Part 4
Again the Senate chamber recalls the early days of the rebellion, or rather the last stormy winter before its culmination. The galleries are densely crowded; the voice of eloquence is heard ringing in clarion notes through the hall; but in place of the handsome, sneering face of Breckinridge as presiding officer, rare old Ben Wade rises, like a sun of promise, to light up the troubled waters, and to help warn the ship of the Republic off the rocky shore. Scarcely a drop in the river of time since haughty Wigfall arose, and, with right hand clenched defiantly in the face of the Republican side, his flaming eye resting upon Charles Sumner, declared that he owed no allegiance to the Government of the United States. It was the forked flames licking the marble column, for Senator Sumner sat calm and immovable as the figure of Fate. Gone, too, is Davis, the man of destiny; and Toombs, the swaggering braggart, with silver-voiced Benjamin, the only human being endowed with the same melodious, flute-like tongue that bewitched our dear first mother. And yet there is treason enough left to act as leaven in case Senator Doolittle and the President succeed in introducing it into the loaf of reconstruction.
To-day two of the most warlike as well as two of the most powerful men in the Senate have been engaged in real battle; but instead of muscle against muscle, the air has been filled with javelins of arguments and ideas. Let the pen be content with describing the two combatants--Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Senator Nye, of Nevada.
The battle, like Massachusetts, speaks for itself. Senator Doolittle, the President’s spirit of darkness, bears the same relation to the human race that a bull-dog does to the canine species. His arguments are tough and sharp as a row of glittering teeth, and would do the same horrible execution if the President and small party of barking Democracy at his heels were strong enough to tell him “to go in and win.” Rather above the medium height, built for strength, like a Dutch clipper, with close cropped hair and broad, projecting lower jaw, it must have been an accident that made him let go of the Republican platform, or he must have been choked off by a power entirely beyond his control. But now that he is fast hold of a different faith; no resolution of a Wisconsin senate, no bitter protest of an indignant, injured constituency, can shake him one hair’s breadth. And to this powerful makeup a pair of glistening steel-gray eyes, a presence easier felt than described, and you have plenty of material out of which to construct a triple-headed Cerebus strong enough to guard the gates of--even the Executive mansion.
His antagonist, Senator Nye, of Nevada, has the finest head in the American Senate. Mother Nature must have expended her strength and means in the handsome head and broad shoulders. It must have been originally meant that he should stand six feet and an inch or two in his stocking feet, yet by some of those accidents which never can be guarded against, he is scarcely of the average height. His face presents one of those rare spectacles, those strange combinations, in which intellect and beauty are striving for supremacy.
Eyes of that indescribable hazel that light up with passion or emotion, like an evening dress under the gaslight. Nose chiseled with the precision of the sculptor’s skillful steel, and a mouth in which dwells character, passion, and all the graces, neatly fringed by a decent beard, as every respectable man’s should be. Hands small and bloodless, the usual accompaniment of the powerful brain of an active thinker. Last, but not least, there is enough electricity about him to send a first-class message around the world, with plenty left for all home purposes.
The Senate chamber is a painful place for the eye to rest this winter. Its furniture, carpets, and many other etceteras are suggestive of molten heat. There is a flaming red carpet on the floor, and every chair and sofa blushes like a carnation rose. Red and yellow stare the unfortunate Senator in the face whichever way he turns. Even what little sunlight manages to sneak into this celebrated chamber steals in clothed in those two prismatic, nightmare colors. When the galleries are packed, as they were to-day, there is scarcely more air than in an exhausted receiver, and it is astonishing that so many delicate women can remain so many hours subjected to such an atmosphere. And now that the galleries are sprinkled with dark fruit, thick as a briery hedge in blackberry time; this, taken into consideration, with many other wise reasons, may help to account for the large Democratic gain in the late election returns.
Never within memory, not even during the extravagance of the late war, have so many costly costumes adorned the persons of our American women as the present winter in Washington. And the Capitol, with its oriental luxuriance, seems a fitting place for the grand display. A handsome blonde, enveloped in royal purple velvet, without being relieved by so much as a shadow of any other color or material, brings the words of the Psalmist to all thoughtful minds: “They toil not, neither do they spin (or write), yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
OLIVIA.
SPEAKER COLFAX.
HIS AFFECTION FOR HIS MOTHER--OTHER CHARACTERISTICS.
WASHINGTON, _March 2, 1868_.
The season of Lent has folded its soft, brooding wings over the weary devotees of fashion in Washington. Luxuriant wrappers, weak tea, and soft-boiled eggs have succeeded the Eugenie trains, chicken salad, and all those delicious fluids that are supposed to brace the human form divine. The penitential season of Lent is just as fashionable, in its way, as the brilliant season which preceded it. There is nothing left for the “Jenkinses” but “to fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.”
But as hardy native flowers defy the chilly frost, so Speaker Colfax’s hospitable doors swing upon their noiseless hinges once a week, and the famous house known as the “Sickles mansion” becomes a bee-hive, swarming, overflowing with honeyed humanity; and let it be recorded that no man in Washington is socially so popular, so much beloved, as Schuyler Colfax. General Grant, the man who dwells behind a mask, is worshiped by the multitudes, who rush to his mansion as Hindoos to a Buddhist temple; but Schuyler Colfax possesses the magic quality of knowing how to leave the Speaker’s desk, and, gracefully descending to the floor, place himself amongst the masses of the American people, no longer above them, but with them, one of them--a king of hearts in his own right; a knave also, because he steals first and commands afterwards.
It is needless to say that all adjectives descriptive of fashionable life at the capital have long since been worn thread-bare. Why didn’t Jenkins tell the truth and say, instead of “warm cordiality, elegant courtesy,” pump-handle indifference and metallic smile? Why did he not tell the dear, good people at home the truth, and nothing but the truth, and say that madame the duchess practices smiles or grimaces before the glass, and serves the same up to her dear friends at her evening receptions? Why should not a smile fit as well as her corsets or kid gloves? Too much smile without dimples to cover up the defect destroys the harmonious relation of the features. Not only that, but it invites every fashionable woman’s horror. It paves the way to wrinkles, the death-blows of every belle.
“Look at my face,” says Madame B----, of Baltimore, the widow of royalty, the handsomest woman of three-score years and ten in America, addressing one who shall be nameless. “You are not half my age, and yet you have more wrinkles than I; shall I tell you why?” “To be sure, Madame B----.” “I never laugh; I never cry; I make repose my study.” Now, let it be added that this aged belle of a long-since-departed generation on every night encases her taper fingers in metallic thimbles, and has done so for the last forty years; consequently her hand retains much of its original symmetry, and the decay of her charms is as sweet and as faultless as the falling leaves of a rose.
Speaker Colfax’s receptions, in one sense of the word, are unlike all others. No prominent man in Washington receives his thousands of admirers and says to them, after an introduction, “This is my mother!” She stands by his side, with no one to separate them, bearing a strong personal resemblance to him, whilst she is only seventeen years the older. At what a tender age her love commenced for this boy Schuyler--nobody else’s boy, though he were President! She has put on the chameleon silk, and the cap with blue ribbons, to receive the multitudes that flock in masses to do homage to her son. Pride half slumbers in her bosom, but love is vigilant and wide awake. There is no metallic impression on her countenance; a genuine, heartfelt welcome is extended to all who pay their respects to her idol. So the people come and go, and wonder why Speaker Colfax’s receptions are unlike others. Only a very few stars of the first magnitude in the fashionable world shone at the Speaker’s mansion last night. The Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from Iowa was there, with his elegant, lavender-robed wife--a woman who skims over the treacherous waters of society in Washington as gracefully and safely as a swan upon its native element. David Dudley Field, of New York, was there--a tall, stalwart man, after the oak pattern; and the fine faced woman, with gold enough upon her person to suggest a return to specie payment, was said to be a new wife. Mark Twain, the delicate humorist, was present; quite a lion, as he deserves to be. Mark is a bachelor, faultless in taste, whose snowy vest is suggestive of endless quarrels with Washington washerwomen; but the heroism of Mark is settled for all time, for such purity and smoothness were never seen before. His lavender gloves might have been stolen from some Turkish harem, so delicate were they in size; but more likely--anything else were more likely than that. In form and feature he bears some resemblance to the immortal Nasby; but whilst Petroleum is brunette to the core, Twain is a golden, amber-hued, melting blonde.
Members of Congress were there. George Washington Julian was present; great, gifted, good, as he always is, proving to the world that even a great name cannot extinguish him. Nature was in one of her most generous moods when she formed him, for he towers above the people like a mountain surrounded by hills. He dwells in a higher atmosphere and sniffs a purer air than most Congressmen, and this may account for his always being found in the right place, never doubtful. People know just what George Washington Julian will do in any national crisis. So he is left alone to score the measures of his conscience, just as the earth is left to her orbit, or the magnetic needle to the pole.
OLIVIA.
THE HIGH COURT OF IMPEACHMENT.
CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADING COUNSEL AND THEIR ARGUMENTS.
WASHINGTON, _March 14, 1868_.
With lightning leap the historical proceedings of the “High Court of Impeachment” have flashed all over the country. The bone and sinew of the matter have been given to the people, but the delicate life-currents and details which go to make the creation perfect, if not gathered by the pen, must be buried in the waste-basket of old Father Time. Decorum, dignity, solemnity, are the order of the day, and one might as well attempt a “glowing description” of a funeral as to weave in bright colors the opening scenes of the greatest trial on record.
Outside the Capitol, in the crowd, the incidents are beyond description. Men are there from all parts of the country, pleading, swearing for admittance--offering untold sums for a little insignificant bit of pasteboard. But the police, stony, frightful as the “head of Medusa,” shut the doors in their faces, inexorable as the fiat of the tomb. A limited number of honest, tender-hearted Senators are trying to smuggle in a few beloved “outsiders;” but the police are instantly convened into a “court of impeachment,” and the unfortunate Senator has to bow before the majesty of the law. A ticket is the only open sesame, and a bit of yellow pasteboard so dazzles the multitudes that even Andrew Johnson is forgotten for a time. But the fortunate ticket-holder, when once beyond the hurly-burly outside, finds that an entrance to a different atmosphere has been attained. It is like leaving the famished, parched plain at the mountain’s foot and climbing up into the cool region, almost among the eternal snows. The Senate chamber, always chilly in comparison with the warm, leaping blood of the House, is now wrapped in judicial robes of coldest gray. When it is remembered that Senators were allowed four tickets and members half that number, it will readily be understood that even the aristocracy had to be skimmed to fill the galleries, and with the exception of a few newspaper correspondents, the chosen ones belong to or are attaches of the proudest families in the land. And it is a most significant fact that women hold nearly all the tickets. They sail into the gentlemen’s gallery like a real “man of war,” shake out the silken, feathery crinoline, rub their little gloved hands in an ecstasy of delight, and while perching their heads significantly on one side, gaze sorrowfully at the few forlorn men stranded amongst their number, either through accident or to prove to the world that the genus man under the most trying circumstances is not extinct. As the Senate clock points to the hour of 1, Senator Wade leaves the chair, and Chief Justice Chase, robed in his judicial drapery, enters at a side door and takes the vacant seat. Very soon the managers of the impeachment file in, Bingham and Boutwell taking the lead. A table for their accommodation has been prepared, and as they take their seats the silence seems like the dead, unbroken calm inhabited only by time and space. The moment has arrived for the utterance of the most solemn words ever echoed in the Senate of the United States--the proclamation of the Sergeant-at-Arms calling a recreant President to stand forth and prove his innocence or else meet the just punishment of his crime. A momentary silence follows, and the counsel for the accused advance and take their seats. That which was uncertainty is now a positive fact.
Andrew Johnson will not meet the august tribunal face to face. There is to be a state dinner in the evening at the White House, and if feasting can be thought of at such an hour, it may be possible that he is engaged on the bill of fare. Louis XV was engaged with his powders and paint box, Dubarry, Pompadour, and venison, when the storm was brewing that destroyed his family and swept the innocent with the guilty off the face of the earth. The counsel, three in number, face the tribunal. Mr. Stanbery is the first of the number to speak. Keen and hair-splitting, he seems to think he is going to carry the day by storm. He rather demands forty days for preparation instead of requesting it. He is followed by Mr. Bingham, who confines himself entirely to the law, without the least flourish of rhetoric or word painting. Very soon the Senate retires for consultation. Then an hour and a half are devoted to gossip in the gallery, and one has time to sweep the rows of seats with an opera glass and glean all the handsome faces; and if the whole truth and nothing but the truth must be told, old Mother Nature (the more shame on her) has been just as niggardly and mean in dealing out “magnificent eyes” and “voluptuous forms” to the creme de la creme as if she were only managing the family affairs of some poor nobody who has not a ghost of a chance for Congressional or any other honor in our beloved country. A limited number of large solitaire diamonds were visible; but good taste excludes nearly all diamonds except in full dress. As this was the highest court in the land amongst men, it might as justly be said that it was the highest court of culture, refinement, fashion, and good taste amongst the women. If all the elements which make men great, just, and wise were found on the floor, it can as truthfully be said that the galleries were never filled by so much purity, so much that goes to make woman the connecting link between men and the angels. Who is that noble woman with the silver hair? The mother-in-law of Edwin M. Stanton. The other whose face time has mellowed to autumnal sweetness and perfection? The mother of Senator Trumbull. No, no; that picture of delicacy and grace, arrayed in silk tinted with the shade of a dead forest leaf, with dead gold ornaments to match? Why, that is the queen of fashion--the wife of a Senator, the daughter of Chief Justice Chase.
No more time to notice those chosen amongst the women. The Senate has assembled, and General Butler has the floor. He takes the largest, most comprehensive view of the case. He is going to make his mark upon the age, if he has not already. He seems the very incarnation of force and will. He is followed by Judge Nelson of Tennessee, one of the President’s counsel. Originally a preacher, I am told, he brings the same kind of persuasion to bear upon the Senate that he would upon rebellious sinners. As the Senate do not look upon themselves in that light, it follows that something more substantial will have to be used; but, as the President has chosen each of his counsel for certain personal qualifications, it is very probable that he expects nothing but flowery sentiment from him--the ornamental, instead of the useful. Judge Curtis, the ablest of the President’s counsel, said but very little, seeming well content with Judge Nelson’s waste of words. Wilson, of Iowa, one of the ablest judicial minds in the country, made a few remarks, of which law was the cubic measure; and, after some amendments and voting, the day and the people vanished; and thus ended one of the great historical days of the age.
OLIVIA.
MRS. SENATOR WADE.
THE MAKER OF AND SHARER IN HER HUSBAND’S TRIUMPHS.
WASHINGTON, _March 17, 1868_.
A calm steals over the restless political waters, and whilst we are waiting for the next act in the great drama let us draw near those who, by the sudden turn of the wheel of fate, are lifted high above the multitude. Never, even in the days of the French Revolution, have the women performed more conspicuous parts in the national play of politics than at the present time in Washington. It can truthfully be said that there is nothing so malignant and heart-rending in its effects upon a good man as the burning desire to be President. God help the man when this iron has entered his soul, for this fiery ambition drinks up every other sweet virtue, just as the July sun licks up the purling brook and precious dew drop. It is not man alone who is consumed by ambition; it is woman also, who, in this as well as in everything else, often takes the lion’s share. It was Eve who first ate of the fruit, and gave it unto Adam, and he did partake of it also. It is a woman who apparently has everything that the visible or invisible world has to bestow, and yet, like the princess in the fairy tale, deems her place incomplete unless a roc’s egg is hung in the centre of the jeweled chamber. There is only one position at the “republican court” that this most elegant woman has not attained. She has never “reigned” at the White House. Every other triumph has palled upon her taste, and if the nation would like the finest and amongst the largest of diamonds in the country to glisten in the Executive Mansion, and the most graceful and queenly woman of the day to eat bread and honey in the national pantry, they will hasten to withdraw their support from any military chieftain, and bestow the awful burden upon a man who at this very moment is staggering under as much as any faithful public servant can very well carry.
Come, reader; let us leave the dusty highway of frivolity and fashion. Come into the cool, refreshing shade. You are in the presence of the woman who, in all human probability, will be the one above all others of her sex to whom the argus eyes of this great nation will soon be directed. She is in the full meridian of middle life, tall and distinguished-looking, as one would imagine a Roman matron might be in the days of Italian glory, and it would seem that she is precisely such a mate as her bluff and out-spoken husband would select for a life-long journey in double harness. It is evident that he must have chosen for qualities that would wear under the most trying circumstances; and the material must have met his expectations, else why should they bear such a strong personal resemblance to each other--the very same expression of countenance--unless they have suffered and rejoiced together, and hand in hand tasted the bitter with the sweet?
It is well known in Washington that Mrs. Wade has not the least ambition to shine in the fashionable world; that she has been heard to express her exceeding distaste for the formal reception; it has even been whispered by those who ought to know that she has the old-fashioned love for the click of the knitting needles; and the nation may yet find out that the reason why Senator Wade has always stood so firm for the right was because his feet have been clad in stockings of domestic manufacture, for this is no more astonishing than had Archimedes the slightest point on which to place his fulcrum he might have moved the whole world.
For many years Mrs. Wade’s name has been prominently identified with the public charitable institutions at Washington as well as elsewhere. Says the secretary of the “News-Boys’ Home:” “It is her private benevolence that will longest be remembered, for it is yet to be known when a worthy object was sent from her presence unrelieved.”
When we remember her scholarly culture, her extensive reading, and her acquaintance with the best minds of the age, would it not almost seem that this second tragedy, this suicide instead of assassination at the White House, was the providential means taken to purify the halls of legislation at the very fountain head? For if Senator Wade drifts into the Executive chair, through no fault or effort of his own, bound by no promise to friend or foe, what hinders him from seizing the helm of the ship of state, and, with the aid of Congress, guiding her out of the breakers into the calm, still waters of Republican prosperity and peace? As only a Hercules can perform this labor, this may account for the succession, as well as for Senator Wade’s clear head, broad shoulders, and stout heart; and when it happens that there will accompany him to the Executive Mansion the same social atmosphere that characterized the days of Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Madison, will it not seem like a return of the honest simplicity of our forefathers, or like the long-delayed perfecting of the Republic’s youthful days?
OLIVIA.
AT THE PRESIDENT’S LEVEE.
DISGUSTING MANNERS OF A MEMBER OF THE FRENCH LEGATION--HANDSOME GENERAL HANCOCK.
WASHINGTON, _March 24, 1868_.