The Olivia Letters - Emily Edson Briggs

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of it, and when he had finished the great cities of the Union were as wise as we who sat within the sound of his voice. The struggle to obtain tickets equalled, if it did not exceed, the opening day of the trial, and the same elegant, aristocratic crowd filled the galleries, the women, as usual, outnumbering the men. The only really odious thing connected with the trial is the ticket system. Suppose a crowd does gather in the Capitol, the most perfect order prevails, and there are so many police on duty that it is very easy to protect the Senate and push back the waves of humanity. The grocer’s wife, the humblest citizen, has just as much right to hear the impeachment trial as the wife or the friend of a Congressman; and when the galleries are properly filled, what hinders the police from meeting the late comers and turning their unwilling footsteps away? Anything that smacks of aristocracy or exclusiveness should instantly be put under the feet of every American citizen. It is the masses who are the real aristocracy, because they are the source of all power; and the moment our public servants dare to draw lines that in any way interfere with this great, good-natured maelstrom, the least of this mass can put a stone in a sling which will do as good execution as the pebble of the immortal David.

      Senator Wade has left the chair and Chief Justice Chase immediately succeeds him. For an instant let us survey this cold, haughty, handsome face. Not for a moment could one imagine fire coursing along his veins. His lips move, but only inarticulate sound reaches the gallery. The New York Independent must be mistaken when it says “he has become the friend of Andrew Johnson, the idol of the young Democracy.” Ambition may consume him with its unquenchable fire, but with the corpse of William H. Seward before his eyes he will never commit suicide. The Senate chamber is as quiet as a vaulted tomb. The orator of the day arises, and thousands of eyes are brought to a sudden focus. Benjamin F. Butler has the floor. History has associated the name of Burke with Warren Hastings; and inseparably linked must be the names of Butler and Andrew Johnson. Mr. Butler is not an orator. He did not attempt to impress a jury. He simply read a great speech to the whole country, expecting the people to read it after him, and weigh its arguments discriminately; to note the strong points, and feel that Benjamin F. Butler had proved himself equal to the task imposed upon him as a trusted servant of the American people. In making up the gifts for this rare son, it must be said that Old Mother Nature denied him beauty; but he had managed to outwit the fickle old dame and come out even with her at last, for amongst the few beautiful women in the gallery Blanche Butler, the petite daughter, was fairest amongst the fair. “What a strong resemblance between the two!” you say. The crooked eyes are straightened, a little added to their size, and the same fire is flung into them both. In one case you have a pair of Oriental almonds, seen nowhere outside of Correggio’s Madonnas. In the other, you have eyes belonging to Benjamin Butler. The description ends. There is nothing on earth out of which to manufacture comparison.

      In the exclusive crowd which filled the galleries, it may be said there were two grand divisions—the aristocracy and the press. The first named were elevated to their seats by their social relations; the latter by the divine right of being anointed sovereigns in the world of mind, born to their inheritance, like the Bourbons and Hapsburgs. Conspicuous amongst the limited but strictly exclusive set might be seen the delicate, spiritual face of Mary Clemmer Ames, of the New York Independent. She writes poetry; the newspapers tell us all that. She also writes stately, solemn prose. Sometimes it is bitter and pungent, as many of our public men know. How easy and smooth the machinery of her mind must work! There are no sudden jars in the cogwheels of her brain, for her face is almost as smooth as a dimpled babe’s. She is pure womanly, from the low, handsome brow to the taper fingers, and when the time comes that woman shall stand upon the true platform of equality and justice Mary Clemmer Ames, with all the rest of the same sisterhood, will be remembered as the noble pioneers whose united efforts alone achieved the great work.

      Speaking of women in the world of mind, Anna E. Dickinson addressed a fashionable audience here last night, and as we have taken a solemn oath to say nothing but honest words we must say that we don’t like to hear her talk. That she is brilliant and gifted, that Philadelphia has reason to be proud of this talented child, it were useless to deny. But God help the woman when honey no longer drops from her lips, when nothing but gall issues from the coral crevice! She gives the Republican party no credit for what it has done, but only heaps abuse and scurrility upon it because it has not done more. She hurls arguments at the heads with sledge-hammer blows, but she forgets to use woman’s strongest, surest, most fatal weapon—that jeweled, nameless, enchanted dagger, that, if found in the hand of the weakest among us, never fails of reaching the heart.

      Olivia.

       Table of Contents

      “Ad Interim” Thomas Flayed by General Butler—Kindness of the Wife of Senator Wilson.

      Washington, April 14, 1868.

      The interest surrounding the impeachment trial deepens. The blows of the aggressive Butler are met and sometimes parried by the sharp rapier of Evarts or the stout claymore of Stanbery. The President has wisely chosen some of the subtlest minds in the country to defend him, and it is almost worth the fruit of a lifetime to sit in the presence of such a court, the jury composed of the choicest men of each sister State, the lawyers upon both sides the picked men of the country, whilst some of the witnesses have a world-wide reputation, and the spectators, with but few exceptions, are rare exotics, gathered from the best hothouses in the land.

      The sparring on both sides during Friday and Saturday was a perfect feast to those who like to see mind meet mind—who enjoy the din and crash of ideas; but what is the use of stirring up the cesspool into which Andrew Johnson has plunged, and for whom there is no earthly resurrection? Is not the country sick unto death of these poisonous exhalations? Andrew Johnson has broken the laws of the land. In the name of the humblest citizen, what can be offered in his defence?

      The Sage of the Tribune says, “Stick to the point, gentlemen; stick to the point,” and a placard to this effect should be paraded before their eyes in every loyal paper of the country. The President’s conversations with General Sherman and other officers are of no more importance to the people of the United States than his delicate semi-official talk with Mrs. Cobb. If we are to have one, why not the other? Why not let the land shake its rocky sides, and one broad grin stretch its awful mouth from Plymouth Rock to the silver sands of the Pacific slope? “Stick to the point, gentlemen; stick to the point.”

      For all future time General Lorenzo Thomas will be known only as “Ad Interim” Thomas. Even the newsboys cry, “Here’s your evening paper. Testimony of ‘Ad Interim.’ ” If the poet had only lived long enough to have seen this man he would never have written, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” unless he had put in a clause intimating that sometimes Dame Nature in her haste makes mistakes; for Nature intended Lorenzo Thomas to be feminine. She gave him a slender waist and sloping shoulders, arched instep and taper fingers, and in place of a beard planted a few seed on his chin; and long years of cultivation have only proved that some productions of nature will not flourish on a foreign soil. If any more proof were necessary it is his testimony before the Senate on Friday, when he says: “Mr. Stanton put his arm around my neck, as he used to do, in a familiar manner, and says—” No matter about that. As the heroic and honorable Secretary of War thus far has made no mistake, is it not to be inferred that he knew what was so deftly hidden from mortal view? The spiritual intercourse between the two must have been complete.

      If anything more was wanting to touch a sympathetic chord in every woman’s soul in the vast galleries, to bring her nearer in sympathy with Lorenzo Thomas, it was the cruel, merciless way in which General Butler laid bare the heart of this interesting witness. He brought his little amiable foibles and weaknesses to light of day, just as the surgeon brings out the queer things with the dissecting knife. The galleries breathed easy when the tortures were over.

      It was refreshing, at last, to see the soldierly form of General Sherman advancing to the witness stand. There are some handsomer men in the Senate chamber at this

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