Part 6
Like a rolling avalanche, impeachment gathers in size and velocity as it rushes on to its final resting place. The testimony has all been taken; the arguments have already commenced. Manager Boutwell occupied many hours yesterday in reading his arguments. This able effort will soon find its way into every household in the land, there to be weighed and judged discriminately; but Manager Boutwell is no wizard or brownie, and therefore cannot go himself where his words will fly. How does he look, and what could he see if he should take his eyes off the printed page and glance hither and yon, to the right, to the left, or, with both at once, make a grand Balaklava charge? Is it possible for a man to get to that point in his life when the mind’s fruit hangs in clustered perfection, like the juicy purple grape of mid-autumn?
Manager Boutwell is in the zenith of life, rather under the medium size and compact, and when tested gives the true ring of the genuine coin, or a perfect piece of porcelain, handsome enough for all the practical uses of life, but nothing startling or electrical about him, like Benjamin Butler; and it would seem as if wily Massachusetts was wide awake, as she has furnished two managers. But in case General Butler should exhaust himself like fiery Vesuvius, behold there is Boutwell, cool, solemn, eternal as the glacier-crowned Alps.
Mr. Boutwell is a good speaker, but his reading seems wearisome, and yet the galleries listen with attention; at least it is very quiet in there--not a breath of air to spare.
There is a faint odor of exquisite perfume exhaling from hundreds of snowy, cob-web handkerchiefs; dainty women scattered here and there, everywhere. Paris has Eugenie; Washington has Mrs. Senator Sprague, the acknowledged queen of fashion and good taste. She occupies a seat at the left of the reader. Her costume is just as perfect as the lily or the rose. She is a lilac blossom to-day. Not a particle of jewelry is visible upon her person. She has copied her bonnet from the pansy or wood violet. A single flower, of lilac tinge, large enough for the “new style,” rests upon her head, and is fastened to its place by lilac tulle so filmy that it must have been stolen from the purple mists of the morning. An exquisite walking dress of pale lilac silk has trimmings a shade darker, whilst lilac gloves conceal a hand that might belong to the queen of fairies. Is she a woman or a flower, to be nipped by the frost; to be pressed between the leaves of adversity; or, alas! to grow old and wither? Impossible! She is a flower of immortality; not perfect, it is true, as other letter-writers say, but she happens to be placed in a sphere where perfection is expected, and she is mortal like the rest of us. She shrinks from the hard and lowly task of visiting the wretched hut, the sick, and the afflicted. So do Victoria and Eugenie, whose fame is wafted to us across the great water.
To the left of the queen sits another woman distinguished in Washington society. It is the wife of a millionaire--Mrs. Oakes Ames of Massachusetts. She is a handsome matron, in the early autumn of life. She has no desire to shine in the fashionable world, and her smiling face would only come out the brighter after an eclipse of that kind. Her elegant parlors are headquarters for old-fashioned hospitality, and to those who possess the “open sesame” she is always at home. But it is in Massachusetts that she finds her true sphere. There she is the wife of the baronet, the “Lady Bountiful of the neighborhood,” surrounded by her husband’s tenantry or working people. It is the “squire’s wife” who visits the lowly cottage, bringing sunshine and temporal relief. It is the “squire” who pays the clergyman his salary, that his people may be saved through no loss of spiritual grace, and instead of going to London for the winter they come to Washington. What! Gossips, you say; but it is an admitted fact.
OLIVIA.
JUDGE NELSON.
THE PRESIDENT’S COUNSEL DURING THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL.
WASHINGTON, _April 27, 1868_.
Another effort of the immortal mind has been inscribed upon the scroll of fame. Judge Nelson, of Tennessee, has spoken in behalf of the President, and only the pen of genius can do justice to this dewy, refreshing speech as it fell upon the American Senate.
When it is known that Judge Nelson dropped the cowl of the monk for the lawyer’s pointed lance, it is not astonishing that he mistook the Senate for a set of Tennessee sinners, and appealed to its feeling instead of its judgment. This most interesting speech was interspersed with poetry, borrowed for the occasion, to be sure, but of equal use and effectiveness--nevertheless, like mourning garments, borrowed from friendly neighbors; and yet the speech was destitute of all solemnity. A rich vein of humor coursed through it, and the Senate seemed to enjoy the repose so much needed after the strong arguments of Mr. Boutwell.
It is said Andrew Johnson chose Nelson for these very qualities; but, gratifying as it may have been to the President, it did not find favor in the minds of those who are friendly to the lost cause. A genuine sneer curled itself up and nestled in all the hide-and-seek places in the delicate face of William M. Evarts, while stately Mr. Groesbeck seemed severely offended. Members of Congress folded their unseen tents and silently stole away; the Chief Justice uncoiled his dignity just enough to catch a breath of the fluttering breeze; and the high court of impeachment was relieved as if by an unexpected holiday.
Judge Nelson was a semi-rebel--a sort of Tennessee neutral--during the rebellion, and it has not been ascertained whether it was for this reason that Andrew Johnson chose him for the defence; but it is now known beyond a doubt that minister and lawyer are so ingeniously mixed in the judge’s composition that a third compound is the result, bearing no more resemblance to the first ingredients than soap bears to oil and alkali.
Mr. Groesbeck had the floor next--apparently a good, strong man, bearing the same relation to the human family that a fair, rosy-cheeked apple does to the remainder of the fruit in the orchard. Like Mr. Stanbery, he pleads illness. His voice seemed in the last stages of collapse. It is very difficult to catch the hoarse sentences in the galleries. There is nothing flashing, brilliant, or electrical in his speech, and if there were, it would be entirely lost, unless it rose, cloud-like, into the galleries. Hard, cold, flinty argument must be hurled upon the impassive Senate. Mr. Groesbeck seems to be aware of this fact, as he contends against the odds.
The gallery wears its usual high-toned, fashionable elegance. A real hothouse of rare human exotics is gathered together, partaking of the same weaknesses and desires that animate creation in the humbler spheres of life. Some of these exquisite butterflies have a way of spreading their voluminous crinoline to the exclusion of some unfortunate in want of a seat; but as soon as an acquaintance makes an appearance, in the twinkling of an eye space is evolved from a minus quantity and immediately occupied, and the real honest possessor has no redress except in repeating an ave, or declaiming mentally the touching poem of “sour grapes.”
Allowing it to be exceedingly gratifying, it is not good taste to be eating in public. History tells us that a great monarch used to take his emetics and vomit gracefully in the presence of the court, but even royalty could not add dignity to, nor throw a rosy glamor over, one of Nature’s disgraceful freaks. And in the high court of impeachment no pink-lipped, amber-haired beauty can afford to distort her features and wantonly assail the ears of her neighbors by cracking nuts with her pearly teeth. If a woman has neither youth nor beauty, and commits the same fatal error, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”
OLIVIA.
A FAITHFUL SERVANT.
A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF THE LIFE WORK OF HON. THADDEUS STEVENS.
WASHINGTON, _April 28, 1868_.
After the storm and cloud of an eventful life, Thaddeus Stevens lingers on the disc of the Western horizon, surrounded by the glory of departing day. As he stands the central figure in the House of Representatives, he likewise occupies the same place at the manager’s table in the high court of impeachment. Like Lord Brougham, his intellectual powers seem to lose little by age, and his argument in behalf of the House has none superior, if any equal to it. Short, compact, conclusive, it was made up of the cream of the whole matter in the dispute. On the day of its delivery, as the Chief Justice ceased speaking, the galleries were hushed into more than attentive silence. Slowly the venerable speaker advanced to a chair on the platform so as to be able to face the Senate, his position being at the same time such that he could be plainly seen by the crowd in the vast galleries, who were listening, intent on catching the faintest word. He seemed to be impressed with the solemnity of the surroundings, also to realize that the present effort was to be the last great crowning work of his life. Slowly he rose, trembling, yet brilliant as the flame that sometimes shoots upward when the taper burns low in the socket before it expires. His reading, at first low and tremulous, grew stronger and stronger until it reached every nook of the vast Senate chamber. As he sat in his easy chair, the beholder could not help but feel that Thaddeus Stevens lives to prove to the world the immortality of the soul. He shows that the body is not necessary to human existence. He shows that passion can live notwithstanding the fire of life is nearly out; and though every window of his mansion of clay is broken, and through each rent and crevice the storm of the outer world pours in, yet, like a couchant lion in his den, his mind is ready to spring upon an adversary; and in any work that devolves upon the servants of the country, Thaddeus Stevens is ready to accept the royal share.
As every season of the year has its beauties, so has every season of life. Though it be winter, it is only the poor who sigh for the summer heats. He who is rich in intellect, though he stands upon the snows of age, partakes of the holiest and most elevated joys. Far up the mountain the traveler has ascended. Human life, with its contentions and struggles, is spread out before him in the valley below. He can look down upon his fellow-man kindly, lovingly, for he sees the thorn and the bramble, the hidden ditch and the concealed stone, over which his brother may stumble and sometimes falls. But as he climbs higher and still higher, the valley, with its smiling river and fairy dells, fades imperceptibly, the twilight of the upper world surrounds him, and he sees, both above and below, in letters of living fire, the single word JUSTICE; and happy is he who, like Thaddeus Stevens, has made this solemn word his song by day, his pillar of fire by night, for eternal justice is the living God.
A great many years ago, a Green Mountain boy was fairly embarked on the ocean of life. No gaily-painted merchantman was at his command; only a little life-boat, whose paddles were a pair of strong hands; no supplies, only those so deftly hidden away in the cunning recesses of his brain. In the beginning he said it is not good to be alone; so he fashioned himself a banner, inscribed with the golden letters of Universal Justice, Liberty, and Education. With this flag upon his bosom, singlehanded and alone, he fought the ignorant prejudices of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This childless bachelor said the State should be taxed to educate the children. Was it light from the Infinite shining upon Mr. Stevens that enabled him to see deeper into the welfare of these children than their own parents or guardians? He met the most powerful opposition, but proved himself as invulnerable as Achilles without a heel. He conquered. The commonschool system of Pennsylvania owes its being to Thaddeus Stevens, and unborn myriads may owe their success in life to this great benefactor.
There was weeping and wailing heard through the centuries. The stifled sob of slave mothers smote the air because their babes were sold into bondage, and though they might be living on the earth yet were dead to them forever. The slave-pen lifted its atrocious head and flaunted its pestilential shadows within the call of the nation’s capital. The auctioneer’s voice rang shrill and clear, going! going! gone! whilst the American Shylock advanced and paid for his pound of human flesh. The torturing chain and lash were held in the hand of the overseer, and with no hope, no refuge, for the fugitive but the deadly morass or more desolate canebrake, there to be followed by the keen-scented bloodhound or his still more relentless foe. The people of Israel lay prostrate with faces buried in the dust, forgotten by the nations of the earth, apparently forgotten by their God. But the clouds of wrath gathered, and at last overspread the whole land. The youthful Republic saw, for the first time, a serious civil war. Although tried on many a battlefield before, it was in the great war for the downfall of oppression that Thaddeus Stevens sprang into existence as the “leader of the House.” It was in the vast arena of Congress, that awful place, where even more than average men are lost in its immensity, that Thaddeus Stevens shone with a steady unfaltering light--a sun with a solar system around him. It was not alone the untiring efforts of great generals, or the spilling of blood or the wasting of treasure, that saved the life of the nation. He who helps to keep the fountain of legislation pure, who keeps the mantle of trust reposed in him by the people clean and free from the speck or blemish at all times, whether it be war or peace, is a nation’s benefactor. Let the nation’s head be uncovered in the presence of Thaddeus Stevens.
It is the work of a biographer to follow a great man through a long and well spent life; and it is extremely unfortunate that Mr. Stevens has never been known to make the acquaintance of a Boswell, for how much that is crisp and readable must now be lost. It may be pleasant to know that he has sold his lots in the two cemeteries of which he was an owner because colored people were refused burial in them; though it may be possible that he feels that he shall have future use for them. It is so natural to forget to say that a noble character has any faults. But who remembers the spots on the sun? It is enough to know that we owe life to its benign influence.
Long, long, will Mr. Stevens remain photographed upon the minds of those who now have the honor to behold him, as he sits in his easy chair day after day. Nature did not make him handsome, but she fashioned him with a bold, rugged outline, suggesting power and sublimity, like the solemn mountain or the surf-beaten cliff.
OLIVIA.
JOHN A. BINGHAM.
ACQUITS HIMSELF WITH HONORS IN FORENSIC CONFLICT.
WASHINGTON, _May 7, 1868_.
Never, even during the late days of storm and darkness, has the sun set upon such scenes as were enacted on the last day of argument before the High Court of Impeachment. No more can it be said that the age of oratory has fled, for John A. Bingham has shown that there is a man amongst us who possesses the rare power of electrifying the multitude: of making one vast sea of humanity throb with overwhelming emotion. I might as well attempt to “paint the sunbeams” as to give a description of his glowing words. From history he drew the parallel between James the Second and our recreant President. Mirabeau’s immortal answer to the king’s usher, “Go tell your master that bayonets have no power over the will of the people,” seemed as if uttered anew by the spirit of the great Frenchman. Never in the history of the world has any man been called to plead before such a bar, and for such a cause. No court has existed like it in the world’s annals, and no such criminal has been called to answer. Only the attributes of conceded genius sustained Mr. Bingham, and made him strong for the work assigned to him. He seemed to feel that this trial was not simply a means for the punishment of one daring offender, but that it was to prove the strength and stability of republican institutions for all time--to prove that the strongest are as imbecile before the majesty of the law as the beggar of the highway.
Upon the floor of the American Senate the majestic scenes of history are again repeated. One man stands out from the multitude, pleading the cause of myriads against the aggressive encroachment of a wicked ruler. Every inch of available space in the vast chamber contains a human being, and the silence of the grave prevails. Little by little, blow after blow, as the sculptor chisels the marble, the orator is building a monument--one which is to stand through the centuries, long, long after lithe, supple John A. Bingham is only a handful of dust. No link is missing in the chain; no dead sentiment clings to his ideas; his perfect sentences are steeped at once in logic and poetry. It is the handwriting on the wall in letters of living fire. The orator closes. A momentary silence like that which precedes the hurricane’s crash, and there arises from floor to ceiling such confusion which even the vigorous blows of the Chief Justice’s gavel are inadequate to suppress. It was like the voice of the gallant sea captain commanding the elements to be still. Then Senator Grimes comes to the rescue, and moves that the galleries be cleared. Senator Cameron hopes that the galleries will not be cleared, and that allowance will be made for the extraordinary occasion. Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Reverdy Johnson call Mr. Cameron to order, whilst Mr. Trumbull moves that not only the galleries be cleared, but that all disorderly persons be arrested. At the same time the British minister and others in the diplomatic inclosure are seen apparently contesting their rights with the doorkeepers, whilst a flutter appears in the reporter’s gallery similar to that noticed in a flock of blackbirds when a handful of shot has been remorselessly distributed amongst them. From his throne, which was only a plain, cane-seated chair, Manager Bingham surveys the tumult. He who has sown the whirlwind smilingly surveys the storm. He is weary and exhausted, and his cheek has the pallor of the grave, but he feels that the applause was for him. The uproar continues. At last the inexorable fiat is understood. The galleries must be cleared upon the instant. So a surging tide of humanity pours out of every open door. Little knots of people are scattered here and there the whole length of the long corridors, all talking about the one absorbing theme. Grand tableaux of excited men are grouped in the rotunda, even the stairs have caught stray whisps of surplus, standing humanity, all madly intoxicated with the enthusiasm of the hour. The world never seems weary of Boswell’s talk about Dr. Johnson; and with the same desire to please, let it be told that Mr. Bingham was asked how he felt after the proudest triumph of his life. Using his own words: “I don’t know how I feel; I only know I have spoken enough to make thirty columns in the Congressional Globe. God knows I have tried to do my duty; it is in the hands of the Senate now. The great work of my life is done.”
Day after day we see our neighbor, John A. Bingham, an unpretending man of simple tastes, and whose mind is a storehouse of classic culture. About the average height of his fellow-men, he is far more slender and graceful, and though not handsome according to the prescribed rules of beauty, yet like the High Court of Impeachment, which is a law unto itself, he looks like John A. Bingham, and there is nothing better by which he can be compared, estimated, or measured.
OLIVIA.
ANSON BURLINGAME.
HIS TRIUMPHANT CAPTURE OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE FLOWERY KINGDOM.
WASHINGTON, _June 20, 1868_.
A new and startling drama is performing on the world’s stage. The Occident and the Orient are at last united. The oldest nation on the face of the earth is shaking hands with the youngest. Gray-bearded China, after being hermetically sealed during the long ages, opens her arms to embrace Young America, and in the height of her good humor includes the rest of the world. Another laurel is added to the fame of America. A countryman of ours has shown what genius and courage can accomplish in the great field of diplomacy. Anson Burlingame has smitten the strongholds of China as Moses smote the rock in the wilderness, and the sweet waters flow forth in Washington in the shape of dozens of pig-tailed, almond-eyed, silken-clad Orientals, who charm by their picturesqueness, and who leave the gates of wonder standing ajar every day. To the eye of an ordinary “barbarian” one Chinaman looks as much like another as two pins from the same paper; but a very close inspection shows that the two mandarins are made of a little finer clay than the “suite.” There is just about the same difference as between their own exquisite porcelain and the modern French china.
Owing to the fashionable shoes of their mother, the mandarins have inherited feet made expressly for Cinderella’s slipper, whilst their delicate taper fingers vie with any high-born damsel’s in the land. They are exceedingly attractive, but the sentiment they inspire is as strange as themselves. It isn’t the usual homage that woman gives the opposite sex, and their fluttering silken skirts and fans help to keep up all sorts of illusions. They have brought a miniature China with them, in the shape of all that goes to sustain life--their own servants, cooking utensils, favorite beverages, etc.
The Metropolitan Hotel had been turned into a Chinese pagoda, and Minister Burlingame and his elegant wife are the presiding seers, whilst the multitude flock to offer incense at their shrines. Not an hour can they call their own; and though they are very weary this exhausting weather, Mr. Burlingame says, “I am so glad to meet with so much kindness from my countrymen.” It is this warmth--these genuine, electric flashes of the soul--that melts all opposition. Since the birth of our young Republic how many wise and good men have been sent to China; but we must acknowledge that we never sent the right man before. All honor to the young pioneer who reflects so much credit upon American diplomacy. It is a plain citizen of our Republic who introduces the oldest monarchy to the whole civilized world.
In answer to the question, “How did you bring it about?” “Bring it about?” said he. “I studied Chinese character. I made them feel that we meant them no harm. It has been the habit in times past, if any demand or request was made by foreign powers to the Chinese Government and the request was not favorably received, to dispatch a gunboat to make a warm impression. This never was my course of action. I never resorted to force. I labored to make them feel that my propositions were for our mutual good; and,” he continued, “I must not forget to say how much influence women have in China; for if the two most influential women in the Empire had not favored the expedition we should not have been seen in this part of the world. Of these august ladies one was the Empress’ mother; the other the wife of the Emperor.”
Mr. Burlingame did not say whether he met these ladies face to face; but, if he did, the birth of the Chinese embassy is no longer a wonder, for even Queen Elizabeth, one of the greatest sovereigns that ever lived, was never proof against those subtle, insinuating influences far easier felt than described.