. Grow; and H. W. Davis was nominated but
withdrawn.  The election was then commenced _viva voce_, the clerk
calling the roll.  Colonel Orr had one hundred and twenty-eight
votes, and was declared elected.

Governor Banks and A. H. Stephens were appointed a committee to
conduct the Speaker-elect to the chair.  He then delivered a brief,
sensible address, after which he was approached by the patriarchal
Giddings, who handed him a small Bible and administered the oath
of office, which duty devolves on the oldest Representative.  The
Sergeant-at-Arms elevated his mace--that "bauble" of authority so
distasteful to the Puritans--and the Speaker began to swear in the
members State by State.

Among investigations ordered was one into an alleged attempt at
bribery by Lawrence, Stone, & Co., when the tariff bill was under
consideration, which disclosed the fact that they had paid fifty-
eight thousand dollars to Colonel Wolcott, who came to Washington
as a representative of the Massachusetts manufacturers.  Colonel
Wolcott, when brought before the House, declined to make the desired
revelations, and he was locked up in the Washington Jail--a miserable
old building.  Those Representatives who were believed to have
received some of this money were naturally uneasy, and undertook
to intimate that the Colonel had pocketed the whole of it.  He
philosophically submitted to the decree of the House, occupying
the jailer's sitting-room--a cheerful apartment, with a good fire,
bright sunshine coming in at the windows.  He had numerous visitors,
his meals were sent him from a restaurant, and he certainly did
not appear to suffer seriously from his martyrdom.

In the exciting debates on the admission of Kansas, Senators Sumner,
Wilson, Fessenden, and Seward were positive in their denunciation
of the use of Federal troops for the enforcement of the laws, which
encouraged the Southern Senators in their belief that the secession
of a State would not be forcibly opposed.  "The Senate," said Henry
Wilson, "insists that the President shall uphold this usurpation--
these enactments--with the bayonet.  Let us examine the acts of
these usurpers which Senators will not repeal; which they insist
shall be upheld and enforced by the sabres of the dragoons."  Said
William H. Seward:  "When you hear me justify the despotism of the
Czar of Russia over the oppressed Poles, or the treachery by which
Louis Napoleon rose to a throne over the ruins of the Republic in
France, on the ground that he preserves domestic peace among his
subjects, then you may expect me to vote supplies of men and money
to the President that he may keep the army in Kansas."  Ben Wade
was equally severe on the use of the army, declaring "that the
honorable business of a soldier had been perverted to act as a
petty bailiff and constable to arrest and tyrannize over men."

The racket in the House of Representatives commenced with a struggle
as to whether the President's Message on the Lecompton Constitution
of Kansas should be referred to the Democratic Committee on
Territories or to a select committee of fifteen.  The session was
protracted into the night, and after midnight but few spectators
remained in the galleries.  Those Representatives who could secure
sofas enjoyed naps between the roll-calls, while others visited
committee-rooms, in which were private supplies of refreshments.
About half-past-one, Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, then standing on
the Democratic side of the House, objected to General Quitman's
making any remarks.  "If you are going to object," shouted Mr.
Keitt, of South Carolina, "return to your own side of the hall."
Mr. Grow responded:  "This is a free hall, and every man has a
right to be where he pleases."  Mr. Keitt then came up to Mr. Grow
and said:  "I want to know what you mean by such an answer as that."
Mr. Grow replied:  "I mean just what I say; this is a free hall,
and a man has the right to be where he pleases."  "Sir," said Mr.
Keitt, "I will let you know that you are a black Republican puppy."
"Never mind," retorted Mr. Grow, "I shall occupy such place in this
hall as I please, and no negro-driver shall crack his whip over
me."  The two then rushed at each other with clinched fists.  A
dozen Southerners at once hastened to the affray, while as many
anti-Lecompton men came to the rescue, and Keitt received--not from
Grow, however, a blow that knocked him down.  Mr. Potter, of
Wisconsin, a very athletic, compactly built man, bounded into the
centre of the excited group, striking right and left with vigor.
Washburne, of Illinois, and his brother, of Wisconsin, also were
prominent, and for a minute or two it seemed as though we were to
have a Kilkenny fight on a magnificent scale.  Barksdale had hold
of Grow, when Potter stuck him a severe blow, supposing that he
was hurting that gentleman.  Barksdale, turning around and supposing
it was Elihu Washburne who struck him, dropped Grow, and stuck out
at the gentleman from Illinois.  Cadwallader Washburne, perceiving
the attack upon his brother, also made a dash at Mr. Barksdale,
and seized him by the hair, apparently from the purpose of drawing
him "into chancery" and pommeling him to greater satisfaction.
Horrible to relate, Mr. Barksdale's wig came off in Cadwallader's
left hand, and his right fist expended itself with tremendous force
against the unresisting air.  This ludicrous incident unquestionably
did much toward resorting good nature subsequently, and its effect
was heightened not a little by the fact that in the excitement of
the occasion Barksdale restored his wig wrong-side foremost.

The Speaker shouted and rapped for order without effect.  The
Sergeant-at-Arms stalked to the scene of the battle, mace in hand,
but his "American eagle" had no more effect than the Speaker's
gavel.  Owen Lovejoy and Lamar, of Mississippi, were pawing each
other at one point, each probably trying to persuade the other to
be still.  Mr. Mott, the gray-haired Quaker Representative from
Ohio, was seen going here and there in the crowd.  Reuben Davis,
of Mississippi, got a severe but accidental blow from Mr. Grow,
and various gentlemen sustained slight bruises and scratches.  A
Virginia Representative, who thought Montgomery, of Pennsylvania
was about to "pitch in," laid his hand upon his arm, to restrain
him, and was peremptorily ordered to desist or be knocked down.
Mr. Covode, of Pennsylvania, caught up a heavy stone-ware spittoon,
with which to "brain" whoever might seem to deserve it, but
fortunately did not get far enough into the excited crowd to find
an appropriate subject for his vengeance; and all over the hall
everybody was excited for the time.

Fortunately, it did not last long, and no weapons were openly
displayed.  When order was restored several gentlemen were found
to present an excessively tumbled and disordered appearance, but
there remained little else to recall the excitement.  Gentlemen of
opposite parties crossed over to each other to explain their pacific
dispositions, and that they got into a fight when their only purpose
was to prevent a fight.  Mutual explanations and a hearty laugh at
the ludicrous points of the drama were followed by quiet and a
return to business.  It was finally agreed, about half-past six
o'clock on Sunday morning, that the Democrats would permit a vote
to be taken on Monday without further debate, delay, or dilatory
motion.

When Mr. Orr's mallet rapped the House to order at noon on Monday,
only six of the two hundred and thirty-four Representatives were
absent, and the galleries were packed like boxes of Smyrna figs.
Rev. Dr. Sampson made a conciliatory prayer, the journal was read,
two enrolled bills were presented, and then the Speaker, in an
unusually earnest tone, stated the question.  Tellers had been
ordered, and he appointed Messrs. Buffington, of Massachusetts,
and Craige, of North Carolina.  "Is the demand for the previous
question seconded?"

The imposing form of Buffington was soon seen making his way down
to the area before the Speaker's table, where Craige met him.  The
two shook hands, and there was then a quick obedience to the
Speaker's request that gentlemen in favor of the motion would pass
between the tellers.  Father Giddings, crowned with silvery locks,
led the Republican host down to be counted.  Burlingame followed,
and among others who filed along were Henry Winter Davis, General
Spinner, John Sherman, General Bingham, Frank Blair, the trio of
Washburnes, Gooch, Schuyler Colfax, John Covode, Governor Fenton,
Senator Cragin, and burly Humphrey Marshall.  When all had passed
between the tellers Buffington wheeled about and reported to the
Speaker, who announced the result rather hesitatingly:  "One hundred
and ten in the affirmative.  Those opposed will now pass between
the tellers."

Then the Southern Democrats, with their Northern allies, came
trooping down, headed by the attenuated Stephens.  Dan Sickles and
John Cochrane, who were afterward generals in the Union armies,
were then allied with Zollicoffer, Keitt, and others, who fell in
the Confederate ranks, and there were so many of them that the
result appeared doubtful.  At last it was Mr. Craige's turn to
report, and then all was silent as the grave.

The Speaker's usually loud, clear voice hesitated as he at last
announced:  "One hundred and four in the negative.  The ayes have
it, and the demand for the previous question is seconded.  Shall
the main question be now put?"  The main question was next put,
and the vote by ayes and nays on a reference of the Kansas question
to the Committee on Territories, was ayes, 113; nays, 114.  Then
came the vote on the reference to a select committee of fifteen,
and Speaker Orr had to announce the result, ayes, 114; nays 113.
The North was at last victorious.

[Facsimile]
  Howell Cobb
HOWELL COBB was born at Cherry Hill, Ga., September 7th, 1815;
graduated at Franklin College, 1834; was Representative from Georgia,
1843-1851 and 1855-1860; was chosen Speaker, 1849; was Governor of
Georgia, 1851; was President of the Confederate Congress, 1861;
died in New York city, October 9th, 1868.


CHAPTER XLIV.
POLITICIANS, AUTHORS, AND HUMORISTS.

Bluff Ben Wade, a Senator from Ohio, was the champion of the North
in the upper house during the prolonged debates on the Kansas-
Nebraska Bill.  Dueling had long been regarded as a lost art in
the Northern States, but Mr. Wade determined that he would accept
a challenge should one be sent him, or defend himself should he be
attacked.  But no one either assaulted or challenged him, although
he gave his tongue free license.

One day Senator Badger spoke plaintively of slavery from a Southern
point of view.  In his childhood, he said, he was nursed by an old
negro woman, and he grew to manhood under her care.  He loved his
"old black mammy," and she loved him.  But if the opponents of the
Kansas-Nebraska bill were triumphant, and he wished to go to either
of those Territories, he could not take his "old black mammy" with
him.  Turning to Mr. Wade, he exclaimed:  "Surely, you will not
prevent me from taking my old black mammy with me?"  "It is not,"
remarked the Senator from Ohio, dryly, "that he cannot take his
old black mammy with him that troubles the mind of the Senator,
but that if we make the Territories free, he cannot sell the old
black mammy when he gets her there."

The future leader of the Great Rebellion, Senator Jefferson Davis,
had then assumed the leadership of the Southern Senators and their
Northern allies.  His best friends were forced to admit that his
bearing, even toward them, had become haughty, and his manners
imperious.  His thin, spare figure, his almost sorrowful cast of
countenance, composed, however, in an invariable expression of
dignity, gave the idea of a body worn by the action of the mind,
an intellect supporting in its prison of flesh the pains of
constitutional disease, and triumphing over physical confinement
and affliction.  His carriage was erect--there was a soldierly
affectation, of which, indeed, the hero of Buena Vista gave evidence
through his life, having the singular conceit that his genius was
military and fitter for arms than for the council.  He had a precise
manner, and an austerity that was at first forbidding; but his
voice was always clear and firm.  Although not a scholar in the
pedantic sense of the term, and making no pretensions to the doubtful
reputation of the sciolist, his reading was classical and varied,
his fund of illustration large, and his resources of imagery
plentiful and always apposite.

Senator Robert W. Johnson--"Bob Johnson," every one called him--
had made many friends while a member of the House, and was one of
the most popular Senators.  He was a man of generous feeling,
honorable impulses, and a cheerful humor, which had endeared him
to the homely backwoodsmen of his State.  He was a fine speaker,
pouring forth fact and argument with an earnestness that riveted
attention, and lighting up the dull path of logic with the glow of
his captivating fancy, while he spiced his remarks with the
idiosyncrasies of frontier oratory, familiar and quaint illustrations,
and blunt truth.  At heart he loved the Union, but he could not
stand up against the public sentiment of his State.

Henry Bowen Anthony was the first Republican Senator who had not
been identified with the Abolitionists.  Before he had been a week
in the Senate, he was graciously informed that the Southern Senators
recognized him as a gentleman, and proposed to invite him to their
houses.  "I can enter no door," sturdily replied the man of Quaker
ancestry, "which is closed against any Northern Senator."  Mr.
Anthony was at that time a very handsome man, with jet black hair,
blue eyes, and a singularly sweet expression of countenance.  His
editorial labors on the Providence _Journal_ had given him a rare
insight into men and politics, which qualified him for Senatorial
life.  He was soon a favorite in Washington society, wit and general
information embellishing his brilliant conversation, while his
social virtues gave to his life a daily beauty.

Ostensibly to negotiate a postal treaty, but really to see what
could be done about an international copyright between Great Britain
and the United States, came Anthony Trollope, Esq.  He was a short,
stout old gentleman, with a round, rosy face and snow-white hair,
who loved to talk, and who talked well.  His mother, Mrs. Frances
Trollope, had written a cruelly sarcastic book on the manners and
customs of Americans in 1830, and he was somewhat dogmatic in his
criticisms of what he saw and heard.  He shone especially at
gentlemen's evening parties, at which he narrated anecdotes about
Macaulay, Dickens, and Thackeray, and of his own exploits in
"'unting," which he regarded as the noblest of all pastimes.

Mike Walsh was not only a demagogue, but an incorrigible joker.
He used frequently to visit Washington after the expiration of his
Congressional term, and was in the city after the close of the
summer session of the Thirty-fifth Congress.  Judge Douglas was
also there, busily engaged in advancing his Presidential prospects.
One evening, as Walsh was sitting in front of the Kirkwood House,
he remarked that the weather looked threatening, but that he hoped
it would prove good on account of the serenade that was to be given
to Judge Douglas that night.  The thing took at once, and he visited
all the hotels, and in casual conversations broached the serenade,
and the fact that the Marine Band had been engaged for the occasion.
When ten o'clock P. M. came there were not less than six or seven
hundred people in front of Judge Douglas's new residence; and as
the streets had been newly opened and were still unpaved, the mud
was ankle deep.  There were also some thirty or forty hacks and a
number of private carriages; and as the Judge and his beautiful
and accomplished wife had heard of the intended ovation, they had
prepared for the emergency by taking up the parlor carpets and
setting out a collation for the sovereigns.  But, alas! no Marine
Band appeared; and as eleven o'clock came and no music, the crowd
began slowly to thin out, until at last it got whispered around
that Mike Walsh had something to do with the getting up of the
serenade, when, amid curses and loud guffaws, there was a general
stampede of the crowd.

In the midst of the stormy debates at the Capitol, there was an
entertainment where men of both sections fraternized.  It was a
"wake" at the house of Mr. John Coyle, the cashier of the _National
Intelligencer_, whose Milesian blood had prompted him to pay
Hibernian honors to the memory of one who had often been his guest.
The funereal banquet had been postponed, however, in true Irish
style, when it had been ascertained that the deceased was not dead,
and in due time the guests were again invited, to honor him whom
they had mourned--Albert Pike, of Arkansas.  There he was, with
stalwart form, noble features, waving hair, and a patriarchal beard
--at once the Kit North and the Körner of America.

After a neat welcome by the host, uprose the erudite dignitary of
the State Department, and he read, in deep, full tones, an obituary
sketch of the supposed deceased, which he had prepared upon the
receipt of the sad news.  Pike's remarks, in reply, were touchingly
beautiful, especially when he expressed his delight at having read
kind notices of himself from those whom he had feared were his
enemies, and his hopes that all enmity between him and his fellow-
men might remain buried in that tomb to which he had been consigned.
Jack Savage then sang a song (to the tune of "Benny Havens, O!"),
describing a forced visit of "the fine Arkansas gentleman" to the
Stygian shore, where he craved permission of Pluto to return to
earth for one night at Coyle's:

  "'Are you not dead?' the King then said.
   'Well, what of that? said he,
   'If I am dead, I've not been waked, and buried dacently.'
   'And why,' the monarch cried,
   'Desire again to share life's toils?'
   'For the sake of one good frolic more,
   'Even at Johnny Coyle's.'
   One spree at Johnny Coyle's; one spree at Johnny Coyle's;
   And who would not be glad to join a spree at Johnny Coyle's?"

Pluto then enumerated the good cheer and good company, and "Horace
and Anacreon in vain would have him stay."  But the gentleman from
Arkansas demonstrated that they were all surpassed at Johnny Coyle's.
The recital of the genial qualities of various gentlemen named
enlisted Proserpine, who urged Pluto to let him go, that he might
return, bringing his friends with him.

  "And so the Queen at last prevailed, as women always do,
   And thus it comes that once again this gentleman's with you;
   He's under promise to return, but that he means to brake,
   And many another spree to have besides the present wake.
   One spree at Johnny Coyle's, etc."

This song was followed by a story, and that story by a song, and
it was nearly daylight in the morning before the guests separated.

The Sons of Malta, a secret order which sprang into existence during
Mr. Buchanan's Administration, was a remarkable institution.  The
original object of the organization was the capture of Cuba, and
many prominent military men of the South were the leading spirits
in the movement; but the filibustering was soon abandoned, and a
newspaper man, who had been initiated, conceived the idea of making
"some fun for the boys."  The whole business of initiation, etc.,
was transformed into a series of the most stupendous practical
jokes and outrageously comical proceedings ever dreamed of.  The
Order spread rapidly all over the Union.  At Washington the lodge
fitted up Marini's Hall in luxurious style, with carpets, cushioned
seats, and an expensive paraphernalia.  Many Senators and
Representatives who had been initiated at their respective homes
were regular attendants, and there was no lack of candidates, until
a sedate citizen, enraged by the disclosure of his domestic
infidelity, denounced the whole affair as a gigantic "sell."

While the Order was on the high tide of prosperity Mr. Buchanan
was asked if he would receive a delegation of the Sons of Malta,
representing twenty different States.  Mr. Buchanan was a zealous
Freemason--having gone up into the Royal Arch degree--and thinking
that the institution resembled Freemasonry, he named an hour for
the visit.  The members of the delegation were promptly on hand,
and after they had taken their position along one side of the East
Room, Mr. Buchanan entered.  The spokesman addressed him in a short
speech, in which he eulogized the Order as composed of Union-loving
citizens, associated for charitable purposes.

Mr. Buchanan listened attentively, and said in reply:  "Gentlemen
of the Sons of Malta, I feel grateful for the honor you have done
me in making this visit.  I do not know much about the Order, but
I have no doubt of its charitable objects and its patriotism.  In
your praiseworthy object of charity I would say, God speed you in
so noble an enterprise.  We are told that Faith, Hope, and Charity
are the links that bind us together in social Union.  Faith and
Hope may pass away, but Charity endures forever.  I do not feel
that there is any danger of the dissolution of the Union by the
oppression of one portion of our country upon another; for should
that period unhappily arrive, the people, who made it, will preserve
it.  Again, allow me cordially to thank you for this visit, and I
would be most happy to take each one of you by the hand as
representatives of the Sons of Malta from all parts of the Union."
So solemn was the scene that several portly delegates were evidently
convulsed with emotion (or secret laughter), and the Union was
regarded as safe.  Owners of ships, stocks, States, and the Order
took courage.

[Facsimile]
  Geo. Bancroft
GEORGE BANCROFT was born at Worcester, Mass., October 3d, 1800;
graduated at Harvard College, 1817; was Secretary of the Navy under
President Polk, 1843-1846; was Minister to Great Britain, 1846-
1849; to Prussia, 1867-1871; to Germany, 1871-1874.


[Frontispiece missing]


PERLEY'S
REMINISCENCES
OF SIXTY YEARS IN THE
NATIONAL METROPOLIS

_Illustrating the Wit, Humor, Genius, Eccentricities, Jealousies,
Ambitions and Intrigues of the Brilliant Statesmen, Ladies, Officers,
Diplomats, Lobbyists and other noted Celebrities of the World that
gather at the Centre of the Nation; describing imposing Inauguration
Ceremonies, Gala Day Festivities, Army Reviews, &c., &c., &c._

BY BEN: PERLEY POORE,

_The Veteran Journalist, Clerk of the Senate Printing Records,
Editor of the Congressional Directory, and Author of various Works._

Illustrated.

VOL. II.
HUBBARD BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Boston, Kansas City; W. A. Houghton, New York; A. W. Mills, Tecumseh,
Mich.; A. W. Stolp, Chicago, Ill.; A. L. Bancroft & Co., San
Francisco, Cal.; E. Holdoway & Co., St. Louis, Mo.; A. P. Foster
& Co., Dallas, Texas.


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by

BEN: PERLEY POORE,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

NOTICE TO BOOKSELLERS.
This book is sold exclusively by subscription, all agents being
strictly enjoined by contract from selling in any other way.  Any
evasion of this plan will be a trespass upon the copyright rights
of the author.  HUBBARD BROS.


CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS AND DOMESTIC INTRIGUE.
The Central American Imbroglio--The Napier Ball--Washington Society
--Fanny Kemble Butler--Democratic Revelers--The Trial of Sickles--
The Key Family--Robert Ould--Edwin M. Stanton--Other Lawyers--
Verdict of Acquittal--Anson Burlingame.

CHAPTER II.
VISITS FROM DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNERS.
The Japanese Embassy--Its Reception by President Buchanan--Caricatures
--Visit of the Prince of Wales--The Heir to the British Throne at
Mount Vernon--Effect Produced on Queen Victoria--Life at the White
House--How Mr. Buchanan Lived.

CHAPTER III.
THE GATHERING TEMPEST.
Threatening Aspect of Affairs--John Brown's Raid--Pendleton's
Gambling-House Neutral Ground--The Games and the Gamblers--Honors
to the Deceased King of Cards--Vice-President Breckinridge--South
Carolina Chivalry--The Slave Trade Re-opened--Lady Lobbyists--
Ellsworth's Zouaves--Owen Lovejoy.

CHAPTER IV.
LINCOLN'S ELECTION INAUGURATES REBELLION.
Election of a Republican President--Northern Willingness to Let
the South Secede--Senator Seward as a Partisan Leader--His Great
Speech--Farewell of Jefferson Davis to the Senate--Hale's Reply to
Clingman--The Peace Commission--Twenty-second of February Parade--
The Electoral Vote--Hostilities Commenced.

CHAPTER V.
MR. LINCOLN AT THE HELM.
Unexpected Arrival of Mr. Lincoln--Sumner Compared to a Bishop--
Interviews of the President-Elect with Prominent Men--Remarkable
Memory--Southern Commissioners--The Inaugural Message Lost and
Found--The New Cabinet--The Inauguration.

CHAPTER VI.
THE STORM BURSTS.
Robert E. Lee Joins the Confederacy--Sumter Fired upon--The Uprising
of the Loyal North--The First Troops to Arrive--Nick Biddle, the
First Man Wounded--Arrival of the Massachusetts Sixth--The Censorship
of the Press--General Butler Re-opens Communication with the North
--The Massachusetts Eighth--Ellsworth's Fire Zouaves--Alexandria
Occupied--A Confederate Flag Captured--Colonel Ellsworth Killed by
its Owner and Promptly Avenged.

CHAPTER VII.
"ON TO RICHMOND."
Meeting of Congress--March of the Grand Army of the Union--The
First Battle of Bull Run--Disgraceful Rout--Appeal of Senator
Breckinridge--Patriotic Reply of Colonel Baker--War Preparations--
General McClellan Placed in Command--General Scott's Advice to Him
--Surrender of Mason and Slidell--Disastrous Engagement at Ball's
Bluff.

CHAPTER VIII.
WASHINGTON A VAST GARRISON.
Rejection by the President of Anti-Slavery Views--Vacant Seats at
Either End of the Capitol--Fessenden, the Financier--Sumner, the
Diplomatist--Wilson, the Military Director--Other Prominent Senators
--The Rule of Thaddeus Stevens--Notable Representatives--Democratic
Opposition to the Administration--Congressional Committee on the
Conduct of the War.

CHAPTER IX.
THE METROPOLIS IN TIME OF WAR.
President Lincoln's First New Year's Reception--The Pennsylvania
Lancers--Discontent of the Abolitionists--President Lincoln Favoring
Colonization--Appointment of E. M. Stanton as Secretary of War--
Espionage--The Secret Service--Female Confederate Spies--Capture
by one of them of a Union General.

CHAPTER X.
FASHION, LITERATURE AND ART.
Washington Society Disgruntled--President Lincoln's First Reception
--Who were Present--A Famous Supper--Criticisms of the Discontented
--Secret Sadness of President Lincoln and his Wife--Death of Little
Willie Lincoln--Camp Followers--Literati in Government Employ--
Lectures at the Smithsonian Institution--Commissioner Newton, of
the Agricultural Department.

CHAPTER XI.
THE FORTUNES OF WAR.
War Correspondents--A Precarious Position--The Washington Press--
Colonel John W. Forney and his Two Daily Papers--Fourth of July
Celebration at Washington--Raising Colored Troops Discouraged--
Successful Recruiting of Whites for Union Armies--War on General
McClellan, and his Deposition--Defeat of General Pope--Recall of
General McClellan to Command--Victory at Antietam--General Burnside
in Command--His Failures at Fredericksburg--His Resignation.

CHAPTER XII.
SOCIAL LIFE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
Meeting of Congress--Proclamation of Emancipation--New Year's Day
at the White House--Growlings by Count Gurowski--The Army of the
Potomac--Christmas at the Hospitals--Henry Wikoff in Trouble--
President Lincoln Ill with the Varioloid--Defeat of General Hooker
at Chancellorsville--Victory of General Grant at Vicksburg--Sublime
Speech of President Lincoln at Gettysburg.

CHAPTER XIII.
CIVIL AND MILITARY INTRIGUES.
War Legislators--Medal Voted to General Grant--New Year's Receptions
at the White House and at the Residences of Officials--General
Grant Promoted to the Rank of Lieutenant-General--He Leads the Army
of the Potomac Through Terrific Battles to Victory--Resignation of
Mr. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury--His Appointment as Chief-
Justice--Presidential Scheming.

CHAPTER XIV.
EVENTS BOTH SAD AND JOYOUS.
Election of Andrew Johnson as Vice-President--Second Inauguration
of Lincoln--Disgraceful Intoxication of Vice-President Johnson--
Inauguration Ball at the Interior Department--Successful Military
Movements Directed by General Grant--Lincoln's Fondness for
Theatricals--The Martyr-President's Last Speech to the People--
Capture of Dixie.

CHAPTER XV.
PLUNGED INTO SORROW.
Jubilant Over Victory--President Lincoln at the Theatre--His
Assassination by Wilkes Booth--A Night of Terror--Death of Abraham
Lincoln--The Assassin--Funeral Honors Paid the Dead President--
Ceremonies at the White House--Procession Along Pennsylvania Avenue
--The Remains Rest in State in the Rotunda of the Capitol--Their
Removal to Illinois.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE CONSPIRACY TRIAL--THE GRAND REVIEWS.
Andrew Johnson Sworn in as President--Visit of a Massachusetts
Delegation--What he Thought About Traitors and Treason--Arrest of
Booth and his Accomplices--The Confederates had Supplied the Funds
--Mrs. Surratt on Trial--The Male Prisoners--Execution of Some
Conspirators and Imprisonment of Others--Grand Review of the Union
Armies--General Meade and the Army of the Potomac--The Reviewing
Stand--General Sherman and the Division of the Mississippi--Rebuff
Given by General Sherman to Secretary Stanton--Sherman's Bummers.

CHAPTER XVII.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON SURRENDERS.
Concessions to the Confederates--Daily Life of President Johnson--
Jefferson Davis in Prison and Manacled--Exciting Scene in a Casemate
--John Pierpont's Eightieth Birthday--The Bread and Butter Convention
--Swinging Round the Circle--Marriage of Senator Sumner--His Bright
Hopes Soon Disappointed--Female Influence at the White House--
Impeacher Ashley Commences Operations--Important Decision by the
Supreme Court.

CHAPTER XVIII.
WASHINGTON CELEBRITIES.
President Johnson's Wife and Daughters--Representative Roscoe
Conkling, of New York--Senator Oliver P. Morton, Indiana's War
Governor--Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont--Senator Zach.
Chandler, of Michigan--Senator Anthony, of Rhode Island--Jovial
Senator Nye, of Nevada--Representative Elihu B. Washburne, the
Father of the House--Speaker Colfax as a Presiding Officer--
Representative James G. Blaine, of Maine, and his Tilt with Tucker,
of Virginia--Representative Fernando Wood, of New York.

CHAPTER XIX.
CEREMONIALS AT THE METROPOLIS.
New Year's Reception at the White House--Who was There and What
was Worn--George Bancroft's Eulogy on Abraham Lincoln--Scene in
the House of Representatives--Distinguished Persons Present--The
Memorial Address--Great Britain Snubbed and Russia Complimented--
A Penitential Apology by Senator McDougall, of California.

CHAPTER XX.
THE GREAT IMPEACHMENT.
Widening Gulf Between President Johnson and Congress--Deposition
and Restoration of Secretary Stanton--Life and Death of Sir Frederick
Bruce--Mrs. Lincoln's Sale of Effects--Thurlow Weed's Criticism--
Impeachment of President Johnson--General Thomas Appointed Secretary
of War--The High Court of Impeachment, Chief-Justice Chase Presiding
--Elaborate Argument by Mr. Evarts--His Review of Republican
Assertions--The Verdict--Close of the Administration.

CHAPTER XXI.
A NEW PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST.
Four Ohio Presidential Candidates, Grant, Chase, Stanton and Wade
--Chief-Justice Chase Before the Democratic Convention--Care Taken
by General Grant that all Confederate Officers Should be Paroled--
Extension of the Treasury Department--Senator Ben. Wade and the
Restaurant Keeper--Senator Sumner's Great Speech on Alaska--Happy
Hours of General Grant at Washington--One of his Evening Receptions
--Sam. Ward, the Bon Vivant--Charles Dickens.

CHAPTER XXII.
GENERAL GRANT IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
The Inauguration Procession--Proceedings at the Capitol--Delivery
of the Inaugural Address--Ball in the Treasury Department--Formation
of the Cabinet--Secretary of State, Fish--Appointment of A. T.
Stewart, Secretary of the Treasury--The Politicians Troubled, but
Successful--Other Cabinet Officers--Army Habits in the White House
--President Grant's Daily Life.

CHAPTER XXIII.
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE METROPOLIS.
Alexander R. Shepherd, the "Boss" Regenerator of Washington--Expense
of the Improvements, and Who Profited Thereby--Supervising-Architect
Mullett--The State, War, and Navy Building--Official Speculators--
The Story of Black Friday--General Grant's Financial Views--The
Credit Mobilier Scandal--Honest Oakes Ames Made a Scapegoat.

CHAPTER XXIV.
RESTORATION OF THE UNION.
Northern Politicians and Southern Brigadiers--The Old Flag and an
Appropriation--Outrages by the Ku-Klux Klan--The Joint High Commission
--Seizure of Canada--Intrigues of Russian Minister de Catacazy--
Visit of the Grand Duke Alexis--A Female Spy--Charles Sumner's
House and his Heart Trouble--Misunderstanding Between General Grant
and Senator Sumner on San Domingo--Senator Sumner Forced into
Hostility toward General Grant.

CHAPTER XXV.
INTRIGUES AND INTRIGUERS.
The Solider Not a Statesman--How to Beat Grant--Horace Greeley a
Presidential Candidate--Re-nomination of General Grant, with Henry
Wilson for Vice-President--Defeat of Colfax--New Year's Reception
at the White House--Return of Senator Sumner--Inscription of Union
Victories on Regimental Colors--Death of Senator Sumner.

CHAPTER XXVI.
A NEW TERM BEGUN.
Second Inauguration of General Grant--An Arctic Wave--The Procession
--Scene at the Capitol--The Inaugural Address--A Frozen-out Ball--
Death of Chief-Justice Chase--Refusal of the Position by Roscoe
Conkling--Appointment of Attorney-General Williams--Nomination of
Caleb Cushing--An Unfortunate Letter--Cushing Asserts his Loyalty
--Edwin M. Stanton Appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court--Marriage
of General Grant's Daughter.

CHAPTER XXVII.
CORRUPTION IN OFFICIAL LIFE.
Fifty Congressional Drag-nets at Work--Female Jealousy--A Nantucket
Story--Impeachment of General Belknap, After his Resignation--
Beautiful Mrs. Belknap--The Whisky Ring--Revenge of Senator Henderson,
of Missouri--Trial of General Babcock, and his Acquittal.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CENTENNIAL GLORY.
Observance of the Centennial at Washington--Entertainment of Dom
Pedro, of Brazil, at the British Legation--The National Republican
Convention at Cincinnati--Illness of Mr. Blaine at Washington--How
Blaine was Defeated and Hayes Nominated--Contest for the Returns
in Doubtful States--Cipher Telegrams--Examination of Colonel Pelton
--Threats of Revolution--Intimations of Bargains.

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION.
The Commission Changed by the Substitution of Judge Bradley for
Judge Davis--Debate in the Senate on the Bill--Great Speech by
Roscoe Conkling--Counting the Electoral Vote--Decision by the
Commission--General Grant's Administration not a Political Success.

CHAPTER XXX.
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT HAYES.
Lack of Congressional Notification--Arrival of Governor Hayes at
Washington--Political Consultations--The Oath Taken Privately--The
Procession--The Inauguration--Safely in the White House--The New
Cabinet--Judge Key's Eventful History--Fun at Cabinet Meetings--
Unfortunate Selection of a Private Secretary.

CHAPTER XXXI.
A NEW ERA IN SOCIETY.
President Hayes and his Wife--The Ohio Idea of Total Abstinence
and its Evasion--Social Life at the White House--A New Era in
Washington Society--The President's Silver Wedding--Reunion of Old
Friends--Petition of ex-Senator Christiancy for a Divorce--Dissolute
Young Diplomats.

CHAPTER XXXII.
LEADERS AND MEASURES.
Overthrow of the Republicans--The Hayes Policy--Thurman, of Ohio--
Bayard, of Delaware--Beck, of Kentucky--Cockrell, of Missouri--
Bruce, of Mississippi--Logan, of Illinois--Anthony, of Rhode Island
--Hamlin, of Maine--Edmunds, of Vermont--Conkling, of New York--
Carpenter, of Wisconsin--Ingalls, of Kansas--Dawes, of Massachusetts
--Blaine, of Maine--Randall, of Pennsylvania--Republican Representatives
--Stopping Supplies--Presidential Vetoes--"Pinafore."

CHAPTER XXXIII.
TILTS IN CONGRESS.
Celebration of the King of Spain's Marriage--Criminations and
Recriminations at the Capitol--Tilt Between Carpenter and Blaine--
Altercation Between Conkling and Gordon--Sharp Words Between Mahone
and Voorhees--New Set of China for the White House.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
STRUGGLE FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION.
General Grant's Friends in the Field--The Inter-Oceanic Ship Canal
--Personal Popularity of Senator Blaine--John Sherman Supported by
General Garfield--Political Double-Dealing--Garfield's Speech at
Chicago--Nomination of Garfield and Arthur--Visit of General Grant
to Washington--A Cold New Year's Day--Reception at the White House
--Official Presentations--Appointment of Mr. Blaine as Secretary
of State.

CHAPTER XXXV.
THE GARFIELD INAUGURATION.
Washington City Crowded--The Weather Inclement--Military and Civic
Procession--Crowds in the Senate Chamber--General Garfield's Mother,
Wife, and Daughter--Hancock, the Superb--Plucky Phil Sheridan--
Decorated Diplomats--Installation of Vice-President Arthur--Majestic
Scene in Front of the Capitol--The Inaugural and the Oath of Office
--Grand Review--Inauguration Ball.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHANGES AND DISSENSIONS.
Republicans Deprived of Their Majority in the Senate--Rival New
York Factions--Declaration of Hostility Against Senator Conkling--
Contest Over the Confirmation of the Collector of New York--
Resignation of Senators Conkling and Platt--Significant Speech by
Senator Mahone--A Defiant Challenge--Inauguration of the Statue of
Farragut--President Garfield at the College for Deaf Mutes.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE ASSASSINATION.
Garfield's Domestic Felicity--His Masonic and Literary Relations--
The Garfield Family at the White House--Perplexities Environing
the Administration--Mrs. Garfield the First Lady in the Land--Her
Illness--The Assassination--The Long Agony--Death of President
Garfield--Funeral Ceremonies at Washington--Interment at Cleveland
--Trial of Guiteau--His Conviction and Execution.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
VICE PRESIDENT ARTHUR BECOMES PRESIDENT.
The Deplorable Calamity--Mental Anguish of Vice-President Arthur--
He Takes the Oath at New York, and Repeats it at Washington--
Individual Preferences Subordinated to Public Welfare--Principles
of the New Administration--Executive Vetoes--Changes in the Senate
--Leading Senators--Mr. Bayard President _Pro Tempore_ One Day--
Senator David Davis Chosen to Preside _Pro Tempore_.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE CENTENNIAL OF YORKTOWN.
President Arthur's Appearance--Reception of French and German
Officers at Washington--Their Presentation to President Arthur at
the Capitol--Display of Fireworks--The Yorktown Celebration--
Secretary Blaine's Entertainment to the Nation's Guests--Fete at
the French Legation.

CHAPTER XL.
PRESIDENT ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRATION.
The Republicans Again in Power--A New Cabinet--Mr. Conkling Appointed
a Justice of the Supreme Court--The Garfield Memorial Services at
the Capitol--Mr. Blaine's Eulogy on the Deceased President--Attacks
on the Administration--Daily Life of the President--The Star-Route
Trials.

CHAPTER XLI.
GAY AND FESTIVE SCENES.
President Arthur's New Year's Reception--Dr. Mary Walker--Senator
Hoar's Welcome Dinner to Mr. Justice Gray--President Arthur's Dinner
in Honor of General and Mrs. Grant--The Guests and what the Ladies
Wore--Mr. Blaine's New Home--Marriage of Colonel Coppinger to Miss
Blaine.

CHAPTER XLII.
THE WASHINGTON NATIONAL MONUMENT.
Senator Anthony's Fifth Term--His Election as President _Pro
Tempore_, and Declination--Officers of the Senate--Democratic Tidal
Wave in the House--Speaker John G. Carlisle--A Gay Washington Season
--Good Dinners--Improvement of the Metropolis--Procession and
Addresses at the Completion of the Washington Monument--An Exciting
Presidential Campaign--The Result--Departure of General Arthur from
the White House.

CHAPTER XLIII.
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND.
The Metropolis Crowded--The Procession--Vice-President Hendricks
Sworn In--The Inaugural--The President's Oath--Inauguration Ball--
The Cabinet--Secretaries Bayard, Manning, Endicott, Whitney, and
Lamar--Postmaster-General Vilas--Attorney-General Garland--The
Council Table.

CHAPTER XLIV.
OFFICIAL AND SOCIAL LIFE.
Executive Work--General Reception--Office-Seekers--Miss Rose
Elizabeth Cleveland--A State Dinner at the White House--The Guests
--Toilets of the Ladies--Sad Death of Mrs. and Miss Bayard--Mrs.
Secretary Whitney--Death of Vice-President Hendricks.

CHAPTER XLV.
THE FORTY-NINTH CONGRESS.
John Sherman President _pro tem._--The Fitz John Porter Debate--
Unpleasantness between Kansas and South Carolina--Senator Gorman,
of Maryland--Senator Kenna, of West Virginia--General Manderson,
of Nebraska--Senator Spooner, of Wisconsin--Wedding Present to
Secretary McCook--Mr. Speaker Carlisle--Representative Breckinridge,
of Kentucky--Drawing of Seats--Prominent Representatives--The Lobby,
Male and Female.

CHAPTER XLVI.
THE PRESIDENT'S WEDDING
Floral Decorations--The Bride's Attire--The Ceremony--The Marriage
Supper--Departure of the Wedded Couple--Receptions at the White
House--The Diplomats and their Ladies--Dinner Parties--The Leader
of Society--Congress and the President--Vetoes--Office-Seekers--
Summer Recreations.

CHAPTER XLVII.
A SUMMING UP OF SIXTY YEARS.
Phenomenal Progress of Washington--Growth of the United States--
Proud Position of the Republic--Improvements at the National Capital
--Tone of Society--War Demoralization--Plunderers and Impudent
Lobbyists--Tone of Political Newspapers--Congressional Claimants--
Southern Influence--Shoddy and Veneer--A Literary and Scientific
Centre--The Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum, the Fish
Commission, and other Scientific Collections--The Cosmos Club--
L'Envoi.


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS [omitted]


LIST OF AUTOGRAPHS

JOHN ADAMS
JAMES BUCHANAN
THOMAS JEFFERSON
JOHN P. HALE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
E. E. ELLSWORTH
HANNIBAL HAMLIN
BENJAMIN F. WADE
SIMON CAMERON
SALMON P. CHASE
A. E. BURNSIDE
GEORGE G. MEADE
JOSEPH HOOKER
ROBERT E. LEE
ANDREW JOHNSON
JOHN A. LOGAN
EDWIN M. STANTON
HENRY B. ANTHONY
WINFIELD S. HANCOCK
JEREMIAH S. BLACK
CHARLES SUMNER
U. S. GRANT
JAMES MONROE
SCHUYLER COLFAX
HENRY WILSON
MORRISON R. WAITE
MATTHEW H. CARPENTER
JAMES G. BLAINE
FRANCIS E. SPINNER
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
WILLIAM M. EVARTS
ROSCOE CONKLING
JOHN SHERMAN
ELIHU B. WASHBURNE
JAMES A. GARFIELD
DAVID DAVIS
PHIL. H. SHERIDAN
CHESTER A. ARTHUR
WILLIAM T. SHERMAN
DAVID D. PORTER
ROBERT T. LINCOLN
W. W. CORCORAN
GROVER CLEVELAND
THOMAS A. HENDRICKS
FRED. T. FRELINGHUYSEN
BYRON SUNDERLAND


PERLEY'S REMINISCENCES.

VOL. II.


CHAPTER I.
FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS AND DOMESTIC TROUBLES.

While President Buchanan was anxiously awaiting information from
Central America, he received from Mr. Dallas, the Minister at
London, notes of a conversation between himself and the Earl of
Malmesbury, in which the English Minister said:  "Lord Napier has
communicated to the President the treaty negotiated by Sir William
Gore Ouseley with the Minister from Nicaragua."  It was believed
that no objection had been expressed to its provisions.  One of
its objects was to terminate the Mosquito Protectorate.  Now, this
was virtually the relinquishment on the part of England of her
construction of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and, of course, was very
desirable news to Mr. Buchanan, yet Lord Napier had withheld it.
He either was disgusted at this settlement of the long-talked-of
difficulty without his aid, or his devotion to a fair Southern
widow had made him stupidly inattentive to what was going on.  A
hint to the English Government was thereupon given by Mr. Buchanan
that his Lordship had better be transferred to some other post,
and he was transferred accordingly.

Mr. Seward had endeavored to introduce Lord Napier into Republican
society instead of that which Southerners had made so agreeable,
and when he was recalled was mainly instrumental in getting up a
subscription ball in his honor.  It was given at Willard's Hotel,
in the long dining-room, which had been decorated for the occasion
with flags of all nations, mirrors, and chandeliers.  At one end
of the room, beneath full-length portraits of General Washington
and Queen Victoria, was a raised dais, on which Lord and Lady Napier
received the company.  He wore a blue dress-coat with gilt diplomatic
buttons, white waistcoat, and blue trousers, and looked the "canny"
Scotchman and Napier that he was.  Lady Napier wore a white silk
ball-dress, with three flounces of white tulle, puffed and trimmed
with black Brussels lace, a corsage, and a head-dress of scarlet
velvet with pearls and white ostrich feathers.  After the presentations
the ball was opened with a quadrille, in which Lord Napier danced
with Madame Limburgh, a daughter of General Cass, Mr. Ledyard and
Mrs. Seward, Jr., being their vis-a-vis.  In the same quadrille
was Senator Seward and the beautiful Mrs. Conrad, of Georgia, having
as their vis-a-vis Mr. Danby Seymour, M. P., and the niece of
Senator Dixon, of Connecticut.

Supper was served at eleven o'clock.  Mr. Speaker Orr escorted Lady
Napier to the table, followed by Lord Napier escorting the Countess
de Sartiges.  It was a bountiful repast, with a profusion of
champagne.  Dancing was kept up until a late hour.  A few days
afterward Lord Napier embarked on an English war-steamer for his
home.

Elegant entertainments were given during Mr. Buchanan's Administration
by the members of his Cabinet, the receptions at the house of
Postmaster-General Brown, graced by his daughter-in-law, Miss
Narcissa Sanders, surpassing all others in elegance.  Mrs. Gwin's
fancy ball was far above any similar entertainment ever given at
Washington.  Charles Francis Adams, then a Representative from
Massachusetts, entertained very hospitably; Mr. Seward gave numerous
dinner-parties, and his parlors were open every Friday evening to
all who chose to visit him; the Blairs kept open house for the new
Republican party; Mr. John Cochrane gave a great dinner-party to
the correspondents of the leading newspapers; Mrs. Fanny Kemble
Butler had fashionable audiences to hear her readings, and was much
made of in society, but she terrified the waiters at her hotel by
her imperious manners.  On all sides gayety abounded.

A large party of Democrats, after enjoying a dinner on the anniversary
of the battle of New Orleans, went, at past eleven o'clock, to the
White House to honor the President.  They evidently disturbed him
from his sleep, for he appeared in a dressing-gown, and as if he
had just arisen from his bed.  Mr. Buchanan was an exceedingly
amiable and courteous politician, and showed it on this occasion
by getting up at that unseemly hour to address these gentlemen,
who were full of supper, wine, and patriotism.  He, however, naively
remarked to them, in concluding his remarks, "that in bidding them
good-night he hoped they would retire to rest, and that to-morrow
all of them would be better prepared for the discharge of their
respective duties."  Evidently Mr. Buchanan, while appreciating
the motive and feelings of these gentlemen, manifested a little
characteristic waggishness about their going to rest and getting
up refreshed for their duties.

The murder, one bright Sunday morning in February, of Philip Barton
Key, the District Attorney of the District of Columbia, by Mr.
Daniel E. Sickles, a member of the House of Representatives from
New York, created a great sensation.  Mr. Sickles, although a young
man, had been for some years prominently connected with New York
politics.  He had taken from her boarding-school and married the
handsome young daughter of Madame Bagioli, who had, with her husband,
acquired some celebrity in New York as Italian music teachers.
Soon after the marriage Mr. Sickles had received the appointment
of Secretary of Legation at London (Mr. Appleton having been unable
to accompany Mr. Buchanan), and Mrs. Sickles thus made her _debut_
as the presiding lady of the bachelor Minister's establishment.
In 1857 Mr. Sickles entered Congress, and rented the "Woodbury
House," on Lafayette Square, where he lived in elegant style.  His
coaches, dinners, and parties were irreproachable, and Mrs. Sickles
was noted for her magnificent jewelry and beautiful toilettes.
Mr. Buchanan was a frequent visitor at their house, and was to have
been godfather at the christening of Mr. Sickles' infant daughter,
with Mrs. Slidell as godmother, but an attack of whooping-cough
postponed the ceremony.

Prominent among gentlemen "in society" at that time was District
Attorney Key.  His father, in years past, had been a leading member
of the Maryland Bar, practicing in Georgetown, and the family had
always been highly respected.  It was, however, as the author of
the "Star Spangled Banner" that the elder Mr. Key acquired a national
fame.  One of his daughters, Mrs. Ellen Key Blunt, inherited her
father's poetical genius, and had, since her widowhood, become
prominent as a reader in public.  Another daughter married Mr.
George Pendleton, then a Representative from Ohio.  Daniel, a son,
was killed in a duel by a Mr. May; and Philip Barton, having become
somewhat popular as a politician and a lawyer, received from Franklin
Pierce the appointment of District Attorney.  About that time he
was appointed Captain of the "Montgomery Guards" also, and looked
gallantly in his green and gold uniform.  He married Miss Swann,
of Baltimore, who died a few years afterward, leaving young children,
and from that time Mr. Key's health had been very feeble.  The
previous winter (Mr. Buchanan having guaranteed him against rotation)
he went to Cuba, but was not at all benefitted.  Tall, slender,
with rather a sad yet handsome face, he was just the man to win a
woman's heart.  He was somewhat foppish, too, in his attire, riding
on horseback in white leather tights and high boots.

About an hour before Mr. Key was shot, he said to a young lady,
whom he joined on her way home from church:  "I am despondent about
my health, and very desperate.  Indeed, I have half a mind to go
out on the prairies and try buffalo hunting.  The excursion would
either cure me or kill me, and, really, I don't care much which."
Soon afterward, he saw, from the windows of his club-house, a signal
displayed at the window of the residence of Mr. Sickles, across
the square, which informed him that Mrs. Sickles desired to see
him.  He had hardly left the club-house, however, when he was met
by Mr. Sickles, who, without warning, drew a pistol and shot him
down like a dog.  He was taken into the club-house, which he had
so recently left, and died in a few moments.  Mr. Sickles surrendered
himself at once and was imprisoned in the jail, where he enjoyed
the comforts of the keeper's room, and received the visits of many
friends.

Mr. Sickles' trial came off in a few weeks before Judge Crawford,
an old gentleman, whose intellect appeared to be somewhat clouded,
but who endeavored to conceal a lack of capacity by a testy,
querulous manner not especially imposing.  The prosecution was
conducted by District Attorney Ould, prominent afterward in the
Confederate service as having the charge of the exchange of prisoners.
He was educated for the Baptist ministry, and spoke with a somewhat
clerical air.  It was not to be supposed that he would show
ingratitude to Mr. Buchanan for his appointment by over-exerting
himself to secure the punishment of one who was known to be a
favorite at the White House.  Mr. Carlisle, retained soon after
the murder by Mr. Key's friends to aid in the prosecution, was by
many regarded as the Choate of the District Bar.  Nervous in manner,
yet cold at heart, crammed with the tricks of the law, and gifted
with a flow of language wherewith to cloak them, he brought with
equal felicity the favorable points of his client's case into
prominence, and showed great acuteness in suppressing or glossing
over whatever might be prejudicial to his interest.  He was not,
however, permitted to use much evidence touching the morality of
the prisoner and the manner in which the victim had been lured to
his tomb.

The defense was conducted by Edwin M. Stanton, previously known at
Washington as a patent lawyer, and as having concluded successfully
an important California land case for the Government.  He had a
head which Titian would have loved to paint, so massive were its
proportions, and so sweeping were its long locks and beard.  He
stood like a sturdy sentinel on guard before his client, pleading
the "higher law" in justification, and mercilessly attacking the
counsel on the other side whenever they sought to introduce damaging
evidence.  He had as his aids-de-camp Messrs. Phillips, Chilton,
and Radcliff, of the District Bar, each knowing well his Honor the
Judge and the rest of the court.

Then there were David R. Graham and James T. Brady, prominent New
York lawyers, who brought their eloquence to bear upon the jury,
and were aided by T. F. Meagher, a glorious specimen of a rollicking
Irish barrister.

Mr. Sickles sat in the dock, which was for all the world like the
old-fashioned, square, high church pews.  He looked exactly as one
would imagine a successful New York city politician would look--
apparently affable, yet bent on success, and unrelenting in his
opposition to those who sought to impede his progress.  When the
verdict of acquittal came, there was a scene of tumultuous disorder
in the court-room.   Mr. Stanton called in a loud tone for cheers,
and rounds of them were given again and again.  President Buchanan
was delighted with the acquittal of "Dan," as he familiarly called
him, and his friends gave him a round of supper-parties.

Anson Burlingame, who was prominent in political and social circles
at that eventful epoch, had transplanted the Western style of
oratory to Massachusetts, where he had married the daughter of a
leading Whig, and entered political life through the "Know-Nothing"
door.  He did not have much to say on the floor of the House, but
he was an indefatigable organizer, and rendered the Republican
party great service as, what is called in the English House of
Commons, a "whipper-in."  He prided himself on being recognized as
a man who would chivalrously defend himself if attacked, but he
showed no desire for fighting when hostilities became inevitable.
He then went abroad in a diplomatic capacity.

[Facsimile]
  John Adams.
JOHN ADAMS was born at Braintree, now Quincy, Mass., October 19th,
1735; removed to Boston, 1768; was Delegate to first Congressional
Congress, September, 1774; assisted in the Treaty of Peace, January,
1783; was United States Minister to England, 1785-1788; was Vice-
President with Washington, 1789-1797; was President of the United
States, 1797-1801; died July 4th, 1826.


CHAPTER II.
VISITS FROM DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNERS.

The Japanese Embassy arrived in Washington on the 14th of May,
1860, in the steamer Philadelphia, which brought them up the Potomac
from the United States frigate Roanoke, on which they had come from
Japan.  They were received at the Navy Yard with high honors, and
escorted by the district militia to their quarters at Willard's
Hotel.

The entire party numbered seventy-one.  The three Ambassadors were
rather tall and thin in form, with long and sharp faces.  They had
jet-black hair, so far as any was left by the barber.  In dressing
the hair the men expended as much care as women, and took as much
pride and pleasure in its neat and fashionable adjustment.  It was
shaved off to the very skin, except around the temples and low down
in the back of the neck, from which it was brought up on all sides
to the top of the head and fastened by a string.  It was then
carried forward, well stiffened with pomatum, in a queue about four
inches long, and of the size of one's finger, and pointed over the
front part of the head, which was left completely denuded of all
hair.  They dressed in silk robes, and wore two swords at their
sides, according to universal usage with the higher classes of
their land.  When they went in state to see the President they had
little hats tied on the tops of their heads, and some of them had
water-proof hats along, but they generally went bare-headed, carrying
fans to keep the sun's rays away from their eyes.  When not using
these fans they stuck them down back of their necks into their
robes.  They used the folds of cotton cloth swathed around them in
place of pockets.  President Buchanan entertained the eight highest
dignitaries of the Embassy at a dinner-party, at which ladies were
present, and they attended evening parties given by Mrs. Slidell
and by Madame Von Limburg, arriving at eight and leaving at nine.
They paid one visit to the Capitol, where they went in on the floor
of the Senate by virtue of their diplomatic position, and after a
short stay crossed the rotunda to the House, where they took seats
in the gallery set apart for the Diplomatic Corps.  A special
committee, with John Sherman as Chairman, waited upon the three
Ambassadors and invited them to take seats on the floor.  On the
way they stopped to pay their respects to Mr. Speaker, in his
gorgeous apartment, where they took a glass of champagne with him.
They then went on the floor and took seats at the right of the
Speaker's platform, where the members crowded around them.  Some
children attracted their attention, and Master Dawes was taken on
the knee of the Japanese chief Ambassador while he was a guest of
the House.

The principal object of the mission of the Embassy was to get an
English copy of the treaty between Japan and the United States,
signed by the President.  The original was burned in the great fire
at Jeddo in 1858.  The copy in Japanese was saved.  This they
brought with them, and a copy of it not signed, and a letter from
the Tycoon to the President.  The box containing these documents
was looked upon by them as almost sacred.  It was called the "treaty
box," and was never allowed to be out of their sight.  It was a
box three feet long, twenty-six inches in depth, and eighteen inches
wide, covered with red morocco leather, and neatly sewed around
the edges.  There were three japanned boxes placed together, and
then covered.  Around the box was a light framework, and when
carried was borne on a pole which rested on the shoulders of two
stalwart policemen, closely followed by a Japanese with two swords
in his girdle.

Some of the caricatures sketched by the Japanese were excellent,
and there was no mistaking Mr. Buchanan as they portrayed him.
They would not, however, sell one of these productions, even when
fabulous prices were offered, replying:  "_Mi sogo Miphon_"--I will
take it to Japan.

When President Buchanan learned that the Prince of Wales intended
to visit Canada, he hastened to write to Queen Victoria, tendering
to her son a cordial welcome should he extend his visit to the
United States.  The invitation was accepted, and the Prince, who
traveled under the name of Lord Renfrew, with the gentlemen of his
suite, became the guests of Mr. Buchanan at the White House.  The
heir-apparent, who was then rather stout and phlegmatic, appeared,
like Sir Charles Coldstream, to be "used up," but he philosophically
went the rounds of the public buildings and was the honored guest
at a public reception and at a diplomatic dinner.  He apparently
enjoyed a visit, with Miss Lane, to a fashionable boarding-school
for young ladies, where he rolled several games of nine-pins with
the pupils, but he could not be induced to remain on the White
House balcony at night in a drizzling rain watching fire-works that
would not always ignite.  Indeed, it was rumored that his Lordship
had slipped away from his guardian and visited some of the haunts
of metropolitan dissipation.

The British party was taken to Mount Vernon on the revenue cutter
"Harriet Lane," accompanied by President Buchanan, Miss Lane, nearly
all of the Diplomatic Corps, and the leading army, navy, and civil-
service officials.  President Buchanan escorted his guests to
Washington's tomb, and the great-grandson of George III. planted
a tree near the grave of the arch-rebel against that monarch's
rule.  That evening the Prince dined at the British Legation, where
Lord Lyons had invited the Diplomatic Corps to meet him, and the
next morning he left for Richmond.  When President Buchanan learned
that the expenses of the trip to Mount Vernon were to be paid from
a contingent fund at the Treasury Department, he objected, and
wished to pay the bills himself, but Secretary Cobb finally paid
them.

Mr. Buchanan's courteous civility toward the Prince of Wales, and
the demonstrations made toward him in the Northern States, evidently
made a deep impression on Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort,
who also doubtless felt chagrined by the inhospitable manner in
which the young traveler was treated in Virginia.  In the darkest
hours of the Civil War which followed, when so many leading British
statesmen espoused the cause of the Confederates, Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert were always friends of the Union.  Their restraining
influence, at a period when there were many causes of alienation,
undoubtedly prevented a recognition of the belligerent rights of
the Confederate States, which would have been followed by an alliance
with them as an established government.  Commercially this would
have been desirable for Great Britain, as it would have enabled
her merchants to have obtained possession of the cotton crop, and
to have paid for it with manufactured articles--British shipping
enjoying the carrying trade.

President Buchanan was very industrious, and gave personal attention
to his official duties.  Rising early, he breakfasted, read the
newspapers, and was in his office every week-day morning at eight
o'clock.  There Mr. J. Buchanan Henry, his private secretary, laid
before him the letters received by that morning's mail, filed and
briefed with the date, the writer's name, and a condensed statement
of the contents.  Letters of a purely personal nature the President
answered himself, and he gave Mr. Henry instructions as to the
reply to, or the reference of the others.  An entry was made in a
book of the brief on each letter, and the disposition of it if it
was referred to a Department.  This system enabled the President
to ascertain what had been done with any letter addressed to him
by reference to Mr. Henry's books.

President Buchanan remained in his office, receiving such visitors
as called, until one o'clock, when he went to luncheon.  Returning
to his desk, he rarely left it before five o'clock, when, with few
exceptions, he took a hour's walk.  He did not use his carriage a
dozen times a year, except when he resided, during the summer, at
the Soldiers' Home, and drove in to the White House in the morning
and back in the afternoon.

On his return from his daily "constitutional" walk, Mr. Buchanan
dined, at six o'clock, with the members of his household.  He kept
up the established etiquette of not accepting dinner invitations,
and rarely attended evening parties or receptions, on the ground
that universal acceptance would have been impossible, and any
discrimination would have given offense.  Once a week some of the
members of the Cabinet, accompanied by their wives, dined at the
White House "en famille," and, as there was no ceremony these were
regarded as pleasant entertainments.

A series of State dinners was given during each session of Congress,
the table in the large dining-room accommodating forty guests.
The first of these dinners, annually, was given to the Justices of
the Supreme Court and the law officers, the next to the Diplomatic
Corps, and then to the Senators and Representatives in turn,
according to official seniority, except in a very few cases where
individuals had by discourtesy rendered such an invitation improper.
Miss Lane and Mr. Henry issued the invitations and assigned seats
to those who accepted them in order of precedence, which was rather
a delicate task.  Mr. Henry had also, in the short interval between
the arrival of the guests in the parlor and procession into the
dining-room, to ascertain the name of each gentleman and tell him
what lady he was to take in--probably introducing then to each
other.  It was, he used to say, a very _mauvais quart d'heure_ to
him, as he was pretty sure to find at the last moment, when the
President was leading the procession to the table, that some male
guest, perhaps not accustomed to such matters, had strayed away
from his intended partner, leaving the lady standing alone and much
embarrassed.  He had then to give them a fresh start.

Mr. Henry, as private Secretary, was charged with the expenditure
of the library fund, the payment of the steward, messengers, and
also with the expenditures of the household, which were paid out
of the President's private purse.  These latter expenditures
generally exceeded the President's salary in the winter months,
because President Buchanan enjoyed entertaining and entertained
liberally from inclination.  In summer, the social entertaining
being much less, and the President being at the Soldiers' Home,
the expenses were much less.  The President's annual salary, then
twenty-five thousand dollars, did not defray the actual household
expenses of the Executive Mansion.  Other Presidents had saved a
considerable part of their salaries, but Mr. Buchanan had to draw
upon his private means, not only for his expenses, but for his
generous charities.  He also made it a rule, which other Presidents
had neglected, not to accept presents of any value, even from his
most intimate friends or political supporters, and it was a part
of the duty of his private secretary, Mr. Henry, to return any
gifts at once with the thanks of the President.

[Facsimile]
  James Buchanan
JAMES BUCHANAN was born in Franklin County, Pa., April 22d, 1791;
entered the Legislature of Pennsylvania when twenty-three years of
age; was elected to Congress, 1820, where he served five terms;
was Minister to St. Petersburg, 1831-1833; was United States Senator,
1833-1845; was Secretary of State under Polk, 1845-1849; was Minister
to England, 1853-1856; was President of the United States, 1857-
1861; died June 1st, 1868.


CHAPTER III.
THE GATHERING TEMPEST.

The clouds which had long been hovering portentously in our skies
now began to spread and to blacken all around the heavens.  This
was greatly intensified on all sides by the daring raid of John
Brown, of Ossawattomie, Kansas.  Locating on a farm near Harper's
Ferry, Va., he organized a movement looking toward a general slave
insurrection.  Seizing the Armory of the United States Arsenal
buildings, all of which were destroyed during the war, he inaugurated
his scheme, and for a few hours had things his own way.  But troops
were rapidly concentrated; Brown's outside workers were captured
or shot; the Arsenal building was fired into; one of his sons was
killed, another mortally wounded, and when the doors were forced
Brown was found kneeling between their bodies.  His arrest, trial,
and execution were speedily accomplished, but all the thunders of
a coming storm henceforth rolled all around the heavens.

At the South, the leaders used the excitement created by this affair
to consolidate public opinion in their section and to cast opprobrium
on the Republicans at the North.  They saw that their ascendancy
in the national councils was hastening to a close, and that if they
were to carry out their cherished plans for a dissolution of the
Union, and for the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, they
must strike the blow during the Administration of Mr. Buchanan.
Meanwhile Washington ran riot with costly entertainments in society
and secret suppers, at which the Abolitionists of the North and
the Secessionists of the South, respectively, plotted and planned
for the commencement of hostilities.

One of the neutral grounds, where men of both parties met in peace,
was the superbly furnished gambling-house of Pendleton, on Pennsylvania
Avenue, known to its frequenters as "The Hall of the Bleeding
Heart," though he preferred the appellation, "The Palace of Fortune."
Pendleton belonged to one of the first families of Virginia, and
his wife, a most estimable lady, was the daughter of Robert Mills,
the architect of the Treasury.  His rooms were hung with meritorious
pictures, and the art of wood-carving was carried to great perfection
in the side-boards, secretaries, and tables, which served the
various purposes of the establishment.  The dining and supper tables
were loaded with plate of pure metal.  The cooking would not have
shamed the genius of Soyer, and it was universally admitted that
the wines were such as could have been selected only by a connoisseur.
This incomparable provider had ten thousand dollars invested in
his cellar and his closet.

The people who nightly assembled to see and to take part in the
entertainments of the house consisted of candidates for the
Presidency, Senators and Representatives, members of the Cabinet,
editors and journalists, and the master workmen of the third house,
the lobby.  Pendleton's, in its palmiest days, might have been
called the vestibule of the lobby.  Its most distinguished professors
might be found there.  They lent money to their clients when the
"animal scratched too roughly," that is to say, when the play ran
against them, and they became "broke," as they sometimes did.
Pendleton himself was an operator in the lobby.  His professional
position gave him great facilities.  He assisted in the passage of
many useful bills of a private nature, involving considerable sums
of money.  A broker in parliamentary notes is an inevitable retainer
of broker votes.

In the outer parlors, as midnight approached, might have been seen
leading members of Congress, quietly discussing the day's proceedings,
the prospects of parties, and the character of public men.  A few
officers of the army added to the number and variety of the groups
which occupied this apartment.  Here all were drinking, smoking,
and talking, generally in a bright and jocose vein.  Servants were
gliding about with cigars, toddies, cocktails, and "whisky-straights"
on little silver trays.  Among them were two "old Virginny" darkies,
very obliging and popular, who picked up many quarters and halves,
and not a few "white fish," representing one dollar each.

But the third room was the haunt of the tiger!  The company around
the faro table would be playing mostly with counters of red, circular
pieces of ivory, called fish, or chips, each of which represented
five dollars.  A few who were nearly "broke" would be using the
white ones of one-fifth the value.  The players were silent as the
grave, because some of them were "in great luck," and large piles
of red chips were standing upon different cards to abide the event
of the deal, but, alas! the close of the deal was unfavorable, and
before the little silver box, from which the cards were drawn,
yielded the last of the pack, the most of the red piles had been
drawn to the bank side.  But some of them had doubled, and the
owners drew them down as capital for the chances of the next deal.
If one had great good fortune and some prudence, while possessor
of the red piles before named, he would leave the house with his
few hundreds or thousands of dollars; but the chances were that
between midnight and dawn the gamesters would all retire minus the
money they had brought into the place, and all they had been able
to borrow from friends.

There were, however, exceptions.  The largest amount ever won from
the proprietor at Pendleton's was twelve hundred dollars, for a
stake of one hundred dollars.  When Humphrey Marshall was appointed
Minister to China by President Pierce, in 1852, he lost his "outfit"
and six months' pay, and was forced to accept a loan from Pendleton
to enable him to reach the scene of his diplomatic labors.  When
Pendleton died, Mr. Buchanan attended his funeral, and several
leading Democratic Congressmen were among his pall-bearers.  His
effects, including the furniture of his gambling-house, were sold
at auction, attracting crowds of the most fashionable people in
Washington, and probably for the first time since the descent of
Proserpine, the gates of Hades were passed by troops of the fair
sex.

Vice-President Breckinridge turned his back on the Union with marked
regret.  One night, as a supper-party at Colonel Forney's, Mr.
Keitt, of South Carolina, undertook to ridicule the Kentucky horse
raisers.  Breckinridge stood it for awhile, but Keitt persisted in
returning to the blue-grass region for a location to his stories,
and finally Breckinridge retorted.  He described a recent visit to
South Carolina, and his meeting there with several of the original
Secessionists.  One of them, who was a militia officer in Keitt's
own district, had just returned from a muster arrayed in faded
regimentals of blue jeans, with a dragoon's sword trailing at his
side and a huge fore-and-aft chapeau surmounted with a long feather.
He was full of enthusiasm for the cause and descanted with particular
eloquence upon what he called the wrongs of the South.  "'I tell
you, sah,' said he," continued Breckinridge, "'we cannot stand it
any longer; we intend to fight; we are preparing to fight; it is
impossible, sah, that we should submit, sah, not for a single hour,
sah.'  I asked him, 'What are you suffering from?' and he replied:
'Why, sah, we are suffering under the oppression of the Federal
Government.  We have been suffering under it for twenty-five years
and more, and we will stand it no longer.'"  Breckinridge then
turned toward Keitt, and continued, "I advise my young friend here
from South Carolina to visit some of his constituents before
undertaking to go to war with the North, and advise them to go
through the Northern states to learn what an almighty big country
they will have to whip before they get through."  Breckinridge was
sincere in this remark, yet not many months had elapsed before he
was forced into secession by the agitators.

The re-opening of the slave-trade, by which negroes could be imported
and sold for very low prices, was one of the allurements held out
to the poor whites of the South.  A cargo was actually brought in
a yacht called the Wanderer, commanded by Captain Corrie, who
obtained the requisite capital for the enterprise by obtaining the
passage of a large claim for the military services of a South
Carolina organization in the War of 1812.  Marshal Rynders suspected
the destination of the Wanderer when she was about to leave New
York, but he was persuaded to let her go.  A few months later she
landed near Brunswick, in Georgia, three hundred and fifty negroes,
who were speedily distributed over the Gulf States.  One or two
were seized by United States Marshals, but they were soon taken
from them.  The experiment was a success.

While the two House of Congress were convulsed by sectional strife
there was no cessation in the presentation of jobs, some of which
were disgraceful schemes for plundering the Treasury.  The most
active advocates of these swindles, and of some more meritorious
legislation which they were paid to advocate, were the lady lobbyists.
Some of them were the widows of officers of the army or navy, others
the daughters of Congressmen, and others had drifted from home
localities where they had found themselves the subjects of scandalous
comments.  The parlors of some of these dames were exquisitely
furnished with works of art and bric-a-brac, donated by admirers.
Every evening they received, and in the winter their blazing wood
fires were surrounded by a distinguished circle.  Some would treat
favored guests to a game of euchre, and as midnight approached
there was always an adjournment to the dining-room, where a choice
supper was served.  A cold duck, a venison pie, broiled oysters,
or some other exquisitely cooked dish with salads and cheese,
generally constituted the repast, with iced champagne or Burgundy
at blood-heat.  Who could blame the Congressman for leaving the
bad cooking of his hotel or boarding-house, with an absence of all
home comforts, to walk into the parlor web which the adroit spider
lobbyist had cunningly woven for him.

Washington was enlivened during the recess of Congress by a visit
from the "Chicago Zouaves," a volunteer organization which had been
carefully trained by its young commander, Captain E. E. Ellsworth,
in a novel drill based on the quick movements of the Moors.  The
staid old military organizations were magnetized by the rapid,
theatrical manner in which the Zouaves executed the manual and
several gymnastic company movements.  Their uniform was loose
scarlet trousers, gaiter boots, and buff-leather leggings, a blue
jacket trimmed with orange-colored braid, and a red cap with orange
trimmings; their scarlet blankets were rolled on the top of their
knapsacks.  They drilled as light infantry, and moved like electric
clocks.  The entire drill lasted nearly three hours, including
stoppages for rest, a few moments each time, and, although performed
under a scorching sun on the hot sand, and comprising a series of
vigorous exercises, the men stood it well, and attended strictly
to their business.

The step of the Zouaves was in itself a peculiarity and strongly
suggestive of thorough pedestrian and gymnastic preparation.  The
diminutive stature of the men and their precision in accomplishing
the allotted length of the step, gave to it something of a steady
_loping_ movement, but yet so firm and springy that the effect was
most animated.  Another feature in the general excellence of the
Zouaves was noted in their method of handling their arms, which,
instead of the inanimate and gingerly treatment so observable even
among finely drilled companies when executing the manual, were
grasped with a nervous energy of action and shifted with a spirit
which was thrillingly suggestive of a will, as well as the power,
to act.  The visitors were quite boyish in appearance, and mostly
of small stature, falling even below the ordinary size of short
men in our cities.

Captain Ellsworth was in appearance the most youthful of his corps,
but he had a finely marked countenance and a self-reliant manner.
The corps visited Mount Vernon, and was received at the White House
by President Buchanan and Miss Lane.  After witnessing an exhibition
of their performance, the President made a patriotic and prophetic
little speech to Captain Ellsworth, concluding by the remark:  "We
wish you prosperity and happiness in peace--should war come, I know
where you will be."  Within a short year the gallant officer lay
in a soldier's grave.

Owen Lovejoy, a Representative from Illinois, was one of the
prominent Republican orators.  He was a man of considerable brains
and a good deal of body, and his style of utterance was of the
hyper-intense school.  On one occasion he begun his speech at the
top of a voice of most prodigious compass, and kept on in the same
strain, which, mildly described, might be characterized as a roar.
When some waggish member on the Southern side cried, "Louder!" the
effect upon the audience was convulsing.  There stood Lovejoy, with
his coat off and his collar open, his big, bushy head thrown back
like a lion at bay, and brandishing his arms aloft, while his whole
body rocked and quivered with excitement, hurling his denunciations
not at the slave-power this time, but at the Secessionists.  His
tremendous voice rang through the hall like the peal of a trumpet,
and when he described the insults to the old flag he was truly
eloquent.

The Southern conspirators endeavored to secure the co-operation of
the Indians, and delegations from several tribes were successively
brought to Washington, where they "went the grand rounds" of the
haunts of dissipation.  They were dirty, disgusting-looking fellows,
without one particle of the romance about them with which Cooper
has invested the Indian character.  Several tribes joined the
Southern Confederacy, and fought desperately against the Union,
which had for years before paid them liberal annuities.

[Facsimile]
  Th. Jefferson
THOMAS JEFFERSON was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., April
2d, 1743; was a member of the Virginia Legislature, 1769; was
Delegate to the Continental Congress, 1775; re-entered the Virginia
Legislature, 1777; was member of Congress, 1783; was Secretary of
State under Washington, 1789-1793; was Vice-President with Adams,
1797-1801; was President of the United States, 1801-1809; died July
4th, 1826.


CHAPTER IV.
LINCOLN'S ELECTION INAUGURATES REBELLION.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President by the people on the 6th of
November, 1860.  Three days afterward, Horace Greeley wrote to the
_Tribune_ as follows:  "If the Cotton States shall become satisfied
that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on
letting them go in peace."  Less than a week after the election
Mr. Yancey said, in a public address, in Montgomery, his home, "I
have good reason to believe that the action of any State will be
peaceable--will not be resisted--under the present or any probable
prospective condition of Federal affairs."

When Congress met, the Senate occupied its new chamber.  The Southern
conspirators in both Houses were outspoken and truculent, while
the Abolitionists were defiant and exasperating.  The message of
President Buchanan was a non-committal document, showing that he
was perplexed and overwhelmed by what he had not the courage to
control.  Encouraged by his declaration that the Executive possessed
no constitutional power to use the army and navy for the preservation
of the life of the Republic, the Southern Senators at Washington,
who directed the movements of the Secessionists, were emboldened
to direct them to withdraw from the Union and organize a Confederacy.
Meanwhile some of them were to remain in Congress to defeat all
hostile legislation.

Senator Seward, who assumed the leadership of the Republicans in
Congress, had been correctly described by Henry Clay as "a man of
no convictions."  He had not that magnetic mind which could
subordinate others, or the mental courage to take the helm in the
hour of victory, but he relied upon the pecuniary operations of an
unscrupulous lobby, which had followed him from Albany, and sought
to fill its military chest with the spoils of the public printing
and binding.  After long announcement the Senate Chamber was crowded
to hear what he would have to say on the political situation.
Political friends and political foes, the most conservative and
the most ultra, the Abolitionist from Vermont and the fire-eater
from Mississippi, all looked upon that pale, slight figure in a
gray frock coat--so calm, so self-possessed, so good-natured--as
the man who had but to speak the word and the country would be
saved.

The speech had been carefully composed and elaborated, as was
everything which emanated from that source.  It was in type before
it was pronounced.  The manuscript lay before the Speaker on the
desk, but it was delivered almost entirely through the power of
his wonderful memory.  Senators gathered closely around him, and
anxiously caught every syllable as it fell from his lips.  The
speaker seemed the only tranquil Senator there.  It appeared
incredible that any man could present an exterior of such coolness
and quietude, and apparently smiling unconcern, amid anxiety and
excitement so deep and intense.

Mr. Seward was not a graceful orator, but there was a certain
impressive manner corresponding with the importance of what he had
to say which arrested the hearer's regard, and when he was evolving
some weighty maxim of political philosophy, and particularly during
his vivid delineations of the grandeur and power of the Union, and
of the calamities which might follow its dissolution, every eye
was fixed upon him.  There were several quite dramatic passages in
the speech which roused the orator to more than usual animation.
Such were the allusions to the gray-headed Clerk of the Senate,
the contrast of the man-of-war entering a foreign port before and
after the dissolution of the Union, and the episode, where,
enumerating by name the great men who had added glory to the
Republic, he said:  "After all these have performed their majestic
parts, let the curtain fall."

The speech was an ingenious piece of literary composition, which
had been foreshadowed by a series of able editorials in the Albany
_Evening Journal_, published as feelers of public opinion, and to
prepare the way for this speech.  It was the hand of Weed, writing,
but the ideas were from the brain of Seward.

The Southern States soon began to secede, and their Senators and
Representatives to leave the capital.  Jefferson Davis made a long
farewell speech, at the commencement of which he said:  "Tears are
now trickling down the stern face of man, and those who have bled
for the flag of their country and are willing now to die for it,
stand powerless."  As he proceeded he referred to the possession
of Fort Sumter, and said that he had heard it said, by a gallant
gentleman, that the great objection to withdrawing the garrison
was an unwillingness to lower the flag.  "Can there," said he with
dramatic effect, "be a point of pride against laying upon that
sacred soil to-day the flag for which our fathers died?  My pride,
Senators, is different.  My pride is that that flag shall not set
between contending brothers; and that, when it shall no longer be
the common flag of the country, it shall be folded up and laid
away, like a vesture no longer used; that is shall be kept as a
sacred memento of the past, to which each of us can make a pilgrimage
and remember the glorious days in which we were born."  In concluding
his remarks, Mr. Davis invoked the Senators so to act that "the
Angel of Peace might spread her wings, through it be over divided
States; and the sons of the sires of the Revolution might still go
on in the friendly intercourse with each other, ever renewing the
memories of a common origin; the sections by the diversity of their
products and habits, acting and reacting beneficially, the commerce
of each might swell the prosperity of both, and the happiness of
all be still interwoven together.  If there cannot be peace," he
said, "Mississippi's gallant sons will stand like a wall of fire
around their State, and I go hence, not in hostility to you, but
in love and allegiance to her, to take my place among her sons, be
it for good or for evil."

Senator Clingman, of North Carolina, who was one of the last to
leave, compared the seceders to representative of the "ten tribes
of Israel!"  Senator Hale, that genial hard-hitter, replied:  "Ten
tribes," said he, "did go out from the kingdom of Israel, but the
ark of the living God remained with the tribe of Judah!"  This was
loudly applauded by the Republicans in the Senate galleries, and
the presiding officer had to pound lustily with his mallet to secure
order.  Then Mr. Hale proceeded:

"I think the galleries ought to be excused for applauding a reference
made to the Scriptures.  I say, there is where the ark of the
covenant remained.  What became of the ten tribes?  They have gone,
God only knows where, and nobody else.  It is a matter of speculation,
what became of them--whether they constitute the Pottawatomies or
some other tribe of savages.  But the suggestion of the Senator
from North Carolina is full of meaning.  There were ten tribes went
out, and remember, they went out wandering.  They left the ark and
the empire behind them.  They went, as I said before, God only
knows where.  But, sir, I do hope and pray that this comparison,
so eloquent and instructive, suggested by the honorable Senator,
may not be illustrated in the fate of these other tribes that are
going out from the household of Israel."

Late in January, 1861, the Legislature of Virginia proposed the
appointment of commissioners, by each State, to meet at Washington
on the 4th day of February, and devise, if practicable, a plan for
settling the pending difficulties between the slave-holding and
non-slave-holding States.  This was at first met with a howl of
opposition from the Northern Abolitionists, who feared that it
might lead to another compromise, but they soon changed front, and
urged the Governors of their respective States to send pronounced
anti-slavery delegations.  Twenty-one States were represented by
gentlemen who had nearly all filled high political stations, and
who possessed ripe experience, wisdom, dignity, and weight of
character.  John Tyler was elected president, and the "Peace
Congress," as the organization styled itself, sat with great
formality in the old Presbyterian Church, which had been converted
into a hall attached to Willard's Hotel.  A long series of resolutions
was discussed and adopted, but they were not of as much value as
the paper on which they were written.

Meanwhile, Captain Stone, on the staff of General Scott, had
organized the militia of the District of Columbia, and as the
birthday of Washington approached, they made arrangements for a
parade, with two batteries of light artillery stationed at the
Arsenal.  Against this parade Mr. Tyler protested, and wrote a
letter to the President, sharply rebuking him for having permitted
the parade.  Mr. Buchanan excused himself, saying that he "found
it impossible to prevent two or three companies of regulars from
joining in the procession with the volunteers without giving
offense to the tens of thousands of people who had assembled to
witness the parade."  Mr. Seward adroitly availed himself of the
reverence for the "old flag" which had been awakened by Daniel
Webster in his speeches in defense of the Union, and, in accordance
with his suggestion, the "stars and stripes" were freely displayed,
evoking that love of country which is so vital a principle in the
American heart.

After the withdrawal of the Southern members of the Cabinet had
compelled Mr. Buchanan to fill their places, General John A. Dix,
the new Secretary of the Treasury, sent Mr. W. Hemphill Jones, a
amiable old clerk, who wore a sandy wig, to New Orleans, with
instructions to secure, if possible, the bullion in the United
States Mint there.  Soon after Mr. Jones had arrived at New Orleans,
he informed the Secretary that Captain Brushwood, who commanded
the United States revenue cutter there, had refused to obey his
orders as a special agent of the Department, and mediated going
over to the Secessionists.  Whereupon the Secretary telegraphed to
Jones to take possession of the revenue cutter, adding, "If any
one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot."
This message never reached New Orleans, but it was made public,
and received by the Northern people as an assurance that the Union
would be defended.  To those who knew the estimable old gentleman
to whom the message was sent, the idea of his shooting down Captain
Brushwood, or any one else, was simply ridiculous.  Indeed, he
thanked his stars that he was able to get back to Washington
unharmed.

The electoral votes for President and Vice-President were counted
in the hall of the House on Wednesday, the 13th of February, 1861.
Vice-President Breckinridge presided over the two Houses "in Congress
assembled," and announced the result.

As the year advanced the alienation of the sections increased, and
the spirit of fraternity was so far extinguished as to close the
minds and hearts of the people at the North and at the South to
the admission of any adjustment which would be honorable and
satisfactory to all conservative citizens.  The Government of the
Confederate States was formally inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama,
with Jefferson Davis as its President, and Alexander H. Stephens
as its Vice-President.  Throughout the old South the new flag was
flung to the breeze, and the old flag was as generally rejected.
The State Sovereignty, about which so much had been said, thenceforth
stood in abeyance to the supreme authority of the new Government,
which was clothed with all the powers of peace and war and of civil
administration.  Hostilities had virtually been declared, for, as
the States seceded, the Confederates had seized the arsenals, the
navy yards, the mints, the custom-houses, and the post-offices,
while many officials--civil, military, and naval--had unceremoniously
left the service of the United States to enter that of the Confederate
States.

[Facsimile]
  John PHale
JOHN PARKER HALE was born at Rochester, New Hampshire, March 31st,
1806; was a Representative from New Hampshire 1843-1845; was United
States Senator, 1847-1853, and again, 1855-1865; was Minister to
Spain, 1865-1869; and died at Dover, New Hampshire, November 18th,
1873.


CHAPTER V.
MR. LINCOLN AT THE HELM.

The unexpected arrival of Mr. Lincoln at Willard's Hotel early on
the morning of Saturday, February 23d, 1861, created quite a
sensation when it became known in Washington.  It was not true, as
asserted, that he came in disguise, although he wore a traveling
cap and shawl which had been loaned him, and which very materially
changed his appearance.

Mr. Lincoln felt confident that an attempt was to have been made
to assassinate him as he passed through Baltimore.  Among other
statements which confirmed him in this opinion was one by Mr.
Chittenden, of Vermont, afterward Register of the Treasury.  Mr.
Chittenden was a delegate from the State of Vermont to the Peace
Congress, then in session, one of the leading Southern members of
which expressed great surprise on learning of Mr. Lincoln's arrival,
and said, "How in the mischief did he get through Baltimore?"
Senator Sumner was also one those who believed that the President-
elect was in danger of assassination, and he wrote him after his
arrival, cautioning him about going out at night.  "Sumner," said
Mr. Lincoln, "declined to stand up with me, back to back, to see
which was the taller man, and made a fine speech about this being
the time for uniting our fronts against the enemy and not our backs.
But I guess he was afraid to measure, though he is a good piece of
a man.  I have never had much to do with Bishops where I live, but,
do you know, Sumner is my idea of a Bishop."

Mr. Lincoln, after eating his breakfast, made a formal call on
President Buchanan at the White House, accompanied by Mr. Seward.
He then received the members of the Peace Congress, who had formed
in procession in the hall where they met, and moved to the reception
parlor of the hotel.  Ex-President Tyler and Governor Chase led
the van.  The latter did the honors, first introducing Mr. Tyler.
Mr. Lincoln received him with all the respect due to his position.
The several delegates were then presented by Governor Chase in the
usual manner.  The greatest curiosity was manifested to witness
this, Mr. Lincoln's first reception in Washington.  The most
noticeable thing that occurred was the manifestation by Mr. Lincoln
of a most wonderful memory.  It will be remembered that the Convention
was composed of many men, who, although distinguished in their
time, had not of late been very much known.  Each member was
introduced by his surname, but in nine cases out of ten, Mr. Lincoln
would promptly recall their entire name, no matter how many initials
it contained.  In several instances he recited the historical
reminiscences of families.  When the tall General Doniphan, of
Missouri, was introduced, Mr. Lincoln had to look up to catch
Doniphan's eye.  He immediately inquired:

"Is this Doniphan, who made that splendid march across the plains
and swept the swift Comanches before him?"

"I commanded the expedition across the plains," modestly replied
the General.

"Then you have come up to the standard of my expectation," rejoined
Mr. Lincoln.

When Mr. Rives, of Virginia, was introduced, Mr. Lincoln said:  "I
always had an idea that you were a much taller man."  He received
James B. Clay, son of the Kentucky statesman, with marked attention,
saying to him:  "I was a friend of your father."  The interchange
of greetings with Mr. Barringer, of North Carolina, who was his
colleague in Congress, was very cordial.  When Reverdy Johnson was
presented, he expressed great rejoicing, remarking to him:

"I had to bid you good-bye just at the time when our intimacy had
ripened to a point for me to tell you my stories."

The Southern Commissioners freely expressed their gratification at
his affability and easy manner, and all joined in expressing
agreeable disappointment at his good looks in contrast to his
pictures.  Nothing was said to any one in regard to the condition
of the country or the national troubles.  After the reception of
the Peace Congress was concluded, a large number of citizens were
presented.

A large number of ladies then passed in review, each being introduced
by the gentleman who accompanied her, and Mr. Lincoln underwent
the new ordeal with much good humor.  All that day the hotel was
crowded with members of Congress and others, anxious to see the
President-elect, of whom they had heard so much, and among them
were several newspaper corespondents, who had known him while he
was a member of the House of Representatives.  One of the correspondents
who talked with him about his forthcoming message received,
confidentially, the following account of it:

Mr. Lincoln had written his message at his Springfield home, and
had had it put in type by his friend, the local printer.  A number
of sentences had been re-constructed several times before they were
entirely satisfactory, and then four copies had been printed on
foolscap paper.  These copies had been locked up in what Mr. Lincoln
called a "grip-sack," and intrusted to his oldest son, Robert.
"When we reached Harrisburg," said Mr. Lincoln, "and had washed
up, I asked Bob where the message was, and was taken aback by his
confession that in the excitement caused by the enthusiastic
reception he believed he had let a waiter take the grip-sack.  My
heart went up into my mouth, and I started down-stairs, where I
was told that if a waiter had taken the article I should probably
find it in the baggage-room.  Hastening to that apartment, I saw
an immense pile of grip-sacks and other baggage and thought that
I had discovered mine.  The key fitted it, but on opening there
was nothing inside but a few paper collars and a flask of whisky.
Tumbling the baggage right and left, in a few moments I espied my
lost treasure, and in it the all-important document, all right;
and now I will show it to you--on your honor, mind!"  The inaugural
was printed in a clear-sized type, and wherever Mr. Lincoln had
thought that a paragraph would make an impression upon his audience,
he had preceded it with a typographical fist--».

One copy of this printed draft of the inaugural message was given
to Mr. Seward, and another to the venerable Franics P. Blair, with
the request that they would read and criticise.  A few unimportant
changes were made, and Mr. Nicolay, who was to be the President's
private secretary, made the corrected copy in a fair hand, which
Mr. Lincoln was to read.  Mr. Nicolay corrected another copy, which
was furnished to the press for publication and is now in my
possession.

Mr. Seward had, from the moment that his offered services as
Secretary of State were accepted, acted as chief of the incoming
Administration, and undertook to have a voice in the appointment
of his associates.  Mr. Lincoln, however, was determined to make
his own selections.  The great contest was for the Treasury
Department, the Pennsylvania Republicans urging the appointment of
Simon Cameron, while Eastern and New York Republicans preferred
Salmon P. Chase.  Ohio was not united in the support of Mr. Chase,
but he finally received the appointment, Mr. Cameron going into
the War Department, and Mr. Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, receiving
the Navy Department on the recommendation of Vice-President Hannibal
Hamlin, who was requested to select some one for that position.
The Blair interest was recognized by the appointment of Montgomery
Blair as Postmaster-General, while Edward Bates, of Missouri, whose
name had been mentioned as the Presidential candidate in opposition
to Mr. Lincoln, was made Attorney-General.  The Interior Department
was given to Caleb W. Smith, of Indiana.

The preparations for the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln were of an
unusual character.  Many believed that an attempt would be made on
that day by the Secessionists to obtain possession of the Government,
and great precautions against this were taken,  The ostensible
director was General Scott, who had his head-quarters at a restaurant
near the War Department, and who rode about the city in a low coupé
drawn by a powerful horse.  But the real director of the military
operations was Colonel Stone, of the regular army, who had been
organizing the military of the District, and who had a very
respectable force at his command.  He had a battalion of the United
States Engineer Corps directly in the rear of the President's
carriage, and sharp-shooters belonging to a German company were
posted on buildings all along the route, with orders to keep a
vigilant watch as the President's carriage approached, and to fire
at any one who might aim a weapon at the President.  There was also
a large force of detectives stationed along the route and at the
Capitol.

The procession was a very creditable one, the United States troops
and the District Militia making a fine show, with the Albany Burgess
Corps, and a few organizations from a distance.  Mr. Lincoln rode
with President Buchanan, and, on arriving at the Capitol, entered
the Senate Chamber leaning on the old gentleman's arm.  After Mr.
Hamlin had taken his oath of office as Vice-President, and several
new Senators had been sworn in, a procession was formed, as usual,
which repaired to the platform erected over the steps of the eastern
portico of the Capitol.  When Mr. Lincoln came out he was easily
distinguished as his tall, gaunt figure rose above those around him.

His personal friend, Senator Baker, of Oregon, introduced him to
the assemblage, and as he bowed acknowledgments of the somewhat
faint cheers which greeted him the usual genial smile lit up his
angular countenance.  He was evidently somewhat perplexed, just
then, to know what to do with his new silk hat and a large gold-
headed cane.  The cane he put under the table, but the hat appeared
to be too good to place on the rough boards.  Senator Douglas saw
the embarrassment of his old friend, and, rising, took the shining
hat from its bothered owner and held it during the delivery of the
inaugural address.  Mr. Lincoln was listened to with great eagerness.
He evidently desired to convince the multitude before him rather
than to bewilder or dazzle them.  It was evident that he honestly
believed every word that he spoke, especially the concluding
paragraphs, one of which I copy from the original print:

"»I am loth to close.  We are not enemies, but friends.  We must
not be enemies.  Though passion may be strained, it must not break
our bonds of affection.  »The mystic chords of memory which stretch
from every battle-field and patriot grave to every loved heart and
hearthstone, all over our broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better
angels of our nature."

Having closed his address, Mr. Lincoln was escorted to the White
House, where he received the public for an hour, after which the
doors were closed.  The new Administration was thus successfully
launched, and the Secretaries went to work to see what remained in
the National coffers, arsenals, navy yards, and armories.  The most
important public measures were decided by Mr. Lincoln and one or
two of his Cabinet officers without consultation with the others.
Indeed, as hostilities approached, each member of the Cabinet was
too busily engaged with his own official duties to discuss those
of his colleagues, and Mr. Seward never wanted any criticism on
his management of diplomatic affairs, any more than Mr. Cameron or
Mr. Welles tolerated interference with the conduct of the war.

[Facsimile]
  Your friend as ever
  A. Lincoln
ABRAHAM LINCOLN was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12th,
1809; was in early life a farmer, a boatman, and a land surveyor,
after which he studied law and practiced at Springfield, Illinois;
was a Representative from Illinois to Congress, 1847-1849; was an
unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator, in opposition to
Stephen A. Douglas, in 1858; was elected President of the United
States in 1860 as a Republican, and was inaugurated March 4th,1861;
issued the first call for troops April 15th, 1861, and the Proclamation
of Emancipation January 1st, 1863; was re-elected President in
1864, and was again inaugurated March 4th, 1865; was assassinated
April 14th, and died April 15th, 1865; he was buried at Springfield,
Illinois.


CHAPTER VI.
THE STORM BURSTS.

Washington City presented a strange spectacle during the first
month after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln.  Many of the Southern
sojourners had gone to their respective States, while others, some
of them holding important civil, military, and naval positions,
remained, truculent and defiant, to place every obstacle in the
way of coercion by the Federal Government.  The North sent an army
of office-seekers to the metropolis, and Mr. Lincoln was forced to
listen to the demands of men who had made political speeches, or
who had commanded companies of "Wide-Awakes," and who now demanded
lucrative offices in return.

Among other officers of the army who resigned their commissions
was Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was sent for by General Scott, and
asked point-blank whether he intended to resign with those officers
who proposed to take part with their respective states, or to remain
in the service of the Union.  Colonel Lee made no reply, whereupon
"Old Chapultepec" came directly to the point, saying, "I suppose
you will go with the rest.  If your purpose is to resign, it is
proper you should do so at once.  Your present attitude is an
equivocal one."  "General," Colonel Lee then answered, "the property
belonging to my children, all that they possess, lies in Virginia.
They will be ruined if they do not go with their State.  I cannot
raise my hand against my children."  General Scott then signified
that he had nothing further to say.  Colonel Lee, with a respectful
bow, withdrew, and the next morning tendered his resignation, which
was accepted five days afterward.  Between the interview and the
acceptance of Colonel Lee's resignation, General Shiras was sitting
in the room of Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas, when Colonel Lee
came in and walked up to the side of the table opposite to that at
which General Thomas was sitting, saying:  "General Thomas, I am
told you said I was a traitor."  General Thomas arose, and looking
him in the eye, replied, "I have said so; do you wish to know on
what authority?"  "Yes," said Colonel Lee.  "Well, on the authority
of General Scott."  Colonel Lee muttered, "There must be some
mistake," turned on his heel, and left the room.

The long expected crisis came at last.  Seven thousand armed
Confederates attacked the seventy Union soldiers who garrisoned
Fort Sumter, and forced them to haul down the stars and stripes on
the 11th of April, 1861.  Four days afterward President Lincoln
issued his proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand militiamen,
"to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our
National Government, and to redress wrongs already long enough
endured."  This proclamation was flashed over the wires throughout
the Northern States, like the fiery cross of Rhoderick Dhu, which
summoned his clansmen to their rendezvous, and it was everywhere
received with the beating of drums and the ringing notes of the
bugle, calling the defenders of the capital to their colors.  Every
city and hamlet had its flag-raising, while its enthusiasm was
unbounded.  Here and there a newspaper ventured to apologize for
the South, but the editor would soon be forced by a mob to display
the stars and stripes, amid the cheers and the shouts of those
assembled.

The North proved itself ready for the emergency.  The arguments of
Daniel Webster against the right of secession, which, when delivered
by him, were regarded by many as mere topics for the display of
political eloquence, had fixed the opinion of the North, and there
was a general uprising for the defense of the capital and the old
flag.  Even the Abolitionists, who had denounced the Union, the
Constitution, the national ensign, and its martial defenders,
seriously entered into the military movements, as they saw in the
exercise of the war power the long desired panacea for the faults
of slavery.  Those who had jeered at the Southern threats of disunion
as empty bluster, and at the Northern conservatives as cowardly
doughfaces, became zealous Union men, although it must be confessed
that very few of them took their lives in their hands and actually
went to the front.  The raising of troops went forward with a bound,
and the wildest excitement and enthusiasm attended the departure
of regiments for the seat of war.  The seriousness of the emergency
was not overlooked, but high above that consideration rose the tide
of patriotic feeling, and swept all obstacles before it.

The first troops to arrive at the National Capital were four
companies of unarmed and ununiformed Pennsylvanians, who came from
the mining districts, expecting to find uniforms, arms, and equipments
on their arrival at Washington.  Stones were thrown at them as they
marched through Baltimore to take the cars for Washington, where
they were received at the station by Captain McDowell, of the
Adjutant-General's department, who escorted them to the Capitol,
where arrangements had been made for quartering them temporarily
in the hall of the House of Representatives.  The sun was just
setting over the Virginia hills as the little column ascended the
broad steps of the eastern portico and entered the rotunda, through
which they marched.  With one of the companies was the customary
colored attendant, whose duty it was on parade to carry the target
or a pail of ice-water.  He had been struck on the head in Baltimore,
and had received a scalp wound, over which he had placed his
handkerchief, and then drawn his cap down tight over it.  When Nick
Biddle (for that was his name), entered the rotunda, he appeared
to think he was safe, and took off his cap, with the handkerchief
saturated with blood, which dripped from it and marked his path
into the hall of the House of Representatives.  It was the first
blood of the war.

The next day came the old Massachusetts Sixth, which had been shot
at and stoned as it passed through Baltimore, and which returned
the fire with fatal effect.  The Sixth was quartered in the Senate
wing of the Capitol.  Colonel Jones occupied the Vice-President's
chair in the Senate Chamber, his colors hanging over his head from
the reporters' gallery.  At the clerk's desk before him, Adjutant
Farr and Paymaster Plaisted were busy with their evening reports,
while Major Watson, with Quartermaster Munroe were seeing that the
companies were distributed in the various corridors and obtaining
their rations.  After a four-and-twenty hours' fast the men had
each one ration of bacon, bread, and coffee, which they had to
prepare at the furnace fires in the basements.  The moment hunger
was appeased the cushioned seats in the galleries were occupied by
those fortunate enough to obtain such luxurious sleeping accommodations,
while others "bunked" on the tile floors, with their knapsacks for
pillows, and wrapped in their blankets.  Stationery was provided
from the committee-rooms, and every Senator's desk was occupied by
a "bould sojer boy," inditing an epistle to his friends.

That night the censorship of the press was exercised for the first
time at the telegraph office.  Colonel Stone had seized the steamers
which ran between Washington and Aquia Creek, and another steamer,
the St. Nicholas, which had been loaded with flour and other stores,
ostensibly for Norfolk, but which he believed would have gone no
further down the river than Alexandria, where they would have been
turned over to the Confederate quartermaster's department.  Colonel
Stone, believing that this seizure should be kept quiet, obtained
from Secretary Cameron an order to seize the telegraph and to
prevent the transmission of any messages which were not of a strictly
private nature.  When the correspondents wished to telegraph the
lists of the dead and wounded of the Massachusetts Sixth they found
a squad of the National Rifles in possession of the office, with
orders to permit the transmission of no messages.  Hastening to
head-quarters, they found Colonel Stone, but he told them that he
had no discretion in the matter.

The correspondents then drove to the house of Secretary Seward.
The Secretary of State received them very cordially, and would
neither admit nor deny that he had advised the censorship of the
press.  He said, however, in his semi-jocular way, "The affair at
Baltimore to-day was only a local outbreak, for which the regimental
officers, who had ridden through the city in a car, leaving some
of the companies to follow on foot without a commander, were
responsible.  To send your accounts of the killed and wounded,"
said Mr. Seward, "would only influence public sentiment, and be an
obstacle in the path of reconciliation."  Then, having offered his
visitors refreshments, which were declined, he bowed them out.
They returned to the telegraph office, where their wrath was
mollified by learning that the wires had all been cut in Baltimore.
It was nearly a week before telegraphic communication was re-
established between Washington and the loyal North, but thenceforth,
until the close of the war, a censorship of press dispatches was
kept up, at once exasperating and of little real use.

Meanwhile a general uprising was going on.  Young Ellsworth, who
had accompanied Mr. Lincoln from Springfield, in the hope of being
placed at the head of a bureau of militia in the War Department,
had gone to New York and raised, in an incredibly small space of
time, a regiment composed almost exclusively of the members of the
Volunteer Fire Department, which stimulated the organization of
other commands.  Rhode Island sent a regiment, under the command
of Colonel Burnside, composed of skilled mechanics, gentlemen
possessing independent fortunes, and active business men, all
wearing plain service uniforms.

Communication with Washington was re-opened by General Butler, who,
finding that the bridges between the Susquehanna River and the city
of Baltimore had been burned, went on the steam ferry-boat from
Havre de Grace around to Annapolis at the head of the Massachusetts
Eighth.  On their arrival at Annapolis it was found that the
sympathizers with secession had partially destroyed the railroad
leading to Washington, and had taken away every locomotive with
the exception of one, which they had dismantled.  It so happened
that a young mechanic, who had aided in building this very engine,
was in the ranks of the Massachusetts Eighth, and he soon had it
in running order, while the regiment, advancing on the railroad,
fished up from the ditches on either side the rails which had been
thrown there, and restored them to their places.  They thus rebuilt
the road and provided it with an engine, so that when the New York
Seventh arrived it was a comparative easy matter for it to proceed
to the national metropolis.

Meanwhile, Washington City had been for several days without hearing
from the loyal North.  At night the camp-fires of the Confederates,
who were assembling in force, could be seen on the southern bank
of the Potomac, and it was not uncommon to meet on Pennsylvania
Avenue a defiant Southerner openly wearing a large Virginia or
South Carolina secession badge.  The exodus of clerks from the
department continued, and they would not say good-bye, but _au
revoir_, as they confidently expected that they would be back again
triumphant within a month.  An eloquent clergyman, who was among
those who went to Richmond, left behind him, in the cellar of his
house, a favorite cat, with what he judged would be a three weeks'
supply of water and provisions, so confident was he that President
Davis would, within that time, occupy the White House.

One of the largest, the best equipped, and the best drilled of the
volunteer regiments that came pouring into Washington when the
communication was re-opened was the New York Fire Zouaves, commanded
by Colonel Ellsworth.  A hardy set of fellows, trained to fight
fire, they professed great anxiety to meet the Confederates in
hostile array, and they were very proud of their boyish commander.
President Lincoln took a great interest in Colonel Ellsworth, and
when Virginia formally seceded, he obtained from Secretary Cameron
an order for the New York Fire Zouaves and the First Michigan
Infantry to occupy Alexandria.  They went on the ferry-boats, very
early in the morning on Friday, May 24th, escorted by the war
steamer Pawnee, and occupied the old borough without opposition.

No sooner were the troops on shore, than Colonel Ellsworth, taking
half a dozen of his men, went to the Marshall House, over the roof
of which floated a large Confederate flag, which had been visible
with a glass from the window of Mr. Lincoln's private office.
Entering the public room of the hotel, he inquired of a man there
whether he was the proprietor, and being answered in the negative,
he took one private with him, and ran up-stairs.  Going out on the
roof, Ellsworth secured the flag, and as he was descending, James
William Jackson, the proprietor of the hotel, came from his room,
armed with a double-barreled shot-gun.  "I have the first prize,"
said Ellsworth, to which Jackson responded, "And I the second," at
the same time firing at him with fatal effect.  Before he could
fire the second barrel, Private Brownell shot him dead, and as he
fell, pinned him to the floor with the sword-bayonet on his rifle.
Colonel Ellsworth's remains were taken to Washington, where President
Lincoln visited them, exclaiming, as he gazed on the lifeless
features:  "My boy! my boy! was it necessary this sacrifice should
be made!"

[Facsimile]
  E. E. Ellsworth
EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH, born at Mechanicsville, Saratoga County,
New York, in 1837; removed to Chicago before he was of age, and
studied law; in 1859, organized his Zouave corps, noted for the
excellence of its discipline, and gave exhibition drills in the
chief Eastern cities.  On the opening of hostilities, raised a
regiment, known as the New York Fire Zouaves; was sent to Alexandria
on Friday morning, May 24th, 1861, when he was killed in the Marshall
House.  He was buried in the cemetery of his native place.


CHAPTER VII.
"ON TO RICHMOND."

Mr. Lincoln having called a special session of Congress, the two
Houses met on the 4th of July, 1861.  There were many vacant seats,
but some of those who sympathized with the South lingered that they
might throw obstacles before any attempt at coercion.  Meanwhile
the Abolitionists, who feared a compromise and a reconciliation,
echoed the shout "On to Richmond!"  The "Grand Army of the Union,"
hastily organized into brigades and divisions, was placed under
the command of General Irwin McDowell, a gallant soldier, entirely
destitute in the experience of handling large bodies of men.  The
troops thus brigaded had never even been manoeuvred together, nor
had their commander any personal knowledge of many of the officers
or men.  But the politicians at the Capitol insisted on an immediate
advance.  They saw with admiration the gallant appearance of the
well-equipped regiments that were to compose the advancing column,
and they believed, or professed to believe, that it could easily
march "On to Richmond!"

On Sunday, July 21st, 1861, the "Grand Army of the Union" began
its forward march.  The sun rose in a cloudless sky, and the
advancing columns of Union soldiers, with glistening bayonets and
gay flags, moved with measured tread through the primeval forests
of the Old Dominion, apparently as resistless as the sweep of
destiny.  Meanwhile there drove out from Washington to General
McDowell's headquarters a crowd of Congressmen, correspondents,
contractors, and camp-followers, who had come in a variety of
vehicles to witness the fight, as they would have gone to see a
horse-race or to witness a Fourth of July procession.  The Congressmen
did not hesitate to intrude themselves upon General McDowell, and
to offer him their advice.  Others, unpacking baskets of provisions,
enjoyed their lunches after the cannonading had commenced.

There was brave fighting on both sides in the Bull Run Valley,
which became like a boiling crater, from which arose dense clouds
of dust and smoke.  At one time General Bee, well-nigh overwhelmed,
greeted General Thomas J. Jackson with the exclamation, "General,
they are beating us back!"  To which the latter replied promptly,
"Sir, we will give them the bayonet."  General Bee immediately
rallied his over-tasked troops, saying "There is Jackson with his
Virginians, standing like a stone wall.  Let us determine to die
here, and we will conquer."  From that day General Jackson was
known by the soldiers on both sides as "Stonewall" Jackson.

The arrival of the force commanded by General Joe Johnston, which
General Patterson had failed to hold in check, and the presence of
President Jefferson Davis, inspired the Confederate troops with
superhuman courage, while the Union regiments, badly officered,
followed the example of the New York Zouaves, and fled in wild
disorder.  The panic became general, and disorder soon degenerated
into a disgraceful retreat.  The Confederates, however, found
themselves in no condition to follow up the victory which they had
gained, and to press on to Washington.

The rout of Bull Run, while it was a severe rebuke to the politicians
who had forced it, secured the support of every loyal man in the
Northern States for the Union cause, whatever his previous political
convictions might have been.  Practical issues were presented, and
every man able to bear arms or to contribute money was animated by
the sentiment uttered by Stephen A. Douglas in his last public
speech, when he said:  "The conspiracy is now known; armies have
been raised; war is levied to accomplish it.  There are only two
sides to the question: every man must be for the United States or
against it.  There can be no neutrals in this war--only Republicans
or traitors."

The week after the Battle of Bull Run, Senator Breckinridge, who
had retained his seat, made an appeal for the cessation of hostilities,
speaking eloquently of the horrors of war, the cost of maintaining
armies, the dangers of military despotism, and the impossibility
of ever subjugating the South.  He pleaded for peace with the
rebels, and from the event of the great battle near Manassas he
drew an augury of defeat to the cause of the Government on future
battlefields.

Senator Baker was on the floor of the Senate for the first time in
many days, having just come to Washington with his California
Regiment, whom he had been busily engaged in organizing in Philadelphia
and elsewhere, and at whose head he fell.  The white-haired but
vigorous and active Senator listened attentively to the sentiments
and predictions of Breckinridge, pacing the Senate floor back and
forth with his eyes fastened on him, and now and then chafing with
visible impatience to reply.  At length Breckinridge ceased, and
Baker took the floor, and proceeded, with a skillful and unsparing
hand, to dissect the sophistry and falsehood of the treason that
had just been uttered.

"Sir," said he in conclusion, "it is not a question of men or of
money.  All the money, all the men, are, in our judgment, well
bestowed in such a cause.  Knowing their value well, we give them
with the more pride and the more joy.  But how could we retreat?
How could we make peace?  Upon what terms?  Where is to be your
boundary line?  Where the end of the principles we shall have to
give up?  What will become of public liberties?  What of past
glories?  What of future hopes?  Shall we sink into the insignificance
of the grave--a degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightened
by the results of one battle, and scared at the vision raised by
the imagination of the Senator from Kentucky upon the floor?  No,
sir! a thousand times, no, sir!  We will rally the people--the
loyal people of the whole country.  They will pour forth their
treasure, their money, their men, without stint, without measure.
Shall one battle determine the fate of empire, or a dozen--the loss
of one thousand men or twenty thousand, or one hundred million or
five hundred millions of dollars?  In a year's peace--in ten years,
at most, of peaceful progress--we can restore them all.  There will
be some graves reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection.
There will be some privation; there will be some loss of luxury;
there will be somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries
of life.  When that is said, all is said.  If we have the country,
the whole country, the Union, the Constitution--free government--
with these there will return all the blessings of well-ordered
civilization; the path of the country will be a career of greatness
and of glory, such as, in the olden time, our fathers saw in the
dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would have been ours
now, to-day, if it had not been for the treason for which the
Senator too often seeks to apologize."  The orator took his seat
after this lofty and impassioned appeal, little dreaming that he
would be one of the first to fulfill his own prophecy.

Preparations for the war were now made in good earnest.  Regiments
were recruited for three years, and, on their arrival at Washington,
were carefully inspected and organized into brigades and divisions,
and officered by men of ability and military experience.  Other
forces were organized at the West, and the Administration of
President Lincoln displayed remarkable energy in equipping the
armies which were to act in different sections of the country, and
in raising money for their support.

General George B. McClellan, when he assumed command of the Army
of the Potomac, was the beau ideal of a dragoon leader.  His legs,
like those of General Taylor, were short in proportion to his body,
so that he appeared to be small in stature when on foot, but, when
mounted on his favorite charger, he looked as tall, if not taller,
than those around him.  He possessed a good head, firmly planted
on a sturdy neck, upon ample shoulders.  He wore his hair cut short
and his cheeks and massive jaw-bones shaven clean, while a well-
shapen moustache gave dignity to his features.  His complexion was
ruddy, his eyes blue, and the lines of his mouth indicated good-
humor and firmness in about equal proportions.  His dress was plain,
with the least possible insignia of rank, and his headquarters at
the residence of Commodore Wilkes, long occupied by Mrs. Madison,
was always thronged with visitors.  His confidential aides were
regular officers trained in many a hard campaign, and he had at
his side, in his father-in-law, Colonel R. B. Marcy, of the army,
an experienced military counselor.

When Lieutenant-General Scott, after having resigned his command,
was about to leave Washington for West Point, his young successor
called upon him to say good-bye, and they had a long conference.
At its conclusion the old hero of three wars, said:  "General, do
not allow yourself to be entangled by men who do not comprehend
this question.  Carry out your own ideas, act upon your own judgment,
and you will conquer, and the Government will be vindicated.  God
bless you!"  General McClellan, who was then eulogized as a second
Napoleon, soon found himself "embarrassed" by men who feared that
he might become President if he conquered peace.  He was also
impressed with this Presidential idea by pretended friends who had
fastened themselves upon him, and "between two stools he fell to
the ground."

The surrender of Mason and Slidell to the English Government, after
their capture by one of our war vessels, was a sad sacrifice, and
many at Washington were of the opinion that they should have been
retained at every hazard.  Some suggested an international arbitration,
but President Lincoln, fortified by the advice of Charles Sumner
and Caleb Cushing, saw plainly that the submission of the case to
arbitration would be equivalent to a surrender.  Secretary Seward,
in his communication to Lord Lyons, the British Minister, which
the President revised before it was sent, said, in the most emphatic
terms, that international law, particularly the American intent of
it, as recorded in all our policy that has become historic, was
against us.  He said:  "This Government could not deny the justice
of the claim presented.  We are asked to do by the British nation
just what we have always insisted of nations before to do to us."

Mr. Sumner came gallantly to Mr. Seward's rescue, and made a long
speech in the Senate before crowded galleries, showing that the
seizure of Mason and Slidell on board of a neutral ship could not
be justified according to our best American precedents.  "Mr.
President," said he, in his deep-toned voice, "let the rebels go.
Two wicked men, ungrateful to their country, are let loose with
the brand of Cain upon their foreheads.  Prison doors are opened,
but principles are established which will help to free other men,
and to open the gates of the sea.  Amidst all present excitement,"
said Mr. Sumner, in conclusion, "amidst all present trials, it only
remains for us to uphold the constant policy of the Republic, and
stand fast on the ancient ways."

Meanwhile General McClellan was organizing the large forces sent
for the defense of Washington, and several distinguished foreigners,
who in turn visited the metropolis, expressed great surprise and
admiration at the wonderful rapidity with which so many men and so
much _materiel_ had been collected, affording striking evidence of
the martial capabilities of the American people.

The unfortunate engagement at Ball's Bluff, where Colonel Baker
and many brave Union officers and soldiers were killed, while others
were sent as prisoners to Richmond, had rather a dispiriting effect
on the President.  Mr. Lincoln and Colonel Baker had attended the
same school, joined in the same boyish sports, and when they had
grown to manhood their intimacy had ripened into ardent friendship.
Mr. Lincoln had watched with admiration the success of his friend
Baker at the Illinois bar, as a Whig Representative in Congress,
as an officer in the Mexican War, and then--transplanted to the
Pacific coast--as a deliverer of a panegyric over the body of the
murdered Broderick, that was one of the greatest exhibitions of
fervid eloquence ever seen or heard on this continent.

Coming to Washington as United States Senator from Oregon, Colonel
Baker gave a powerful support to the Union cause and to the Lincoln
Administration.  He was one of the first Northern politicians to
take the field, and he was promised by President Lincoln a high
military command if he could, by winning a victory, demonstrate
his ability as a general.  He entered upon his new military career
with his characteristic energy, but Mr. Lincoln, instead of promoting
him, was soon called upon to mourn his untimely death.

[Facsimile]
  H Hamlin
HANNIBAL HAMLIN was born at Paris, Maine, August 27th, 1809; was
a Representative from Maine, 1843-1847; was United States Senator,
1848-1857, when he resigned to act as Governor; was again United
States Senator, 1857-1861, when he resigned, having been elected
Vice-President on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln; was Collector
of the Port of Boston, 1865-1866, when he resigned; was again United
States Senator, 1869-1881.


CHAPTER VIII.
WASHINGTON A VAST GARRISON.

When Congress met on the first Monday in December, 1861, Washington
was a vast citadel.  A cordon of forts completely encircled it on
the commanding heights, each one armed, provisioned, and garrisoned.
On the large plain east of the Capitol and on the south side of
the Potomac were encamped large bodies of troops.  Regiments were
constantly on the march through the city.  Long wagon trains laden
with provisions or ammunition were dragged through the mud of the
then unpaved streets.  Mounted orderlies galloped to and fro,
bearing returns, requisitions, and despatches.  The old flag was
hoisted in every direction at sunrise, and lowered when the evening
gun was fired, while the music of bands and the shrill notes of
drums and fifes rang forth the "music of the Union."

An amusing sight was frequently enjoyed when newly formed regiments
arrived.  They usually came with the glowing colors of new equipments,
and the vigorous zeal of newly organized drum and fife corps, if
not, indeed, of a full band.  A richly dressed drum-major generally
marched at the head of these displays, and his gaudy uniform,
bearskin shako with its plume, glittering baton, with its incessant
twirling and rhythmical movement, excited the greatest enthusiasm
and admiration among the throngs of observing negroes.  To them
the _tambour major_ was by far the greatest soldier of the day.

For miles in every direction the country was picketed, and martial
law was rigidly enforced.  All persons going toward the front must
be provided with passes, which were very closely scrutinized at
every picket-post.  In times of special peril those moving northward
underwent the same ordeal.  War, with all its severities and horrors,
was continually at the doors of those who dwelt in Washington.

Congress, for the first time since the seat of Government was
removed to Washington from Philadelphia, occupied an entirely
subordinate position, and it might well be said the "_inter arma
silent leges_"--laws are silent in the midst of armies.  It was
not long, however, before the Senators and Representatives reasserted
their authority.  Simon Cameron's report as Secretary of War, as
originally prepared, printed, and sent over the country for
publication, took advanced ground on the slavery question.  He
advocated the emancipation of the slaves in the rebel States, the
conversion to the use of the National Government of all property,
whether slave or otherwise, belonging to the rebels, and the resort
to every military means of suppressing the Rebellion, even the
employment of armed negroes.

President Lincoln, at the instance of Secretary Seward and General
McClellan, declined to accept these anti-slavery views from his
subordinate, and ordered the return of the advance copies distributed
for revision and amendment.  It happened, however, that several
newspapers had published the report as originally written.  When
they republished it, as modified, the public had the benefit of
both versions.  The President struck out all that Secretary Cameron
had written on the slavery question, and substituted a single
paragraph which was self-evidently from the Presidential pen.  The
speculations of the Secretary as to the propriety of arming the
negroes were canceled, and we were simply told that it would be
impolitic for the escaped slaves of rebels to be returned again to
be used against us.  Secretary Chase sustained Secretary Cameron,
but Secretary Seward, the former champion of higher law and
abolitionism, was so conservative at this crisis of the great
struggle between freedom and slavery, as to disgruntle many ardent
supporters of the principles of which he had once assumed to be
the champion.

When Congress assembled there were many vacant seats at either end
of the Capitol.  In the Senate Chamber ten States of the thirty-
six were unrepresented, and the Virginia nominally represented was
that portion of the Old Dominion within the range of Union cannon.
Vice-President Hamlin, who presided, was one of the Democrats who
had gone into the Republican camp.  Of medium height, with a massive
head, dark complexion, cleanly shaven face, he was ever prompt and
diligent in the transaction of business.  At all seasons of the
year he wore a suit of black, with a dress-coat, and could never
be persuaded to wear an overcoat, even in the coldest weather.  He
was noted for his fidelity to political friends, and at Washington
he always had their interests at heart.

William Pitt Fessenden, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance,
was really the leader of the Republican party in the Upper House.
He was a statesman of great power and comprehensiveness, who
possessed mental energies of the very highest order, and whose
logic in debate was like a chain, which his hearers often hated to
be confined with, yet knew not how to break.  To courage and power
in debate he united profound legal knowledge and a very extraordinary
aptitude for public business.  Originally an ardent Whig, his whole
political life had been spent in earnestly opposing the men and
measures of the Democratic party, nor did he possess that adaptability
of opinion so characteristic of modern politicians.  Born and reared
in the days when the "giants of the Republic" were living, and to
some extent, a contemporary actor in the leading events of the
times, he had learned to think for himself, and prefer the
individuality of conscientious conviction to the questionable
subservience of partisan policy.

Senator Sumner regarded his position as Chairman of the Committee
on Foreign Relations as superior to all others in Congress, while
he was unquestionably the leader of the Abolition wing of the
Republican party.  Having been abroad himself, he knew the necessity
for having, especially at that time, the country represented by
educated gentlemen, and Mr. Seward often found it a difficult matter
to persuade him to consent to the appointment of some rural politician
to a place of diplomatic importance.  Objection was made to one
nomination, on the ground that the person was a drunkard, and a
leading Senator came one morning before the Committee to refute
the charge.  He made quite an argument, closing by saying:  "No,
gentlemen, he is not a drunkard.  He may, occasionally, as I do
myself, take a glass of wine, but I assure you, on the honor of a
gentleman, he never gets drunk."  Upon this representation the
appointment was favorably reported upon and confirmed by the Senate,
but it was soon evident that the person was an incorrigible sot,
and when it became absolutely necessary to remove him, it leaked
out that he had retained and paid the Senator for vouching for his
temperate habits.

Senator Wilson, who wielded enormous power as Chairman of the
Committee on Military Affairs, had been, before the war, a brigadier-
general of militia in Massachusetts.  He had raised a three-years'
regiment, which he had brought to Washington, but not wishing to
take the field, he had resigned the command, and had solicited from
General McClellan a position on his staff.  When he reported for
duty he was ordered to appear the next morning mounted, and
accompanied by two other staff officers, in a tour of inspection
around the fortifications.  Unaccustomed to horsemanship, the ride
of thirty miles was too much for the Senator, who kept his bed for
a week, and then resigned his staff position.  He performed herculean
labors on his Committee, and examined personally the recommendations
upon which thousands of appointments had been made.  That at times
he was prejudiced against those who were opposed to emancipation
could not be denied, but he honestly endeavored to have the Union
army well officered, well fed, and promptly paid.

The Chairman of the Naval Committee was Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, who
mastered the wants and became acquainted with the welfare of that
branch of the service, and who urged liberal appropriations for it
in a lucid, comprehensive, and vigorous manner.  An enemy of all
shams, he was a tower of strength for the Administration in the
Senate.  Then there was bluff Ben Wade, of Ohio, whose honestly
was strongly tinged by ambition, and who looked at the contest with
the merciless eyes of a gladiator about to close in a death-grip.
John Sherman had just been transplanted from the House, Secretary
Chase having urged him to remain in the Senate, rather than resign
and take the field, as he had wished to.  Nye, of Nevada, who sat
next to Mr. Sumner, was a native wit of "infinite jest" and most
"excellent fancy," who enlivened the Senate with his _bon mots_
and genial humor.  Trumbull, Harlan, Pomeroy, Lot Morrill, Zach.
Chandler, Daniel Clark, Ira Harris, Jacob Collamer, Solomon Foote,
Lafayette S. Foster, and David Wilmot were all men of ability.
Indeed, the Republican Senators, as a whole, were men of remarkable
intelligence, while the fourteen or fifteen Democratic Senators,
deprived of their associates who had seceded, found it difficult
to make a respectable showing of legislation.

The House, where there were also many vacant seats, elected Galusha
A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, Speaker.  He was a thorough politician
and a good presiding officer, possessing the tact, the quickness
of perception, and the decision acquired by editorial experience.
Thaddeus Stevens was the despotic ruler of the House.  No Republican
was permitted by "Old Thad" to oppose his imperious will without
receiving a tongue-lashing that terrified others if it did not
bring the refractory Representative back into party harness.  Rising
by degrees, as a telescope is pulled out, until he stood in a most
ungraceful attitude, his heavy black hair falling down over his
cavernous brows, and his cold little eyes twinkling with anger, he
would make some ludicrous remark, and then, reaching to his full
height, he would lecture the offender against party discipline,
sweeping at him with his large, bony right hand, in uncouth gestures,
as if he would clutch him and shake him.  He would often use
invectives, which he took care should never appear printed in the
official reports, and John Randolph in his braggart prime was never
so imperiously insulting as was Mr. Stevens toward those whose
political action he controlled.  He was firm believer in the old
maxim ascribed to the Jesuits, "The end justifies the means," and,
while he set morality at defiance, he was an early and a zealous
champion of the equality of the black and the white races.

There were many able men among the Republican Representatives.
Dawes, of Massachusetts, had acquired a deserved reputation for
honesty, sincerity, and untiring industry.  Elihu B. Washburne was
an experienced politician and a practical legislator.  Sam Hooper
was a noble specimen of the Boston merchant, who had always preserved
his reputation for exact dealings, and whose liberal charities
eclipsed his generous hospitalities.  Roscoe Conkling, who had just
entered upon the theatre of his future fame, commanded attention
by his superb choice of words in debate and by his wonderful felicity
of expression and epigrammatic style.  Alexander H. Rice reflected
honor upon his Boston constituents.  John B. Alley was a true
representative of the industrial interests and anti-slavery sentiments
of old Essex.  William D. Kelley was on the threshold of a long
career of parliamentary usefulness, and Edward McPherson, a man of
facts and figures, blindly devoted to his party, was ever ready to
spring some ingenious parliamentary trap for the discomfiture of
its opponents.

The Democratic opposition was not strong.  Among Kentucky's
Representatives were the veteran John J. Crittenden, who had so
long been kept under the shadow of the representation of Henry
Clay, and Charles A. Wickliffe, portly in figure and florid in
features, who clung to the ruffled-bosom shirt of his boyhood.
Daniel Voorhees, the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," would occasionally
launch out in a bold strain of defiance and invective against the
measures for the restoration of the Union, in which he would be
seconded by Clement L. Vallandingham, of Ohio, and by the facetious
S. S. Cox, who then represented an Ohio district.

The Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War was a
mischievous organization, which assumed dictatorial powers.
Summoning generals before them, and having a phonographer to record
every word uttered, they would propound very comprehensive questions.
The first question put by them was generally about identical with
that which the militia captain, who fell into the cellar-way after
an arduous attempt to drill his company, asked a benevolent Quaker
lady who rushed forward to express her sympathy, as he struggled
to extricate himself:  "What do you know about war?"  If the general
in hand was a political brigadier or major-general, who had been
in the habit before the war of saving his country on the stump, he
would proceed to discuss the origin and cure of the Rebellion,
greatly to the satisfaction of the Committee, and they would
ascertain at once that so far as his principles were concerned,
the ought to have commanded the Army of the Potomac.  If the general
called and questioned happened to be one of the numerous class who
had formed the acquaintance of the green-eyed monster, he entertained
the Committee with shocking stories of his superior officers.  He
scolded and carped and criticised and caviled, told half truths
and solid lies, and the august and astute Committee listened with
open ears, and the phonographer dotted down every word.  So the
meanest gossip and slang of the camp was raked into a heap and
preserved in official form.

[Facsimile]
  BenjWade
BENJAMIN F. WADE was born at Feeding Hills Parish, near Springfield,
Massachusetts, October 17th, 1800; removed to Ohio; was United
States Senator, 1851-1869, and died at Jefferson, Ohio, March 2d,
1878.


CHAPTER IX.
THE METROPOLIS IN TIME OF WAR.

President Lincoln had a bright, spring-like day for his first New
Year's reception, and the dignitaries who in turn paid their respects
found such a crowd around the door of the White House that they
experienced some little inconvenience in reaching the interior.
Lord Lyons, of England, and M. Mercier, of France, were prominent
among the diplomats, and General McDowell headed the army officers,
General McClellan being ill.  At noon the public were admitted,
order being maintained by the police, who appeared for the first
time in uniform.  Passing on to the reception-room, the people met
and shook hands with the President, near whom stood Mrs. Lincoln,
who was attended by the United States Marshal of the District,
Colonel Lamon, Captain Darling, chief of the Capitol police, and
the President's secretaries.  The visitors thence passed to the
great East Room, where it was apparent they were unusually numerous,
more strangers being present in Washington at the time, perhaps,
than ever before.  The crowd, indeed, as looked upon by old residents,
appeared to present new faces almost entirely.  The general scene
was brilliant and animating, and the whole was enlivened, as usual,
by strains of the Marine Band, which was stationed in the vestibule.
By two o'clock the promenaders generally had departed by means of
a platform for egress, constructed through one of the large windows
at the front of the mansion.

The Abolitionists were greatly disappointed because there had not
been any insurrectionary movements among the slaves at the South,
which had been looked for at the Christmas holidays, and they then
increased their exertions to make Mr. Lincoln issue a proclamation
abolishing slavery.  At the twenty-ninth annual meeting of the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Boston, in January,
1862, Wendell Phillips, with a sneer, expressed himself thus:  "Mr.
Seward had predicted that the war would be over in ninety days,
but he didn't believe, as things were going, it would be over in
ninety years.  He believed Lincoln was honest, but as a pint-pot
may be full, and yet not be so full as a quart, so there is a vast
difference between the honesty of a small man and the honesty of
a statesman."

There was an imposing parade through the streets of a new arm of
the military service, a battalion or regiment of mounted lancers.
The men carried lances about twelve feet long, held upright as they
rode, and having black staffs and bright spear heads, something
like the sword bayonet, though only about half as long.  This corps
was under the command of Colonel Rush, of Pennsylvania.  Each
horseman bore a small red flag on the top of his lance, and the
novelty of the display attracted much attention, though the
spectators, not greatly impressed with the effectiveness of the
weapon with which the corps was armed, gave them the sobriquet
"Turkey Drivers," which stuck to them ever afterward.

President Lincoln had a pet scheme during the war for establishing
a colony of contrabands at the Chiriqui Lagoon, with a new transit
route across the Isthmus to the harbor of Golfito, on the Pacific.
The first company of emigrants, composed of freeborn negroes and
liberated slaves, was organized, under President Lincoln's personal
supervision, by Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, and would have started,
but the diplomatic representative of Costa Rica protested.  Negro
settlers, he said, would be welcomed in the province of Chiriqui,
but such a colony as it was proposed to establish would necessarily
be under the protection of the United States, and grave difficulties
might ensue.  Besides, such a colony would almost invite an attack
from the Confederates, then quite powerful, who would seek their
slaves, and who would regard a negro colony with especial aversion.

Mr. Lincoln regretted this fiasco, as negro colonization was his
favorite panacea for the national troubles.  He again and again
declared that the continuance of the African race in the United
States could but be injurious to both blacks and whites, and that
the expatriation and colonization of the negro was a political
necessity.  Those who had zealously opposed slavery and who had
regarded the war as securing the freedom of the negroes, combated
the President's scheme. They insisted that the blacks had a right
to remain in the land of their birth, and declared that expatriation,
as a measure of political economy, would be fatal to the prosperity
of the country, for it would drive away a large amount of productive
labor.  A colony was subsequently taken to one of the West India
Islands, but it was a miserable failure, and the colonists, after
great suffering, were brought back.

The scandals concerning army contracts enabled the Abolitionists
to secure the transfer of Simon Cameron from the War Department to
the Russian Mission, and the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton in
his place.  It should not be forgotten that Mr. Cameron is entitled
to great credit for the energy and skill with which he managed the
War Office from March, 1861, until February, 1862.  He laid the
foundation of that military organization which eventually, under
the leadership of Grant and Sherman, crushed the Rebellion and
restored the Union.  One of the regiments which came to Washington
from New York, the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, becoming wretchedly
disorganized, he detailed his brother, Colonel James Cameron, to
command it.  This settled all differences, the Scotchmen remembering
the proverb that "The Camerons of Lochiel never proved false to a
friend or a foe."  In a few weeks, however, Colonel Cameron was
killed at the Battle of Bull Run while bravely leading his men
against the enemy.  The weight of this great calamity fell upon
Secretary Cameron at a time when the utmost powers of his mind were
being exerted to save Washington from capture.  For a brief period
it crushed him, but the dangers then surrounding the national cause
were too numerous and too threatening to admit of anything but
redoubled exertions to avert them.  Summoning, therefore, all his
fortitude and energy, he for the moment suppressed his intense
grief and recommenced his labors.  New armies were organized as if
by magic, and Washington was saved.

Mr. Stanton's strong will was relied upon by the Abolitionists for
the control of General McClellan, who had given some indications
of his willingness to restore the Union "as it was," with slavery
legalized and protected.  While "Little Mac" had become the idol
of the rank and file of the Army of the Potomac, which he had
thoroughly organized and equipped, he had also provoked the opposition
of those in his rear from whom he should have received encouragement
and support.  Naturally cautious, he hesitated about moving when
he knew that if successful he would immediately be crippled by the
withdrawal of a portion of his command.  A prominent politician,
more outspoken than some of them around him, is quoted by General
Custer as having said:  "It is not on our books that McClellan
should take Richmond."

Mr. Stanton had witnessed so much treason while he was a member of
Buchanan's Cabinet, that he determined to know exactly what was
done by every officer of the army, and one of his first acts was
to have news sent over the wires pass through the War Department.
Every wire in the country was "tapped" and its contents made a
matter of record.  Every telegram sent by President Lincoln or the
members of his Cabinet to the generals in the field, or received
by them from those generals, was put on record at Washington, as
were all cipher despatches, deciphered by General Eckert.  On one
occasion a despatch from General Rufus Ingalls to Senator Nesmith
puzzled every one at the War Department except Quartermaster-General
Meigs, who was positive that it was Bohemian.  Finally an officer
who had served on the Pacific coast recognized it as "Chinook," a
compound of the English, Chinese, and Indian languages used by the
whites in trading with the Chinook Indians.  The despatch was a
harmless request from General Ingalls to his old friend "Nes." to
come and witness an impeding engagement.

A detective system of espionage had been organized by Mr. Seward
for the protection of the United States Government against the
adherents of the Confederate cause.  The reports made by this corps
of detectives to the Department of State showed the daring acts of
the Southern sympathizers, several of whom were ladies of wealth
and fashion.  How they watched and waited at official doors till
they had bagged the important secret of state they wanted; how they
stole military maps from the War Department; how they took copies
of official documents; how they smuggled the news of the Government's
strength in the linings of honest-looking coats; and how they hid
army secrets in the meshes of unsuspected crinoline--all these
became familiar facts, almost ceasing to excite remark or surprise.
The head of this branch of the service was General Lafayette S.
Baker.

Of this band of active and useful plotters, who were constantly
engaged playing into the hands of the Confederates under the very
shadow of the Capitol, some of the women of Washington were the
busiest.  The intriguing nature of these dames appears to have
found especial delight in forwarding the schemes of the leaders in
the movement to overthrow the Washington Government.  It mattered
not that most of them owed all they possessed of fortune and position
to that Federal Government, and to the patronage which, directly
or indirectly, they had received from it.  This very fact lent a
spice of daring to the deed, while an irresistible attraction was
furnished in the fact that they were plotting the ruin of a Government
which had fallen into the hands of that Northern majority whom,
with all the lofty scorn of "patrician" blood, they despised and
detested.

Mrs. Rose O. H. Greenhow was the most adroit of the Confederate
emissaries.  The sister of Mrs. Cutts, mother of Mrs. Douglas, and
the widow of a clerk in the State Department, who had written a
valuable work on Oregon, her social position gave her remarkable
facilities for obtaining information.  Just before the battle of
Bull Run she contrived to convey to the enemy news obtained from
a New England Senator with regard to the intended movements of the
Federals.  This communication, in her own opinion, decided the
battle.  In return she received this despatch from the Confederate
Adjutant-General:  "Our President and our General direct me to
thank you.  We rely upon you for further information.  The Confederacy
owes you a debt."

Mrs. Greenhow's house was finally used as a prison for female spies.
The windows looking on the street were boarded up, and a special
military guard occupied tents pitched in the garden.  Mrs. Greenhow
and her pretty daughter Rose were the presiding deities.  Then there
was Mrs. Phillips, daughter of J. C. Levy, of Charleston, S. C.,
where she married Philip Phillips, who afterward removed to Mobile
and was elected thence to the Thirty-third Congress.  Declining a
re-election, he remained at Washington City, where he had a lucrative
practice before the Supreme Court.  Mrs. Phillips, although the
mother of nine children, found time to obtain and transmit information
to General Beauregard, and after having been closely guarded for
awhile, she was permitted to go South on her parole and that of
her father, that she would not give "aid or comfort to the enemy."

Mrs. Baxley, Mrs. Hasler, Miss Lilly A. Mackel, Mrs. Levy, and
other lady prisoners had all been more or less prominent in Southern
society at Washington, and had made trips over the underground
railroad between Alexandria and Richmond.  Also an English lady,
Mrs. Ellena Low, who had been arrested at Boston, with her son,
who had crossed the ocean bearing a commission in the Confederate
army.  Miss E. M. Poole, alias Stewart, had been very successful
in carrying contraband information and funds between the two camps,
and when arrested the last time there were found concealed on her
person seven thousand five hundred dollars of unexpended funds.

Another devoted friend of the Confederates, who resided just outside
of the Union lines in Virginia, managed to fascinate General
Stoughton, a young West Point cavalry officer, and one evening
while he was enjoying her society, during a serenade by a regimental
band, he, with his band and orderlies, was surprised and captured,
and they were sent as prisoners-of-war to Richmond.  "I do not mind
losing the brigadier," said Mr. Lincoln, in talking about the
capture, "for they are easily made, but there were some twenty
horses taken, and they cost one hundred and twenty-five dollars
apiece."

[Facsimile]
  SimonCameron
SIMON CAMERON was born at Waynesborough, Pennsylvania, March 3d,
1799; learned the art of printing; was Secretary of War under
President Lincoln, in 1861, resigning when appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary to Russia, in 1862; was United States Senator from
Pennsylvania, 1845-1849, 1857-1861, and 1867-1877, when he resigned,
and was succeeded by his son.


CHAPTER X.
FASHION, LITERATURE, AND ART.

Washington "society" refused to be comforted.  Those within its
charmed circle would not visit the White House, or have any
intercourse with the members of the Administration.  This gave
great annoyance to Mr. Seward, who used diplomatic and consular
appointments, commissions, and contracts unsparingly for the purchase
of a friendly feeling.  At his urgent solicitation the President
consented to an evening reception at the White House, by invitation.
"I don't fancy this pass business," said the President, good-
naturedly, but the metropolitan practicians could not refrain from
applying for them.  The evening of February 5th, 1862, found the
court-yard of the White House filled with carriages and ambulances
bringing "fair women and brave men."

The President and Mrs. Lincoln received their guests in the East
Room, where he towered above all around him, and had a pleasant
word for those he knew.  Mrs. Lincoln was dressed in a white satin
dress with a low neck and short sleeves.  It was trimmed with black
lace flounces, which were looped up with knots of ribbon, and she
wore a floral head-dress, which was not very becoming.  Near her
was her eldest son, Mr. Robert Lincoln (known as the Prince of
Rails), and Mr. John Hay, the President's intellectual private
secretary.  In addition to the East Room, the Red, Green, and Blue
Parlors (so named from the color of their paper-hangings and the
furniture) were open, and were ornamented with a profusion of rare
exotics, while the Marine Band, stationed in the corridor, discoursed
fine music.

Mr. Seward was in his element, escorting, as in duty bound, the
ladies of the Diplomatic Corps.  Mr. Chase, the dignified and
statesman-like Secretary of the Treasury, seemed to have forgotten
for the moment that his coffers were "short."  Mr. Stanton, vigorous
and thoughtful, was the object of much attention, and the patriarchal
locks and beard of the not over-scintillant Secretary of the Navy
were, of course, a feature.  The other members of the Cabinet were
present, as were Justices Clifford, Wayne, and Grier, of the Supreme
Court.

Senator Sumner, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations,
was the centre of a diplomatic circle, where all of the "great
powers," and some of the smaller ones, were represented.  Ladies
from the rural districts were disappointed in not seeing the gorgeous
court costumes, having forgotten that our court-dress is the
undertaker-like suit of black broadcloth so generally worn.  But
they gazed with admiration upon the broad ribbons and jeweled badges
worn on the breasts of the Chevaliers of the Legion of Honor,
Knights of the Bath, etc., "with distinguished consideration."
Vice-President Hamlin might have called the Senate to order and
had more than a quorum of members present, who, like himself, had
their wives here to cheer their labors.  Mr. Speaker Grow could
not see around him so large a proportion of the "Lower House," but
there was--so a Kentucky lady said--"a right smart chance of
Representatives."

General McClellan, in full uniform, looked finely.  Among his staff
officers were the French Princes, each wearing a captain's uniform.
The Comte de Paris was tall and very handsome, while the Duc du
Chartres was taller, thinner, less handsome than his brother.  Both
were remarkably cordial and affable, and, as they spoke English
perfectly, they enjoyed the gay scene.  General Fremont, in a plain
undress suit, seemed rather downcast, although his devoted wife,
"Jessie," more than made up for his moodiness by her animated and
vivacious conversation.  There were, besides Generals McDowell,
Stone, Heintzelman, Blenker, Hancock, Hooker, Keyes, Doubleday,
Casey, Shields, and Marcy, with Captain Dahlgren and the Prince
Salm-Salm.  Of those present many fought, and some fell, on the
various fields of the next three dreadful years.  There were others
who were destined to do their duty and yet be mistaken and defrauded
of their just inheritance of glory.  Such was the fortune of war.

An incident of the evening was the presentation of General Fremont
to General McClellan by President Lincoln.  General Fremont was in
the hall, evidently about to leave, as Mrs. Fremont had her shawl
on, and Senator Sumner was escorting her toward the door, when the
President went after them, and soon turned toward the East Room,
with the Pathfinder at his side, Senator Sumner and Mrs. Fremont
following.  The presentation was made, and a few remarks were
exchanged by the Generals, two men who were destined to exert a
marked influence on the future destiny of the nation.

A magnificent supper had been provided in the state dining-room by
Maillard, of New York, but when the hour of eleven came, and the
door should have been opened, the flustered steward had lost the
key, so that there was a hungry crowd waiting anxiously outside
the unyielding portal.  Then the irrepressible humor of the American
people broke forth--that grim humor which carried them through the
subsequent misery.  "I am in favor of a forward movement!" one
would exclaim.  "An advance to the front is only retarded by the
imbecility of commanders," said another, quoting a speech just made
in Congress.  To all this General McClellan, himself modestly
struggling with the crowd, laughed as heartily as anybody.  Finally
the key was found, the door opened, and the crowd fed.

The table was decorated with large pieces of ornamental confectionery,
the centre object representing the steamer "Union," armed and
bearing the "Stars and Stripes."  On a side table was a model of
Fort Sumter, also in sugar, and provisioned with game.  After supper
promenading was resumed, and it was three o'clock ere the guests
departed.  The entertainment was pronounced a decided success, but
it was compared to the ball given by the Duchess of Richmond, at
Brussels, the night before Waterloo.  People parted there never to
meet again.  Many a poor fellow took his leave that night of
festivity forever, the band playing, as he left, "The Girl I Left
Behind Me."

The Abolitionists throughout the country were merciless in their
criticisms of the President and Mrs. Lincoln for giving this
reception when the soldiers of the Union were in cheerless bivouacs
or comfortless hospitals, and a Philadelphia poet wrote a scandalous
ode on the occasion, entitled "The Queen Must Dance."

There was no dancing, nor was it generally known that after the
invitations had been issued Mrs. Lincoln's children sickened, and
she had been up the two nights previous to the reception watching
with them.  Both the President and Mrs. Lincoln left the gay throng
several times to go up and see their darling Willie, who passed
away a fortnight afterward.  He was a fine-looking lad, eleven
years of age, whose intelligence and vivacity made him a general
favorite.  Some of his exercises in literary composition had been
so creditable that his father had permitted their publication.
This bereavement made Mr. Lincoln and his wife very indulgent toward
their youngest son, who thenceforth imperiously ruled at the White
House.

Washington City profited by its encircling garrison of one hundred
and fifty thousand men, and its population of civilians increased
wonderfully.  Previously the crowds of people who had flooded
Washington at inauguration ceremonies, or during the sessions of
Congress, had been of the quick-come, quick-go character almost
exclusively.  They had added nothing to the general business of
the city, stopping altogether at hotels, and making no investments
in the way of purchases.  Even Congressmen had latterly very seldom
brought their families to the Federal capital.  But the representatives
of the military power formed another class of citizens entirely.
Unlike the representatives of the legislative power, who had treated
their quarters in Washington as mere "tents of a night," the army
had taken all the vacant houses in Washington.  The fears of a
bombardment by the rebels on the Potomac had the effect of keeping
up prices of provisions and everything else.  The residents of
Washington experienced the evils of living in a non-manufacturing
and non-producing country.  The single-track railway to Baltimore
was over-loaded by the army, and the freight depot in the city was
crammed and piled with stuff of every description that it presented
the appearance of about five hundred Noah's arks suddenly tumbled
into a conglomerated heap.

With the army and its camp-followers, there came a number of
_literati_ to accept clerical positions in the Departments.  At
the Treasury one could see the veteran Dr. Pierpont, George Wood,
O'Connor, Piatt, Chilton, and Dr. Elder, all hopefully engaged in
signing, cutting, or recording Government notes and bonds.  Entering
the library of the State Department, one saw J. C. Derby, so long
in the front rank of New York publishers, then Mr. Seward's librarian.
On Pennsylvania Avenue was Fred Cozzens' store, to which Mr.
Sparrowgrass had transported his Catawbas and Cabanas.  At the
White House one would perhaps meet N. P. Willis in the reception-
room, and in Mr. Nicolay's up-stairs sanctum was John Hay, whose
_Atlantic_ papers were written with such purity of style and feeling
at his desk as under-secretary to the President.  Then, among women
writers, there were Mesdames Don Piatt, Squier, Olmstead, and
Kirkland.   The Vermont sculptor, Larkin Meade, had his "Green
Mountain Boy" on exhibition at a popular bookstore on the Avenue.

With this importation of Northern brains came a desire to hear
lectures from prominent men, and Professor Henry was reluctantly
induced to grant the use of the lecture hall of the Smithsonian
Institution, with a promise that it should be announced that the
Institution was not to be held responsible for what might be said.
When the first lecture was given, the Rev. John Pierpont, after
introducing the lecturer, added:  "I am requested by Professor
Henry, to announce that the Smithsonian Institution is not responsible
for this course of lectures.  I do so with pleasure, and desire to
add that the Washington Lecture Association is not responsible for
the Smithsonian Institution."  The satire was appreciated and
received with applause.  Throughout the course Mr. Pierpont repeated
his announcement before each weekly lecture, and no sooner would
he say, "I am requested," then the large audience would applaud.

Isaac Newton, of Philadelphia, was placed at the head of the
Agricultural Bureau of the Patent Office, by President Lincoln,
and in due time he became the head of the newly created Department
of Agriculture.  He was an ignorant, credulous old gentleman, quite
rotund around the waistband, with snow-white hair and a mild blue
eye.  Educated a Quaker, he had accumulated some property by keeping
an ice-cream saloon in Philadelphia, and he then established a
farm, from which he obtained his supplies of cream.  At Washington
he was known as "Sir Isaac," and many anecdotes were told at his
expense.  One year, when the expenditures of his department had
been very great, and the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture
called on him to ascertain how he had used up so much money, Sir
Isaac spluttered and talked learnedly, and at last concluded by
saying:  "Yes, sir; the expenses have been very great, exorbitant;
indeed, sir, they have exceeded my most sanguine expectations."
The Chairman was not satisfied.  Looking over Sir Isaac's estimate
for the year, it was found he had made requisition for five thousand
dollars to purchase two hydraulic rams.  "Them, gentlemen," said
Sir Isaac, "are said to be the best sheep in Europe.  I have seen
a gentleman who knows all about them, and we should by all means
secure the breed."  Some wag had been selling Sir Isaac, and, much
to his disgust, the Committee struck out the five-thousand-dollar
item.

[Facsimile]
  S.P.Chase
SALMON PORTLAND CHASE was born at Cornish, New Hampshire, January
13th, 1808; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1826; studied law at
Washington with William Wirt, supporting himself by teaching school;
commenced practice at Cincinnati in 1830; was United States Senator
from Ohio, 1849-1853; was Governor of Ohio, 1855-1859; was again
United States Senator, March 4th, 1861, and resigned the next day
to become Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln, which
position he held until he resigned in September, 1864; was appointed
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, December 6th, 1864; presided
at the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1866, and died at
New York, May 7th, 1873.


CHAPTER XI.
THE FORTUNES OF WAR.

With the war came the army correspondents.  Dickens had previously
introduced Martin Chuzzlewit to "our war correspondent, sir, Mr.
Jefferson Brick," several years previously, but the warlike
experiences of the redoubtable Mr. Brick were of a purely sedentary
character, and his epistles were written at the home office.  But
Washington was now invaded by a corps of quick-witted, plucky young
fellows, able to endure fatigue, brave enough to be under fire,
and sufficiently well educated to enable them to dash off a
grammatical and picturesque description of a skirmish.

Occasionally, one of them, by eulogizing a general in command, was
enabled to go to the front as a gentleman, but generally they were
proscribed and hunted out from camps like spies.  Secretary Stanton
bullied them, established a censorship at Washington, and occasionally
imprisoned one, or stopped the publication of the paper with which
he corresponded.  Halleck denounced them as "unauthorized hangers-
on," who should be compelled to work on the entrenchments if they
did not leave his lines.  General Meade was unnecessarily severe
in his treatment of correspondents whose letters were not agreeable
to him, although they contained "the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth."  The result was that the correspondents
were forced to hover around the rear of the armies, gathering up
such information as they could, and then ride in haste to the
nearest available telegraph station to send off their news.  There
were honorable and talented exceptions, but the majority of those
who called themselves "war correspondents" were mere news-
scavengers.

The Washington press was despotically governed during the war.
The established censorship was under the direction of men wholly
unqualified, and on several occasions the printed editions of
influential journals--Republican or Democratic--were seized by
Secretary Stanton for having published intelligence which he thought
should have been suppressed.  Bulletins were issued by the War
Department, but they were often incorrect.  It was known that the
Washington papers, full of military information, were forwarded
through the lines daily, yet the censors would not permit paragraphs
clipped from those papers to be telegraphed to Boston or Chicago,
where they could not appear sooner than they did in the Richmond
papers.  The declaration, "I am a newspaper correspondent," which
had in former years carried with it the imposing force of the
famous, "I am a Roman citizen," no longer entitled one to the same
proud prerogatives, and journalists were regarded as spies and
sneaks.

Colonel John W. Forney, Secretary of the United States Senate and
editor of the Philadelphia _Press_, established the _Sunday Chronicle_
at Washington, and in time made it the _Daily Chronicle_.  When in
Washington, he was constantly dictating letters for the _Press_
and editorials for the _Chronicle_.  When in Philadelphia, he
dictated editorials for the _Press_ and letters for the _Chronicle_.
Each paper copied his letters from the other.  When in New York,
he dictated editorial letters to his papers alternately, and they
were signed "J. W. F."  His Washington letters to the _Press_ and
his Philadelphia letters to the _Chronicle_ were signed, "Occasional,"
though the most remarkable thing about them was their regularity.

The Washington _Chronicle_ received editorial and other contributions
from some of the ablest writers in the country.  Editorials on
foreign topics were supplied by Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, of the
Philadelphia _Press_.  Robert J. Walker wrote a series of powerful
articles on the desirableness of Secretary Seward's pet project,
the acquisition of Alaska, and Caleb Cushing was a frequent editorial
contributor.  It had a large circulation, the Army of the Potomac
taking ten thousand copies a day, and the lucrative advertising of
the Department was given to it.

Independence Day, 1862, was not joyously celebrated at Washington.
The martial pageant with which the day had been glorified in years
past had been replaced by the stern realities of war, and the
hospitals were crowded with the sick, the wounded, and the dying.
The week previous General McClellan, after a campaign of great
severity in the Peninsula, and having been in sight of Richmond,
had been so crippled by the failure of Secretary Stanton to send
him more troops that he had been forced to retreat from Chickahominy,
and seek the shelter of the gunboats on the River James.  The
President, at the request of the Governors of the loyal States,
promptly called into the service an additional force of three
hundred thousand men.  Those who had advocated the arming of the
negroes availed themselves of the occasion to urge their enlistment;
but the Secretary of War, in conversation with conservatives,
opposed it.  Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, stated on the floor of the
House (and his statement was never contradicted) that, having
business at the War Department, Mr. Stanton called him back, and,
folding over the date and signature of a letter, showed him that
an officer had asked authority to raise a regiment of blacks.  The
Secretary inquired what answer ought to be given, to which he
(Mallory) replied, "If you allow me to dictate an answer, I would
say, emphatically, No!"  The Secretary rejoined that he had not
only done that, but had ordered the officer's arrest.

The people responded gloriously to the demand for more troops, and
by the middle of August, 1862, they were pouring into Washington
at the rate of a brigade a day.  The regiments, on their arrival,
were marched past the White House, singing, "We are coming, Father
Abraham, three hundred thousand more."  And "Father Abraham" often
kindled their highest enthusiasm by coming to the front entrance
and in person reviewing the passing hosts.  The troops then crossed
the Potomac, where the hills were whitened with the tents of camps
of instruction, where an army of reserves was soon produced.  Mr.
Greeley, however, was not satisfied with the military preparations,
and he published an insolent letter to President Lincoln, in which
he charged him with being "disastrously remiss in enforcing the
laws."  Mr. Lincoln replied, calmly but positively:  "I would save
the Union.  I would save it in the shortest way, under the
Constitution.  If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves
I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I
would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving
others alone I would also do that.  What I do about slavery and
the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union,
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would
help to save the Union.  I shall do less whenever I shall believe
that what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever
I believe doing more will help the cause.  I shall try to correct
errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast
as they shall appear to be true views."

President Lincoln finally found that he could not sustain General
McClellan any longer, and offered General Burnside the command of
the Army of the Potomac, which was promptly and peremptorily
declined.  General McClellan was soon virtually deposed, and General
Halleck placed in command, while a large portion of the Army of
the Potomac was organized as the Army of Virginia, and placed under
the command of Major-General John Pope, who boasted that he was
fresh from a campaign in the West, where he had "seen only the
backs of rebels."  The result was that the new commander was not
cordially supported, and the Army of Virginia was wrecked beyond
compare, and driven back upon Washington, which was threatened by
the victorious Confederates.

General Burnside was, for the second time, invited to take command,
but he refused, urging President Lincoln to restore General McClellan.
This was undoubtedly the wish of a large majority of the surviving
officers and soldiers, and of many leading members of Congress and
journalists.  The recall of General McClellan to command, and his
victory at Antietam, were like a romance.  Sitting one day in his
tent near Alexandria, with only his body-guard of a hundred men
under his command, he was called to save the capital from the vast
hosts of enemies that were pouring on it in resistless columns.
To save his native State from the invasion that threatened it, and
Maryland from the grasp of a soldiery that would wrest it from the
Union, he was offered an army shattered by disaster, and legions
of new recruits who had never handled a musket or heard the sound
of a hostile cannon.  The responsibility was greater than had ever
been reposed on the shoulders of one man since the days of Washington.
With a rapidity never equaled in history, he gathered together the
army, arranged its forces, made up his corps, chose his generals,
and sent them in vigorous pursuit, through Washington and on
northward.

The enemy had crossed into Maryland, and were having a triumphant
march through that State toward the Pennsylvania line.  They issued
a sounding proclamation to the people, offering them what they
called liberty from oppression, and they acted out the theory of
their mad invasion, which was that they were victors and had come
to reap, on loyal grounds, the fruit of their victories.

On Sunday the gallant men of the Union Army were on them.  They
were swept over the South Mountains with the besom of destruction.
On Monday, astonished to meet McClellan, when they had expected to
meet those whom they less feared, they called their hosts over the
Potomac and prepared for battle.  McClellan had previously arranged
his strategic plans, and these undoubtedly would have resulted
differently but for the inexplicable surrender of Harper's Ferry,
leaving our army with little hope of cutting off the retreat of
the enemy.

On Tuesday and Wednesday McClellan engaged them in a long and
furious contest, the night of Wednesday closing in on them defeated,
dispirited, and broken; and when Thursday morning showed the
disposition of our army, and the inevitable defeat that awaited
them, they left the field, abandoned their wounded, and fled into
Virginia, pursued and routed by the army of the Union.  Having
gloriously performed this great work, General McClellan's stubborn
inaction returned, and President Lincoln determined to place General
Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac.

General Burnside reluctantly accepted the command when it was for
the third time tendered him, and lost no time in putting its
divisions in motion for a rapid advance upon Fredericksburg.  Had
he found the pontoon train there, as he had expected, he could have
thrown a heavy force across the Rappahannock before the enemy could
have concentrated to resist his crossing, and he then could have
commenced an active, vigorous campaign against Richmond.  But before
the pontoons had arrived the Confederates had strengthened their
forces, and the result was two unsuccessful attacks, with a large
loss of men.  The country howled with wrath against the Washington
officials, who had delayed sending the pontoons, but General Burnside
stood up squarely and said, in his open, honest manner, "For the
failure in the attack I am responsible."

Learning that Generals Hooker, Newton, Franklin, Cochrane, and
others had been intriguing against him and urging his dismissal,
General Burnside promptly issued an order dismissing them from the
service of the Union.  President Lincoln would not consent to this
and permit the dismissal of these demoralized officers, whose
partisan prejudices had overshadowed their loyalty to their commander.
General Burnside then resigned, General Hooker was appointed his
successor, and the Army of the Potomac went into winter quarters
on the north bank of the Rappahannock.

[Facsimile]
  A.E.Burnside
AMBROSE EVERETT BURNSIDE was born at Liberty, Indiana, May 23d,
1824; graduated at West Point in 1847; served in the Mexican and
Indian Wars, and in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion;
was Governor of Rhode Island, 1866-1868; was United States Senator
from March 4th, 1875, until his death at his residence in Bristol,
Rhode Island, September 13th, 1881.


CHAPTER XII.
SOCIAL LIFE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

When Congress met in December, 1862, many Republicans were despondent.
The Administration ticket had been defeated in the elections of
the preceding month in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana,
and Illinois, while in other loyal States the majorities had fallen
off--the total returns showing the election of fifty-nine Republican
Representatives against forty Democratic Representatives.  This
encouraged the Abolitionists to urge the emancipation of the slaves,
while the conservatives protested against it, but Mr. Lincoln
contented himself by saying:  "You must not expect me to give up
the Government without playing my last card."

The Proclamation of Emancipation, issued by President Lincoln on
the 1st of January, 1863, marked an era in the history, not only
of the war, but of the Republic and the civilized world.  Four
millions of human beings, who had been kept in slavery under the
protection of the Federal Government, were promised their freedom
by the Commander-in-Chief of the army, as a "military necessity,"
and the pledge was gloriously redeemed.  In commemoration of this
event the colossal group entitled "Emancipation," located in Lincoln
Park, was erected by contributions solely from emancipated persons,
and was dedicated April 14th, 1876, Frederick Douglass being the
orator of the occasion.  The entire work is twenty-two feet high,
and the bronze work alone cost seventeen thousand dollars.

New Year's Day was fair and the walking dry, which made it an
agreeable task to keep up the Knickerbocker practice of calling on
officials and lady friends.  The President, members of the Cabinet,
and other Government functionaries received a large number of
visitors during the day.  At eleven o'clock all officers of the
army in the city assembled at the War Department, and, headed by
Adjutant-General Thomas and General Halleck, proceeded to the White
House, where they were severally introduced to the President.  The
officers of the navy assembled at the Navy Department at the same
time, and, headed by Secretary Welles and Admiral Foote, also
proceeded to the President's.  The display of general officers in
brilliant uniforms was an imposing sight, and attracted large
crowds.  The foreign Ministers, in accordance with the usual custom,
also called on the President, and at twelve o'clock the doors were
opened to the public, who marched through the hall and shook hands
with Mr. Lincoln, to the music of the Marine Band, for two or three
hours.  Mrs. Lincoln also received ladies in the same parlor with
the President.

With the Emancipation Proclamation Washington was treated to a
volume of the published diary of Count Gurowski, who had been
employed as a translator in the Department of State and as a purveyor
of news for Mr. Greeley.  His book was one prolonged growl from
beginning to end.  Even those whom its author seemed inclined to
worship at the commencement found their share of abuse before they
finished.  Introducing the Blairs, of Missouri, with frequent
complimentary allusions in his opening chapters, about the middle
of his work Gurowski packed them off to Hades with the rest, and
left the reader in despair at the prospects of a nation governed
by such a set of imbeciles and rogues as our public men were
represented to be by the amiable Pole.  As he assailed everybody,
those who read the book were sure to find the particular object of
their individual dislike soundly rated with the rest.

The author of this production was a singular-looking old man, small
in stature, stout of figure, ugly in feature, and disfigured by a
pair of green goggles.  Gurowski was unsparing in his criticisms.
He set down Seward as writing too much; Sumner as a pompous, verbose
talker; Burnside as a swaggering West Pointer, and Hooker as a
casual hero.  He became so offensive to Mr. Sumner that one morning,
after listening to a torrent of his abuse, the Senator arose from
his desk, went to the door of his library, opened it, and said to
the astonished Pole, "Go!"  In vain were apologies proffered.  Mr.
Sumner, thoroughly incensed, simply repeated the word "Go!" and at
last the astute Gurowski went.

The Army of the Potomac, in comfortable quarters on the north bank
of the Rappahannock, received generous contributions of holiday
cheer.  The marching hosts of Israel were jubilant over a supply
of quails, but the Army of the Potomac had showered upon it (by
express, paid) a deluge of turkeys, geese, ducks, mince-pies,
pickles, and preserves.  Of course, the inexorable provost marshal
seized all spirituous liquors, but there were ways and means by
which this Maine law was evaded.  In many a tent there were
cylindrical glass vessels, the contents of which would have been
pronounced whisky were not that fluid "contraband," with many a
quaintly shaped flask of Rhenish wines.

Nor was it forgotten that there was encircling the metropolis a
score of hospitals, in which thousands and thousands who had fought
the good fight were being nursed into health, or lay tossing on
beds of pain, sooner or later to fall into that sleep that knows
no waking.  These brave patients were not forgotten.  The same
spirit which prompted the wise men of the East to carry at Christmas-
tide present of "gold, frankincense, and myrrh" to the infant Jesus,
"God's best gift to humanity," inspired the Union men and women at
Washington with a desire to gladden the hearts of the maimed and
scarred and emaciated men who had periled their lives that the
Republic might live.  Not only did "maidens fair and matrons grave"
toil that the hospital patients might enjoy holiday cheer, but
Senator Sumner and other leading Republicans used to go from hospital
to hospital, from ward to ward, from bedside to bedside, encouraging
by kind words those who were the martyrs of the war.  In the Campbell
Hospital, under the charge of Surgeon J. H. Baxter, of Vermont,
there was a theatre, in which performances were given every night
to cheer those who were convalescent.

Henry Wikoff, having admitted before a Committee of the House of
Representatives that he had filed at the telegraph office, for
transmission to the New York _Herald_, portions of the President's
message, he was asked how he obtained it.  This he declined to
state, saying that he was "under an obligation of strict secrecy."
The House accordingly directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to hold Wikoff
in close custody, and he was locked up in a room hastily furnished
for his accommodation.  It was generally believed that Mrs. Lincoln
had permitted Wikoff to copy those portions of the message that he
had published, and this opinion was confirmed when General Sickles
appeared as his counsel.  The General vibrated between Wikoff's
place of imprisonment, the White House, and the residence of Mrs.
Lincoln's gardener, named Watt.  The Committee finally summoned
the General before them, and put some home questions to him.  He
replied sharply, and for a few minutes a war of words raged.  He
narrowly escaped Wikoff's fate, but finally, after consulting
numerous books of evidence, the Committee concluded not to go to
extremities.  While the examination was pending, the Sergeant-at-
Arms appeared with Watt.  He testified that he saw the message in
the library, and, being of a literary turn of mind, perused it;
that, however, he did not make a copy, but, having a tenacious
memory, carried portions of it in his mind, and the next day repeated
them word for word to Wikoff.  Meanwhile, Mr. Lincoln had visited
the Capitol and urged the Republicans on the Committee to spare
him disgrace, so Watt's improbable story was received and Wikoff
was liberated.

President Lincoln, when a Congressman came to bore him for an
appointment or with a grievance, had a pleasant way of telling a
succession of stories, which left his visitor no chance to state
his case.  One day, a Representative, who had been thus silenced,
stated from experience as follows:  "I've been trying for the last
four days to get an audience with the President.  I have gone to
the White House every morning and waited till dark, but could not
get a chance to speak to him until to-day, when I was admitted to
his presence.  I told him what I wanted, and supposed I was going
to get a direct answer, when, what do you think?  Why, he started
off with, 'Do you know, I heard a good thing yesterday about the
difference between an Amsterdam Dutchman and any other "dam"
Dutchman.'  And then he commenced telling his stories.  I was mad
enough to knock the old fellow down.  But the worst of the whole
thing was that just as he got through with the last story in came
Secretary Seward, who said he must have a private conference with
him immediately.  Mr. Lincoln cooly turned to me and said, 'Mr.
----, can you call again?'  Bother his impudence, I say, to keep me
listening to his jokes for two hours, and then ask me to call
again!"

President Lincoln was quite ill that winter, and was not inclined
to listen to all the bores who called at the White House.  One day,
just as one of these pests had seated himself for a long interview,
the President's physician happened to enter the room, and Mr.
Lincoln said, holding out his hands:  "Doctor, what are these
blotches?"  "That's varioloid, or mild small-pox," said the Doctor.
"They're all over me.  It is contagious, I believe?" said Mr.
Lincoln.  "Very contagious, indeed," replied the Esculapian attendant.
"Well, I can't stop, Mr. Lincoln; I just called to see how you
were," said the visitor.  "Oh! don't be in a hurry, sir," placidly
remarked the Executive.  "Thank you, sir; I'll call again," replied
the visitor, executing a masterly retreat from a fearful contagion.
"Do, sir," said the President.  "Some people said they could not
take very well to my proclamation, but now, I am happy to say, I
have something that everybody can take."  By this time the visitor
was making a desperate break for Pennsylvania Avenue, which he
reached on the double-quick and quite out of breath.

On the 2d and 3d of May, 1863, General Hooker was most disastrously
defeated at Chancellorsville.  Several weeks later, when General
Lee had moved northward into Pennsylvania, exacting contributions
from towns, and destroying manufacturing establishments, and when
the Army of the Potomac had hurried across Maryland to attack him,
General Hooker resigned almost on the eve of the battle of Gettysburg.
General Meade was placed in command, and his gallant conduct on
that occasion gave great satisfaction to President Lincoln, although
he was sadly disappointed that the invaders had not been followed
and annihilated.

Meanwhile General Grant was besieging Vicksburg, which had been
well called "the Gibraltar of the Mississippi," and the people,
who had become heart-sick of military engineering, began to lose
courage.  At one time President Lincoln actually determined to
supersede General Grant by General Banks, but the latter, on arriving
at the scene of hostilities, saw that everything had been done that
could be done, and that the end was near at hand.  On the 4th of
July, General Pemberton asked for a proposition of terms, and
General Grant replied:  "Unconditional surrender."

On the 26th of November, 1863, President Lincoln, accompanied by
his Cabinet, Vice-President Hamlin, the Governors of several States,
and a brilliant staff of officers, attended the dedication of the
National Cemetery at Gettysburg.  The address was delivered by
Edward Everett, whose head was whitened with the snows of seventy
winters, but whose form was as erect, his complexion as clear, and
his voice as musical as it was when he had been a Representative
in Congress years before.  He had then said that he would buckle
on his knapsack in defense of slavery; now he eulogized those who
had laid down their lives in the work of its destruction.  But his
well memorized and finely rounded sentences were eclipsed by
President Lincoln's few words, read in an unmusical treble voice,
and concluding with the sublime assertion, "that the nation shall,
under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that governments of
the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from
the earth."

[Facsimile]
  Geo. G. Meade
GEORGE GORDON MEADE, born December 30th, 1815, at Cadiz, Spain,
where his father was located in the United States service; graduated
at West Point in 1835; entered the artillery service and was engaged
in the Seminole and Mexican Wars, and in August 1861, was made
Brigadier-General of Volunteers; Major-General, 1862; Commander-in-
Chief of the Army of the Potomac, June 28th, 1863; won the Battle
of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863; continued to command the Army of
the Potomac until the close of the war.  Died at Philadelphia,
November 6th, 1872.


CHAPTER XIII.
CIVIL AND MILITARY INTRIGUES.

Schuyler Colfax was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
When Congress met on the 7th of December, 1863, among the new
members sworn in were Generals Garfield and Schenck, of Ohio, and
Deming, of Connecticut, who had seen service; Mr. James G. Blaine,
who had been the editor of the Portland _Advertiser_, and Mr. James
G. Brooks, who had for many years edited the New York _Express_,
with Brutus J. Clay, of Kentucky; George S. Boutwell and Oakes
Ames, of Massachusetts, and other prominent men.  One of the first
acts of Congress was to vote a medal of thanks to General Grant
for the victories which he had won at Missionary Ridge and at
Chattanooga.  On one side of this medal was his profile, surrounded
by a wreath of laurel, with his name, the date and authority of
the presentation, and, on the encircling work, a star for each
State.  On the reverse was a figure of Fame, seated in the heavens
with emblems of prosperity and power; while upon various parts of
the work the names of Grant's chief victories were inscribed.

At the New Year's reception Mr. Lincoln was in excellent spirits,
giving each passer-by a cordial greeting and a warm shake of the
hand, while for some there was a quiet joke.  Mrs. Lincoln stood
at his right hand, wearing a purple silk dress trimmed with black
velvet and lace, with a lace necktie fastened with a pearl pin;
her head-dress was ornamented with a white plume.  Secretary Seward
was there, sphinx-like and impassible.  Governor Chase seemed
somewhat perplexed, balancing, perhaps, between the succession to
the Presidency or the Chief Justiceship; Secretary Wells' patriarchal
form towered above the crowd, and there were a few Senators and
Representatives, a majority of either House being, _on dit_, enjoying
the hospitalities of New York.  But the army officers, as they came
in from the War Department, headed by General Halleck, presented
an imposing display, some with epaulettes and feathers, but a
majority in battle attire.  The naval officers, headed by Admiral
Davis, also presented a fine appearance.

At twelve o'clock, the portals were thrown open, and in poured the
people in a continuous stream.  For two hours did they pass steadily
along, a living tide, which swept in, eddied around the President
and his wife, and then surged into the East Room, which was a
maelstrom of humanity, uniforms, black coats, gay female attire,
and citizens generally.

Vice-President Hamlin kept open house at his residence on F Street,
and the Secretaries were all at their homes.  At Governor Seward's,
Mrs. Fred Seward did the honors, assisted by Miss Seward and a
friend from Auburn, while at Governor Chase's his recently married
daughter, Mrs. Senator Sprague, and Miss Chase welcomed many friends.
Mayor Wallach entertained his visitors with old Virginia hospitality,
and at many private residences there were the traditionary bowls
of egg-nog and of apple-toddy.

The friends of General Grant in Congress urged the passage of a
bill to revive the grade of Lieutenant-General of the army.  It
met with some opposition, especially from General Garfield, who
opposed the bill mainly on the ground that it would be improper at
that stage of the war to determine and award the greatest prize of
the conflict in the way of military preferment to any one of the
distinguished Generals of the army.  It would, he thought, be far
more fitting for Congress to wait until war was over, and see whose
head towered above the rest in the army, and then give this crown
to the one whose head had risen highest.

Notwithstanding this opposition, the bill was passed by both Houses,
approved by the President on the 1st day of March, 1864, and the
next day he sent to the Senate the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant,
which was confirmed immediately, and General Grant was summoned to
Washington in person.  He wore a plain, undress uniform and a felt
hat of the regulation pattern, the sides of the top crushed together.
He generally stood or walked with his left hand in his trousers
pocket, and had in his mouth an unlighted cigar, the end of which
he chewed restlessly.  His square-cut features, when at rest,
appeared as if carved from mahogany, and his firmly set under-jaw
indicated the unyielding tenacity of a bulldog, while the kind
glances of his gray eyes showed that he possessed the softer traits.
He always appeared intensely preoccupied, and would gaze at any
one who approached him with an inquiring air, followed by a glance
of recollection and a grave nod of recognition.  It was not long
after his arrival before Secretary Stanton realized that he was no
longer supreme, and the Army of the Potomac, which had virtually
dictated to its successive commanders, found that the time had come
when obedience was imperative, no matter what the loss of life
might be.

When General Grant called on the President, he met with a hearty
reception, and Mr. Lincoln, taking him into a private room, repeated
to him a story from a comic article by Orpheus C. Kerr, satirically
criticising the conduct of the war.  It was a story about Captain
Bob Shorty and the Mackerel Brigade and the Anaconda Policy--
something about generals in the field being hampered by a flood of
orders.  When he had finished his story, he told General Grant that
he did not care to know what he wanted to do, only to know what
was wanted.  He wished him to beat Lee.  How he did it was his own
lookout.  He said he did not wish to know his plans or exercise
any scrutiny over his operations.  So long as he beat the rebel
army he was satisfied.  The formal presentation of the new commission
as Lieutenant-General was made in the presence of Cabinet officers
and other distinguished guests, and was in all respects a notable
historic scene.

On the 4th of March, General Grant ordered a forward movement, and
General Meade crossed the Rappahannock with the Army of the Potomac
one hundred and seventeen thousand strong.  It was understood that
soon after the forward movement was commenced, General Meade
hesitated about crossing the stream, under a heavy fire, but General
Grant peremptorily ordered him to move forward.  This was alluded
to in a letter sent to a Philadelphia newspaper by Mr. Edward
Crapsey, a native of Cincinnati, who had been reputably connected
with several leading journals.  He said in his correspondence:
"History will record, but newspapers cannot, that on one eventful
night during the present campaign Grant's presence saved the army
and the nation, too.  Not that General Meade was on the point of
committing a great blunder, unwittingly, but his devotion to his
country made him loath to lose her last army of what he deemed a
last chance.  Grant assumed the responsibility, and we are still
'On to Richmond!'"  When the newspaper containing this paragraph
reached the Army of the Potomac, General Meade issued an order that
Mr. Crapsey be arrested, paraded through the lines of the army,
with a placard marked "Libeler of the Press," and then be put
without the lines and not be permitted to return.  This humiliating
punishment was carried out in the most offensive manner possible,
and Mr. Crapsey, after having been escorted through the camp on
horseback, bearing the offensive label, was sent back to Washington.
The terrific battle of the Wilderness followed, and General Grant
telegraphed for recruits, saying, "We have ended this sixth day of
very heavy fighting.  The result at this time is very much in our
favor.  Our losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy.
I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

General Lee, wishing to force General Grant back to the defense of
Washington, ordered a corps under General Early to attack the Union
capital, which was thought to be guarded only by a few regiments
of heavy artillery and by a home brigade of quartermasters' clerks,
improvised by Quartermaster-General Meigs.  On the 12th of July,
1864, the advance-guard of the Confederates, commanded by General
Breckinridge, came within the defenses of Washington, where they
were, to their great surprise, confronted by the veteran Sixth
Corps, under General Wright, and after a few volleys had been
exchanged they precipitously retreated, and hurriedly recrossed
the Potomac.  This brief engagement was witnessed from the parapet
of Fort Stevens by President Lincoln, who would not retire until
an officer was shot down within a few feet of him, when he reluctantly
stepped below.  Sheltered from the sharp-shooters' fire, Cabinet
officers and a group of society ladies watched the fortunes of the
fight.  It was no mock-battle that they witnessed on the outskirts
of the national metropolis.  Stretchers soon conveyed the dying
and wounded to the hospital in the rear of the fort, and the graves
remain there of those who fought and fell, with the President of
the United States and his competitor at the preceding election on
opposite sides, interested spectators of the scene.

Meanwhile Mr. Chase, provoked because the President overruled him,
had resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr.
Fessenden had been appointed in his place.  Mr. Chase desired the
Presidential nomination, and an organization was formed with Senator
Pomeroy, of Kansas, at its head to secure the election of Chase
delegates to the next National Republican Convention.  Meanwhile
Chief Justice Taney died in October, 1864, and Mr. Sumner immediately
urged the President to appoint Mr. Chase as his successor.  There
was then much dissatisfaction with Mr. Lincoln's Administration,
and the friends of Mr. Chase were openly and secretly urging his
nomination.

When Mr. Sumner came to Washington he renewed his request that Mr.
Chase be appointed, and he had several interviews with Mr. Lincoln
on the subject.  One day Mr. Lincoln proposed to send for Mr. Chase
and frankly tell him that he wanted to nominate him as Chief Justice,
that he would make the greatest and best Chief Justice the country
had ever had, and that he would do so if he would only give up all
idea of being elected President.  Mr. Sumner replied that such a
statement, however frank it might be, would never answer, as it
would not only expose the President to criticism as attempting to
purchase an opponent, but it would be offensive to Mr. Chase, as
an attempt to extort from him a pledge that he would never be a
candidate for the Presidency.  Mr. Lincoln, who was quick-witted,
saw the force of Mr. Sumner's argument, and pleasantly said:  "Well,
take this card and write on it the name of the man you desire to
have appointed."  Mr. Sumner wrote "Salmon P. Chase," and Salmon
P. Chase was promptly nominated on the 6th of December, 1864.  Mr.
Sumner urged the immediate confirmation of the appointment, and
having carried it, hastened from the Senate Chamber to congratulate
the new Chief Justice.  As he came out of the room in which he
conveyed the news he met Mrs. Kate Sprague, who shook her index
finger at him and said:  "And you, too, Mr. Sumner?  Are you in
the business of shelving papa?  But never mind, I will defeat you
all!"  Mr. Sumner used to relate this incident as showing how he
had been rewarded for what he regarded as one of the most praiseworthy
acts of his life.  Besides, Mr. Lincoln was not the only candidate
for the Presidential chair who would lose a rival by the appointment
of Judge Chase.  Mr. Sumner had strong aspirations in that direction,
but I doubt if he regarded the bench of the Supreme Court as a
stepping-stone to the White House.  Had the Senate found Mr. Johnson
guilty on the impeachment charges, and had Ben Wade thus become
President, Mr. Sumner would have been his Secretary of State, and
I am not sure that this did not influence Mr. Fessenden in his vote
of "Not guilty."  Had General Grant offered Mr. Sumner the same
position it would have been accepted with the understanding that
he was to direct the foreign policy of the country untrammeled.

[Facsimile]
  Joseph Hooker
JOSEPH HOOKER, born at Hadley, Mass., November 13th, 1813; graduated
at West Point, 1837; served in the Mexican War; resigned, but re-
entered the service as Brigadier-General, May, 1861; Major-General,
1862; Corps Commander, September, 1862; Division Commander, December,
1862; Commander of the Army of the Potomac, January, 1863; transferred
to the West and served from Lookout Mountain to Atlanta; commanded
the Northern Department, September, 1864, to July, 1865; retired
October 15th, 1868; died, 1879.


CHAPTER XIV.
EVENTS BOTH SAD AND JOYOUS.

To gratify Mr. Seward, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, had been placed
on the Republican ticket and elected Vice-President.  Mr. Lincoln's
re-inauguration took place under circumstances widely different
from those which attended his inauguration in 1861.  Then seven
States had seceded from the Union, and the President had taken the
oath of office surrounded by enemies whose disposition to assassinate
was stronger than their courage to execute.  At the re-inauguration
the Federal Government was a substance as well as a name, controlling
great armies and navies, and having nearly conquered the
Confederacy.

The 4th of March, 1865, was rainy and unpleasant, while the streets
and sidewalks were encrusted with from two to ten inches of muddy
paste, through which men and horses plodded wearily.  The procession
was a very creditable one, including the model of a monitor on
wheels, and drawn by four white horses.  It had a revolving turret
containing a small cannon, which was frequently fired as the
procession moved.  There was a large delegation of Philadelphia
firemen, the Washington City Fire Department, the colored Grand
Lodge of Odd Fellows, and the Typographical Society, with a press
on a car from which a programme was printed and distributed.  Many
other civic bodies joined the demonstration, and added to its
immensity and impressiveness.

In the Senate Chamber there was the usual attendance of the Diplomatic
Corps, the Supreme Court, those officers of the army and navy who
had received the thanks of Congress, and a number of prominent
citizens.  Mr. Lincoln, on his arrival at the Capitol, was shown
to the President's room, where, as is customary during the closing
hour of a session, he signed several bills.  Mr. Johnson was escorted
to the Vice-President's room opposite, where he was welcomed by
Mr. Hamlin, the retiring Vice-President.  There was nothing unusual
in his appearance, except that he did not seem in robust health.
The usual courtesies being exchanged, the conversation proceeded
on ordinary topics for a few moments, when Mr. Johnson asked Mr.
Hamlin if he had any liquor in his room, stating that he was sick
and nervous.  He was told that there was none, but it could be sent
for.  Brandy being indicated, a bottle was brought from the Senate
restaurant by one of the pages.  It was opened, a tumbler provided,
and Mr. Johnson poured it about two-thirds full.  Mr. Hamlin said,
in telling it, that if Mr. Johnson ordinarily took such drinks as
that he must be able to stand a great deal.  After a few minutes
the bottle was placed in one of the book-cases out of sight.  When,
near twelve o'clock, the Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Brown, came to the
door and suggested that the gentlemen get ready to enter the Senate
Chamber, Mr. Hamlin arose, moved to the door, near which the Sergeant-
at-Arms stood, and suggested to Mr. Johnson to come also.  The
latter got up and walked nearly to the door, when, turning to Mr.
Hamlin, he said:  "Excuse me a moment," and walked back hastily to
where the bottle was deposited.  Mr. Hamlin saw him take it out,
pour as large a quantity as before into the glass, and drink it
down like water.  They then went into the Senate Chamber.

To the surprise of everybody, the Vice-President, when called on
to take the oath of office, made a maudlin, drunken speech.  He
addressed the Diplomatic Corps and the heads of departments in the
most incoherent, and in some instances offensive, manner.  The
Republican Senators were horror-stricken, and Colonel Forney vainly
endeavored to make him conclude his harangue; but he would not be
stopped; the brandy had made him crazily drunk, and the mortifying
scene was prolonged until he was told that it was necessary to go
with the President to the eastern front of the Capitol.

Mr. Lincoln's inaugural was delivered before the assembled multitude
in front of the Capitol in a full, clear tone of voice.  He went
on to say:  "Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would
_make_ war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would
_accept_ war rather than let it perish.  And the war came."  Then
there arose a deafening shout, for the people felt that the case
had been well stated, and they were all disposed to _accept_ war
rather than let the nation perish.

As the President closed his address Chief Justice Chase arose and
stood facing him.  The oath of office was then administered, Mr.
Lincoln exhibiting by his manner and gestures the full concurrence
of mind and heart with the intent of the obligation.  As he concluded
the ceremony by taking from the Chief Justice the Bible upon which
he had been sworn, and reverently pressing his lips to it, there
was a marked sensation through the vast audience, followed by a
responsive cheer.  Then the cannon near by thundered forth the
announcement that the President of the people's choice had been
inaugurated, the bands struck up the national airs, and there were
hearty rounds of cheers.

The ball on the evening of Mr. Lincoln's re-inauguration was held
in a large hall of the Department of the Interior, which had just
been completed.  It was brilliantly lighted and dressed with flags.
Mr. Lincoln and Speaker Colfax entered together, followed by Mrs.
Lincoln upon the arm of Charles Sumner.  Mr. Lincoln wore a full
black suit, with white kid gloves, and Mrs. Lincoln was attired in
white silk, with a splendid overdress of rich lace, point lace
bertha and puffs of silk, white fan and gloves.  Her hair was
brushed back smoothly, falling in curls upon the neck, while a
wreath of jasmines and violets encircled her head.  Her ornaments
were of pearl.  Having promenaded the entire length of the room,
they mounted the few steps leading to the seats placed for them
upon the dais, while the crowd gathered densely in front of them.

The army and navy were well represented, adding greatly to the
beauty of the scene in the bright uniforms that everywhere flashed
before the eyes.  Admiral Farragut, General Banks, and General
Hooker shone conspicuously, as did also General Halleck, who stood,
smiling and happy, to receive greetings from his friends.  The
members of the Cabinet assumed the seats upon the dais reserved
for them, and up to twelve o'clock the crowd continued to pour into
the room.

At twelve o'clock the door was opened for supper, and the crowd
which had been gathered about it for half an hour rushed forward.
Such a crush and scramble as there was!  Little screams, broken
exclamations, and hurried protestations against the rush were heard
upon all sides, but no one heeded or cared for anything but to find
a place at the table, at one end of which stood the President, Mrs.
Lincoln, and their suite.

The supper scene was one never to be forgotten.  Aside from its
luxury and splendor, there was so much that was ridiculously
laughable connected with it, one naturally looks back upon it in
keen amusement.  The tables having been instantly filled up, all
the spaces between the large glass cases containing the office
property were soon crowded to their utmost capacity.  Many a fair
creature dropped upon the benches with exclamations of delight,
while their attendants sought to supply them from the table, to
which they had to fight their way.  Those who could not get seats
stood around in groups, or sank down upon the floor in utter
abandonment from fatigue.

It was curious to sit and watch the crowd, to hear the gay laugh,
the busy hum of conversation, and the jingle of plates, spoons,
and glasses; to see hands uplifted, bearing aloft huge dishes of
salads and creams, loaves of cake and stores of candies, not
infrequently losing plentiful portions on the way.  Many an elegant
dress received its donation of cream, many a tiny slipper bore away
crushed sweets and meats, and lay among fragments of glass and
plates upon the floor.

Meanwhile, it was "thundering all around the heavens," and every
night General Grant, in his humble headquarters at City Point, knew
exactly what had been done.  In his midnight despatches to President
Lincoln which were telegraphed all over the loyal States, he narrated
the day's success, giving full credit, when necessary, to the
original genius of Sherman, the daring pluck of Sheridan, the cool
determination of Thomas, the military ability of Terry, and the
sagacious gallantry of Schofield, but never alluding to himself as
having directed these subordinates on their respective paths to
victory.

General Lee and his brave army saw that the end was at hand.  They
could no longer be deceived by the verbose platitudes of politicians
about foreign intervention or strategic purposes, and they saw the
stars and stripes approaching on every hand.  For four long years
they had fought for their hearths and homes with a bravery that
had elicited the admiration of their opponents, but steady, ceaseless
fighting had thinned their ranks and there were no more men to take
their places.  They had been out-manoeuvred, out-marched, and out-
generaled, while hard knocks and repeated blows were daily diminishing
their commands.  At length, Richmond was captured, and General Lee
formally surrendered at Appomattox Court-House, ending the greatest
civil war recorded in history.

As the Union armies advanced, thousands of unemployed and impecunious
colored people sought refuge in the District of Columbia.  Gathering
up their scanty chattels, they made their way from the houses of
their masters to Washington, the Mecca of their imaginations, with
a firm belief that they would there find freedom and plenty.  It
was a leap in the dark, but they imagined it a leap from darkness
into light, and when they reached the national metropolis, with
its public buildings and its busy throng, they believed that at
last they had entered the promised land.  Free from care at the
first, they loitered and lounged and slept and laughed in sunny
places.  But no feast was offered them; they were invited to no
hospitable homes; the men were no longer offered a few new Treasury
notes of small value if they would enlist, and be counted on the
quota of some Northern town, which would pay the agents five hundred
or six hundred dollars for each recruit thus obtained.  They were
strangers in a strange land, despised by their own people who were
residents, and crowded into stable lofts and rude hovels, where
many of them, before they had fairly tasted the blessings of freedom,
sickened and suffered and died.

On the night of Thursday, the 13th of April, 1865, Mr. Lincoln made
his last address to the people who loved him so well.  Richmond
had fallen, Davis had fled, Lee had surrendered, and on the previous
day the formal laying down of arms had taken place.  The White
House was illuminated, as were the other public buildings, and
deafening shouts arose from the crowds assembled outside, jubilant
over the glorious victories.  Mr. Lincoln had written out some
remarks, knowing well that great importance would be attached to
whatever he said.  These he read to the rejoicing throng from loose
sheets, holding a candle in his hand as he read.  As he finished
each page he would throw it to the ground, where it was picked up
by Master Thad, who was at his father's side, and who occasionally
shouted, "Give me another paper!"

When Mr. Lincoln had concluded his speech, he said:  "Now I am
about to call upon the band for a tune that our adversaries over
the way have endeavored to appropriate.  But we fairly captured it
yesterday and the Attorney-General gave me his legal opinion that
it is now our property.  So I ask the band to play 'Dixie!'"

[Facsimile]
  your obtservt
  R ELee
ROBERT EDWARD LEE, born at Stratford, Westmoreland County, Virginia,
January 19th, 1807; graduated with first honors at West Point in
1829; served in the Mexican War; resigned in 1861, and was, early
in 1862, appointed commander of the armies about Richmond; early
in 1865 was made Commander-in-Chief of all the Confederate forces;
surrendered at Appomattox, April 9th, 1865; became President of
Washington College at Lexington, Virginia, where he died October
12th, 1870.


CHAPTER XV.
PLUNGED INTO SORROW.

Washington City was delirious with gladness when General Grant
"came marching home," and the telegraph wires from every part of
the country recently in rebellion vibrated with the tidings of
victory and submission.  Orders from the War Department went out
over the loyal North proclaiming the absolute overthrow of the
Rebellion, the return of peace, the stopping of recruiting, the
raising of the blockade, the reduction of national expenditures,
and the removal of all military restrictions upon trade and commerce,
so far as might be consistent with public safety.  Drafting had
been one of the most grievous burdens of the war, but it had been
rigorously pressed in all States which had not otherwise furnished
their quotas of troops.  When the surrender occurred, the dread
wheel was in operation in many places, and drawn men were in custody
of the proper officials preparing to go to the front.  But all this
was stopped, and none were happier than those who involuntarily
had been held thus for military duty, but who now became free.

The 13th of April was a day of general rejoicing at the metropolis.
The stars and stripes waved over the public and many of the private
buildings, business was suspended, and men went about in groups
indulging in libations to the return of peace.  As night came on
the departments and many private houses were illuminated, bonfires
blazed in the streets, and fireworks lit up the sky.  In the forts
and camps around the city blazed huge bonfires, while the heavy
siege guns thundered their joyful approval of peace.

It was announced in the newspapers of that day that President
Lincoln, accompanied by General Grant, would attend Ford's Theatre
the next night.  The President did extend an invitation to his
victorious commander to accompany him, but General Grant, always
adverse to public demonstrations, declined, that he might go at
once to Burlington, New Jersey, with Mrs. Grant, to "see the
children."  The Presidential party consequently was only four in
number--President Lincoln, his wife, Miss Harris, and Major Rathbone.
Only one of the two stage-boxes which had been decorated for the
party was occupied.  When the President appeared, about a quarter
before nine o'clock, the play was stopped, the orchestra played
"Hail to the Chief," and the crowded audience gave a succession of
vociferous cheers.

The play proceeded.  Mr. Lincoln and his party were in fine spirits,
intently watching the performance, when a pistol-shot was heard,
and the first impression of every one was that it was fired on the
stage.  So thought Major Rathbone, until, looking around, he saw
smoke and a man with a drawn dagger in his hand.  The truth
indistinctly flashed into his mind; he arose and seized the unknown
man with both hands.  A momentary scuffle ensued, in which the
assassin made a thrust at the Major, grazing his breast and piercing
his left arm near the shoulder.  Something seemed to give way about
the man's coat collar, and he disappeared.  The smoke prevented
the Major or Miss Harris from getting a fair view of the fellow,
and Mrs. Lincoln did not see him until he leaped out of the box.
Her first impression was that it was her husband who leaped out.

Meantime the assassin appeared on the edge of the box, crying "_Sic
Semper Tyrannis!_" and flourishing a dagger, he leaped to the stage.
He crossed the stage rapidly, exclaiming, "Revenge!" and, again
flourishing his dagger, disappeared, saying "I have done it!"
Though quickly pursued, it was too late.  Leaving the theatre by
a back door, he mounted his horse in waiting there and was gone.

The President was seen to turn in his seat, and persons leaped upon
the stage and clambered up to the box.  His clothes were stripped
from his shoulders but no wound was at first found.  He was entirely
insensible.  Further search revealed the fact that he had been shot
in the head, and he was carried to the nearest house, immediately
opposite.  Mrs. Lincoln, in a frantic condition, was assisted in
crossing the street with the President, at the same time uttering
heart-rending shrieks.  Surgeons were soon in attendance, but it
was evident that the wound was mortal.

It was a night of terror.  The long roll was beaten in the distant
camps, and the soldiers throughout the encircling fortifications
stood to their arms; mounted men patrolled the streets in every
direction; the tolling of the church-bells fell heavily on the ear
and entered deep into all hearts, and it was not only President
Lincoln, but it was reported that Mr. Seward and other members of
the Cabinet had been assassinated.  Mr. Seward was indeed murderously
assaulted upon his sick-bed, but he escaped with his life.  Amid
these terrors the sleepless citizens fell from their heights of
joy to the depths of gloom.

With the morning came the President's death at an early hour.  As
the bells tolled his departure, the bloom of the national colors
was shrouded in black, and the weather was cheerless, cold, and
damp.  If ever nature sympathized with man since the time when the
sun was darkened and the dead walked the streets of Jerusalem, it
certainly seemed to do so on the memorable 15th of April, which
ushered in the saddest news that ever fell upon the ears of the
American people.

It was known, beyond a doubt, before Mr. Lincoln breathed his last,
that his assassin was John Wilkes Booth, a son of the great tragedian,
then twenty-seven years of age.  He had played stock parts at
Washington and other Southern and Western cities, where he had
given unmistakable evidence of genuine dramatic talent.  He had,
added to his native genius, the advantage of a voice musically full
and rich; a face almost classic in outline; features highly
intellectual; a piercing, black eye, capable of expressing the
fiercest and the tenderest passion and emotion, and a commanding
figure and impressive stage address.  In his transition from the
quiet and reflective passages of a part to fierce and violent
outbreaks of passion, his sudden and impetuous manner had in it
something of that electrical force and power which made the elder
Booth so celebrated, and called up afresh to the memory of men of
the preceding generation the presence, voice, and manner of his
father.  Convivial in his habits, sprightly and genial in conversation,
John Wilkes Booth made many friends among the young men of his own
age, and he was a favorite among the ladies at the National Hotel,
where he boarded.

The funeral honors paid to President Lincoln at Washington, on the
19th of April, were a fitting tribute to the illustrious dead.
The dawn that was ushered in by the heavy booms of salutes of minute-
guns from the fortifications surrounding the city never broke purer
or brighter or clearer than on this morning.  The day that followed
was the loveliest of the season.  The heavens were undimmed by even
one passing cloud.

At a very early hour people began to assemble in the vicinity of
the Executive Mansion, which was almost entirely draped in crape,
as were also the buildings, public and private, in the neighborhood.
All over the city public houses and private residences were closed.
At twelve o'clock the ceremonies commenced in the East Room, whose
ceilings were draped, and whose resplendent mirrors were hung on
the borders with emblems of mourning and white drapery, which gave
the room a dim light that was adapted to the solemnity of the
mournful scene.  All that remained of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth
President of the United States, lay on the grand and gloomy
catafalque, which was relieved, however, by choice flowers.

The spectators of the sorrowful scene were not merely the
representatives of our people in Congress and of state, but the
executive officers and Cabinet Ministers, the Chief Justice of the
United States and his associates on the bench of that venerated
tribunal, chieftains who protected our homes by service in the
field and on the ocean, the clergy, and multitudes in various
positions in the affairs of state and from private life, and an
imposing array of Ambassadors, with their less elevated attachés,
with gorgeous decorations.  Perhaps the most touching grief, and
the one which moved all present, was that of little Thaddeus Lincoln,
a favorite son.  He and his elder brother, Robert, were the only
mourners of the family present.

During the service President Johnson stood beside the remains of
his predecessor, and during the oration, General Grant sat at the
head of the corpse.  The Rev. Dr. L. Hall, rector of the Church of
the Epiphany, rose and read portions of the service for the burial
of the dead.  Bishop Simpson offered a prayer, in which he fervently
alluded to the emancipation and other deeds performed by President
Lincoln.  The Rev. Dr. Gurley then read a funeral oration.  At two
P. M. the funeral procession started, all of the bells in the city
tolling, and minute-guns firing from all the forts.  Pennsylvania
Avenue, from the Treasury to the Capitol, was entirely clear from
curb to curb.  Preceding the hearse was the military escort, over
one mile long, the arms of each officer and man being draped with
black.  At short intervals bands discoursed dirges and drums beat
muffled sounds.  After the artillery came the civic procession,
headed by Marshal Lamon, the Surgeon-General, and physicians who
attended the President.  At this point the hearse appeared, and
the thousands, as it passed, uncovered their heads.

The funeral car was large.  The lower base was fourteen feet long
and seven feet wide, and eight feet from the ground.  The upper
base, upon which the coffin rested, was eleven feet long and five
feet below the top of the canopy.  The canopy was surmounted by a
gilt eagle, covered with crape.  The hearse was entirely covered
with cloth, velvet, crape, and alpaca.  The seat was covered with
cloth, and on each side was a splendid lamp.  The car was fifteen
feet high, and the coffin was so placed as to afford a full view
to all spectators.  It was drawn by six gray horses, each attended
by a groom.

The pall-bearers were, on the part of the Senate, Foster, of
Connecticut; Morgan, of New York; Johnson, of Maryland; Yates, of
Illinois; Wade, of Ohio, and Conness, of California.  On the part
of the House, Davis, of Massachusetts; Coffroth, of Pennsylvania;
Smith, of Kentucky; Colfax, of Indiana; Worthington, of Nevada,
and Washburne, of Illinois.  On the part of the army, Lieutenant-
General Grant, Major-General Halleck, and Brigadier-General Nichols.
On the part of the navy, Vice-Admiral Farragut, Rear-Admiral
Shubrick, and Colonel Jacob Ziellen, of the Marine Corps.  Civilians,
O. H. Browning, George P. Ashmun, Thomas Corwin, and Simon Cameron.

After the hearse came the family, consisting only of Robert Lincoln
and his little brother and their relatives.  Mrs. Lincoln did not
go out.  Next was President Johnson, riding in a carriage with
General Auger on the right, and General Slough on the left, mounted.
Following him were the Cabinet, Chief Justice Chase and the Supreme
Bench, and the Diplomatic Corps, who were then succeeded by Senators
and Representatives.  The procession then reached two miles more,
and was composed of public officers, delegations from various cities
and members of civic societies, together with another large display
of military.  Some five thousand colored men were a prominent
feature toward the end.

The procession was two hours and ten minutes in passing a given
point, and was about three miles long.  The centre of it had reached
the Capitol and was returning before the rear had left Willard's.
In one single detachment were over six thousand civil employees of
the Government.  Arriving at the Capitol, the remains were placed
in the centre of the rotunda, beneath the mighty dome, which had
been draped in mourning inside and out.  The Rev. Dr. Gurley, in
the presence of hundreds, impressively pronounced the burial
service.

President Lincoln's remains were taken from the rotunda at six
o'clock on the morning of April 21st, and escorted to the train
which was to convey them to Springfield.  The remains of little
Willie Lincoln, who died in February, 1862, and which had been
placed in the vault at Oak Hill Cemetery, were removed to the depot
about the same time, and placed in the same car with the remains
of his lamented father.

[Facsimile]
  Andrew Johnson
ANDREW JOHNSON was born at Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29th,
1808; was a Representative in Congress from Tennessee, 1843-1853;
was Governor of Tennessee, 1853-1857; was a United States Senator
from Tennessee from December 7th, 1857, until he was appointed
Military Governor of that State; was elected Vice-President of the
United States on the Republican ticket with Abraham Lincoln and
was inaugurated March 4th, 1865; became President after the
assassination of President Lincoln, April 15th, 1865; was impeached
and acquitted, May 26th, 1868; was again elected United States
Senator from Tennessee, serving at the Special Session of 1875,
and died in Carter County, Tennessee, July 31st, 1875.


CHAPTER XVI.
THE CONSPIRACY TRIAL--THE GRAND REVIEWS.

Andrew Johnson took the oath of office as President of the United
States, administered to him by Chief Justice Chase, at his room in
the Kirkwood House.  He sent word to Mrs. Lincoln to occupy the
White House so long as might be agreeable to her, and he accepted
the hospitality of Mr. Sam Hooper, a merchant prince, who then
represented a Boston district in the House of Representatives, and
occupied his own comfortable house at the corner of Fourteenth and
H Streets.

Every morning President Johnson went to the Treasury Department,
where he received scores of delegations, and his speeches to them
foreshadowed a reconstruction policy which would deal severely with
the leading Secessionists.  In response to Governor Andrew, who
called at the head of a delegation of citizen of Massachusetts,
and assured him of the support of the Old Bay State, he made a long
speech, he defined crimes, saying:  "It is time the American people
should be taught to understand that treason is a crime--not in
revenge, not in anger--but that treason is a crime, and should be
esteemed as such, and punished as such."

Mr. Johnson went on to say that he wished "to discriminate between
criminals guilty of treason.  There are," he said, "well educated,
intelligent traitors, who concert schemes of treason and urge others
to force numbers of ignorant people to carry them."

Money was lavishly expended in securing the arrest of those who
had conspired with Booth to assassinate President Lincoln, Vice-
President Johnson, Secretary Seward, and General Grant.  In a
fortnight the prisoners had been arrested (with the exception of
Booth, who having been tracked to a barn, and refusing to come out,
had been shot) and a military commission had been organized for
their trial in the old penitentiary near the Arsenal, where they
were confined.  It was clearly shown before the Commission, of
which General David Hunter was President and General Joseph Holt
the Judge Advocate, that leading Secessionists in Canada had supplied
Booth with funds for the abduction of President Lincoln, but there
was no proof that they were privy to the assassination.

Booth squandered the money received by him in coal-oil speculations,
and in his attention to an estimable young lady, whose photograph
was found in his pocket-book after his death, but whose name was
honorably kept a secret.  Mrs. Surratt naturally attracted the most
attention as she entered the room where the Military Commission
was held every morning, the iron which connected her ankles clanking
as she walked.  She was rather a buxom-looking woman, dressed in
deep black, with feline gray eyes, which watched the whole proceedings.
The evidence showed that she had been fully aware of the plot.
Her house was used by Booth, Payne, Atzerott, and Harold as a
meeting place.  Her son went to Richmond and then to Canada with
information, and he had only returned immediately before the
assassination.  He was in Washington that day and night, and four
days later had reached Montreal.  She took the arms to Surrattsville,
to the tavern which she owned, and the day of the assassination
rode out with a team Booth had furnished money to hire, to say that
the arms she had left and the field-glass she took would be wanted
that night.  Payne, after attacking Secretary Seward, and vainly
attempting to escape, had called at her house in the night, and
sought admittance, but an officer was in charge, and Payne, not
having a plausible explanation of his unseasonable call, was
arrested.  Mrs. Surratt was clearly shown to have been an actor in
the plot, but many doubted whether she should have been hung, and
regretted that neither her confessor nor her daughter was permitted
to see President Johnson and ask his clemency.

The male prisoners, heavily ironed, were seated side by side in a
dock interspersed with officers.  Sam Arnold was of respectable
appearance, about thirty years of age, with dark hair and beard
and a good countenance.  Spangler, the stage-carpenter, was a
chunky, light-haired, rather bloated and whisky-soaked looking man.
Atzerott had a decided lager beer look, with heavy blue eyes, light
hair, and sallow complexion.  O'Laughlin might have been taken for
native of Cuba, short and slender, with luxuriant black locks, a
delicate moustache and whiskers, and vivacious black eyes.  Payne
was the incarnation of a Roman gladiator, tall, muscular, defiant,
with a low forehead, large blue eyes, thin lips, and black, straight
hair, with much of the animal and little of the intellectual.  Dave
Harold was what the ladies call a pretty little man, with cherry
cheeks, pouting lips, an incipient beard, dark hazel eyes, and
dark, long hair.  Last on the bench was Dr. Mudd, whose ankles and
wrists were joined by chains instead of the unyielding bars which
joined the bracelets and anklets of the others.  He was about sixty
years of age, with a blonde complexion, reddish face, and blue eyes.

The prisoners were allowed counsel and such witnesses as they
desired to have summoned.  The Commission concluded its labors on
the 30th of June.  On the 5th of July the President approved the
finding and sentence, and ordered the hanging of Mrs. Surratt,
Harold, Atzerott, and Payne to take place on the 7th.  The sentence
of execution was carried into effect, and Arnold, Mudd, Spangler,
and O'Laughlin were sent to the Military Prison on the Dry Tortugas.

Meanwhile the victorious armies of the Union had been congregated
at Washington, where they passed in review before President Johnson
and General Grant, and then marched home and into history.  On the
23d of May the "Army of the Potomac," and on the 24th the "Division
of the Mississippi," swept through the metropolis for hours, the
successive waves of humanity crested with gleaming sabres and
burnished bayonets, while hundreds of bands made the air ring with
patriotic music.  Loyal voices cheered and loyal hands applauded
as the heroic guardians of the national ark of constitutional
liberty passed along.  Neither did the legions of imperial Rome,
returning in triumph along the Appian Way, or the conquering hosts
of Napoleon the Great, when welcomed back from their Italian campaign
by the Parisians, or the British Guards, when they returned from
the Crimea, receive a more heartfelt ovation than was awarded to
the laurel-crowned "Boys in Blue."

Great expectation concerning this review was indulged throughout
the nation.  This home-coming of the "Boys in Blue" was a matter
interesting every hamlet of the North and almost every home.  But
more than the welcome was clustering about the scene.  These grand
armies and their famous leaders had become historic, and worthily
so, for they had endured and achieved, and victory now was theirs.
The newspapers proclaimed the grandeur of the coming event; the
railroads extended their best accommodations to travelers, and the
people responded in immense numbers.  With the soldiery and the
civilians, Washington was densely packed, but cheerful enthusiasm
appeared on every side.

Two hundred thousand veteran troops, trained on a hundred battlefields,
and commanded by the leading Generals of the service, were there
to be reviewed by the Lieutenant-General who commanded them all,
by the President of the United States, by his Cabinet, by the
dignitaries of our own and other nations, and by the innumerable
throng of private citizens whose homes had been saved, and whose
hearts now beat with grateful joy.

In those proud columns were to march the Army of the Potomac, the
Army of the James, the Army of Georgia, the Army of the Tennessee,
and the cavalry led by the indomitable Phil. Sheridan.  To behold
such a spectacle men came from every portion of the North; fathers
brought their sons to see this historic pageant, while historians,
poets, novelists, and painters thronged to see the unparalleled
sight and there to gather material and inspiration for their future
works.  In that great display were to march heroes whose names will
live while history endures.

The night before the review of the Army of the Potomac was wet and
dreary enough, but as day dawned the clouds disappeared, and the
scene in Maryland Avenue, between the Long Bridge and the Capitol,
and on the large plain east of that building, was warlike and
interesting.  Brigades marching at route step, bivouac fires, around
which groups were eating their breakfast, orderly sergeants insisting
in very naughty yet impressive language on the use of sand paper
on muskets already bright, musicians rehearsing some new march,
little boys bracing up drums half as high as themselves, important
adjutants riding to and fro to hurry up the formation of their
respective regiments, elegantly attired aides-de-camp galloping
like mad and endeavoring to avoid mud puddles, batteries thundering
along, as if eager to unlimber and fire at some enemy--in short,
it was fifty acres, more or less, of uniforms, horses, flags, and
bayonets, in apparently inextricable confusion.  Yet one man ran
the machine.  A few words from him reduced confusion to order, and
the apparent snarl of humanity and horses began to be unraveled in
a single, unbroken line, when General Meade gave the single word,
"Forward!"  Exactly as the watches marked nine the head of the
column moved from the Capitol toward the reviewing stand along
Pennsylvania Avenue.

The reviewing stand, erected on the sidewalk in front of the White
House, was a long pavilion, with a tight roof, decorated with flags
and bearing the names of the principal victories won.  In this
pavilion were seated the assistant secretaries and heads of bureaus
and Diplomatic Corps.  President Johnson occupied the central chair
in a projection from the centre of the front, with Lieutenant-
General Grant, Major-General Sherman, and the members of the Cabinet
at his right and left hand.

The reviewing pavilion was flanked by two long stands, occupied by
officials, ladies, and wounded soldiers.  Opposite the reviewing
pavilion was another on the north sidewalk for Congressional and
State officials, and on the flanks of this pavilion were others,
erected at private expense, for the families of officers on parade
and for the citizens of Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts.

The Army of the Potomac was six hours in passing the reviewing
stand.  As each brigade commander saluted, President Johnson would
rise and lift his hat.  General Grant sat during the whole time
immovable, except that he would occasionally make some commendatory
comment as a gallant officer or brave regiment passed.  The foreign
Ministers appeared deeply impressed by the spectacle.

It was the subject of general regret in the Army of the Potomac
that President Lincoln was not there to review those who idolized
him.  For four long years they had guarded him at the Federal
metropolis, often fighting desperately under generals whose ability
to command was doubtful.  Meanwhile the dandies of McClellan's
force had become veteran campaigners, accustomed to the exposure
of the bivouac, the fatigue of the march, the poor comfort of hard-
tack, the storm of battle, and the suffering of sickness and wounds.
They had watched on many a picket line the movements of a wily foe;
they paced their weary rounds on guard on many a wet and cheerless
night; they had gone through the smoke and breasted the shock and
turned the tide of many a hard-fought field.

The Division of the Mississippi, which had swept like a cyclone
"from Atlanta to the sea," was reviewed the next day.  General
Sherman, by granting amnesty to Joe Johnson's army, had incurred
the displeasure of Secretary Stanton, who had intended that he
should not have headed his victorious legions; but he was not to
be separated from his "boys."  As he passed along Pennsylvania
Avenue the multitude of spectators sent up shouts that must have
made his heart leap, and the enthusiasm increased as he approached
the Presidential stand.  He "rode up with the light of battle in
his face," holding his hat and his bridle-rein in his left hand,
and saluting with the good sword in his right hand, his eyes fixed
upon his Commander-in-Chief.  His horse, decked with flowers, seemed
to be inspired with the spirit of the occasion, and appeared anxious
to "keep step to the music of the Union."

After passing the President, General Sherman wheeled to the left,
dismounted, and joined the reviewing party, where he was greeted
by Governor Dennison.  He shook hands cordially with President
Johnson and General Grant, but when Secretary Stanton advanced with
outstretched hand he remarked, "I do not care to shake hands with
clerks," and turned away.  Never was there a more complete "cut
direct" than was given by the central figure of that grand pageant,
whose brain and hand had guided this vast multitude of stalwart
braves, leading them to victory, glory, and final triumph.

The troops displayed a fine physique, and had apparently profited
from their foraging among the fat turkeys of Georgia.  Their faces
were finely bronzed, and they marched with a firm, elastic step
that seemed capable of carrying them straight to Canada, or by a
flank movement to Mexico, in a short space of time.

Any representation of Sherman's army would have been incomplete
which omitted the notorious "Bummers."  At the end of each corps
appeared the strangest huddle of animation, equine, canine, bovine,
and human, that ever civilian beheld--mules, asses, horses, colts,
cows, sheep, pigs, goats, raccoons, chickens, and dogs led by
negroes blacker then Erebus.  Every beast of burden was loaded to
its capacity with tents, baggage, knapsacks, hampers, panniers,
boxes, valises, kettles, pots, pans, dishes, demijohns, bird-cages,
cradles, mirrors, fiddles, clothing, pickaninnies, and an occasional
black woman.

In effect Sherman gave a sample of his army as it appeared on the
march through the Carolinas.  Some of the negroes appeared to have
three days' rations in their ample pouches, and ten days' more on
the animals they led.  The fraternity was complete; the goats,
dogs, mules, and horses were already veterans in the field, and
trudged along as if the brute world were nothing but a vast march
with a daily camp.  Thus were we shown how Sherman was enabled to
live upon the enemy.

[Facsimile]
  Yours truly
  John A. Logan
JOHN A. LOGAN was born in Jackson County, Illinois, February 9th,
1826; studied and practiced law; was a member of the State Legislature;
was a Representative from Illinois, 1859-1861; was commissioned in
September, 1861, Colonel of the Thirty-first Illinois Volunteers;
was promoted to Brigadier-General in 1862, and Major-General in
1863, especially distinguishing himself at Belmont, Fort Donelson,
Pittsburgh Landing, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and as commander
of the Army of the Tennessee; was Congressman-at-Large from Illinois,
1867-1871; was United States Senator from Illinois, 1871-1877,
again in 1883, and was re-elected in 1885, for six years.


CHAPTER XVII.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON SURRENDERS.

President Johnson was by nature and temperament squarely disposed
toward justice and the right, but he could not resist the concerted
appeals made to him by the dominant whites at the South.  Early in
May, rules were issued governing trade with the States lately in
rebellion, but in June these restrictions were removed, and there
rapidly followed executive orders restoring Virginia to her federal
relations, establishing provisional governments in the Southern
States, and granting a general amnesty to all persons engaged in
the Rebellion, except certain classes, who could receive pardon by
special application.  These acts speedily alienated the President
from the party whose votes elected him, but he was always "sure he
was right, even in his errors."

Andrew Johnson's daily life as President was a very simple one.
He arose promptly at six o'clock in the morning, read the newspapers,
and breakfasted with his family at eight.  Going into the executive
office at nine, he remained there until four in the afternoon,
devoting himself to conferences with Cabinet officers, his official
correspondence, and the reception of visitors when he had leisure.
At four o'clock he went into his family sitting-room, dined at
five, and after dinner took a walk or a carriage-drive.  From nine
until eleven he received visitors, and then retired for the night.
He had a few favorites who went into his room without being
announced.

Prominent among them was Mr. S. P. Hanscom, of Massachusetts, who
had been in early life a prominent Abolitionist and temperance
lecturer.  During the Johnson Administration Mr. Hanscom edited
the Washington _Republican_, and obtained office for applicants
for a pecuniary consideration.  When Mr. Buffington refused to pay
the stipulated fee for his appointment, Mr. Hanscom published a
handbill, in which he unblushingly related the circumstances and
denounced the ex-Congressman for breach of faith.  Mr. Hanscom
spent the large income which he received for office brokerage very
freely.  He was kind to the poor and a generous friend, but he
died a few years afterward in reduced circumstances.

Jefferson Davis, the leader of the conquered Confederacy, had been
brought from Georgia, where he was captured, and imprisoned at
Fortress Monroe.  He occupied the inner apartment of a casemate,
with a guard in the outer apartment and sentries posted on the
outside at the porthole and at the door.  He became naturally
somewhat irascible, and orders having been sent to put him in irons
if he gave any provocation, he one day gave it by throwing a tin
plate of food which he did not fancy into the face of the soldier
who had served him.

Captain Titlow, who was especially charged with the custody of Mr.
Davis, and who is the authority for this statement, was accordingly
ordered by the Commandant of the fort to place his prisoner in
irons.  Summoning a blacksmith who was in the habit of riveting
irons on soldiers sentenced by court-martial to wear them, the
Captain went to the casemate, accompanied by the blacksmith carrying
the fetters and his tools.  They found Mr. Davis seated on his cot,
there being no other furniture besides but a stool and a few articles
of tinware.  When he glanced at the blacksmith and comprehended
the situation, he exclaimed:  "My God! this indignity to be put on
me!  Not while I have life."  At first he pleaded for opportunity
to inquire of Secretary Stanton.  Then his excitement rose to fury
as he walked the cell, venting himself in almost incoherent ravings.
The Captain at length calmly reminded him that as a soldier he must
be aware that however disagreeable the duty assigned, it must be
performed, and that, as in duty bound, he should perform it.

"None but a dog would obey such orders," replied Mr. Davis,
emphasizing his determination never to be manacled alive by grasping
the stool and aiming a very vicious blow.  The sentries rushed
forward to disarm him, but were ordered back into their places.
Captain Titlow explained that such demonstrations of self-defense
were foolish and useless, and that it would be much better for Mr.
Davis to submit to the inevitable necessity.  But while receiving
this advice, Davis took the opportunity of grasping the musket of
one of the sentries, and in the furious endeavor to wrest it from
him, quite a scuffle ensued.

That ended, the Captain took the precaution of clapping his hand
on his sword-hilt, as he perceived Mr. Davis' eye was upon it, and
at once ordered the corporal of the guard to send into the casemate
four of his strongest men without side arms, as he feared they
might get into the wrong possession and cause damage.  They were
ordered to take the prisoner as gently as possible, and, using no
unnecessary force, to lay him upon the cot and there hold him down.
It proved about as much as four men could do, the writhings and
upheavings of the infuriated man developing the strength of a
maniac, until it culminated in sheer exhaustion.  When the unhappy
task was done Mr. Davis, after lying still for awhile, raised
himself and sat on the side of the bed.

As his feet touched the floor and the chain clanked he was utterly
overcome; the tears burst out in a flood.  When he became calm he
apologized in a manly way to the Captain for the needless trouble
he had caused him, and they afterward maintained mutual relations
of personal esteem and friendliness.  The indignity had, however,
such an effect upon Mr. Davis that the physician called in insisted
on the removal of the irons.  Permission to do this was reluctantly
obtained from Washington, and the same man who had put on the
fetters took them off.

This act did much to restore the deposed leader of the Rebellion
to the foremost place, which he had forfeited, in the hearts of
those who had rebelled.   The imperious manner in which Mr. Davis
had dictated the military operations of the Confederacy, placing
his personal favorites in command, and his inglorious flight from
Richmond, which was burned and plundered by the Confederates, while
the fugitive "President" carried away a large sum in gold, had
increased the feeling of dissatisfaction which had always existed
in "Dixie" with Mr. Davis.  But when he was ironed and otherwise
subjected to harsh treatment, the Southern heart was touched, and
every white man, woman, and child felt that they were, through him,
thus harshly dealt with.  The manacling of Mr. Davis delayed the
work of reconstruction for years, and did much to restore the
feeling of sectional hatred which fair fighting had overcome.

John Pierpont, the veteran parson-poet, came to Washington as the
chaplain to Henry Wilson's regiment, but he found himself unable
to endure the hardships of camp life, and Senator Sherman obtained
a clerkship in the Treasury for him.  When he reached his eightieth
birthday, in 1866, he was told in the evening that a few friends
had called, and on entering the parlor to greet them he was entirely
surprised.  One presented him with a gold watch, another with a
valuable cane, and another with a large photograph-album containing
the portraits of old Boston friends and parishioners.  But the most
valuable gift was a large portfolio filled with autograph letters
of congratulation in poetry and prose from Sumner, Wilson, Mr.
Sigourney, Whittier, Wood, Dana, Holmes, Whipple, and other prominent
authors, with other letters signed Moses Williams, Gardner Brewer,
William W. Clapp, and other "solid men of Boston."  All old
differences of opinion were forgotten and due honor was paid to
the poet, the priest, the emancipationist, and the temperance
reformer of "Auld Lang Syne."

Those who were encouraging the President in his opposition to the
reconstruction policy of Congress, with others who had received or
who expected to obtain Federal offices, got up at Philadelphia what
was known as the "Bread and Butter Convention," at which the Union
"as it was" was advocated.  Soon afterward, President Johnson with
Secretaries Seward and Welles, with General Grant and others, set
out for Chicago to attend the ceremonies of laying the corner-stone
of the monument to Stephen A. Douglas.  It was this political
pilgrimage that gave rise to the well-known expression, "swinging
round the circle."  The President spoke very freely of his policy
in the different places on the route, openly denouncing Congress
and saying many things that were decidedly inconsistent with the
dignity of his position, and unquestionably injurious to him.

Senator Sumner was married at Boston on the 17th of October, 1866,
by Bishop Eastman, to Mrs. Alice Hooper, a daughter of Jonathan
Mason and the widow of Samuel Sturges Hooper, only son of Representative
Sam Hooper.  Mr. Sumner was then in the fifty-sixth year of his
age, and had never before been a victim to the tender passion.
Almost every day through the preceding session Mrs. Hooper had
occupied a seat in the gallery directly behind him, and had appeared
engrossed in his words and actions.  They saw a good deal of each
other at Mrs. Hooper's, where Mr. Sumner became a daily visitor,
and on the last day of the session he announced his engagement to
his friends.

The newly married couple passed their honeymoon at Newport,
accompanied by the bride's young daughter.  He finished a letter
there to a friend by quoting from the _Spectator_, and saying:  "I
shall endeavor to live hereafter suitably to a man in my station,
as a prudent head of a family, a good husband, a careful father
(when it shall so happen), and as your most sincere friend,
C. SUMNER."

The bridegroom little thought that these dreams of domestic happiness
would never be realized, and that in a few months his life would
be embittered by his great family trouble, which the world never
guessed, much less knew, but which turned his love for his wife
into hatred, and his hopes for handing his name to posterity into
unforgiving anger.  Senator and Mrs. Sumner, when they came to
Washington after their marriage, occupied a handsomely furnished
house on I Street.  Mrs. Sumner at once manifested a fondness for
"society," often insisting on remaining at receptions until a late
hour, when he had unfinished Senatorial work on his desk that would
have to be completed on his return home.

President Johnson suffered by his undue kindness to pardon-brokers,
prominent among whom as a good-looking young woman named Mrs. Cobb.
She was a constant visitor at the White House, and boasted that
she could obtain pardons in six hours for a proper pecuniary
consideration.  Detective Baker worked up a fictitious case for
the purpose of entrapping her.  She agreed, in writing, for three
hundred dollars, to obtain the pardon of a Captain Hine, receiving
one hundred dollars cash down, the rest to be paid when the pardon
was delivered.  After the pardon was signed by President Johnson,
Detective Baker laid the papers before him, upon which the President
grew very angry, and finally ordered Detective Baker from the White
House.  Mrs. Cobb and her friends insisted that it was a "put-up"
job, and the Grand Jury indicted Detective Baker, but the case was
never brought to trial.

When Congress met in December, 1866, Representative James M. Ashley,
of the Toledo district of Ohio, commenced operations as chief
impeacher of President Johnson.  He had begun life at an early age
as a clerk on a trading-boat on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers,
driving sharp bargains with the plantation darkies on the banks,
in the exchange of cheap jewelry and gay calicoes for cotton and
eggs.  Next he undertook to learn the art and mystery of printing,
studying law meanwhile, and finally located at Toledo as the editor
of a Democratic paper.  He was not a success as an editor, and went
from the sanctum into a drug-store, where he put up prescriptions
"at all hours of the night."  Joining the Republican party in its
infancy, he obtained an election to Congress, but failed to create
any sensation until he mounted the hobby of impeachment, which
enabled him to advertise himself extensively, and without expense.
He was a rather short, fat man, with a clean-shaven face, and a
large shock of bushy, light hair, which he kept hanging over his
forehead like a frowsy bang threatening to obstruct his vision.
He passed much of his time in perambulating the aisles of the House,
holding short conferences with leading Republicans, and casting
frequent glances into the ladies' gallery.  A man of the lightest
mental calibre and most insufficient capacity, he constituted
himself the chief impeacher, and assumed a position that should
have been held by a strong-nerved, deep-sighted, able man.

The Supreme Court, on the last day of 1866, presented to the Radicals
an unacceptable New Year's present in the shape of a decision on
the legality of military commissions.  The case was that of Lamden
P. Milligan, who had been sentenced to death, and on whose appeal
for setting aside his trial there had been a division of opinion
between the Judges of the Circuit Court of the United States for
the District of Indiana.  The Supreme Court was unanimous in deciding
that no authority existed in the State of Indiana for the trial of
Milligan by a Military Commission, and that he was entitled to the
discharge prayed for in his petition, his case coming within the
strict letter of the law of Congress, passed in 1863, authorizing
the suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_.  On the question
whether Congress had a right to legalize military commissions in
States where the authority and action of the established courts
was unimpeded for the trial of civilians, there was a disagreement.
Five of the judges held the affirmative, and four the negative.
This decision made the leading Radicals very angry, and Thad.
Stevens undertook to prepare a bill to remodel the court.  Public
opinion generally rejoiced at the suppression of unjust tribunals
"organized to convict."

[Facsimile]
  Edwin MStanton
  SecofWar
EDWIN McMASTERS STANTON was born at Steubenville, Ohio, December
19th, 1814; was graduated at Kenyon College in 1834; practiced law
at Steubenville and afterward at Pittsburg; was Attorney-General
under President Buchanan, December, 1860 - March, 1861; was Secretary
of War under President Lincoln and Johnson, January, 1860 - May,
1868; was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by
President Grant, and the appointment was promptly confirmed by the
Senate, but before the commission was issued he died, December
24th, 1869.


CHAPTER XVIII.
WASHINGTON CELEBRITIES.

When President Johnson occupied the White House he was joined by
the ladies of his family.  Mrs. Johnson had been an invalid for
twenty years, and although she could not go into society on account
of her ill-health, her pride was amply gratified in the advancement
of her husband, whom she had taught to read when he was a village
tailor and had won her heart.  Her only appearance in public at
the White House was at a party given to her grand-children.  She
then remained seated, and as the young guests were presented to
her she would say, "My dears, I am an invalid," which was fully
proven by her careworn, pale face, and her sunken eyes.

Mrs. Patterson, the President's eldest daughter, was the wife of
David T. Patterson, who was elected United States Senator from
Tennessee soon after Mr. Johnson became President.  She had been
educated where so many daughters of the South have been, at the
Academy of the Visitation in Georgetown, and while her father was
in the Senate she had remained there, spending her weekly holidays
with President Polk's family in the White House.  There she met
Mrs. Madison, the Blairs, Lees, and other old families of Washington,
many of whom, in later years, gladly welcomed her return to
Washington.  She was thus early introduced into Washington social
life, and the people who imagined that Andrew Johnson's family were
to prove a millstone about his neck forgot that Martha Patterson
was his daughter.  When some of the leaders of Washington society
undertook to call at the White House and tender their patronage,
Mrs. Patterson quietly remarked to them:  "We are a plain people
from the mountains of East Tennessee, called here for a short time
by a national calamity, but we know our position and shall maintain
it."  Mrs. Storer was President Johnson's other daughter, and the
widowed mother of young children.  A son, Robert Johnson was very
dear to his father, but Mrs. Patterson was his favorite child, as
she possessed his mental characteristics.

In the great struggle which ensued between the President and
Congress, the Senate was really under the leadership of Roscoe
Conkling, although Sumner, Fessenden, and Wade, each regarded
himself as the head of the Republicans in the Upper House.  Mr.
Conkling was at that time a type of manly beauty.  Tall, well made,
with broad shoulders and compact chest and an erect carriage, he
was always dressed with scrupulous neatness, wearing a dark frock-
coat, light-colored vest and trousers, with gaiters buttoned over
his shoes.  His nose was large and prominent, his eyes of a bluish-
gray hue, surmounted by heavy dark auburn eyebrows, his side whiskers
curled closely, and his hair ran down with a sharp point into the
middle of his broad, bald forehead, where it rose in a curl.  His
language was elegant, and when he spoke on the floor every word
was clearly enunciated, while slow and deliberate gestures lent
effect to what he said.  At times, when his features would light
up with animation, his deep nostrils would quiver and lengthen into
the expression of scorn, which would often lash an opponent into
fury.  His manner toward strangers was at times dictatorial, but
his personal friends worshiped him, and they have never thrown off
their allegiance.

Oliver P. Morton, the "War Governor" of Indiana, entered the Senate
in time to take a prominent part in resisting the arrogant claims
of President Johnson.  He had found it difficult to ascend from
the vale of poverty, but with indomitable energy he had overcome
all obstacles.  The promptness, the vigor, and thorough manner with
which he discussed every question upon which he took hold soon won
him the respect of his associates, to which was added their sympathy,
caused by his physical condition.  Possessed of an extraordinary
physique and an iron constitution, he gradually lost the use of
his lower limbs without a murmur, and after he was hopelessly
crippled he moved about on his canes with a herculean effort.  He
spoke with great power, his penetrating eyes flashing with patriotism
as he plead the cause of the emancipated, or flashing with anger
as with withering denunciation and sarcasm he denounced their
oppressors.  His mind was especially utilitarian and his speeches
were more remarkable for common sense than for the flowers of
rhetoric or the brilliancy or oratory.  With indomitable perseverance
and pluck he possessed a large heart, and his charities were freely
given.

George F. Edmunds, of Vermont, was another Senator who took his
seat in time to participate in the great contest with President
Johnson, in which the fruits of the war were at stake.  He was not
a college graduate, yet few men have acquired a broader culture
from contact with men and the study of books.  Tall and spare in
figure, his bald head and flowing white beard gave him a resemblance
to the classic portrait of St. Jerome, but, unlike that portrait,
his head is dome-shaped, symmetrical, while his temples are wide
apart and full between.  He debates a question in a clear, half-
conversational manner, occasionally indulging in a dash of sarcasm
which makes those Senators who are the objects of it wince.  What
he says goes into the _Congressional Record_ without any revision
or correction, although many other members of Congress pass a deal
of time in revising, polishing, and correcting the reports of their
remarks.  Invaluable in opposition and almost irresistible in
assault, Senator Edmunds has always been regarded by the Republicans
in the Senate as their "tower of strength" when the political
horizon was overcast.

Zach Chandler, the merchant-Senator from Michigan, who was attaining
high rank in the Republican councils, was justly proud of his
business standing as a dry-goods dealer in Detroit, and he used to
narrate how, when almost every business man there failed, in 1837,
he could not see his way clear to the settlement of his own
liabilities.  He made a statement of his affairs, and, taking what
money he could raise, went to New York and proposed to his creditors
there to make an assignment.  His principal creditor said to him:
"You are too straightforward a man and too honest and enterprising
a merchant to go under.  You can take your own time for payment,
and we will furnish you with a new stock of goods."  The young
merchant accepted the extension of time, and, going home, went to
work again and was soon able to pay all his debts in full.

Senator Anthony, of Rhode Island, was a model Senator.  Endowed by
nature with a gracious presence, integrity, and good sense, what
he had to say on any question was always listened to with attention
on both sides of the Senate Chamber.  He excelled in the felicitous
eulogies which he was called upon to deliver over departed associates.
"The shaft of Death, Mr. President," said he on one of these
occasions, "has been buried in this Chamber of late with fearful
frequency, sparing neither eminence nor usefulness nor length of
service.  No one can predict where it will next strike, whose seat
will next be vacated.  With our faces to the setting sun, we tread
the declining path of life, and the shadows lengthen and darken
behind us.  The good, the wise, the brave fall before our eyes,
but the Republic survives.  The stream of events flows steadily
on, and the agencies that seemed to direct and control its current,
to impel or to restrain its force, sink beneath its surface, which
they disturb scarcely by a ripple."

Senator Nye, of Nevada--Jim Nye--sat for years at the right hand
of Charles Sumner in the United States Senate, and used to delight
in making comments on what transpired in language that was not
agreeable to the fastidious Senator from Massachusetts, who would
listen in a stately embarrassment which was delightful to Nye to
witness, not wishing to show any offense, and yet thoroughly
disgusted.  Nye wasn't particularly witty in debate, and the speeches
of Proctor Knott, McCreery, or Sam Cox were funnier than his;
neither had he any Senatorial dignity whatever.  He had, in its
place, a vast store of humor and genial humanity--better articles,
that brought him in love all that he lost in respect.  He had more
humor than wit, although many of his good things possessed the
sharp scintillations of the last-mentioned article, as when Horace
Greeley sat down on the Senator's new hat, and Nye, picking up the
crushed stove-pipe, said, gravely, "I could have told you it wouldn't
fit before trying it on."  He had little or no literary culture,
read few books, and never troubled others with his convictions, if
he had any, which was doubtful.  He was a Falstaff of the nineteenth
century, and it could be said of him, as Prince Hal said of his
boon companion, "We could better spare a better man."

Mr. Elihu B. Washburne was the "Father of the House," and the man
who had brought forward General Grant at a time when the Republic
was sorely in need of such a man.  Thad Stevens ruled the weak-
kneed Republicans with a rod of iron, and never hesitated about
engaging in a political intrigue that would benefit the party, as
he understood its mission.  Benjamin F. Butler was another power
in the House, who delighted to engage in a debate, with copious
invective interlinings, and who was more feared on the Republican
side of the House than on the Democratic.  And then there was Oakes
Ames, a blunt, honest man, whose perceptions of right and wrong
were not cloaked, but who placed his "Credit Mobilier" shares "where
they would do the most good."

In the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker Colfax presided in
rather a slap-dash-knock-'em-down-auctioneer style, greatly at
variance with the decorous dignity of his predecessors, and he was
ever having an eye to the nomination for Vice-President in 1869.
The most popular man in the House was unquestionably James G.
Blaine, who exercised a fascination over all, and whose occasional
speeches were marked by their purity of style, their terseness,
and the strength of their arguments.  His then graceful as well as
powerful figure, his strong features, glowing with health, and his
hearty, honest manner, made him an attractive speaker and an esteemed
friend.  Whatever might be said about some of his railroad
speculations, no one ever lisped a syllable against his private
character, nor was there in Washington a more devoted husband, a
more affectionate father, or a kinder friend.

Once, when Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, was addressing the House, Mr.
Blaine rose and questioned him concerning the accuracy of his
statements.  Mr. Tucker's reply implied that he doubted Mr. Blaine's
ability to pass correct judgment on legal subjects, as that gentleman
was not a lawyer.  Blaine's memory enabled him to rejoin by reminding
the distinguished member from Virginia of some egregious blunder
committed by Mr. Tucker when filling the Attorney-Generalship of
the Old Dominion, and he concluded by saying that if the commission
of such a mistake was the result of being a lawyer, he, at least,
congratulated himself on not belonging to the legal fraternity.
Mr. Tucker thereupon said that his honorable friend from Maine
reminded him of the Pharisee in the parable, apparently thanking
his Deity for having created him unlike--"You," broke in Mr. Blaine,
who had seated himself in the semicircle immediately in front of
Mr. Tucker's desk.  This telling interruption was greeted with
roars of laughter, which completely drowned further remarks from
the Virginian, most noted as a constitutional lawyer and as a wit.

A high tribute to Mr. Blaine's personal ability and popularity was
paid in his election as Speaker of three successive Congresses,
covering a period from March 4th, 1869, to March 4th, 1875.  On
the latter date, when by party changes it had become evident that
a Democratic Speaker would succeed him, Mr. Blaine made a neat
valedictory in adjourning the session, and as he declared the
adjournment and dropped his gavel, a scene of tumultuous enthusiasm
ensued.  The crowded assemblage, floor and galleries, rose and
greeted him with repeated salvos of applause, running in waves from
side to side, with almost delirious cheering, clapping of hands,
and waving of handkerchiefs.  Fully five minutes, it seemed, he
was detained, bowing and acknowledging with emotion, this tribute
to the record he had made, and for full half an hour afterward
there poured toward his standing place, at the clerk's desk, a
constant stream of members and citizens anxious to press his hand
and express in words the admiration already shown in signs.  None
who were there can forget the impression made by this scene.

Fernando Wood, of New York, was the best known man on the Democratic
side of the House, nor was there a bureau official in the War
Department who had such a military deportment.  Tall, spare, erect,
with clothes of faultless fit and closely buttoned to the chin,
his hair cut short and his face cleanly shaven, with the exception
of a heavy white moustache, he was the beau ideal of a colonel of
the Old Guard.  His manners were as courtly as were those of Lord
Chesterfield, while his features were as immovable and emotionless
as were those of Talleyrand.  In his earlier days "Fernandy Wud"
was identified with the lowest element of New York politics, and
his political reputation was so unsavory that his own party twice,
when opportunity offered, refused to elect him Speaker, a place to
which he was entitled by seniority.  On several occasions he was
denounced virulently in debate, but he stood up "like a little man"
and faced his assailants with features as imperturbable as if they
were carved from marble.  Mr. Wood's ambition was to be chosen
Speaker when the revolutions of Fortune's wheel would again give
the Democratic party the ascendency.  This prompted him to entertain
very liberally, and he used to receive many promises of support,
but when the caucus was held, he never received over half a dozen
votes.

[Facsimile]
  HBAnthony
HENRY BOWEN ANTHONY was born at Coventry, Rhode Island, April 1st,
1815; was editor of _The Providence Journal_; was Governor of Rhode
Island, 1849-1850; was United States Senator, 1859, until his death
at Providence, Rhode Island, September 2d, 1884.


CHAPTER XIX.
CEREMONIALS AT THE METROPOLIS.

The New Year's reception at the White House, at the opening of
1866, was marked by the absence of volunteer officers in uniform,
who had, since the breaking out of the war, always been present in
large numbers.  The East Room was not thrown open, but the suite
of drawing-rooms, which had been re-decorated and newly furnished,
were much admired.  The traditional colors of scarlet, blue, and
green had been preserved, but the walls had been painted with gilt
moldings, and the furniture was far more elegant than was that
which it had replaced.  There was also a profusion of rare flowers
from the conservatory.

The President received in the Blue Drawing-room, and it was a
subject of general remark that age and official perplexities were
evidently leaving their traces on his features, but he had lost
none of his determined, defiant looks.  During the more ceremonious
part of the reception his two daughters stood near him.  Mrs. Stover
wore a rich black silk dress, with a basque of the same material,
both being embroidered with violet-colored wreaths and trimmed with
bugles.  Mrs. Patterson wore a similar dress and basque, embroidered
in white.  Both ladies wore lace collars and had natural flowers
in their hair.

The privileged guests began to arrive at eleven o'clock, the
Diplomatic Corps taking precedence.  They wore the official costumes
of their respective courts, with the exception of Mr. De Romero,
the Mexican Envoy, who was attired in a plain black suit.  Sir
Frederick Bruce and Mr. De Berthemy, the bachelor representatives
of Great Britain and of France, were naturally objects of attraction
to the ladies.  M. Tassara, the Spanish Minister, and Baron Von
Geroldt, the Prussian Minister, were accompanied by their wives,
as was young M. De Bodisco, who represented Russia as Chargè
d'Affaires.  The South Americans were famously bedizened with
embroideries, and nearly all of the Ministers, Secretaries, and
attaches wore the broad ribbons of some order of merit across their
right shoulders, or crosses upon their breasts.  Some of them
sported at least a dozen of these honorary decorations.

The Cabinet officers with their ladies next entered, and after them
came the commanding figure of Chief Justice Chase, followed by the
Justices of the Supreme Court and the local Judges.  Members of
Congress came next in order, but there were not many present.
Assistant Secretaries, heads of bureaus, and chief clerks followed;
and then, the band striking up the "Red, White, and Blue," Admiral
Radford entered with a large party of naval officers, among them
Admirals Davis and Stribling, with Colonel Ziellen and the other
officers of marines stationed in Washington, all in full uniform.

"Hail to the Chief" announced General Grant, who was attended by
Adjutant-General Thomas, Quartermaster-General Meigs, Paymaster-
General Brice, Surgeon-General Barnes, and some fifty or sixty
officers of lower grade, all in full uniform, and many of them who
only performed bureau duty were arrayed in epaulettes and embroidery
of the most stunning description.  This comprised the official
presentations, and many of those above named were accompanied by
ladies, elegantly attired in full morning costumes, some of which,
worn by the ladies of the Diplomatic Corps, were very elegant.

At twelve o'clock the officials took their leave, and the people
were admitted.  For two hours did a living tide of humanity surge
through the rooms, each man, woman, and child being presented and
shaking hands with the President as they passed him.  There was
almost every conceivable variety of dress, and every part of the
country, with many foreign lands, was represented.  A more promiscuous
company had never yet attended a White House reception, than that
which gathered on this occasion.  But one colored man sought an
introduction to the "Moses" of his race, and he was civilly treated
by the President and those in attendance.

The reception at the house of General Grant was crowded.  Among
the other visitors was Hon. Sam Hooper, the merchant Representative
from Boston, who handed the General a letter signed by himself and
forty-nine other "solid men of Boston," presenting a library of
well-selected books, which had cost five thousand dollars.

George Bancroft's eulogy on Abraham Lincoln attracted crowds to
the hall of the House of Representatives.  The occasion was indeed
a memorable one, equaled only by the exercises in the old hall on
the last day of 1834, when that "Old Man Eloquent" of Massachusetts,
John Quincy Adams, occupied nearly three hours in the delivery of
his grand oration on Lafayette, which covered the history of the
preceding half century.  Henry Clay, who was on that occasion
Chairman of the Joint Committee of Arrangements on the part of the
Senate, had ten years before, as Speaker of the House, welcomed
Lafayette as the nation's guest.  Mr. Adams, in eloquently alluding
to this impressive scene, said that few of those who received
Lafayette were alive to shed the tear of sorrow upon his departure
from this earthly scene.  Neither was there a member of Congress
who joined in the memorial exercises to Lafayette to pay a farewell
to Lincoln.  There were a few present who heard the orator eulogize
Jackson, and a few more who were present at the impressive funeral
services of John Quincy Adams, who had fallen at his post in that
glorious old hall, in which his voice, like that of John the Baptist,
had proclaimed

  "The coming of the glory of the Lord."

An incessant rain did not detract in the least from an immense
attendance at the Capitol, although no one was admitted without a
ticket.  Notwithstanding the precautions taken, over three hundred
tickets were issued beyond the utmost capacity of the House galleries,
which were literally packed long before the ceremonies commenced.
The audience, seemingly, was as select as it was large, and the
attendance of many ladies gave to the occasion as brilliant and
fascinating an interest as did the distinguished guests on the
floor of the House.  The hall was appropriately draped in mourning
over the Speaker's chair and at other points.

Prominent on the front seats of the ladies' gallery were Mrs.
General Grant, Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Stover (the President's
daughters), Mrs. Daniel Webster, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, and others
equally famed in society.  The floor of the House was divided into
sections for the reception of the distinguished guests.  All of
the dignitaries were duly announced by the Sergeant-at-Arms as they
appeared in a body at the main door of the hall.  The House rose
in compliment as they entered, and remained standing until the
guests were duly seated.  The Diplomatic Corps, with the exception
of the French Minister and the Mexican Minister, were present in
full force.  Sir Frederick Bruce, the Spanish Minister, and the
Russian Minister, occupied the front row of seats of the section
assigned to the Diplomatic Corps.  Lieutenant-General Grant sat in
company with Admiral Shubrick, in front of the large delegation
from the army and navy.  There was a buzz in the hall and a quiet
laugh as General Butler entered and unconsciously took a seat
immediately behind General Grant; neither greeted the other.  In
the rear of General Butler General John A. Logan was sandwiched
with General Holt and John Minor Botts.

At noon Sergeant-at-Arms Ordway entered bearing the official mace,
and he was followed by Mr. Speaker Colfax.  A rap from the Speaker's
gavel brought the assembly to order, and a solemn and very appropriate
prayer was offered by Mr. Chaplain Boynton.  The journal of the
last day's session was then read, followed by a letter from Secretary
Seward apologizing for his absence.

The hum of conversation again echoed around the galleries, with
the craning of fair necks and the peering of bright, curious eyes
as the ladies sought to see who were there and what was worn.  At
ten minutes after twelve the doorkeeper announced the Senate of
the United States.  Mr. Speaker Colfax repeated the announcement
with the familiar raps of the gavel, which on this occasion brought
all on the floor to their feet.  Sergeant-at-Arms Brown led the
way, then came Mr. Foster, President _pro tempore_, with Chief
Clerk McDonald, and then came the Senators, two and two, who took
seats on either side of the main aisle.

The inner half-circle of chairs was as yet unoccupied.  President
Foster, receiving the gavel from Speaker Colfax, said:  "Please be
seated," and a rap was again obeyed.  A few moments elapsed, during
which the occupants of the galleries had time to scan the countenances
of the eloquent guardians of the Union and champions of freedom,
whose voices had been and might again be heard as a battle-cry in
the dark days of our eventful history.

The President of the United States was announced, and the audience
rose to receive the Chief Magistrate.  He was attired in simple
black, and as he passed between the Senators down to the front seat
reserved for him, escorted by Senator Foote, he reminded one of
Webster and of Douglas, so immovable was the expression of his
massive, resolute, determined features.  The President took his
seat directly opposite the Speaker, and the seats at his right hand
were occupied by Secretaries McCulloch, Stanton, Welles, Harlan,
Postmaster-General Dennison, and Attorney-General Speed.  Secretary
Seward's health was so precarious that it did not permit him to be
present.

Mr. Bancroft entered with the President and was escorted to the
clerk's table, on which a reading-desk had been placed for his use.
Before taking his seat he shook hands with President Foster and
Mr. Speaker Colfax, who sat side by side at the Speaker's table,
directly behind the orator.

The Supreme Court was next announced, and all rose to pay homage
to the majesties of the law.  They wore their silk robes and took
the front row of seats on the President's left hand in the following
order:  Chief Justice Chase, Justices Wayne, Nelson, Clifford,
Swayne, Miller, Davis, and Fields.  Justice Grier's recent family
bereavement kept him away.

Just after the Supreme Court was seated the President and Justice
Clifford rose, advanced toward each other, and cordially shook
hands.  This made it twenty minutes past twelve, and, as all were
present, Major French, the Commissioner of Public Buildings, gave
a signal, and the Marine Band performed, with impressive effect,
the _Miserere_, from the opera "Il Trovatore."  The Chaplain of
the House, Rev. Dr. Boynton, made a most orthodox and righteous
introductory prayer, after with Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, in a
brief but eloquent address, introduced the orator of the day.

Mr. Bancroft was received, on rising, with hearty applause, and he
commenced the delivery of his address in a clear, loud, and distinct
tone of voice, heard in every part of the hall.  He held his printed
address in his left hand, and his sincerity and ability compensated
for the absence of oratorical grace.  His was the simplicity of
faith rather than the simplicity of art, and by easy and rapid
transitions it occasionally rose to bold and manly enthusiasm.
The oration occupied two hours and thirty minutes, and at certain
points was most rapturously applauded.  The allusions by the orator
to Great Britain's harboring rebel vessels during the war, and to
the insignificance of Palmerston in comparison to Lincoln, did not
seem to be well received by the British Minister, and his uneasiness
was very manifest when the House thundered with repeated applause
at the mention of the names of John Bright and Richard Cobden.  On
the other hand, the Russian Minister blushed at the continued
applause and the thousands of eyes bent on him as Bancroft alluded
to the unwavering sympathy of Russia with the United States during
the late war.  Baron Stoeckel congratulated the orator after the
ceremonies were over.

When Mr. Bancroft had concluded, and the President and the Senate,
with other invited guests, had retired, Mr. Washburne offered a
joint resolution of thanks to Mr. Bancroft, copied almost _verbatim_
from that passed when John Quincy Adams delivered the oration on
Lafayette.  When the address was printed Mr. Bancroft insisted on
having the title-page state that it had been delivered before "the
Congress of America," instead of "the Congress of the United States
of America."

[Facsimile]
  Winfd S. Hancock
WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, born near Norristown, Pa., February 14th,
1824; graduated at West Point in 1844; served on the frontier, in
the Mexican and Florida Wars, and in California; Brigadier-General
of Volunteers, September 23d, 1861; Major-General of Volunteers,
November 20th, 1862; commander of Second Corps, May, 1863; wounded
at Gettysburg, July 3d, 1863; returned to his command and fought
to the end of the war; Major-General of the regular army, July,
1866; commanded various military divisions; candidate for Presidency
of the United States, 1880; died at Governor's Island, New York,
February 9th, 1886.


CHAPTER XX.
THE GREAT IMPEACHMENT.

The gulf between President Johnson and Congress gradually widened
after the reconstruction bill was passed over his veto, although
his friends announced that while he opposed the act and had resisted
its passage, it was the law of the land, and he would fairly execute
it.  He appointed Generals Sheridan, Sickles, and Pope to carry
out its provisions, and he was regarded as an obstinate man
patriotically performing an unpleasant duty.  Then he began to
doubt, and Attorney-General Stanbery, aided by Judge Jere Black,
declared that the Reconstruction Act was not legal, and that the
military commanders at the South were merely policemen.  Congress
met in midsummer and made the act more stringent in its provisions.
The President's advisers then counseled him to change those who
were executing the provisions of the act at the South.  Stanton
was removed from the War Department and Grant appointed in his
place, Sheridan was replaced by Hancock, and Sickles and Pope were
relieved from duty.  When the Senate met, it overruled the deposition
of Mr. Stanton, and General Grant gracefully retired that the "War
Secretary" might assume the duties of his office.  This made
President Johnson very angry.  He had wanted to use General Grant
as a cat's-paw for keeping Stanton out of the War Department, and
had hoped at the same time to injure Grant in the estimation of
the people.  He raised a question of veracity with the General
commanding, but Congress and the people speedily decided between
the soldier, whose reputation for veracity was untarnished, and
the President, who had broken his promises and had betrayed his
friends.

Sir Frederick Bruce, the British Minister to the United States,
died suddenly at a hotel in Boston, on the 19th of September, 1867.
He had been attacked with diphtheria at Narragansett Pier, and had
gone to Boston for medical advice, but he arrived too late.  He
recognized Senator Sumner, who hastened to his bedside, but was
unable to speak to him.  Sir Frederick was the younger brother of
Lord Elgin.  He was born in 1814, was educated at Christ's Church
College, Oxford, and subsequently was called to the bar at Lincoln's
Inn.  Educated for the diplomatic service, he began his career in
Lord Ashburton's suite, when he came to Washington in 1842, on his
special mission regarding the north-eastern boundary question.  At
this time Rufus Choate said of him that he was "the Corinthian part
of the British Legation."  He was then employed in the diplomatic
service until he was appointed in 1865 to succeed Lord Lyons as
British Minister in Washington, and was presented to President
Johnson immediately after the funeral of President Lincoln.  While
in China his official relations with the Hon. Anson Burlingame
ripened into personal intimacy, and on the visit of the latter home
there were reciprocated between these gentlemen the most cordial
expressions of respect and friendship.  He lived in excellent style
in Washington, was very hospitable to his acquaintances and friends,
whom he frequently entertained at his well-spread table, and was
noted for that love of horses which has almost become a passion
with Englishmen.  To the public in general the deceased wore that
stiff and formal appearance which characterizes the class of his
countrymen to which he belonged, but in private life he is said to
have been very social, conversational, and entertaining.

Mrs. Lincoln created an excitement in the autumn of 1867 by offering
for sale, in a small up-stairs room on Broadway, in New York, what
purported to be her wardrobe while she was at the White House.
Ladies who inspected it said that the object of this exhibition
could not have been to realize money from the sale of the collection.
With the exception of some lace and camel's-hair shawls, and a few
diamond rings, there was nothing which any lady could wear, or
which would not have been a disgrace to a second-hand clothes shop;
the dresses--those that had been made up and worn--were crushed,
old-fashioned, and trimmed without taste.  The skirts were too
short for any but a very short person, and of the commonest muslins,
grenadines, and bareges; all were made extremely low in the neck,
and could not be available for any purpose.  There were some brocaded
silk skirts in large, heavy patterns, which had been made but not
worn, but these were unaccompanied by any waists, while the price
put upon them and the other articles was exorbitant.  The opinion
was that the exhibition was intended to stimulate Congress to make
Mrs. Lincoln a large appropriation.  Those Republicans who had
subscribed to the fund of one hundred thousand dollars paid to Mrs.
Lincoln after the death of her lamented husband were very angry.
The general opinion was that the exhibition was an advertising
dodge which some of Mrs. Lincoln's indiscreet friends had persuaded
her to adopt.

Thurlow Weed created a decided sensation by taking up the cudgels
in defense of his party, and published a letter stating that the
Republicans, through Congress, "would have made proper arrangements
for the maintenance of Mrs. Lincoln had she so deported herself as
to inspire respect."  He further intimated "that no President's
wife ever before accumulated such valuable effects, and that those
accumulations are suggestive of 'fat contracts and corrupt disposal
of patronage.'"  He continued, that "eleven of Mr. Lincoln's new
linen shirts were sold" almost before the remains, which were
shrouded in the twelfth, had started "for the bourne from whence
no traveler returns."  Not only was Mr. Weed censured in this
country, but in England.  The London _Telegraph_ said:  "To attack
Mrs. Lincoln is to insult the illustrious memory of Abraham Lincoln,
and to slander a gentle lady.  Far and wide she has been known as
an admirable and charitable woman, an irreproachable wife, and a
devoted mother.  She is entitled to more than 'respect' from the
American people.  They owe her reverence for her very name's sake.
If fifty thousand swords were to have leapt from their scabbards
to avenge the slightest insult offered to Marie Antoinette, a
million of American hearts and hands would be quick to relieve the
wants of the widow of the Emancipator; and if this deplorable tale
could be true, which we decline to believe, the American public
wants no stimulus from abroad to take such an incident at once from
the evil atmosphere of electioneering, and to deal with the
necessities of Abraham Lincoln's family in a manner befitting the
national dignity."

The impeachment of President Johnson was loudly demanded by Wade,
Butler, Thad. Stevens, and other ultra radicals when Congress met
in December, 1867.  "Why," said Mr. Stevens, "I'll take that man's
record, his speeches, and his acts before any impartial jury you
can get together, and I'll make them pronounce him either a knave
or a fool, without the least trouble."  He continued:  "My own
impression is that we had better put it on the ground of insanity
or whisky or something of that kind.  I don't want to hurt the
man's feelings by telling him that he is a rascal.  I'd rather put
it mildly, and say he hasn't got off that inauguration drunk yet,
and just let him retire to get sobered."

President Johnson, with an equally unfortunate want of reticence,
denounced Congress, and finally again issued an order removing Mr.
Stanton and appointing Adjutant-General Thomas Secretary of War.
Senator Sumner at once telegraphed to Mr. Stanton, "Stick," and
many believed that a scene of violence would soon be witnessed at
the War Department.

What did occur, however, was simply ludicrous.  General Thomas went
to Mr. Stanton's office, we are told by Adjutant-General Townsend,
and formally announced that he was Secretary of War, to which Mr.
Stanton replied, "You will attempt to act as Secretary of War at
your peril."  General Thomas then went into General Shriver's room,
and Mr. Stanton soon followed him there.  Resuming the colloquy,
Mr. Stanton said, in a laughing tone, to General Thomas:  "So you
claim to be here as Secretary of War, and refuse to obey my orders,
do you?"  General Thomas replied, seriously, "I do so claim.  I
shall require the mails of the War Department to be delivered to
me, and shall transact all the business of the Department."  Seeing
that the General looked as if he had had no rest the night before,
Mr. Stanton, playfully running his fingers up through the General's
hair, as he wearily leaned back in his chair, said:  "Well, old
fellow, have you had any breakfast this morning?"  "No," said
Thomas, good-naturedly.  "Nor anything to drink?"  "No."  "Then
you are as badly off as I am, for I have had neither."  Mr. Stanton
then sent out for some refreshments, and while the two were sharing
the refection they engaged in very pleasant conversation, in the
course of which, however, Mr. Stanton suddenly and with seeming
carelessness inquired when General Thomas was going to give him
the report of an inspection, which he had lately made, of the newly
completed national cemeteries.  Mr. Stanton said if it was not soon
rendered it would be too late for the printers, and he was anxious
to have it go forth as a credible work of the Department.  The
question had apparently no especial point, and General Thomas
evidently saw none, for he answered, pleasantly, that he would work
at the report that night and give it to the Secretary.  "This struck
me," said General Townsend, "as a lawyer's _ruse_ to make Thomas
acknowledge Stanton's authority as Secretary of War, and that Thomas
was caught by it.  I some time after asked Mr. Stanton if that was
his design.  He made no reply, but looked at me with a mock expression
of surprise at my conceiving such a thing."

The Senate at once declared that the President had exceeded his
authority, and the House of Representatives passed a resolution--
126 yeas to 47 nays--that he be impeached for high crimes and
misdemeanors.  The House agreed to the articles of impeachment
March 3d, 1868, and the Senate received them two days later.  They
specified his removal of Secretary Stanton, his publicly expressed
contempt for the Thirty-ninth Congress, and his hindrances to the
execution of its measures, as acts calling for his impeachment.
The trial began in the Senate, sitting as a high court of impeachment,
on March 23d.  The managers of the trial on the part of the accusation
were Thaddeus Stevens, B. F. Butler, John H. Bingham, George S.
Boutwell, J. F. Wilson, T. Williams, and John A. Logan, all members
of the House; for the President, appeared Attorney-General Henry
Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, William M. Evarts,
and Thomas A. R. Nelson.

The formulated charges were eleven in number, but only three were
voted upon, two of these concerning that one item of Secretary
Stanton's attempted removal and the other concerning the President's
expressed contempt of Congress.  The latter charge was based on
language used by Mr. Johnson in a public speech in which Congress
was characterized as a Congress of only part of the States, and
not a constitutional Congress, with intent, as was charged, of
denying that its legislation was obligatory upon him, or that it
had any power to propose amendments to the Constitution.

The trial from its very inception to a great extent assumed a party
character, the Republican party having strongly condemned the action
and utterances complained of, while the Democratic party approved
and defended them.  On the final issue, however, seven of the
Republican Senators refused to vote for conviction, and an acquittal
followed.  A question of importance on the trial was, whether the
President _pro tem._ of the Senate, who in the event of a conviction
would become President, had a right to vote; but he claimed and
exercised the right.  Many members, however, handled the entire
subject very delicately, feeling that the precedents were not very
safe and sure.

Chief Justice Chase presided with great dignity, but the Senators
retained their comfortable arm-chairs, instead of being ranged on
a judicial bench, and were often engaged in letter-writing during
the arguments.  The managers occupied seats at a table on one side
of the area before the table of the presiding officer, and the
accused's counsel had a table on the other side.  Seats were provided
for the Representatives in the rear of the Senators.

The most noticeable argument on either side was that of Mr. Evarts,
one of the counsel retained by the President's friends, who raised
a large sum of money by subscription to secure his acquittal.  Mr.
Evarts was then fifty years of age, and his three days' speech was
an oration rather than an argument.  Tall, slender, with a high,
round head, expressive eyes, and long, slender arms, he spoke
without any emotion, continually indulging in fearfully long
sentences.

Even his review of Mr. Manager Boutwell's astronomical proposition
of a "hole in the sky," though it provoked shouts of laughter, was
overdone.  The subject was so good that he kept piling sentence
upon sentence on it, and his phrase, "the honorable and astronomical
manager," never failed to excite merriment.  Boutwell bore it well,
though disturbed.  Like other men of logical habit of mind, when
proposing to ornament his production with something imaginative,
he struck upon the extravagant, and, feeling that he was doing a
fantastic thing, gave rein to fancy.

An amusing feature of Mr. Evarts' argument was his illustration of
"the proprieties of speech, as shown by the official report of the
debates."  He read from the _Congressional Globe_ that Senator
Sumner had called Andrew Johnson an "enemy of his country," and
had been called to order.  Senator Anthony, in the chair, said that
it was usual and proper to call the President an enemy of his
country, and Senator Sherman scouted the idea that Senator Sumner
was out of order, saying that he had heard such language in the
Senate fifty times.  Senators were a good deal amused at this
exhibition of their record.  Then Mr. Evarts turned to the record
of the House as to the propriety of speech, and there was a general
stir and smile, as if to say, "Here's richness."  The celebrated
passage between Bingham and Butler, about murdering Mrs. Surratt,
and Fort Fisher, and the bottle and spoons, was recited, and there
was almost universal merriment.  Bingham smiled and squirmed,
looking, when his remarks about Butler were given, both puzzled
and pleased.  Butler had fixed himself in an easy position, his
right elbow upon the manager's table, and his head leaning upon
his hand, and he was as still as a wooden image until Evarts was
through with the matter of decorum.  Members of the House who were
present, seemed greatly edified, and Garfield and Colfax talked it
over, laughing heartily.

At last came the verdict.  The votes on the two articles were taken
May 16th and 26th, standing, in each case, thirty-five guilty and
nineteen not guilty, which acquitted the President, as a two-thirds
vote is required to convict.  Mr. Stanton at once resigned, and
General Schofield was made Secretary of War.  The fact that had
Mr. Johnson been found guilty Mr. Wade would have been President
of the United States doubtless had great weight with several Senators
who voted "not guilty."

Within thirty minutes after the first vote was taken, which resulted
in acquittal, a Congressional Committee of Inquiry was instituted
by Republicans in regard to the conduct of the disagreeing members
of the Senate.  Witnesses were summoned, and volumes of testimony
were taken and ingeniously exhausted in the vain endeavor to fix
a stain upon a single Senator, but the Committee had to give up
the matter in disgust, being quite unable to accomplish the ends
they so zealously pursued.

The remainder of Mr. Johnson's Presidential career was not especially
noteworthy.  On the 25th of December, 1868, he issued a full pardon
to everybody who had taken part in the Rebellion.

[Facsimile]
  J. S. Black
JEREMIAH SULLIVAN BLACK, born in The Glades, Somerset County, Pa.,
June 10th, 1810; studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1831;
in 1851 was chosen Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, and
became its Chief Justice; was Attorney-General under President
Buchanan, 1857-1861; resumed private practice at law; defended
President Johnson in the Impeachment trial; died near York, Pa.,
August 19th, 1883.


CHAPTER XXI.
A NEW PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST.

As the time approached for the selection of a candidate by the
Republicans, Ohio presented four names.  General Grant, the conqueror
of the Rebellion, who was without experience, qualifications, or
capacity as a civil ruler, was evidently the choice of the loyal
people of the North.  The old Abolitionists and the national banks
favored Chief Justice Chase, who possessed brains, personal dignity,
and ability to perform the duties of the Executive.  Stanton was
the martyr-candidate of the contractors, an unscrupulous man of
action and decision, bold, audacious, and unshrinking; and the
Western Reserve brought forward bluff Ben Wade, feigning fanaticism
and stoical virtue, but a mere mouther of strong words and profane
epithets.  A few spoke of a fifth Ohio candidate for the nomination
in General Sheridan, but, "like a little man," he promptly sat down
on every demonstration in his behalf.  It soon became evident that
General Grant would be nominated.  State Republican Conventions,
Union Clubs, and newspapers of all political shades declared their
preferences for him, the New York _Herald_ finally coming out for
the "Conqueror of the Rebellion," with these lines, by General
Halpine (Miles O'Reilly), as a text.  They afterward became
historic:

  "So, boys, a final bumper,
   While we all in chorus chant,
   For next President we nominate
   Our own Ulysses Grant.

  "And if asked what State he hails from,
   This our sole reply shall be,
   From near Appomattox Court-House,
   And its famous apple tree.

  "For 'twas there to our Ulysses
   That Lee gave up the fight;
   Now, boys, to Grant for President,
   And God defend the right."

Chief Justice Chase was treated with less favor by another poet,
who thus described his visit to Ohio to rally his followers:

  "Says Salmon P.
   Chase, says he,
  'I'll fish, by Jupiter Ammon!'
   He went to Ohio,
   And threw in his fly--oh!
   But never a sign of a Salmon."

The Chief Justice was a prominent candidate for the Democratic
nomination.  His eldest daughter, Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague, was in
New York when the Democratic Convention was held there, and her
parlor was the head-quarters of her father's friends.  Mr. Frederick
Aiken, a lawyer-journalist, who had appeared at the trial of the
conspirators as the defender of Mrs. Surratt, was her master of
ceremonies, and introduced the delegates from the rural districts
to Mrs. Sprague, but she failed to capture a majority.  The Chief
Justice saw plainly that the star of Grant was in the ascendant,
and that his life-cherished hope of being President was doomed to
disappointment.

General Grant was very positive in demanding that all officers of
the Confederate army should enjoy their liberty.  Among those of
them who had been imprisoned by order of the Secretary of War was
General Clement C. Clay, an ex-United States Senator from Alabama.
He was taken ill in prison with asthma, and his wife came to
Washington to solicit his release.  She went to President Johnson,
and he gave her the necessary order, which she took back to Secretary
Stanton.  Stanton read the order, and, looking her in the face,
tore it up without a word and pitched it into his waste-basket.
The lady arose and retired without speaking; nor did Stanton speak
to her.  She was filled with despair.  She saw her husband, in whom
her life was wrapped up, dying in prison, and she was unable to
help him.

Soon afterward she was advised to call on General Grant, who
ascertained by consulting his roster of the Confederate army that
her husband was a Brigadier-General, and then wrote an order
directing his release, under the Appomattox parole, on giving the
required bond, and added:  "I shall see that this order is carried
out."  Having signed the order, he gave it to Mrs. Clay, who the
next day presented it to the Secretary of War.  Mr. Stanton read
it, then touched his bell, and when an officer appeared, handed
him the order, saying, "Have that man discharged."

The extensions of the Treasury Department were completed during
the Administration of President Johnson under the efficient direction
of Mr. A. B. Mullett, supervising architect.  The entire building
is four hundred and sixty feet long and two hundred and sixty-four
feet wide.  The new portions are constructed of granite, and the
entire cost of this elegantly finished structure was about eight
million dollars.

Senator Ben Wade, of Ohio, as President _pro tempore_ of the Senate,
enjoyed the privilege of appointing the keeper of the Senate
restaurant.  That establishment, elegantly fitted up in the basement
story of the Senate wing of the Capitol, brilliantly lighted and
supplied with coal and ice, was enjoyed rent free by the person
fortunate enough to obtain it.  It was customary, however, for him
to send a good lunch every day to the Vice-President's room without
charge.

One day the restauranteur, hearing that he was to be superseded by
a caterer from Cincinnati, called on Mr. Wade and said obsequiously,
"I am the keeper of the Senate restaurant, Senator."  "Oh! yes,"
replied Mr. Wade, "you run the cook-shop down-stairs, don't you?"
"Yes, sir," was the reply, with a low bow.  "Well," said Mr. Wade,
"what can I do for you? what do you want?"  "I have called to
express my wish, sir, that I may continue to keep the restaurant,
and anything you want, sir, you have only to send a page down-stairs
and it shall be furnished quick as a flash, without costing you a
cent, sir."

Just then Mr. Wade appeared to recollect something, and looking
the man directly in the eye, said:  "Oh! I don't want you to feed
me; when I do I will pay you for what I eat, like other people.
But, listen:  complaint has been made to me that you don't treat
the little pages fairly or kindly.  They complain that they can't
get anything to eat except expensive things, for which they have
to pay a large price.  Now, sir, just remember that these pages
are our boys, and you had better overcharge Senators, who are able
to pay, than these little chaps, who want to save all of their
wages that they can for their mothers.  You must be civil and kind
to these pages, sir, or I'll have you moved out of your cook-shop
and put in some one there who will treat the boys well."  The
restauranteur promised that he would do so, and bowed his way out.
Mr. Wade after this made inquiry of the pages from time to time,
and found that they were civilly treated, and that lunches of
reasonable cost were provided for them.

Mr. Sumner's enemies circulated a statement that his great speech
on Alaska was prepared at the Department of State, and there
published at Government expense.  This was an unmitigated falsehood.
Mr. Sumner obtained the materials for his speech by a careful
examination of all the available works in the Congressional and
other libraries at Washington in which reference is made to Alaska,
and by conversing with officers of the navy and of the Smithsonian
Institution who had been there.  Everything supplied from the
Department of State was a brief correspondence between Mr. Stoeckel
and Secretary Seward, which made a quarter of a printed page.  Mr.
Sumner's speech, written in his own hand, made nearly one hundred
foolscap pages, and the manuscript, which he gave me, is now in my
collection of autographs.  He had it printed at the _Congressional
Globe_ office at his own expense, and an expensive job it was.
Subsequently Mr. Seward asked and received permission to have a
small extra edition struck off, before the type was distributed,
for the use of the Department of State, and with these copies was
bound a coast survey chart, for which Mr. Sumner had supplied much
information.

General Grant, although at times annoyed by his relations with the
President, passed the happiest period of his eventful life at
Washington during the Johnson Administration.  He occupied a large
house which had been built by Judge Douglas, in what was known as
Minnesota Row.  A devoted wife, Mrs. Grant was also an affectionate
mother, and the happy pair enjoyed the society of their children
as they grew up.  Fred, the eldest son, who had shared some of his
father's later campaigns, was being prepared for admission to West
Point.  The General's pet was his only daughter, Nellie, who was
bright and beautiful, and whose girlish prattle was far more
attractive to him than the compliments of Congressmen or the praises
of politicians.

General Grant used generally to walk to and from his "head-quarters,"
which were in a two-story house on Seventeenth Street, opposite
the War Department, and he was often seen trudging along on a stormy
day, his only protection from the rain being an army cloak and a
slouch hat.  There was nothing to indicate that he was the Commander-
in-Chief of the army, and he was always alone in the morning when
he went to the Department.  His route was through I Street to
Massachusetts and New York Avenues, to Fifteenth Street, and thence
by the broad-flagged pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue to the War
Department.  Even the children along this route knew General Grant,
and would frequently salute him as he passed, silently smoking his
cigar.  General Grant was very fond of walking about Washington,
and even after he became President nothing was more agreeable to
him than a stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue.  Frequently in these
walks he would meet going in an opposite direction Sir Edward
Thornton, then the British Minister.  Sir Edward was a good
pedestrian, and took long strolls every day, and would go springing
along like a boy out for a holiday.  On the other hand, General
Grant walked slowly and deliberately, and would invariably return
every salutation, no matter how humble the person saluting might be.

General Grant's evening receptions at his house on Minnesota Row
were the social feature of Washington.  Cabinet officers, diplomatists,
Judges, Congressmen, officers of the army and navy, residents, and
the strangers within their gates made up the throng that good-
humoredly jostled and crowded each other in futile attempts to move
through the parlors and hall.  When General Grant had issued cards
of invitation to his first reception, hundreds who had received
none went, all the same, so he afterward announced through the
newspapers that he would be "happy to see his friends."

General Grant received all those who could get near him in his
usual stoical manner, his eyes lighting up when he took an old
friend or comrade by the hand.  He wore his undress uniform, with
the four golden stars glistening on his shoulder-straps, while Mrs.
Grant, who stood at his side, wore a plain, high-necked, long-
sleeved, pink silk gown, with a Honiton black lace shawl thrown
over her shoulders.  The wives of Senators Chandler and Morgan vied
with each other in the richness of their toilets and the splendor
of their diamonds, but the observed of all observers was Mrs.
Charles Sumner, on the Senator's arm, wearing a becoming dress of
black velvet, with a white lace shawl, and a flexible golden serpent
woven among her dark tresses.

Secretary Seward hovered around the host nearly all the evening,
anxious to conciliate him and to secure his support of "our
Administration."  Mr. Speaker Colfax was in excellent spirits, and
so were the scores of Congressmen and placemen present, each one
anxious to say a word to the next President.  Lieutenant-General
Sherman was grim and epigrammatic, while Generals Sheridan and Ord
appeared delighted at their deliverance from the troublesome duties
of reconstruction, and there was much soldier-talk among the many
brave men present who had stood shoulder to shoulder on hard-fought
fields.  Receptions were given by President Johnson, Speaker Colfax,
Chief Justice Chase, Governor Morgan, Admiral Dalhgren, and other
dignitaries, but those at the house of General Grant eclipsed them
all.

Mr. Sam Ward began to operate in the lobby at Washington toward
the close of the war.  He was a short, compactly built, round-headed
gentleman, well educated, with an inexhaustible fund of anecdote
and great gastronomic knowledge, which enabled him to give marvelously
good dinners.  Besides all this, he was a "good witness," and
consequently a reliable friend.  He said of himself, just after
being examined by General Butler, during the Andrew Johnson
impeachment investigation, that he had "been before that d----d
strabismal inquisition, and that his evidence wasn't worth half
his mileage."  It should be known that his mileage was twenty cents,
ten cents per mile each way from Willard's Hotel to the Capitol,
and that, as his street-car fare only cost him twelve, he sent
eight cents to the Treasury as conscience money.  So powerful a
legislative manipulator was Mr. Ward that he claimed for himself
the title, "King of the Lobby," nor was his claim seriously
disputed.

Charles Dickens again came to Washington to lecture during President
Johnson's last official winter.  He had rooms at Welcker's restaurant
on Fifteenth Street.  He used to walk out every fine day, accompanied
by his friend and adviser, Mr. Osgood, the Boston publisher, and
Mr. Dolby, his financial agent.  They would often tramp eight or
ten miles before dinner.  Simon Hanscom, the journalist, secured
him an interview with President Johnson, who impressed him, as he
afterward wrote, as "a man of very remarkable appearance--indeed,
of tremendous firmness of purpose, not to be trifled with."  The
only invitation to dine that he accepted was one from Senator
Sumner, on a Sunday afternoon, when Secretary Stanton was in the
party.

In Washington, as elsewhere, Mr. Dickens' lectures and readings
were to him a mine of pecuniary profit, and to hundreds of the most
intelligent and cultured citizens of the metropolis they furnished
a treat of the highest intellectual character.  His audiences were
such as must have highly flattered him, and his entertainments were
such as greatly delighted him.

[Facsimile]
  Charles Sumner
CHARLES SUMNER was born at Boston, Massachusetts, January 6th,
1811; received a classical education, graduating at the Cambridge
Law School in 1834; practiced in Boston; traveled in Europe 1837-
1840; was United States Senator from Massachusetts from December
1st, 1851, until his death at Washington City, March 11th, 1869.


CHAPTER XXII.
GENERAL GRANT IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

General Grant, having been elected President by a majority of nearly
one million and a-half of votes, was inaugurated on Thursday, the
4th of March, 1869.  The national metropolis was crowded with those
who had come to witness the historic event, many of them veterans
who rejoiced in the elevation of their Old Commander to the highest
civic office in the gift of the American people.

The military escort was composed of regulars and volunteers, several
companies of the latter being colored men.  Then came President
Johnson and the President-elect in an open landau, drawn by four
white horses, Mr. Johnson looking soured and sad, while General
Grant, displaying no signs of elation, waved his hat in response
to the cheers with which he was greeted all the way from the White
House to the Capitol.  Next came the Vice-President-elect, Mr.
Colfax, in a carriage with a member of the Senatorial Committee of
Arrangements, and the civic associations followed.  There were the
Tanners, the Invincibles, the Wide Awakes, the Grant and Colfax
Clubs, and the Colored Republicans, each organization with its
band, its banners, and its badges.  The Washington Fire Department,
their brightly polished engines drawn by spirited horses, brought
up the rear.

On arriving at the Capitol, the President and President-elect and
the Vice-President-elect were escorted to the Senate Chamber, where,
four years previously, Mr. Johnson had disgraced himself by his
drunken harangue.  The Supreme Court was already there, with the
Diplomatic Corps, gorgeously arrayed in their court costumes, and
a number of prominent army and navy officers in full uniform.  In
the galleries were ladies gayly dressed, whose opera-glasses had
been turned on the distinguished personages below as they had
successively entered, and who kept up such a buzzing chat that it
was almost impossible for the Senators to transact the closing
business of the expiring session.

At twelve o'clock Mr. Colfax was sworn in as Vice-President, and
afterward administered the oath to the new Senators.  Some of those
applying, however, had served in the Confederate army, and were
not able to take what was known as the "iron-clad oath."  A procession
was then formed of those present on the floor of the Senate, which
moved through the rotunda to the east front of the Capitol, where
the President-elect was hailed by hearty cheers.  He advanced to
the front of the platform, and the oath of office was administered
by Chief Justice Chase, followed by an artillery salute from a
light battery near by, while the whistles of the steam fire-engines
joined in the clangor, the band played, and thousands of voices
cheered.

When silence was restored, President Grant drew from his coat pocket
six or seven pages of foolscap, adjusted his glasses, and with
great deliberation read in a conversational tone his message to
the citizens of the Republic and to the world, a plain, practical,
common-sense document, in which he declared that he should on all
subjects have a policy of his own to recommend, but none to enforce
against the will of the people.  Soon after he began to read his
message his little daughter, somewhat alarmed by the clamor and
the throng, ran from her mother to his side, and took hold of his
hand, which she held until a chair was placed for her, when she
sat down, seemingly assured that no harm could reach her.  When
the President had concluded he shook hands with his wife, and
afterward received the congratulations of many official and unofficial
persons, who crowded around and greeted him, before he could return
to his carriage and start, escorted as when he came, to the White
House.  The interest taken in this occasion by the President's old
comrades in arms was something wonderful.  Every soldier hailed
his election as a compliment to the army.

That night General Grant and wife attended the inauguration ball,
which was held in the north wing of the new Treasury Department,
then just completed.  There was a great crowd, and the single flight
of stairs proved insufficient for those who wished to pass up or
down, causing great dissatisfaction, especially on the part of
Horace Greeley and others, who found that the best hats and coats
had been taken from the improvised cloak-rooms early in the evening.

General Grant had kept the formation of his Cabinet a profound
secret, and their names were not known until he sent their nominations
to the Senate on the day after his inauguration.  The nomination
of Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, as Secretary of State, created
some surprise, as it had been understood that he was to be sent to
France as Minister Plenipotentiary.  It was soon known, however,
that Mr. Washburne only desired to preside over the Department of
State for a few days, ostensibly for the prestige it would give
him in diplomatic circles abroad, but really that he might appoint
some of his political henchmen to profitable consulates.  At the
end of six days' service, Mr. Hamilton Fish was nominated and
confirmed as his successor.  Mr. Fish was of orthodox Knickerbocker
stock, and the services of his father, Colonel Nicholas Fish, gave
him a hereditary right to belong to the Society of the Cincinnati,
over the central organization of which he presided as Captain-
General.  He had served acceptably in the United States Senate and
House of Representatives, and as a War Governor of the State of
New York he had displayed considerable executive talent.  He was
rather a large, British-looking man, with leg-of-mutton side-
whiskers, a stout nose, and a pleasant expression of countenance,
especially when he was chuckling over his success in humbugging
some verdant news-gatherer on diplomatic matters.

It was the especial social duty of Secretary Fish to entertain the
foreign diplomats in Washington, to settle their little disputes
on questions of etiquette, and to make them reasonably happy.
Every winter he dined and wined them, and, although his dining-room
in the Morgan House was of goodly size, he was forced to make a
three days' job of it.  So on Monday he had the Envoys Extraordinary,
on Tuesday the Ministers Resident, and on Wednesday the Chargè
d'Affaires, with a few personal friends to fill up the gaps.  The
Senate and House Foreign Committees were next entertained at dinner,
and then the leading members of either House expected to put their
Congressional legs under the Fish mahogany.  Meanwhile Mrs. and
Miss Fish had to go the grand rounds to leave their cards on the
wives and daughters of Senators and Representatives, and to be "at
home" every Wednesday to receive visits from them and the rest of
society in turn.

The Secretary of State is considered the "Premier" of the
Administration, but General Grant regarded the Secretaryship of
the Treasury as the most important position in his Cabinet.  The
Republic was at peace with other nations, and the military and
naval forces, which had grown to such enormous proportions during
the war, had been economically reduced, but the Treasury was an
immense, overgrown organization, with its collections of customs
and of internal revenue duties, its issues of interest-bearing
bonds and of national bank-notes, the coinage of money, the revenue
marine service, the coast survey, and the life-saving stations,
all of which had been expanded during the war until the clerks and
employees were numbered by thousands.  General Grant wished to
place at the head of this establishment a business man who could
prune off its excrescences and reform its abuses.  The place was
offered to the millionaire merchant, Mr. A. T. Stewart, of New
York, who accepted it with pleasure, and at once had a suite of
rooms in the Ebbitt House, with a private entrance, fitted up for
his occupancy until he could go to housekeeping.  A few days before
the 4th of March he came to Washington and occupied these rooms,
with Judge Hilton as his companion and adviser.

On the day after the inauguration Mr. Stewart was nominated by
General Grant, but Senator Sumner, who had not been consulted as
to the formation of the Cabinet, interposed his objection to the
immediate consideration of Mr. Stewart's nomination.  Late in the
afternoon of that day a rumor got abroad that there was a law,
understood really to have been written by Alexander Hamilton while
Secretary of the Treasury, prohibiting an importer in active business
from holding the position of Secretary of the Treasury.  A newspaper
correspondent obtained this law and carried to General Butterfield,
who conveyed it to Mr. Stewart and his legal adviser, Judge Hilton.
They consulted Chief Justice Chase, and he confirmed the view which
had been taken of the law by those who first brought it to Mr.
Stewart's attention.  Mr. Stewart then proposed to retire from
business and devote the entire profits that might accrue during
the time that he should hold the office of Secretary of the Treasury
to charitable objects.  But this was decided to be something which
would not be proper either for him to carry out or for the Government
to accept.

Immediately after seeing Chief Justice Chase, Mr. Stewart and Judge
Hilton drove to the White House, and laid the facts and the opinions
before the President, who, on the next day, wrote a message to the
Senate asking that the law of 1788 be set aside so as to enable
the candidate to hold the office.  This the Senate declined to do.
It was a very natural ambition for a man of Mr. Stewart's tastes
and training to desire to be at the head of the Treasury, and it
is not unlikely that the disappointment was a very severe one.
This was the beginning of the "unpleasantness" between President
Grant and Senator Sumner, which finally resulted in open rupture.

Disappointed in not having the services of Mr. Stewart, General
Grant appointed George S. Boutwell, ex-Governor of Massachusetts,
who had had great legislative experience, as Secretary of the
Treasury; General John A. Rawlins, who had been his chief of staff
and military adviser, was made Secretary of War; Adolph E. Borie,
a retired Philadelphia merchant, Secretary of the Navy; J. D. Cox,
an Ohio lawyer, with a good military record, Secretary of the
Interior; John A. J. Creswell, an ex-Senator from Maryland, Postmaster-
General, and Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, a gifted Massachusetts lawyer,
endowed with keen wit, but possessed of most unpopular manners,
Attorney-General.

The Cabinet was regarded as a strong one.  In Congress, Vice-
President Colfax presided over the Senate, and James G. Blaine was
Speaker of the House.  Every State was again represented, and the
Republican Administration had the support of a decided majority at
either end of the Capitol.  It was hoped by the Republicans that
their party was about to enter upon a new career of usefulness.

General Grant carried with him into the White House his army habits
of regularity and two of his staff officers, Generals Porter and
Babcock.  He used to rise in the morning about seven o'clock, read
the Washington papers, and breakfast at half-past eight with his
family.  He would then light a cigar and take a short stroll,
walking slowly, with his left hand behind him, and sometimes holding
his cigar in his right hand.  Ten o'clock found him in his office,
ready for the reception of visitors and the transaction of executive
business.  On Thursdays and Fridays the Cabinet met, and members
of Congress always had precedence over other visitors.  He would
listen attentively to all that was said to him by those who called,
but he was silent or non-committal in his replies.  As the day
advanced his secretaries would bring him letters which required
answers, and would receive instructions as to what replies should
be made.

At three o'clock the official business of the day was ended, and
General Grant almost invariably visited the White House stables,
for he was very fond of his horses.  Among them were "Cincinnatus,"
his dark bay charger; "St. Louis" and "Egypt," two carriage-horses
of fine action; a buggy horse named "Julia;" Master Jesse's Shetland
ponies, "Billy Button" and "Reb;" "Jeff Davis," a natural pacer;
"Mary," Miss Nellie's saddle-horse; "Jennie," a brood mare, and
three Hambletonian colts.  Five vehicles were in the carriage house
--a landau, a barouche, a light road-wagon, a top-buggy, and a pony-
phaeton for the children.

From the stable, if the weather was pleasant and the walking good,
General Grant would often take a stroll along the north sidewalk
of Pennsylvania Avenue, occasionally stopping to exchange a few
words with an old comrade.  He returned all salutations, as had
been his custom before becoming Chief Magistrate, and always lifted
his hat when bowing to lady acquaintances.

Dinner was served at the White House promptly at five o'clock, and
every member of the family was expected to be punctual.  General
Grant's favorite dishes were rare roast beef, boiled hominy, and
wheaten bread, but he was always a light eater.  Pleasant chat
enlivened the meal, with Master Jesse as the humorist, while Grandpa
Dent would occasionally indulge in some conservative growls against
the progress being made by the colored race.  After coffee, the
General would light another cigar and smoke while he glanced over
the New York papers.  About nine o'clock, a few chosen friends
would often call, sometimes by appointment, but business matters
were generally forbidden, and offices were not to be mentioned.
The children retired at nine o'clock, Mrs. Grant followed them
about ten, and between ten and eleven General Grant sought his
pillow.

[Facsimile]
  U. S. Grant
ULYSSES S. GRANT was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio,
April 27th, 1822; graduated from the Military Academy at West Point
in 1843, and was commissioned as a Brevet Second Lieutenant in the
Fourth United States Infantry; served in the Mexican war, receiving
the brevets of First Lieutenant and Captain; resigned his commission
in 1854; carried on a farm near St. Louis; was commissioned Colonel
of the Twenty-first Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, June 16th,
1861; was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, May 17th,
1861; of Major-General, February 17th, 1862; of Lieutenant-General,
March 1st, 1864, and as Commander of the Armies of the United
States, March 24th, 1864; received the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox Court-House, April 9th, 1865; was inaugurated as President
of the United States, March 4th, 1869; was again inaugurated March
4th, 1873; traveled around the world with his family, May 17th,
1877 - December 16th, 1879; died at Mount McGregor, July 23d, 1885,
and was buried in the city of New York.


CHAPTER XXIII.
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE METROPOLIS.

General Grant, soon after his election to the Presidential chair,
turned his attention to the improvement of the National Capital,
which was then unworthy of the American people.  The streets
generally were wagon tracks, muddy in the winter and dusty in the
summer, while the numerous public reservations were commons overgrown
with weeds.  The growth of the city had been slow and labored, the
real estate being generally in the hands of a few old fogies who
manifested no disposition to improve or to sell.  For many years
the metropolis had been petted and spoiled by the general Government,
which had doled out small annual appropriations, and the residents
had been exempted from many of the ordinary burdens of municipal
government and local improvement.

General Grant, with his great knowledge of men, found the right
person to place at the head of the regeneration of the city.  It
was Alexander R. Shepherd, a native of Washington, born poor and
without friends, who went from the public schools into the shop of
a gas-fitter and plumber, where he learned the trade and became,
in a short time, by honesty, industry, and ability, a leading
business man.  The Territorial Government was organized with Henry
D. Cooke, the banker, as Governor, a Legislature, and Delegate to
represent the District in Congress.  Shepherd, as Chairman of the
Board of Public Works, commenced with his immense energy and
invincible determination, to transform a slovenly and comfortless
sleepy old town into the great and beautiful metropolis which
L'Enfant had planned and which Washington approved before it received
his name.  The grandest systems of municipal improvement ever
conceived were carried out regardless of expense.  The whole city
was placed upon an even and regular grade, the low places filled
up, and the elevations cut down.  Some ninety miles of the three
hundred miles of half-made streets and avenues were graded and
paved, some with wood and others with asphaltum.  The public grounds
and parks were made and ornamented with grass plats, shrubbery,
and fountains, the sewerage and drainage were made perfect, and
health, beauty, and comfort were permanently secured.

Washington, thanks to Governor Shepherd (he having in time succeeded
Governor Cooke) became a metropolis worthy of the Republic.  By
reducing the width of the streets a front yard was given to each
house, planted with trees or flowers, and where the old canal yawned
through the heart of the city, a muddy receptacle for dead dogs
and filth, arose a broad avenue, while the small reservations dotted
over the city were graded and ornamented with trees, fountains,
and flowers.

All of this cost a great deal of money.  Congress appropriated five
million dollars in cash, and several millions more were raised on
bonds.  Much of this money was disbursed by Governor Shepherd, and
he undoubtedly was disposed to give profitable contracts to his
friends, and to the henchmen of those members of Congress whose
votes secured him liberal appropriations.  Newspaper correspondents
received in several instances contracts for paving, which they
disposed of to those engaged in that business, and realized handsome
sums, but close investigation failed to show that Governor Shepherd
had enriched himself or had added to the value of his own property
as distinguished from the property of others.  His ambition was
more than a merely selfish one, and it was shown clearly that his
ability was equaled by his honesty.  A few years later he became
financially embarrassed, and was forced to exile himself to Mexico,
hoping to repair in its silver mines his shattered fortune.  General
Grant never lost confidence in him, and as his improvements became
perfected, Alexander R. Shepherd was regarded as the regenerator
of the National Metropolis.

Another man who did much for the ornamentation of Washington City
was A. B. Mullett, the Supervising Architect of the Treasury.
After having finished that magnificent structure, the extended
Treasury Building, he planned and commenced the great State, War,
and Navy Building, the cost of which is about twelve millions of
dollars.  His professional advice was followed by Governor Shepherd,
and it is not altogether creditable to our institutions that after
having honestly disbursed millions on the public buildings in almost
every section of the country, as well as on those at Washington
City, Mr. Mullett was removed from his position on political grounds,
and was obliged, after having given the best years of his life to
his country, to commence anew the practice of his profession for
a livelihood.

General Grant was much embarrassed early in his Presidential career
by the attempts of some of those around him to engage in speculations
for their private benefit.  Always willing to bestow offices, or
to dispense profitable favors to his numerous relatives by blood
and by marriage, and to advance the interests of those who had
served him faithfully during the war, he could not understand the
desperate intrigues which speculation had led some of them into.
Among his protégés was Abel R. Corbin, who had been known at
Washington as the clerk of a House committee, a correspondent, and
a lobbyist, and who had afterward removed to New York, where he
had added to his means by successful speculation.  Marrying General
Grant's sister, who was somewhat advanced in years, he conceived
the idea of using his brother-in-law for a gigantic speculation in
gold, and in order to obtain the requisite capital entered into a
partnership with Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr.  By adroit management,
these operators held on the first of September, 1869, "calls" for
one hundred million dollars of gold, and as there were not more
than fifteen millions of the precious metal in New York outside of
the Sub-Treasury, they were masters of the situation.  The only
obstacle in the way of their triumphant success would be the sale
of gold from the Sub-Treasury at a moderate price, by direction of
General Grant.  Corbin assured his co-conspirators that he could
prevent this interference, and wrote a letter to the President
urging him not to order or permit sales from the Sub-Treasury.  He
ostensibly sent this letter by special messenger, but, in fact,
substituted for it an ordinary letter on family matters.  General
Grant's suspicions were aroused by the receipt of this unimportant
epistle, and at his request Mrs. Grant wrote to Mrs. Corbin, saying
that the General had learned with regret that her husband was
engaged in gold speculations, and he had better give them up.

General Grant returned to Washington on the 23d of September, 1869.
The next day, "Black Friday," the conspirators put up the price of
gold, and a wild panic ensured.  Leading men of all parties in the
city of New York telegraphed the President and the Secretary of
the Treasury, urging their interference as the only way of preventing
a financial crash, which would have extended over the whole country.
About eleven o'clock Secretary Boutwell went to the White House,
and after a brief conference General Grant expressed his wish that
the desired relief should be given, and Secretary Boutwell promptly
telegraphed to Sub-Treasurer Butterfield, at New York, to give
notice that he would sell four millions of gold.  This collapsed
the speculation.  "I knew," said Jim Fisk, afterward, "that somebody
had run a sword right into us."  It was not without difficulty that
Corbin, Gould, and Fisk escaped from the fury of their victims.
The conspiracy was subsequently investigated by a committee of the
House of Representatives, and a report was made by James A. Garfield,
completely exonerating General Grant, and declaring that by laying
the strong hand of Government upon the conspirators and breaking
their power he had treated them as enemies of the credit and business
of the Union.

General Grant was known to advocate the speediest practical return
to specie payment, but the Supreme Court of the United States
changed the current of financial operations by declaring that the
act of Congress of 1864, making "greenback" notes a legal tender,
was unconstitutional.  It is a curious fact, that while the community
every now and then is thrown into a condition of great excitement
about political rights and duties, and about who shall be President
and who member of Congress, nine elderly gentlemen, wearing silk
gowns, sitting in a quiet room in the Capitol, are deciding questions
of direct and immediate political concern, taking laws from the
statute books, and nullifying the action of the executive and
legislative departments of the Government, yet not one in a thousand
of the busy, restless citizens of the country knows or cares what
the decisions of this arch-tribunal are.

This high tribunal holds its sessions in the chamber of the Capitol
which was originally constructed for and occupied by the Senate of
the United States.  The Supreme Court began its sessions here in
1860.  The Court is in session from the second Monday in October
to early in May of each year.  It usually sits five days each week,
reserving Saturday for consultations on the cases in hand.  Positions
on this bench are deemed eminently desirable, as they are for life,
or "during good behavior."  The salaries are not to be despised
either, being ten thousand dollars each per annum, with an additional
five hundred dollars to the Chief Justice.

The Credit Mobilier made a deal of talk, although comparatively
few people knew what it really was.  Under various acts of Congress
granting aid to the Union Pacific Railroad, that corporation was
to receive twelve thousand eight hundred acres of land to the mile,
or about twelve million acres in all, and Government six per cent.
bonds to the amount of twelve thousand dollars per mile for one
portion of the road, thirty-two thousand dollars per mile for
another portion, and forty-eight thousand dollars per mile for
another.  In addition to these subsidies, the company was authorized
to issue its own first mortgage bonds to an amount equal to the
Government bonds, and to organize with a capital stock not to exceed
one hundred million dollars.  All this constituted a magnificent
fund, and it soon became evident that the road could be built for
at least twenty million dollars less than the resources thus
furnished.  Of course, the honest way would have been to build the
road as economically as possible, and give the Government the
benefit of the saving, but this was not thought of.  The directors
set themselves at work to concoct a plan by which they could
appropriate the whole amount, and, after building the road, divide
the large surplus among themselves.  The plan hit upon was for the
directors to become contractors, in other words, to hire themselves
to build the road.  To consummate this fraud without exciting public
attention, and to cover all traces of the transaction, was no easy
matter, but the directors employed an eminent attorney skilled in
the intricacies of railroad fraud, and with his aid and advice the
machinery for the transaction was finally arranged to the satisfaction
of all concerned.  This attorney was Samuel J. Tilden.

In order to avoid personal liability and give their movement the
semblance of legality, the directors purchased the charter of the
"Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency," and changed its name to the "Credit
Mobilier of America."  At this time (1864) two million dollars of
stock had been subscribed to the railroad company, and two hundred
and eighteen thousand dollars paid in.  Samuel J. Tilden had
subscribed twenty thousand dollars.  The first thing the Credit
Mobilier did was to buy in all of this stock and bring the railroad
company and Credit Mobilier under one management and the same set
of officers.  Then the directors of the railroad company, through
certain middle-men, awarded the contract for building the road to
the Credit Mobilier, in other words, to themselves, for from twenty
thousand dollars to thirty thousand dollars per mile more than it
was worth.  Evidence which afterward came to light in the Congressional
investigations showed that the Credit Mobilier made a cash profit
in the transaction of over twenty-three million dollars, besides
gobbling up the stock of the road at thirty cents on the dollar,
when the law plainly provided that it should not be issued at less
than par.

Oakes Ames, a sturdy Massachusetts mechanic, who had acquired a
fortune by the manufacture of shovels, had been persuaded to embark
in the construction of the Pacific Railroad.  Finding legislation
necessary, and knowing how difficult it was to secure the attention
of Congressmen to schemes which did not benefit them or their
constituents, he distributed shares of this Credit Mobilier, to
use his own words, "where it would do the most good."  Some of the
recipients kept it and pocketed the profits, while others endeavored
to get rid of it when public attention was called to it, and they
ungratefully tried to make Mr. Ames their scapegoat.

[Facsimile]
  James Monroe
JAMES MONROE was born in Westmoreland County, Va., April 28th,
1758; served honorably in the Revolution; entered the Virginia
Legislature when twenty-three years of age; entered Congress when
twenty-four; chosen United States Senator, 1789; was Minister to
France, 1794-1796; was Governor of Virginia, 1799-1802; re-elected
Governor in 1811; resigned and became Secretary of State under
Madison, 1811-1817; was President of the United States, 1817-1825;
died July 4th, 1831, in New York.


CHAPTER XXIV.
RESTORATION OF THE UNION.

The Southern States had again returned to their allegiance, and in
the third session of the Forty-first Congress every State in the
Union was represented.  Vice-President Colfax presided over sixty-
one Republican and thirteen Democratic Senators, and Speaker Blaine
over one hundred and seventy-two Republican and seventy-one Democratic
Representatives.  The Republican party had preserved the Union,
conquered peace, and was at the height of its power.  The "carpet-
baggers" from the South were gradually being replaced by ante-bellum
politicians and "Southern brigadiers."  Many Northern men regretted
that the North had not sent more of its heroes to Congress, feeling
that men who had honorably faced each other on hard-fought battle-
fields would have a mutual respect and a mutual desire to co-operate
together for the national welfare.

It soon became evident, however, that the Southern Democrats were
about to exercise an important influence in national politics, that
they possessed in common some very clearly defined purposes, and
that they were not likely to permit their allegiance to their party
to interfere with their efforts to obtain what they called "justice
for the South."  They went in without reserve for the old flag,
but they also went in for an appropriation--in fact, several
appropriations.  They honestly thought that they were only asking
simple justice in demanding that the Government should spend nearly
as much for the development of their material resources as it did
for the suppression of the Rebellion.  All their cherished ideas
of State Rights vanished when money was to be expended at the South,
and the honesty of their intentions made their influence far more
to be dreaded than that of adepts in legislative corruption, who
are always distrusted.

The number of Southern Representatives was greatly increased by
that change in the Constitution which abolished the fractional
representation of colored people and made all men equal.  It soon
became evident, too, that the whites were determined, by a well-
disciplined legion, known as the Ku-Klux Klan, whose members
pretended to be the ghosts of the Confederate dead, to intimidate
the colored voters, and intimidation was often supplemented by
violence and murder.  The grossest outrages by this secret body
went unpunished and Congress finally passed a law which enabled
the President to eradicate the evil.

The "Joint High Commission," for the adjustment of all causes of
difference between the United States and Great Britain, including
the depredations of Rebel cruisers fitted out in British ports and
the disputed fisheries in North American waters, assembled in
Washington in the spring of 1871.  The "High Joints," as they were
familiarly termed, took the furnished house of Mr. Philp, on Franklin
Square, where they gave a series of dinner-parties, with several
evening entertainments.  In return numerous entertainments were
given to them, including a banquet by the leading Freemasons in
Washington, some of them members of Congress, to the Earl De Gray
(then Grand Master of Masons in England), and Lord Tenterden, who
was also a prominent member of the fraternity.

There are good reasons for believing that the British were induced
to gracefully make the concessions involved in the Alabama treaty
by the knowledge that General Grant had taken into consideration
the expediency of seizing Canada as a compensation for damages
inflicted upon the United States ships by Confederate cruisers
fitted out in English ports.  This was a favorite idea of General
John A. Rawlins, who was the brain of General Grant's staff and
his Secretary of War until death removed him.  General Rawlins was
in full accord with the hope that Stephen A. Douglas's aspirations
for an ocean-bound Republic might be realized, and it was understood
that he was warmly seconded by General Pryor, of Virginia, ex-
Lieutenant Governor Reynolds, of Missouri, and others.

The treaty was indirectly opposed by Monsieur de Catacazy, the
Minister Plenipotentiary of the Emperor of Russia to the United
States, who endeavored to prejudice Senators against its ratification,
and inspired the correspondent of a New York paper to write against
it.  This prompted Secretary Fish to request the Minister's recall,
and there was also much scandal circulated by Madame de Catacazy,
a beautiful woman, who had been at Washington--so the gossips say
--fifteen years before, when she had eloped from her husband under
the protection of Monsieur de Catacazy, then Secretary of the
Russian Legation.  The Emperor of Russia, on receiving complaint
against his Envoy, directed the Minister of Foreign Affairs to ask
in his name that the President "would tolerate Monsieur de Catacazy
until the coming visit of his third son, the Grand Duke Alexis,
was concluded."  To this personal appeal General Grant assented.

The Grand Duke soon afterward arrived at Washington, and was welcomed
at the Russian Legation by Madame de Catacazy, who wore a dress of
gold-colored silk, with a flowing train, elaborately trimmed with
gold-colored satin.  On her right arm she wore a double bracelet,
one band being on the wrist and the other above the elbow, the two
joined together by elaborately wrought chains.  Her other ornaments
were of plain gold, and above them was a wealth of golden hair.
As the Grand Duke entered the Legation, Madame de Catacazy carried
a silver salver, on which was placed a round loaf of plain black
bread, on the top of which was imbedded a golden salt-cellar.  The
Prince took the uninviting loaf, broke and tasted of it, in accordance
with the old Russian custom.

The Grand Duke was cordially welcomed at the White House, but
Monsieur de Catacazy was treated with studied coolness.  It was
openly intimated that there was a little Frenchwoman at Washington,
young, sprightly, and accomplished, who had won the way into the
Catacazy's household through the sympathies of its handsome mistress.
She was made a companion of, advised with, and intrusted with
whatever the house or Legation contained, confidential and otherwise.
All the public or private letters, papers, and despatches passed
under they eyes of this bright little woman, all that was said went
into her sharp ears, and every day she made a written report of
what she had heard and seen, which was privately sent to the
Department of State, and for which she was handsomely remunerated
from the Secret Service Fund.

Charles Sumner purchased (before it was completed) an elegant
dwelling-house between the Arlington Hotel and Lafayette Square,
but when he occupied it at the commencement of the next session,
he was alone.  The energetic reporters at once began to intimate
that the Senator's marriage had not been a happy one, and from that
time until the great Senator passed over the dark river this painful
subject was, as it were, a base of supplies from which a great
variety of theories were drawn and sustained.  One was sure that
the attentions of a diplomat had troubled the Senator, another
declared that he was too arrogant, another that he was too exacting
--in short, there was not an editorial paragraphist who did not
sooner or later give a conjectural solution of Mr. Sumner's domestic
infelicity.  They were divorced, and he lived alone for several
years in his sumptuous house, which he adorned with superb works
of art.  Here he hospitably entertained personal friends and
distinguished strangers.  Unforgiving and implacable, his smile
grew sadder, the furrows on his face deepened, and he lost his
former _bonhomie_.  He was a Prometheus Vinctus, bound to the
desolate rock of a wrecked life, but heroically refraining from
revenging his great wrong by attacking a woman.

General Grant's difficulty with Mr. Sumner began when the President
did not consult the Senator about the formation of his Cabinet.
The breach was gradually widened, and thorough it the Senator
finally became completely estranged from his old friend and associate
in the Senate, Secretary Fish.  When Mr. Motley was removed from
the English mission, Mr. Sumner insisted upon regarding it as a
personal insult, which he sought to repay by opposition to the
acquisition of San Domingo.  General Grant endeavored to appease
the offended Senator, and on the evening of the day on which the
San Domingo treaty was to be sent to the Senate he called at Mr.
Sumner's house.  General Grant found the Senator at his dinner-
table with Colonel Forney and the writer, and was invited to take
a seat with them.  After some preliminary conversation, General
Grant began to talk about San Domingo, but he did not have the
treaty or any memorandum of it with him.  He dwelt especially upon
the expenditures of General Babcock at San Domingo of a large sum
taken from the secret service fund for promoting intercourse with
the West India Islands, which Mr. Seward, when Secretary of State,
had prevailed on Representative Thad Stevens to have inserted in
an appropriation bill during the war.  The President impressed Mr.
Sumner with the idea that he looked for an attack in Congress on
the manner in which much of that money had been spent.  Mr. Sumner
unquestionably thought that General Grant had come to enlist his
services in defending the expenditure by General Babcock of one
hundred thousand dollars in cash, and fifty thousand dollars for
a light battery purchased at New York.  The President meant, as
Colonel Forney and the writer thought, the treaty for the acquisition
of the Dominican Republic.  The President and the Senator misunderstood
each other.  After awhile General Grant promised to send General
Babcock to the Senator the next day with copies of the papers, and
then left.  While escorting the President to the door, Mr. Sumner
assured him that he was a Republican and a supporter of the Republican
Administration, and that he should sustain the Administration in
this case if he possibly could, after he had examined the papers.
He meant the expenditure of General Babcock, but the President
meant the treaty.

The next morning General Babcock called on Senator Sumner with a
copy of the treaty, which he began to read, but he had not gotten
beyond the preamble, in which Babcock was styled "aid-de-camp of
His Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant," before Mr. Sumner showed
signs of disapprobation.  When General Babcock proceeded and read
the stipulation that "His Excellency General Grant, President of
the United States, promises perfectly to use all his influence in
order that the idea of annexing the Dominican Republic to the United
States may acquire such a degree of popularity among the members
of Congress as will be necessary for its accomplishment," Senator
Sumner became the enemy of the whole scheme.  He did not believe
that the President of the United States should be made a lobbyist
to bring about annexation by Congress.  Some of Mr. Sumner's friends
used to tell him that he should have gone at once to General Grant
and have told him of his purpose to oppose the treaty, and that he
had declared his hostility to it to General Babcock in unmistakable
terms.

This was the time when well-meaning friends of both of these great
men might have secured satisfactory mutual explanation, although
no living power could have made Senator Sumner a supporter of the
acquisition of the port of Samana in San Domingo.  In the Senate
sycophants who "carried water on both shoulders," and men who always
delight in fomenting quarrels, embittered Mr. Sumner against the
President.  One had served his country well in the camp, while the
other had performed equally valuable services in the Senate; one
was a statesman, the other was a soldier.  What did not appear to
be wrong to the General, the Senator regarded as criminal.  Conscious
of the value of his services in saving the Union, General Grant
accepted with gratitude the voluntary offerings of grateful citizens;
but Senator Sumner, who had seen so much of political life and of
politicians, knew too well that those who make gifts to public men
expect favors in return, and that every public man should be
inflexibly opposed to the reception of presents.  Remarks by him
about the President, and remarks by the President about him were
carried to and fro by mischief-makers, like the shuttle of a loom,
and Mr. Sumner directly found himself placed at the head of a clique
of disappointed Republicans, who were determined to prevent, if
possible, the re-election of General Grant to the Presidency.

Henry Wilson, when Vice-President of the United States, endeavored
to restore harmony, and said, in a letter to General Grant:  "Your
Administration is menaced by great opposition, and it must needs
possess a unity among the people and in Congress.  The head of a
great party, the President of the United States has much to forget
and forgive, but he can afford to be magnanimous and forgiving.
I want to see the President and Congress in harmony and the Republican
party united and victorious.  To accomplish this, we must all be
just, charitable, and forgiving."

[Facsimile]
  SchuylerColfax
SCHUYLER COLFAX was born at New York City March 23d, 1823; was a
Representative from Indiana, 1855-1869, serving as Speaker of the
House of Representatives six years; was elected Vice-President of
the United States on the ticket with General Grant, serving 1869-
1873, and died at Mankato, Minnesota, January 13th, 1885.


CHAPTER XXV.
INTRIGUES AND INTRIGUERS.

General Grant, when elected President of the United States, had
endeavored to elevate his views beyond the narrow sphere of party
influences, and had consolidated in his own mind a scheme of policy
which he had before shadowed out for the complete reconstruction
of the Union, and for the reform of abuses which had crept into
the Federal Government during the war.  The qualities which insured
his success as a soldier had not enabled him to succeed as a
statesman, but he displayed the same fortitude under apparent
disaster and courage at unexpected crises when he found himself
again passing "the wilderness," darkened, not with the smoke of
battle, but with detraction and denunciation.  Again, in the old
spirit he exclaimed, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes
all summer."

The opposition to General Grant's re-election was hydra-headed,
and no less than seven candidates were in the field against him.
The contest of 1824 had been called "the scrub-race for the
Presidency," and to that of 1872 was given the name of "Go as you
please."  The watchword of the factions was "Anything to beat
Grant;" their points of union were the greed of office and the
thirst for revenge.

The only serious opposition to General Grant was that of the combined
Liberal Republican and Democratic parties, which nominated as their
candidate Horace Greeley.  It was deeply to be regretted that
political ambition tempted the only equal of "Benjamin Franklin,
journeyman printer," to become a politician.  Better informed than
any other man on American politics, courageous, free from small
vices, and the embodiment of common sense and justice, with a kind
and charitable heart, he was a man of the people and for the people.
He was made supremely ridiculous by Nast's caricatures, and by his
own record as collated from the files of the great newspaper which
he had founded and continued to edit.

Mr. Greeley, after his double nomination at Cincinnati and at
Baltimore, showed that he was not content with being a "good printer,
a respectable publisher, and an honest editor," which he had
previously avowed was the height of his ambition.  The unnatural
political alliance with those whom he had denounced for a quarter
of a century led him into all sorts of inconsistencies and
contradictions, and displayed his insatiable thirst for public
office.  All the sympathies of the Democratic party had been his
antipathies, all their hates his loves, and many of their leaders
spoke of him publicly with contempt.  Indeed, his campaign would
have been a farce had not his untimely death made it a tragedy.
Ridicule killed him politically, and his political failure was the
immediate cause of his sad physical death.

Senator Sumner, endeavoring with the aid of Senator Schurz to
connect General Grant or some of the officers near him with the
French "arms scandal," prepared with great care, and read in the
Senate on the 31st of May, 1872, a fierce philippic against the
President.  Ancient and modern history had been ransacked for
precedents, which were quoted and then applied to General Grant,
to show his unworthiness, his incompetency, his nepotism, and his
ambition.  The long tirade was an erudite exhibition of most intense
partisanship, having as a motto from Shakespeare, "We will have
rings and things and fine array."  A few weeks later Mr. Sumner
sailed for Europe, and did not return until after the election.

At the Republican National Convention, which was held at Philadelphia,
on Wednesday, the 5th of June, 1872, General Grant was renominated
by acclamation as President and Henry Wilson as Vice-President.
The defeat of Mr. Colfax for renomination was attributable to the
bitter hostility of some of the Washington newspaper correspondents,
and to the free use of money among the delegates from the Southern
States, under the pretense that it was to be used for the establishment
of newspapers and for campaign expenses.  Mr. Wilson had sent from
Washington all the money that he could raise, and he had been
liberally aided by Mr. Buffington, of Massachusetts.

Mr. Colfax was badly served by his own immediate friends and
advocates.  The Indiana delegation were at first quite immoderate
in their mode of demanding their favorite statesman's renomination.
One gentleman, himself an editor, was especially bitter at the
activity of Mr. Wilson's newspaper friends, and declared he would
mark them all in his paper.  Such declarations made what begun in
good feeling toward Mr. Wilson, and a considerable share of a fun-
loving spirit, a strong and determined contest.  Then in the New
York and other delegations there were gentlemen who represented
large employing and moneyed interests, as Mr. Orton, of the Western
Union Telegraph Company, Mr. Shoemaker, of Adams Express, and Mr.
Franchot, familiarly known as "Goat Island Dick," the principal
attorney of the California Central Pacific for legislative favors
from Congress.  These and other gentlemen identified with great
corporate interests were at first even bitterly hostile to Mr.
Wilson's candidacy, and to the last urged that of Mr. Colfax.
There was considerable fun in the conflict, which was, in the main,
conducted with good-nature on both sides.  Mr. Colfax was by no
means without newspaper friends.  Mr. Bowles, though a Greeley man,
did him quiet but continuous service.  Messrs. Jones and Jennings,
of the New York _Times_, were present, and were understood to have
exerted themselves for the Vice-President's renomination.  Mr.
Holloway, of the Indianapolis _Journal_, was very active.  Colonel
Forney pronounced for Mr. Colfax through the _Press_, though his
son, the managing editor, shared in the good feeling of the Washington
correspondents toward the Senator.

The campaign was a very earnest one, and every citizen had to listen
to campaign speeches, attend ward meetings and conventions, subscribe
for the expenses of torchlight processions, if he did not march
therein, and thus fortify his intellect and strengthen his conscience
for the quadrennial tilt with his friends over the relative merits
of candidates and the proper elucidation of issues involved.  For
the first time civil-service reform was advocated by the Republicans,
in accordance with the recommendations of General Grant in his
message, and was opposed by those who (to paraphrase Brinsley
Sheridan) believed that "there is no more conscience in politics
than in gallantry."

When Congress met in December, 1872, General Grant made the gratifying
announcement that the differences between the United States and
Great Britain had been settled by the tribunal of arbitration,
which had met at Geneva, in a manner entirely satisfactory to the
Government of the United States.  He also congratulated the country
on the coming Centennial celebration at Philadelphia, the completion
of the ninth census, the successful working of the Bureau of
Education, the operations of the Department of Agriculture, and
the civil-service reform which Congress had been so reluctant to
consider.

The New Year's reception at the commencement of 1873 was a crowded
affair.  Mrs. Grant wore a dress of pearl-gray silk, flounced and
trimmed with silk of a darker hue and with point lace.  Mrs. Fish
wore an elaborately trimmed dress of Nile-green silk, and was
accompanied by her young daughter, in blue silk.  Mrs. Boutwell
wore a black velvet dress trimmed with white lace, and her daughter
a pale-blue silk dress trimmed with black lace, and Mrs. Attorney-
General Williams wore a dress of Nile-green silk, trimmed with
Valenciennes lace.  Lady Thornton wore a dress of royal purple
velvet, elegantly trimmed, and the bride of the Minister from
Ecuador wore a dress of sage-green silk, with a sleeveless velvet
jacket, and a velvet hat of the same shade.

The army, the navy, the Diplomatic Corps, and the judiciary were
out in full force.  There were nice people, questionable people,
and people who were not nice at all in the crowd.  Every state,
every age, every social class, both sexes, and all human colors
were represented.  There were wealthy bankers, and a poor, blind,
black beggar led by a boy; men in broadcloth and men in homespun;
men with beards and men without beards; members of the press and
of the lobby; contractors and claim agents; office-holders and
office-seekers; there were ladies from Paris in elegant attire,
and ladies from the interior in calico; ladies whose cheeks were
tinged with rouge, and others whose faces were weather-bronzed by
out-door work; ladies as lovely as Eve, and others as naughty as
Mary Magdalene; ladies in diamonds, and others in dollar jewelry;
chambermaids elbowed countesses, and all enjoyed themselves.  After
the official reception at the White House the Secretaries and other
dignitaries hurried to their respective homes, there in their turn
to receive visits.  The foreign diplomats did not receive, but with
the army and navy men and the citizens "generally" went "the grand
rounds."  The older citizens had hospitable spreads, including hot
canvas-back ducks, terrapin, and well-filled punch-bowls, and
veteran callers got in the work as ususal, but at most houses
intoxicating drinks were dispensed with, and there were no such
exhibitions of drunkenness as had disgraced former years.

Senator Sumner, who had left the Presidential contest and gone to
Europe returned to his Senatorial duties and "accepted the situation."
Early in the session he introduced a bill prohibiting the future
publication of names of Union victories in the Army Register or
their inscription on the regimental colors of the army.  This step
toward an oblivion of past difficulties was highly acceptable to
General Grant, who conveyed to Mr. Sumner his appreciation of the
olive branch thus extended.  Others were not disposed to regard
his movement with a friendly eye, and the Legislature of Massachusetts
passed a resolution censuring him.

Mr. Sumner survived a few months only, when, after a very brief
illness, he died at his house in Washington.  When he was gone,
men of all political parties joined heartily in eulogizing the
deceased statesman.  A mourning nation paid homage to his pure
heart, to his sense of duty and right, to his courageous willingness
to bear obloquy, to his unwearied industry--in short, to that rare
union of qualities which impart such grandeur to his memory.  Even
the jealousies and schemes of the living were restrained, as the
second-rate heroes of ancient days postponed their contest for the
armor of Achilles until last honors had been paid to the memory of
the illustrious departed.  In Doric Hall in the State House at
Boston his remains finally lay in state amid a lavish display of
floral tokens, which were sent from all classes and localities,
Massachusetts thus emphatically indorsing her son, whom she had so
lately censured.

Senator Sumner left behind him a few printed copies of a speech
which he had prepared for delivery in the Senate before the then
recent Presidential election, each copy inscribed in his own
handwriting, "private and confidential."  He had written it when
inspired with the belief that with the Administration he was a
proscribed man; but his friends convinced him that it would not be
best for him to throw down this gauntlet of defiance.  He had,
therefore, decided not to make public the indictment which he had
prepared, and the few copies of it which had been given to friends
was not, as was asserted, the report of a "posthumous speech."
Its publication after his death by those to whom copies had been
intrusted in confidence was an unpardonable breach of trust.

The great Massachusetts Senator had for years stood before the
country with a strong individuality which had separated him from
the machine politicians, and placed him among the statesmen of the
Republic.  Before the roll of the Northern drums was heard in the
South, he had defiantly denounced the slave-holders in the Capitol,
and when the thunder of artillery drowned the voice of oratory, he
earnestly labored to have the war overthrow and eradicate slavery.
Just as his hopes were realized, and as he was battling for civil
rights for the enfranchised race, his life, for which his friends
anticipated a long twilight, was unexpectedly brought to a close.
Yet there is something so melancholy in the slow decline of great
mental powers, that those who loved him the best felt a sort of
relief that he had suddenly thrown off his load of domestic sorrow
and passed across the dark stream into the unknown land while still
in the possession of his energies.

[Facsimile]
  Yours truly
  H. Wilson
HENRY WILSON, born at Framington, N. H., February 16th, 1812; member
Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1840, and served four years
in the State Senate, being twice its presiding officer; United
States Senator, 1855-1871; Vice-President, March 4th, 1873 - November
22d, 1875, when he died.


CHAPTER XXVI.
A NEW TERM BEGUN.

General Grant's second inauguration on Tuesday, March 4th, 1873,
was shorn of its splendor by the intense cold weather.  The wind
blew in a perfect gale from the southwest, sweeping away the flags
and other decorations from private houses and making it very
disagreeable for the, nevertheless, large crowds of spectators.
When the procession started from the White House, so intense was
the cold that the breath of the musicians condensed in the valves
of their instruments, rendering it impossible for them to play,
and many of the cadets and soldiers had to leave the ranks half
frozen, while the customary crowds of civilians were completely
routed by the cutting blasts.  The procession was headed by the
regulars, followed by a battalion of half frozen West Point cadets
in their light gray parade uniforms, and another of midshipmen from
the Annapolis Naval School in dark blue.  A division of gayly
uniformed citizen-soldiers followed, including the Boston Lancers
in their scarlet coats, with pennons fluttering from their lances,
and the First Troop of the Philadelphia City Cavalry, which had
escorted almost every preceding President, and which carried its
historic flag, which was the first bearing thirteen stripes, and
which was presented to the Troop in 1775.

General Grant, with a member of the Congressional Committee, rode
in his own open barouche, drawn by four bay horses.  In the next
carriage was Henry Wilson, Vice-President, escorted by another
member of the Committee, and the President's family followed.
After the military came political clubs in citizens' attire, with
bands and banners, the Washington Fire Department bringing up the
rear.

Meanwhile the Senate had closed the labors of the Forty-second
Congress, and chairs were placed in the chamber for the dignitaries,
who soon began to arrive.  The members of the Diplomatic Corps wore
their court dresses and were resplendent with gold lace and
embroidery.  Chief Justice Chase, who came in at the head of the
Supreme Court, looked well, although strangely changed by his full
gray beard, which concealed all the lines of his face.  General
Sherman had been persuaded by his staff to appear in the new uniform
of his rank, but, to their disgust, he wore with it a pair of bright
yellow kid gloves.  There were other high officers of the army and
navy, with the heads of the executive departments, on the floor of
the Senate, and the members of the defunct House of Representatives,
who came trooping in after their adjournment, formed a background
for the scene.

At twelve o'clock, Vice-President Colfax delivered a brief valedictory
address, and then Henry Wilson, Vice-President-elect, delivered
his salutatory, took the prescribed oath, and swore in the Senators-
elect.  A procession was then formed, which slowly wended its way
through the rotunda to the customary platform over the steps of
the eastern portico.  When General Grant appeared hearty cheers
were given by the vast crowd, estimated at not less then twenty
thousand in number, packed behind the military escort on the plaza
before the Capitol.  Chief Justice Chase again administered the
oath of office, and the President advanced, uncovered, to the front
of the platform, and read his re-inaugural address.  The wind blew
a tempest at times, nearly wrenching the manuscript from his hands.
No sooner had he finished reading than the salute from a neighboring
light battery was echoed by the guns in the Navy Yard, the Arsenal,
and at two or three forts on the Virginia side of the Potomac,
which had not yet been dismantled.  Before the echoes of the salutes
had fairly died away, the procession started to escort President
Grant back to the White House, the bleak wind making nearly every
one tremble and shiver.

The city was illuminated in the early evening, and the new wooden
pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue, cleared of all vehicles by the
police, was covered by the throng of shivering men, women, and
children.  The light in the tholus over the great dome of the
Capitol shone like a beacon far above the rows of colored lanterns
which were hung in festoons from the trees among the sidewalks.
Calcium lights added to the brilliancy of the scene, and many
private houses and stores were illuminated with gas or candles.
At nine o'clock there was a display of fireworks on the park south
of the White House, the rockets shooting comet-like across the
clear, star-dotted sky, dropping showers of colored fire in their
flight.  All the while the wind blew fiercely, and the cold was
intensified, but the crowd seemed oblivious to the wintry blast.

At the inauguration ball, held in an immense temporary building,
which had no heating apparatus, the ladies were compelled to wear
their wrappings, and the gentlemen kept on their overcoats and hats
as they endeavored to keep warm by vigorous dancing.  Mrs. Grant,
who wore a white silk dress trimmed with black Chantilly lace,
shivered as she stood by the side of her husband on the dais, and
the members and the ladies of the Diplomatic Corps remained but a
few moments.  The supper, which had been prepared at a large expense,
was emphatically a cold repast.  The ornamental devices in ice-
cream were frozen into solid chunks, and the champagne and punch
were forsaken for hot coffee and chocolate, the only things warm
in the building.  The guests, each one of whom had paid twenty
dollars for a ticket, were frozen out before midnight.

Chief Justice Chase never appeared in public after this inauguration,
but died on the 7th of May following.  An effort was made to have
Justice Miller promoted, but President Grant positively declined
doing so, on the ground that to raise any Associate Justice over
his brothers would be to deepen jealousies not wholly invisible
there, so he tendered the important position to Roscoe Conkling,
then a United States Senator from New York, whose great intellectual
powers especially qualified him to be the successor of Marshall
and of Taney.  Some of Mr. Conkling's friends urged him to accept
the place, while others, who desired to see him President of the
United States, prevailed on him to remain in political life and to
decline the President's offer.  General Grant then nominated as
Chief Justice his Attorney-General, George H. Williams, of Oregon,
but this awakened the jealousies of Justice Miller, whose son-in-
law, Colonel Corkhill, commenced a vigorous attack upon the nomination
in the Washington _Chronicle_, which he then edited.  There were
also some grave scandals in Washington society about a number of
anonymous letters which had been written, it was intimated, by Mrs.
Williams.  When the Senate met it soon became apparent that the
nomination of Mr. Williams could not be confirmed, and it was
withdrawn at his own request.  Having come to him without his own
agency, he lost nothing in letting it go except some unpleasant
experiences.

The President then nominated Caleb Cushing, who was more objectionable
to the Court than Mr. Williams had been.  The _Chronicle_ boiled
with rage, and other journals admitted that even if Mr. Cushing
had caught the spirit of the age and taken a long stride out of
his old errors of opinion, he was not a man to be placed on the
bench of the Supreme Court, when full civil rights had not been
accorded to the negro and many important questions connected with
the war had not been settled.  On the other hand, Senators Sumner
and Boutwell, of Massachusetts, vouched for Mr. Cushing's Republican
record, and his loyalty and soundness on the measures of the war
and reconstruction.  He would have been confirmed beyond doubt had
it not been for a letter written by him at the breaking out of the
Rebellion, to Jefferson Davis, commending a clerk in the Attorney-
General's office, who considered it his duty to join his relatives
at the South, for a position in the Confederate civil service.
The publication of this letter, which really contained nothing
objectionable beyond the fact that Mr. Cushing had recommended a
faithful clerk to an old personal friend as an honest and industrious
man, was made the most of.  It was published by Colonel Corkhill
in large type with flaming headlines, as evidence of a secret
understanding between Mr. Cushing and the leader of the Rebellion.
Senator Sargent, who was hostile to Mr. Cushing, his townsman, read
this letter in a Republican caucus, and it fell upon the Senators
assembled like a heavy clap of thunder, while Senator Brownlow
(more extensively known as Parson Brownlow) keenly said that he
thought the caucus had better adjourn, convene the Senate in open
session, and remove Mr. Cushing's political disabilities.  Mr.
Cushing, learning what had transpired, immediately wrote a letter
to the President requesting him to withdraw his nomination.  In
this letter he reviewed his acts since the commencement of the war
and declared, in conclusion, that whatever might have been said,
either honestly or maliciously, to his prejudice, it was his right
to reaffirm that he had "never done an act, uttered a word, or
conceived a thought of disloyalty to the Constitution or the Union."
The President next nominated Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio, who had
been connected with the Alabama Claims Conference at Geneva, and
who was a men of eminent legal abilities, conscientious, and of
great purity of character.  No objection could be offered to the
confirmation of his nomination, and it was unanimously made.

Mr. Edwin M. Stanton had previously been appointed a Justice of
the Supreme Court through the exertions of Senator Wade, of Ohio.
"The War Secretary" had left the department over which he had
energetically presided, and was suffering from heart disease.  He
deemed himself a neglected man and rapidly sunk into a listless
condition, with no action in it, but with occasional spells of
energetic sickness.  Mr. Wade came on from Ohio about this time,
and went to see his friend.  Just then there was considerable talk
that Associate Justice Grier was about to retire from the Supreme
Court.  Mr. Wade deemed his friend neglected, and also thought it
unintentional on the part of the President.  It conversation he
drew from Mr. Stanton the admission that he would like to be
appointed to the Supreme Bench.  Just before leaving Wade said he
meant to ask Grant for the position, in the event of Grier's
retirement.  Mr. Stanton forbade the action, but Wade declined to
be as modest as was the organizer of victorious armies and their
administration.  He went direct to the White House, and at the door
found the President going for a drive in his phaeton.  He was
invited to go along, and at once availed himself of the opportunity.
During the ride he spoke about Mr. Stanton.  The President listened
carefully and said he had promised to consider Mr. Strong's name,
and had supposed Mr. Stanton would not take the position even if
offered to him.  Mr. Wade gave the conversation he had had with
Mr. Stanton.  There the matter ended.  Mr. Wade went home.  Mr.
Stanton remained quietly at his home.

Finally Judge Grier resigned, and, to the surprise of most persons,
Edwin M. Stanton was tendered and accepted the position.  He
qualified by taking the oath of office, but never sat in that high
tribunal to try a case.  One cannot help wondering what might have
resulted from his presence there.  But he never had the opportunity
of proving that the man who was so fierce and implacable as a War
Minister could have been as calm and judicially impartial on the
bench as Story himself.  There are many at Washington who believe
that Mr. Stanton committed suicide by cutting his throat with a
razor.  Caleb Cushing was positive that he did, and investigated
the matter so far as he could, but Hon. E. D. McPherson, of
Pennsylvania, for years the efficient clerk of the House of
Representatives, procured from the attendant physician a statement
that it was not so, but that Mr. Stanton died a natural death.

The marriage of General Grant's only and much-loved daughter, Ellen
Wrenshall Grant, to Algernon Charles Frederic Sartoris, at the
White House, on the 21st of May, 1874, was a social event in
Washington.  It was no secret that General Grant had not approved
of the engagement between his daughter, not then nineteen years of
age, and the young Englishman who had enlisted her affection on
the steamer while she was returning from abroad.  But when the fond
father found that her heart was set on the match he yielded, although
it was a hard struggle to have her leave home and go abroad among
strangers.  The ceremony was performed in the East Room by the Rev.
Dr. O. H. Tiffany.  There were eight bridesmaids, and Colonel Fred
Grant was the bridegroom's best man.

The bride wore a white satin dress, trimmed with point lace, a
bridal veil which completely enveloped her, with a wreath of white
flowers and green leaves interspersed with orange blossoms.  The
eight bridesmaids wore dresses of white corded silk, alike in every
particular, with overdresses of white illusion, sashes of white
silk arranged in a succession of loops from the waist downward,
forming graceful drapery.  Mrs. Grant, who was in mourning, wore
a mauve-colored silk dress, trimmed with a deeper shade of the
same, with ruffles and puffs of black illusion, lavender-colored
ribbon, and bunches of pansies.  The banquet was served in the
state dining-room, with the bride's cake in the centre of the
elaborately decorated table.

[Facsimile]
  M. R. Waite
  Chief Justice
MORRISON REMICH WAITE was born at Lynn, Connecticut, December 29th,
1816; was graduated at Yale College when twenty-two years of age;
studied law; went to Ohio in 1838, and was there admitted to the
bar in 1839; settled at Toledo; was a member of the State Legislature
in 1843; was defeated as a Republican candidate for Congress in
1862; was counsel for the United States before the Geneva Award
Commission in 1871, and was presiding over the State Constitutional
Convention of Ohio when he was appointed Chief Justice of the United
States, in January, 1874.


CHAPTER XXVII.
CORRUPTION IN OFFICIAL LIFE.

The Democrats, having secured possession of the House of Representatives,
organized upward of fifty committees of investigation, which cast
their drag-nets over every branch of the administration, hoping to
find some evidence of corruption in which the President had shared;
but he most searching investigation failed to connect the name or
fame of General Grant with any of this traditional "picking and
stealing."  Witnesses were summoned by the score, reams of paper
were covered with short-hand notes of testimony, and some of the
committees traveled far and wide in search of the evidence they
desired.  They found nothing, but they reminded Massachusetts men
of old Captain Starbuck, of Nantucket, a philosophical old sea-dog,
who never permitted bad luck to dampen his faith or his good spirits.
Returning home from a three years' whaling voyage, with an empty
hold, he was boarded by the pilot, an old acquaintance, who asked:

"Waal, Cap'n Starbuck, how many bar'ls?  Had a good v'yage?"

"Not 'zackly," responded the Captain, "I haint got a bar'l of ile
aboard, but I'll tell ye, I've had a mighty good sail."

Just as they were about to give up in despair, a jealous woman
revealed the fact that Caleb P. Marsh, of New York, had received
the appointment of post-trader at Fort Sill through the endeavors
of his wife with the wife of the Secretary of War, General Belknap.
Marsh made a contract with the trader already there, permitting
him to continue, in consideration of twelve thousand dollars of
the annual profits, divided in quarterly installments.  The money
thus received was divided with the Secretary of War for two years
by remittances to Mrs. Belknap, but subsequently a reduced amount
of six thousand dollars a year, agreed on with the post-trader,
was similarly divided by remittances direct to the Secretary.

When General Belknap was transplanted from a revenue collector's
office in Iowa to the Department of War, he brought his wife with
him to Washington, and they occupied the house just before vacated
by Secretary Seward.  Other Cabinet officers gave parties, and so
did the Belknaps, but they had been too liberal with their invitations,
especially to the young officers just fresh from army life, and
there was a great deal of disorder, with accompanying damage to
curtains, carpets, and furnishings.  The result was that the Belknaps
were either obliged to retire from society and inhabit a cheap
boarding-house, or replenish the family coffers.  Alas! the tempting
Marsh appeared on the stage, and the temptation could not be
resisted.  Mrs. Belknap died not long afterward, but her sister,
the widow of Colonel Bowers, of the Confederate service, inherited
her "spoils of war," was a mother to her child, and in due time
became the wife of her husband.

In the interval of time required by decorum Mrs. Bowers traveled
in Europe, accompanied by Mrs. Marsh and escorted by George H.
Pendleton, of Ohio.  Returning home, Mrs. Bowers was married to
General Belknap on the 11th of December, 1875, Mr. Pendleton giving
the bride away.  A handsomer or an apparently happier couple never
came to Washington in their honeymoon, and they were at once
recognized among the leaders of society.  Her dresses and jewels
were among the favorite themes of the industrious lady journalists
who get up marvelous accounts of Washington entertainment, and they
were worthy of comment.  I well remember having seen her one night
wearing one of Worth's dresses, of alternate stripes of white satin
embroidered with ivy leaves, and green satin embroidered with golden
ears of wheat, with a sweeping train of green satin bordered with
a heavy embroidered garland of ivy and wheat.  A cluster of these
in gold and emerald was in her black hair, and she wore a full set
of large emeralds, set in Etruscan gold.  The costume was faultless,
and fitted to adorn the queenlike woman.

No one who had seen Mrs. Belknap wondered at the fascination she
exercised over her husband, or thought it strange that he who seemed
so sternly scrupulous about the expenditure of public money, should
have sacrificed his reputation that she might be known as the best-
dressed woman in Washington society.  Perhaps, too, it was remembered
that he had brought from the camp one of its legacies.  Few post
commanders refused the original delicacies for the mess-table at
head-quarters from the post sutler who desired to keep on the right
side of those in authority.  Why, then, could not the Secretary of
War permit his wife to receive a _douceur_ from one of those
cormorants, who always grow rich, and who may without harm be made
to lay down a fraction of their extortionate gains?

Mrs. Lincoln, it was well known, had accepted a shawl worth one
thousand dollars from A. T. Stewart when he was supplying large
amounts of clothing and blankets to the arms, and she had also been
liberally remembered by those who had sold a steamer at an exorbitant
price to the Government.  General Grant had been the recipient of
many presents, and the epoch had been styled by Charles Sumner one
of "gift enterprises."

General Belknap had promptly resigned, but it became politically
necessary that he should be impeached.  He had as his counsel three
able lawyers whose personal appearance was very dissimilar.  Ex-
Senator Carpenter, who was leading counsel, was a man of very
elegant presence, though his short neck and high shoulders made it
impossible for him to be classed as a handsome man.  His fine head,
with abundant iron-gray hair, tossed carelessly back from his
forehead, his keen eyes and expressive mouth, shaded by a black
moustache, made up a very noticeable portrait, and his voice was
so musical and penetrating that it lent a charm to the merest trifle
that he uttered.  Judge Jeremiah S. Black was a tall, broad-shouldered
man, with a clean-shaven, rugged face, a bright-brown wig, and a
sharp pair of eyes that flashed from under snow-white brows, which
made the brown wig seem still more brown.  He chewed tobacco
constantly, and the restless motion of his jaws, combined with the
equally restless motion of his eyes made his a remarkable countenance.
Montgomery Blair was a plain-looking man, as "lean as a racer,"
and evidently as eager for the work before him, though his manner
was very quiet, and his bearing had none of the keen intentness
that characterized his associates.  The trio carried General Belknap
safely through his troubles.  The evidence was very remarkable and
gave a curious picture of "Vanity Fair."  The bargain made by Marsh
with the first wife; the huckstering and business matters growing
out of it, talked about and discussed over her coffin; the marriage
of the Secretary soon after with the sister of the then dead wife;
the frequent and enormous sums paid by Marsh to him; the ominous
hints whispered about the mysterious interviews at the Arlington;
the hurried exposure; the frantic efforts to avoid it; the malignant
gratification shown by the Marshses, "we built the foundation on
which they grew; we'll hurl them from it into a quicksand from
which they will never emerge;" the admissions of guilt made by the
unhappy Secretary at a moment when, as it had been suggested, he
was contemplating suicide; the imprisonment in his own house; their
style of living; the fact of their appearance at a large dinner-
party at the Freeman Mansion, adjoining the Arlington, where, the
very day after the testimony of the Marshes had been taken, their
haggard looks and nervous manner excited general comment, which
was not entirely silenced by their early departure on the plea of
indisposition; the first effort of manliness on the part of the
fallen Secretary, begging that the women might be spared, and he
alone be allowed to assume the responsibility; his appearance one
day at a Cabinet meeting and the next day held as a prisoner in
the dock of the police court, waiting for five long hours the
appearance of friends to bail him out;--all these presented elements
of such a character as to give the case a singular and sad peculiarity
which we look for in vain in that of any other known to our records
of criminal jurisprudence.  Nor was all this palliated in any way
by the conduct and manner of the alleged criminal.  He saw the
point and smiled sympathetically at every effort of his counsel to
be witty and amusing, while another party at home claimed sympathy
from her friends by the strange announcement that "it was such a
shame that the politicians should be allowed to prosecute such a
man as General B. in such a manner; the President ought to interfere
and prevent it."

The "Whisky Ring" was the creation of Cornelius Wendell and other
noted Washington lobbyists.  It became necessary to raise money at
the time of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and the revenue
officers, having been called on to contribute, conceived the idea
of making the distillers pay a percentage on their ill-gotten gains.
Secretary Bristow's efforts to break up these fraudulent and unlawful
transactions showed the immensity of the combination of capital
and ingenuity employed in cheating the Government.  The weekly
payments to the Ring amounted to millions, and for some years some
of the participants pocketed four or five hundred dollars a week
as their share.

Senator Henderson, of Missouri, who had become provoked against
President Grant, having been retained as counsel for the prosecution
of some of the Missouri distillers, reported that General O. E.
Babcock, who had served on General Grant's staff during the closing
years of the war, and had since been one of the private secretaries
at the White House, was deeply implicated.  The result was that
General Babcock was tried before the United States Court for the
Eastern District of Missouri.  The trial showed that General Babcock
had had more intimate relations with the Whisky Ring in St. Louis
than any political necessity could justify, and the correspondence
revealed an almost culpable indiscretion in one occupying a high
position near the President.  The trial occupied fourteen days.
No portion of the evidence was kept back from the jury, and the
verdict of "not guilty" under such circumstances was as complete
an exoneration from the charge of conspiring to defraud the Government
as the most ardent friends of General Babcock could have desired.

[Facsimile]
  Matt H.Carpenter
MATTHEW H. CARPENTER was born at Moretown, Vermont, in 1824; was
at the Military Academy, at West Point, 1843-1845; studied law with
Rufus Choate; was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice at
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1848; was a United States Senator from
Wisconsin, March 4th, 1869 - March 3d, 1875, and again March 18th,
1879, until his death at Washington City, February 24th, 1881.


CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CENTENNIAL GLORY.

The Centennial year of the Republic was ushered in at Washington
with unusual rejoicings, although the weather was damp and foggy.
There were nocturnal services in several of the Episcopal churches
and watch meetings at the Methodist churches.  Several of the
temperance organizations continued in session until after midnight,
and there was much social visiting.  Just before twelve o'clock,
the chime of bells of the Metropolitan Methodist church played
"Pleyel's Hymn."  The fire-alarm bells then stuck 1-7-7-6 a few
moments later, and as the Observatory clock sounded the hour of
twelve, the fire-alarm bells struck 1-8-7-6; at the same moment
the brilliant light in the tholus which surmounts the dome of the
Capitol was lighted by electricity, casting its beams over the
entire metropolis.  A battery of light artillery, stationed on the
Armory lot, thundered forth a national salute of thirty-seven guns.
The Metropolitan bells chimed a national centennial march, introducing
the favorite tunes of this and other nations, and there was general
ringing of bells, large and small, with firing of pistols and
blowing of horns.  There were similar demonstrations at Alexandria
and at Georgetown, and the ceremonies at the White House were in
accordance with time-honored usage.

The first entertainment ever given in Washington to an Emperor and
Empress was at the British Legation, early in June, 1876, when Sir
Edward and Lady Thornton entertained Dom Pedro and Donna Teresa,
of Brazil.  The spacious hall, the grand staircase, and the drawing-
rooms of the Legation were profusely ornamented with flowers, a
life-sized portrait of Victoria I, Empress of India and Queen of
England, which faced the staircase, apparently welcoming the guests.
Many of those invited had been on an excursion to Mount Vernon and
did not arrive until eleven o'clock.

The ladies' dresses were very elaborate.  The Empress wore a vert
d'eau silk trained skirt and basque high at the back and cut V-
shape in front, the sleeves long; the rarest point lace nearly
covered both skirt and basque, set on in successive rows, headed
with plaits of the material; a broad black velvet ribbon, from
which depended a pendant thickly studded with large diamonds,
encircled her throat.  She wore large diamond ear-rings, and her
light-brown hair was combed down on her face, parted through the
middle, and covering her ears, a Grecian knot confining her hair
at the back of her head.

Lady Thornton wore a white satin trained skirt and basque, trimmed
with puffings of tulle, held in place by bands and bows of the
darkest shade of ruby velvet, interspersed with fine white flowers.
The Misses Thornton wore charming gowns of Paris muslin and
Valenciennes lace, relieved with bows of pink gros grain ribbons.
Mme. Borges, the wife of the Brazilian Minister, wore a mauve silk
gown, trimmed with lace, and very large diamonds.  Countess Hayas,
the wife of the Austrian Minister, wore Paris muslin and Valenciennes
lace over pale blue silk, which was very becoming to her blonde
complexion and youthful face and form, and a profusion of diamonds.
The lately arrived Minister from Sweden, Count Lewenhaupt, was
present with his wife, whose dress of the thickest, most lustrous
satin of a peach-blossom tint, covered with deep falls of point
lace, was very elegant.  Mrs. Franklin Kinney wore a rich mauve
satin beneath point applique lace.  Mme. Berghmann wore black silk,
embroidered in wreaths of invisible purple, and trimmed with Brussels
lace.  Mrs. Field wore a very becoming vert d'eau silk, handsomely
made and trimmed.  Mrs. Willis, the wife of the New York Representative,
wore white muslin and Valenciennes lace.  Her sister, Mrs. Godfrey,
wore a similar toilet, and the two ladies attracted universal
attention by their beauty and grace.  Mrs. Sharpe was very becomingly
dressed in white muslin, trimmed with Valenciennes lace and worn
over a colored silk.  Miss Dodge (Gail Hamilton), over ivory-tinted
silk wore the same tint of damasquine.

Supper was served at midnight, and afterward many of the guests
were presented to Dom Pedro and Donna Teresa in an informal manner,
for the Emperor was, according to his usual custom, wandering about
talking to whom he pleased, and the Empress, not being very strong,
sat upon a sofa and talked pleasantly with all who were introduced
to her.

The Imperial party had rooms at the Arlington Hotel, and the Emperor
proved himself to be an indefatigable sight-seer, keeping on the
move from morning until night.  He would not permit his dinner to
be served in courses, but had everything put on the table at the
same time, as he could devote only thirty minutes to his repast.

The proceedings of the National Republican Convention, at Cincinnati,
had naturally been regarded with deep interest at Washington, and
the excitement was intense when, on the Sunday prior to the meeting,
it was announced that Mr. Blaine had been stricken by illness on
his way to church.  He became unconscious, and on being carried
home was for some hours in an apparently critical condition, at
times hardly able to breathe and unable to take the restoratives
administered by his physicians.  His condition was pronounced one
of simple cerebral depression, produced primarily by great mental
strain, and, secondarily, by the action of excessive heat.  There
was no apoplectic congestion or effusion, nor any symptoms of
paralysis.

The news of Mr. Blaine's illness was telegraphed to Cincinnati,
and undoubtedly had an unfavorable effect upon the Convention.
Mr. Blaine, nevertheless, had gradually gained votes, until on the
second day of the Convention he was within a few votes of the
coveted prize.  The shadows were settling down on the excited crowd,
the tellers found it getting too dark to do their work, and gas
was demanded.  The Blaine men, in an ungovernable frenzy, were
determined to resist every effort at adjournment, while the combined
opposition were equally bent on postponement in order to kill off
Blaine.  Then it was that a well-known citizen of Cincinnati sprang
to the platform, waved his hat at the Chairman, and during a moment's
lull in the fearful suspense made the crushing statement that the
building was not supplied with gas.  Candles were asked for, but
the anti-Blainites had received their cue, and before the Blaine
lines could be reformed they carried an adjournment by stampede.
Political lies in this country are presumably white lies, but they
are seldom followed with such tremendous results.  Delay enabled
the opposition to mass its forces against the favorite, and Hayes,
instead of Blaine, passed the next four years in the White House.
Nothing could have been more certain in this world than the nomination
of Blaine on that eventful evening, if the same gas which burned
brightly enough twenty-four hours later for a Hayes' jubilee meeting
had not been choked off at a more critical time.

Washington was wild with excitement immediately after the Presidential
election.  The returns received late on Tuesday night indicated
the election of Mr. Tilden, and even the Republican newspapers
announced on the following morning the result as doubtful.  Senator
Chandler, who was at New York, was the only confident Republican,
and he telegraphed to the Capitol, "Hayes has one hundred and eighty-
five votes and is elected."  He also telegraphed to General Grant
recommending the concentration of United States troops at the
Southern capitals to insure a fair count.  General Grant at once
ordered General Sherman to instruct the commanding generals in
Louisiana and Florida to be vigilant with the forces at their
command to preserve peace and good order, and to see that the proper
and legal boards of canvassers were unmolested in the performance
of their duties.  "Should there be," said he, "any grounds of
suspicion of fraudulent count on either side, it should be reported
and denounced at once.  No man worthy of the office of President
should be willing to hold it if counted in or placed there by fraud.
Either party can afford to be disappointed by the result.  The
country cannot afford to have the result tainted by the suspicion
of illegal or false returns."

Some were disposed to wait, with as much patience and good-humor
as they could command, the news from the pivotal States, while
others shouted frantically about fraud.  A number of leading
politicians were sent by each party to the State capitals, where
the National interest was concentrated, and the telegraph wires
vibrated with political despatches, many of them in cipher.  Senator
Morrill was requested by the Rothschilds to telegraph them who was
elected President at as early a time as was convenient.  He replied
on Wednesday that the canvass was close, with the chances in favor
of Tilden; but on Friday he telegraphed again that Hayes was probably
elected.

The political telegrams sent over the Western Union wires during
the Tilden-Hayes campaign were subsequently surrendered by President
Orton, of that company, to the Senate Committee on Privileges and
Elections.  It was asserted that those likely to prove prejudicial
to Republicans were destroyed, and those damaging to Democrats were
clandestinely conveyed to a New York paper for publication.  These
political telegrams showed that the intimate friends of Mr. Tilden
were guilty of an attempt to secure the Presidential elections in
several States by the use of money.  The translation of these
cryptogramic messages by a working journalist, and their publication
in the New York _Tribune_, was a great success, as it made clear
what had previously been unintelligible.  When a Committee of the
House of Representatives undertook to investigate these cipher
telegrams, the principal witness was Colonel Pelton, the nephew
and private secretary of Mr. Tilden.  His testimony was given in
an apparently frank and straightforward manner, though he occasionally
seemed perplexed, pondered, and hesitated.  He had a loud, hard,
and rather grating voice, and delivered his answers with a quick,
jerky, nervous utterance, which often jumbled his words so as to
render them partially inaudible.  Colonel Pelton's tone in reply
to the questions propounded to him during the examination-in-chief
was loud and emphatic, as though he wanted all the world to understand
that he was perfectly ready to answer every question put by the
Committee.  He sat easily, either throwing one leg over the other,
facing the Chairman, or picking his teeth, or blinking his eyes
hard, which was one of his peculiar habits, as he kept examining
the photo-lithographed copies of the cipher telegrams and the
_Tribune_ compilation before him.  Sometimes Colonel Pelton's blunt
confessions were of such astounding frankness as to elicit an
audible whisper and commotion, what the French call a "sensation,"
among the listeners.

Colonel Pelton's loud voice sank very low, and his easy, nonchalant
attitude changed very perceptibly, when Messrs. Reed and Hiscock,
the Republican members, took him in hand and subjected him to one
of the most merciless cross-examinations ever heard in a committee
room.  The two keen cross-questioners evidently started out with
the determined purpose to tear Colonel Pelton's testimony to pieces,
and to literally not leave a shred behind worthy of credibility.
The respective "points" scored by the Republicans and the Democratic
members of the Committee elicited such loud applause on the part
of the auditors as to turn for the time the cross-examination into
a regular theatrical exhibition.  The cipher despatches confirmed
the opinion at Washington that Mr. Tilden spent a great deal of
money to secure his nomination, and much more during and after the
campaign.

Disappointed politicians and place-hunters among the Democrats
talked wildly about inaugurating Mr. Tilden by force, while some
Republicans declared that General Grant would assume to hold over
until a new election could be ordered.  General Grant made no secret
of his conviction that Mr. Hayes had been lawfully elected, and he
would undoubtedly have put down any revolutionary movement against
his assuming the Chief Magistracy on the 4th of March, but there
is no evidence that he intended to hold over.  Neither did the
Republican leaders in the Senate and House intend that he should
hold over, in any contingency.  There were Republican Congressmen,
however, who intended to elect Senator Morton President _pro tempore_
of the Senate, and, in the event of a failure to have a formal
declaration of Mr. Hayes' election in the joint Convention, to have
had Senator Morton declared President of the United States.

Meanwhile, it was positively asserted, and never authoritatively
denied, that a compact had been entered into between representatives
of Southern Congressmen and the authorized friends of Mr. Hayes at
Wormley's Hotel, in Washington, by which it was agreed that the
Union troops were to be withdrawn from the South in consideration
of the neutrality of the Southern vote in Congress on all questions
involving the inauguration of Mr. Hayes as President of the United
States.

[Facsimile]
  JamesGBlaine
JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania,
January 31st, 1830; adopted the editorial profession; was a member
of the Maine Legislature, 1859-1862; was a Representative from
Maine, 1863-1876; was United States Senator from Maine, 1876-1880;
was Secretary of State under Presidents Garfield and Arthur, March
5th, 1881 - December 12th, 1881; was nominated for President by
the Republican Convention, at Chicago, June 3d-6th, 1884, and was
defeated.


CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION.

The Electoral Commission was a cunningly devised plan for declaring
Mr. Hayes legally elected President.  In the then feverish condition
of parties at the Capitol, with no previously arranged plan for
adjusting controverted questions, it was evident that some plan
should be devised for a peaceful solution of the difficulty.
Republicans conceived the idea of an Electoral Commission, to be
composed of five Senators, five Representatives, and five Associate
Justices of the Supreme Court.  No sooner had Mr. Tilden and his
conservative friends agreed to the Commission, in which he would
have had one majority, than Judge David Davis, of the Supreme Court,
was elected a United States Senator.  This made it necessary to
select Judge Bradley as the man who was to hold the balance of
power.

The debate in the Senate on the bill establishing the Electoral
Commission was deeply interesting, as several of those who participated
were prominent candidates for the Presidency.  There was an especial
desire to hear Senator Conkling, who had "sulked in his tent" since
the Cincinnati Convention, and the galleries were crowded with
noted men and women, diplomats, politicians, soldiers and journalists
from all sections of the Republic.

Mr. Conkling took the floor late in the afternoon.  Tall, well
proportioned, with his vest opening down to the waist and displaying
his full chest and broad shoulders to the best advantage, his hair
tossed back from his massive brow with studied carelessness, his
white and slender hands set off by spotless linen, he looked every
inch a Senator.  Before him, on the desk, were his notes, daintily
inscribed on gilt-edged, cream-tinted paper; but he did not refer
to them, having committed his remarks so thoroughly that many
believed them to have been extemporaneous.  His speech was pronounced
by good judges as the greatest specimen of "the art which conceals
art" that has ever been delivered in this country.  With apparent
candor, good nature, and disinterested statesmanship, he adroitly
stated his side of the case, reviewing what had been done at previous
Presidential elections, and showing that he had given the subject
careful study.  As dinner-time approached, Senator Edmunds stated
that Mr. Conkling was not physically able to finish his speech,
and moved that the Senate go into the consideration of executive
business.

The next day the Senator from New York was not present, and after
a recess had been taken for ten minutes, in the hope that he would
arrive, Senator Sargent, of California, took the floor.  Mr. Conkling
finally came in, and when he began to speak, appeared to be in
better health than on the day previous, and he again uttered his
well-rounded sentences as if without premeditation.  Once he forgot
himself, when, to give additional emphasis to a remark, he advanced
across the aisle toward Senator Morton.  The Senator from Indiana
retreating, Mr. Conkling exclaimed, in the most dramatic tone, "I
see that the Senator retreats before what I say!"  "Yes," replied
Senator Morton, in his blunt way, "I retreated as far as I could
from the false doctrine taught by the gentleman from New York."
"Mr. President," said Senator Conkling, evidently disconcerted,
"the honorable Senator observes that he has retreated as far as he
could.  That is the command laid on him by the common law.  He is
bound to retreat to the wall before turning and rending an
adversary."

When Mr. Dawes reminded the Senator that the Commission should be
made as exact as it would in the State of Massachusetts, he replied
that it would not be possible.  "The Queen of Sheba," said Mr.
Conkling, "said that she never realized the glory of Solomon until
she entered the inner Temple.  The idea that the Representatives
of other States could breathe the upper air, or tread the milky
way, never entered into the wildest and most presumptuous flight
of the imagination.  Oh! no, Mr. President.  Whenever the thirty-
seven other States attain to the stature of the grand old Commonwealth,
the time will come when no problem remains to be solved, and when
even contested Presidential votes will count themselves.  Then, in
every sphere and orbit, everything will move harmoniously, by
undeviating and automatic processes."

The debate was prolonged into the night, and it was after midnight
before Senator Morton spoke, pale, trembling in every limb, and
with his forehead beaded with great drops of perspiration.  He
spoke sitting in his chair, and for upward of an hour hurled argument
after argument at the bill, evidently speaking from deep conviction.

Mr. Blaine, who had been sworn in the day previous, followed Mr.
Morton, and created quite a sensation by opposing the bill.  The
night dragged on, and it was seven o'clock ere the final vote on
the passage of the bill was reached.  It was passed by a vote of
forty-seven ayes against seventeen nays, ten Senators being absent
at the time.

The House of Representatives, after a somewhat stormy session,
which lasted seven hours, passed the Electoral Commission Bill by
one hundred and ninety-one ayes against eighty-six nays.  Five-
sixths of those voting in favor of the bill were Democrats, and
four-fifths of those voting against it were Republicans.

The Electoral Commission, which commenced its sessions on Wednesday,
January 31st, was a grand legal exhibition.  It occupied the Supreme
Court room, which had been made historic when the Senate Chamber
by the great debates in which Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and other
famous statesmen had participated.  The fifteen Commissioners,
sitting on the lengthened bench of the Supreme Court, listened in
turn to the intricate propositions of constitutional law presented
by Mr. Evarts, with his acuteness and dispassionate eloquence; to
the partisan harangues of Charles O'Conor, who had risen like one
from the grave; to the tirades of David Dudley Field; to the
ponderous yet effective reasoning of Joseph McDonald; to the
ingenious reasoning of Senator Howe; to the forcible style and
flippant wit of Matt. Carpenter; to the polished sentences of Mr.
Stoughton; to the graceful and powerful argument of the venerable
Judge Campbell, of Louisiana, who had in '61 gone South from the
Bench of the Supreme Court, with a number of others.

The counting of the electoral vote on the 2d of February, 1877,
attracted crowds to the House of Representatives.  Even the diplomats
came out in force, and for once their gallery was full.  On the
floor of the House were many distinguished men, including George
Bancroft, Mr. Stoughton, of New York, crowned with a mass of white
hair; General Sherman, William M. Evarts, Jere. Black, and Lyman
Trumbull.  At one o'clock the Senate came over in solemn procession,
preceded by the veteran Captain Basset, who had in charge two
mahogany boxes, in which were locked the votes upon which the fate
of the nation depended.  Next came President _pro tem._ Ferry and
Secretary Gorham, followed by the paired Senators.  Roscoe Conkling,
tall and distinguished in appearance, was arm in arm with Aaron
Sargent, the California printer; Bruce, the colored Mississippian,
was with Conover, the Florida carpet-bagger; the fair Anglo-Saxon
cheeks of Jones, of Nevada, contrasted strongly with the Indian
features of General Logan, and finally along came Oliver P. Morton,
of Indiana.

President _pro tem._ Ferry, in a theatrical bass voice, called the
Convention to order, and, after stating what it was convened for,
opened one of the boxes and handed an envelope to Senator Allison,
with a duplicate to Mr. Stone.  It was from the State of Alabama,
and on being opened, ten votes were recorded for Samuel J. Tilden,
of New York.  State after State was thus counted until Florida was
reached, when the majestic Dudley Field arose and objected to the
counting thereof.  A brief discussion ensued, and the vote of
Florida was turned over to the Electoral Commission.  The Senate
then returned to its chamber, preceded by the locked boxes, then
nearly empty.

It was asserted by those who should have known that Judge Bradley,
who had been substituted for Judge Davis, came near, in the discussion
on the Florida votes, turning the result in favor of Tilden.  After
the argument upon the Florida case before the Commission, Judge
Bradley wrote out his opinion and read it to Judge Clifford and
Judge Field, who were likewise members of the Commission.  It
contained, first, an argument, and, secondly, a conclusion.  The
argument was precisely the same as that which appears in the public
document; but Judge Bradley's conclusion was that the votes of the
Tilden electors in Florida were the only votes which ought to be
counted as coming from the State.  This was the character of the
paper when Judge Bradley finished it and when he communicated it
to his colleagues.  During the whole of that night Judge Bradley's
house in Washington was surrounded by the carriages of Republican
visitors, who came to see him apparently about the decision of the
Electoral Commission, which was to be announced next day.  These
visitors included leading Republicans, as well as persons deeply
interested in the Texas Pacific Railroad scheme.

When the Commission assembled the next morning, and when the judgment
was declared, Judge Bradley gave his voice in favor of counting
the votes of the Hayes electors in Florida!  The argument he did
not deliver at the time; but when it came to be printed subsequently,
it was found to be precisely the same as the argument which he had
originally drawn up, and on which he had based his first conclusion
in favor of the Tilden electors.

Disputed State after disputed State was disposed of, and Washington
was stirred with feverish excitement.  Every day or two some rumor
was started, and those who heard it were elated or depressed, as
they happened to hope.  But the great mass listened with many grains
of allowance, knowing how easy it is at all times for all sorts of
stories, utterly without foundation, to get into the public mouth.
The obstructionists found that they could not accomplish their
purpose to defeat the final announcement, but their persistence
was wonderful.  They were desperate, reckless, and relentless.
Fernando Wood headed, in opposition to them, the party of settlement
and peace, his followers being composed in about equal parts of
Republicans and of ex-Confederates who turned their backs on the
Democratic filibusters.  Finally the count was ended, and President
_pro tem._ Ferry announced one hundred and eighty-four votes for
Samuel J. Tilden and one hundred and eighty-five votes for Rutherford
B. Hayes.

Few personages in Washington during this period were more sought
after by visitors than Francis E. Spinner, who, under Lincoln,
Johnson, and Grant, held the office of Treasurer of the United
States for fourteen successive years.  Whether the verdant visitors
supposed that his high office enabled him to distribute greenbacks
at pleasure to all who came, or whether his remarkable signature,
which all the land knew, made him seem a remarkable man, matters
little; the fact remains that he was flooded with callers, whom he
received with genial cordiality, making all feel that they too had
an interest in the money makers of the land.

General Grant, having passed eight years in the army and eight more
in the White House, retired to private life without regret.  His
form had become more rotund while he was President, his weight had
increased from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty-five
pounds, his reddish-brown hair and beard had become speckled with
gray, and he had to use eye-glasses in reading.  His features had
softened, perhaps, in their determined expression, but his square,
massive jaws always gave him a resolute look.  He loved to listen
better than to talk, but when with friends he would always take
part in the conversation, often spicing his sententious remarks
with humorous comments.  His sentences, at times epigrammatic, were
those of "a plain, blunt soldier," but his vigorous economy of
words lent additional force to what he said, and he would not only
hold his own in a discussion with Senators learned in the law, but
would convince his opponents by merely saying his say, and meaning
what he said.  He was never known while in Washington to tell an
indelicate story or to use a profane word, although when slightly
excited he would sometimes say, "Dog on it!" to give emphasis to
his assertion.

General Grant's Administration was not an unalloyed success.  The
strength of the Republican party, which might, with a careful,
economical, and strictly honest administration, have been maintained
for a generation, was frittered away and its voters alienated by
causes that need not be recapitulated here.  The once noble party,
which had its genesis twenty years previous in the great principle
of the restriction of human slavery, which had gone from triumph
to triumph until slavery was not only restricted but utterly
destroyed, the party which had added the salvation of the Union to
its fame as the emancipator of a race, had sunk under the combined
effects of political money making, inflated currency, whisky rings,
revenue frauds, Indian supply steals, and pension swindles.  General
Grant, though himself honest, appeared unable to discern dishonesty
in others, and suffered for the sins of henchmen who contrived to
attach to the Republican party an odium which should have attached
wholly to themselves.

"It was my fortune or misfortune," said General Grant in his last
and eighth annual message to Congress, "to be called to the office
of the Chief Executive without any previous political training."
A great and successful soldier, he knew absolutely nothing of civil
government.  His natural diffidence was strangely mingled with the
habit of authority, and he undertook all the responsibilities of
civil power without any of the training which is essential to its
wise exercise, as if his glory as General would more than atone
for his deficiencies as President.

[Facsimile]
  F. E. Spinner
FRANCIS E. SPINNER was born at German Flats, New York, January
21st, 1802; was cashier of the Mohawk Valley Bank for twenty years;
was a Representative in Congress from New York, December 3d, 1855
- March 3d, 1861; was appointed by President Lincoln Treasurer of
the United States March 16th, 1861; was successively re-appointed
by Presidents Johnson and Grant; resigned July 1st, 1875, when he
retired to private life, passing his winters in Florida.


CHAPTER XXX.
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT HAYES.

Governor Hayes, having been notified by friends at Washington that
the electoral count would declare his election as President, left
Columbus for the national capital on the afternoon of the first of
March.  Very early the next morning he was informed by a telegraph
operator that the count had been peacefully completed, and that
Senator Ferry, the President _pro tem._ of the Senate, had announced
that Rutherford B. Hayes had been duly elected President, and
William A. Wheeler Vice-President.  This announcement was Mr. Hayes'
only notification.

Arriving at Washington at ten o'clock on the morning of the second
of March, in a heavy rain-storm, Governor Hayes and his wife were
received by Senator Sherman and his brother, General Sherman, who
escorted them under umbrellas to a carriage, in which they were
driven to the residence of the Senator.  After having breakfasted,
the President-elect, accompanied by General Sherman and ex-Governor
Dennison, went to pay their respects to the President at the
Executive Mansion.  They were received by General Grant in his
private office, and the outgoing and incoming President held a
brief conversation on general topics, without, however, alluding
to anything of a political character.  Subsequently, the members
of General Grant's Cabinet came into the room and were introduced
to the President-elect.  The stay at the White House occupied less
than half an hour, and from there the party drove to the Capitol
and were ushered into the Vice-President's room, adjoining the
Senate Chamber.  Here the President-elect held quite a levee,
lasting nearly two hours.  All of the Republican and most of the
Democratic Senators paid their respects to him, those who had no
previous acquaintance being introduced by ex-Governor Dennison.
The presence of the new President in the Capitol soon became known
in the House of Representatives, and a stampede of members followed,
thronging the Senate reception room and all the surrounding lobbies.
The Georgia delegation paid their respects in a body, and among
the callers were many Democrats from other Southern States.

Between this time and the next afternoon there were several important
political consultations on the situation, the Cabinet, and the
inaugural, with much speculation as to whether Mr. Tilden would
take the oath of office as President of the United States upon the
following day, March 4th, which fell this year upon Sunday.  It
was finally decided that the oath should be administered to Governor
Hayes on Saturday evening.  He was one of a party which had been
invited to dine at the Executive Mansion, and while the guests were
assembling, Governor and Mrs. Hayes, with two or three friends,
stepped into the Red Parlor with General Grant, where the Governor
took the oath of office, by which he became _de jure_ and _de facto_
Chief Magistrate of the United States.  The proceeding was temporarily
kept secret, even from the other guests at the dinner.

Monday, March 5th, was a rainy and cloudy day.  Despite the prolonged
uncertainty as to the result of the Presidential election, and the
short time given for arrangements, the city was crowded.  It was
estimated that thirty thousand persons left New York for Washington
on Saturday and Sunday.  Pennsylvania Avenue was gayly attired in
waving bunting, the striking features being pyramids or arches
composed of flags and streamers of variegated colors, suspended
across the avenue by strong cords.  The decorations were not so
extensive as would have been the case had longer time been afforded
for preparation.

The procession was under the direction of Major Whipple, of the
army, as Chief Marshal.  It was escorted by the United States
troops, which had been concentrated at Washington, the Marines,
the District Volunteer Militia, the Philadelphia State Fencibles,
and the Columbus Cadets.  Governor Hayes rode with General Grant
in the latter's carriage, and they were followed by the Grand Army
of the Republic, Veteran Associations from Philadelphia and Baltimore,
local political associations, and the steam fire engines.

In the Senate Chamber there was the usual assemblage of dignitaries,
with crowds of ladies in the galleries.  Vice-President Wheeler
was sworn in and delivered a brief address, after which he administered
the oath to the new Senators.  The customary procession was formed,
and moved to the platform erected over the eastern entrance to the
rotunda.  Governor Hayes was greeted with loud cheers from the
assembled multitude, and when silence had been restored he read
his inaugural in a clear voice.  When he had concluded the oath of
office was formally administered to him by Chief Justice Waite,
and the new President returned to the White House, amid cheers of
the multitude and salutes of artillery.

At the White House Mrs. Grant had provided a handsome collation,
which was enjoyed by the members of the retiring Administration
and a few personal friends of the incoming official.  President
Hayes was warmly congratulated on having received, through the
agency of the Electoral Commission, a title to office that no one
would dare to dispute openly.  Reckless friends of Mr. Tilden, who
had hoped to plunge the country into the turmoil and uncertainty
of another election, found that their chief had tamely accepted
the situation, and they quietly submitted.

The selection of a Cabinet was not fully determined upon until
after President Hayes had arrived in Washington.  Before he came
General Burnside and other Republicans who had served in the Union
army urged the appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston as Secretary
of War, but after much discussion the intention was reluctantly
abandoned.  When President Hayes had been inaugurated the names of
several Southerners were presented to him, including ex-Senator
Alcorn, Governor John C. Born, and General Walthall, a gallant
soldier and an able lawyer.  President Hayes finally decided to
give the position of Postmaster-General to "Dave" Key.

Judge Key had just before served in the Senate for a year, by
appointment of the Governor of Tennessee, as the successor of Andrew
Johnson, and his known popularity in that body rendered it certain
that his nomination would be confirmed.  At the close of the war
the Judge had found himself in North Carolina very poorly off for
clothes, surrounded by his wife and six children, also poor in
raiment, without a dollar of money that would buy a rasher of bacon
or a pint of cornmeal.  He had a few dollars of Confederate money,
but that was not worth the paper it was printed upon.  Nearly
everybody about him was as poor as himself, and the suffering
through the section in which he found himself was very great.  He
owned nothing in the world but a half-starved mule that had been
his war-horse for many months.  This was before the days of the
Commune, and he didn't know that mule meat was good; besides, he
did not want to kill his war-horse that had carried him through so
many deadly breaches.  Before Judge Key and his family had reached
that point when prayers take the place of hunger, however, relief
came.  An old resident of North Carolina heard of Key's necessities,
and helped him out.  He gave him seed to sow, a shanty to live in,
and some land to till, also a small supply of bacon and cornmeal.

The Judge then went to work.  He beat his sword into a plowshare
and his fiery charger into a plow-horse.  He worked with his little
family and lived scantily the whole summer long.  There was no
fancy farming about it.  When the corn was sold the Judge had eighty
dollars in despised Yankee greenbacks.  He then applied to President
Andrew Johnson, who was announcing that "treason is a crime and
must be punished," for leave to return to Tennessee, and he awaited
a reply with a good deal of apprehension.  It came in due course
of mail, a very kind, brotherly letter, inclosing a pardon.  Judge
Key had not asked for this, and was quite overwhelmed.  It was
stated in the Senate in open session on the day of his confirmation
that he had voted for Tilden, but he loyally sustained the Hayes
Administration.

The other members of the Cabinet were well-known Republicans.
William M. Evarts, who had so successfully piloted Mr. Hayes through
the Electoral Commission, was very properly made Secretary of State.
Tall, without the slightest tendency toward rotundity, and with an
intellectual head set firmly on his shoulders, Mr. Evarts displayed
great energy of character, unswerving integrity, and devotion to
his clients.  Great in positive intellect, he rendered it available,
as an able general manoeuvres for position and arranges strategic
movements, and was ready to meet his adversaries in a rhetorical
struggle with volleys of arguments framed in sentences of prodigious
length.

John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury, was a financial tower
of strength, whose honesty, patriotism, and ability had endeared
him to the people, while Carl Schurz, the Secretary of the Interior,
was a man of great tact, invariable good temper, and superior
education, whose personal appearance was very like that of
Mephistopheles, except that Schurz wore glasses.

"Uncle Dick Thompson," although he knew nothing about the navy
committed to his charge, was a silver-tongued Indiana stump speaker.
The gallant General Devens, of Massachusetts, was to have been
Secretary of War, and ex-Representative G. W. McCrary was to have
been Attorney-General.  But this was not satisfactory to the agents
of the New Idria Company, as Mr. McCrary had on one occasion
expressed a favorable opinion on the claim of William McGarrahan
to the quicksilver mine of which the New Idria had obtained
possession.  So a pressure was brought to bear upon the President,
the result of which was the transposition of Devens and McCrary.
The soldier was made Attorney-General, and the country lawyer,
ignorant of military matters, was made Secretary of War.

The Cabinet met on Tuesdays and Fridays.  The members dropped in
one by one, but they were all on hand by "high twelve," each bringing
his portfolio containing matters to be submitted.  President Hayes
sat at the head of the table and Secretary Schurz at the foot; on
the right, next to the President, was the Secretary of State, next
to him the Secretary of War, and beyond him the Postmaster-General.
On the left, next to the President, was the Secretary of the
Treasury, the next to him the Secretary of the Navy, and next to
the Secretary of the Interior, on that side, the Attorney-General.
After the Cabinet met it was ten or fifteen minutes before the
members got to work.  That ten minutes was taken up in greetings
and off-hand talk, in which the spirit of fun and humor cropped
out a good deal.  When out of official harness, the members of the
Cabinet were all men with a sunny, fun-loving side.  Judge Key was,
perhaps, the jolliest, though the Attorney-General pushed him hard
for that distinction.  Secretary Thompson was a proverbial lover
of a pleasant joke, while Secretary Schurz was hardly equalled in
telling one.  Secretary McCrary was a good story-teller.  Secretary
Sherman did not indulge in humor often, but when he did it was, on
account of its unexpected character, the more enjoyable.  Secretary
Evarts was a quiet humorist, and his fund of dry humor and wit was
inexhaustible.

The Cabinet jokes always found their way into public circulation
and provoked many hearty laughs.  It was intimated that Attorney-
General Devens delighted in joking the "Ancient Mariner" of the
Navy Department.  One day Secretary Thompson presented to the
Cabinet a list of midshipmen who had passed their examinations.
The Secretary called attention to them, and said he would like to
have their nominations for promotion to ensigns sent to the Senate
as soon as possible, "as they are worthy young men who have thoroughly
earned their spurs."  "Mr. Thompson," interrupted Mr. Devens, "how
long since have they been wearing spurs in the navy?"  After ten
minutes of so of boy's play before school, the President would call
the meeting to order.  The Secretary of State would present his
budget, and when disposed of he would be followed by the other
members of the Cabinet in their order of precedence.  The meetings
generally occupied about two hours, and the business was conducted
in a conversational way.

It was unfortunate for Mr. Hayes that he felt obliged to appoint
as his private secretary Mr. Rodgers, of Minnesota.  It was understood
at Washington that he had been unsuccessful in several business
operations, and he certainly was a failure as private secretary.
Instead of smoothing down the variety of little grievances that
arose between the President and the politicians, he invariably made
matters worse.  The consequence was that the President was often
seen in an unfavorable light by Congressmen, correspondents, and
others whose good opinions he merited.

[Facsimile]
  Sincerely
  R.B.Hayes
RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES was born at Delaware, Ohio, October 4th,
1822; studied law, and commenced practice at Cincinnati; served in
the Union Army receiving promotion from the rank of Major to that
of Brigadier-General, 1862-1865; was a Representative in Congress
from Ohio from December 4th, 1865, to December, 1867, when he
resigned, having been elected Governor of Ohio, serving 1868-1872,
and again 1876-1877; was elected President of the United States on
the Republican ticket in 1876, and was inaugurated March 5th, 1877.


CHAPTER XXXI.
A NEW ERA IN SOCIETY.

Rutherford B. Hayes had not entered upon his fifty-fifth year when
he was inaugurated as President.  He was a well-built man, of
stalwart frame, with an open countenance ruddy with health, kind
blue eyes, a full, sandy beard in which there were a few silver
threads, a well-shaped mouth, and a smile on his lips.  He had
served gallantly in the army and creditably in Congress, without
having contracted any bad habits or made any personal enemies.
His manners were courteous; he bore himself with dignity, yet was
affable to all; quick in speech, but open as the day.  Politicians
did not always obtain the places which they imperiously demanded
for themselves or for their henchmen, and he refused to acknowledge
that some who had busied themselves about the Southern electoral
votes had claims on him which he was to repay by appointments to
office.  Impassive, non-committal, and always able to clothe his
thoughts in an impenetrable garment of well-chosen words, applicants
for place rarely obtained positive assurances that their prayers
would be granted, but they hoped for the best, thinking that

  "The King is kind, and, well we know, the King
   Knowest what time to promise, when to pay."

Mrs. Hayes exercised a greater influence over public affairs than
any lady had since Dolly Madison presided over the White House.
Tall, robust, and with a dignified figure, the whole expression of
her face, from the broad forehead, which showed below her hair,
worn in the old-fashioned style, to the firm mouth and modest chin,
bespoke the thoughtful, well-balanced, matronly woman.  She had
such a bright, animated face that nothing seemed lacking to complete
the favorable impression she made upon every one who came under
the influence of her radiant smile.  That smile was the reflection
of a sunny disposition and a nature at rest with itself.  She and
her husband looked like a couple who lay down at night to peaceful
slumbers, undisturbed by nervous dreams of ambition, and awoke in
the morning refreshed and well prepared for the duties of the new
day, which never found them fretted or flurried.

Mrs. Hayes brought with her from her rural home what was known as
"the Ohio idea" of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, and
she enforced it at the White House, somewhat to the annoyance of
Mr. Evarts, who, as Secretary of State, refused to permit the
Diplomatic Corps to be invited to their customary annual dinner
unless wine could be on the table.  This Mrs. Hayes refused to
allow, and all of the state dinners served while she presided over
the hospitalities of the White House were ostensibly strictly
temperance banquets, although the steward managed to gratify those
fond of something stronger than lemonade.  True, no wine glasses
obtruded themselves, no popping of champagne corks was heard, no
odor of liquor tainted the air fragrant with the perfume of innocent,
beautiful flowers.  The table groaned with delicacies; there were
many devices of the confectioner which called forth admiration.
Many wondered why oranges seemed to be altogether preferred, and
the waiters were kept busy replenishing salvers upon which the
tropical fruit lay.  Glances telegraphed to one another that the
missing link was found, and that, concealed within the oranges,
was delicious frozen punch, a large ingredient of which was strong
old Santa Croix rum.  Thenceforth (without the knowledge of Mrs.
Hayes, of course) Roman punch was served about the middle of the
state dinners, care being taken to give the glasses containing the
strongest mixture to those who were longing for some potent beverage.
This phase of the dinner was named by those who enjoyed it "the
Life-Saving Station."

While Mrs. Grant had always denounced the White House as not suitable
for a President's residence, Mrs. Hayes was charmed with it.  She
once took an old friend through it, showed him the rooms, and
exclaimed:  "No matter what they build, they will never build any
more rooms like these!"  She had the lumber rooms ransacked, and
old china and furniture brought out and renovated, and, when it
was possible, ascertained its history.  Every evening after dinner
she had an informal reception, friends dropping in and leaving at
their will, and enjoying her pleasant conversation.  Often her rich
voice would be heard leading the song of praise, while the deep,
clear bass notes of Vice-President Wheeler rounded up the melody.
She almost always had one or two young ladies as her guests, and
she carried out the official programme of receptions to the letter.

While the President was earnestly endeavoring to restore peace at
the South and to reform political abuses at the North, Mrs. Hayes
was none the less active in inaugurating a new social policy.  One
of the evils attendant upon the "gilded era" of the war and the
flush times that followed was the universal desire of every one in
Washington to be in "society."  The maiden from New Hampshire, who
counted currency in the Treasury Department for nine hundred dollars
a year; the young student from Wisconsin, who received twelve
hundred dollars per annum for his services as a copyist in the
General Land Office; the janitor of the Circumlocution Bureau, and
the energetic correspondent of the _Cranberry Centre Gazette_, each
and all thought that they should dine at the foreign legations,
sup with the members of the Cabinet, and mingle in the mazes of
the "German" with the families of the Senators.  The discrepancy
in income or education made no difference in their minds, and to
admit either would be to acknowledge a social inferiority that
would have been unsupportable.  But while some of them, by their
persistency, wriggled into "society," the stern reality remained
that their compensations did not increase, because their owners
sillily diminished them in what they called, maintaining their
social position.  "Vanity Fair" no longer existed, and the shoddy
magnates no longer furnished champagne and terrapin suppers for
fashionable crowds, regardless as to who composed those crowds;
the strugglers for social position retired into modest quietude,
and no longer aspired to be ranked among those in "society."

The people one met at the White House and in society, after the
inauguration of President Hayes, were an improvement on those who
had figured there since the war.  One seldom saw those shoddy and
veneer men and women who had neither tradition nor mental culture
from which to draw the manner and habit of politeness.  They lacked
the sturdy self-respect of the New England mechanic, the independent
dignity of the Western farmers, or the business-like ease of the
New York merchants, but they evidently felt that their investments
should command them respect, and they severely looked down upon
"them literary fellers," and others with small bank accounts.  In
the place of these upstarts there were cultivated gentlemen and
ladies, who could converse sensibly upon the topics of the day,
and if there were neither punch-bowls nor champagne glasses on the
supper-table, there were fewer aching heads the next day.

Mrs. Hayes, while blessed with worldly abundance, showed no desire
to initiate the extravagances or the follies of European aristocracy.
The example she set was soon followed, and her pleasant expression
and manners, retaining the ready responsiveness of youth, while
adding the wide sympathies of experience, won for her the respect
of even those devotees of fashion who at first laughed about her
plainly arranged hair and her high-neck black silk dresses.  Lofty
structures of paupers' hair, elaborately frizzled, were seldom seen
on sensible women's heads, nor were the party dresses cut so
shamefully low in the neck as to generously display robust maturity
or scraggy leanness.  It cannot be denied that fear of women and
not love of man makes the fair sex submit to the tyranny of the
fashions, and Mrs. Hayes having emancipated herself, the emancipation
soon became general.  While, however, "the first lady of the land"
discarded the vulgar extravagances which had become common at
Washington, she by no means held herself superior to the obligation
of dress, and of the pleasant little artificial graces belonging
to high civilization.  Some of her evening dresses were elegant,
the colors harmonizing, and the style picturesque and becoming.
If she had the good taste not to disfigure her classically-shaped
head, or to load herself with flashy jewelry, so much the better.

Prominent among the festivities at the White House during the Hayes
Administration was the silver-wedding of the President and his
wife, which was the first celebration of the kind that had ever
occurred there.  The vestibule, the halls, and the state apartments
were elaborately trimmed with bunting and running vines.  In the
East Room, at the doors, and in the corners and alcoves tropical
plants were clustered in profusion.  The mantles were banked with
bright-colored cut flowers, smilax was entwined in the huge glass
chandeliers, and elsewhere throughout the room were stands of potted
plants.  Over the main entrance was the National coat-of-arms, and
just opposite two immense flags, hanging from ceiling to floor,
completely covered the large window.  The Green, the Red, and the
Blue Parlors were similarly decorated, the flowers used being
chiefly azalias, hyacinths, and roses.

The members of the Cabinet and their families were the only official
personages invited to this celebration, and with them were a few
old friends from Ohio connected with the President's past life and
pursuits.  A delegation of the regiment which he commanded, the
Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, brought a beautiful silver
offering.  Among the President's schoolmates was Mr. Deshla, of
Columbus, who said:  "I knew him when we called him 'Rud,' when he
was called 'Mr. Hayes,' then 'Colonel Hayes,' and 'General Hayes,'
then 'Governor Hayes,' and now that he is President we are equally
good friends."  The guests promenaded through the parlors, and
engaged in conversation, the Marine Band playing at intervals.

Precisely at nine o'clock the band struck Mendelssohn's Wedding
March, and President Hayes, with his wife on his arm, came down-
stairs, followed by members of the family and the special guests,
two by two.  The procession passed through the inner vestibule into
the East Room, where the President and Mrs. Hayes stationed
themselves, with their backs to the flag-draped central window,
and there remained until the invited guests had paid their
congratulations.  Mrs. Mitchell, the daughter of the President's
sister, Mrs. Platt, stood next Mrs. Hayes and clasped her hand, as
she did when a little child, during the marriage ceremony twenty-
five years back.

Mrs. Hayes wore a white silk dress, with draperies of white brocade,
each headed with two rows of tasseled fringe, and with a full
plaiting at the sides and bottom of the front breadth; the heart-
shaped neck was filled in with tulle, and the half-long sleeves
had a deep ruching of lace.  Her hair, in plain braids, was knotted
at the back and fastened with a silver comb, while long white kid
gloves and white slippers completed the bridal array.  On the day
previous, which was the actual anniversary, Mrs. Hayes had worn
her wedding dress, making no alterations save in letting out the
seams.  It was a flowered satin, made when ten or twelve breadths
of silk were put in a skirt, and there was no semblance of a train
appended thereto.

The Rev. Dr. McCabe, who had married Mr. Hayes and Miss Webb twenty-
five years before, was present, with Mrs. Herron, who was at the
wedding, and who was a guest at the White House.  She had an infant
daughter, six weeks old, with her, which was christened on the day
previous Lucy Hayes.  After the happy couple had been congratulated,
the President and Mrs. Hayes led the way into the state dining-
room, which had been elaborately decked for the occasion with cut
flowers and plants.  The table was adorned with pyramids of
confectionery, fancy French dishes and ices in molds, the bill of
fare including every delicacy in the way of eatables, but no beverage
except coffee.  At midnight, when the guns announced the birth of
a new year, congratulations and good wishes were exchanged, and
then the company dispersed.

The gossips had much to say about the petition of the venerable ex-
Senator Christiancy for a divorce from a young Washington woman,
who was a clerk in the Treasury Department when he married her.
The irascible, jealous old man magnified trifling circumstances
into startling facts, and deliberately attempted to brand his young
wife with infamy.  She may have been foolish, she may have said or
done what was not wise, but those who knew her well asserted that
she had given no cause for the terrible accusations brought against
her by the man who persuaded her to become his wife, and who proved
the truth of the proverb, that "There is no fool like an old fool."
His resignation of his seat in the Senate to accept a diplomatic
appointment, that Mr. Zach. Chandler might return to it, was said
to have been anything but creditable to him, although profitable.

Washington society was also kept in hot water by the young secretaries
and attaches of foreign legations, who prided themselves on their
success in breaking hearts.  There were two classes of these foreign
lady-killers.  Those of the Castilian type had closely cropped,
coal-black hair, smooth faces, with the exception of a moustache,
and flashing eyes that betrayed an intriguing disposition.  The
Saxons (including the British, the Germans, and the Russians) were
tall, slender fellows, with their hair parted in the middle, soft
eyes, and downy side-whiskers.  Both sets were exquisitely polite,
courteous in their deportment, and very deferential to those with
whom they conversed.  They stigmatized a residence in Washington
after their sojourn at the various capitals of Europe as unendurable;
they intimated that the women of America were "incomplete" and
"fastidious," but their criticisms were so courteous that no one
could muster heart to contradict them.  Every year or two, though,
some poor girl was captivated by the glitter of their small talk,
and got more or less scorched before she could be extricated.

[Facsimile]
  W. M. Evarts
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS was born at Boston, February 6th, 1818; was
graduated at Yale College in 1837; studied in the Harvard Law
School, and was admitted to the bar in New York in 1841; was Attorney-
General of the United States, July 15th, 1868 - March 3d, 1869;
was counsel for President Johnson on his trial upon his impeachment
in 1868; was counsel for the United States before the Alabama Claims
Tribunal at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1872; was counsel for President
Hayes in behalf of the Republican party before the Electoral
Commission; was Secretary of State of the United States, March
12th, 1877 - March 3d, 1881; and was a United States Senator from
March 4th, 1885.


CHAPTER XXXII.
LEADERS AND MEASURES.

Fourteen years after the surrender of Appomattox, the Republicans
surrendered in the Capitol at Washington and passed into the
minority.  President Grant having failed in his severe Southern
policy, President Hayes tried conciliation.  Never did a President
enter upon his duties with more sincere good-will for every section.
There was displayed in every act of the incoming Administration a
kindliness toward Southern men and Southern interests that almost
aroused a jealousy in the North.  It was not an affectation on the
part of the President, but a true and honest sentiment.  The good-
will experiment was not quickly made.  It took a long time to
determine results, and even after the uncompromising spirit of the
Southern Democrats had become apparent President Hayes was slow to
pronounce the plan a failure.  It had seemed to him the only hope
of making the South peaceful and prosperous, and he had determined
to give it a full trial.

It was evident that the Democrats would have in the Senate of the
Forty-sixth Congress that majority that had passed from them in
that body when many of its curule chairs were vacated by those who
went into the Rebellion.  The Democrats in the House of the Forty-
fifth Congress, by refusing to make the necessary appropriation
for the support of the army, rendered an extra session necessary.
When Congress met, on the 18th of March, 1879, the Democrats had
a majority of ten in the Senate, and over twenty in the House.

Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, was recognized by the Democrats in the
Senate as their leader.  He was a broad-shouldered, sturdily built
man, with a large square head and ruddy complexion, gray hair and
beard, and a positive manner that commanded respect.  Earnest,
outspoken, and free in his criticisms of men and manners, he would
wave his red bandana pocket handkerchief like a guidon, give his
nose a trumpet-blast, take a fresh pinch of snuff, and dash into
the debate, dealing rough blows, and scattering the carefully
prepared arguments of his adversaries like chaff.  When he sat down
he would signal to a Republican friend, and they would leave the
Senate Chamber by different doors and meet in a committee-room,
where there was a supply of old Bourbon whisky.

Senator Bayard, of Delaware, who was also prominent in the Democratic
ranks, never forgot that he was the descendant of a long line of
eminent statesmen.  Tall and straight, his movements were graceful,
and his cleanly shaven face and iron-gray hair were classic in
beauty.  Broad in intellect, he was patient and courteous in debate,
rarely losing his dignity or his temper.

Senator Beck, of Kentucky, enjoyed the rare advantage of being
ineligible to the Presidential chair, and he did not consequently
feel hampered by what he might add in debate to his "record."  He
was a stalwart, farmer-like looking man, with that overcharged
brain which made his tongue at times falter because he could not
utter what his furious, fiery eloquence prompted.  Entirely different
in personal appearance and manner was Senator Pendleton, of Ohio,
whose courteous deportment had won him the appellation of "Gentleman
George," and who adorned every subject on which he spoke.  Senator
Saulsbury, of Delaware, a spare, grim, uncompromising bachelor,
with a tall, slender figure like that of Thomas Jefferson, would
have made a glorious Puritan leader, and Senator Pinckney Whyte,
of Maryland, a gentleman by birth and education, was evidently
restive at times under the political restraint of the party "bosses"
in his State.

Senator Cockrell, of Missouri, was an able lawyer, who had the good
sense not to parade his gallant services in the Confederate army,
and who was ever on the watch for some extravagant appropriation.
He, with Ransom, of North Carolina, and other Confederate brigadiers,
saw opposite to them, as their equal, Senator Bruce, of Mississippi,
round-faced, bright-eyed, and sepia-hued, the emancipated slave
who had reached the full stature of citizenship through the flame
of battle that discomfited them.

Another eloquent debater was Senator Lamar, of Mississippi, whose
influence in molding public opinion at the South had been as healthy
as it had been powerful.  Senator Vest, youthful in appearance,
was a fiery speaker, and always ready for a tilt with an opponent.
The swarthy features of Senator Logan, of Illinois, with his long,
coal-black hair and moustache, stood out like a charcoal sketch
against the gilded wall of the Senate, and he seemed as ready to
meet his political opponents as he had been at the head of his
brigade to charge the enemy.

On the other side of the Senate Chamber the _pater Senatus_ was
Governor Anthony, of Rhode Island, a man of gracious presence and
kind heart, whose eyes were dimmed, but who had not lost the fire
and brilliancy which had characterized his early editorial and
Senatorial life.  Senator Hamlin, of Maine, was the eldest in years
on the floor, and yet he did not display the first sign of the
weakness of advancing age.  Tall, slightly round-shouldered, always
wearing a black dress coat, and never an overcoat, he was a remarkably
well-preserved man.  His forehead was somewhat wrinkled, his black
eyes gleamed with vigorous vitality, and his large mouth, with its
massive under jaw, was not concealed by a moustache or beard.  He
rarely spoke, but when he took the floor he always had something
to say worth hearing, and he was always listened to.

Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was an able man and a good lawyer,
remarkably well posted in the current literature of the day.
Another man learned in the law was the ponderous Senator Davis, of
Illinois, who had left the Supreme Court for the Senate, thinking
it was the better avenue to the White House, and whose political
views were bounded by his personal ambition.

Senator Conkling, of New York, was then at the height of his
brilliant Congressional career.  Able, high-bred, and stately, he
had defeated his home rival, Fenton, and he now claimed the disposal
of the New York patronage that he might use it to secure the re-
election of General Grant, to be followed by his own elevation to
the Presidential chair.  The words, "conciliation of enemies," were
not in his vocabulary, yet no Senator had so many tried and trusty
friends.  Another prominent lawyer was Matt. Carpenter, of Wisconsin,
one side of whom as described by Charles Sumner when he called him
a "jester," while Mr. Edmunds, by a ready pun, as aptly described
the other side of him by declaring that the Senator from Massachusetts
probably meant a "sug-gester."  Retaining the dragoon swagger,
which he had acquired at West Point, a jovial nature, indifferent
to the decorum of public life, he seemed to have been tossed into
the Senate, where other people had with difficulty found their way
by hard climbing or by costly purchase.

Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, whose remarks were a stream of epigram,
eloquence, and euphony, delicately flavored with sarcasm, often
showed a keen appreciation of the ridiculous.  Remarkably well
informed, and able to command the information in the storehouse of
his brain, he never ranted, rarely gesticulated, and his ceremoniously
polite excoriations of opponents were like dropping hot lead upon
sore places.  Very different was Senator Burnside, of Rhode Island,
who was known as the "Kaiser William," and whose martial aspect
indicated his straightforward honesty of purpose.  He was at times
restive under the trammels of parliamentary rule, and would speak
his mind, no matter who was troubled thereby.

Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts, with clean-shaven cheeks and
puritanical earnestness, had been transplanted from the House of
Representatives with Senator Allison, of Iowa, a man of rare
financial ability, who afterward took a prominent part in the
proceedings of the Senate.  Then there was Senator Plumb, of Kansas,
earnest and straightforward, of whom it was said that he was "Western
from the hem of his short pantaloons to the comfortable slouch of
his hat."

Senator Blaine, of Maine, was one of the youngest Senators, yet
when he rose to speak all listened.  Compactly and strongly built,
with a commanding figure, prominent features, watchful, gray-hazel
eyes, and a rich, manly voice, he was very ready in debate.  When
the army bill was up, and it was argued that the South was in danger
of intimidation, he showed the absurdity of such a position by
giving the exact numbers of troops then stationed in each State:
"And the entire South has eleven hundred and fifty-five soldiers
to intimidate, overrun, oppress, and destroy the liberties of
fifteen million people!  In the Southern States there are twelve
hundred and three counties.  If you distribute the soldiers evenly
there is not quite one for each county; when I give the counties,
I give them from the census of 1870.  If you distribute them
territorially, there is one for every seven hundred square miles
of territory, so that if you make a territorial distribution, I
would remind the honorable Senator from Delaware, if I saw him in
his seat, that the quota of his State would be three, 'one ragged
sergeant and two abreast,' as the old song has it.  That is the
force ready to destroy the liberties of Delaware!"

In the House of Representatives that sturdy Democratic champion,
Samuel J. Randall, of Philadelphia, was elected Speaker, receiving
one hundred and forty-three votes against one hundred and twenty-
five votes for James A. Garfield, and thirteen votes for Hendrick
B. Wright.  The Democrats were ably led by Carlisle and Blackburn,
of Kentucky; by Morrison and Sparks, of Illinois; by Reagan and
Mills, of Texas; by the stately Fernando Wood, of New York, and by
Mr. Sam. Cox, who reminded one of those jocular festivities of
mediaeval times, when the Abbot of Misrule took possession of his
masters and issued his merry orders superciliously to those with
whose insults his ears were still tingling.

On the Republican side were Aldrich, Conger, Frye, Hawley, and
Lapham, qualifying themselves for service in the Senate; the burly
Robeson, ready to defend his acts as Secretary of the Navy; Judge
Kelley, of Philadelphia, who had come down from a former generation;
Rainey and Smalls, emancipated men and brethren; the witty Tom.
Reed, of Maine, who was always happy in his sarcasms; the able and
effective Frank Hiscock, of New York, the effective Ben. Butterworth,
of Ohio, with others known to fame, constituting a strong House,
fresh from the people, and bringing their latest will.

The Democratic Congress again attached to the bill making appropriations
for the support of the army an irrelevant piece of legislation
aimed directly at the purity of the ballot, thinking that the
President, who had so evidently desired to conciliate the South,
would not dare to offend it by refusing his official approval.  To
their surprise, he returned the bill to Congress with a veto message,
so dispassionate, yet so entirely covering the case, that it threw
the Democratic majorities in Congress into confusion, and forced
them to abandon the programme they had marked out.  They consoled
themselves by turning out nearly all of the officers of the Senate,
many of whom were old and faithful servants, and dividing the places
thus made vacant among their relatives and henchmen.

President Hayes, by his succession of vetoes, restored _l'entente
cordiale_ between himself and the greater portion of the Republican
members of Congress.  His pure patriotism, his high rectitude of
intention, and his personal virtues had never been doubted, and
when he was again found acting in accord with the party that elected
him, it was believed that he would be carried pleasantly through
his embarrassing duties, and that his civil success would match
his exploits in arms.

The opera of "Pinafore" became all the rage at Washington, as
elsewhere.  It was performed at theatres by church choirs, by
amateurs, by a colored company, and finally by some juvenile
vocalists belonging to the very first families at the West End.
Generally speaking, vocalists, especially of the feminine persuasion,
have scruples about giving their ages, but on the programmes of
this company the ages of the performers were printed opposite to
their names.  Sir Joseph Porter was personated by Aleck McCormick,
a son of Commissioner McCormick, aged twelve; Miss Betty Ordway,
aged eleven, was Josephine; Miss Mary Wilson, aged ten, was charming
as Little Buttercup; Willie Wilson, aged eleven, was Captain
Corcoran; Dick Wallack, aged eleven, was a good Ralph Rackstraw,
and Daisy Ricketts, demurely attired as Aunt Ophelia, was primly
"splendid."  The sisters, the cousins, and the aunts, the sailors,
and especially the marine guard, were all represented.  The singing
was tolerable and the acting generally bad, but the performance
was nevertheless enjoyed by the crowded audience.  The little people
eclipsed the colored choir, and were equal to at least half of the
professional combinations.

[Facsimile]
  RoscoeConkling
ROSCOE CONKLING was born at Albany, New York, October 30th, 1829;
studied law and commenced practice at Utica in 1846; was Mayor of
Utica in 1858; was a Representative in Congress, December 5th, 1859
- March 3d, 1867; was a United States Senator from March 3d, 1867,
until his resignation on the 16th of May, 1881; removed to New York
City, and entered upon the practice of his profession.


CHAPTER XXXIII.
TILTS IN CONGRESS.

The marriage of the King of Spain was celebrated at Washington by
Senor Mantilla, the Spanish Minister, who gave a magnificent
entertainment at Wormley's Hotel, where he was residing.  The
parlors were decorated with the Minister's own furniture and
paintings, and with a profusion of rare plants and flowers.  The
Diplomatic Corps wore their court costumes, while the officers of
our army and navy appeared in full uniform.  Madame Mantilla was
an Andalusian, and had the clear, creamy complexion, the large,
dark eyes, the black hair, and the fine form which characterizes
that section of Spain.  The waist of her satin dress was cut square,
before and behind, and was very low.  The entire front of her long
skirt of white satin was covered with a network of pearls.  A vest
of similar network trimmed the front of the basque.  Folds of satin
went across the front of the waist and over the short sleeves, and
at the back fell from the waist in sash ends, edged with pearl
fringe and tassels.  Around her throat she wore a band of dark red
velvet, studded alternately with diamonds and pearls.  Below,
falling loosely on the neck, were three strands of pearls with a
magnificent pendant, composed of an enormous pearl and clusters of
diamonds.  In her hair sparkled a superb diadem, formed of sprays
of diamonds, presented to the lady by her husband when they were
married.  Lace stockings and white satin slippers completed her
toilet.

The supper-table was set along three sides of the room, forming a
hollow square.  In the centre was a mound composed of myrtle, in
whose bright, green leaves were arranged large and beautifully
colored California pears and luscious bunches of Malaga grapes and
oranges.  A tall silver epergne surmounted the mound, in the centre
of which was a cut-glass basket, holding fruits, and on the sides
vases of flowers.  On the table were numerous silver candelabra
holding lighted wax candles, and, alternating with plants, pyramids
of bonbons, ices, and other dainties.  The table linen, china, and
glass all bore the crest of the hostess.

Much ill-breeding had been shown by seekers after invitations, and
there was a sad exhibition of bad manners at the supper-table.
The lace on ladies' dresses was torn by the trappings of the
diplomats and officers, while terrapin and champagne were recklessly
scattered.  With this exception everything passed off very smoothly,
and the hundreds of guests present heartily congratulated the host
and hostess.  President Hayes and his wife declined departing from
their rule not to accept hospitalities, but the White House was
well represented by Mr. Webb Hayes and five young ladies, who were
at that time his mother's guests.

With the return of the Democrats to power in Congress came one of
those great moral struggles which convulses a nation with an
agitation only surpassed by a physical contest between hostile
armies.  The approach of the Presidential contest added to the
acerbity of the debates, although some of the participants evidently
adopted as their motto the Quaker apothegm, "Treat your enemy as
if you thought he might some day become your friend, and your friend
as though he might become your enemy."

Those who occasionally engaged in criminations and recriminations
did it in a parliamentary and mild-mannered way, and a few hours
afterward they might have been seen meeting as guests at the same
social board, with every mark of reciprocal cordiality and success.
This was doubtless owing, in many instances, to the legal training
of the gentlemen who had been accustomed to bandy epithets and to
bully their adversaries before juries, and having thus earned their
fees, to leave the court, arm in arm, to dine harmoniously together.

One of the most interesting tilts in the Senate was between Matt.
Carpenter and James G. Blaine, on the Geneva Award question.  Mr.
Carpenter was then approaching death's door, and his feeble voice
was at times inaudible in the galleries, but his argument sustained
his reputation as an advocate and as a Senator.  Looking at everything
from a judicial standpoint, and manifesting (if he did not express
it) a profound contempt for non-professional men who discuss legal
questions, he displayed great ingenuity and persuasive eloquence
in the presentation of his views.  He had evidently studied his
case carefully, but he did not hesitate to make strong assertions
take the place of authorities, and to base his arguments on those
assertions.  The entire speech was peppered with cutting allusions
to Blaine, who sat unmoved, occasionally joining in the laugh
provoked at his expense.  Carpenter concluded with an eloquent
allusion to General Grant, as one first in war, first in peace,
first in the hearts of his countrymen and of all mankind.

When Blaine finally took the floor it was soon evident that he had
studied the weak points in what Carpenter had said, and was ready
to let fly a volley of satire-tipped arrows with deadly aim.  His
sentences were terse, crisp, strong, and entirely without ornamentation,
but every one told.  He began by alluding to his having been often
reminded in the debate that he was not a lawyer.  The wit would
have been brighter and the thrust would have been keener had it
been stated that when he set out on the vast sea of adventure he
had studied law for two years.

After elaborately reviewing the case and citing many authorities,
he concluded by alluding to a proposition that the balance of the
award be retained in the Treasury.  "This," he said, "would disgrace
us in the eyes of the civilized world, by virtually admitting that
our legitimate claims did not amount to anything approaching the
sum which we demanded and obtained.  The excuse made for the
notoriously unjust Halifax award was that we had obtained a large
sum under false pretenses, and that an offset should be made.  Pass
around the hat, ask alms if you will, but don't acknowledge that
we received this Geneva award under false pretenses."

At the commencement of Mr. Blaine's remarks his well-modulated
voice assumed a conversational tone, tinged with sarcastic bitterness
as he occasionally indulged in bantering allusions to his lack of
legal education.  As he proceeded he became more impressive in
words and action, and before he had concluded he had advanced
between the desks into the centre aisle, where, with head erect
and sweeping gestures, he poured forth a flood of stirring eloquence,
eliciting repeated applause.

Mr. Carpenter attempted to reply and to criticize humorously some
of Mr. Blaine's assertions, but he was not very successful.  He
said that his long training at the bar had taught him never to
provoke a quarrel, and never to leave one unless successful.  The
Senator from Maine began this, and he should follow it.  The Senator
will never be able to say he has piped to me and I have not danced.
Mr. Blaine made a happy retort, speaking of General Grant in the
highest terms, and rivaling Mr. Carpenter in his eulogiums of him.
This prompted Mr. Thurman, who next took the floor to say:  "The
Senators have both indorsed the third term," which provoked such
rounds of applause that the presiding officer threatened to have
the galleries cleared.

A more serious personal altercation occurred in an executive session,
between General Gordon, of Georgia, then the personal defender of
President Hayes, and Senator Conkling.  General Gordon felt sore
because he had failed to secure the entire Democratic vote of the
Senate for the confirmation of some important New York nomination,
and he regarded Senator Conkling as having defeated this scheme.
The Senator from New York could not brook the interference of
General Gordon in what he considered a family quarrel, and the two
had not regarded each other for some days with looks of love.
Trouble was brewing evidently.

When the Senate was in executive session one Friday afternoon,
Governor Anthony occupying the chair, there was a warm discussion
over the nomination of Ward, a Georgia internal revenue collector,
in which some allusions were made to the New York case.  When this
had been disposed of, General Gordon interrupted the calendar to
call for a report on the nomination of Smith, Collector of the
Customs at Mobile, and while he was speaking, Senator Conkling,
looking up from his letter writing, called out loudly, "Go on with
the calendar."  Gordon immediately said:  "Mr. President, the
Senator from New York is not in the chair, but he orders the Chair
to go on with the calendar."  Several names had been called for
action when Gordon made this remark.  Conkling was busy reading at
the moment, and did not hear it, but his attention was called to
it by a Senator who sat near him.  Springing to his feet, Conkling
asked what the Senator from Georgia had said concerning him.  Gordon
immediately repeated the language.  Conkling said:  "If the Senator
from Georgia says I ordered the Chair to go on with the calendar
he states what is not true."  Gordon replied:  "Very well, we will
settle that hereafter."  Conkling retorted:  "We will settle it
here," and repeated what he said before.  Mr. Gordon then again
said:  "We will not settle it here, but elsewhere."

It was finally agreed that Senators Hamlin and Howe, as friends of
Mr. Conkling, and Senators Ransom and McDonald, as friends of
General Gordon, should endeavor to adjust the difficulty.  The
quartette sat in deliberation until one o'clock on Friday night,
and met again at ten o'clock on Saturday morning, finally agreeing
in the afternoon upon the adroitly drawn up statement made public,
after which "all was quiet upon the Potomac."  It is not true that
any communication passed between the parties, although it is known
that Mr. Lamar, of Mississippi, counseled General Gordon, and that
Senator Jones, of Nevada, and General Phil. Sheridan were the
advisers of Senator Conkling.

A more dramatic incident occurred in a debate, when Senator Voorhees,
of Indiana, upbraided Senator Mahone, of Virginia, for acting with
the Republicans.  When he had concluded the Virginian calmly said
that this denunciation of him must stop, and asked whether the
Senator from Indiana adopted the phrase, "renegade Democrat," in
a document which he had caused to be read as a part of his speech.
"Mr. President," retorted Mr. Voorhees, with a defiant air and a
contemptuous gesture, "I indorse every sentiment and word in that
article.  I make it my speech.  I indorse the word 'renegade' in
it.  I indorse every criticism on the course of the Senator from
Virginia.  He need waste no time in putting words into my mouth.
He said this must stop.  No one can stop me.  That is cheap--very
cheap."  A profound stillness had fallen upon the chamber when
Mahone first arose.  The silence became painful now.  Mahone had
remained standing, calmly waiting for Voorhees' reply, the Indiana
Senator towering over his Virginia antagonist like a giant, when
Mahone, in a low voice that could be heard in the remotest corners
of the chamber, said:  "That is an assertion that no brave or
honorable man would make.  I denounce it as such.  Let him take
that and wear it."  The preliminary conditions of the code were
satisfied.  The insult had been offered by Voorhees.  The challenging
words had been spoken by Mahone.  The incident ended there, and
the Senate, taking a long breath after its eight hours of strife
and passion, adjourned until the following Monday.

Mrs. Hayes, instead of frittering away the liberal appropriations
made by Congress for the domestic wants of the White House, expended
a large share of them in the purchase of a state dinner service of
nearly one thousand pieces, illustrating the fauna and flora of
the United States.  The designs were executed by Mr. Theodore R.
Davis, who had fished in the rivers of the East and West and in
the sea, hunted fowl and wild game in the forests, the swamps, and
the mountains, shot the buffalo on the plains and visited the
historic haunts of the Indians in the East, met the Indians in
their wigwams and studied their habits on the prairies of the far
West.  The designs were made in water colors, and although in nearly
every instance they were bold and striking, they were difficult to
reproduce perfectly upon porcelain with hard mineral colors, and
to accomplish this successfully it was necessary to invent new
methods and to have recourse to peculiar mechanical appliances,
but the effort was successful and the set was produced.

[Facsimile]
  John Sherman
JOHN SHERMAN was born at Lancaster, Ohio, May 10th, 1823; studied
law; was admitted to the bar, May 11th, 1844; was a Representative
in Congress, December 3d, 1855 - March 3d, 1861; was United States
Senator from Ohio, March 4th, 1861 to March 8th, 1877, when he
resigned; was Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes,
March 9th, 1877 - March 4th, 1881; was again United States Senator,
March 4th, 1881; and was elected President _pro tempore_ of the
Senate after the death of Vice-President Hendricks.


CHAPTER XXXIV.
STRUGGLE FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION.

When General Grant returned from his trip around the world, the
Blaine newspapers, while they filled their columns with adulatory
notices of the "Old Commander," also discovered in the "Plumed
Knight" qualities which inspired them with enthusiasm and admiration.
The friends of General Grant were not, however, to be placed in an
attitude of antagonism toward Blaine.  They remembered, however,
that when Grant retired from the political contest in 1876, and
his friends turned toward Blaine, they found confronting them,
armed with the poisoned arrows of detraction, the same editors who
had for years been opposing and vilifying Grant.

An attempt was then made by Mr. Blaine's friends to place General
Grant at the head of a scheme for the construction of a ship canal
across the Isthmus as an American enterprise.  They enlisted one
of Grant's most devoted friends, Read Admiral Daniel Ammen, and he
attempted to organize a company, of which General Grant was to be
the president.  The charter to be granted by Congress was to
recognize the national character of the work, and to pledge the
United States to oppose any foreign interference, like that of
DeLesseps and his Darien Canal.  General Grant became interested
in the scheme, and affixed his name a few months later to an
elaborate magazine article on inter-oceanic canals, every word of
which was written by Dr. George B. Loring, of Massachusetts.

Senator Blaine developed great personal popularity as the campaign
progressed, even among those who regarded General Grant as a
"military necessity."  Henry Clay, in his palmiest days, never had
a more devoted and enthusiastic following, and many of the stanchest
and most stalwart Republicans in Congress were openly for Blaine,
while others secretly advocated his claims.

John Sherman had also a powerful following, and while the respective
friends of Grant and Blaine began to indulge in recrimination, the
cause of the Ohio Senator was quietly pushed without giving offense.
Mr. Sherman's unswerving persistence had, in years past, all the
effective energy and the successful result of force.  General
Garfield was at the head of the Ohio delegation, pledged to the
support of Sherman, and he was chosen to make the speech nominating
him in the Convention.

General Garfield having been requested to give his views as to what
should be the course of the Ohio Republicans in reference to the
Presidential nomination, wrote a letter in which he said:  "I have
no doubt that a decisive majority of our party in Ohio favor the
nomination of John Sherman.  He has earned his recognition at their
hands by twenty-five years of conspicuous public service, a period
which embraces nearly the whole life of the Republican party.  He
deserves the especial recognition of the nation for the great
service he has rendered in making the resumption law a success,
and placing the national finances on a better basis.  I am aware
of the fact that some Republicans do not indorse all his opinions,
but no man who has opinions can expect the universal concurrence
of his party in all his views, and no man without opinions is worthy
of the support of a great party.  I hope the Republicans of Ohio
will make no mistake on other candidates; they should fairly and
generously recognize the merits of all; but I think they ought to
present the name of Mr. Sherman to the National Convention and give
him their united and cordial support."

To Mr. Wharton Baker, of Philadelphia, General Garfield wrote:
"It is becoming every day more apparent that the friends of the
leading Presidential candidates are becoming embittered against
each other to such an extent that, whichever of the three may be
nominated, there would be much hostility of feeling in the conduct
of the campaign.  It will be most unfortunate if we go into the
contest handicapped by the animosity of the leading politicians.
I shall be glad to see you on your arrival in Washington."

General Garfield's influence was politically omnipotent in his own
district, yet when the Convention of that district was held to
elect delegates to the Chicago Convention, controlled by Garfield's
friends and confidential advisers, it surprised the country by
electing Blaine delegates.  It was then whispered that General
Garfield, while ostensibly working for Sherman, would advocate his
own nomination, and also that he would have the support of the
friends of Mr. Blaine.

The Convention was a remarkable one.  The combined anti-Grant men,
with cunning parliamentary strategy, carried their points on the
unit rule and the credentials.  When the names of the candidates
were successively presented by their friends, a tumultuous scene
of wild applause followed the nominations of James G. Blaine and
Ulysses S. Grant, the rival hosts on the floor and in the galleries
being animated by paroxysms of enthusiasm never before witnessed
on this continent.

General Garfield rose when the State of Ohio was called, and said
that he had witnessed the extraordinary scenes of the Convention
with great solicitude.  The assemblage had seemed to him like a
human ocean in a tempest.  He had seen the sea lashed into fury
and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the
dullest man; but he remembered that it was not the billows, but
the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are
measured.  When the enthusiasm should have passed away, the calm
level of public opinion would be found, from which the thoughts of
a mighty people would be measured.  Not at Chicago in the heat of
June, but at the ballot-boxes in the quiet of November, would the
question be settled.  "And now, gentlemen of the Convention," said
he, "what do we want?"  "We want Garfield," said a clear voice;
and from that moment it was evident who the "dark horse" was, and
his cold, studied eulogium of John Sherman was really little more
than a presentation of himself.

In the thirty-six ballots which ensued, three hundred and six of
the delegates cast their votes for General Grant.  During the first
twenty-eight ballotings, James A. Garfield generally received one
vote, and sometimes two.  His strength was then gradually increased
as the friends of Mr. Blaine and of Mr. Sherman rallied to his
support, and on the thirty-eighth ballot he received three hundred
and ninety-nine votes, Ulysses S. Grant, three hundred and six;
James G. Blaine, twelve; Elihu B. Washburne, five, and John Sherman,
three.

Chester A. Arthur was nominated on the first ballot for Vice-
President, receiving four hundred and sixty-eight votes.  General
Grant gave the Chicago ticket his hearty support, and persuaded
Senator Conkling to accompany him to Ohio, where they addressed
public meetings.  They also addressed large popular gatherings in
the State of New York, and it was asserted that they carried that
State for Garfield and Arthur.

General Grant visited Washington in December, 1880, and had a most
enthusiastic welcome.  He was received by the Grand Army of the
Republic, and as the train entered the railroad station, the chimes
of the Metropolitan Church rang out "Home Again," while the field-
pieces of the artillery company thundered a salute of seventeen
guns.  The General was escorted to the house of his friend, Colonel
Beale, by the Grand Army, headed by the Marine Band, and as the
column passed up Pennsylvania Avenue the dense crowd cheered
enthusiastically.

A few days afterward General Grant went to the Capitol, and for
the first time an ex-President successively visited the two Houses
of Congress while they were in session.  In the Senate, when General
Grant came in on the floor (to which he had a right, having received
the thanks of Congress), Senator Edmunds moved that a recess of
ten minutes be taken.  The Senators then left their seats and
flocked around General Grant, the Confederate brigadiers leading
the Democrats, who shook hands cordially with their old chief
antagonist.

From the Senate Chamber General Grant went to the House of
Representatives, where an adjournment was immediately carried.
Speaker Randall then left the chair and invited General Grant to
walk down to the area before the reporter's desk.  The Representatives
were there presented in turn, and then the pages enjoyed the
privilege of shaking the General's hand, which they greatly enjoyed,
and which he too seemed to enjoy as heartily as they.

General Grant had been the hero of unparalleled ovations, extending
over years of time and through his tour around the world.  In his
own land, city after city had vied with each other in efforts to
do him honor, but no receptions were ever more hearty than these
in the two houses of Congress.  And General Grant appreciated it
highly.  To be thus greeted by political advocate and antagonist,
by his former subordinates on the field and by those who stood
against him, was enough to awaken a nature far less sensitive to
appreciation than his.  He was gratified, and was in one of his
most genial moods, his sunshine melting out any remaining iciness
in those about him.  The fact that he was now regarded as "out of
politics" went far to allay suspicions and open up the channels of
good-will and friendliness which all admitted were his due in view
of distinguished services rendered by him in the crisis of the
nation's history.  It was a memorable occasion at the Capitol,
where so many have occurred.

New Year's Day of 1881 was the coldest that had been known in
Washington for a quarter of a century, the mercury having fallen
in the morning to ten degrees below zero.  As it was the last
reception of President and Mrs. Hayes, the White House was the
centre of attraction.  The state apartments were decorated with
flowers, and the Marine Band played in the large entrance hall.
The long, central corridor was festooned with flags, and further
decorated with flowers and potted plants.  The parlors were also
adorned with cut flowers and hot-house plants.  At eleven A. M.
the President and Mrs. Hayes entered the Blue Parlor, preceded by
Major Farquhar, of the engineer corps, and followed by the Vice-
President and Miss Mills, of San Francisco, who afterward became
Mrs. Whitelaw Reid.  They took their stations in the centre of the
room.  The young ladies who were visiting Mrs. Hayes stood back of
her and on her right.  Colonel Casey made the introductions to the
President, and Mr. Webb Hayes to his mother.  Mrs. Hayes' dress,
of creamy white ribbed silk, very soft and fine, was trimmed very
elegantly with white cream-tinted satin and pearl passamenteries.
She wore a silver comb in her dark hair and no jewels.  Miss Lucy
Cook wore a cream-colored brocaded satin, combined with plain silk
of the same shade, trimmed with pearls.  Miss Dora Scott, of New
Orleans, wore an elegant costume of Spanish blonde over satin,
trimmed with field daisies, pond-lilies, and strands of pearls.
The Attorney-General's niece, Miss Agnes Devens, a bright young
school-girl, wore a heliotrope cashmere, trimmed with royal purple
velvet.  Little Miss Fannie Hayes' bright face and perfect complexion
appeared in a child-like dress of white summer camel's hair, trimmed
with white satin ribbons.  Mrs. Hayes invited Mrs. Elizabeth
Thompson, the philanthropist, of New York, to pass the day with
her.  She wore a superb black velvet trimmed with white ostrich
plumes.  Her ornaments were pearls.  This lady had given away in
charity over half a million dollars.  The gentlemen of the Cabinet
and ladies entered from the Red Parlor, Secretary Evarts and his
family immediately preceding the Diplomatic Corps.  All the gentlemen
of the foreign legations, as was customary, wore court dresses,
except those who represented republics.  These wore citizens' dress
suits.

Secretary Evarts made the presentation of the members of the
Diplomatic Corps to the President.  Sir Edward Thornton, as the
Dean of the Corps, and the British Legation took precedence of any
other Foreign Minister then in Washington.  All his family were
with him, including his tall, fine-looking son, the third Edward
Thornton in a direct line of his family who had been attached to
the British Legation in Washington.  The Russian Minister and his
wife were conceded to be the handsomest and most distinguished-
looking couple seen in the throng of noted men and fine-looking
ladies in the Blue Room.

The attendance of army and navy officers was large, including
General Hazen and others recently promoted, from the President's
native State, of whom, it was reported, Private Secretary Rodgers
used to sing:

  "He might have been a Bostonian,
   Or else a Baltimorian,
   Or a Chicago man;
   In spite of all temptation--remained true to his nation,
   And he's an Ohio man."

General Garfield's selection of Mr. Blaine as Secretary of State
was known to the public soon after the Presidential election, but
there was much speculation as to who else would be invited into
the Cabinet.  Many prominent public men went to Mentor, where they
found General Garfield ready to listen, but unwilling to make any
pledge.  He impressed one of these visitors as evincing a desire
to bring about the fusion of all the various elements.  He would
make an honest attempt to give each element proper recognition,
and not allow himself to be involved in any controversy with his
own party.  He recognized the truth of the claim that had not
General Grant and Senator Conkling gone into the campaign when they
did, he would probably have been defeated, and this visitor was
led to believe that the President-elect would treat the Grant wing
with consideration.

As to particular persons and sections, General Garfield was so
guarded that he gave no impression as to the States that would be
represented, except that Iowa should have a place in the Cabinet.
As to whether it was to be Mr. Wilson or Mr. Allison, or some one
else, the President-elect dropped no hint.  The name of Robert
Lincoln was talked over, and General Garfield indicated an intention
to give him some fitting recognition in his Administration, not
only because he considered Mr. Lincoln a bright young man, but
because he should take pleasure in making so graceful a tribute to
the memory of his father.  He did not intimate, however, that it
would be by offering the son a seat in the Cabinet, nor did he say
it would not be done in that way.

[Facsimile]
  EBWashburne
ELIHU B. WASHBURNE, one of five brothers who have occupied prominent
positions under the National Government, was born at Livermore,
Maine, September 23d, 1816; studied law and commenced practice at
Galena, Illinois; was a Representative from Illinois, 1853-1869;
was appointed by President Grant Secretary of State, and after
serving a few days, Minister to France, serving 1869-1877; returned
to Galena and afterward settled at Chicago.


CHAPTER XXXV.
THE GARFIELD INAUGURATION.

The inauguration of James Abram Garfield as the twentieth President
of the United States was a grand historical pageant, although its
effect was marred by the chilly, snowy, and wet weather.  All the
night previous the shrill blasts of the storm-king were varied by
the whistles of the locomotives and steamboats, which were bringing
thousands from the North, the West, and the South.  Drenched and
draggled people perambulated Pennsylvania Avenue and the adjacent
streets, while occasional memories of the war would be revived as
a well-equipped regiment or company with its full brass band would
march past to its quarters.   The hotels were emphatically full,
and the last comers were glad to be able to secure one of the
hundreds of cots made up in the parlors.  Many swarmed into the
theatres, the concert halls, or the Capitol, yet there was no
drunkenness or rowdyism, but every on appeared to take a Mark Tapley-
like view of the storm, and be as jolly as was possible under the
circumstances.

Long before the morning guns boomed from the Arsenal and the Navy
Yard, thousands of noses flattened against window-glass in the
anxiety of the owners to see if the heavens were propitious; but
there was no sign of sunshine.  As the day advanced there were some
bright streaks in the dull gray of the leaden sky, and the excellence
of concrete pavements was shown, as they were free from mud, and
the slosh was soon trodden into water, which ran off in the gutters.
The flags, which had clung to the staffs, began to dry and flutter
in the breeze.  Nearly every house was decked with bunting, while
upon many the most artistic designs of decorative art were displayed.
Upon the broad sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue a living tide of
humanity--men, women, and children--flowed toward the Capitol,
pausing now and then to gaze at some passing regiment or political
association.

General Sherman, who was Chief Marshal, had made such arrangements
that the procession moved with the precision of clock-work when
the signal gun was fired.  The escort was composed of twelve
companies of regular artillery, armed and equipped as infantry,
with six companies of marines.  Then came President Hayes and
President-elect Garfield, with Senators Bayard and Anthony of the
Senate Committee, in a four-horse carriage, with the Columbia
Commandery of Knights Templar, of which General Garfield was a
member, as a guard of honor.  General Arthur, escorted by Senator
Pendleton, followed in a four-horse carriage.  After them marched
the well-drilled battalion of Cleveland Grays, the Utica Veterans,
in their Continental uniforms; the Utica Citizens' Corps, the
Maryland Fifth, the Boston Fusileers, a company of Pennsylvania
volunteers, the Grand Army, the naval cadets, the local militia
companies, the Signal Corps, and a colored pioneer club.

As the carriages passed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol,
the occupants were greeted with continuous cheers.  General Garfield
looked somewhat jaded, but doffed his stovepipe hat in response to
the shouts, and bowed to the right and left.  The crowd all along
the line was dense, and it was with difficulty that it could be
kept back to make way for the procession.  The house windows were
all occupied, and presented a varied scene of beautiful women,
staid men, fluttering handkerchiefs, uplifted hats, and bright
bunting.  An armed guard had been posted about the Capitol, and it
gave mortal offense to some of the Representatives who tried to
force their way in.

As the Senate Chamber is the scene of the swearing in of the Vice-
President, and as the galleries hold only about twelve hundred
persons, the tickets were in great demand.  When the doors were
opened at half-past ten there was a rush made for the front seats,
and the entire galleries were soon filled.  A large majority of
the occupants were ladies, fashionably dressed, whose moving fans
gave animation to the general effect.

Mrs. Hayes escorted General Garfield's venerable mother and Mrs.
Garfield to the gallery seats reserved for them.  Mrs. Hayes wore
a magnificent sealskin dolman and a black brocaded silk dress, with
a white uncut velvet bonnet and ostrich feathers.  She carried a
bouquet of lilies of the valley.  "Mother Garfield," as she was
familiarly called, was a white-haired, venerable-looking lady, who
wore on that day a black silk bonnet, a black silk dress, and a
silk cloak trimmed with a band of silver fox fur.  Mrs. General
Garfield wore a suit of dark green velvet trimmed with chenille
fringe, and a bonnet to match.  She carried a bunch of roses.  Miss
Mollie Garfield wore a plum-colored woolen suit trimmed with plush,
and a broad-brimmed gypsy hat, tied down over her ears.  Miss Fannie
Hayes wore a purple plush suit striped with yellow, and a white
felt hat.  Officials entitled to admission on the floor of the
Senate began to make their appearance and to occupy the vacant
chairs, the Senators having doubled up on one side of the Chamber.

When General Hancock, the "superb soldier," entered in full uniform,
escorted by Senator Blaine, he was greeted with applause, which
continued as he passed around the rear of the Democratic seats to
the main aisle, the Senators all being seated on the Republican
side.  For a few minutes he held a sort of general levee, and was
then escorted to a seat in front of and left of the Vice-President,
being again greeted with applause.  General Sheridan, when he
entered, was also applauded.  The two Generals sat side by side
and each was accompanied by his staff.  Sir Edward Thornton headed
the Diplomatic Corps, which came in a body, nearly all wearing the
resplendent court dresses of their respective nations, and decked
with their ribbons, stars, and other insignia of knighthood.

The President of the United States was announced, and all rose as
Mr. Hayes entered, escorting General Garfield.  The General wore
a suit of black cloth, with a black neck-tie, over which his collar
was turned down.  They were shown to seats in the centre of the
Chamber.  Mr. Wheeler presented Mr. Arthur, who made a well-worded
speech, and was then sworn in by Mr. Wheeler, who in turn made a
few remarks, alluding to the good feeling that had always been
shown toward him and returning his thanks therefor.  His last
official act was performed in declaring the Senate of the Forty-
sixth Congress adjourned _sine die_.

Speaker Randall then entered, followed by the Representatives, who
filled up what vacant room remained.  The Chaplain invoked the
blessings of Divine Providence upon the incoming Administration,
and asked that prosperity, health, and happiness might attend those
whose connection with the Government had ceased.  While this prayer
was being offered both Mr. Hayes and Mr. Garfield rose and remained
standing.  President Hayes' proclamation convening a special session
of the Senate was read by the Secretary.  The roll of the new Senate
was then called, and the newly elected Senators were sworn in.
Announcement was made that the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the
invited spectators would proceed to the east portico of the Capitol
to participate in the ceremonies of the inauguration.  The greater
portion of those in the Senate Chamber, however, did not wait, but
started in a most undignified manner for the platform.

This was erected over the lower flight of steps leading up into
the eastern portico.  In the front and centre was a raised stage,
on which was the chair once used by Washington.  General Garfield
occupied this seat of honor, with President Hayes on his right and
Chief Justice Waite on his left.

It was an impressive scene.  Behind, as a background, rose the
Capitol in its sublime grandeur and with its many memories; all
around were the dignitaries of the country, with many ladies, whose
ribbons and flowers gave brilliancy to the scene; and in front was
an immense sea of upturned faces with lines of bristling bayonets,
flags, plumes, and bright uniforms.  When silence had been secured
General Garfield rose, took off his overcoat, advanced to the front
of the stand, and delivered his inaugural address in clear tones
and with ringing accents.  His face was stronger in those traits
that indicate mental power than in classical outlines, and the
likeness between him and his mother was noticeable as the evidently
delighted old lady sat listening to him.  She was the first mother
who had heard her son deliver his inaugural as President of the
United States.  When General Garfield had concluded and the applause
had somewhat subsided, the Chief Justice advanced toward him, and
the two stood facing each other.  The Chief Justice then administered
the prescribed oath, which was reverentially taken, and then
President Garfield received the plaudits of the people.  While the
inaugural was being delivered the sun had shone brightly.  President
Garfield's first act was to kiss his mother and his wife.  He then
received the congratulations of those around him, and after waiting
a few moments for this purpose, was escorted again to his carriage,
which was driven to the reviewing stand in front of the White House.

Here General Garfield witnessed the long procession pass in review,
the bands playing patriotic airs and the officers saluting.  The
excellent marching and well-dressed ranks of the passing military
was the theme of great praise from the prominent officers and
distinguished civilians before whom they passed, and the thousands
of spectators who occupied the stands and sidewalks opposite
applauded often and loudly.  Division after division, brigade after
brigade, regiment after regiment, company after company, marched
proudly past, forming the finest military display ever witnessed
at Washington since the great war reviews, "when Johnny came marching
home."  Pennsylvania contributed the largest body of troops.  The
New York Ninth, although late to arrive, was much complimented,
and so was the Maryland Fifth; the Boston Fusileers also attracted
marked attention.  General Sherman was proud of his procession,
and he had reason to be.  The numerous military commands and civil
organizations, the excellent bands, the prancing steeds, the waving
plumes and flags, the bright swords and bayonets, and the public
spirit which animated the long array, all combined to render the
scene a stirring one.  It was five o'clock before the military had
all passed the reviewing stand, and some of the political organizations
which had to leave Washington did not pass in review.  Going from
the reviewing stand to the White House, President Garfield was
welcomed by his aged mother and his family.  He then lunched with
Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, who soon afterward left for Secretary Sherman's,
where they passed the night.

It was fortunate for those who wished to indulge in the time-honored
custom of dancing at an inauguration ball that the Government had
just completed an immense building for a national museum, which
was fitted up for the occasion.  Wooden floors were laid by the
acre and carefully waxed, and the building was simply yet tastefully
decorated.  A heroic statue of "Liberty," which stood in the central
rotunda of the building, holding aloft a beacon torch, was the
first object that struck the visitors on entering.  Flags were
lavishly displayed, and the high, arched ceiling was almost hidden
by a network of evergreens and flowers.

President and Mrs. Garfield arrived at the building about nine
o'clock and were received by the Committee, Hon. George Bancroft
escorting the President.  Mrs. Garfield was dressed with great
taste.  She wore a dress of light heliotrope satin, elaborately
trimmed with point lace, a cluster of pansies at her neck, and no
jewelry.  Mrs. Hayes, who was escorted by Hon. John Alley, wore a
cream-colored satin dress trimmed with ermine.

The supper was served in a temporarily constructed "annex," where
preparations were made for seating five hundred persons at a time.
The caterer provided fifteen hundred pounds of turkey, one hundred
gallons of oysters, fifty hams, three hundred and fifty pounds of
butter, seven hundred loaves of bread, two thousand biscuits, one
thousand rolls, two hundred gallons of chicken salad, fifteen
thousand cakes, one hundred and fifty gallons of ice-cream, fifty
gallons of jelly, fifty gallons of water ices, two hundred and
fifty gallons of coffee, and other delicacies in proportion.

[Facsimile]
  J.A.Garfield
JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD was born at Orange, Ohio, November 19th, 1831;
served in the Union Army as Colonel, Brigadier-General, and Major-
General, 1861-1863; was a Representative from Ohio, 1863-1881; was
President of the United States from March 4th, 1881, until having
been assassinated on the morning of Saturday, July 2d, he, after
weary weeks of torture, died at Elberton, N. J., on the seashore,
September 19th, 1881.


CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHANGES AND DISSENSIONS.

The Senate, which met in executive session when General Garfield
was inaugurated, showed many changes.  Vice-President Wheeler, who
had served in Congress long and well, was replaced by General
Arthur, whose war record in the State of New York had won him many
friends.  Senators Allen Thurman and Matt. Carpenter were missed
by their legal friends, but among the new Senators was the ponderous
David Davis, "learned in the law."  General Hawley replaced Mr.
Eaton, and with him there came from the House Messrs. Conger,
Mitchell, and Hale.  One of the silver kings of the Pacific slope,
Mr. Fair, of Nevada, was naturally an object of attention.

As chosen, the Republicans had a majority in the Senate, but the
transfer of Messrs. Blaine, Windom, and Kirkwood to the Cabinet
gave the Democrats a temporary ascendency.  The arrival of Mr.
Frye, elected as the successor of Mr. Blaine, and of Mr. McDill,
appointed as the successor of Mr. Kirkwood, secured a tie, and the
casting vote of Vice-President Arthur enabled the Republicans to
secure the control of the committees.  The caucus of Republican
Senators nominated Senator Anthony for President _pro tempore_ when
the Vice-President should vacate the chair; George C. Gorham for
Secretary, and Harrison H. Riddleberger, Sergeant-at-Arms.  The
Democratic Senators refused to permit the election of Messrs. Gorham
and Riddleberger, and as seven Senators could at any time prevent
action by motions to adjourn, a dead-lock ensued, which lasted from
March 23d until May 10th, when the Republicans gracefully surrendered,
permitting the Democratic officers of the Senate to retain their
places.

Meanwhile there was trouble among the Republican Senators, caused
by the rival factions in the State of New York.  Early in March
several nominations of men who were ostensibly supporters of Mr.
Conkling were made unexpectedly to him, and a day or two later the
Senate was treated to a genuine surprise in the nomination of W. H.
Robertson to be Collector of the Port of New York.  The astonishment
could not have been greater if the name of Samuel J. Tilden had
been sent in.  No intimation of such an intention had leaked out.
Neither Arthur, Conkling, nor Platt dreamed of such a thing.  It
was a square blow at Conkling, at the very time when he and his
friends were congratulating themselves as being on top.  When Vice-
President Arthur opened the list of nominations in the Senate, his
eye lit first upon the name of Robertson for Collector.  He turned
the paper down so as to leave that name uppermost, and sent it to
Senator Conkling.  The latter, upon glancing at it, walked rapidly
over to Senator Platt, showed it to him, and they held a whispered
conference.  After the Senate adjourned, it was learned that the
nomination was especially objectionable to them.

It was subsequently stated that in New York city the preceding
summer, at Mentor the previous February, and at the White House on
the Sunday night before the Wednesday on which Judge Robertson's
nomination was sent to the Senate, General Garfield had agreed not
to make any appointments for New York unless they were satisfactory
to the Republican organization of that State, and that they were
to be submitted to the Vice-President and the two Senators from
that State.  At the interview held on the Sunday night previous to
the nomination of Judge Robertson, Senator Conkling had especially
objected to having him in the New York Custom House, yet if the
President should nominate him to a foreign mission, he would go
out in the lobby and hold his nose while the Senate confirmed him.

The objectionable nomination was, however, made, and it was
immediately evident that it meant war between the Garfield
Administration and Senator Conkling.  The next day, while the Senate
was in executive session, the President's secretary appeared at
the door with a communication, which was handed to the Vice-President,
and by him to the Executive Clerk, and read.  When it arrived
Conkling was sitting at his own desk, buried in a voluminous letter.
He never raised his eyes from his letter, nor moved a muscle of
his face or body while the Clerk monotonously read the momentous
message, withdrawing, not Robertson, but all the nominations of
men for the leading New York offices who were acceptable to the
Senator.  The arrow went home, of course, but the wounded one
betrayed no sign of pain.

The nomination was referred to the Committee on Commerce, of which
Mr. Conkling was chairman, and was there pigeon-holed until issue
on it was squarely made in the Senate and in the Republican party.
Republican Senators, who visited the White House or the Departments
in search of offices for their henchmen, were plainly told that
their votes in favor of the confirmation of Judge Robertson's
nomination would be expected.  The Democratic Senators were also
looked after, and among other means resorted to in order to disarm
their opposition was a letter signed by every Democratic member of
the New York Legislature, addressed to Senator Pendleton, chairman
of the Senatorial caucus, urging the confirmation of Judge Robertson.
It would make an Administration and an anti-Administration faction
in New York Republicanism, and would secure the State to the
Democrats.

Senator Conkling was not idle, and he appealed to the "Senatorial
courtesy" of those around him to defeat the obnoxious nomination,
but in vain.  Senator Jones, of Nevada, and a half-dozen Democrats
were all the strength that he could command, and the nomination of
Judge Robertson was confirmed.  Senator Conkling immediately left
the Senate, taking his colleague, Senator Platt, with him, and they
appealed to the Legislature of the State of New York, expecting
that they would be triumphantly re-elected, and, thus indorsed,
would return to the Senate with flying colors, conquering and to
conquer.

The exodus of Senators Conkling and Platt left the Republican
Senators again in a minority, and as it was evident that Senator
Davis would not aid in electing Senator Anthony President _pro
tem._, Vice-President Arthur did not vacate the chair prior to the
close of the session, and thus render it necessary to elect a
temporary presiding officer.

The most noticeable event of the executive session was a three
hours' speech by Senator Mahone, of Virginia, in reply to bitter
personal attacks that had been made on him by the Democrats since
he had acted with the Republicans.  No speech for years had attracted
a greater audience, even the diplomatic gallery being crowded.
Prominent among the many ladies present were Mrs. Secretary Blaine
and Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague, accompanied by her three young daughters.
The Supreme Court was present in a body, having adjourned on account
of the funeral in the family of Justice Field.  Representatives,
still hunting for office, abandoned the White House for once, while
each Senator seemed to have a score of secretaries, so many persons
being admitted upon secretaries' cards.  The Speaker was surrounded
by Anthony, Morrill, Allison, Conger, and other leading Republicans.
On the opposite side was Davis, of West Virginia, with a snowy
white spot on his dark chin beard.  Wade Hampton's military waxed
moustache and haughty countenance was beside the genial face of
Senator Pendleton, and next came the sagacious round head of Senator
Beck, with close-cut, curling hair.  Ingalls, of Kansas, a tall,
slim collegian--"the bluejay of the plains"--clad in blue from head
to foot, and with a bright blue ribbon encircling his slender
throat, stood somewhat back of the seats.  Senator Voorhees' form
towered in the shadow of the cloak-room.  Senator Conkling, who
had not yet left the Senate, "_Fier d'etre moi_," sat in the middle
aisle, dressed in a mixed brown business suit, with a bit of red
handkerchief showing above the breast pocket.

Senator Mahone was just recovering from a temporary indisposition,
and his voice was faint and thin, but his bearing was defiant as
he rose, with his pointed beard streaming over his breast, and
adjusted his gold-rimmed eye-glasses.  A mass of public documents
and newspapers were piled on his desk, with an ominous display of
cut lemons, showing that he expected to be compelled to strengthen
his voice.  His weight at that time was but ninety pounds, and
those ninety pounds must have been composed of brain and voice and
sinew, for, notwithstanding his evident feebleness, he spoke calmly
and earnestly for three hours.  As for the speech, those who came
expecting to witness a renewal of the outburst of passion and
invective which characterized his first appearance in the Senate,
when he made his impromptu, eloquent reply to the savage assaults
of Senator Ben. Hill, of Georgia, went away disappointed.  There
was very little that was personal in his speech, but there was
enough to show that the Virginia Senator intended on all occasions
to take care of himself, and that it would be wise for the Bourbons
to forego personalities in their future debates with him.  Those
who came to hear a careful explanation of the debt question in
Virginia, as it was understood by the Refunders, and to listen to
an exposition of the opposition to Bourbonism, of which General
Mahone was a leader, went away enlightened, if not fully satisfied.
The speech was not intended as a philippic; it was designed as a
careful exposition of the Virginia debt question, as an argument
in support of the Readjuster party, and an arraignment of the
Bourbons.  It was one of the old style, solid political speeches,
customary with Southern orators, which were much sought and generally
read in the cross-roads counties of the Old Dominion, where the
telegraph and the newspapers had usurped the ancient functions of
the _Congressional Record_.

Senator Mahone indicated, possibly, a line for future aggressive
debate in the Senate when he called upon the leaders of the different
schools of finance and tariff in the Democratic party to stand up
and tell him who was the leader of the party.  He was unable to
say whether it was the stalwart Greenbacker, Mr. Voorhees, the
stalwart hard-money man, Mr. Bayard, or the author of the Ohio
idea, Mr. Pendleton, and he called upon Mr. Voorhees, whose silver
eloquence, he said, he had heard could make the water of the Wabash
run backward, to answer the inquiry at his leisure.  The general
assaults upon him personally Senator Mahone repelled by a disclaimer
and the Scotch quotation ending,

  "If thou sayest I am not peer,
   To any lord of Scotland here,
   Highland or Lowland, far or near,
   Lord Angus, thou hast lied."

In conclusion, Senator Mahone declared to him and to those who
supported him the Solid South had become a mere geographical
expression, that he and they stood for the right of freemen, and
that he, in the name of the brave men who stood behind him, would
guarantee to the North that thereafter in Virginia there should be
a full and free ballot and an honest count.

President Garfield's first appearance in public after his inauguration
was at the unveiling of the statue of Farragut, which was the work
of his protégé, Mrs. Vinnie Ream Hoxie.  A procession was formed
at the Capitol, and was headed by Commodore Baldwin, as Grand
Marshal, with the Naval School Cadets as an escort.  The naval
division, commanded by Captain Meade, included the battalion of
marines and band, two infantry battalions of sailors and bands,
and a battalion of naval light artillery, dragging their howitzers.
The army division, commanded by Colonel Pennington, included the
Second Artillery band, four batteries of artillery armed and equipped
as infantry, and a light battery.  The militia division, commanded
by Colonel Webster, included the volunteer infantry companies of
Washington, white and colored, with a battery of artillery.

The procession marched to the statue, where seats had been provided
for invited guests.  When the troops had been massed near by, Rev.
Arthur Brooks offered prayer, and the canvas covering was then
removed from the statue by Quartermaster Knowles, of the navy, who
was ordered by the executive officer of the Hartford to follow
Farragut up the shrouds during the engagement in Mobile Bay, and
to lash him to the rigging, which he did.  Bartholomew Diggins,
who was captain of Farragut's barge, then hoisted the Admiral's
flag on a mast planted near the pedestal, the drums beat four
ruffles, the trumpets sounded four flourishes, the Marine Band
played a march, and an Admiral's salute of seventeen guns was fired
from a naval battery, the troops presenting arms at the first gun
and coming to a "carry" at the last.

Brief addresses were then delivered in turn by President Garfield,
Horace Maynard, and Senator Voorhees.  The Marine Band played "Hail
to the Chief," and was followed by an Admiral's salute of seventeen
guns, during which the troops presented arms, drums beat, trumpets
sounded, and bands played, and at last gun the Admiral's flag was
hauled down.  The column then re-formed and marched in review before
the President at the Executive Mansion.

President Garfield, later in the spring, conferred the degrees at
the College for Deaf Mutes at Kendall Green, just north of Washington.
The graduates delivered addresses in sign language, while one of
the College professors read their remarks from manuscript, very
few of the audience understanding the gestured speech.  The President
concluded a neat little address by saying:  "During many years of
political life in one way or another, I always looked upon this
place as a neutral ground, where we all, no matter what the political
differences were, could meet, all trying to make this institution
worthy the capital, and I hope to see this unchanged by any political
vicissitudes that can happen."

President Garfield showed deep practical interest in all educational
measures.  He had learned by his own experiences how rough the road
to literary eminence may be.  He had received for himself when a
boy the slender aid of a winter school in a country district; he
had fed his early mental cravings with the narrow store of borrowed
books in a rural section; but he had studied diligently and worked
hard to enter college and to graduate, and his subsequent life for
many years was one of unintermitted mental toil.  No wonder,
therefore, that institutions of learning received his constant
attention.

[Facsimile]
  DavidDavis
DAVID DAVIS was born in Cecil County, Maryland, March 9th, 1815;
was graduated from Kenyon College in 1832; studied law at the New
Haven Law School; was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice
at Bloomington, Illinois, in 1836; was Judge of an Illinois Circuit
Court, 1848-1862; was appointed by President Lincoln a Judge of
the Supreme Court of the United States in October, 1862, and served
until March 5th, 1877, when he resigned to take his seat as United
States Senator from Illinois; when Vice-President Arthur became
President he was chosen President _pro tempore_ of the Senate, and
served until March 3d, 1883, and died at Bloomington, Illinois,
June 26th, 1886.


CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE ASSASSINATION.

General Garfield was a singularly domestic man, and his life while
he was a Representative, at his pleasant home on I Street was a
happy one.  Believing in the power of steady and sincere labor, he
had mastered language, science, literature, and the fine arts.
Artists found in him a zealous advocate for their employment and
remuneration by Congress, and he was thoroughly acquainted with
the works of the old masters.  He was a great lover of scrap-books,
and he had in his library a shelf full of them, containing articles
and paragraphs relating to the subjects lettered on their back.
In this work Mrs. Garfield rendered him valuable aid, cutting and
sorting the scraps which he would mark in newspapers, and then
pasting them into the scrap-books.

Freemasonry was very dear to General Garfield, who was a regular
attendant on the meetings of the lodge, chapter, and encampment
with which he was affiliated.  He was the President of a literary
association, the meetings of which he used to attend with great
regularity.  Occasionally he went to the theatre or to a concert,
and I well remember the delight which he manifested when attending
the "readings" of Charles Dickens.  When the "Christmas Carol" was
read, as Mr. Dickens pronounced the words, "Bless his heart, it's
Fezziwig alive yet," a dog, with some double bass vocalism, stirred,
perhaps, by some ghostly impulse, responded:  "Bow! wow! wow!" with
a repetition that not only brought down the house wildly, but threw
Mr. Dickens himself into such convulsions of humor that he could
not proceed with his readings.  "Bow! wow! wow!" was General
Garfield's favorite greeting for months afterward when he met any
one whom he knew to have been at the lecture.

The White House, during the short time that General Garfield was
permitted to occupy it, was a continued scene of domestic enjoyment.
"Mother" Garfield had an honored place at the family table at her
son's right hand, and was always waited on first, whoever else
might be present.  On the other side of the President sat Jamie,
who was his father's pet.  Harry, the oldest boy, always sat next
his mother, and then Miss Mollie, who was approaching womanhood,
Irwin, and little Abram, who was but nine years of age.  Mrs.
Garfield was a believer in good fare, and there was always an
abundance of wholesome, nutritious food, with good coffee, tea,
and milk.  Flowers from the conservatory adorned the table at every
meal.  After dinner President Garfield used to indulge in a game
of billiards, having promptly restored to its place the billiard-
table banished by Mrs. Hayes.  Occasionally he would indulge in a
cigar, and he was not averse to a glass of champagne or Rhine wine
or lager beer, although he drank temperately and without hypocrisy.
He liked, as night came on, to take a gallop on horseback, and he
was a fearless rider.

General Garfield displayed the advantage of having been regularly
"trained" for his Presidential position.  He heard the stories of
all with a sympathetic manner that inspired confidence.  He knew
how to free himself from those who attempted to monopolize too much
of his time, and he never gave place-hunters reason to believe that
their prayers would be granted when he knew that it would not be
so.  There was not, after all, such a crowd of office-seekers as
might have been expected at the commencement of a new Administration.
Some members of the Cabinet had scores of political mortgages out,
which they were called upon to redeem, and which gave the President
a great deal of trouble.  Then came the rejection of a Solicitor-
General by the Senate, whose appointment was not acceptable to the
pragmatical Attorney-General, New York troubles, the forced exposure
of the Star-route scandals, and other antagonisms, rivalries, and
dissensions.  The Garfield Administration was on the verge of
dissolution within four months after its creation.

Mrs. Garfield, familiarly called by her husband "Crete," held four
successive receptions of invited guests immediately after the
inauguration, at which her deportment and dress met with the
heartiest commendation of "society."  Lady-like, sweet-voiced,
unruffled, well informed, and always appropriately dressed, she
was eminently fitted to be "the first lady in the land," and she
quietly yet firmly repelled any patronizing attempts to direct her
movements.  She had a natural aversion to publicity, but was anxious
to entertain the thousands who flocked to the White House.  To a
stranger she appeared reticent and rather too retiring to make him
feel at home, but the second and third time he saw her he began to
appreciate her sterling, womanlike qualities, and to like her.

During the Presidential campaign Mrs. Garfield had been under a
mental strain, and when installed in the White House the struggle
between the contending New York factions gave her great uneasiness,
for she possessed a complete mastery of politics.  At last she was
taken ill, and called in a lady physician, a responsible middle-
aged woman, homoeopathic in practice, who had sometimes attended
the children.  When she grew worse they summoned Dr. Pope, a
homoeopath of skill and reputation, and gave the case into his
hands, retaining the lady as nurse.  Last of all, as the physician
wished consultation, they sent for Dr. Boynton, of Cleveland, a
cousin of the President and a physician of good local practice.
It was decided that Mrs. Garfield should seek change of air, and
she left Washington and her husband for Long Branch, little dreaming
that she should never see him again in health.

Then came the fatal morning of Saturday, July 2d, when--as we are
told by Mr. Blaine, who accompanied him--General Garfield was a
happy man, feeling that trouble lay behind him and not before him,
that he was soon to meet his beloved wife, recovered from an illness
that had disquieted him, and that he was going to his Alma Mater
to renew the most cherished association of his early manhood.  Thus
gladsome, he entered the station of the Baltimore and Potomac
Railroad, strong, healthy, and happy.  There was a succession of
pistol-shots, and he fell helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture
as he slowly descended through the martyr-gate into his grave.

The nation was inexpressibly shocked as the news of the assassination
spread over the wires, and the deep anxiety which pervaded the
popular mind showed the warm and intense love felt for their
President, who was the incarnation of their own institutions.  A
special train carried Mrs. Garfield to Washington, bearing up under
the weight of her sorrow with true womanly fortitude, and on her
arrival she had the satisfaction of finding her husband alive and
able to converse with her.  There were hopes that with his heroic
and cheerful courage, and his naturally strong constitution, he
might struggle back to vigorous life.  The bulletins issued twice
a day by the physicians in attendance gave hopes, generally, of
the ultimate recovery of the suffering patient, but there are good
reasons for believing that these bulletins did not give a correct
statement of the sufferer's condition.  The President's family
physician, Dr. J. H. Baxter, was not allowed to see him, and eminent
surgeons, while they believed that death was inevitable, asserted
that the entire diagnosis of the case was wrong from the beginning
to the end.  Meanwhile the patient endured pain with the calmness
of a martyr, and he gazed on death with the eye of a philosopher.
"I am not afraid to die," said he, "but I will try to live."  He
was finally taken to the seaside, and there he breathed his last.

His remains were conveyed to Washington, attended by his bereaved
family, President Arthur, General Grant, and other distinguished
persons, and escorted to the Capitol by the Knights Templar and
the military.  Twenty-nine weeks previous, when General Garfield
had gone in state, in the strength of his manhood, along Pennsylvania
Avenue, the _Via Sacra_ of our Republic, to assume the responsible
duties of Chief Magistrate, the bands had played patriotic airs,
and he had received the loud acclaims of his fellow-citizens.  Now,
as his mortal remains passed over the same route in a hearse drawn
by six white horses, the lively music was replaced by the solemn
strains of funeral marches, and sorrow appeared to fill every
breast.

The casket was laid in state beneath the great dome of the Capitol,
within a short distance of the spot where, on the 4th of March
previous, the occupant had pronounced his inaugural address.  For
two days thousands of citizens, of all classes, conditions, and
nationalities, reverentially filed past the coffin and gazed upon
the wasted form and pallid lineaments of the deceased.  On Friday
the afflicted widow took the last look at the face of the dead,
and after she had left the impressive funeral ceremonies were
performed.  The remains were then escorted by the military, their
arms reversed, their flags shrouded, and their bands wailing dirges,
to the depot where the assassination took place, where they were
placed on a railroad train to be conveyed to Cleveland with his
family and a large number of distinguished mourners.

The funeral train arrived at Cleveland on the afternoon of September
24th, and on the 26th the remains of the nation's second martyr-
President were consigned to their last resting-place, amid the
flashing lightning and the rolling thunder of a severe storm.  The
day was consecrated all over the country to manifestation of respect
for the memory of the dead, and messages of condolence were flashed
beneath the Atlantic from the leading foreign powers of the Old
World, expressing their regard for the memory of a ruler who had
endeared himself to the wide world by the heroism of humanity.  As
the muffled bells in fifty thousand steeples tolled the burial
hour, the hearts of fifty millions of people beat in homage to the
deceased President, whose remains were being entombed on the shore
of Lake Erie.  Public and private edifices were lavishly decorated
in black, there were processions in the Northern cities, and funeral
services in many congregations, eliciting the remark that the
prayers of Christian people in all quarters of the globe "following
the sun and keeping company with the hours," had circled the earth
with an unbroken strain of mourning and sympathy.  Criticism was
silenced, faults were forgotten, and nothing but good was spoken
of the dead.

Charles Guiteau, the cowardly wretch who assassinated General
Garfield, was a native of Chicago, thirty-six years of age, short
in stature, and with a well-knit, stout frame.  He had led a vagabond
life, and had come to Washington after the inauguration of General
Garfield, seeking appointment to a foreign consulate, and when he
found himself disappointed, his morbid imagination sought revenge.
Attorney-General MacVeagh, who was then bent on making political
mischief by the Star-route prosecutions, made himself ridiculous
when General Garfield died by asserting that the United States had
jurisdiction over the cottage in which the President died, and
endeavoring to exclude the New Jersey authorities.  He then appeared
to take no interest in the prosecution of Guiteau, and although he
had employed eminent legal talent in the Star-route and Howgate
cases, he gave District Attorney Corkhill no aid in the trial of
the assassin until President Arthur gave peremptory instructions
that Messrs. Porter and Davidge should be employed.  They came in
to the case at a late day, and were forced to depend almost wholly
upon the District-Attorney for bearings.

Colonel George A. Corkhill, the District Attorney, was a native of
Ohio, then forty-four years of age.  After graduating from the Iowa
Wesleyan University he entered Harvard Law School, where he remained
over a year, when, at the breaking out of the Rebellion, he entered
the army, serving faithfully until the close of the war.  After
having practiced at St. Louis, he married a daughter of Justice
Miller, of the Supreme Court, and came to Washington in 1872 as
editor of the _Daily Chronicle_.  In January, 1880, President Hayes
appointed him District Attorney.

From the day on which General Garfield was shot, Colonel Corkhill
began industriously to "work up the case."  He obtained the evidence,
studied precedents, hunted up witnesses, and, unaided by any other
counsel, had Guiteau indicted and arraigned.  The admirable
preparation of the case, the spirit of justice, the fairness so
liberally extended to the prisoner and his counsel, and the judicious
and effective conduct of the trial to a just and satisfactory
conclusion were mainly due to him.  His management of the case from
the start was beyond all praise.  From his opening speech he
displayed great good sense, added to a perfect understanding of
the facts, a marked talent for criminal practice, thorough judgment
of men, and an extraordinary dignity of bearing.  With admirable
temper and self-control, he submitted to indignity and insult in
the court-house, which the judge was unable to restrain, and to
unmerited obloquy, without arousing misapprehension and misconstruction.

The trial lasted eleven weeks, but it could not be said to have
been a wearying or tiresome exhibition.  On the contrary, none of
the sensational plays that had been in vogue for years past had
been crowded with more dramatic situations and unexpected displays.

This most remarkable of criminal trials came at last to an end,
and the promptitude of the jury in rendering a verdict of "guilty,"
conveyed a sharp rebuke to the lawyers who spent so many wearisome
days in summing up the case.  In due time atonement for the great
crime was made on the scaffold, so far, at least, as human laws
can go.  The nation then rested easier and breathed freer, happy
in the fact that the meanest of cowardly knaves had passed to his
long account.

[Facsimile]
  Leut Genl P.H. Sheridan
PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN was born at Somerset, Ohio, March 6th, 1831;
was graduated from the Military Academy at West Point, and commissioned
as Brevet Second Lieutenant July 1st, 1853; served on the Pacific
coast, and at the outbreak of the War for the Suppression of the
Rebellion was Chief Quartermaster of the Army of Missouri;
distinguished himself as a cavalry commander; he was made Brigadier
and then Major-General of Volunteers, and received the commission
of Major-General in the regular army for his gallantry at Cedar
Creek, October 19th, 1864, when he achieved a brilliant victory
for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days; was promoted
to the rank of Lieutenant-General March 4th, 1869, and became
Commander of the Army on the retirement of General Sherman, February
8th, 1884.


CHAPTER XXXVIII.
VICE-PRESIDENT ARTHUR BECOMES PRESIDENT.

When President Garfield was assassinated Vice-President Arthur was
on his way from Albany to New York, on a steamboat, and received
the intelligence on landing.  That night he went to Washington,
where he was the guest of Senator Jones, who then occupied the
large granite house directly south of the Capitol, erected a few
years previously by General Butler.  On the evening of July 4th,
when the President's death seemed imminent, Secretary Blaine visited
Mr. Arthur and said:  "The end is at hand; the President is dying;
you must prepare to assume the responsibilities which the Constitution
places upon you in such an event."

Mr. Arthur, sick with sorrow, reluctantly accepted as true the
statement respecting the President's condition, and replied that
when the Cabinet and Justice Field, the senior Justice of the
Supreme Court, then in Washington, should call upon him, he would
be ready to take the oath of office.  Soon afterward, while waiting
in sorrowful expectation that the next moment might bring him the
sad news that the President had died, the door-bell was rung
violently, and an orderly handed in a message from Secretary Blaine,
which the Vice-President eagerly snatched, opened, and read.  "Thank
God!" he said, handing it to Senator Jones.

It announced that with the rising of the cool breeze, the President's
condition had changed for the better.  No apprehension of his
immediate death was entertained.

The next morning a correspondent who called on the Vice-President
alluded to editorials in a Democratic paper at Louisville, and a
Republican paper at New York, connecting his name and that of
Senator Conkling with Guiteau's crime.  The Vice-President seemed
deeply moved by these insinuations.  "No one," he said, "deplores
the calamity more than Senator Conkling and myself.  These reports
are so base and so unfounded that I cannot believe they will be
credited.  They do not affect Senator Conkling and myself as much
as they do the entire country.  They are a slur upon our institutions,
an attack upon the integrity of republican government.  Good God!
if such a thing were possible, then liberty is impossible.  Such
a calamity as this should be treated as national, not only by every
citizen, but by the entire press of the country.  Party and faction
should be forgotten in the general grief."

After condemning the perpetrator of the crime in the strongest
terms, the Vice-President said:  "If it were possible for me to be
with the President, I would not only offer him my sympathy, I would
ask that I might remain by his bedside.  All personal considerations
and political views must be merged in the national sorrow.  I am
an American among millions of Americans grieving for their wounded
chief."

The Vice-President remained at Washington until the President was
taken to Long Beach.  He continued to experience great mental
anguish, never even alluding to the chances of his becoming President
of the United States.  He went from Washington to his own home in
New York, where he received news of the President's death on the
evening of its occurrence.  It had been determined between Vice-
President Arthur and the members of the Cabinet that in the event
of the President's death his successor should be sworn in without
delay.  Justice Brady was sent for, and the oath was administered
in the presence of eight persons.  At its conclusion the President,
who had stood with uplifted hand, said, impressively, "So help me,
God, I do!"  A few moments afterward his son, Alan, approached,
and laying one hand on his father's shoulder, kissed him.

President Arthur repeated the oath of office in the Vice-President's
room at the Capitol on the twenty-second of September.  The members
of General Garfield's Cabinet, who had been requested by his
successor to continue for the present in charge of their respective
departments, were then present, with General Sherman in full uniform,
ex-Presidents Hayes and Grant, and Chief Justice Waite, in his
judicial robes, escorted by Associate Justices Harlan and Matthews.
There were also present Senators Anthony, Sherman, Edmunds, Hale,
Blair, Dawes, and Jones, of Nevada, and Representatives Amos
Townsend, McCook, Errett, Randall, Hiscock, and Thomas.  Ex-Vice-
President Hamlin, of Maine, and Speaker Sharpe, of New York, were
also present.

When President Arthur entered the room, escorted by General Grant
and Senator Jones, he advanced to a small table, on which was a
Bible, and behind which stood the Chief Justice, who raised the
sacred volume, opened it, and presented it to the President, who
placed his right hand upon it.  Chief Justice Waite then slowly
administered the oath, and at its conclusion the President kissed
the book, responding "I will, so help me God!"  He then read a
brief but eloquent inaugural address.

As President Arthur read his inaugural address his voice trembled,
but his manner was impressive, and the eyes of many present were
moistened with tears.  The first one to congratulate him when he
had concluded was Chief Justice Waite, and the next was Secretary
Blaine.  After shaking him by the hand, those present left the
room, which was closed to all except the members of the Cabinet,
who there held their first conference with the President.  At this
Cabinet meeting a proclamation was prepared and signed by President
Arthur, designating the following Monday as a day of fasting,
humiliation, and prayer.

President Arthur soon showed his appreciation of the responsibilities
of his new office.  Knowing principles rather than persons, he
subordinated individual preferences and prejudices to a well-defined
public policy.  While he was, as he always had been, a Republican,
he had no sympathy for blind devotion to party; he had "no friends
to reward, no enemies to punish," and he was governed by those
principles of liberty and equality which he inherited.  His messages
to Congress were universally commended, and even unfriendly critics
pronounced them careful and well-matured documents.  Their tone
was more frank and direct that was customary in such papers, and
their recommendations, extensive and varied as they were, showed
that he had patiently reviewed the field of labor so sadly and so
unexpectedly opened before him, and that he was not inclined to
shirk the constitutional duty of aiding Congress by his suggestions
and advice.  An honest man, who believed in his own principles,
who followed his own convictions, and who never hesitated to avow
his sentiments, he gave his views in accordance with his deliberate
ideas of right.

The foreign relations of the United States were conducted by
Secretary Frelinghuysen, under the President's direction, in a
friendly spirit, and, when practicable, with a view to mutual
commercial advantages.  He took a conservative view of the management
of the public debt, approving all the important suggestions of the
Secretary of the Treasury and recognizing the proper protection of
American industry.  He was in favor of the great interests of labor,
and opposed to such tinkering with the tariff as would make vain
the toil of the industrious farmer, paralyze the arm of the sturdy
mechanic, strike down the hand of the hardy laborer, stop the
spindle, hush the loom, extinguish the furnace fires, and degrade
all independent toilers to the level of the poor in other lands.
The architect of his own fortune, he had a strong and abiding
sympathy for those bread-winners who struggle against poverty.

The reform of the civil service met with President Arthur's earnest
support, and his messages showed that every department of the
Government had received his careful administration.  Following the
example of Washington, he had personally visited several sections
of the United States, and had especially made himself thoroughly
acquainted with the great and complicated problem of Indian
civilization.

President Arthur's Administration was characterized by an elevated
tone at home and abroad.  All important questions were carefully
discussed at the council table, at which the President displayed
unusual powers of analysis and comprehension.  The conflicting
claims of applicants for appointments to offices in his gift were
carefully weighed, and no action was taken until all parties
interested had a hearing.  The President had a remarkable insight
into men, promptly estimating character with an accuracy that made
it a difficult matter to deceive him, or to win his favor either
for visionary schemes, corrupt attacks upon the Treasury, or
incompetent place-hunters.

Possessing moral firmness and a just self-reliance, President Arthur
did not hesitate about vetoing the "Chinese Bill," and the "Bill
making Appropriations for Rivers and Harbors," for reasons which
he laid before Congress in his veto messages.  The wisdom and
sagacity which he displayed in his management of national affairs
was especially acceptable to the business interests of the country.
They tested his administration by business principles, and they
felt that so long as he firmly grasped the helm of the ship of
state, she would pursue a course of peace and prosperity.

President Arthur convened the Senate for the transaction of executive
business on the 10th of October, 1881.  The galleries of the Senate
Chamber were filled at an early hour on that day, and those who
had the privilege of the floor availed themselves of it.  Roscoe
Conkling's absence was, of course, noticed by those who had seen
him occupying a seat in the very centre of the Senate Chamber during
the past fourteen years.  That seat was occupied by Angus Cameron,
of Wisconsin, a gray-haired, tall, spare man, who lacked only the
kilt and plaid to make him a perfect Scotchman.  General Burnside's
seat was occupied by Eugene Hale, a graceful and ready debater,
while in the place of Mr. Blaine was Senator Frye, his successor.
Senator Edmunds returned rejuvenated, and although he appeared to
miss his old friend and antagonist, Senator Thurman, he gave potent
evidence during the afternoon of his ability as an intellectual
gladiator, strong in argument, ready in retort, and displaying
great parliamentary keenness and knowledge of affairs.

Senator Anthony, the Republican nominee for the President of the
Senate _pro tempore_, sat a quiet observer of the contest, and
around him were Allison, Sherman, Dawes, Ingalls, Hoar, Logan, and
the other Republican war-horses, with the more recent comers,
including Hale, Mitchell, and Conger.  With them, if not of them,
was General Mahone, with the delicate frame of a woman, a large
head covered with flowing brown hair, sharp, piercing eyes, a
flowing beard, and a manner which showed his revolutionary
instincts.

Mr. Pendleton, portly and gentlemanly, was the central figure on
the Democratic side, as their caucus Chairman.  At the commencement
of the session, the Democratic nominee for the Presidency--Bayard
--sat by his side to give him counsel.  Senator Harris, of Tennessee,
who would have liked himself to be President _pro tem._, was a
better parliamentarian, to whom the rules and the manual were as
familiar as "household words."  Senator Jones, of Florida, the best
Constitutional lawyer in the body, had some volumes of debates on
his desk, and was examining the precedents.  Senator Ben. Hill sat
leaning back in his chair apparently rather dejected, but his
countenance lighted up as he gave Edmunds a cordial greeting.
Senators Lamar and Butler, and Ransom and Hampton, were all in
their seats, and on the sofa behind them were ex-Senators Gordon
and Withers, and a dozen or more Democratic Representatives.

After prayer had been offered and the President's proclamation had
been read, Senator Pendleton offered a resolution declaring Mr.
Bayard President _pro tem_.  Senator Edmunds adroitly endeavored
to secure the admission of Messrs. Lapham, Miller, and Aldrich,
but in vain.  At first, Senator Davis voted with the Republicans
in a low and undecided tone, but when the final vote came he did
not vote at all.  This was interpreted to mean that he would not
vote, after the three Senators had been admitted, to oust Mr.
Bayard, and without his vote it could not be done.

The next day Senators Lapham and Miller, of New York, and Aldrich,
of Rhode Island, were duly qualified, and the Republicans reversed
the election of the preceding day by electing Senator David Davis
President _pro tem_.  He was not willing to aid in the election of
Senator Anthony as presiding officer and he voted to oust Senator
Bayard from the chair, but abstained from voting when his own name
was presented by Senator Logan.  Senator Davis, then in his sixty-
seventh year, was a genial gentleman, and moved about with great
activity, considering that he weighed some three hundred and fifty
pounds.  On that day he was more carefully dressed than usual,
wearing a black broadcloth coat, light trousers and vest, a white
cravat, and low-quartered shoes.  He knew what was in store for
him, and a placid smile showed his satisfaction.  It was as good
as a play to see him, his broad countenance wreathed in smiles,
escorted to the President's chair by Senator Bayard, who had been
deposed by his vote, and by Senator Anthony, who would have been
elected if Davis would have voted for him.  In a brief speech he
accepted the position as a tribute to the independent ground which
he claimed to have long occupied in the politics of the country.

[Facsimile]
  Chester A. Arthur
CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR was born at Fairfield, Vt., October 5th, 1830;
was graduated from Union College in 1845; studied law and commenced
practice in New York city; was appointed by President Grant Collector
of the Port of New York in November, 1871; was elected Vice-President
on the Garfield ticket, and inaugurated, March 4th, 1881; on the
death of President Garfield, September 19th, 1881, he became
President, serving until March 4th, 1885; died in New York, November
18th, 1886.


CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE CENTENNIAL OF YORKTOWN.

President Arthur was a man of gracious presence, of good education,
of extensive reading, and of courteous manners, refined by his
having mingled in New York society.  He was always well dressed,
usually wearing in his office a Prince Albert coat, buttoned closely
in front, with a flower in the upper button-hole, and the corner
of a colored silk handkerchief visible from a side pocket.  Dignified,
as became his exalted station, he never slapped his visitors'
shoulders, or called them by their Christian names, but he treated
them as entitled to his consideration without that stilted courtesy
which rebuffs even when veneered with formal civility.  He was a
good listener and he conversed freely, although he carefully avoided
committing himself upon political questions, and never indulged in
criticisms of those arrayed in opposition to him.  The code of
etiquette first adopted by General Washington on the recommendation
of General Hamilton, from which there had been departures in recent
years, was re-established, except that President Arthur occasionally
accepted invitations to dinner.  He devotedly cherished the memory
of his deceased wife, before whose picture in the White House a
vase of fresh flowers was placed daily, and he was affectionately
watchful over his son Alan, a tall student at Princeton College,
and his daughter Nellie, who was just entering into womanhood.

Soon after the commencement of the October session of Congress,
Washington was enlivened by the official reception of the French
and German officers, who came as the nation's guests to witness
the dedication of a national monument at Yorktown on the centennial
of the victory which those nations helped the revolutionary colonists
to win.  The day was bright and sunny, and there was a general
display of flags, those of France and Germany mingling with the
stars and stripes.  There were nearly forty of the guests, all
wearing the uniforms of their respective positions.  The Frenchmen
regarded the Germans with manifest hatred, while the latter evidently
remembered that their comrades had recently triumphantly occupied
the French capital.

The guests, under the escort of the French and German Ministers,
were first driven to the Department of State.  There, Assistant-
Secretary Hitt received them at the foot of the staircase and led
the way to the diplomatic reception-room.  There they were cordially
received by Secretary Blaine, to whom each one was presented, and
he then presented them to the other members of the Cabinet.  Many
complimentary remarks were interchanged, but there were no set
speeches; and after remaining a quarter of an hour or so the guests
re-entered their carriages and were escorted to the Capitol.
Pennsylvania Avenue presented an animated appearance, the gay and
varied dresses of the ladies at the windows and on the sidewalks
forming a kaleidoscopic framework for the column of citizen soldiers.
The District militiamen never looked better nor stepped more proudly,
and five companies of colored men marched with the swinging gait
of veterans.  The civic portion of the procession was a failure,
but this was atoned for by the well-organized Fire Department with
its apparatus.

Meanwhile, those fortunate in having received invitations congregated
in the rotunda of the Capitol, which was still heavily draped in
black in honor of the last assassinated President, whose remains
had lain in state there but a few days previously.  Among the
gentlemen and ladies who had been asked to witness the welcome
extended by the Chief Magistrate to the representatives of our
ancient allies were General Sherman, wearing his showy gala uniform,
a score or more of other military and naval officers, Senator Dawes
and wife, Commissioner Loring and wife, nearly all of the Senators,
and a few Representatives.

At last the nation's guests entered from the eastern portico,
preceded by Secretary Blaine and the French Minister, and walking
by twos, according to their respective ranks.  Passing around the
southeastern wall, the head of the column halted before the door
leading to the House of Representatives.  The gay uniforms worn by
the greater portion of them relieved the sombreness of the black
suits of their civilian associates.  Monsieur Outrey, the French
Minister, wore a black dress suit, while Herr von Scholzer, the
diplomatic representative of Germany, appeared in a gold-embroidered
court dress.  The French army officers all wore red trousers, with
the exception of one in white breeches and high boots, and their
uniforms and equipments were very handsome.  The Germans had a more
soldier-like appearance, as if they meant business and not show.

President Arthur, who had not removed from "Castle Butler" to the
White House, came over, and for the first time occupied the
President's room adjacent to the Senate Chamber.  Secretary Blaine
went there for him, and advanced with him to where the French
Minister stood in the rotunda.  President Arthur was attired in a
full suit of black, with black cravat and gloves.  The French
Minister introduced the President to the French guests, and then
the German Minister introduced him to the German guests.  Secretary
Lincoln then passed along the line with the army officers, and then
came Secretary Hunt with the naval officers.  Pleasant little
speeches were exchanged, and there was no end of bowing and hand-
shaking.

As the hour of three approached, the Senators gradually returned
to their desks in the Senate Chamber, and they found the galleries,
which they had left empty, filled with ladies, whose bright attire
was equal to the variegated hues of a bed of blooming tulips.  Some
routine business was transacted, and then the nation's guests, who
had been accorded the privilege of the floor, came in, escorted by
Mr. Blaine, and took a row of seats which encircled the chamber
behind the desks.  Senator Bayard then rose, and in an eloquent
and graceful little speech alluded to the presence of the distinguished
citizens of our sister Republic of France and the Empire of Germany,
who had come here to join in celebrating the victory of Yorktown.
He concluded by asserting that he spoke the sentiments of the
American Senate by saying that they were most welcome, and moved
a recess of half an hour, that the Senators might individually pay
their respects to them.  The motion was carried amid loud applause,
and then the visitors were presented to President David Davis and
the Senators.  When the introductions were over, the guests were
shown to their carriages and driven back to the Arlington.

As the evening approached and the twilight deepened crowds flocked
to the White House grounds and vicinity to witness the display of
fireworks.  Pennsylvania Avenue was brilliant with electric and
calcium lights and myriads of paper lanterns.  The fireworks were
very excellent, and several of the pieces were loudly applauded.

President Arthur and his Cabinet, with many Senators and Representatives,
officers of the army and navy, and their ladies went with the
nation's guests to Yorktown on a fleet of steamboats.  There the
Governors of the original States, each with a militia escort, with
a military and naval force of regulars, joined in the centennial
exercises.  Virginia hospitality was dispensed on the Congressional
steamer by Senator Johnston, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements,
who exceeded the liberal appropriation some twenty thousand dollars,
much of which was for liquors and champagne.  Congress finally
voted the necessary amount without the filing of detailed vouchers.

Secretary Blaine's entertainment to the nation's guests, at Wormley's
Hotel, was the most sumptuous and enjoyable evening party ever
given at Washington.  The doors connecting the parlors and those
leading into the hall had been removed, and in their places were
curtains of gray damask, bordered with cardinal red.  The stars
and stripes were conspicuously displayed, and there was a lavish
display of rare plants, variegated foliage, and vines.  From the
keystones of the arches which divided the rooms were suspended
floral globes, and the chandeliers were festooned with garlands.
In the hall was the full Marine Band, in evening dress, with their
string and reed instruments.

A few moments before ten o'clock Secretary and Mrs. Blaine arrived,
and took their position in the outside parlor, near the entrance.
Mr. Blaine was in excellent health and spirits, displaying that
_bonhomie_ for which he is so justly famed.  Mrs. Blaine wore an
evening dress of white brocaded satin, with a long train, trimmed
with lace and pearls.

An usher, who knew every one, and who could pronounce the names
and give the rank of the numerous foreigners, announced the guests
as they entered.  The French were the first to arrive, followed by
the Germans, and after they had paid their respects they were ranged
next to Mr. Blaine, and the other guests, as they arrived, were
also presented to them.  The French and German officers wore their
respective uniforms, with their decorations of various orders of
knighthood, and the civilians were in full evening dress, many
wearing decorations.  Madame la Marquise de Rochambeau wore an
evening dress of royal purple, moire antique silk, trimmed with
heliotrope plush and a profusion of rare lace.

The Diplomatic Corps was out in force, and several of the Foreign
Ministers were accompanied by their wives.  Madame Outrey, wife of
the French Minister, wore a white brocade with a sweeping train,
trimmed with lace, and a rare set of diamonds.  Madame Bartholomei,
wife of the Russian Minister, wore a court dress of black satin
brocade, trimmed with jet, and a magnificent set of emeralds and
diamonds.

The army was well represented, headed by General Sherman in his
gala uniform, with its golden baldric, and there were Admirals and
Commodores enough to man a vessel.  The foreigners were much
interested in Admiral Worden, who commanded the Monitor in the
critical iron-clad fight.

A quorum of the Senate was present, with their burly President,
David Davis, and there were not a few Representatives, including
Messrs. Kasson and Hiscock, the rival candidates for the Speakership.
Senators Cameron, Bayard, Voorhees, and Butler were accompanied by
their daughters.  Chief Justice Waite and nearly all of the Associate
Justices were present, and also the members of the Cabinet, with
the exception of Attorney-General MacVeagh, who, of course, stayed
away.  The journalists invited, several of them accompanied by
their wives, showed that Mr. Blaine never forgot his original
calling.

The supper-table extended the whole length of the dining-room, and
it was laid with exquisite taste.  The ware was the finest Dresden
china, much of the silver was gilded, and the glass was of the
newest patterns.  A profusion of roses in low mounds set off these
appointments to great advantage.  As for the _menu_, it comprised
terrapin, canvas-backs, oysters, and saddles of mutton, with all
the recognized masterpieces of French culinary art.  Even the young
French and German officers, who had scowled at each other as they
had bowed salutations with formal politeness earlier in the evening,
fraternized at the supper-table.  I saw a young Frenchman look
approvingly on as a stalwart German Captain effected an entrance
into a Strasburg pie and dealt out its toothsome contents, and the
Teutons, whose favorite tipple had been beer, kept up a fusillade
of champagne corks as they filled the glasses of their fair partners.
After the supper, the guests returned to the spacious parlors, where,
to the witching strains of the Marine Band, the merry dancers chased
the hours with flying feet until long after the midnight stars had
struggled through the clouds.

The next night, while the Von Steubens were at Baltimore enjoying
the torchlight procession and the Fatherland songs of their
countrymen, Mr. Blaine treated the French guests to a sight of the
Capitol, brilliantly lighted up from dome to basement.  The effect
when seen from without was fairy-like, and within the noble
proportions of the rotunda, the legislative halls, and the long
corridors were disclosed to great advantage.

Later in the evening Monsieur Max Outrey, the Minister of France,
gave a reception in honor of his visiting countrymen.  It was
noticeable that this _fete_ had been postponed until after the
departure of the Germans, but Monsieur Outrey took care to mention
that they had been invited, but had sent "a very sweet letter of
regret."  The home guests invited were generally those who were at
Secretary Blaine's reception the night previous, but the ladies of
the Legations were rather more handsomely dressed.  Monsieur Outrey
was enthusiastic in his praises of the liberal hospitality extended
to his countrymen, who had, he said, drank more champagne since
they had been in Washington then they ever drank in all their lives
at home, and who were really getting fatigued with their ceaseless
round of entertainments.

[Facsimile]
  W. T. Sherman
  General, 1885.
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN was born in Lancaster County, Ohio, February
8th, 1820; was graduated at the West Point Military Academy, June
30th, 1840; served in Florida and California, 1840-1851; was
President of the Louisiana State Military College, 1859-1861; served
in the Union Army from 1861, receiving the appointment of Lieutenant-
General in July, 1866, and of General in March, 1869; went on the
retired list in 1884.


CHAPTER XL.
PRESIDENT ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRATION.

The first session of the Forty-seventh Congress, which was commenced
on the 5th of December, 1881, and prolonged until the 8th of August,
1882, found the Republicans again in the possession of the Federal
Government.  In the Senate, where the elephantine David Davis
presided in his pleasant way, often disregarding parliamentary
rules, there was a Republican majority of two, and in the House,
which had elected as its Speaker that gallant, burly, impulsive
son of Ohio, General J. Warren Keifer, there was a majority of ten.
These small majorities made the game of legislation the more
interesting, as every move had to be carefully studied before it
was made.  The proposed revision of the customs tariff and the
Internal Revenue Tax Bill interested every member, as each had one
or more pet industries belonging to favorite constituents, on which
he wanted the high war taxes or duties retained, while he boldly
advocated sweeping reductions on everything else.

President Arthur's appointments of Judge Folger to the Treasury
Department, of Mr. Frelinghuysen to the State Department, of Mr.
Brewster to the Department of Justice, and of Mr. Howe to the Post-
Office Department were all predicted and expected, but no one looked
for Mr. Conkling's appointment to the vacant place on the bench of
the Supreme Court, as it was well known that he had only a few
years previous refused the Chief Justiceship.  The appointment gave
Mr. Conkling's enemies an opportunity to talk about his theatrical,
overbearing manner, but his appointment met general approbation;
some, doubtless, feeling a relief that his political career would
thus be ended.  The Senate confirmed the nomination, but Mr. Conkling
declined the honor thus tendered.

One of the first acts of the Forty-seventh Congress was the
appointment of a joint committee of eight Senators and a Representative
for every State, to whom was referred so much of the message of
President Arthur as related to the decease of General Garfield,
with instructions to report by what token of respect and affection
Congress could express the deep grief of the nation.  The Committee
reported, condoling with the widow of the deceased, and providing
for an oration on his life and character, to be pronounced before
the two houses of Congress and the high officials of Government,
by the Hon. James G. Blaine.

The scene in the Hall of the House of Representatives on the 27th
of February, when the Garfield Memorial services were held, would
have kindled the spark of oratorical fire in a less gifted man than
Mr. Blaine.  As he stood there at the Clerk's desk, looking over
the great assemblage before him, his glance must first have fallen
upon the calm features and dignified presence of the President of
the United States, who was seated in the chair of honor, directly
in front of his late Secretary of State.  Then Mr. Blaine must have
met the glance of his late associates in President Arthur's Cabinet
--Folger, of impressive manner; Lincoln, to whom the proceedings
of the day rekindled the saddest of recollections; Brewster,
noticeable by the quaintness of his dress; Kirkwood, of plain,
homely ways and dress, and the Creole-like Hunt.  By the side of
these Mr. Blaine saw his own successor in the Cabinet, Frelinghuysen
and with him Postmaster-General Howe.  A little to the left,
resplendent in gilt trappings and buttons, sat General Sherman,
with his weather-beaten and kindly face, and by his side plucky
Phil. Sheridan, now gray and demure, and Hancock, of stately bearing.
There, too were Admiral Porter and Rear-Admiral Worden of the navy,
men of fame.

In another direction sat the Justices of the Supreme Court, clad
in their flowing robes of office.  States were there represented
by their Governors, and their Senators, and their Representatives,
throwing aside for the nonce the strife and partisanship incidental
to legislative warfare, gave testimony by their respectful silence
to the esteem in which they held the memory of the man, who, prior
to the Chicago Convention, enjoyed the friendship of all his
colleagues.

Still further back an area of sheen and color marked the position
of the Diplomatic Corps, with its variety of costumes and decorations.
Yet further back were Fred. Douglass, conspicuous from his long
white hair and strong features, and General Schenck, with hale,
firmly set face.  The orator's glance must have noted the venerable
historian Bancroft, himself the orator of the day like this when
Lincoln's eulogy was pronounced, and by the side of Bancroft the
philanthropist, Corcoran, and next him, and to the President's
left, Cyrus W. Field.  As Mr. Blaine's glance was raised to the
galleries he must have been struck with the uniform sombreness of
the appearance of the embanked multitude of ladies, whose dark
attire was peculiarly appropriate, forming, as it did, a kind of
mourning frame around the living picture which was presented on
the floor.  In the President's gallery the orator could see the
refined lineaments of George William Curtis, or the English-like
face of Henry James, Jr.  Such were the salient features of the
audience to whom Mr. Blaine was to speak of Garfield.

It looked to some who knew Mr. Blaine well as if he felt tempted
to cast aside the pile of manuscript heavily bordered with black,
which he placed before himself, and to speak as inspiration suggested,
so long did he stand before that remarkable audience before beginning.
To the audience the orator was second in interest only to the
subject of the oration.  Expectation was great respecting Mr.
Blaine's treatment of the subject.  He was the dead man's closest
friend, and he was looked upon as the representative of one wing
or division of a party within which was great bitterness.  To
separate his duty to the dead from due consideration for the living
and balance the two was difficult, but he held the scales with such
an even, steady hand, that neither the lovers of the dead President
and his acts were disappointed or dissatisfied, nor the friends of
the living President offended.  He merely performed the duty assigned
him in a simple, earnest, manly, truthful, conscientious, becoming
manner.

Mr. Blaine was not the "plumed knight" of political debate, impetuous
and enthusiastic, but he read page after page with patient enunciation,
his resonant voice only faltering when for a moment it quivered
with emotion as he described the boyish joy of General Garfield as
he breathed the fresh morning air on the fatal day when he went
forth to meet his doom.  The personal pronoun did not once occur
in the whole eulogy, and not one single allusion was made that
could be thought of as referring to the speaker.

When Mr. Blaine had finished there was a reverential silence.
President Arthur, who seemed to have been deeply impressed, made
no movement to go.  The immense audience was motionless.  It was
the most impressive moment of the day.  At length there was a faint
stir.  Then President Arthur arose, and, with his Cabinet, silently
left the great hall.  The Supreme Court followed, and then the
great assemblage quietly dissolved.  The last public ceremonial
over the death of Garfield was finished.  It was just one year
previous that he had quitted his home at Mentor to come to Washington
and be inaugurated as President of the United States.

President Arthur wore mourning for his predecessor six months,
dressing in black, using writing paper with a broad black border,
declining all invitations to theatrical performances, and giving
no state entertainments at the White House.  At first he endeavored
to bring about a millennium of political forces, but the "stalwart"
lions refused to lie down with the "half-breed" lambs, and his
honest attempts to secure a reconciliation only provoked the enmity
of both factions.  Before the burial of General Garfield a series
of personal attacks was begun on his constitutional successor at
the White House, which were industriously kept up.  With a low
cunning that generally concealed its malignancy, about once a
fortnight some ingenious paragraph was started, ostensibly stating
some fact connected with the Federal Government, but really stabbing
at President Arthur.  Unable to condemn his administration of
national affairs, his enemies sought by innuendo and misrepresentation
to render him ridiculous and neglectful of the public interest.
But it so happened that President Arthur's Scotch-Irish character
displayed itself in a practical utility never before known at the
White House.  His extensive knowledge of State politics was constantly
called into requisition in making appointments, while in his messages
to Congress he made statements and suggestions with a strenuous
conviction of their truth, as he stood like a sturdy sentinel before
the gates of the Constitution.  He "made haste slowly" and he made
but few blunders.

The President's daily life was very simple, although pains were
taken to make him out a _bon vivant_.  He usually rose about half-
past nine, took a cup of coffee and a roll while dressing, and went
into his office, where he read his private letters, dictated replies
to official communications, and courteously received Congressional
and other place-hunters.  At noon he ate a light breakfast--no
meat, but oatmeal, fish, and fruit--and then returned to his desk,
where he remained until four o'clock in the afternoon.  He then
took a drive or a ride on horseback, sometimes accompanied by his
daughter.  His family dinner hour was six, when his favorite repast
was a mutton-chop, with a glass of Bass' ale, or a slice of rare
roast beef, with a glass of claret, hot baked potatoes, and the
fruits of the season.  After dinner he returned to his work, reading
the many papers submitted to him by the heads of departments, and
not leaving his desk until the "wee sma' hours."

The "Star-route" trials were inaugurated by Attorney-General MacVeagh
to bring reproach upon the Administrations of Grant and Hayes.
This system of "extra allowances" for carrying the United States
mails dated back, however, to the days of William Taylor Barry,
Postmaster-General under President Jackson.  A Democratic Committee
of Congress which investigated the mismanagement of the Post-Office
Department, ascribed much of the rascality to "the large disbursements
of money under the name of extra allowances.  It is a puzzling
problem to decide whether this discretionary power, throughout its
whole existence, has done most mischief in the character of impostor
upon the Department, or seducer to contractors.  It has, doubtless,
been an evildoer in both guises."

The "Star-route" system of plunder was, however, handed down from
Administration to Administration, and the contractors who were
thereby enriched were called upon at each successive Presidential
election to contribute to the campaign fund.  This had been done
in the Garfield and Hancock contest just concluded.  Mr. Jay A.
Hubbell, who was the custodian of the Republican campaign fund,
applied to Assistant Postmaster-General Brady, who negotiated the
"Star-route" contracts, for pecuniary aid, and was told that it
should be forthcoming, provided he could have a letter from General
Garfield to exhibit to the contractors to spur them up to make
liberal contributions.

General Garfield wrote, on the 23d of August, 1880, not to Brady,
but to Hubbell:  "Yours of the 19th received and contents noted.
Please say to Brady I hope he will give us all the assistance
possible.  Please tell me how the Departments are doing.  As ever,
yours."  The letter from Hubbell, to which this was a reply, was
never published, and General Garfield's friends afterward maintained
that he had not alluded to the "Star-route" contractors.  The
letter, they maintained, was simply the expression of a hope that
Brady, a citizen of Indiana, who was reputed to have made an immense
fortune in "Bell Telephone stock," would respond from his ample
means in aid of his party in the life-and-death struggle then going
on in his own State.

The Attorney-General made a great display in his prosecution of
some of those who had enriched themselves by "Star-route" contracts,
retaining eminent counsel, and bringing witnesses to Washington at
a great expense.  There was much rascality developed, and some
reputations were smirched, but the disagreement of juries prevented
any punishment of the offenders.  They regarded themselves as
political victims and felt deeply wronged because of their prosecution
by an Administration which they had certainly helped into power.

The people believed that the Star-route scandals, like the whisky
frauds, the bogus quarter-master's claims, the public-land seizures,
and the steamship subsidy schemes, were "ring" relics of the war,
with their profligacy and corruption, on each one of which Colonel
Mulberry Sellers would have remarked:  "There's millions in it."
Yet the lobbyists and schemers enriched by these plunder schemes,
who bore the brand of "swindler" in scarlet letters of infamy upon
their foreheads, did not lose their places in Washington society.

[Facsimile]
  David D Porter
DAVID D. PORTER, born at Philadelphia, June, 1813; Midshipman in
the navy, 1829; Lieutenant, 1841; served in the Mexican War;
Commander, 1861; took active part in opening the Mississippi; Rear-
Admiral, July 4th, 1863; took Fort Fisher, January, 1865; Vice-
Admiral, July 25th, 1866; Admiral, August, 1870.


CHAPTER XLI.
GAY AND FESTIVE SCENES.

New Year's Day has always been celebrated at the National Capital
in the style which President Washington inaugurated when the Federal
Government was located at New York.  The foreign Ministers and the
Government dignitaries go in state to pay their respects to the
President, after which the old Knickerbocker custom of visiting
friends generally is kept up.  One is certain to see at the White
House on New Year's Day all the prominent people of both sexes in
Washington.  Then, too, it is the only place in the metropolis
where the ladies can pass in review all of the new toilets, and
see what the leaders of fashion have designed since last season.
It is the only place where there is room for a large crowd to move
about easily and where the full effect of brilliant dressing can
be displayed.  The ladies invited to receive with the President,
with many others, are in evening costume, although walking-costumes
are not uncommon.

President Arthur's first New Year's reception was a brilliant
affair.  Mrs. Frelinghuysen accompanied the President into the Blue
Room, and stood next to his sister, Mrs. McElroy, at his right
hand, with the wives of the other ministers of the Cabinet.  When
his daughter and niece came in, he welcomed them with a happy smile
and bent down and kissed them.  Their simple white ribbon sashes
were in refreshing contrast with the gorgeous costumes of the
diplomats.

Brilliant as were the diamonds of Madame de Struve, the wife of
the Russian Minister, and effective as was the bronze golden silk
dress, trimmed with gold beads, of the wife of Attorney-General
Brewster, the "observed of all observers" was Dr. Mary Walker, who
came tripping in with elastic step, shook hands with President
Arthur, and was profusely poetical in wishing him the compliments
of the season.  She wore a black broadcloth frock coat and pantaloons,
and carried a high black silk hat in her left hand, while in her
right she flourished a slender cane.  After leaving the President,
she passed along the line of ladies who received with him, giving
to each a sweeping bow, and then went into the East Room, where
she was carefully scrutinized by the ladies.

Senator Hoar gave a most enjoyable dinner to a party of gentlemen
invited by him to meet Mr. Justice Gray, after his appointment to
the bench of the Supreme Court.  It was given at the hotel of Mr.
Wormley, the friend of Charles Sumner, and the guests assembled in
a parlor containing much of the furniture which adorned the house
of the great Senator.  The guests met about seven o'clock, and
after an exchange of salutations, the large doors which form one
side of the room were thrown open, and Senator Hoar informally
invited those present to gather around the magnificently furnished
table which presented itself.  Covers were laid for thirty-six
persons, and the china, the silver, and the glassware were all rare
and of beautiful design.  A belt of flowers encircled the table in
front of the plates, and within this inclosure were mounds of rare
exotics and quaintly constructed ornaments of confectionery.  The
place of each guest was marked by a card, on which his name was
printed, and on this was an exquisite button-hole bouquet.  The
bills of fare were on large sheets of cardboard, handsomely engraved,
and the succession of thirteen courses, beginning with oysters and
ending with coffee, was an epicurean treat.  In accordance with
Washington etiquette, President Arthur sat at the host's right
hand, and on his right sat Judge Gray.  At the left of the host
sat Chief Justice Waite; directly opposite sat Senator Dawes; at
the right hand end of the long table was George Bancroft, and at
the left hand end was Representative Harris.  There was not, of
course, any speech-making or drinking of healths, but after the
dessert had been served, gentlemen left their seats and sat in
little groups around the table, chatting pleasantly until after
midnight.  Taken as a whole, dinner and guests, it was the finest
entertainment that I have ever seen in Washington--and I have seen
a great many.

President Arthur's first state dinner was given in honor of General
and Mrs. Grant.  The parlors and the East Room were profusely
decorated with flowers, and in the dining-room were palm trees and
other exotics massed in the corners, while the mantels were banked
with cut flowers.  There were thirty-four plates on the long table,
in the centre of which was a plateau mirror, on which were roses
and lilies of the valley.  On either side of it were tall gilt
candelabra bearing eleven wax lights each, and beyond these large
gilt epergnes overflowing with Marechal Niel roses.  At the end of
the mirror were pairs of silver candelabra bearing shaded wax lights
and oval cushions of white camelias set with roses and orchids.
At the extreme ends were round pieces of bon silene roses and lilies
of the valley.  Around this elaborate centre decoration were ranged
crystal compotes and cut-glass decanters.  Large, flat corsage
bouquets of roses, tied with satin ribbons, were laid at each lady's
plate, and small _boutonnieres_ of rosebuds were provided for the
gentlemen.  The cards were of heavy gilt-edge board, embossed with
the national coat-of-arms in gold, below which the name of each
guest was written.  The Marine Band performed selections from
popular operatic music.

The guests were received by President Arthur in the East Room.  At
eight o'clock dinner was announced, and the guests repaired to the
dining-room in the following order, each lady taking a seat at the
right hand of the gentleman who escorted her:  President Arthur,
escorting Mrs. Grant, who wore a white satin dress with low neck
and long train deeply flounced with lace, and a profusion of
diamonds; General Grant, escorting Mrs. Frelinghuysen, who wore a
black velvet dress with flowing train, opening in front, and showing
a petticoat of plaited black satin; Secretary Frelinghuysen,
escorting Mrs. Lincoln, who wore a black velvet dress with sweeping
train and rich jet trimmings; General Sherman, escorting Miss Beale,
who wore a white satin dress with a train of silver brocade, trimmed
at the neck and sleeves with Valenciennes lace; Admiral Porter,
escorting Miss Coleman, who wore a dress of terra-cotta satin
trimmed with flowered brocade and lace; Senator Anthony, escorting
Mrs. Logan, who wore a magnificent dress of wine-colored velvet
trimmed with Pompadour brocade; Senator Miller, escorting Mrs.
Kinsley, who wore a ball-dress of cardinal satin trimmed with
brocade; Senator Jones, of Nevada, escorting Mrs. Beale, who wore
a white satin dress trimmed with lace; Senator Cameron, of
Pennsylvania, escorting Mrs. John Davis, who wore a ball-dress of
white satin trimmed with lace; General Beale, escorting Miss
Frelinghuysen, who wore a dress of marine-blue velvet, with a long
train trimmed with iridescent bugles; Secretary Folger, escorting
Miss Cutts, who wore white satin trimmed with lace; Secretary
Lincoln, escorting Mrs. Secretary Chandler, who wore an exquisite
dress of pale blue surah and crape; Postmaster-General Howe,
escorting Mrs. Teller, who wore a dress of white satin; Attorney-
General Brewster, escorting Mrs. Cameron, who wore a pink satin
dress elaborately trimmed with ruffles of rare lace; Secretary
Chandler, escorting Mrs. Brewster, who wore a dress of cardinal
satin with a court train embroidered with gold in large figures;
Secretary Teller, escorting Miss Totten, who wore white satin
trimmed with white ruchings.

Dinner was served in fourteen courses, with which there were served
eight varieties of wines, each variety having its appropriate wine-
glass.  The guests were two hours at the table, and the menu was
eulogized, especially the terrapin, which was highly commended by
the epicures who enjoyed it.

Mr. Blaine was a prominent figure in Washington society, both social
and political, after he left the Department of State, and there
was always a great desire to know his opinions on passing events.
His heath was excellent, and he never appeared to greater advantage.
Tall and portly, yet graceful in movement, his wealth of white hair
set off his mobile, expressive features, with their never-quiet
dark eyes.

The new house built by Mr. Blaine in the northwestern part of
Washington was an imposing structure, covering an area of about
seventy by seventy-five feet, and it was solid and substantial from
its steep roof to its roomy basement.  The spacious halls and
stairways were wainscoted, finished, and ceiled in oak; the drawing-
room, the dining-room, and the library were furnished in solid
mahogany; and the chambers were finished in poplar and pine.  The
great charm of the house was that each and every room, large and
small, had its open fire-place, some of them surrounded by beautiful
mantel-pieces, with carved wood and mirrors.  It was, indeed, an
English house, with its comforts set off by many Yankee contrivances.

In this house, on a bright morning of early spring, Colonel John
T. Coppinger, of the United States army, was married to Miss Alice
Stanwood Blaine.  President Arthur adjourned the regular meeting
of the Cabinet that he and his constitutional advisers might attend.
The Speaker of the House, with the Maine Senators and Representatives,
left their Congressional duties in order to be present.  The
Diplomatic Corps, doubtless remembering the courtesies which they
received from Mr. Blaine when Secretary of State, was out in full
force.  The army and navy were largely represented, the elite of
fashionable society was present, and there was a good representation
of the press.  All had congregated to show their good wishes toward
the family of the young bride.

Colonel Coppinger, who belongs to an old Roman Catholic family in
Ireland, served gallantly in the Papal Army, and coming to this
country in 1861, was commissioned in the Fourteenth Infantry.  He
received two brevets for "gallant and meritorious services" in a
score of engagements, and after having displayed great energy in
command of troops operating against the Indians, he was made Acting
Inspector-General on the staff of General Pope, a position only
given to those thoroughly versed in the manual, the drill, the
equipment, and the discipline of the army.  He was forty-nine years
of age, tall, erect, with clear, hazel eyes, gray hair and whiskers,
and a martial deportment.

Twelve o'clock, noon, was the hour fixed for the ceremony, and soon
after that time conversation was suddenly hushed, as the Rev. Dr.
Chapelle, of St. Matthew's Church, took his assigned position.  He
wore a black robe with a cape, and carried a small prayer-book,
from which he subsequently read the brief service used when a Roman
Catholic is wedded to one not belonging to that Church.  A moment
later Mrs. Blaine came down the broad staircase on the arm of her
eldest son, Mr. Walker Blaine.  She wore a high-necked corsage of
wine-colored velvet, with a satin dress and train of the same color,
trimmed with lace.

Soon the bride came down the staircase leaning on the arm of her
father, who appeared somewhat impressed by the solemnity of the
occasion.  She wore a dress of white satin with a sweeping train
trimmed with crystal, while an ample veil partially concealed her
youthful features and slight form.  She carried a bouquet of roses
and lilies-of-the-valley.  Behind her came her only attendant, her
young sister, Miss Hattie Blaine, who was dressed in white.  Mr.
Blaine's other two sons and Miss Abigail Dodge, of Hamilton,
Massachusetts, followed.

At the improvised altar, Colonel Coppinger, attended by Lieutenant
Emmet, of the Ninth Cavalry, advanced to claim his bride.  As the
happy pair knelt before the altar, Mr. and Mrs. Blaine and Miss
Hattie stood at their right, and President Arthur, George Bancroft,
and Miss Dodge stood at their left.  The service was quickly
performed, and after the parents, President Arthur was the first
to salute the bride.  The guests were then presented seriatim to
Colonel and Mrs. Coppinger, and if good wishes could have been
regarded as an augury of their future, there could have been no
doubt of their good fortunes.

After congratulations had been offered, President Arthur escorted
the bride to the large dining-room.  There a table was bountifully
spread, while on a sideboard were boxes of wedding-cake to be sent
to friends at a distance.  It was not long before the bridegroom
and bride left the festive scene to array themselves for their
journey, and they quietly departed from the house to take the train
for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  Taken as a whole, the wedding
surpassed any similar festal scene ever witnessed at Washington,
and was a hearty manifestation of good feeling toward the happy
couple and the parents of the bride.

One of the most charming houses in Washington was that occupied
for some years by the British Legation, and which Admiral Porter
rebuilt and refurnished with a portion of the large sum of prize-
money received by him during the war.  It was a model of good taste
and luxury, elegant without display, and perfect in all its
appointments.  The square hall, with tessellated marble floor, led
into a suite of three parlors, opening into each other by arched-
ways, heavily draped with satin damask.  The central parlor was
upholstered in crimson velvet, that on the right in drab, and that
on the left in blue.  The hangings and furniture were of colors to
match.  The marble mantels were decorated with articles of virtu,
and rare painting adorned the walls.  Leading from the crimson
parlor was a long, wide ball-room, with waxed and polished floor,
and rows of seats for the accommodation of dancers and spectators.
Numberless crystal chandeliers emitted a flood of softened light,
while flowers bloomed everywhere in pots, vases, and baskets in
indescribable profusion.

[Facsimile]
  Robert T. Lincoln
ROBERT TODD LINCOLN, eldest child of Abraham Lincoln, born at
Springfield, Ill., August 1st, 1843; graduated at Harvard, 1864;
member of General Grant's staff during the last month of the war;
admitted to practice law in Chicago, 1867; Secretary of War under
Presidents Garfield and Arthur, March 5th, 1881 - March 6th, 1885.


CHAPTER XLII.
THE WASHINGTON NATIONAL MONUMENT.

When the Forty-eighth Congress met on the 3d of December, 1885,
Senator Edmunds occupied the chair of the Senate as President _pro
tempore;_ Judge Davis, not having been re-elected Senator from
Illinois, had vacated the chair on the last day of the preceding
session.  Senator Anthony, who had been elected to a fifth term,
could not be sworn in as a Senator until after the commencement of
that term, and was consequently ineligible.  So Senator Edmunds
accepted the position with the understanding that he would vacate
it as soon as his friend from Rhode Island, by qualifying as a
Senator, should be eligible for election.

When the Senate met, Senator Anthony was recovering from a severe
illness, and it was not until the following week that he was able
to appear in the Senate Chamber.  He entered leaning on the arm of
his colleague, Senator Aldrich, and as he took his accustomed seat,
his attention was attracted by a large bouquet of flowers, bearing
the name of a lady clerk who had been retained in place by his kind
offices.  The Senators soon crowded around him with their
congratulations on his convalescence, and among the first were
General Butler, of South Carolina, maimed in the Confederate cause,
and General Miller, of California, who lost his right eye in the
Union army at Vicksburg.

After prayers and the reading of the journal, Senator Aldrich rose,
and was recognized by the Chair as the "senior Senator from Rhode
Island."  He announced the presence of his colleague, the Senator-
elect, whose credentials had been filed, and asked that the oath
of office might be administered to him.  The presiding officer
invited the Senator-elect to receive the oaths, and when Governor
Anthony stood before him, he administered the regular oath of 1789,
first taken by the parliamentary veteran in 1859, with the "iron-
clad oath" that had been adopted in 1862.  As the good old man
stood with uplifted hand, every other member of the Senate rose,
and stood until the obligation had been administered--a merited
compliment to the _Pater Senatus_.  No other man, save Thomas Hart
Benton, had ever been sworn in five consecutive times as Senator.

Closing the book from which he had read the oaths, Senator Edmunds
was first to shake his old friend's hand.  Senator Anthony then
resumed his seat, and nearly every Senator came to greet him,
followed by the veteran officers of the Senate, who had always
found in him a true friend.  A few weeks later, Senator Edmunds
resigned, and Senator Anthony was elected President _pro tem._,
but the precarious state of his health forced him, in a speech
prompted by a heart overflowing with gratitude, to decline the
honor, and Senator Edmunds was recalled to the post of honor.

Senator Anthony had twice before been chosen President _pro tem._
of the Senate, and he had for a number of years past been the
President in the caucus of Republican Senators.  It is in the caucus
of the dominant party that legislation is shaped, and unanimity of
action in open Senate secured.  Governor Anthony's tact and skill
as a presiding officer had, doubtless, exercised a potent influence
in harmonizing opposing views entertained by Republican Senators,
and there was no Senator who could fill the chair, either in open
Senate, in executive session, or in caucus, with more dignity and
impartiality than he.

General McCook, an Ohio soldier, and an ex-Representative from New
York city, was elected Secretary of the Senate, defeating George
C. Gorham, who had been the candidate of the Republican caucus.
The Republican nominee for Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Riddleberger, was
also dropped, and Colonel Wm. P. Canaday, of North Carolina, was
chosen.  At the commencement of the next session, Mr. Riddleberger
took his seat as a Senator from Virginia.

A Democratic tidal wave had swept over the country at the preceding
fall elections, and the Democrats had a considerable majority in
the House of Representatives.  John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky, who
was elected Speaker, was a tall, well-made man, with a studious
look in his eyes, and the winning manners of Henry Clay.  He had
a sweet voice, and his expositions of parliamentary law in the
preceding sessions had elevated him to the front rank of statesmanship
in the opinion of the House.  His impartiality as a presiding
officer was recognized by all parties, and his firmness of purpose
could not be moved by corrupt intriguers or brawling sycophants.
He was also fortunate in having a devoted wife, tall and graceful,
whose attractive personal appearance was equaled by her well-balanced
mind and her practical common sense.  As Mrs. Edmunds was at that
time absent from Washington, on the New Year's Day after her
husband's election as Speaker Mrs. Carlisle was "the first lady in
the land," and stood at President Arthur's right hand during the
official reception.

Washington society was very gay during the closing year of President
Arthur's Administration.  The receptions to which invitations were
given and those open to the public at the White House were largely
attended, while there was a succession of balls, German masquerades,
and receptions at the residences of diplomats, housekeeping Senators,
officials, and citizens.  Several entertainments were given "for
charity's sake," which realized considerable sums, and the theatres
also were unusually well attended.

The world-weary rejoiced when the matin chimes of Lent announced
that the gay season was ended, but although gayety arrayed itself
in sackcloth and sprinkled ashes broadcast, the sackcloth moved in
the waltz as its wearer tripped over the ashes.  There were successions
of informal dancing parties, lunch parties, and card parties during
the penitential forty days, and then came the post-Lenten
festivities.

The giving of good dinners was, however, the distinguishing feature
of Washington society during the Arthur Administration.  The example
was set at the White House, where, instead of dinners supplied by
a caterer at two dollars a plate, with cheap wines of doubtful
origin, a gastronomic artist served the delicacies of the season,
cooked in the latest Parisian style, while the wines were of the
rarest vintages, embodying the fervor of long Gascon summers, the
warmth of Burgundian suns, and the delicate flavor of Xeres.  Never
had epicures so enjoyed themselves at Washington, and they rejoiced
when they contrasted his dispensation with the barbaric repasts of
former years, when "hog and hominy" was the principal dish, and
tangle-foot whisky punch was the fashionable table beverage.

Washington City was greatly improved during President Arthur's
Administration.  The National Museum was completed and opened to
visitors, the northern wing of the stupendous pile, the State, War,
and Navy Department Building, was occupied, and that hideous
architectural monstrosity, the Pension Office, was built.  At the
West End scores of elegant private houses were erected, varying in
size from the palatial mansion built by Mr. Blaine to the rustic
cabin of Joaquin Miller, and the small Queen Anne cottages, now so
popular, and some of which are models of convenience and beauty.
Many avenues and streets were repaved, others were planted with
bordering lines of shade trees, and several of the large reservations
were adorned with statues and fountains.  The previously unfinished
city, which Governor Shepherd had "lifted from out of the mud,"
became a national metropolis, in which the people of the country
could take pride.

The dedication of the Washington National Monument, on the 22d of
February, 1885, was a fit conclusion to President Arthur's official
career.  This work had been long in progress, as its record, engraved
on its aluminum tip, shows.  It is as follows:  "Corner-stone laid
on bed of foundation, July 4, 1848.  First stone at height of 152
feet laid August 7, 1880.  Capstone set December 6, 1884."  The
laying of the capstone was duly celebrated.  The wind, at the top
of the monument, was blowing at the rate of sixty miles an hour,
and thousands of eye-glasses were pointed toward the little party
on the scaffoldings at the summit.  All on the upper platform, five
hundred and fifty feet above the ground, spread a portion of the
cement, and the capstone, weighing three thousand three hundred
pounds, was lowered into place.  The tip was then fitted and the
work was done, which fact was duly announced by flying the flag at
the top of the monument, and by the answering boom of cannon from
various points below.

The day of final dedication was clear and cold, the ground around
the base of the majestic shaft was covered with encrusted snow,
and the keen wind that came sweeping down the Potomac made it rather
uncomfortable for those who were assembled there.  The regular
troops and the citizen soldiery were massed in close columns around
the base of the monument, the Freemasons occupied their allotted
position, and in the pavilion which had been erected were the
invited guests, the executive, legislative, and judicial officers;
officers of the army, the navy, the marine corps, and the volunteers;
the Diplomatic Corps, eminent divines, jurists, scientists, and
journalists, and venerable citizens representing former generations,
the Washington National Monument Society, and a few ladies who had
braved the Arctic weather.  After addresses had been delivered by
Senator Sherman, W. W. Corcoran, and Colonel Casey, the chief
engineer, President Arthur made a few well-chosen remarks, and
concluded by declaring the monument dedicated from that time forth
"to the immortal name and memory of George Washington."  The cost
of the structure has been nearly two millions of dollars, about
half of which the Government has paid, the remainder having been
secured by the Monument Association.  After the exercises at the
monument, a procession was formed headed by Lieutenant-General
Sheridan, which marched along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.
The President's special escort was the Ancient and Honorable
Artillery Company of Massachusetts, chartered in 1638, which had
come to participate in the exercises of the day.  Two addresses
were delivered in the House of Representatives at the Capitol--one
(which was read by ex-Governor Long) by Hon. Robert C. Winthrop,
of Boston, who had delivered the address when the corner-stone was
laid in 1848, and the other by Hon. John W. Daniel, of Virginia.
In the evening the Ancient and Honorable Artillery attended a
special reception at the White House, reciprocatory of courtesies
extended by the corps to President Arthur, one of its honorary
members.

Meanwhile there had been a Presidential campaign.  The National
Republican Convention met at Chicago on June 3d; on the 6th, James
G. Blaine, of Maine, was nominated for President on the fourth
ballot, receiving five hundred and forty-one of the eight hundred
and nineteen votes cast, and General John A. Logan, of Illinois,
was nominated for Vice-President without opposition.  The National
Democratic Convention met at Chicago on July 6th, and on the 11th
Hon. Grover Cleveland, of New York, was nominated for President on
the second ballot, receiving six hundred and eighty-four of the
eight hundred and twenty votes cast, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of
Indiana, was nominated for Vice-President without opposition.  The
National Prohibition Convention met at Pittsburg on July 23d, and
nominated for President ex-Governor St. John, of Kansas, and for
Vice-President William Daniel, of Maryland.  The National Greenback
Convention met at Indianapolis on May 29th, and nominated for
President General B. F. Butler, of Massachusetts, and for Vice-
President A. M. West, of Mississippi.

The Presidential contest was disgracefully personal.  The private
characters of the two prominent candidates were mercilessly assailed,
and political principles were apparently forgotten in the degrading
desire to defame the nominees.  The result turned upon the vote in
the State of New York, which was very close.  The shrewdest political
manipulators were sent over the State to correct pretended
irregularities, but it soon became evident that the Democrats had
chosen the Cleveland electors by a decisive plurality.  The official
count showed five hundred and sixty-three thousand one hundred and
fifty-four votes for Cleveland, against five hundred and sixty-two
thousand and five votes for Blaine, twenty-five thousand and six
votes for St. John, and seventeen thousand and four votes for
Butler.  The total vote in the United States was four million nine
hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred and forty-seven votes
for Cleveland, four million eight hundred and forty thousand eight
hundred and twenty-five votes for Blaine, one hundred and fifty
thousand one hundred and thirty-four votes for St. John, and one
hundred and thirty-four thousand and twenty-eight votes for Butler.

[ Cleveland 563,154 in New York, 4,913,247 overall
  Blaine    562,005              4,840,025
  St. John   25,006                150,134
  Butler     17,004                134,028        ]

President Arthur's numerous friends contemplated his departure from
the White House without regret, and were confident that his
Administration would present a creditable appearance on the pages
of impartial history.  Utility to the country had been the rule of
his official life, and he attained that high standard of official
excellence which prevailed in the early days of the Republic, when
honesty, firmness, and patriotism were the characteristics of public
men.  He saw himself deserted by influential early associates
because he would not avenge their political grievances, while those
whom he protected ungratefully repaid him by defeating the election
of his friend, Judge Folger, as Governor of the State of New York
--a treacherous demonstration of partisan bigotry, which killed
the Judge as certain as the assassin's bullet killed Garfield.
Under President Arthur's lead, the Republican party, disorganized
and disheartened when he came into power, became gradually strengthened
and united before the Presidential election, in which it was very
near being victorious.

President Arthur, in his desire to administer his inherited duties
impartially, made himself enemies among those who should have been
his friends.  Before President Garfield was interred, General Grant
asked that his own personal friend, General Beale, might be appointed
Secretary of the Navy, and he never forgave President Arthur for
not complying with his request.

The removal of Judge Robertson from the New York Custom House would
doubtless have been acceptable to Roscoe Conkling, but it was not
made, and the ex-Senator, after refusing the tendered appointment
of a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States,
turned his back on his former friend.  Appointments which had been
promised by Mr. Blaine, when President Garfield's Secretary of
State, were invariably made, although the recipients had personally
abused President Arthur, yet the "Garfield Avengers," as the
officious friends of the martyr President chose to style themselves,
never alluded to his successor except as the man who had profited
by the assassination.  Slander, calumny, and falsehood were resorted
to by the press to deceive the people by giving them an untrue idea
of their Chief Magistrate.  His private life was invaded, his social
relations were violated, his most patriotic actions were sneered
at, and he was made the object of obloquy and vituperation by that
faction of the Republican party opposed to his policy.

I well remember with what sadness and indignation he referred to
the manner in which he had been treated when I had been selected
by him to write a campaign life of him, which was to have been
published by his friends had he been nominated for the Presidency
in 1884.  There were several matters about which he had been
mercilessly abused for which I found ample explanations exonerating
him.  One was his going to Albany in 1881, when he was Vice-President,
to labor for the re-election of Messrs. Conkling and Platt.  I had
ascertained that he had done this in return for a visit made to
Ohio during the preceding campaign by Mr. Conkling to speak in
favor of the election of General Garfield.  This had been on the
personal solicitation of Mr. Arthur, and it would have been ungrateful
for him to have declined an appeal to aid Mr. Conkling in an hour
of need by a visit to Albany.  When President Arthur read what I
had written on this subject he said pleasantly:  "That is all true,
but I must ask you not to publish it."  Never have I seen a public
man so determined not to criminate others, even in self-
justification.

During his Presidential term Mr. Arthur did what friends and fortune
can do for no man, and what neither friends nor foes could take
from him.  "He won a fame for which he himself fought, and from
which no man's censure could detract."  While he was emphatically
"the first gentleman in the land," giving unequaled receptions,
dinners, and evening entertainments with lavish hospitality, he
was, as he used to cheerily remark, "a night-bird," and his favorite
enjoyment was to have two or three personal friends eat a late
supper with him, and then chat with them far into the "wee sma'
hours."  His thorough knowledge of prominent men and politics during
the preceding quarter of a century enabled him to entertain his
listeners with graphic descriptions of remarkable scenes, piquant
but never indelicate anecdotes, keen sketches of men and women,
and interesting statements about the workings of political machinery,
especially in the State of New York.

Unfortunately, President Arthur, before he left the White House,
became impressed with the idea that the people had misunderstood
his official conduct, and that his sacrifices of friends and of
fortune in the Administration of the General Government had not
been appreciated.  When he was at last relieved from executive
cares his robust constitution had been undermined, the ruddy look
of health left his cheeks, and his stalwart form wasted away, until
(as this work is passing through the press) his sad heart found
its peace, and his remains were laid, without pomp, by the side of
those of his beloved wife in a rural cemetery near Albany, N. Y.

An appreciative and elegant biographer of this lamented ex-President
writes thus:  "_Flos Regum Arthur_ the Laureate heads the noble
dedication of his Arthurian legends to the manes of Albert.  Not
'flower of kings' shall history call this Arthur of ours, and yet
must she accord him some attributes of his mythic namesake--a high
and noble courtesy to all men, small and great; an unflinching,
uncomplaining loyalty to friends who turned too often ingrate; a
splendid presence, a kindly heart, a silent courage, and an even
mind.  These things go no small way toward the making of America's
first gentleman."

[Facsimile]
  W.W. Corcoran
WILLIAM W. CORCORAN was born at Georgetown, D. C., December 27th,
1798; he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and then in banking,
becoming the Government banker during the Mexican War.  Since he
retried from business in 1854 he has founded and endowed the Louise
Home for gentlewomen in reduced circumstances, the Corcoran Art
Gallery, and the Oak Hill Cemetery, on Georgetown Heights, while
he has contributed liberally to the Columbian College, the University
of Virginia, the William and Mary College, and the churches and
orphan asylums of Washington, besides numerous private charities.


CHAPTER XLIII.
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND.

The inauguration of Grover Cleveland as the twenty-second President
of the United States, on the 4th of March, 1885, restored the
executive power of the Federal Government to the Democrats, after
it had been enjoyed by the Republicans for twenty years.  The throng
of visitors was great, the railroads leading into Washington having
brought nearly half a million of passengers during the week, while
several thousand more came by the Potomac River steamboats.  The
hotels and boarding-houses were full, yet there was always room
for late arrivals, and the military were quartered in the spacious
halls of the Departments.

The day was spring-like, with breeze enough to display the flags
which floated from nearly every building.  Pennsylvania Avenue and
other thoroughfares were elaborately decorated.  The procession
was the largest of its kind that ever passed along Pennsylvania
Avenue, and the military escort was exceeded only by the great
reviews of 1865.  General H. W. Slocum was Chief Marshal, efficiently
aided by General Albert Ordway, his chief of staff.  The United
States troops, commanded by Major-General Ayres, headed the escort.
President Arthur and President-elect Cleveland rode with two Senators
in an open carriage drawn by four bay horses, and next came Vice-
President-elect Hendricks, with a Senator, in a carriage drawn by
four white horses.  As the carriages passed along the occupants
were loudly cheered, especially Vice-President Hendricks, who was
well known in Washington and personally popular.

The militia organizations which came next presented a fine appearance,
particularly a division of the National Guard of Pennsylvania,
commanded by Major-General John F. Hartranft.  The Southern troops
were commanded by Major-General Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, a nephew
of the great Confederate war-leader, who received a rousing ovation
the whole length of the route.  Prominent among the military
organizations were the New York Sixty-ninth, "wearing the green;"
the Grenadiers Rochambeau, of New York; the Jackson Corps, of
Albany; the Continentals, of Schenectady; the Fifth Maryland
Infantry, the Meagher Guards, of Providence; the Busch Zouaves, of
St. Louis, and several companies of colored men from the South.

The feature of the procession, however, was the civic portion,
which included organizations representing many States in the Union.
Each one had its band, its banner, and its badges, while nearly
all of them were uniformly dressed and carried canes.  The Society
of Tammany, of New York, one thousand strong, marched in an inaugural
procession for the first time in its long history, its officers
carrying Indian tomahawks.  Nearly a hundred other political
organizations followed; and in the ranks of one of them from the
city of New York there was a body of men wearing the old Knickerbocker
costume and carrying long canes, with which they beat time on the
pavements as they marched along in a grotesque manner, creating
much merriment.

A distinguished audience had gathered in the Senate Chamber,
including the Supreme Court, the Diplomatic Corps, many prominent
officials, and those officers of the army and navy who had received
the thanks of Congress.  Shortly after twelve o'clock President
Arthur entered the Chamber, and was escorted to his seat.  The
deputy Sergeant-at-Arms then announced the "President-elect of the
United States," and the entire assemblage rose as Mr. Cleveland
passed down the aisle and took a seat at the side of President
Arthur.  Vice-President-elect Hendricks then entered and advanced
to the desk of the presiding officer, where Senator Edmunds,
President _pro tempore_, administered to him the oath of office as
Vice-President of the United States.  Senator Edmunds then delivered
a brief valedictory address, at the conclusion of which he declared
the Senate adjourned _sine die_.

Vice-President Hendricks took the chair, called the Senate to order,
delivered a short address, and administered the oath to the new
Senators.  When the Senate had been thus organized, a procession
was formed by those in the Senate Chamber, which moved through the
rotunda to the platform erected before the eastern portico.  On
the large plaza in front of the Capitol were gathered at least two
hundred thousand people, while behind them as a framework were the
military and civic organizations, with waving banners, gay uniforms,
and gleaming bayonets.

When Mr. Cleveland came to the front of the platform, he was received
with tumultuous applause; after it had subsided, he delivered his
inaugural address in such a clear voice that it was heard by nearly
all of those before him.  When he had finished, he turned to Chief
Justice Waite, bowed, and said  "I am now prepared to take the oath
prescribed by law."

The Chief Justice, holding in his left hand a small open Bible,
which had been given to Mr. Cleveland by his mother when he had
started to seek his fortune in the world, raised his right hand
and recited the oath:  "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully
execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to
the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution
of the United States."  Mr. Cleveland, whose right hand had rested
on the Bible, responded:  "I swear," and raising the book to his
lips, kissed it.  His lips touched verses 5-10 inclusive, of the
112th Psalm.

Those on the platform congratulated the President; the assembled
multitude cheered; over a hundred bands played "Hail to the Chief,"
and the cannon at the Navy Yard and the Arsenal thundered forth a
Presidential salute.  The procession was then re-formed, and moved
up Pennsylvania Avenue.  When the head of the column reached the
Treasury Building, a brief halt was made, that President Cleveland
might go to the reviewing stand in front of the White House.  There
he witnessed the procession pass in review, which occupied three
hours, and it was after five o'clock when he entered the White
House.

Early in the evening there was a display of fireworks, which
attracted much attention; then came the inauguration ball, held in
the interior court-yard of the unfinished Pension Building, which
was covered by a temporary roof.  The waxed dance-floor was three
hundred and sixteen feet long and one hundred and sixteen feet
wide, surrounded by reception-rooms, supper-rooms, and telegraph
offices.  The decorations were very effective, and electric lamps
supplied a bright, clear light.  Nearly ten thousand people were
present and the receipts from the sale of tickets amounted to forty
thousand dollars.  President Cleveland and Vice-President Hendricks
were present for an hour, and the ball was regarded as a fitting
close to the ceremonies of the day.

Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet gave general satisfaction to the Democrats
at Washington.  The selection of Senator Bayard for Secretary of
State was in deference to the national sentiment of the party that
had twice asserted itself in presenting him for the Presidency,
and that had made him Mr. Cleveland's chief competitor at Chicago.
Senator Bayard, when first summoned to Albany and invited to become
the Premier of the incoming Administration, had frankly told Mr.
Cleveland that he might consider himself absolved from all obligation
to bestow his chief Cabinet honor upon him, and that he would prefer
to remain in the Senate.  He finally consented, however, to accept
the portfolio of State, to the delight of the Diplomatic Corps,
who were acquainted with his accomplished wife and daughters, and
who looked forward to the enjoyment of their hospitality.  He took
an early opportunity to publicly declare that he was heartily in
favor of civil service reform, and he followed the traditions of
the Department of State by retaining the experienced clerks.  Mr.
Bayard has no appreciation of humor or fondness for political
intrigue, and department drudgery would be intolerable to him were
it not for his passionate fondness for out-door exercise.  A bold
horseman, an untiring pedestrian, and enthusiastic angler, and a
good swimmer, he preserves his health, and gives close attention
to the affairs of his Department.

Mr. Daniel Manning, who was appointed Secretary of the Treasury,
had been graduated in boyhood from a printing office, that best of
colleges, and had gradually become a reporter, a sub-editor, and
finally the sole manager and principal owner of the Albany _Argus_.
Devoting all his energies to his business, he was richly rewarded
pecuniarily, and under his direction the time-honored "organ" of
the Democracy of the Empire State challenged admiration by the
boldness and the success of its editorial management.  His sagacity
as a politician attracted the notice of Mr. Tilden, whose champion
he became, and subsequently his untiring efforts in the columns of
his paper and at the Chicago Convention did much to secure for Mr.
Cleveland the Presidential nomination.  His financial experience
as President of a national bank was favorably regarded in Wall
Street, and his views coincided with those entertained by Mr.
Cleveland.  Old stagers have detected in him a striking personal
resemblance to that sturdy New York Democrat of a former generation,
William L. Marcy, except that he wears a moustache, fiercely
upturned.

Mr. William C. Endicott, a representative of the worth and intelligence
of New England, was appointed Secretary of War.  A lawyer by
profession, he had been forced by ill health to resign his seat on
the State Supreme Bench, and his defeat as the Democratic nominee
for Governor of the Bay State gave him a claim on the party for
its honors.  Prominent in cordially welcoming those who had renounced
their party allegiance to vote for Mr. Cleveland, he was the pledged
advocate of civil service reform.  He is a very handsome man, with
long brown hair and moustache, slightly silvered by time.

The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. William C. Whitney, is the son of
a famous old Massachusetts "War Horse," who entered upon the practice
of law at New York city.  He made his professional mark while he
was City Corporation Attorney in the prosecution of "Boss Tweed,"
but his large fortune is the result of successful railroad operations.
He is rather youthful in appearance for a man forty-five years of
age, rather slenderly built, quick of movement, and with the air
of courageous self-reliance that marks a successful and experienced
business operator.

Mr. Lucius Quintius Curtius Lamar, the Secretary of the Interior,
had taken broader views since the war on national questions than
any other Southern leader.  The possessor of a well-balanced and
highly cultivated intellect, a thorough acquaintance with the
theories of Federalism and State Rights, and a varied civil and
military experience, Mr. Lamar may well be called a successful
molder of public opinion.  Some used to regard him as ideal rather
than practical, but the business-like manner in which he directed
his subordinates dispelled that mistaken idea.  His studious habits
are shown by his rounded shoulders, and his grizzled long hair,
beard, and moustache impart a leonine character to his features.

Postmaster-General William F. Vilas is a native of Vermont, who
went to Wisconsin when a lad, became a successful lawyer there,
and served gallantly in the Union army during the war.  He is
probably better versed in the machinery of American politics than
any other member of the Cabinet, and he is slowly but surely
replacing the Republican incumbents of fifty thousand offices with
Democrats.  He is a man of showy, brilliant manners, vigorous
eloquence, fascinating conversational powers, and an attractive
personal appearance.

Mr. Augustus H. Garland, the Attorney-General of the new Administration,
took with him from the Senate a high legal and social reputation.
His Roman features are clean shaven, his jet black eyes sparkle
with intelligence, and his manners are polished, although he rarely
mingles in society.

Not of the Cabinet, but the President's confidential adviser, is
Colonel Daniel S. Lamont, who, like the Secretary of the Treasury,
received his political education in the office of the Albany _Argus_.
Colonel Lamont left his editorial chair to become the private
secretary of Mr. Cleveland when he became Governor of the State of
New York, and has since been his devoted adherent.  Slender, with
intellectual features and a dark red moustache, which lights up
his pale face, Colonel Lamont has the mouth of a man who is silent
and the ears of a man who listens, while the quick glances of his
eyes take in what there is to be seen.  The possessor of great
personal urbanity, always clear-headed, and very reticent, especially
concerning the President, he is emphatically "the right man in the
right place."  He keeps up his Albany habit of calling Mr. Cleveland
"Governor," while the President familiarly calls him "Dan."  There
is no "Kitchen Cabinet" to act as office-brokers and to secure the
Executive approval of measures "for a consideration."

At the Cabinet meeting held at the Executive Mansion, the President
sits at the head of the Council table, and the members occupy
positions as indicated in the accompanying diagram.  The Cabinet
has no legal existence.  Any other official or any individual not
holding official position can be called upon by the President to
meet with him as a member of his Cabinet, and to consult him on
the days in the week designated by him for that purpose.  In some
Administrations--notably those of Presidents Taylor and Pierce--
the members of the Cabinet assumed a power equal to that of the
Venetian oligarchy.  But Mr. Cleveland has not chosen to act the
part of King Log, and right autocratically has he exercised his
prerogative.

This habit of personally assuming responsibility has ever characterized
Mr. Cleveland.  When Mayor of Buffalo and when Governor of New
York, he was open to suggestions from those whose judgment he
valued, but he was always ready to carry his own full share of
responsibility, as he now does in his relations with his chosen
advisers of the Cabinet.

[Fascimile]
  Grover Cleveland
GROVER CLEVELAND was born at Caldwell, Essex County, New Jersey,
March 18th, 1837; studied law at Buffalo and commenced practice
there; was Mayor of Buffalo, 1882, 1883; was Governor of the State
of New York, 1883-1885; was elected President of the United States
on the Democratic ticket, November 4th, 1884, and was inaugurated
on the 4th of March, 1885.


CHAPTER XLIV.
OFFICIAL AND SOCIAL LIFE.

President Cleveland is emphatically a working man.  Possessing a
strong physique, he industriously devotes his time and his energies
to the duties of his office.  Gentle in his strength, unobtrusive
in his modesty, and unswerved by partisan clamor, he endeavors to
do what he--from his personal and political standpoint--regards as
right.  He is above medium height, quite stout, and rather sluggish
in his movement.  He is of the Teutonic type--blonde, with ruddy
color.  His head is large, with a broad forehead, deeply set blue
eyes, a large, straight nose, with vigorous nostrils, and a firm
mouth, partly shaded by a drooping light mustache.  He generally
wears a frock coat, buttoned up so high that only an inch or so of
his shirt bosom is visible, with a slight black cravat encircling
a standing collar.  In conversing with strangers, he generally
stands with his hands clasped behind him, and when he thinks that
he has heard enough from the person addressing him he brings his
hands forward.

The President rises early, shaves himself, dresses without assistance,
and then reads the newspapers until breakfast time.  From the
breakfast-table he goes to the library, an oval-shaped room in the
second story of the White House, with large windows at one end
commanding a fine southern view, with Alexandria and Arlington in
the background.  The room is partially lined with book-cases, and
the furniture is upholstered with red leather, while in the centre
of the room, near the windows, is the President's desk.  It was
presented by Queen Victoria, and was made from the oaken timbers
of the Resolute, which was sent to the Arctic regions by the British
Government in search of Sir John Franklin, abandoned in the ice,
saved by American whalers, and restored to the British Government
by the United States.  On this desk the many papers before the
President are methodically arranged, and he never has to waste time
in hunting for mislaid letters.

The morning mail first passes through the hands of Colonel Lamont,
who lays before the President such letters as require instructions
as to the replies to be made.  Mr. Cleveland answers many of his
private letters himself, writing with great rapidity and not always
very legibly.  At ten o'clock visitors begin to arrive, Senators
and Representatives claiming precedence over all others.  A few of
the Congressmen escort constituents who merely desire to pay their
respects, but the greater portion of them--Republicans as well as
Democrats--have some "axe to grind," some favor to ask, or some
appointment to urge.

At one o'clock the President goes down-stairs to lunch, and on his
way to the private dining-room passes through the East Room to see
the sovereign people congregated there.  There are queer mosaics
of humanity at these daily impromptu receptions, generally including
a few persistent place-hunters, who are invariably referred to the
heads of Departments; several bridal couples in new clothes; an
old Bourbon in a shiny black dress-coat, who "has voted for every
Democratic President, sir, since the days of Jackson;" half a dozen
commercial drummers--travelers, I mean--with their pockets full of
samples, and three or four fond mothers, whose children invariably
forget to speak the complimentary little piece taught them.  The
President wastes no time, but goes along the line like an old-
fashioned beau dancing the grand right and left figure in a cotillion,
and then goes to his luncheon.

Two days in the week, when there is a Cabinet meeting, the reception
in the East Room is held at noon, or omitted.  After luncheon, the
President returns to his desk and works there steadily until five
o'clock, unless some one calls who cannot be refused an audience.
None of his predecessors have ever weighed the qualifications and
claims of candidates for Federal appointment with such painstaking
care as has Mr. Cleveland.  He has carefully read the recommendations
in every case, and, after such investigation as it has been possible
for him to make into the character and antecedents of the rival
applicants, he has made his appointments.

At five o'clock the President takes a drive, although the carriage
is often sent back to the stable that the examination of the papers
in some case may be finished that day.  Dinner is served at seven,
and by half-past eight the President is at work again, often
remaining at his desk until midnight.  But then he leaves his cares
behind him.  When asked if he ever carried the work to bed with
him, as many men of a nervous organization would do, he replied:
"No!  I generally fall asleep without any difficulty.  I generally
am asleep as soon as I am fairly in bed, and never wake until
morning."

Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, one of the President's sisters,
presided over the domestic arrangements of the White House after
the inauguration of Mr. Cleveland.  She is a lady of literary
tastes, and under her direction the routine of receptions and
dinners was carefully continued.  On these occasions the floral
decorations were remarkably elegant, and there was a profusion of
palms, India rubber plants, roses, azalias, tulips, hyacinths, and
growing orchids.

The first state dinner was given in honor of the Cabinet.  At each
end of the long table were ornaments of white wax.  At the eastern
end the figures upholding three fancy molds of jellied _pate de
foie gras_ were white swans, with outspread wings, under the shelter
of which rested a brood of snowy young ones.  At the opposite end
of the table the figures were those of eagles, while the _pates de
foie gras_ arranged above on horseshoes were little square blocks,
attached to the horseshoes by means of silver skewers, with ornamental
hilts.  Interspersed the length of the board were glass and silver
stands of conserves, bonbons, and salted almonds.  The service used
at the first course was that especially decorated for the White
House during the Hayes Administration.  At each plate were set six
Bohemian wine-glasses, a cut-glass carafe, tumbler, and champagne
glass.  Salt-sellers of cut-glass, with golden shovels, and silver
pepper-stands were beside these.  On each plate was folded a large
damask napkin, on the top of which rested a bouquet of roses and
ferns, tied with a broad white satin ribbon, on one end of which,
running bias, were painted the colors of the Union.  On the other
end was an etching in black and white of the White House and
surrounding shrubbery, while underneath, in gilt lettering, was
"Jan. 14, 1886."  Gilt bullet-headed pins, to attach the bouquet
to the corsage, lay beside these, while above lay a large white
card bearing the name of the guest assigned to the seat.  Above
the name of the guests, blazoned in gold, was the American eagle,
above whose head, through a cluster of stars, was the motto, "E
Pluribus Unum."  At the plates laid for the gentlemen were
_boutonnieres_ of green, with a single Bon Silene rosebud.  Miss
Cleveland had a corsage bouquet of pink roses; Miss Bayard, who
occupied the seat to the right of the President, Perie du Jardin
roses, and Mrs. Manning, who sat to the left, lilies of the valley
and ferns.

The guests assembled in the East Room, and when dinner was announced
as served, passed down the corridor, the Marine Band performing
selections from the "Mikado," and entered the state dining-room in
the following order:  President Cleveland and Miss Bayard, who wore
a trained dress of pink silk, the front of which was white lace;
Secretary Whitney and Mrs. Vilas, who wore a blue silk dress;
Senator Edmunds and Mrs. McCullough, who wore cream satin and lace;
Senator Harris and Mrs. Edward Cooper, who wore white satin, with
side panels embroidered in gold and silver; General Sheridan and
Mrs. Endicott, who wore a court train of black velvet over a pink
satin petticoat, with point lace flounces; Secretary Bayard and
Mrs. Whitney, who wore white cut velvet, trimmed with clusters of
ostrich tips.  Postmaster-General Vilas and Mrs. Sheridan, who wore
sky-blue silk, with front brocaded in roses; Mr. Speaker Carlisle
and Mrs. Edmunds, who wore black velvet; Mr. McCullough and Miss
Weddell, who wore white brocaded satin; Secretary Lamar and Mrs.
Carlisle, who wore gold-flowered brocade, with front of network of
iridescent beading; Admiral Rogers and Mrs. D. Willis James, who
wore cardinal velvet with court train, over a white satin and lace
petticoat; Hon. Edward Cooper, of New York, and Miss Love, who wore
white satin, with black velvet train; Mrs. D. Willis James, of New
York, and Mrs. Utley, who wore white satin brocade; Secretary
Manning and Miss Cleveland, who wore a gown of white satin, with
court train of white plush.

Miss Cleveland had her afternoon receptions, and she also gave
several luncheon parties to ladies, at which her temperance principles
were exemplified.  At the first of these luncheon parties Miss
Cleveland graciously received her guests in a morning dress of pink
surah silk, with a high-necked bodice and panels of ruby velvet,
trimmed with white lace, and Miss Van Vechten, an inmate of the
White House, wore a walking-dress of dark blue velvet, with a vest
of light blue silk, trimmed with blue steel beads.  Nearly all of
the ladies wore walking-dresses and bonnets, although a few were
in the evening attire that they would have worn to a dinner-party.
Mrs. Warner Miller wore a bronze-green Ottoman silk with panels of
cardinal plush; Mrs. Potter (the amateur actress) wore a bright
green Ottoman silk short dress, with a tight-fitting jacket of
scarlet cloth, richly embroidered; Mrs. John A. Logan wore a dress
of peacock-blue satin, trimmed with blue brocade; Mrs. Marshal
Roberts wore a brown velvet dress, and Mrs. Van Rensselaer a black
satin dress trimmed with jet.  The repast was an abbreviated dinner,
daintily served, but in the place of seven kinds of wine there were
served iced Potomac water, Apollinaris water and lemonade.

Miss Cleveland talks very much as she writes, and those who have
enjoyed her _Summer Hours_ can imagine the bright staccato strain
of her conversation.  She seemed when in the White House to be
always longing for what she used to call her "little old house on
the Holland Patent, with the village on the one side and the hills
on the other."  She remarked one day to a lady visitor:  "I wish
that I could observe Washington life in its political phase; but
I suppose I am too near the centre to get an accurate perspective
on that.  Those who live on Mount Athos do not see Mount Athos."

Society was saddened early in the fashionable season of 1886 by
the sudden death of Secretary Bayard's eldest daughter, a young
lady whose personal attractions, gifted intellect, and quick wit
endeared her to a large circle of devoted friends.  A fortnight
later, the bereaved father was deprived by death of his wife, a
lady of gracious presence and refined disposition, who was the
mother of twelve children, eight of whom survived her.  These sad
events closed the pleasant home of the _Premier_ on Highland Terrace,
greatly to the regret of the diplomats and others, who loved to
congregate there.

Prominent among the wives of the members of the Cabinet was Mrs.
Whitney, the only daughter of Senator Harry B. Payne, of Ohio,
whose unstinted expenditures have made her house in Washington,
like her other residences, noted for their hospitality.  The
residence of Secretary Manning, with its drawing-room fitted up in
the Louis XVI. style, is palatial, while those who visit the home
of the Secretary of War admire the quiet style of its furniture
and the rare old family silver on its table.

The death of Vice-President Hendricks removed an official around
whom the disaffected Democrats could have crystallized into a
formidable opposition.  Believing as he did, that he had been
defrauded of the office of Vice-President by the Electoral Commission
in 1876, he regarded his election in 1884 as a triumphant vindication
of his rights, and he was not disposed to have the position longer
regarded as "like the fifth wheel of a coach."  He made no secret
of his opposition to civil service reform and to his Indiana rival,
ex-Senator McDonald, against whose appointment to a place in the
Cabinet he formally protested.  Perhaps a social antagonism between
Mrs. McDonald and Mrs. Hendricks had something to do with this.

Vice-President Hendricks was slightly lame, from a singular cause.
He spoke in public a great deal in the Presidential campaign of
1882, and while speaking he was in the habit of bending forward on
the tip of his right foot, resting his entire weight upon it.  From
the pressure of his right shoe a swelling arose on one of his toes,
shortly after he reached home after making a speech at Newcastle,
Indiana.  In twenty-four hours erysipelas developed, and it was
only after an illness of six months that he recovered.  But he
always afterward was somewhat lame, especially when he was fatigued.

[Facsimile]
  T. A. Hendricks
THOMAS ANDREWS HENDRICKS was born in Muskingum County, Ohio,
September 7th, 1849; was taken when three years of age to Indiana,
where he studied law and practiced; was a Representative in Congress
from Indiana, 1851-1855; was Commissioner of the General Land
Office, 1855-1859; was United States Senator from Indiana, 1863-
1869; was Governor of Indiana, 1872-1877; was nominated for Vice-
President on the Democratic ticket at St. Louis in 1876, and was
defeated; was again nominated for Vice-President on the Democratic
ticket at Chicago in 1884, and was elected; was inaugurated March
4th, 1885, and died at Indianapolis, November 25th, 1885.


CHAPTER XLV.
THE FORTY-NINTH CONGRESS.

The first session of the Forty-ninth Congress was commenced on the
7th of December, 1885.  The Republicans had a majority in the
Senate, but it was understood that they would not oppose the
Administration in a factious way, but would insist upon having the
reasons for the removals of Republican officials and the appointment
of Democrats in their places.  The President, on the other hand,
intimated that he should assert all his prerogatives.  A number of
the Democratic Senators were not happy, and asked each other whether
they had dragged their weary way out of the wilderness to the top
of a civil service Mount Pisgah only to gaze upon the promised
land, there to see the pleasant pastures and shady groves of official
life, without being permitted to enjoy them.

John Sherman was elected President _pro tempore_ of the Senate.
Although he had twice lost the Republican nomination for the
Presidency by the treachery of Ohio politicians, he had not "sulked
in his tent," but had done all in his power to carry that State
for Garfield and then for Blaine.  It was understood that Senator
Edmunds had resigned in his favor all claims to the Presidency of
the Senate, and he was elected by the full party vote, thirty-four
against twenty-nine.  He stated in his brief inaugural speech that
he should endeavor to enforce the rules with impartiality,
ascertaining, if possible, the sense of the majority, and giving
to the minority its full constitutional rights and protection.

There was a prolonged and acrimonious debate in the Senate, called
the third battle of Bull Run, as it related to the conduct of Fitz
John Porter in the second battle.  One day Senator Plumb, of Kansas,
declared that the attempt to reinstate Porter was the beginning of
an attempt to re-write the history of the Union army, and to put
that which was disloyal and unfaithful above that which was loyal
and faithful.  "This," said Mr. Plumb, "was our quarrel, if quarrel
it was, and the other side ought to refrain from voting on it."

This roused Senator Butler, of South Carolina, who had served as
a Brigadier-General in the Confederate army, and he, in sharp tones,
protested against what Mr. Plumb had said, denouncing it as
"absolutely and entirely and unqualifiedly untrue.  And, sir," he
went on to say, "if it were in another form I would pronounce it
as false and cowardly."  He concluded by declaring that he did not
believe Fitz John Porter was a traitor.  He did not believe that
he deserted his colors, and believing that, he should vote to
reinstate him.  "Ah!" quietly remarked Mr. Plumb, "I knew all that
before the Senator arose."  "Then," retorted Mr. Butler, "I hope
the Senator will stop his insinuations."  To this Mr. Plumb replied,
"As the Senator has not restrained himself from making a somewhat
lively speech here, I hope he will not feel under any restraint
elsewhere."

Senator Butler was by that time thoroughly enraged, and, advancing
toward the Senator from Kansas, he exclaimed:  "I can say this to
the Senator, that if he were to indulge in just such sentiments
and expressions elsewhere as he has, he would be very likely to
hear from me."  "Oh! Mr. President," cooly remarked Mr. Plumb, "we
hear a great many things in these days.  There are signs and
portents, and all that sort of thing.  It is just what the Senator
has said that I was commenting upon; that, while the men who served
in the Union army and the Northern people were divided to some
extent on this question affecting the honor, the good name, the
faithfulness, and the loyalty of one of their own soldiers, no
Confederate soldier had any doubt upon the subject, but voted _nem.
con._ that he was not guilty."

A few moments later, Mr. Plumb said he has just been informed that
the President had vetoed a bill giving a pension of fifty dollars
a month to the widow of Major-General Hunter, who had been presiding
officer of the court-martial that had tried Fitz John Porter.  That
seemed a fitting accompaniment for the passage of the Fitz John
Porter Bill.  But the loyal people of the country would see to it
that Mrs. Hunter did not suffer.  The debate then lagged, and in
a few minutes the vote was reached and the bill was passed.

The champion of President Cleveland in the Senate was Arthur P.
Gorman, of Maryland, the son of a respectable citizen of Washington
and the grandson of an Irishman.  Educated at the public schools
in Howard County, Maryland, he was appointed, when thirteen years
of age, a page in the Senate of the United States.  Prompt, truthful,
and attentive to whatever was entrusted to him, he was gradually
promoted until he became the Senate Postmaster.  Among his warmest
friends was Andrew Johnson, and when he was removed from office
because he always spoke well of the President, Mr. Johnson appointed
him Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth District of Maryland,
which place he held until the Grant Administration came into power.
Entering into Maryland politics, and thoroughly acquainted with
parliamentary law, he was elected Speaker of the House of Delegates,
and afterward State Senator.  When forty years of age he was elected
United States Senator, defeating William Pinckney Whyte, who was
the representative of the aristocratic element in Maryland.  This
element at once commenced a merciless warfare against Mr. Gorman,
but he was in no wise daunted, and he has been re-elected by a
large majority.  He is rather an under-sized, squarely built man,
with jet-black hair, a Roman nose, a clean-shaven face, very dark
blue eyes, and a decisive manner.  He is noted for his fidelity to
his friends, and at the same time he often forgives those who have
shamefully treated him, but who come to ask favors of him.  He did
much toward securing the election of Mr. Cleveland as President,
and he has had the satisfaction of seeing that what he did has been
fully appreciated at the White House.

Senator Kenna, of West Virginia, another stanch defender of President
Cleveland, was the youngest Senator when he took his seat, but he
had served three terms in the House of Representatives and was
chosen for a fourth term when he was elected to the seat formerly
occupied by Henry G. Davis.  He is a tall, thick-set man, with a
full, clean-shaven face, blue eyes, chestnut hair, rather inclined
to curl.  He is negligent in his dress and rather slow in the
utterance of his sentences, as he speaks extemporaneously, what he
says, however, is always to the point at issue.

General Charles F. Manderson is one of the ablest among the younger
Senators on the Republican side of the Chamber.  A native of
Pennsylvania, he commenced the practice of law in Ohio, but went
into the Union army, where he fought gallantly, receiving severe
wounds.  After peace was declared he migrated to the young State
of Nebraska, whose interests he carefully looks after while he
participates in general legislation, especially military affairs
and printing.  He is of medium height, compactly built, with bright
eyes and a well-modulated voice.

Senator Spooner, of Wisconsin, is the young orator of the Senate.
Slender in form, and not of commanding presence, he has a well-
modulated voice, and his words are always well chosen.  Whatever
he says is characterized by depth of reflection and purity of style,
and he is fearlessly independent in the expression of his ideas.

General McCook, the Secretary of the Senate, taking a wife, it
became necessary, in accordance with the traditions of that body,
to make him a wedding present.  The Quaker Senator, Jonathan Chace,
of Rhode Island, was one of a committee appointed to collect the
contributions for a gift to General McCook, and he began to solicit
donations while the Senate was in session, which made it necessary
for him to speak low, and, perhaps, somewhat indistinctly.  No
sooner had be interviewed Mr. Dolph, of Oregon, than that Senator,
leaving his seat, went out into the cloak-room, where sat several
of the upper house, enjoying their cigars and a chat.  "Well," said
Mr. Dolph, as he joined them, "I have been called upon, since I
have been in public life, to contribute to all sorts of enterprises
and for all sorts of purposes, but I just had a request that beats
any demand I have ever had made upon my pocket-book."  "What was
it?" asked the Senators, in a body.  "Why," replied Mr. Dolph,
"Friend Chace just came to me, and in a mysterious way said that
his cook was about to be married, and that he wanted to have me
subscribe to a testimonial to her.  What in--" but here his auditors
broke out in roars of laughter, in which Mr. Dolph joined when he
saw his mistake.  It was not the cook of Friend Chace who was to
receive a wedding testimonial, but handsome Aaron McCook, the
Secretary of the Senate.

The House of Representatives, in which the Democrats had a good
working majority, re-elected Mr. Speaker Carlisle, with nearly all
of the old officers.  The only real contest was over the Chaplainship.
Mr. Morrison, of Illinois, presented as his candidate the Rev. W.
H. Milburn, known as the blind preacher, who received ninety votes
against eighty-two for all the other candidates, and was elected.

John Griffin Carlisle, Speaker of the House, is a thorough
parliamentarian, who rises above party lines in his rulings and is
the model of courtesy in the chair.  The clearness and the fairness
with which he states a question to the House has never been equaled,
and his ready recollection of precedents is wonderfully accurate.
He is the fourth Kentuckian who has wielded the Speaker's gavel,
Henry Clay having been elected again and again, while Linn Boyd,
a veteran Representative, occupied the Speaker's chair for four
years.  John White, of Kentucky, was also Speaker for one term,
but when it was ascertained that an eloquent address delivered by
him at the close of a session had been pirated from one delivered
by Aaron Burr on vacating the chair of the Senate, he was mercilessly
ridiculed and committed suicide.

Another able Kentuckian in the House is William C. P. Breckinridge,
of Lexington, who has inherited the brilliant oratorical powers of
his father, the Rev. Dr. Robert C. Breckinridge, and of his uncle,
Vice-President John C. Breckinridge.  He is a model of venerable,
manly beauty, his snow-white hair and beard bringing out in strong
relief his ruddy complexion, while his large blue eyes gleam with
forensic fire.

In the "gift enterprise" of seats, a New York Representative, Mr.
Stahlnecker, drew the first prize and selected a seat in the third
row from the front.  Mr. Hiscock, who is always observed by all
observers, had, with Mr. Hewitt, to content themselves with seats
in the outside row.  The seat of the patriarchal Judge Kelley was
protected by his hat, and no one appropriated it until his name
was called, when he again resumed his old place.  General Robert
Smalls, the coal-black Representative from South Carolina, was the
object of much interest as he stepped forward to select his seat,
and all necks were craned to get a view of New York's Republican
standard-bearer when a scholarly, refined-looking gentleman responded
to the name of Ira Davenport.  Of course, all strangers wanted to
see the indefatigable Randall, the economical Holman, the free-
trader Morrison, the Greenback Weaver and the argentive Bland, the
eloquent McKinley, the sarcastic Reed, the sluggish Hiscock, and
the caustic-tongued Butterworth.  Old stagers who remembered the
shrunken, diminutive form of Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia,
could but smile when they saw his successor, Major Barnes, who
weighs at least three hundred pounds.

The lobby is a quiet but efficient part of Congressional machinery.
Scores of bills are considered and passed during every session,
each involving thousands of dollars, and those having them in charge
do not feel like turning a deaf ear to any one who can promise
support.  An occasional investigation reveals the work of ex-
Congressmen, who hover about the Capitol like birds of prey, and
of correspondents so scantily paid by the journals with which they
are connected that they are forced to prostitute their pens.  But
the most adroit lobbyists belong to the gentler sex.  Some of them
are the widows of officers of the army or navy, other the daughters
of Congressmen of a past generation, and others have drifted from
home localities, where they have found themselves the subjects of
scandalous comments.  They are retained with instructions to exert
their influence with designated Congressmen.  Sometimes the
Congressmen are induced to vote aye on a certain measure; sometimes
to vote no, and it often occurs that where the lobbyist cannot make
an impression on them, one way or the other, they will endeavor to
keep them away from the House when the roll is called.

To enable them to do their work well, they have pleasant parlors,
with works of art and bric-a-brac donated by admirers.  Every
evening they receive, and in the winter their blazing wood fires
are often surrounded by a distinguished circle.  Some treat favored
guests to a game of euchre, and as midnight approaches there is
always an adjournment to the dining-room, where a choice supper is
served.  A cold game pie, broiled oysters, charmingly mixed salad,
and one or two light dishes generally constitute the repast, with
iced champagne or Burgundy at blood heat.  Who can blame the
Congressman for leaving the bad cooking of his hotel or boarding-
house, with the absence of all home comforts, to walk into the
parlor web which the cunning spider-lobbyist weaves for him?

[Facsimile]
  Fredk T. Frelinghuysen
FREDERICK T. FRELINGHUYSEN was born at Millstown, New Jersey, August
4th, 1817; graduated at Rutgers College in 1836; was Attorney-
General of the State of New Jersey, 1861-1866; was United States
Senator, 1866-1869, and again 1871-1877; was Secretary of State
under President Arthur, December 12th, 1881 - March 4th, 1885; died
at Newark, N. J., May 20th, 1885.


CHAPTER XLVI.
THE PRESIDENT'S WEDDING.

President Cleveland was married at the White House at seven o'clock
on the 2d of June, 1886, to Miss Frances Folsom, the daughter of
his former law partner.  Since the historic mansion had been occupied
there had been eight marriages within its walls, but for the first
time a President of the United States was the bridegroom.  The day
had been unpleasant, but in the afternoon it cleared off, and the
sunbeams flittered through the foliage of the trees.  Only a few
relatives of the bride and high officials were invited, but a large
crowd assembled around the door of the White House, where they
could only hear the music of the Marine Band when the ceremony was
commenced.  At the same time a Presidential salute was fired from
the Arsenal, and the church-bells chimed merry peals.

The state apartments at the White House were profusely decked with
flowers, nodding palms, and tropical grasses.  The crystal chandeliers
poured a flood of light upon the scene, and the warm and glowing
colors of the masses of scarlet begonias and jacqueminot roses
mingled with the bright tints of the frescoed walls and ceilings.
The open fire-places were filled with colias and small pink flowers,
while on the mantels were large plaques of pansies bearing appropriate
mottoes.

Precisely at seven o'clock the Marine Band struck up Mendelssohn's
Wedding-March, and the President came slowly down the staircase
with his bride leaning on his arm.  They were unaccompanied--even
the bride's mother awaited her coming.  The bride wore a train four
yards in length.  Attached to the lower side of the train on the
left was a scarf of soft, white India silk, looped high, and forming
an overskirt, which was bordered on the edge with orange-blossoms.
Across the bodice were full folds of muslin, edged with orange-
blossoms.  Long gloves were worn to meet the short sleeves.  The
bridal veil was of white silk tulle, five yards in length, fastened
on the head with orange-blossoms, and falling to the end of the
beautiful train, which, as the bride stood with bowed head beside
the President, lay far behind her on the floor.  Her only jewelry
as a superb diamond necklace, the President's wedding present, and
an engagement-ring containing a sapphire and two diamonds.

President Cleveland wore an evening dress of black, with a small
turned-down collar, and a white lawn necktie; a white rose was
fastened to the lapel of his coat.  The bridal couple turned to
the right as they entered the Blue Parlor from the long hall, and
faced the officiating clergyman, Rev. Dr. Sunderland, who immediately
commenced the ceremony in accordance with the usages of the
Presbyterian Church.

After the couple had pledged their troth the President placed a
wedding-ring upon the bride's finger, and Dr. Sunderland then
pronounced them man and wife, with the injunction:  "Whom God hath
joined together let no man put asunder."  The Rev. Mr. Cleveland,
a brother of the bridegroom, then stepped forward and concluded
the ceremony with an invocation of blessing upon the pair.

At the conclusion of the ceremony the bride's mother, Mrs. Folsom,
was the first to tender her congratulations.  She was followed by
Miss Cleveland and the other relatives and friends in turn.  Then
the band struck up the march from Lohengrin, and the President and
his wife led the way through the East Room to the family dining-
room, where the wedding supper was served.  The decorations were
of an elaborate character.  A mirror in the centre of the table
represented a lake, on which was a full-rigged ship, made of pinks,
roses, and pansies.  The national colors floated over the mainmast,
and small white flags, with the monogram "C. F." in golden letters,
hung from the other masts.  The guests were not seated, but stood
up and enjoyed the croquets, game, salads, ices, and creams.  The
health of the bride and bridegroom was pledged in iced champagne.
Each guest received a box of cardboard, containing a white satin
box filled with wedding cake five inches long by two broad and two
deep.  On the cover the date was hand-painted in colors, and a card
affixed bore the autograph signature of Grover Cleveland and Frances
Folsom, which they had written the previous afternoon.

At a quarter-past eight the President and his wife left the supper-
room and soon reappeared in traveling dress.  He wore his usual
black frock business suit, and she a traveling dress of deep gray
silk, with a large gray hat lined with velvet and crowned with
ostrich feathers.  They left the back door of the White House amid
a shower of rice and old slippers, and were driven to the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, where they took a special train for Deer Park.

[Facsimile]
  B. Sunderland
BYRON SUNDERLAND was born at Shoreham, Vermont, November 22d, 1819;
was graduated from Middlebury College in the class of '38; taught
school for two years at Port Henry, New York; was a student at the
Union Theological Seminary for two years and a half; was licensed
to preach and was ordained in 1848 pastor of the Presbyterian church
at Batavia, New York, where he remained for eight years; received
a call to the Park Church at Syracuse, and was its pastor until
the close of 1852; became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church
at Washington in 1853, and has occupied its pulpit since, except
from August, '64, to January, '86, when he was temporarily absent
in charge of the American Chapel at Paris, France.  From 1861 to
1864 he was Chaplain of the United States Senate, and resigned on
account of failing health.


CHAPTER XLVII.
A SUMMING-UP OF SIXTY YEARS.

The progress of Washington City during the past sixty years--1827-
1887--has been phenomenal.  The United States of America, then
twenty-four in number, now number thirty-eight, bound together by
iron bands, then unknown, while the telegraph and the telephone
add their usefulness to that of the railroads.  Domestic rebellion
showed itself, to be overthrown only after a struggle in which the
courage and endurance of the North and the South were equally
demonstrated.  The teeming population of Europe has overflowed into
every section of the Republic where wealth is to be won by enterprise
and industry.  The fertile prairies of the far West not only supply
the inhabitants of the Eastern States with food, but they export
large quantities of meat and of grain.  The workshops and factories
resound with the whir of wheels and the hum of well-paid labor,
which, in turn, furnishes a market for agricultural and horticultural
products.  There has been of late a fomentation of ill-feeling and
jealously between classes dependent upon each other, and both
equally valuable to the nation.  But, on the whole, it is impossible
to deny that the United States is a free, a prosperous, and a happy
country.

The national metropolis has, during these past sixty years, enjoyed
peaceful progress.  In 1827 the population of the entire District
of Columbia was less than seventy-five thousand, of whom sixty-one
thousand were inhabitants of the city of Washington; now the
population of the District is two hundred and three thousand, and
that of Washington is about one hundred and fifty thousand.  The
increase of wealth has been even greater than the increase of
population.  Then there was not a paved street, and it was often
difficult to extract carriages from mud-holes in the principal
thoroughfares; now there are many miles of stone and asphalt street
pavements, shaded by thousands of forest trees.  Then there were
twenty-four churches, now there are over two hundred.  Then there
were no public schools for white children that amounted to much,
and it was forbidden by law to teach colored children, now there
are scores of schools, with their hundreds of teachers, and twenty-
six thousand six hundred and ninety-six pupils in the white schools,
and eleven thousand six hundred and forty pupils in the colored
schools--thirty-eight thousand three hundred and thirty-six pupils
in all.  The streets, then dark at night when the moon did not
shine, are now illuminated by electricity and gas.  The public
reservations are ornamented with shrubs and flowers, while numerous
statues of the heroes and the statesmen of the country are to be
seen in different parts of the city.

That the tone of society has been wonderfully improved during the
past sixty years the earlier chapters of this book bear testimony.
Duels and personal encounters are no longer witnessed at the
national metropolis, and yet our legislators have not grown craven-
hearted, nor do they lack indomitable energy and sound judgment.
Neither is it true that Congress has become demoralized by railroad
speculations, or degraded by the influence of shoddy, although the
war subjected its members greatly to these influences, and some
succumbed to them.

When the silver-toned trumpets of peace proclaimed the close of
hostilities, Washington suffered from the laxity of morals and
corruption attendant upon the presence of a great army of soldiers
and a more unscrupulous legion of contractors.  "I have seen," said
Senator Hoar, on the impeachment of Secretary Belknap before the
Senate, "the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the
House, rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four of his
associates for making sale of their official privilege of selecting
the youths to be educated at our military school.  When the greatest
railroad of the world, binding together the continent and uniting
the two great seas which wash our shores was finished, I have seen
our national triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame
by the unanimous reports of the three Committees of Congress, two
of the House and one here, that every step of that mighty enterprise
had been taken in fraud.  I have heard in the highest places the
shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public offices that
the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic is to
bribe the people with the offices created for their service, and
the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion
of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge."

The time was when the "Rex Vestiari," as the King of the Lobby
styled himself, on a silver cup which he impudently presented to
a retiring Speaker, had no difficulty in assembling the leading
Congressmen and prominent diplomats around his table to enjoy his
exquisite repasts.  But there has come a more vigorous code of
morality, and society is now rarely disgraced by the presence of
these scoundrels.

The tone of the political newspapers of the country has greatly
changed since the Democratic organ at Philadelphia, then the seat
of Government, thanked God, on the morning of Washington's retirement
from the Presidential chair, that the country was now rid of the
man who was the source of all its misfortunes.  The Federal newspapers
at Washington City denounced President Jefferson for his degraded
immorality, and copied the anathemas hurled against him from the
New England pulpits as an atheist and a satyr.  The letters written
from Washington to newspapers in other cities used often to be
vehicles of indecent abuse, and once one of the caused a duel
between two Representatives, which resulted in the death of Mr.
Cilley, of Maine.  While there is less vituperation and vulgar
personal abuse by journalists of those "in authority," the pernicious
habit of "interviewing" is a dangerous method of communication
between our public men and the people.  The daily and weekly press
of Washington will compare favorably with that of any other city
in the Union.

A sad feature of Washington life is the legion of Congressional
claimants, who come here session after session, and too often grow
old and destitute while unsuccessfully prosecuting before Congress
a claim which is just, but in some respects irregular.  These ruined
suitors, threadbare and slipshod, begging or borrowing their daily
bread, recall Charles Dickens' portraiture of the Jarndyce _vs_.
Jarndyce Chancery suite, which had become so complicated that no
one alive knew what it meant.  The French spoilation claims that
were being vigorously prosecuted in 1827 are yet undetermined in
1886.  None of the original claimants survive, but they have left
heirs and legatees, executors and assignees, who have perennially
presented their cases, and who are now indulging in high hopes of
success.  Government, after more than fourscore years of unjustifiable
procrastination, is at last having the claims adjudicated, and in
time the heirs of the long-suffering holders will be paid.

Up to the commencement of the great Rebellion, Washington was
socially a Southern city, and although there have since been
immigrations from the Northeast and the Northwest, with the
intermediate regions, the foundation layer sympathizes with those
who have returned from "Dixie" to control society and direct American
politics.  Many of those known as the "old families" lost their
property by the emancipation of their slaves, and are rarely seen
in public, unless one of the Virginia Lees or the daughter of
Jefferson Davis comes to Washington, when they receive the
representatives of "the Lost Cause" with every possible honor.
There are but few large cities at the South, and intelligent people
from that section enjoy the metropolis, where they are more at home
than in the bustling commercial centres of the North, and where
their provincialisms and customs are soon replaced by the quiet
conventialities and courtesies of modern civilization.  There are
a few of the old camp-followers here who perfected their vices
while wearing "the blue" or "the gray," and they occasionally
indulge in famous revels, when, to use one of their old army phrases,
they "paint the town red."

Washington society does not all centre around the Capitol, or in
the legal circle that clusters around the Supreme Court, on in the
Bureaucracy, where vigor of brains atones for a lack of polish, or
among the diplomats, worshiped by the young women and envied by
the young men.  Vulgar people who amass fortunes by successful
gambling in stocks, pork, or grain can attain a great deal of cheap
newspaper notoriety for their social expenditures here, and some
men of distinction can be attracted to their houses by champagne
and terrapin, but their social existence is a mere sham, like their
veneered furniture and their plated spoons.

Meanwhile, Washington, from a new settlement of provincial
insignificance, has become the scientific and literary, as well as
the political capital of the Union.  Unfitted by its situation or
its surroundings for either commerce or manufactures, the metropolis
is becoming, like ancient Athens, a great school of philosophy,
history, archaeology, and the fine arts.  The nucleus of scientific
and literary operations is the Smithsonian Institution, which,
under the direction of Professor Spencer F. Baird, reflects high
honor upon its generous founder, and is in fact what he intended
it should be--an institution "to increase and diffuse knowledge
among men."

In the National Museum there is a judicious admixture of the past
and present, and still more, happily blending with these, are not
only the wonders of the vegetable and floral kingdom, but of those
geological, zoological, and ethnological marvels which it is the
privilege of this age to have brought to light and classified.  It
is not only the storehouse of the results of scientific expeditions
fitted out by the United States, but the depository of the
contributions of foreign nations, which added so much to the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876.  The work of the
United States Fish Commission is too well known to require description,
and is of itself well worth a journey to Washington.  Then there
are the museums of the State, the War, and the Navy Departments,
with that of the Department of Agriculture and the Army Medical
Museum.

The Observatory, with its magnificent instruments for astronomical
purposes, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Naval Hydrographic
Bureau, each with its stores of maps and charts; the Bureau of
Education, the Indian Office, the General Land Office, and the
Geological Survey are all scientific institutions of acknowledged
position.  The Corcoran Art Gallery, and the Roman Catholic and
the Protestant Colleges, with their law and medical schools, add
to the scientific and artistic attractions of the capital, while
the facilities afforded by the Congressional and other libraries
for study and research are of such a superior character that many
men engaged in scientific pursuits have been attracted here from
other sections.

There are also in Washington the Philosophical, the Anthropological,
and the Biological Societies, devoted to general scientific
investigation, and at the Cosmos Club the scientists develop the
social side of their natures.  The house long occupied by Mrs.
Madison has been fitted up by the Club, the membership of which
includes about all of the prominent scientific men in the city,
and it is said that there are more men of distinction in science
in Washington than in any other city in the country.

L'ENVOI

It is not without regret that I lay down my pen, and cease work on
the Reminiscences of Sixty Years, of my life.  As I remarked in
the Preface, my great difficulty has been what to select from the
masses of literary material concerning the national metropolis that
I have accumulated during the past six decades, and put away in
diaries, scrap-books, correspondence with the press, and note-books.
Many important events have been passed over more lightly than their
importance warranted, while others have been wholly ignored.  But
I trust that I have given my readers a glance at the most salient
features of Life in Washington, as I have actually seen it, without
indulging in sycophantic flattery of men, or glossing over the
unpleasant features of events.  "Paint me as I am," said Cromwell,
and I have endeavored to portray the Federal Metropolis as I have
seen it.


INDEX [omitted]