XXVIII. THE GREAT COMPROMISE DEBATE…

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.

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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.

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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 Soule, 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 Soule."

[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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. Soule, 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 Soule, 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.

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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 Jose 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.

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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] Gš: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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Soule. 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.

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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.

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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 protege 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 attache 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.

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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.

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