The Olivia Letters - Emily Edson Briggs

Скачать книгу

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.

       Table of Contents

      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

Скачать книгу