Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/eventsatnationalOOtownrich A R y £Lcaufo^ EVENTS AT THE MTIOJiAL CAPITAL AND T H,B CAMPAIGN or 1876. cojrplete hiptort op the foundation and growth of our governing citt, ▲ Description of the Tublic Buildings and Manner op Living there, >a Searching Exposure op thk various Jobs and Scandals which have EXCITED Public Indignation, full Biographiks op Hayes, Wheeler. Tilden, and Hendricks, besides various Political Stat'istics. By GEO. ALFRED TOWNSENJ), and others. HARTFORD, COOT.: J AS. BETTS & CO. S. M. BETTS & CO , Chicago; J. H. CHAMBERS & CO., St. LotJlfls F. DEWING & CO., San Francisco, Cal. HABER BROS., Minneapolis, Minn. 1876. f Entered accoiding to Act of Con 31 • Vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. The Architects op the Capitol ajto their feuds. Stephen S. Hallet, the French architect— His claim to have won the premium for the great structure — An examination of his drawings — Want of information about him — Dr. William Thornton the success- ful architect — His life and versatility — Hallet discharged by the commissioners — Employment of George Hadfield — His public con- structions — His criticism upon Thornton's plan — Discharged — Em- ployment of James Hoban — Hoban's career in America— He builds the White House — He is succeeded by Latrobe — Account of that fine architect — He builds the wings — Quarrels with the commission- ers — Is succeeded by Chas. Bulfinch of Boston — Romantic story of Bulfinch — He builds the center, rotunda, and library — Is succeeded by Eobt. Mills — Mills builds the old Treasury, Patent-Office, and Post-office — Is discharged — Tlie stone quarries at Seneca and Acquia Creeks — Tlie new wings designed — Life of Thomas U. Walter, the great classical architect — Cost of materials — Expense of the Capitol — B-enown of the great building — Its associations. ..»•••, 40 CHAPTER T. The Lobby and its Gentry. Definition of lobbyist — Jefferson makes the architect screen the lobby — Fine abilities of some lobbyists — Lobbyists relations with news- paper men — The poker-playing lobbyist — Anecdote — The cotton- bug scheme to refund the cotton tax — Its failure — Extravagant scheme — Adolph butro and his tunnel — He is opposed by the Bank of California — A daring and expensive experiment — The Com- stock lode — Horace Greeley endorses it — The irrigating lobby — The French spoliation claims — Sketch of their agent — The Missis- sippi levees — Scheme to rebuild them at the national expense. . .59 CHAPTER YI. A RUNNING History of Government Scandals. Corruption coeval with the Government — The first breach of decorum in 1798 — Matthew Lyon spits in Boger Griswold's face — Question of his expulsion — Griswold canes Lyon in his seat — Misfortunes of Lyon — He is sent to prison for violating the sedition law — lleelected by his constituency — Thomas Pinckney refused permis- sion to take presents from foreign rulers — Burning of the Treasury CONTENTS. Vii building — The great Limantour claim — Frauds under Spanish, Mexican, and British titles — A New Hampshire judge impeached for drunkenness, profanity, and insanity, in 1804 — Impeachment of Judge Chase — The Vice-President presides under indictment for murder — Chase acquitted — Meanness of John Randolph — The elder Dallas charged with bribery — Secret service money to bribe France — Judge Sebastian charged with treason— ^Commander-in-chief Jas. Wilkinson ditto — Senator John Smith and Burr's treason — Edward Livingston's Batture claim — Albert Gallatin and the Whisky In- surrection — Pennsylvania defies the Government and confiscates prizes — A day ordained for private bills — Wrangle over the United States Bank — The case of John Henry — Clay and Calhoun con- spire against the newspaper writers — Settlement of the Yazoo claims — Second National Bank — It is abetted by Dallas and Cal- houn — The General Government makes the first large appropriations for roads and public buildings in 1815 — Origin of the Preemption rights — Scandal over the Second National Bank — Amos Kendall tells the story — Clerks taking advantage of their positions — Abel R. Corbin — George Cowlam 71 CHAPTER VII. • Society and the City from the Madisonian to the Emancipation Period. Origin of the custom — Reminiscences of Mrs. Ogle Tayloe — Mrs. Madi- son institutes the habit — Her influence on Washington society — Per- sonal description — Madison inhabits the Tayloe mansion — The foreign ministers — Sketch of the marine band— The brilliant Winter of 1825 — Lafayette in the city — A general resume of fine society — Great feed — Lafayette meets an old friend — Toast making — John Quincy Adams builds a house — A President's son-in-law — Gen. Jackson's receptions — Society in Fillmore's times — Harriet Lane— New Year's customs ex- tend to private houses — Growth of Washington City — The appro- priations of 1873 — The board of public works — Rejuvenated Wash- • ingtoninl873 — Extraordinary improvements 84 CHAPTER YIII. The Romance of the Capitol Building. The old edifice — How the dome was constructed — Its dimensions and cost — The great statue surmounting the dome — Splendid ceremony when it was raised— The forts salute it— Weight of the structure- How the patterns were prepared — The old dome — Pressure — Interior of the dome — Trumbull's paintings— The relievoes— Ascent of the I ^JJJ CONTENTS. dome — Brumidi — The crypt — Associations of the rotunda— Future of the Capitol — The Ughting apparatus — Beautiful phenomenon — Other structures compared with our's — Cost of some of the items— A talk with the dome builders — How the war affected the contractor — What he has to say — How a penurious Congress agreed to have a new dome — Pretty romance. . 93 CHAPTER IX. Some of the Organic Evils of our Congressional System. Broken promises come home to roost — The Congressman seducing his constituent to be an office-getter — An illustration — How Indian trea- ties are put through — The Indian title to lands — Value of acquaint- anceship in Washington — Jobbers taking advantage of the machinery of Government — The Commercial Bepublic — Mr. Shannon on dem- agoguery — How rich men buy legislation to save time — The manual of parliamentary rule — Neglect of public business — The boy Speaker — Willie Todd — Tliaddy Morris — The Senate Chamber — Cussedness in the Senate — Personal resentment in legislation 105 CHAPTER X. Style, Extravagance, and Matrimony at the Seat op Govern- ment. Cost of living in Washington — Great profligacy in feeding — Jno. Welck- er and his celebrated restaurant — The Washington markets — Early good times in the history of the city — Beale's, Wetherill's, Crutchet's, Gautier s — Welcker's great dining room — Price of a Congressional dinner — Twenty dollars a plate — His chief cook — ^Instances of ex- travagant meals at Washington — Spanish mackerel — Brook trout — Mountain mutton — Canvas backs — Potomac snipe — Potomac shad — Savannah shad — Black bass — Capon au sauce Goddard — Truffles — • Hotel life at Washington and New York — Extravagance of politi- cians — Prices at the Arlington Hotel — The prince's ball — The scene — Dresses of the host and guest — Members of the legation — Romance of the Gerolt family — The Baron's daughter goes to a convent — A blast- , ed matrimonial project — The diplomatic body — Marriages between ' American girls and foreign ministers — The prose side of the diplo- matic corps — Bridal couples at Washington — The diary of a bride who came to see the impeachment trial — A laughable description. 116 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XI. Domestic History of the White House. The Presidents and their wives in order — Mrs. Adams's letters — She makes the first description of the interior-of the White House— Jeffer- son runs in debt as President — Borrows money from the Richmond banks — Mrs. Madison again— Monroe and the era of good feehng — Description of the apartments — State dinners — The wall paper and ornaments — Reminiscences of the house — John Quincy Adams in- troduces abilliardtable— Clothes to dry in the East Room — Jas. Par- ton on the White House — Portrait painters there — Mrs. Eaton — Jackson's manners — Matty Van Buren— Jackson abuses Congress — Jackson's two forks — Deaths in the AVhite House — John Tyler's bride — Harriet Lane • 134 CHAPTER XII. Some of the Bureaux of our Government visited. The Coast Survey — Its origin and development — What it has to do — The Supreme Com't and the fees of the most eminent lawyers there — The chief door-keeper of Congress — A walk through the document room — The printing of maps — A mooted case — Joe Wilson — A reve- nue detective — The whisky frauds — How they were accomplished — Talk with a Mr. Martin — Stationery contractors at Washington — How Judge Foote was attacked by the envelope-makers — Secrets of the government printing office — Secrets of the Patent Office — Munn & Co. — Crowding of the government buildings 148 CHAPTER XIII. A Picture of Mt. Vernon in 1789. The estate of Washington as it was in his lifetime — He is advised of his selection as President — His acceptance — David Humphreys and his household — Home comforts at that period — The first President's character — His land and social life — A study for politicians and Presidents now-a-days — Financial struggles — Washington's love of the Potomac country — Apprehensions of its declining condition— Its fisheries — His husbandry — His thoughts on emancipation — Shipping facilities — Washington, no ladies' man — His political cast and rank — Reminiscences of Mt. Vernon — Current estimates of Washington — Last visit to his mother— Affecting interview— Departs for tlie Capital in New York 1^8 \ X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. Curiosities of the Great Bureaux of the Government. The annual appropriation bills — What it costs to be governed — Quaint features of the executive departments — The New York custom house — Figures about it — The marines and their old barrack at Washing- )n — The agricultural department — The Smithsonian Institute — The etective of the Treasury — The Librarian of Congress — Peter Force -The bug microscopist — Novel Judge- Advocate — Mint and coinage iws — Army and Navy Medical Museum — Quaint people in the Treas- ry 187 CHAPTER XY. My pursuit of Credit Mobilier. I receive orders to find what the scandal amounts to — Start for Phila- delphia — Rummage amongst the court records — Trace up the Credit Mobilier Company to the fiscal agency — See the commissioner to take testimony — Telegraph to the plaintiff* — Visit New York — Interview Col. Henry S. McComb — He gives at full length the story of his suit. 211 CHAPTER XYI. Credit Mobilier brought to bay. The Credit Mobilier examination — Inside the committee room — Judge Poland's appearance — The prosecuting witness, McComb — Ames and Alley — The culpable Congressmen — Their embarrassitient and distress — Examination of each case — Finding of the committee — Brooks and Ames designated for expulsion — Both die in a few weeks — The United States bring suit against theCr6dit Mobilier. . . 234 CHAPTER XVII. CniEFLY Antiquarian and Descriptive. Opening of the public offices in Washington, 1800 — Original jurisdic- tion — The first excitement in the Capital — The namers of the city — Early buyers of lots — Peculations — CarroUsburg — A defense of the original proprietors — Origin of the name of Georgetown — Weld's description of the city in 1 796 — Tobias Leer's book — Doctor Ward- en's account of the City in 1810 — Sutcliff^'s visit — Francis Asbury's account — Tom Moore's visit in 1804, and what he wrote in poetry — The bad roads of Maryland — Contemporaneous cities — Wharves — Failures of the early house-builders — Opening of turnpike roads — CONTENTS. XI Wolcott's sketch of the Washingtonians-Janson's sketch— J. Davis's sketch — Excerpts from the commissioners' books — Retrocession in 1803— Pumps— Tlie aqueduct — Growth of population— Present taxes —Help from the Presidents — Georgetown College— Early Alexandria — Washington Canal, now and then— History of the Navy Yard — The old City Hall— The longitude and the Observatory— Blodget's great hotel — Sketch of the Treasury buildings, old and new — Archi- tects of the departments — Rise of the departments and their organi- zation — Conception of the Patent-Office — The churches of the city ■ — Schools — Penitentiary — Banks — Chesapeake canal — Freshets — Hotels — Braddock's rock — Wilkinson's proposition to stand siege — Capture by the British — Building of the forts in the rebellion — De- scription of the system — Geology of Washington — Effort to move the Capital in 1870 — The movement rebuked — Revival of the city — The board of public works 266 CHAPTER XYIII. A Record of Historical Events in the District of Columbia, From 1861 to 1876 308 CHAPTER XIX. Social Sketches of the Old and New in Washington. The Burns family and its history — Gen. Van Ness and the mausoleum — Disinterment of the old Remus — Story of sister Gertrude — The Carroll estate — Original squatters on the Capital site — Old Alexan- dria — The Calvert's place at Mt. Airy — Thos. Law and John Tayloe — Notley hall and Marshall hall — Arlington house and the Custis family — Brentwood— The CarroUs — Georgetown places — Sketches of the commissioners — Analostan island — Amos Kendall's life and tomb — A visit to Jefferson's place at Monticello — Great Falls and Jackson, the blockade runner — 'i he Loudon Valley — Georgetown Cemetery — Approach to Washington City from the North — Topography — Up in the forts — The Washington Monument 313 CHAPTER XX. Jobbery Coeval with Government. An inquiry as to whether we are more corrupt than in the early days of the Government — The Yazoo land swindles — Assumption of state debts — Trading off the Capitol for a job — Evils of the national bank —Investigation— Hamilton attacked— The Randall and Whitney Xii CONTENTS. case of 1795 — Baldwin and Frelinghuysen — Expulsion of Blount — Licentiousneps proved against Alexander Hamilton — His confession— The first present-taker — The first breach of decorum — Incendiarism in 1800 — A New Hampshire judge removed in 1804 — Judge Chase's trial — The senior Dallas — Secret service money — Spanish pensioners — The whisky insurrectionists — Case of the sloop, Active — Dismal end of the second U. S. bank — California land frauds — Limantour — Mrs. Gaines' case — Description — Naval frauds during the rebellion— Over issue of bonds — The lobby schemes of 1873 — Mileage frauds — Full story of the back pay swindle — Cost of running the Government now-a-days — A shameless Puritan member — God in the constitution —The remedy 354 CHAPTER XXL The Whiskey Frauds. Reason the frauds were not previously punished — Magnitude of the Ring — Danger to informers — The two taxes — Labors of Bristow — Plan finally carried out — Special agent on Pacific coast — Oflficcrs there — Details of fraud on file in Revenue Oflfice at Washington long ago — Dep. Col. McGrue's testimony — Amounts given to vari- ous members of the Ring — Testimony of Ulrich — Testimony of Alfred Bevis — Case of Babcock — Sad plight of Attorney-GeneraL 383 CHAPTER XXII. Our National Disgrace. Sketch of Life of Belknap — Cause of downfall — Testimony of Evans — Amount paid Belknap — Additional facts • 394 CHAPTEE XXIII. J The Republican Convention of 1876. The Assemblage — Preliminary Workings — The Various Candidates — Tlie Platform— The various Ballots for President— The Ballot for Vice-President 4^3 CONTENTS. XIU CHAPTER XXIV. Rutherford B, Hayes. Early Life— Education — Early Career as a Lawyer — His Career dur- ing the War — His Record as Governor of Ohio — His Nomination and His Relation to it — His Letter of Acceptance 410 CHAPTER XXY. William A. Wheeler. Birthplace — ^Early Life — Struggle for Education — His First Office — His Professional Abilities and Success — Various Political Offices — Reasons for His Nomination for Vice-President — The Additional Strength to the Ticket— His Personal Character and Fortune. . 420 CHAPTER XXYL The Democratic Convention. The General Organization — The Platform — The Ballots 424 CHAPTER XXVII. • Samuel J. Tilden. Parentage — ^Early Life — Educational Opportunities, and How He Improved Them — Early Experience in Politics — Success — Why He Left Politics and Followed His Profession — Connection with Vari- ous Celebrated Cases — His Fortune, and How It Accumulated so Rapidly — His Labor for Reform in New York City — His Work since He has been Governor. 429 CHAPTER XXVIII. Thomas A. Hendricks. Birthplace — ^Parentage — ^Early Life and Education — His Abilities and Success as a Lawyer — Political Life — Peculiar Position on the Question of Hard Money — Personal Popularity in His Own State. 448 CHAPTER XXIX. Various Political Statistics. ^^' mTEODUOTOET CHAPTER The public mind is at last exercised on the subject of schem- ing and jobbery. The Credit Mobilier investigation accomplished what many years of unthanked agitation and challenge failed to do. It reached such eminent reputations and made such general wreck of political prospects and accomplishments, that every class of citizens — even those who came to scoff, remained beside their Capitol to pray. This was the first element of encouragement ; for it proved that in every extremity of the American nation there is still a public sentiment to be found, and it will rally on the side of good morals and the reputation of the state if it understands the necessity. The people must not be blamed if, in the great variety of aifairs and investigations, they often look on confused and apa- thetic. Our government is so extensive in area and so diversi- fied in operations, that it requires men of state — statesmen — to keep its machinery in order and prevent waste, neglect, inter- ference, and incendiarism. No amount of mere honesty and good negative inclination can keep the ship of state headed well to the wind. A reasonable experience in civil affairs, education, and executive capacity are requisite, and it is when the accidents of war and the extremities of political parties bring men without these qualities to the surface that the enemy of public order and well regulated government seeks and finds his opportunity. Such is our present condition. It is to our noble system of schools and our unhampered social civilization that we owe the moderate capacity, even of men of accident, for public affairs. IG INTRODUCTORY. From the time of President Fillmore, all our Chief Magistrates have been of this popular growth. Mr. Lincoln proved to be the possessor of powers extraordinary in their combination, ranging from the Jesuitry of the frivolous to the depth and gravity of the heroic, and, at last, the tragic. He kept in view great objects of human performance, and show^ed how profoundly his inherited idea of the equality of rights and his belief in the destiny of America to protect and teach them, animated his conduct. He bore the sword of the country while constantly possessed of the ambition to preserve its nationality and expel slavery ; his amiable nature added to these achievements the softness and sweetness of a personal mission, and his lofty fate the solemnity of a personal martyrdom. The elements of corruption, inseparable from human nature, had long existed in a more or less organized form in the United States, and they waxed in strength and took enormous propor- tions during Mr. Lincoln's administration. He was a states- man and kept his mind steadily upon the larger objects, preferring to leave the correction of incidental evils to the administrators who should succeed the war. Had he been of a desponding spirit, and nervous and violent upon errors of omission and commission by the way, we might never have kept in view the main purposes of the war, but would have been demoralized by the ten thousand peculations and intrigues which marked the course of that extraordinary conflict. It is our province and the task of statesmanship in our time, to return along the course of those war-ridden years and take up their civil grievances, exhibit them clearly and correct them unflinchingly. If we do not do so the Union is too great for us and emancipation has been a mockery. The opportunities for gain at the public and general expense, had been too vast during the war to be suddenly relinquished at the peace. President Johnson was as honest personally as President Lincoln, but the division of arms was now succeeded by a conflict of policy in which the harpies who had studied the Government to take advantage of it plied between both sides, INTRODUCTORY. 17 and by the common weakness of the administration and Con- gress continued their work. They set up the audacious prop- osition that the schemes which prevailed in tlie war and the grade of taxation consequent upon it were the declared national policy. A large proportion of the capital and enterprise of the country took the same ground. The currency was maintained in its expanded amount, and war was even declared upon gold, the standard of valuation throughout civilization. High prices and high wages were advocated as evidences of national happi- ness, and, of course, high salaries were demanded to make public and private conditions consistent with each other. The prevalence of money, work, and rank during the war were not suffered to relax, and Congress undertook to supply artificial means of prosperity by laying out schemes, subsidizing and endowing corporations, increasing offices and commissions, and altering the tariff and the tax list. The victorious side in the wrangle about policy was soon represented in congress by a great number of adventurers, foreigners in the constituency they affected to represent, and shameless and unknown. At this period the third President of the new era was elected, a brave and victorious soldier, who was in part a pupil and associate of the loose notions of the period. He had a modest person, and this, with his historic exploits, affected the sensibil- ities of his countrymen, including many of the larger men in literature, criticism, and society, so that this personal sympathy, added to the financial necessities of the time, and the well organized Northern sentiment of the majority of the people carried him again into the White House. Whatever might have been the capacity, or incapacity, of General Gra^it to direct the law makers and give example to the laws, he sank into a relatively inconspicuous place almost at the moment of his second inauguration by the nearly simultaneous exposure of a series of old and new corruptions in congress which involved the Vice-President of the United States, the Chairman of the three leading committees of Congress, the head of the Protec- 18 INTRODUCTORY. tion School in public life, half a dozen senators and as many members of the House, of both parties. The Vice-President departing and the new Vice-President acceding, both complicated in the celebrated Credit Mobilier corruption, confronted the public gaze as actors in the same ceremonial with President Grant, who was waiting to deliver his second inaugural address to the public. Five senators, Bogy, Casserly, Clayton, Caldwell, and Pomeroy, were at that moment under accusation of purchasing their seats in the Senate. Three judges of the United States Courts, Delahay, Sherman, and Durrell, were under impeachment or imputation for complicity in the Credit Mobilier intrigue. The proudest foreheads in the national legislature were abashed. It was a melancholy and disgraceful spectacle, and it saddened the Capi- tal and cast a cloud over all the country. The purpose of this book is to make Washington at the pres- ent day visible to voters, so that they can be guided in criticism upon abuses such as have been related. The course of the chapters is purposely made discursive so that the mind can be carried through a variety of scenes without flagging. CHAPTER II. HOW WASHINGTON CAME TO BE. The American Capital is the only seat of government of a first-class power which was a thought and performance of the Government itself. It used to be called, in the Madisonian era, " the only virgin Capital in the world." St. Petersburg was the thought of an Emperor, but the Cap- ital of Russia long afterward remained at Moscow, and Peter the Great said that he designed St. Petersburg to be only " a window looking out into Europe." Washington City was designed to be not merely a window, but a whole inhabitancy in fee simple for the deliberations of Congress, and they were to exercise exclusive legislation over it. So the Constitutional Convention ordained ; and, in less than seven weeks after the thirteenth state ratified the Consti- tution, the place of the Capital was designated by Congress to the Potomac River. In six months more, the precise territory on the Potomac was defined, under the personal eye of Washing- ton. The motive of building an entirely new city for the Federal seat was not arbitrary, like Peter the Great's will with St. Peters- burg, nor fanciful, like that of the founder of Versailles. It was, like many of our institutions, an act of reflection suggested by such harsh experience as once drove the Papal head from Rome to Avignon, and, in our day, has withdrawn the French Government from Paris to Versailles. Four years before the Constitution was made. Congress, while sitting at Philadelphia, — the largest city in the States, — had been grossly insulted by some of the unpaid troops of the Revolutionary War, and the 20 WASHINGTON. Pennsylvania authorities showed it no protection. Congress with commendable dignity, withdrew to Princeton, and there, in the collegiate halls, Eldridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, (whose remains now lie in the Congressional Cemetery of Washington,) moved that the buildings for the use of Congress be erected either on the Delaware or the Potomac. The State of Maryland was an early applicant for the perma- nent seat of the Government, and, after the result at Philadel- phia, hastened to offer Congress its Capitol edifice and other accommodations at Annapolis. Congress accepted the invita- tion, and therefore, it was at Annapolis that Washington sur- rendered his commission, in the presence of that body. The career of Congress at Annapolis — which was a very perfect, tidy, and pretty miniature city — left a good impression upon the mem- bers for years afterwards, and was probably not without its influ- ence in making Maryland soil the future Federal District. The growing " Baltimore Town," which was the first place in Amer- ica, after the revolution, to exhibit the Western spirit of " driv- ing things," appeared in the lobby and prints, as an anxious competitor for the award of the Capital ; and the stimulation of that day bore fruits in the first and only admirable patriotic monument raised to Washington, while Washington City was yet seeking to survive its ashes. With the jealousy of a neigh- bor, the snug port and portage settlement of Georgetown opposed Baltimore, and directed attention to itself as deserving the Fed- eral bestowal, and counted, not without reason, upon the influ- ence of the President of the United States in its behalf. Many other places strove for the exaggerated honor and profit of the Capital, and it is tradition in half-a-dozen villages of the country, — at Havre de Grace, Trenton, Wrightsville, Pa ; Ger- mantown. Pa ; Williamsport, Md ; Kingston, N. Y., and others— that the seat of government was at one time nearly their prize. Two points, however, gained steadily on the rest, — New York and some indefinite spot on the Potomac. The Eastern Con- gressmen, used to the life of towns, and little in love with what they considered the barbaric plantation life of the South, desired SELECTING THE SITE. 21 to assemble amongst urbane comforts, in a place already estab- lished. Provincialism, prejudice, and avarice all played their part in the contest ; and, in that day of paper money, it was thought by many that the currency must follow the Capital. Hence, according to Jefferson, whose accounts on this head do not read very clearly, the financial problems of the time were offset by the selection of the Capital. Hamilton deferred to the South the Federal City, and had his Treasury policy adopted in exchange for it. When Jefferson and Hamilton came to write about each other, we are reminded of the adage that, when the wine is in, the wit is out ; but it is agreeable to reflect that they were both accordant with Washington on this point, and Jefferson had great influence over the young Capital's for- tunes. Congress made a reasonable decision on the subject. The comforts of a home were to be accorded at Philadelphia for ten years, to quiet Philadelphia, and meantime a new place was to- be planned on the Potomac River, and public edifices erected upon it. The actual selection and plan were to be left to a com- mission selected by the President ; and thus the Federal City is an executive act, deliberated between Washington and private citizens. Mortifying, indeed, was the early work of making the Capi- tal City for the three Commissioners, whose ranks were renew- ed as one grew despondejit and another enraged. It was July 16, 1790, that President Washington approved the bill of six sections which directed the acceptance of ten miles square " for the permanent seat of the Government," *' between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and Conogo- cheague." The bill had become a law by a close vote in both Houses, and the Capital might have been placed, under the terms of it, at the Great Falls, or near the future battle-site of Ball's Bluff, or under the presence of the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, in the vale of the River Antietam. It is possible that Wash- ington himself, who held discretionary control over the Com- missioners, was not firmly of the opinion that the future city 22 WASHINGTON. should stand on tide-water ; for he had previously written let- ters, in praise of the thrifty German country beyond the Mon- ocacy, in Maryland. But the matter of transportation and pas- sage was greatly dependent, in those days, upon navigable water-courses, and it is probable that, when the law passed, the spot of the city was already appointed. About five years before selecting the site for the Federal Cap- ital, Washington made a canoe upon the Monocacy River, and, descending to the Potomac, made the exploration of the whole river, from the mountains to tide-water, in order to test the feasibility of lock and dam navigation. It is apparent, from his letters to Arthur Young, the Earl of Buchan, and others, that he was aware that the value of his estates on tide- water was declining, and he wanted both the city and the canal contiguous to them. A noble man might well, however, have such an attachment to the haunts of his youth as to wish to see ,*•* it beautified by a city. -a^ The bill was passed while Congress sat in New York ; six ^ months later, on January 24, 1791, Washington, at Philadel- 3 phia, made proclamation that, " After duly examining and -nm^ weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the several situ- J^ ations within the limits," he had thrown the Federal territory ^ across the Potomac from Alexandria. i The site of the new district was not entirely the wilderness ""^ it has been represented. The Potomac had been explored up £5 to this point, and as far as the Little Falls above, by Henry Fleet, one hundred and sixty years before. Fleet was the first \ civilized being who ever looked upon the site of Washington, and his manuscript story of ascending the river was never pul)- lished until 1871. When Leonard Calvert arrived in the Poto- mac, in 1634, he went up to confer with this adventurous fur- trader, who had been many years in the country. " The place," said Fleet, evidently alluding to the contracted Potomac just above Georgetown, " is, without all question, the most healthful and pleasant place in all this country, and mosi convenient for habitation ; the air temperate in Summer and [^^ EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE DISTRICT. 23 not violent in Winter. It aboundeth with all manner of fish. The Indians in one night commonly will catch thirty sturgeons in a place where the river is not over twelve fathoms broad. And, for deer, buffaloes, bears, turkeys, the woods do swarm with them, and the soil is exceedingly fertile ; but, above this place, the country is rocky and mountainous, like Canada. * * * * We had not rowed above three miles but we might hear the Falls to roar." The early settlers of Maryland and Virginia kept to the nav- igable streams, and the earliest pioneers of the terrace country of Maryland were Scotch and Scotch-Irish, some Germans, and a few Catholics. Georgetown and Bellhaven (or Alexandria) were rather old places when the surveys were made for Washington City, and the former had been laid out fully forty years. The army of Gen- eral Braddock had landed at Alexandria, and a large portion of his army marched from Rock Creek, as the infant George- town was then called, for Fredericktown and the Ohio. As early as 1763, the father of Gen. James Wilkinson purchased a tract of " five hundred acres of land on the Tyber andthe Poto- mac, which probably comprehended the President's house ;" but the purchaser's wife objected to a removal to such an isola- ted spot, and the property was transferred to one Thomas Johns. In 1775, the young Wilkinson " shouldered a firelock at George- town, in a company commanded by a Rhode Island Quaker, Thomas Richardson," in which also the future Gen. Lingan was a subaltern, and this full company drilled for the Revolu- tionary struggle " on a small spot of table-land hanging over Rock Creek, below the upper bridge." As Wilkinson lived " thirty miles in the up-country, and was always punctual at parade," we may infer that Georgetown was the most consider- able place in all this quarter of Maryland. As early as 1779, William Wirt, whose parents resided at Bladensburg, went to " a Classical Academy at Georgetown ;" and he and others long bore remembrance of the passage of the French and American armies from north to south over the ferry at that place, of 24 WASHINGTON. encampment at Kalorama Hill, and wagons loaded with specie crossing Rock Creek. Gen. Washington also designated Georgetown as one of the three great places of deposit for mil- itary stores ; and so important was Alexandria that Charles Lee, in his plan of treason, had proposed to cut the Northern States from the South by occupying it with a permanent detach- ment of British troops, who should keep open the ferries between Alexandria and Annapolis, and, by menacing the rich farms of the Gerriian settlers in the up-country, compel them to starve out the Patriot armies. The port-town of Bladensburg was now just upon the decline, and the period had come when the interior parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were showing forth their promises. Maryland had contained considerably more population than New York during the Bevolutionary War, and we imay conceive Georgetown and Alexandria to have been amongst the best grade of secondary towns at that period. They stood, as now, in full sight of each other ; and the ridgy basin and lower terraces between them, where the Federal City was to rise, presented a few good farms tilled by slaves, and was already marked for a couple of rival settlements before the Commissioners adopted it. One of these prospective settlements was located near the present National Observatory, and took the name of Hamburg, afterward Funkstown, the other was projected near the present Navy- Yard, and was named after the proprietor of the estate, Carrollsburg. At any rate, there were enough people on the site to give the Commissioners a great deal of trouble with their bickering and rapacity ; and it is likely that the idea got abroad in advance of the official choice, that here was to be the mighty Capital, and therefore lands and lots had been matters of con- siderable speculation. - Few who had passed the ferry at Georgetown, and belield the sight from the opposite hills of Virginia, could fail to have marked the breadth of the picture, and the strong colors in the ground and the environing wall of wooded heights, which rolled back against the distant sky, as if to enclose a noble arena of PICTURESQUENESS OF THE SITE. 25 landscape, fit for the supreme deliberations of a continental nation. Dropping down from those heights by stately gradations, over several miles, to a terrace of hills in the middle ground, the foreground then divided, parallel with the eye, into a basin and a plateau. The plateau on the right showed one prominent but not precipitous hill, with an agreeable slope, at the back of which the Potomac reached a deep, supporting arm, while around the base meandered a creek that changed course when half-way advanced, and then flowed to the left, parallel with knolls, straight through the plain or basin, — defuiing to the inspired eye, as plainly as revelation, the avenues, grades, and commanding positions of a city. As such, Washington must have builded it up in his own formative mind ; for many a time he had passed it in review. He did not require to take note of the shiftless slave farms for which the ground had been already broken. Where yonder orchard grew, he saw the Executive Mansion, with its grounds extending down to the river-side cottage of that curmudgeon Scotch planter who was to be among the last to say words of impudence to the father of the city. Where the pleasant hill swelled up to the clear skies in the night, Washington saw the spiritual outlines of the fair white Capitol, soon to be embodied there. Flowing down into the plain, and extending back over the hill of the Capitol, he realized the lower and the upper city, on which a circle of villas in the higher background should some day look down ; and all the undulating space between the blue heights of Georgetown, from the river back to the table- land, should, by another century, smoke with population, wor- ship witli bells, and march with music to honor the founder of this virgin Capital. Having named the three civil Commissioners to whom Con- gress — wiser than Congresses of a later period — committed the business of Capital-making, Washington set out from Philadel- phia, to confer with tliem on the spot. It is characteristic of Maryland roads in those days, in March, 2 % 26 WASHINGTON. that the President drove down the Eastern shore of Maryland, instead of crossing the Susquehanna, and was ferried over from Eockhall to Annapolis. At the latter place, he rested all Sat- urday, receiving hospitality ; and, on Sunday, continued his journey hy Queen Ann to Bladensburg, where he dined and slept. Next morning he took breakfast at Suter's tavern, a one-story frame in Georgetown, — having occupied one week in fatiguing and perilous travel from Philadelphia. From the heights of Georgetown, Washington could look over the half-uncultivated tract, where the commissioners had plotted a part of their surveys for the Federal City, and Penn- sylvania Avenue was then a path through an older swamp from Georgetown to Carrollsburg. On Tuesday, a misty and disagreeable day, "Washington rode out at seven o'clock, with David Stuart, Daniel Carroll, and Thomas Johnson, the three Commissioners, and with Mr. Andrew Ellicott and Major L' Enfant, who were surveying the grounds and projecting the streets of the city. " I derived no great satisfaction," says Washington, " from the review," and this we can readily suppose from our present knowledge of what might be the condition of the soil of the District in the spring of the year, on a damp day, with the landholders of Georgetown and Carrollsburg contending with each other by the way, with the numerous uninvited idlers pressing after, and the crude and tangled nature of the region. That night at six o'clock, Washington endeavored to con- trive an accommodation between the Georgetowners and Carrollsburgers, and it was probably at this time that he had reason to designate Davy Burns, the Scotch farmer and father to the future heiress of the city, as " The obstinate Mr. Burns." He dined that night at Colonel Forrest's, with a large company. The next day, the contending landholders agreed to Washington's suggestions, and entered into articles to surren- der half their lots when surveyed ; and, having given some of his characteristically precise instructions to the engineers and others, the President crossed the Potomac in the ferry-boat, MAJOR L'eNFANT'S PLAN. 27 his equipage following, and dined at Alexandria, and slept that night at Mount Yernon, his homestead. There is a statue of Washington in one of the public circles of the Capital City, representing him on a terrified steed doing battle-duty ; but a local treatment of" the subject would have been more touching and thoughtful ; the veteran of war and politics, worn down with the friction of public duty and rising party asperity, riding through the marshes and fields of Wash- ington, on the brink of his sixtieth year, to give the foundling government he had reared an honorable home. Could a finer subject appeal to the artist or to the municipality of Washing- ton ; the virgin landscape of the Capital, and this greatest of founders of cities since Romulus, surrounded by the two engi- neers, the three commissioners, and certain courteous denizens, and seeking to reason the necessities of the state and the pride of the country into the flinty soul of Davy Burns, that successor of Dogberry, — for he is said to have been a magistrate ? The new city was one of the plagues of General Washington for the remainder of his days, because he was very sensitive as to its success ; and it had to suffer the concentrated fire of crit- icism and witticism, domestic and foreign, as well as more serious financial adversity. He never beheld any of the glory of it ; and the fact that he had been responsible for it, and had settled it in the neighborhood of his estates, probably weighed somewhat upon his spirits in the midst of that light repartee which a grave nature cannot answer. Greater is he who keep- eth his temper than he who buildeth a city. That Washington did both well, the latter century can answer better than the former. The extravagant plan of Major L'Enfant has not bee^ vindicated until now, when the habitations of one hundred thousand people begin to develop upon the plane of his magnifi- cence. The neighbors of General Washington had no capacity in that early day to congregate in cities, and the Federal site had to wait for a gregarious domination and a period of com- parative wealth. It is yet to be tested whether the orna- mentation of the city is to conduce to an equally Republican 28 WASHINGTON. rule with that of more squalid times ; for, New York excepted, Washington is now the dearest city in America. The trustees of the Federal City in whom at law nominally reposed the conveyed property, were Thomas Beall and John M. Gautt. The chief owners of the site were David Burns, Sanmel Davidson, Notley Young, and Daniel Carroll. i The cost of the ground on which Washington City stands was truly insignificant as compared with the remarkable expen- ditures of the years^STl, '72, 73. The few property-holders agreed to convey to the Government out of their farm-lands as much ground as would be required for streets, avenues, public-building-sites, reservations, areas, etc., and to surrender, also, one-half of the remaining land, to be sold by the United States as it might deem fit, — receiving, however, at the rate of twenty-five pounds per acre for the public grounds, but nothing for the streets. In other words, the Government through its three commissioners, was to plot out the Federal City in the first place, delineating all the grounds required for buildings and reservations, and surveying the parts to be inhabited. It was then to divide these inhab- itable lots equally between itself and the landholders, and sell its own lots when, and on what prices and terms, it pleased, and, out of the proceeds of such sales, to make its payments for the national grounds and reservations. In this way the Government took seventeen great parcels of ground out of the general plan, such as now surround the Capitol, the President's House, etc., and the same amounted to five hundred and forty-one acres. At sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents per acre, this yielded to the farm-holders thirty- six thousand ninety-nine dollars, — a very small sum indeed if ; we compute interest upon it, and subtract principal and inter- est from the present value of the ground. The building lots assigned to the Government numbered ten thousand one hundred and thirty-six. The amount of sales of these lots, up to the year 1834, was seven hundred forty-ono thousand twenty-four dollars and forty-five cents, and an assess- AREA OF THE CITY. 29 mcnt upon the unsold lots, made at that time, brought the G-overnment's share up to eight hundred fifty thousand dollars. Besides this handsome speculation, the State of Virginia voted to the Government the sum of one hundred twenty thousand dollars, and the State of Maryland seventy-two thousand dol- lars, as a concession for planting the great city on their bor- ders. With equal courtesy, the Government gave away a great many lots to such institutions as the Columbian and George- town Colleges, and the Washington and St. Vincents Orphan Asylums ; and it also squandered many lots upon less worthy solicitors, giving a depot site away to a railway company in 1872, which was worth several hundred thousand dollars. In the entire area included under the above agreement, there were seven thousand one hundred acres, with a circumference of fourteen miles. The uneven plain of the city extended four miles along the river, and averaged three-quarters of a mile in breadth. The only streams were the Tiber, which divided the plain nearly equally ; James' Creek, emptying into the mouth of the Eastern Branch ; and Slash Run, emptying into Rock Creek. These streams still preserve the names they received long before the Capital was pitched. The first dedicatory act was to fix the corner-stone at Jones' Point, near Alexandria. James Muir preached the sermon, Daniel Carroll and David Stuart placed the stone, and the Masons of Alexandria per- formed their mystic rites. A glimpse of the United States as it was at that day (1791) will complete the impression we may derive on thus revisiting the nearly naked site of the " Federal Seat." Virginia led all the states with nearly seven hundred fifty thousand people; Pennsylvania and New York combined did little more than balance Virginia with four hundred thirty-four thousand and three hundred forty thousand respectively. North Carolina outweighed Massachusetts with three hundred ninety-four thou- sand to the Bay State's three hundred seventy-nine tliousand. All the rest of New England displayed about six hundred thou- sand population. South Carolina and Georgia with three 30 WASHINGTON. hundred thirty thousand people together, were inferior to Maryland and Delaware together by fifty thousand. There were only two Western States, Kentucky and Tennessee, whose one hundred eight thousand people lacked seventy-five thousand of the population of New Jersey and altogether, four millions of Americans were watching with various human expressions the puzzle of the capital town. Such was the showing of the cen- sus of 1790, but by the year 1800, when the infant city was occupied by its government, the country was one third greater in inhabitants. It was not until 1820 that any state passed Virginia, but in 1830 both New York and Pennsylvania had bidden her good-bye. The Capital was staked out the year after Franklin's death, thirty years before the death of George III, in Goethe's fifty- second year and Schiller's thirty-second, sixteen years before the first steamboat, two years before Louis XYI was guillo- tined, when Louis Phillipe was in his nineteenth year, while Count Rochambeau was commander of the French army, two years after Robespierre became head deputy, five years after the death of Frederick the Great, while George Stephenson was a boy of ten, the year subsequent to the death of Aden Smith, the year John Wesley and Mirabeau died, two years before Brissot was guillotined, in Napoleon's twenty-second year, the year before Lord Nott died, the year Morse was born and Mirabeau was buried, in the third year of the London Times, just after Lafayette had been the most powerful man in France, three years before the death of Edward Gibbon, while Warren Hastings was on trial, in Burke's sixty-first year and Fox's forty-second and Pitt's thirty-second, three years after the death of Chatham, in the Popedom of Pius VI, while Simon Bolivar was' a child eight years old, the year Cowpcr translated Homer, and in Burns' prime. CHAPTER III. THE JOB OF PLANNING THE FEDERAL CITY. According to the whole of many authorities and a part of all, the city of Washington itself was a scheme and the public buildings severally were sown in corruption. That they have been raised in incorruption, however, is clear to the cheerful, patriotic mind ; for the Ca^^itol is the ornament in some manner of nearly every American dwelling. The White House is the most beautiful building in the world to a politician aspiring toward it. Thousands of people would be glad to get as much as a hand in the Treasury or even a name in the Pension office. These buildings make a continuous romance in respect to their design, construction, and personal associations. In their day they were esteemed the noblest edifices on the continent, and educed praise even from such censorious strangers as Mrs. Trollope. To this day the Capitol and President's house remain as they were exteriorly, the same in style and propor- tions, and the additions to the Capitol have been made consistent with the old elevation. The public is better satisfied with tho Capitol from year to year, and many men of culture and travel even prefer the old freestone original edifice to the spacious and costly marble wings. The President's House has lost somewhat of its superiority as a residence, owing to the pro- gress made in household comforts during the last half century, but it is still admired by the visitor for the extent, harmony, and impressiveness of its saloons. Both buildings and the city as well invite at this day our inquisitiveness as to how tho young republic became posssesed of architects and engineers of capacity equal to such pimple and effective constructions. • 32 PLANNING THE FEDERAL CITY. The material for this inquiry is to be found in the journals and letter books of the early commissioners of the Federal City, which are kept on the crypt floor of the Capitol and are partly indexed. The personal story of the early architects must be obtained by family tradition and j^artly by recollection. The printed documents of cOHgress continue the story of those con- structions to our own day, but many of them are rare and some missing, because the Capitol has been three times devastated by fire which twice chose the library as the point ot attack. Let us first note the lives of the planners of the city itself. They assembled at Georgetown with tents, horses, and laborers, and proceeded to plot the city upon the site, wdiile the commissioners, acting for the executive, raised and supplied the money, dealt with the owners of the ground and negotiated with quarrymen, carters, and boat owners. Every step was a matter of delicacy, and conflicts were frequent between all par- ties. A high degree of personal independence prevailed in the late colonies and in military, political, and professional life, amounting in many cases to sensitiveness and jealousy. The commissioners had little consonance of temperament with the professional men, many of whom were foreigners, and both had reason to dislike the natives who began by craving the boon of the city, and ended by showing all the forms of queru- lousness and discontent which rise from excited avarice. First in consideration is the man out of whose mind and art were drawn the design of Washington city as we find it still. Peter Charles L'Enfant was born in France, 1755, and made a Lieutenant in the French provincial forces. Touched at an early period in the American revolution with the spirit of the American Colonies and the opportunities afforded in the new world for a young officer and engineer he tendered his services in the latter capacity to the United States in the autumn of 1777. He received his wish and the appointment of Captain of Engi- neers February 18, 1778. At the siege of Savannah he was wounded and left on the field of battle. After cure he took a position in the army under the immediate eye of Washington l'enfant's biography. 33 and was promoted Major of Engineers May 2, 1873. Hence the rank with which he descends to history. At tlie close of the Revolution L'Enfant commended himself to Jefferson who almost monopolized the artistic taste and knowledge of the first administration, and as the project for a Federal city developed L'Enfant was brought into very close relations with President Washington. The artistic and. the executive mind rarely run parallel, however, and very soon "Washington heard with indignation that L'Enfant, enamored of his plan of the city, had refused to let it be used by the Com- missioners as an incitement and directory to purchasers. The excuse of L'Enfant appears to have been that if acquainted with the plan speculators would build up his finest avenues with unsuitable structures. Washington's letter displays both the nbility and weakness of his architect and engineer : " It is much to be regretted," he says, " that men who pos- sess talents which fit them for peculiar purposes should almost invariably be under the influence of an untoward disposition * *. I have thought that for such employment that he is now engaged in for prosecuting public works and carrying them into effect. Major L'Enfant was better qualified than any one who had come within my knowledge in this country or indeed in any other I had no doubt at the same time, that this was the light in which he considered himself." This letter was written in the autumn of 1791, eight months after Jefferson instructed L'Enfant as follows : " You are directed to proceed to Georgetown where you will find Mr. Ellicott in making a survey and map of the Federal territory." Jefferson then distributed the responsibility by pre- scribing as L'Enfant's duty " to draw the site of the Federal town and buildings." He was to begin at the Eastern Branch and proceed upwards, and the word " Tyber " is used thus early in the history of the city as applying to the celebrated creek of that name, long afterwards the eye-sore of the city. As between the immortal patron of the new city and the poor military artist posterity will expend no sympathies upon L'Enfant, 34 PLANNING THE FEDERAL CITY. but there was probably a provincial hardness amongst the Com- missioners and a want of consideration for the engineei-s, for even " Ellicott,''' also a man of uncommon talents in his way and of a more placid temper, was incensed at the slights put upon him. Jefferson wrote to L'Enfant Nov. 21, 1791, that he must not delay the engraving of his map by over nicety and thus spoil the sale of town lots, which it appears brought as good prices without the map as with it ; for he had written in October that '' the sales at Georgetown were few but good." They averaged two thousand four hundred the acre. The Map was not produced, however, and his appeals over the heads of the Commissioners on points of difference were decided against the artist. His task lasted but one year and was abruptly terminated March 6th, 1792, as the following letter of Jefferson to the Commissioners shows : " It having been found impracticable to employ Major L'Enfant about the Federal City in that degree of subordination which was lawful and proper, he has been notified that his services are at an end. It is now proper that he should receive the reward of his past services and the wish that he should have no just cause of discontent suggests that it should be liberal. The President thinks of two thousand five hundred dollars or three thousand dollars, but leaves the determination to you. Ellicott is to go on and finish laying off the plan on the ground and sur- veying and plotting the district." L'Enfant's reputation and acquaintance were such that he might have done the new city great injury by taking a position to its detriment, and Washington wrote that " the enemies of the enterprise will take the advantage of the retirement of L'Enfant to trumpet the whole as an abortion." It appears, however, that L'Enfant was loyal to the Government and. the city, for he lived on the site and in the neighborhood all his days, and several times afterwards came under the notice of the exec- utive and was a baffled petitioner before Congress. We hear of him in 1794 in the public employment as Engi- l'enfant's BiOGRAPey. ^5 neer at Fort Mifflin below Philadelphia and after a long lapse as declining the Professorship of Engineers at West Point, July, 1812. Christian Hines, referred to elsewhere, told me that he had seen Major L'Enfant many a time wearing a green surtout and never appearing in a change of clothes, walking across the com- moons and fields followed by half a dozen hunting dogs. Mr. Hines reported with some of his company to L'Enfant at Fort Washington in 1814 to do duty, and that officer, who was in temporary command, filled him a glass of wine in his old broadly hospitable way and told him what to do. The author of the plan x)f the city led a long and melancholy career about Washington and died on the farm of Mr. Digges in Prince George's County, about eight miles from the Capital he planned. The Digges family were allied to the CarroUs of Dud- dington, and had pity upon the military gentleman who had been MAJOR l'enfant's RESTING PLACE — THE DIGGES FARM. at once so capable, so willful, and so unfortunate. The banker Corcoran has a distinct remembrance of L'Enfant as he lived, a rather seedy, stylish old man with a long blue coat buttoned up on his breast and a bell-crowned hat, a little moody and lonely like one wronged. He wrote much and left many papers which Mr. Wyeth of Washington told me he had inspected. He would not abate a particle of his claim against the Govern- ment, being to the last as tenacious of the point of pride as when he refused his maps to the Commissioners to be tho accessory of the auctioneer and the lot speculator. The Digges farm was 86 PLANNING THE FEDERAL CITY. purchased by the banker, George K-iggs, Esq., many years after L'Enfant's death, and a superb stone mansion and a chapel for worship were erected upon the pleasant hill where the architect of the ruling city sleeps. In the garden planted by the Digges family there had been one of those private burial grounds not uncommon in Maryland and quite common to Catholic families. Amongst the people who closed his eyes he was laid to rest in June, 1825, at tlie age of seventy. Mr. Riggs says that subse- quently a member of the Digges family committed suicide and the negroes buried this person crosswise to L'Enfant's body. The leading members of the family were disinterred afterward and the old soldier left there nearly alone. Some measures were suggested for giving him a monument at the time I made these inquiries. L'Enfant's judgment was not equal to hi» imagination, but he had taste, knowledge, and amplitude, and with a richer patron than the American Nation might have made a more sounding fame. His plan of the Capital City is gradually vin- dicating itself as the magnificent distances fill up with buildings, and the recent happy expedient of parking the streets has made it possible to pave them all without extraordinary expense. Sucli as it is, the city is irrevocably a part of his fame. One cannot fail to see that he drew it from the study of LeNotre's work in the city of Versailles and in the forests contiguous to Paris, where aisles, routes, etc., meet at broad open carrefouro and a prospect or bit of architecture closes each avenue. Washing- ton city in its grand plan is French ; in its minor plan Quaker. It is the city of Philadelphia griddled across the city of Ver- sailles. Anybody who will look at the design of the house which L' Enfant built for Robert Morris at Philadelphia after ho was discharged from the public service, — that house which so far exceeded the estimates, that it was pulled down after the ruin of Morris and the materials made a quarry of — will observe that it is very much in the style of Mansard and the French architects of the seventeenth century. Thus the French alliance with America brought to our shores the draughtsman L ENFANT S QUARRELS WITH THE (\0MMISSIONERS. 37 of the government city, and few men have had it in their power to define so absokitely a stage for historical and biograpliical movement. As L'Enfant made the city it remains, with little or no alteration. And his misfortunes and poverty contrasted with his noblo opportunity will always classify him Avith the brotherhood of art and gon^s, and make him remembered as long as the city shall exist. The first quarrel which I/Enfant had with the commission- ers related to the destructi'SION— MADISON'S RESIDENCE. '^^ j-j-^g clrCUlar TOOm over the entrance-hall. In 1816 and 1817, Mr. Madison occu- pied the house at the north-west corner of Pennsylvania ave- nue and Nineteenth street, and liere received his guests on the first day of those years. Mr. Monroe's first New Year's reception was held at the White House in 1818. The first term of Mr. Monroe's administration, from 1817 to 1821, has been pronounced by competent author- ity, the period of the best society in Washington. Gentlemen of high character and high breeding abounded in both Houses of Congress, and many of the foreign ministers were distin- guished for talent, learning, and elegant manners. The Baron Hyd<3 do Neuville represented the French aristocracy of the old regime^ as Mr. Stratford Canning, now Lord Stratford de Red- clyfTe, did that of Great Britain. Mr. Monroe was plain and awkward and frequently at a loss for conversation. His manner was kind and unpretending. Mrs. Monroe, a Kortwright of New York, was handsome and graceful, but so dignified as to be thought haughty. While in the White House Mrs. Monroe was out of health. Her daughter, Mrs. George Hay of Virginia, attended Madame Campan's famous boarding-school in Paris, and was there the intimate 86 SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON. friend of Hortense Beauliarnais, tlie mother of Louis Napoleon. Mrs. Hay was witty and accomplished and a great favorite in society. In 1822, the Marine Band* performed at the White House on New Year's day, as the custom has been ever since. In 1824, the doors of the White House were thrown open for the first time on the 1st of January to the public. The Intelligencer of the next day congratulates its leaders on the decorous deportment of the people on that occasion. The winter of 1825 was one of the most brilliant ever known in Washington. It was the period of the exciting election in the House of Representatives, wHen Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay, and General Jackson were candidates for the Presidency. The Marquis de la Fayette was here as the guest of Congress, and occupied apartments at Brown's Hotel. In the last week of December, 1824, Congress had voted him the munificent sum of $200,000 for his Revolutionary services. On the 1st of Jan- uary, the reception at the President's was unusually brilliant — for among the guests were the Marquis de la Fayette and his son, George Washington Lafayette, Harrison Gray Otis of Bos- ton, the northern Chesterfield, Governor Gore of Massachu- setts, Stephen Van Rensselaer the Patroon, Rufus King, Mr. Lowell and Mr. Graham of Boston, Mr. Edward Lungston of Louisiana, Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Everett, Mr. Wilde of Georgia, Mr. Hayne of South Caro- lina, General Jackson, and many other distinguished persons, with the ladies of their households — all resident in Washing- ton during that memorable winter and forming a galaxy of tal- ent, beauty, and accomplishment which has never been sur- passed in any subsequent period of W^ashington Society. *The Marine Band of Washington has made music at every great entertain- ment, levee, funeral, or parade held at the Capital since its foundation. It was formerly esteemed the greatest band on the continent, but has of late years grown rusty and inferior. There are fifty pieces in it, and its leader, a Mr. Scala, re- ceives $75 a month, the men being all enlisted at $21 a month. They live out- side the barracks, marry, draw rations, keep shops, and are chiefly foreigners. This band needs overhauling. SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON. 87 A grand entertainment was given on the evening of the 12th of January, 1825, by Congress to the Marquis de La Fayette at Wilhamson's, now Willard's, hotel. The management of the affair was entrusted to the Hon. JoelR. Poinsett, M. C. from S. C, Secretary of war in Mr. Van Buren's administration. This duty Mr. Poinsett discharged with admirable taste and to the entire satisfaction of Congress and its guests. The com- pany assembled at six P. M., to the number of two hundred. Mr. Gaillard of S. C, President of the Senate, presided at one table — Mr. Clay of Ky., Speaker of the House, at the other. The President of the U. S., James Monroe, sat on one side of Mr. Gaillard, and La Fayette on the other. The latter was supported by Gen. Samuel Smith of Md., a hero of the Revolu- tion, and in the immediate vicinity with Rufus King, Gen. Jack- son, John Quincy Adams, Samuel L. Southard, Mr. Calhoun, Senators Chandler of Me., and D' Wolf of R. I., Gens. Dearborn, Scott, Macomb, Bernard, and Jesup — Commodores Bainbridge, Tingley, Stewart, Morris, and other officers of distinction. The dinner was prepared by M. Joseph Prospere, a cele- brated French cook who came from New York for the purpose, and who charged for his services the modest sum of one hun- dred dollars. It was the most elegant and elaborate entertain- ment ever given in Washington — many of the dishes being unique and artistically ornamented in a style never witnessed previously in this country. In the midst of the dinner, an old soldier of the Revolution, arrived at the hotel from the Shenandoah Valley. He was eighty years of age and had served under La Fayette. Mr. Poin- sett being informed of his arrival descended to the reception room and thence escorted him to the dining-hall on the floor above and presented him to the Marquis. " General," said the veteran — " you do not remember me. I took you oif the field when wounded in the fight at Brandywine." " Is your name John Near," inquired the Marquis. "It is General," replied the veteran. Whereupon the Marquis embraced him in the French fashion and cono-ratulated him on his healthy condition 88 SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON. and long life. John Near also became the guest of Congress and remained at Williamson's a fortnight, feasting to his heart's content upon the good cheer provided him and retiring to bed every night in a comfortable state of inebriation. When he returned to Virginia, La Fayette presented him the munificent sum of two thousand dollars, with which he bought a farm which is now in the possession of his descendants. La Fayette at this dinner gave the following toast : " Perpet- ual union among the States — It has saved us in times of dan- ger, it will save the world." Mr. Clay gave " Gen. Bolivar the Washington of South America and the Republic of Colombia." The first private house in Washington thrown open for the reception of visitors on New Year's Day was that of the late Mr. Ogle Tayloe on La Fayette Square, in the year 1830. Here the members of the diplomatic corps were accustomed to present themselves, after their official visit to the President, arrayed in their court dresses and accompanied by their Secre- taries and attaches. Many years elapsed before this custom became general. In 1849 the visitors at the White House proceeded thence to the residence of Mrs. Madison, where they were hospitably entertained. Mrs. Madison was by far the most popular of all the ladies who have presided at the White House. Mr. Ogle Tayloe, in his delightful reminiscences, tells us "She never forgot a face or a name — had been very handsome — was graceful and gracious and was loved alike by rich and poor." Mr. Madison, when a member of Congress, boarded in her father's house in Philadelphia where he fell in love with her, then the widow of Mr. Todd. Mrs. Madison was ruined by her son Payne Todd, who squandered her estate from which she would have realized at least one hundred thousand dollars. On New Year's Day, 1828, President John Quincy Adams wrote in the album of Mrs. Ogle Tayloe a poem of eleven stanzas, and of great merit. He received on Ne^;^ Year's Day and, like his predecessors Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, hospi- tably entertained his guests. After his retirement from the SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON. 89 Presidency he resided on the corner of Ninth and Sixteenth Streets, where until the close of his life he was accustomed to receive the calls from ladies and gentlemen on the 1st of Janu- ary. Mr. Adams was stiff and ceremonious in his manners, and though by no means popular, was always an object of respect to the people of Washington. His wife was eminently beloved wherever known. Forty years ago it was customary among the ladies of Wash- ington to wear for the first time at the New Year's reception at the White House, their new winter bonnets, cloaks, shawls, etc., etc. General Jackson's receptions, commencing in 1830 and con- tinuing till 1837, were marked by a greater infusion of the oi polloi than those of his predecessors. He also provided refreshments, and in 1836, being the recipient of a prodigious cheese from a farmer in Jefferson County, N.' Y. ordered it to be cut on New Year's Day and distributed in large slices of a quarter of a pound weight. Many slices of this cheese were trampled under foot on the carpets, and the odor which ascended from it was far from savory. Mr. Van Buren discontinued the custom of serving refresh- ments on New Year's Day at the White House, and it has never been revived. The Winter of 1852, during the administration of Mr. Fill- more, was especially brilliant in Washington. On the 1st of January, the reception at the White House was characterized by the presence of many distinguished persons from every sec- tion of the Union. The agitation of the slavery question appeared to have subsided and good-will and fraternity between the North and South were once more the order of the day. Mr. Fillmore never appeared to better advantage than when receiving his friends. His fine person and graceful manner rendered him conspicuous in this position. His successor, Gen. Pierce, had also the manners of a gen- tleman. Mrs. Pierce was saddened by the death of her son, and took little part in the ceremonies of the White House. 90 SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON. Mfo Buchanan's New Year's receptions did not differ from those oi his immediate predecessors. Their great charm was tho presence of the mistress of his household, Miss Harriet Lane, now Mrs. Johnston of Baltimore, a woman of exquisite loveliness of person and the most charming manners. Who that was ever presented to her can forget the graceful success of her courtesy and her radiant smile of welcome ? During these later years it has gradually become the custom for our private citizens to open their houses on the first day of the year, so that the unusual spectacle to a New Yorker of ladies in the streets on that holiday, is now seldom witnessed. Twenty years ago the streets were filled with carriages on the first of January, bearing ladies in full dress and without bonnets to the President's house and the residences of other members of the Government. In Mr. Madison's time "Washington was a straggling village, without pavements, street lamps, or other signs of civilization. The White House itself was enclosed by a common post and rail fence, while all the other reservations were unenclosed and destitute of trees or any improvement. Even in Mr. Monroe's time carriages were frequently mired on Pennsylvania Avenue in rainy weather. In 1810, the population of Washington was less than that of Georgetown or Alexandria which then each contained eight thousand inhabitants. All those adventurous spirits like Law, Morris, Greenleaf, and others who had made liere large investments in real estate, were ruined. Mr. Bush of Philadelphia, writing as late as 1841, said he had long before lost all confidence in Washington property. It was not until the commencement of the Capitol extension in 1851 that the city began to show signs of substantial prosperity and to afford an earnest of its subsequent greatness and strength. In all the past years of its history no improvements equal to those of the year 1872 have been made. At least five hundred elegant houses have been erected by private enterprise — to say nothing of the miles of pavement and drives, constructed by the District Government. A few years more of equal enterprise and SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON. 9£ vVashington will rank among the most beautiful cities on tliis continent. Washington changed character almost entirely after the war. Northern capital moved in and fine architecture prevailed in private buildings. The very form of government was altered, and a Board of Public Works took the paving of streets out of the hands of the local legislature. The appropriations are now greater than they have ever been in the history of the city, — far greater than when the place was first pitched here. They amount to about $3,000,000 direct this year, and nearly $2,000,000 more for public edifices. The Capitol edifice itself gets a snubbing, the architect being a shy man, who had not learned the art of lobbying and could only state the necessity of repairs at least. But the great new renaissance building for the State, War, and Navy Departments has received a lift which will cover it with stone-cutters as soon as Spring opens ; a new statue of General Thomas is ordered, to cost $40,000 ; and the Farragut statue is taken" out of the hands of the artists of the lobby. In two years from this period, there will be six colossal statues in the streets of this city, five of them equestrian, Washington, Jackson, Scott, Grant, Thomas, and Farragut, besides out-of-door statues of Lincoln, Scott, and Washington. The old City Hall has passed wholly into the possession of the United States, and with the proceeds and a diversion of city funds, a new Hotel de Yille will be erected in front of the great new market-house, which has cost $300,000. Several new street-railways are authorized, and the building-permits applied for or granted show an extraordinary advance in construction, much of which is of a villa character in the suburbs. In May, the whole line of the Baltimore & Potomac Road will be opened, as well as the new Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio. And the Municipal Govern- ment has spent $8,300,000 in about eighteen months, according to its own report, and its opponents say $14,000,000, assessed upon nearly the full valuation of property. The enormous aqueduct which runs eighteen miles, through 92 THE PUBLIC WORKS. eleven tunnels and over six bridges, is at last completed and connected with the city, at a total cost of about 86,000,000. Five bridges of the most durable character, probably good for the next quarter of a century, span Rock Creek. One hundred and twenty miles of water-main are now in use in this District, of which twelve miles have been raised or lowered to the new grades; and 530 fire-plugs, 255 public hydrants, and many drinking-fountains carry off the 31,000,000 gallons used every twenty-four hours in this Capital, which is but 20,000,000 less than all Paris gets from its government. The amount of paving done in the past sixteen months is almost incredible in view of the former slow and conservative progress of the city. Ninety-three miles of brick and concrete sidewalks, and 115 miles of concrete, wood, round-block, grav- eled, cobblestone. Macadam, or Belgium block street have been laid. Add to this seventy miles of tile-sewer, and eight miles of brick main sewerage through which a buggy can be driven with ease, and the obliteration of the old Tiber Creek and canal by one of the largest sewers in the world, in diameter from 20 to 30 feet, and you will see that old Washington is no more. The landmarks have perished from the eye. • And the names of the streets are also to be changed, — those running from north to south to be numbered from First to Sixtieth, instead of First street West, Second street East, etc. ; and those running from east to west are to be no longer lettered A, B, C, D, etc., but named, alphabetically, Adams, Benton, Clay, Douglas, etc., on one side, and Anderson, Bainbridge, Chauncey, Decatur, etc., on the other. The Board of Public Works claims that, between 1802-72, the Federal Government has spent but $1,321,288 on the streets of the Capital, while the municipality spent upon the same $13,921,767; adding Georgetown's expenditure, $2,000,000 more. INSIDE SECTION OF THE DOME OF THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON. THE CAPITOL, AS SEEN FliOM PENNSYLVAJSflA AVENUE. CHAPTEE VIII. THE DOME AND EXTENSIONS OP OUR CAPITOL DESCRIBED. The Dome of the Capitol, as you know, overhangs the middle of the great building, whose name, in any monarchical country, would be the "Palace of the Legislative Body," as even in this country the "White House was originally named the President's Palace, and so described by Washington. The old Capitol building had three domes upon it ; the middle one, standing in the place of the present dome, was constructed of wood, and it stood one hundred and forty-two feet lower than the present. In 1856, it was removed, and the construction of the new dome began, which occupied nine years. It is formed almost entirely of cast iron, resting upon the old Capitol edifice, which, to support so vast additional weight, has been trussed up, buttressed, and strengthened, so that it seems to cower beneath the threatening mass of its superimposed burden. Let us look at this dome. Poised over the middle of the long white rectangle of build- ings, the great dome rises in two orders : a drum of iron 94 THE CAPITOL. columns first encircling it, with an open gallery and balustrade at the top ; then an order of tall, slim windows ; then a great series of brackets, holding the plated and ribbed roof, which ascends, balloon-fashion, to a gallery, within which is a tall lantern, surrounded with columns, like a cupola, and over this a bronze figure of Liberty, capped with eagle feathers, holding STATUE OF LIBEBTY. in her right hand a sheathed sword, in her left a wreath and shield. She faces east. Her back is to the settled city of the Capital. Excepting this figure, which is of a rich bronze color, and the dark-glazed windows, the whole dome is white as marble. The whol/3 of it, as you see it from the ground, is made of cast-iron ; but it harmonizes well in tint with the Capitol building, and is of such symmetrical proportions that it gives you no impression of excessive weight. , It was on the second day of December, 1863, that, at a signal gun from Fort Stanton, across the eastern branch, the head and shoulders of the genius of Liberty began to arise from the ground. As it slowly ascended the exterior of the dome, gun after gun rang out from the successive forts encir- cling the city ; when it reached the summit of the lantern, and joined its heretofore beheaded body, all the artillery of the hills saluted again, and the flags were dipped on every ship THE CAPITOL. 95 and encampment. Majesty and grace are names for it, and holding at its cloudy height the boldest conception of Liberty, its genius looks calmly into the sunrise, and at night, like a directress of the stars, lives among them, as if in the constel- lation of her own banner. Having taken this observation, let us climb to the rotunda. Now look straight up. You are amidst and beneath a vast hollow sphere of iron, weighing 8,009,200 lbs. How much is that ? More than four thousand tons ; or about the weight of seventy thousand full-grown people ; or about equal to a thousand laden coal cars, wdiich, holding four tons apiece, would reach two miles and a-half. Directly over your head is a figure in bronze, weighing 14,985 lbs. If it should fall plumb down, it would mash you as if thirty-seven hogs, weighing four hundred pounds a piece, were dropped on your head from a height of two hundred and eighty-eight feet. This bronze figure is sixteen feet and a-half high, and with its pedestal nineteen feet and a-half. Right over your head, suspended like a canopy, is a sheet of metal and plaster covered with allegorical paintings. This hangs between you and the bronze statue of Liberty, and is a hundred and eighty feet distant. There are, therefore, one hundred and eight feet of the full height of the dome which you cannot see at all within, and in like manner the diameter of the rotunda in wiiich you stand is ninety-seven feet, or eleven feet less than the exterior diameter of the great dome, far above, and thirty- eight feet less than the extreme exterior diameter at the base. The old rotunda erected here by Bulfinch was ninety-six feet high. This dome differs interiorly at present from most others by being a mere cylinder, closed with a dome, whereas, nearly all famous domes besides are raised upon churches, which are cross-shaped, and project a dome from the abutments of the hollow cross. In these abutments, high up, statues are com- monly set, as in St. Peter's, where the four angels are placed there. No merely civil edifice in the world can boast a dome at all approaching these proportions. 96 THE CAPITOL. The pressure of the iron dome upon its piers and pillars is 13,477 pounds to the square foot. St. Peter's presses nearly 20,000 pounds more to the square foot, and St. Genevieve, at Paris, 46,000 pounds more. It would require to crush the supports of our dome a pressure of 755,280 pounds to the square foot. ^ The first part of the rotunda, next to the floor, is a series of panels, divided from each other by Grecian pilasters, or aztoe^ which suppo'rt the first entablature, a bold one, with wreaths of olive interwoven in it. Tne decorations of the dome consist of four great hasso- relievos, over the four exit doors from it, and of eight oil paintings, each containing from twenty to a hundred figures, life-size. These paintings are set in great panels in the wall, under the lower entablature. Four of them are by Colonel Trumbull, Aid-de-Camp to Washington, the " Porte Crayon " of the Revolution, and these are altogether the best historical paintings which the country has yet produced. The other four paintings, with forty years advantage over those of Trumbull, are deteriorations. Three of them represent, respectively, the marriage of Pocahontas, the landing of Columbus, and the discovery of the Mississippi. They are poorer than the average of paintings in the gallery of Yersaillcs, and scarcely rise above the art of house and sign painting. The other picture. Prayer on the Mayflower, has good faces in it, and dignity of expression, but it is dull of color, and with- out any breadth of light. Trumbull's pictures are conscien- tious portraits, the work of thirty years' study ; they are without any genius, and timid in grouping ; but accurate, appropriate, and invaluable. Congress gave him an order for the whole four at once, and wisely. The others ought to be taken down when we can get anything better, and sent into some of the committee rooms. The basso-relievos in the panels, above the paintings, are works of two Italians, pupils of Canova, named Causici and Capellano, who, like a great many other itinerant Italians, have done work about the Capitol. One or two of them, disgusted THE CAPITOL. 97 with the American taste in art, or stricken with the national 5e?i2!me, jumped into the Potomac, and made their lives more romantic than their works. These hase reliefs are only of three or four figures each, and are copied from curious old engravings, cotemporary with the events ; they are not beautiful, but odd, and make variety amidst our perennial and distressing newness. Between these large reliefs are carved heads of Columbus, Raleigh, La Salle, and Cabot. These pictures, true and disgraceful both to the national taste, answer in general the purpose of pleasing people. Learned rustics may be seen laboriously criticising them to their sweet- hearts. The privilege is also accorded to artists and others of exhibiting their models and amateur sketches in the rotunda, whereby all sorts of strange prodigies appear, flattering, at least, to our democratic charity, but very amusing to foreigners. Above this series of relievos and paintings, there is a broad frieze, intended to be painted in imitation of basso-relievo. Above this frieze there is another entablature ; these are broken up by tall windows on the outer circumference of the walls of the dome, and at places between the domes can be seen glimpses of galleries and stairways ascending between the inner and outer walls. At last, the interior concave walls of the dome proper made to represent panels of oak foliage, rise in dimin- ishing circles to the amphitheatre in the eye of the dome, which is sixty feet in diameter, and surrounded with a gallery all of iron. Down through the eye of the dome looks the great fresco painting of Brumidi, and you can see people the size of toys walking directly under this fresco, looking now up, now down. It will cost to finish and paint this dome as it should be done, not less than $250,000. For the painting in the frieze, $20,000 will be required ; to reform the architecture of the dome by reducing the number of the entablatures will cost, probably, $100,000. To paint the iron panels in imitation of oak, as they are cast, will cost $30,000 to $50,000. It was the intention to have buried Washington under the floor of the rotunda j this failing, to bury Lincoln there, and to open a 5 98 THE CAPITOL. large galleried place in the floor, through which the visitor could look at the sarcophagus, as is the case with the tomb of Napoleon, under the dome of the Hotel des Invalides, in Paris. In either case, the families of the dead objected, and with good taste ; for a rotunda, used for profane and noisy flirting, hob- nobbing, lobbying, and loitering, is no place for a hallowed sepulture. Here the statue of Washington, by Greenough, stood, till removed by barbarous enactment, in all its Roman nakedness, into the adjacent park. Something of the worthiest and most colossal is requisite here — a statue of Public Opinion, say, or an allegory of Destiny, or an effigy of Democracy. So, around the sides of the dome, there are spaces for statues and busts,^ which ought some day to be filled. Situated midway between the two houses of Congress, at the middle of the Capitol, and across all the avenues of communica- tion, the rotunda under the dome obtains, as it always will obtain, an important and picturesque place in the history of legislation. There are iron settees around it, where wait for appointments of various sorts, people of all qualities and pur- suitis, some to waylay, some to rest, some to see the infinite variety of race or station, or behavior of passing people. Bright paintings encircle it, for height and admissible enterprise are suggested there ; something curiously instructive, some problem to the thought, is everywhere. Danger and power, suppositious accident and vivid carnival, fill up the hours. It is one of the most curious studies in the world, and destined to be the scene of vital conferences, wild collisions, perhaps of solemn ceremo- nials, sometimes of happiness, sometimes of anarchy, sit here, under this high concave ; and, while the feet of the perpetual passengers fill the void with, echoes, you may interpret them to tlic coming of the mob, when legislation Is too slow for brutal party rage, or some unflinching Senator may hear from hence the howling of Public Opinion. Here may some brave act the best assassination ; here may be promised the price of eminent treason. Here may some conquering army, mastering the Capitol once more, unfurl their foreign standards, and with THE DOJIE AND SPIRAL STAIR CASE IN CONSERVATORY, AT WASHINGTON. THE CAPITOL. 99 their enthusiasm or orchestras celebrate the fall of the Eepub- iic. So long as the people reign, the Capitol of the United States will not be distributed between the wings, but concen- trated under the dome. The rotunda is western human nature's ^amphitheatre. Here will stroll the chaotic dictator of Democ- racy, Avith its liundred hands on the wires of the continent. Many a fair face will do temptation upon patriotism and public duty in the broad sounding area of assignation, typical as it is ot the arcana of the earth, where the individual voice but rolls into the general ecliQ ; the general echo is sometimes articulate, but the highest shout that all can raise stays a little while, and expires in stronger silence. The dome, with its hungry, hollow belly, is government as you find it, familiar with its gluttonies and processes, its dyspepsias and cramps. The outer dome is government as the vast mass of citizens behold it — ^white and monumental, and crowned with Liberty. How is this vast height lighted, is the next question. Here we are in the battery room, which adjoins the dome. The smcli of the acids, ranged in quadruple circles around the place, in glo^S jars as big as horse-buckets, has no other effect upon the battery- tender, he says, than to make him fat. There are here one hundred and eighty cells set up and filled with sulphuric acid, after the principle of Smee, constituting altogether the strongest battery in the world, and which furnishes the power to Mr, Gardiner's electro-magnetic apparatus, which lights the lan- tern, the dome and the rotunda, touching up thirteen hundred gas-burners in a few moments. The whole machinery cost about thirty thousand dollars. Of itself, this beautiful and almost miraculous apparatus deserves a newspaper article. The power is fifty tons, as if a thunder cloud as heavy as a laden canal boat were concentrated on the point of a needle, and " fetched " you a dash in the eye. To light up the Capitol by this machinery, there is an electro-magnetic engine, with connecting wires to all the burners in the building, and to each wire a metallic pointer ; the gas is turned on by cranks, answer- ing each to a portion of the Capitol ; then the magnetic bolt is 100 THE CAPITOL. darted up the proper wire ; in thirty seconds the darkness is ablaze. This apparatus occupies one of the old wing domes of wood, the dome being the battery room, thb engine standing next door. Thus the old building sends light up to the new one ; the little dome holds fire for the great dome. You should see them turn the great dome from perfect night to perfect day. Stand under it ! A little moon dazes the far up slits of vindows ; the concave oye is absolute night ; all the sculptures are lost upon the wall ; color and action are gone out of tlie historic canvases ; the stone floor of the rotunda might be some great cathredal's, for you can oniy feel the gliding objects going by, and hear the dull, commingling echoes of feet and whispers. At a wink the great hollow sphere is aflame. You can see the spark-spirit run on tip-toe around the high entablature, planting its fire-fly foot on every spear of bronze ; a blaze springs up on each ; chasing each other hither and thither, the winged torch-bearing fairies on the several levels race down the aisles to the remote niches, to lateral halls, to stairways all variegated with polished marbles, over illuminated sky-lights armorially painted. Your thought does not leap so instantly ; and people far off in the city see the lantern at the feet of the statue of Liberty, arise in the sky as if a star had lighted it. Since the first commandment of God to the earth, light has had no such messenger. It is nearest to will — it vindicates Moses. No great building in the world is so lighted, except the Academy of Music, and some theatres in New York. But thirty thousand dollars is dear even for a miracle. Matches are high. Standing here, at so lofty an altitude, one is apt to suppose that he has reached the king of human peaks. Not so. St. Peter's at Rome, is 432 feet high to the lantern, or 144 feet higher than the tip of this airy Liberty. St. Paul's in London, is seventy-two feet higher than this. And the great. Capitol itself, down upon which we are looking, covering 652 square feet, more than three and a half acres, is one-eighth smaller than St. Peter's Church, and only one-fifth larger than St. Paul's. VIEW IN THE CONSERVATOKY AT WASHINGTON. FAN PALMS, ETC. OF THR UNIVERSITY THE CAPITOL. 101 Yet it is high enough for timid people. The highest part of the Capitol building is nearly two hundred feet below us. How much money is there in all this Capitol ? What did it cost ? Upon the aggregate head, I doubt if the congregated con- sciences of all the architects and builders of the Capitol can reply, exactly. One gentleman, who has been figuring up at it a long time, estimates the cost at $39,000,000. The lowest esti- mate I have heard at all was $15,000,000. But let us see what is the architect's statement. The entire cost of the old Capi- tol, down to 1827, was less than $1,800,000. St. Peter's Church, at Rome, cost $49,000,000. The new Court House in New York, is said to have cost $8,000,000. People have talked foolishly about the cost of the public edifices at the seat of government. Here are some precise figures, as Mr. Clark gave them to me. They do not include the furnishing of the build- ings, however : Cost of the library apartments, - - - $ 780,500 " " " Oil painting by Walker : " Storming of Chapultepec," - - 6,000 Five water closets in the House of Representa- tives, - - . - - 2,178 Annual repairs, - - - - 15,000 Annual repairs for dome, - - - 5,000 Heating old Capitol (centre), - - 15,000 Cost of the new wings of the Capitol, - - 6,433,621 Cost of building the dome, - - - 1,125,000 Total cost of construction of all the public buildings in Washington City, - 27,715,522 It is very pleasant to visit the Capitol in the recess. " After Congress adjourns, we begin to know each other. The carpen- ter and the barber go fishing together. The architect of the Capitol inquires for your family. The Capitol policemen and the officers of the barracks near by stop at your door-step to chat with your baby. It is like living in some college town during the vacation, and very cool, amiable, and agreeable is Capitol Hill in Summer. 102 THE CAPITOL. At "Whitney's I saw, a few days ago, a white bearded old gentleman, of a Northern and business habit and address. He had a brown complexion, a square-ended nose, beveled at the tip, and a hearty down-east manner. " Don't you lijiow Mr. Fowler, Gath?" said a gentleman near by. " This is Mr. Charles Fowler, who built the dome of the Capitol."' Mr. Fowler was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He is, or was, a member of the former firm of iron founders, Fowler & Beeby, at Read and Centre streets. New York. He was the lowest bidder to cast the patterns for the dome, and that noble piece of iron work, solitary in the world, was set up by him. Perhaps you can best get the spirit of what he had to say in the catcgorial form in which he gave it. " What was your contract, Mr. Fowler, when you first under- took to build the dome ?" " Seven cents a pound for all the iron used. The architect, Thomas N. Walter, made the designs, piece by piece. They ran, for example, an inch to eight feet. I was to put up the dome, furnishing all the scaifolds, workmen, and so forth, for seven cents a pound." " Did they keep their bargain ?" "No. General Franklin was superintending engineer when I first arrived here. He made the contract for the War De- partment. After I had run the dome up to the top of the first order, or the drum, as you see it there. General Meigs was put in Franklin's place. He cut my contract down, arbitrarily, to six cents a pound. I consulted my lawyers, and they said : ' This cutting down of your contract is a piece of force, having no authority in law. But if you don't submit to it, you will be kept out of your money at ruinous expense. So accept it and come back upon the justice of the government at another time.' " Therefore I took the six cents, and the work was stopped. "Tlic yard of the Capitol was littered with iron. Senator Foot and others began to ask : * Why is the work on the dome suspended V VIEW IN TIIK CONSERVATORY AT WASHINGTON. IJANANAS, ETC. WORK ON THE DOx^IE. 103 "They demanded a recontinuance of the work, and had an order made out transferring the work upon the Capitol exten- sion from the War to the Interior Department. This was done to lift out of Cameron's hands the matter of the dome. " I went to the Secretary of the Interior and demanded my additional cent a pound. It was paid. I demanded also the fif- teen thousand dollars which, under the first arrangement, was withheld from my control to insure the finishing of the dome. This was paid over. Then I went to work again." " On what principle is that dome set up, Mr. Fowler ?" " On this principle : there is a skeleton series of ribs within : they extrude supports for the outer dome : the figure on the top, the government guaranteed to furnish, as it afterwards did, from Clark Mill's designs and castings. The scales on the dome are bolted together. There is no structure in the world more enduring than that dome. You may call it eternal, if you like. It weighs over 5,000 tons. That is, .you tell me, only one-ninth the weight of the Victoria tower, on the Parlia- ment buildings, in London. Why, sir, the Rocky Mountains will budge as quickly as that structure. There are some things about it which I don't like, but the Government Superintendent is absolute. For example, the first coat of paint should have been different. I protested. Tut it on white,' said the chief. Consequently the dome eats up paint by the ton every year, because there is not a good color for a base." " Does not the dome leak, sir, by reason of the metal plates expanding and contracting ? Is it not possible that by the per- petual working to and fro of the plates, rust, fractured rivets and final collapse will take place ? " " Why, the whole dome is of one metal : it expands and con- tracts like the folding and unfolding of a lily, all moving together. An atmospheric change that will move one piece moves all — scale and bolt. Eust will happen, but to avoid this tlie building must be kept water-tight and well painted. It is not by mechanical changes that public works are affected, but by sudden and unnecessary political changes. For example : I got 104 THE CAPITOL. a judgment against the Government in the Court of Claims last week for twenty-six thousand dollars. They made a contract with me to put up the wings of the Library, as I had already finished and deliyered the main part of it. The Secretary of the Interior was suddenly changed, and he abolished my con- tract whimsically. Therefore, I bring suit, and his little whim costs the people twenty-six thousand dollars, besides putting me out of pocket even at that. See, also, the effect of a change of superintendents, which I have already referred to. I have a claim of sixty-odd thousand dollars for the increased cost and delay incurred by me through the substitution of Meigs for Franklin. Had they let me go on by the terms of my contract, I should have had the work done by 1861. They stopped me arbitrarily ; the war came on ; iron went up some hundred per cent ; the river was lined with rebel batteries ; freights went up 400 per cent ; the price of labor went up almost as badly. A new man's whim will cost sixty thousand dollars, perhaps, to the people ; if not, it will come out of my pocket. " I tell you, sir," said the dome-builder, encouraged in his theme, '' whim, freak, change, are responsible for a good deal of folly and more extravagance here. " Let me show you how they got a dome in the first place ; for that is an example : " Mr. Walter, the architect, prepared the plans for a complete extension of the Capitol — new wings, new dome, and a new marble front for the middle or freestone building, which was the old Capitol ; and, as he knew very well that Congress would never vote this money in the most economical way, — ^that is, in bulk, or by fixed yearly parcels — he first submitted the wings. " Next, as Congress was about adjourning at the end of a session, and they were all very merry at night — ^ladies on the floor, everytliing lively, the dome, splendidly painted, was pre- sented in a picture and adopted at once." CHAPTEE IX. SOME OP THE ORGANIC EVILS IN OUR CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM. The present chapter will deal in a discursive way with some of the evils in general legislation. With every Congressman comes a little knot of retainers, often to his own disgust ; for he has used them and finishedp and now they are quick that he shall fulfil his promises- Promises arc ruin-seeds. Nine-tenths of the crime of the state is tied to rash and often needless promises. " Mr. Godtalk," says Stirrup the saddler, " I admire your course, sir, and want to see you re-elected." " Stirrup," says Godtalk, " why don't you get the post- ofQce ? It will be a nice little addition to your income, take no time from your trade, and be an honor amongst your neighbors." '' Mr. Godtalk, I never aspired to office, sir." " Tut ! tut ! Stirrup ; it's easy as asking. If I'm elected I'll work for you ! " Behold ! the first uneasy and interested seed is planted in the good citizen. He becomes henceforward a corrupted man, the " bore " of his Representative, another hanger-on around the Capitol. This loose and almost always needless tendering of promises is the mistake of the politician, and the corruption of the constituent alike. Every promise, loosely made and broken to the hope, returns to plague giver and receiver. We have been promising the darkeys in the South — some of us — a 106 ORGANIC EVILS IN mule and a forty-acre farm. Let us look out that the mule doesn't kick us dead, and the forty-acre farm be our political cemetery. Promise nothing out of the contract of principles. Come to Washington with free hands, and the highway to honor, if it has enemies before, will have no assassins behind ' No sooner had the members of Congress begun to arrive, than the poor promise-bearers followed after. They looked mean, as does every man with an immortal soul, who waits for a favor that he does not deserve. The saddler's fingers were nervous. The citizen's direct look of searchingness, and yet confidence, had a sycophantish, sidewise smile in the bottom of it. The man was clinging by his eyelids to a politician's word of honor, and God help the hold on that support ! The constit- uent had already begun to feel revengeful, for his suspicious fears, born of his conscious meanness, had begun to reproach his Representative. Both were disgusted. The politician had dishonored the saddler's hearth with a foolish promise, and made a family malcontent, and traitors to obedient, cheerful citizenship. There is no time when one sees these personal errors so vividly in their effect upon the State, as at the opening of Congress. The power of the State, as an attraction and an evil, when it enters into competition with the private patrons of the people, is at this time very manifest. You live, per- haps, down in Egypt, or on the Illinois Central Road, and get the paper afar off, and in your heart you honor the State. The news, as it comes from Washington, is vague and great to you. The names of senators are resonant names, which you hold in excellent respect. The Government is the mighty protector of you and yours, a sworded benefactor, a most impartial father, and yet almost your son. When this Government, by one of its officers — ^legislator or what not — comes down from its misty remoteness of sun and thunder cloud, like Jupiter to Danae, and singles one of you out for its caresses, tho pure worship you have paid it turns to personal lust and jealousy. Therefore, the fewer possessions OUR CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM. 107 that the Government holds, the better for it and you. With its clear, attenuated brow and naked buckler, it is our common champion; but with armsfuU of public lands, bon-bons of railway subsidies, Christmas gifts of Indian contracts and sinecures, and the whim and capacity to make invidious favoritisms, Government entering the market place is the wickedest debaucher of the people. •A man came to me recently. "You know a good many people in Congress,'* he said ; " I've got a little business I want to see you about after awhile. I'm here in behalf of the Snuffbox tribe of Indians ! " " What do the Snuffboxes want ? " " Oh ! they're despret anxious to get that treaty o' theirn fixed ; want to sell their land, you know, being hard-up and desirous of agoing South. It's all just and fair as the Golding Rule. This yer Osage expozay spiled the treaty of the Snuff- boxes. But, as I said before, ourn is clar and just as the Golding Rule.'* Not being a street preacher, I replied only in generalities to this gentleman ; but in this correspondence may make it plain to you that by the very situation of the Government we have been unjust to the Snuffbox Indians and this corrupt lobbyist together. This was evidently an intention to cozen the Snuffboxes out of three or four millions of rich acres ; but why was this man, apparently a good citizen (he had been a soldier) in the job ? Because Government was in the market as patron and employer. The citizen found a short cut to wealth by making a treaty, and quitted his honest livelihood to come to Wash- ington and make marketable the plausibilities of Congressmen. Here he saw a way to spend a year of dishonorable feeling, *' smelling," and huckstering for the sake of a lifetime of wealth. We must make an honest man of him by putting Governments out of the market, abolishing the Indian title in lands, and setting the entire government real estate on an equal footing, so that you, John Smith, Tom Walker, and the 108 ORGANIC EVILS IN devil may be made equal purchasers, so far as nature finds you. The growth of obligations has come to be so much a matter of slavery to the Congressman that he cannot, if he would, evade them. They confront him in the highest places and demand that he keep up the fashion of providing for his friends as he did in the lower walks. For example, after Mr. Colfax fell into disgrace through the Credit Mobilier Exposure, a leading Senator said to a friend of mine : " Tlie way to Colfax's ruin was already paved. He had deserted his friends,'* " How ?" " Well, he announced after Grant and he were elected, that he would not ask for patronage of any kind but leave it all to General Grant. That was weak, but he did it to appear mag- nanimous, as if he did not wish to take any of the glory or reward from liis colleague on the ticl^et. Commonplace people thouglit it hyperfineness. His acquaintances and supporters thought it was timidity or selfishness. General Grant Avould have understood and respected Colfax better had he come right up and asked that his friends be considered. It was a childish movement on Colfax's part, but he was always juvenile, even in his cunning. You can't make even a Christian statesman out of too good a boy. So Colfax won nothing by his austere virtue and shook all his enemies out of the tree. When he saw his mistake, — and he was the last to see it, — he endorsed every- body's application for office. This was worse than if he had recommended none ; for it carried no weight, being so cheap and common. And so this man broke under his feet the ladder of patronage he had been so industriously building up. He thought there could be a time when he could dispense with his friends. That time never arrives to any but the greatest order of men. The obligations of politics are mutual ; the price of fealty is promotion. And it happened opportunely for Colfax's outraged supporters that his time was ripe to rottenness just as OUR CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM. 109 he had coolly dispensed with them. They did not dig his grave but they buried him in it." The mere value of a residence here is esteemed as so much money-right, because you may board with a Senator, lend a horse to a Serge ant-at-Arms, or know a doorkeeper well, and this involves the possible right to demand a favor of the Fede- ral State. " Do you want five thousand dollars down in a check ?" said a man to another once in my hearing. " Here it is. I want somebody in the Senate to propose to take up the bill making seven Judge Advocates. I don't want you to see it pass, because there are seven of us who have fixed all that. It's bound to pass ! We only want some one Senator to lift it up. Whom do you know?" This was in the last hours of the session. Suppose you lived here, and had entertained Senator Enoch, of Hindoocush, with a soft crab lunch ; what more easy than to slip up to the door- keeper, say, " Take this card to Enoch," see Enoch come benevolent through the door, say " Senator, my nephew depends on this bill being raised ; vote as you please, only move to lift it ; did you enjoy those crabs ?" And, presto, there is $5,000 down merely for knowing one man. So large is the power of the Federal Congress becoming, that to be a doorkeeper, messenger, even a page, is to possess a chance to obtain offices, privileges, and appropriations. I used to see a dull-eyed man in one of the galleries — a door- keeper. One day there was a huge overthrow of officials, and into a post of great trust this doorkeeper walked. From being a servant, he became an officer of Congress, and in his present place knows matters so valuable, that the regular Secretary of the Senate cannot know them. The choice may have been a superb one, but I instance it only to show the advantage of having the right of acquaintanceship with Congress. Clerk- ships in the House and Senate, are worth fortunes to some people. Here in the Clerkship of Claims, Mr. Corbin grew wealthy, and yet he never had a vote ; but the knowledge of 110 ORGANIC EVILS IN \7l1at was going on, and the right to salute honorable members familiarly, and to say a good familiar word for some one's claim — this was his royal road. Few persons are aware how Congress conducts business, and one might go to the chambers and read the Qlohe every day for two years, without growing a great deal wiser. Yet it is by the defects of the organization of Congress that thievery thrives — defects inseparable from all human contrivances. The commercial republic whose soul and courage be not in sentiment, but in necessity, is open to this criticism, that, while it has money to spend to keep the empire together, it does not lilie to risk its blood for the same purpose. A Mr. Shannon, of California, who was a member of Congress during the war, said to me the other day : " This Congress, and every other that I have seen, is cursed by demagogues. I can understand a scoundrel, and meet him ; but a demagogue is an insidious being, who works with treach- ery upon the instability of periods and localities, and defeats good legislation, by making somewhere a prejudice. During the war, when we had been defeated on the Rappahannock, and everything was going to pieces, Congress sat here in session, debating how to make a new army. It was proposed, in this emergency, to have a conscription, and make every man, if necessary, come out to defend his country ; but when this bill passed, what did that demagoguing Congress do, though it sat within a day's march of the enemy ? Why, they set about passing a commutation bill, which was, in fact, nothing but a bill to raise revenue. The United States had a right to every man in it to go to the front if he was needed and take his chances, but that miserable set of demagogues sat there wrangling as to whether the draft policy could not be evaded by the payment of some money." In this you can see how the commercial republic prefers to sacrifice but one thing, and that is cash. In peace it will buy justice, and in war it prefers to buy the nation back, rather than to fight for it. Here is one of the greatest evils at the Capital, OUR CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM. Ill not that corrupt legislators hot from the stews ol caucus, will take money for their vote, but that commercial men of high character, will pay the money m order to save time. When a set of interests in New York want a bill essential to their sol- vencyr.-=-a bill perfectly proper in itself to pass Congress, they employ a lawyer and send him on here, with autjiority to draw money it it be needful ; and he generally gets but one instruc- tion, and that is to carry the bill, and, " if these fellows begin to tinker about it, just pay them.'* It is the country people of the United States who are still its mainstay — the large class who have not been debuached by great profits, and whose devo- tion to the State is as strong as the family tie itself. If we can stop demagoguing among the poor people, and corruption amongst the enterprising, we shall have solved the main prob- lem ; and our reserve forces, which are rapidly gaining strength, — such as intelligence amongst the masses, the dissipation of old illusions — such as the assumption that the plundering of the many is business — and the drafting of good men into politics by a sort of social enforcement — these are our reliances to save the State. Here, before me, as I write, is the Captain's chart, the manual for the Speaker of the House of Representatives. It consists of 500 odd pages, and superbly bound, and is a piece of government work, pronounced by Colfax to be the best parliamentary manual in the English language. The contents of this book are : 1. The Constitution, and amendments, of the United States — so well indexed that the Speaker can catch any phrase of it in a couple of winks. 2. Thomas Jefferson's manual of parliamentary practice, which, by law of 1837, governs " in all applicable cases." 3. The standing rules and orders of business in the House of Repre- sentatives, 161 in number. 4. Joint rules and orders of the house, 22 in number. 5. Standing rules in the Senate, 53 in number, 6. The whole of the foregoing digested or made compendious and perspicuous by John M. Barclay, Journal Clerk of the House of Representatives. The digest alone, 112 ORGANIC EVILS IN making 212 large pages. Herein you haye the traditional and self-imposed laws of the National Legislature in the popular branch, and he who shall study this book well, can be advised of the most economical, expeditious, and impartial way of carrying on the federal legislation of the Republic. A very few members^ however, have studied the manual: some have never looked into ; and a large proportion of those who know it best, have mastered it for the purpose of taking advantage of it. Young men and boys have a good deal to do with legislation. Willie Todd, Speaker Colfax's messenger. Of him I took occasion to inquire into the person and history of Thaddy Mor- ris, who had been page to Speaker Pennington in 1859, and virtual Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. Pen- nington was a delightful old gentleman, ignorant of parliamen- tary practice, and he was elected by a compromise between the adherents of Sherman and Marshall, of Kentucky. Placed in his embarrassing chair, he found the great dog-pit of the House barking, like Cerberus, under him, and he took every ruling, point, and suggestion from Thaddeus, most gratefully. Once, it is related, when young Morris had prepared every- thing snugly for Pennington, outlined the order of business, prompted him completely, and left the course " straight as the crow flies," so that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not go astray, he said to the Speaker : " Now, go on." " Now, go on ! " cried Pennington, promptly, to the House ; at Vv^hich thore was huge laughter. It was an inspiring thing to see that delicate boy, secreted in the pinnacle of the nation, like Paul Revere's friend in the old South Church spire, supplying knowledge to the gray- beard who had the honor without the skill of governing. There is many a boy, unseen, at the elbows of statesmen — little fellows of downy chins — whose heads are as long as a sum at compound interest. This is the Senate-house, a room all gold and buff, a belt of buff gallery running round it ; through the gold of the roof twenty-one great enameled windows giving light. The floor hereof is a soft red English carpet ; deep golden cornices sur- OUR CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM. _ 113 round the hall ; a blue-faced clock without a sound goes on with time remorselessly. So blackly the people fill all these galleries that it is but here and there a sunbeam falls upon a face, making it warm yellow ; the far-ceiling corners of this hall are full of darkness ; dark also are the deep-gilt ornament- ations in the edge of the ceiling ; upon the floor, however, where the chief actors stand, it is clear as open day. The scenes witnessed in the night sessions are a good deal like the physical manifestations to which you are used in old cross-road churches at what is called " revival time." People speaking against time to exhausted auditors, each auditor, however, getting up steam for his particular turn at exhorta- tion or prayer. The Speaker, whose attention and nervous readiness must be kept up to a high pitch, sits far up in his seat, behind the marble desks of the clerks, gavel in hand, like a man on a wagon-box, keeping in rein two hundred horses at once, and these horses — " fractious," or poorly broken — duck, break up, rear, neigh, or pull the wrong way, or lazily, while his gavel is flourished like a whip-handle without a lash. The disposition to draw blood, and the inca- pacity to do it, are very clearly expressed in his face, and therefore he brings the House to by a loud " Whoa ! " Then he straightens them up with a cautious " Peddy — peddy — whoa ! G'lang now ! " Directly some stallion bounces off into a ditch, and the Speaker's " Gee, there, Mike ! " or " Haw ! haw ! Tommy ! " with dreadful indications of the broken whip-handle, coerce the team into some degree of good behavior. In the cloak-room, some groups of Congressmen are smoking. Here and there on the floor of the House you see some one surreptitiously pulling at his cigar. Every lobbyist, who by hook or crook can get upon the floor, is traveling about between seats and sofas, with a sly, sidewise look, an express- train tongue, and a vigorous movement of his hand, gesturing on his private interest. Here is a member helping out some such lobbyist, introducing him round, pulling a group of folks 114 ORGANIC EVILS IN into the wash-room or side-lobby, all talking, hearing, suggest- ing, flying round like folks wrought up to the verge of despair. In the open space before the Speaker a score of anxious people assemble, ready to seize the Speaker's eye and gouge some proposition through it. Now vindictiveness is most alert to beat some hated rival or adverse interest in the dying hours of the session, as it has succeeded so well in doing during the bulk of the season. You can make intense studies wherever you look, as ot two such hating and hated enemies watching each other. Here is Bellerophon, the member from Pasca- goula, resolved to get his friend Shiftless, of the contested seat, through in the nick of time, for Shiftless has scarcely money enough to embark on the train for his home, and he hopes, by a decisive vote, to save all his back pay, settle his board bills, and have some spending money. Bellerophon is on the floor, in the area, working his faith- fullest. He cries, " Mr. Speaker," in and out of time, feels his skin abraded by repeated failures, and the color, pale or red, rises alternately to his cheeks, while poor Shiftless stands ofl in pleading silence, saying short pieces of prayer between his need and his hypocrisy, like a man in a steamboat when there is inevitably to be a scuttling. Some distance off, Strike, the unappeasable enemy of Shiftless, lurks, with the light of revenge in his eyeball, and the phrase "I. object!" upon his tongue, balanced like a man's revolver at full-cock. So they fignt it out. So they stand arrayed — the old immemorial history ot friendship, enmity, and hero, celebrated since litera- ture could venture to portray anything. The morning hours advance ; nature gives out, and all doze or sleep but these three, and many similar trios like them. At last even interest subsides, and he whose rights are being guarded, feels himself satiety, listlessness, inattention. He sleeps at his desk, while vigilant Friendship, keeping guard in the area with v/eary legs, cries steadily in all the pauses : " Mr. Speaker, I believe I have the floor ! " " Mr. Speaker, you recognized me, I am sure, sir ! " OUR CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM. 115 Still Malice, with unsmoothable eyes, is ready with his cocked revolver, saying ever ; " I object ! " Even Friendship wearies in the end, and stopping in some empty perch to rest, feels the leaden weights upon its eyeballs, drive them slowly down. But when the interested one and his champion are quite overcome, still tireless and remorseless the Enemy looks out, bright and prepared, with the uncom- promising — " I object ! " Knovi^ing, as I did, the undertone of motive at the Capitol, I watched the last hours of the session on a Saturday with something of the sentiment of Lord Macaulay when he contem- plated the Tower of London ; ^' They are associated with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with tli« inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and blighted fame." The same must be said of the latter days of the Senate, in executive session here, when enemies fall afoul of each other and slaughter each other's hopes of place between the decisive instants of triumph. It is the old, old story ot Raleigh, Essex, and Sidney. CHAPTER X. STYLE, EXTRAVAGANCE, AND MATRIMONY AT THE SEAT OP GOVERNMENT. Dining in Washington is a great element in politics. The lobby man dines the Representative ; the Representative dines the Senator ; the Senator dines the charming widow, and the charming widow dines her coming man. For reed birds the politician consults Hancock, on the avenue ; for oysters, Har- vey ; and for an ice or a quiet supper, Wormly or Page ; but there is no dinner like Welcker's. He possesses an autograph letter from Charles Dickens, saying that he kept the best res- taurant in the world. He has given all the expensive and remarkable dinners here for several years ; and talking over the subject of his art with him a few days ago, we obtained some notions about food and cooking at Washington. Welcker is said to be a Bel- gian, but he has resided in New York since boyhood, and he made his appearance in Washington at the beginning of the war as steward of the seventh regiment. He is a youthful, florid, stoutish man, with a hearty address, a ready blush, and a love for the open air and children. Every Sum- mer he goes down the Poto- mac, shutting his place behind him, and there he fishes and shoots off the entire warm season, wearing an old straw hat JNO. WELCKER. RESTAURANT PRICES. 117 and a coat with only one flap on the tail. Nobody suspects that this apparition of Mr. Winkle is the great caterer for the Congressional stomach. Nobody imagines that this rustic is the person whose sauces can please even Mr. Sam. Ward, that distinguished observer for the house of Baring Brothers. No- body knows — not even the innocent and festive shad — ^that this Welcker is John Welcker, who came to Washington dur- ing our civil broil, drew and quartered for Provost Marshal Fry, fed all the war ministers, and gave that historic period tlie agreeable flavor of Mushrooms. In the early days of Washington, entertainments other than family ones were given at the taverns, some of which, as Beale's, stood on Capitol Hill. Afterward Mrs. Wetherill, on Carroll Row, set especial dinners, breakfasts, and suppers to order. In later times Crutchett on Sixth street, Gautier on the Avenue, and Thompson on C street, established restaurants a la carte, Gautier sold out to Welcker, who had such success during the war that he bought a large brick dwelling on Fifteenth street, near the Treasury, and at times he has leased several surround- ing dwellings, so that he kept a hotel in fact, though without the name. Welcker has a large dining room, eighty feet long by sixteen feet wide, with adjustable screens, adapting it to several small parties, or by their removal to make one large dining room, which will seat one hundred people. Welcker's main lot is one hundred and thirty-three by twenty-five feet. The character of Welcker's entertainments is eminently select, and his prices approach those of the English Castle and Falcon, or of Philippe's in Paris. His breakfasts and dinners a la carte are about at New York rates, less than those of the Fourteenth Street Delmonico, and matching the St. James and Hoffman restaurant prices. The most expensive dinners he lias ever given have cost $20 a plate. Fine dinners cost from ^10 to $12 per plate, and breakfast from $5 to $8 per plate. He has fed between six and seven hundred people per diem, as on the day of Grant's inauguration. His best rooms rent at $8 a day, and consist of a suite of three rooms, but the habit- 118 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. ants thereof pay the establishment for food, wine, &c., not less than $50 a day. Welcker's chief cook is an Italian Swiss, obtained from Mar- tini's, New York, — the same who distinguished himself .at Charles Knapp's great entertainment in 1865, the cost of which yras $15,000. Welcker supplied the food for Mr. Knapp's last entertainment, in 1867, at the I St. mansion, now occupied by Sir Edward Thornton. There are five cooks in all at Welcker's, and the establishment employs thirty servants. During the past session he has given at least two dinner parties a day, averaging twelve guests at each, and each costing upwards of 1100. The best fish m the waters of Washington is the Spanish mackerel, which ascends the Potomac as high as Wicomico river. They come as late as August, and bring even five dol- lars a pair when quite fresh. Brook trout, propagated artificially, Welcker thinks lack flavor. He obtains his from Brooklyn, but says that there are trout in the Virginia streams of the Blue Ridge. Freezing-boxes, or freezing-houses, such as are established in Fulton Market, New York, do not exist in Washington. These keep fish solid and pure for the entire season. The inventor of them is a Newfoundland man, and he proposes to put them up in Washington for $300 a piece. Welcker says that tlie articles in which the District of Co- lumbia excels all other places are celery^ asparagus, and lettuce. The potatoes and carrots hereabouts he does not esteem. The beef is inferior to the Virginia mutton, which he thinks is the best in the world — better than the English Southdown. Poto- mac snipe and canvas-back ducks Welcker thinks the best in the world, and the oysters of Tangier, York river, and Eliza- beth river he considers unexcelled by any in the world. The Virginia partridge and the pheasant, — which are the same as the northern quail and the partridge, — Welcker also holds to be of the most delicious description. Our markets, he says, are dearer than those of New York VARIOUS PRICES. 119 and Baltimore, and less variously and fully stocked. The mar- ket system here requires organization, being carried on by a multitude of small operators who are too uninformed about prices to institute a competitive system, and hence it often hap- pens that potatoes are sold at one place for $1.50 a bushel, am somewhere near by for only fifty cents a bushel. His marke^ bill will average during the session, $600 a week, and some- times rises to $300 a day. The most expensive fisheries on the Potomac rent for about $6,000 a year. Messrs. Knight & Gibson, who have the Long Bridge fishery, opposite Washington, paying $2,000 a year for it, pay also $6,000 for a fishery near Matthias Point, about seventy miles down the Potomac. Knight & Gibson keep a fish stand in the Center market. The first shad which reach the North come from Savannah, and bring in the month of February as much as $6 a pair. Alexandria is the chief mart for saving and salting shad. Gangs are often brought from Baltimore, Frederick, and Phila* delphia to man the shad boats, and five miles of seine are fre- quently played out. The black bass in the Potomac river were put in at Cumberland several years ago, and have propagated with astonishing fecundity. How much nobler was the exper- iment of this benefactor of our rivers than the wide spread appetite for destructiveness we see everywhere manifested. The most expensive dish furnished by Welcker is Philadel- phia capon au sauce Croddard, stufifed with truffles, named for the celebrated surgeon Goddard of Philadelphia. The best capons come from New Jersey, but good ones are raised in the region of Frederick, Md. The capon is probably the most delicious of domestic fowls, attaining the size of the turkey, but possessing the delicate flesh and flavor of the chicken. Truf- fles cost eight dollars a quart can, and four dollars and a-half the pint can. They come from France and North Italy, and grow on the roots of certain trees. Truffle dogs and boars are used to discover them, and the boars wear wire muzzles to keep them from eating the precious parasites. Truffles look 120 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. like small potatoes, except that they are jet black through and through. The capon is boiled and served with white-wine sauce and with sweet breads. - Take next for an example the pnces which we receive in the Arlington, which is a small hotel, with a capacity for no more than three hundred and twenty-five persons. Senator Cameron paid for himself and wife $450 per month, and had but two rooms. Senator Fenton had a parlor, two bedrooms, and an office, and paid $1,000 per month. Mr. S. S. Cox and wife, paid $250 per week, and he gave a buffet supper, for one hundred persons, which cost him $1,500. Mr. W. S. Huntington, gave the Japanese the finest spread ever set in the Arlington Hotel ; there were only twenty persons, and he paid $1,000. Dr. Helmbold paid $96 per day, and his bill for two weeks was about $1,600. A parlor, and three bed- rooms in the second story of the Arlington, with a small family occupying them, are worth $450 per week, during the season ; and one guest here pays for a parlor, bedroom, and bathroom, $300 per month. At the Delevan House, Albany, Dr. Gautier used to pay $375 per week, and General Darling, with a parlor, three bedrooms, and four persons, paid $400. The hotel at Lake George, had 37,000 on the register last season, in four months ; it took in that space of time $294,000, and the net profits were $52,000. The Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, rents for $200,000 a year, including the stores beneath it. The St. Nicholas rents for $95,000, although it cost but $425,000. Mr. A. T. Stewart has just rented to William M. Tweed, the Metropolitan Hotel, New York, for $65,000 a year, to put his son, Richard Tweed, into business as a landlord ; and the Lelands, who go out, paid $75,000. The cheapest piece of hotel property, in point of rent, in this country, is the Brevoort House, New York, which rents for $27,500, and has three owners ; it is kept on the European plan, excepting the tahle d' liote, which it does not keep up, as it has made its reputation on the best cuisine in the world. BALL TO PRINCE ARTHUR. 121 One evening in 1870 the Capitol of the nation did itself credit, by heartily welcoming one of the young sons of the Queen of England. The opportunity was a ball given by the British Minister, Thornton, to Prince Arthur,- probably with the origi- nal motive of making his visit agreeable to the young man, by showing him the pretty girls in their most becoming dresses, and giving him a convenient chance to speak to them, as a young man likes to speak to a fine girl, intimately, and agreea- bly. Nothing has ever been invented like a dance, to bring the young folks together. The story of Cinderella's slipper turns, upon going to the Prince's ball ; and I suppose that, so long as human nature remains what it always has been. Princes' balls will be popular, and Princes the type of all that is noble and exalted. Jones is called the prince of caterers, and Simon the prince of sleeping-car conductors, and if the term be a compliment when it has no reality in it, how really infatuating must be a true Prince, born of the Queen, peer above the highest, with jealous mysteries of blood, and a birthright which will keep respect and inspire superstition, long after its wearer is broken down in character, and ruined in purse. The most decided Republican and Democrat, though he may sneer at Princes and deprecate attention to them, is apt to feel the strange magnetism of the name and the office, for it is an admonition of antique times and government, a word of spell, signifying to the ear at least, the issue of those whose love and nuptials affected a realm, a period, or a world. Tliis Prince is still a Prince, though not a powerful one — a far-off son, with elder brothers between him and a throne, — and perhaps he has had reason to feel the distance at which he stands from favor ; therefore, it was gentle in us, who had treated his high-born brother with such opulence of incense and favor, to be no colder towards young Arthur. His father and mother were exception- ally chaste, as affectionate as wife and man in two sensual and selfish lives could be. His mother wrote with her hand, a letter of sympathyto the widow of our most precious President. The office of Prince in our day is reduced to such small political 6 122 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. figure, that we could do no harm to monarchy, by showing republican bad manners to this young gentleman. And we owe it to our high place amongst nations to do cheerful hospitality to any Prince or ruler, well-behaved, who comes amongst us with frank confidence in our good will and good breeding. I write this down, because it is always easy and tempting to sneer at Princes ; and when this young man came to the Capi- tal, I had an itching to say something that would make you laugh about him. There is really no reason, however, for any disparagement, because the good sense of our guest and our people, has been displayed during his visit. If any low fellow has said anything coarse in his presence, I have not heard of it. He has been subjected to a round of official dinners and recep- tions, which I would not have passed through for a hundred dollars a day, and he has kept himself patient and obliging all the time. More than that, he is a young man, and can't help being a Prince. So good luck to him ! Mrs. Thornton, like the first walking lady in a comedy, gathered up her moire antique dress with the satin trail, close to the blue satin panier, and surrounded with Apollos of lega- tion, each looking like a silver-enamelled angel out of a valen- tine, accomplished the descent of the stairs, treading all the way upon scarlet drugget, and helped by the laurel-entwined balusters. At the foot was the Prince, dressed in the uniform of the British Rifles, — dark sack coat, double-breasted, buttoned to the throat, and well trimmed and frogged along the lappels ; tight, dark-colored pantaloons, with a stripe, strapped over patent leather boots ; a steel-sheathed dress sword, at his side ; an infantry cap in his hand ; a little cartridge box, like a tourist's glass, strapped across his shoulder ; and what shone and flashed like a streak of day-light through him, was a huge jewelled star, the insignia of the Garter. This latter, perhaps the symbol of the highest nobility in Christendom, was more observed than the clear skinned, rosy face of the young man, his brown hair, good teeth, and obedient and intelligent eye. STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. 123 His clothes clung almost as closely to him as his skin, and while he was one of the most plainly-dressed persons conspicuous upon the floor, this fact alone made him somewhat eminent. There was that, besides, which gave him beauty and character beyond the star that threw a hundred sheets of light every way he turned ; the fine distinction of ruddy youthfulness, made modest and interesting by being placed in such prominence. If a young man knows how to feel publicity, and yet bear him- self well under it, so that there is a nice mingling of self-relianco and sensitiveness, the effect upon a crowd is to get him hearty sympathy — the next thing to admiration. Arthur gave Mrs. Thornton his arm, and escorted her to the ball room. The Cupids out of the valentines, the Prince's followers, and all the rest of the little suite and embassy joined in behind, making quite a spangled procession, as if the gas fixtures were going to a party in company with the window curtains. As they all came along together, gold ramrod and satin drapery, the band in the gallery struck up, " God save the Queen !" Then the people sitting in cane chairs on both sides of the long hall stood up, and ceased waving their fans. The shoe blacks and darkeys in the street below, looked up at the flaming windows, and said interjections, and danced steps of involuntary jigs, and said out of their malicious little spirits : " Shoo Fly." Arthur, witli Mrs. Thornton still on his arm, walked the whole length of the hall to the carpeted platform, when he turned about, and waited modestly till the music ceased. Then he shook hands with many folks standing round, whom he remem- bered, or thought he did. Elphinstone, his aid, was covered all over with medals of daring, gained probably, by such victo- ries as this, and he wore the gorgeous uniform of his red- complexioned nation. Picard, another aid, wore the English artillery uniform. They looked well, as Englishmen look — a sort of stiffened-up suggestion of manhood, with indications of skye terrier fringing out. Ono of the romances of Washington city was recently enacted 124 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCES. in the Diplomatic Corps. For nearly thirty years Baron Gerolt served the interests of Prussia at Washington city, and he lived long enough to rear native-born American children under the shadow of the Capitol, one of whom married Mr. Rangabe, the Greek minister. Gerolt owed his appointment to this country to Baron Humboldt, who had been entertained by him while charge in Mexico, and who recommended him to the King; of Prussia. Gerolt was an affable, republican sort of man in society, fond of the American people, and his social associates were men like Charles Sumner and others, who inclined him towards the Federal side in the war of the rebellion. He prob- ably got considerable credit for original principle during the war, when he was really subordinate to acquaintances ot a stronger will, who impressed the claims of the North upon him. It is charged that, at home, he was somewhat tyrannical with his family, as is the German custom : and that he and his wife wished to assert too much authority over their children, who had inhaled the breath of the Western hemisphere. Whatever the interior side of his life might have been, Gerolt is remem- bered enthusiastically by some of the best people in Washing- ton, Republicans and Democrats alike. He resides at Linz, near Bonn, in Rhenish Prussia, and is permanently out of the diplomatic service of North Germany. The Gerolts, although Germans, are Catholics, and the girls were strictly brought up under the tuition of the priests at Georgetown. Bertha, the youugest daughter of the Baron, now abou,t twenty-three years of age, and a very rich and handsome type of the young German girl, fell in love, three or four years a»;o, with her father's Secretary of Legation, a tall, handsome, dashing and somewhat reckless Prussian, and a connection or relative of Bismarck. This young Secretary belonged to a fine old Brandenburg Protestant family, which had decided notions against forming Catholic alliances. The young gentleman would have fallen heir, in time, to large estates in North Prus- sia ; but these were in some manner, as it is stated, made con- ditional upcn his keeping up the ancestral Lutheran faith. ROMANCE AT THE CAPITOL. 125 Tins young Prussian chap, you may recollect as being the an- tagonist of one of our ministers, Lawrence of Central America, some two or three years ago, when the two met on what is called the field of honor, exchanged shots, and then patched up the fight without bloodshed. He paid court to Bertha Gerolt, and she was intensely enamored of him. In order to make the nuptials easy on both sides, Gerolt applied to the Catholic Church authorities for an indulgence, or something, warranting the marriage of this hereditary Protestant with his Catholic daughter ; but as it was specified that the children issuing from such marriage were to be brought up Protestants, the Roman dignitaries refused. Gerolt, who appears sincerely to have Avished to please his child, had also intentions upon the Pope ; but while these ecclesiastical efforts were being made, the do- mestic correspondence between the Secretary and his mother in Germany, and some ensuing letters from Madame, growing warmer and more indignant from time to time, had the effect of racking the poor girl's feelings ; and, in the end, the hand- some Prussian went home. This is an end to the matter up to the present. Bertha Gerolt refused to accompany either her father or mother to Germany, and has retired to the George- town Convent, where, some say, she will take the last veil ; and others that she will repent after a while, and reappear in the •world. Opinion is divided in this city as to why Gerolt was remanded to his own countr3\ Some say that he suffered certain indigni- ties at the hands of our State Department. Others allege that he was insufficient particularly about the time that American arms were shipped to France to be used against the Prussians. It is said that, on that occasion, Bismarck asked Mr. Bancroft why our goverment permitted such things ; and Bancroft, to make it easy for himself, retorted that there was Baron Gerolt in Washington, and, if he had been attending to his business, the arms would have been detained. Others say that Catacazy drew Gerolt into an intrigue, and got him to work against the late treaty which wo made about the Alabama claims. What^ 126 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. ever the facts, the Baron has gone for good, and his admirers here are preparing to forward him an elaborate service of sil- ver, to show that what he did for the country in its crisis is remembered at least by its private citizens. You have many a pretty girl in the West who would be ex- cited if the prospect were held out to her of marrying the Por- tuguese Secretary of Legation. Yet a Portuguese person of nearly that description was content to marry a negro girl the other day, at the Capital to which he was accredited. The Pe- ruvian minister's wife was raised here ; and the former Russian minister married the pretty daughter of a boarding-house keeper at Georgetown. Yet were any of them happier, or even richer ? I doubt it much. One New Year's day I saw a beautiful woman, reared here, who is soon to go to Russia for life, and consort with candle eaters in a cold empire where the flag that was the pride of our babyhood does not float, where the music and the language we love is not spoken, and middle age, and old age, and her children must be given to a people who can never know her like her countrymen. It is strange to see women deluded into these alliances by some high fangled echo of a word, or a fashion-plate. As a rule, these foreigners ac- credited to tlie Capital of the United States are either politicians of the third class around the governments of their countries, or courtiers of the third class. An European courtier, reduced t» his essentials, is a pleasing politician around his Capital, pres- sing to be provided for, fed, and rewarded. He has passed through the same straights, shrewnesses, and triumphs as an American politician, held up somebody's coat tail, been some- body's brother-in-law, owed his appointment to the pretty face of a sister, or he has written up the side of some patron, in a pamphlet or newspaper, and crowded all sail to be furnished with an exchequer in other parts. When an American girl, therefore, marries '' a member of the foreign legation," she mar- ries merely a politician or a noodle who can speak only bad English, who probably marries her for her money or for his ennui, and who is habituated to having mistresses at home. MARRYING FOREIGN MINISTERS. 127 I am not speaking of anybody, nor of everybody, in the foreign legations at Washington, when I thus produce the com- parative light of fact and experience upon them ; but as a general rule, I would not take a turn next door, to see a mem- ber of legation. We know, by observation upon him at home, — that being in a white and gold cocked hat, a sword, a ruffled shirt, and a pair of scarlet and gold trousers, who came up before the President on the first day of the year, and bowed, and left his royal master's condescensions. It was with such feelings, — while recognizing many reverend and excellent gentlemen among the foreign ministers at a levee, and several persons of talent and pursuit, — that I ran my eye along the gaily attired line, — the romance of the name, and tlie livery gone from my mind ; while at the head of our State, in plain black, stood the little General who fought bigger battles than any of their Kings, and commanded a nation of men with more destiny than all their combined States possessed antiquity. The mystery and magic of the foreign Service and uniform, are kept alive entirely by our American women. We men do not believe in them. If Miss Jane Smith, or the widow Tompkins, marries Signer Straddlebanjo, she ascends, in the female mind, to the seventh heaven of respect, while eating yet the same pork chops, and taking milk from the same pump and milkman. Many of these gentlemen have found good wives and com- fortable homes among us. You are aware that the famous French Minister, Genet, set this example early, by retreating from tlie contempt of Washing-ton, and the frown of Jefferson, into the bosom of the Clinton family, and never returned to France at all. That famous old rooster married three times, if I am well informed, in the United States, and some time ago, when I was introduced in New York to a lawyer and city politician named Genet, I said to him musingly : " Why ! that was the name of the great lettre de marque Frenchman!" 128 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. " My grandfather !" replied the politician of Tammany Hall. When Mr. Johnson shoved his friend, the Adjutant-General, through the tenure-of-office act, he had little idea how he was hastening the marriage ceremony of little Bibbapron. Bibb- apron had fixed his engagement day for the first of July, so as to be in New York on the Fourth, and set off some firecrackers, after which he expected to make some good resolutions to regu- late family life at Saratoga Springs. But people who are engaged, are always impatient. They are left alone together a good deal, and find waiting to be a sort of dissipation. It is neither pursuit nor possession, neither fish nor flesh. It is the tenderest, most quarrelsome, most tantalized, most disheartened, most forebode- ful period of love. No wonder that Bibbapron, when he heard of the " High Court of Impeachment,'* the solemnity of the spectacle, and the great learning of the managers and counsel, had but to suggest to Molly what a delightful time it Avould be to visit Washington, when she embraced himself, and the occasion. The milliner was hurried up. Ma was persuaded that Summer was an unhealthy season in the East. The little marriage ceremony was not held in the church, but in the parlor at home, and the clergyman's feo reduced somewhat in consequence. Bibbapron's papa gave his son a letter to Congressman Starch, and the express train saw Ihe pair tucked in, the last tear shed, and the town of Skyuga fade from the presence of its prettiest girl. It is to tell all the engaged folks how to get to Washington and how to see it, that I reluctantly took Mrs. Bibbapron's diary and copy a few pages from it. They are strictly accurate, for which the other corres- pondents don't care to use them. Mrs. Bibbapron has a way of italicising every other word in diary, which I don't care to imitate, and she makes a very pretty period with a tear, which, of course, I cannot do. The diary was a present from her younger sister ; it had an almanac in it and blank washing lists, with quotations from the poets under each date. Here it begins : " April 22, 1868 — Dear me, how tired ! I am in Washington, the Capital of the United States. It's not larger than New GETTING TICKETS. 129 York, my husband, Alonzo, says, which I think is a great shame. Government ought to make it bigger right away, or have it somewhere where it would get bigger, itself. The maps are all incorrect about Washington, where jt is represented by a great many dots, while all the other towns have only one dot. We went to Willard's Hotel, and, in order to give us a fine view of the city, they put us up in the top story. We went down to breakfast at nine o'clock, and called for oysters, of course. They tasted as if they had been caught in warm water. The fresh shad was quite a bone to pick. My dear husband took a cocktail before breakfast. He says it's quite the thing here. Senator Tatterson joined him, he says. I hope my husband will never be a drunkard!" N. B. — He says the Senator took Ms straight. Half-past ten o'clock. — Alonzo, my darling husband, has been to see Congressmen Starch, and brought him into the ladies' parlor. Pa can't abide Congressman Starch, because they differ in politics ; but Alonzo's Pa is a Republican, and lent Mr. Starch a horse and wagon to bring up voters. I think it was very generous of the Congressman to ask so particularly about Pa's health. He gave me two tickets for the great trial. He says they are very scarce, and old ones are sold for relics for ever so much money. The managers buy the old ones to paste their photographs on them, and present them to the Historical Societies. Congressman Starch says he lost his best constituent to give me these tickets, but told me to be particular not to tell Pa about it. He says Johnson is the great criminal of the age, and ought to have been impeached before he was born. There is no doubt, he says, that it was Johnson in dis- guise who murdered Mr. Lincoln, and then bribed Booth with a clerkship to be killed in his place. He says that General Butler offers to prove that Boston Corbett was only Andrew Johnson, who killed Booth to keep him from telling. Poor Booth ! He died saying ' Poor Carlotta 1' I never sing that song but tears come to my eyes, and I think of my husband. Alonzo will never kill the President. He was brought up a Baptist. 130 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. Five o'clock, P. M. I have seen all the great patriots of our country. Mr. Sumner is the greatest of them all, his hair is so exquisite. Mr. Brooks, of New York, who gave him such a beating, was on the floor of the Senate, wearing spectacles. He is a newspaper editor, and drives a pair of cream-colored horses. He must be a dreadful man, but is right good looking. Mr. Sumner forgives him, because he prints his speeches. I am going too fast, but really, I have so much to do to-day, that I don't know where to begin. "We took the horse cars to the Capitol, and went along Pennsylvania Avenue. The National Hotel looks sick, ever since the celebrated disease there. I was surprised to see so many negroes in the car. Congress compels them to ride, in order to carry out the Civil Rights bill. The poor souls look dreadfully as if they wanted to walk some. Dear me ! I love to walk since I am married. I can take my husband's arm then and pinch him. It seems to me that we ain't happy unless we pinch those we love ! The Capitol is the grandest, most wonderful building in the whole world. It is all marble, with a splendid dome above it, and a perfect hide-and-seek of aisles, passages, and gorgeous stairways. It looks like a marble quarry in blossom. They wash it every night, and the government officers spit it yellow every day. Alonzo says tobacco is bought by the ream, and charged, to "stationery." He says that this is quite right, because when the members have a chaw in their mouths they speak less and save time. I hope my husband will never chew tobacco. Government ought to pass a law against it, and get the women to enforce it. On the top of the Capitol is a statue of Pocahontas, flying a kite ; I should think it ought to be Benjamin Franklin, but tliey have got him inside in marble. It will take millions and millions to furnish the Capitol. I sup- pose they will have nothing but Axminster carpets and oiled walnut. In the dome of the Capitol there are beautiful pic- tures. I liked the marriage of Pocahontas the best. She wears her hair plain, and her dress looks like a bolster case. The A bride's diary. 131 Indian women have beautiful figures but their clothes are dow- dy. Some of them in this picture wear goose feathers for full dress, and look to have caught cold; But that's what's ex- pected of a bridesmaid. She dresses for a consumption ! We got good seats next to the Diplomatic Gallery. Alonzo pointed out the Russian Minister and his wife to me ; we ad- mired them very much till we heard that it was the Minister's Coachman a-nd cook. The foreign Ministers send their servants here when they want their gallery to look genteel. Theodore Tilton was distinguished by his long hair. He has withdrawn the nomination of Cliase, and ruined the Chief-Justice. He looks sad about it. Congressman Starch showed us the Chief- Justice, a man like Washington in holy orders. Mr. Starch said he would be impeached soon with all the Judges. The Bench, he says, is rotten. (Why not give them chairs ?) He said if it had not been for the Bench, the constitution, which is the cause of all this trouble, would have been done away with long ago. Dear me ! an old rotten bench ought not to keep our country in such peril. The Senate Chamber is all buff and gilt, like an envelope on Valentine's day. There is a silver ice pitcher on the table of the President's counsel, which I believe is plated. I wish I could just go down and feel of it. They say fimt the Government is swindled in everything. Per- haps the coolest swindle is ice pitchers. This is mean. Wash- ington, Webster, and Mr. Starch must be incapable of it. If my husband ever comes to Congress I mean to work him a pair of slippers in red, wdiite, and blue. Then he can't go across the street, like Mr. Alwusbeery to drink between votes, in his stocking feet. I saw Mrs. Southworth, the great novelist, author of the " Deserted Step-Mother." She lives at Georgetown in a haunt- ed boarding-house. Her health is good, considering what must be her distress of mind, say two hundred pounds without jewelry. Her dress was a black silk, tabs on the mantilla, and angel-sleeves, so as to leave space to swing her beautiful pen. If I could write like Mrs. Southworth, I would keep 132 STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. Alonzo, my darling husband, sitting at my feet in tears all the time. Mrs. Swizzlem, the colored authoress of Mrs. Keckley's book, was in the diplomatic gallery with one of Mrs. Lincoln's dresses on, counting through an opera glass the pimples on the face of one of the Senators. She hates his wife, Alonzo says, and ineans to worry her. f Mr. Thornton, the British Minister, looks very much worried. ^ Congressman Starch says that Senator Chandler is a Fenian, tind means to make a dreadful speech at poor Mr. Thornton. Alonzo is afraid it will miss fire, and kill some innocent per- son. Senator Wade, the next President, looks like Martha Washington. He is a very pious man, beloved by everybody, and would have become a preacher if they had not wanted him so bad for President. Twelve A. M ! Oh, dear ! that ever I was married ! Be still, my poor soul ! I have heard of the wickedness of men — now I know it ! Last night T heard something like a wheel- barrow coming up stairs. It seemed to fall around the elbows and upset at all the platforms. It tumbled right up to my room. The wheelbarrow burst right through the door ; first came the wheel and then pitched the barrow on top of it. The barrow was Congressman Starch, the wheel was — Alonzo. They joined themselves together again and wheeled forward, right up onto the bed. There were so many legs and so much motion and hallooing that I could not tell my husband from the other. I said, however: "Merciful Heavens! " To this replied my husband, in terms like the following : " Johnsing's gone up. Starchy threw cashting vote. Mime going tee be Conshul-General under Ben Wade — all hunk ! " Said a voic6, proceeding, as I conjectured, from the owner of that pair of legs which did not wear Alonzo's trowsers : "Yesh! bet your Impartial Justice according to zhec laws. Mime going ter be Secretary thinteeryer ! " I rang the bell and wept. The waiters removed the Con- STYLE AND EXTRAVAGANCE. 133 gressman. My husband snored. I hope the bed was buggy for he deserved it. In the morning, after a sleepless night, I heard Alonzo cry : " Miss Bibbapron ! Congress water ! " Now I know where this dreadful Congress water gets its name. It's what makes Senators tipsy. I hope the Impeachment trial will be done soon. Congress- man Starch shall never get my vote. Oh ! that I should be a bride and bring my husband to Washington ! " Washington's white house as it was in Philadelphia, 1790, CHAPTER XI. THE WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. The President's residence down to 1 800 was of a floating character ; now in New York, now in Philadelphia ; and the ladies of the Executive branch of the government were very like women in barracks with army officers ; sometimes sent into damp dwellings, again like the wives of Methodist preach- ers, perpetually waiting for ships to come with their clothes and carpets. Mrs. John Adams, in a volume of letters, edited by the late Minister to England, her grandson, which I have found in the Congressional Library, gives some lively sketches of a Presi- dent's wife. Yv^riting to her married daughter in the latter part of November, 1790, from Philadelphia, she speaks dole- fully of her quarters and those of the ladies of the Cabinet. " Poor Mrs. Knox, (wife of the first Secretary of War,) is in great tribulation about her furniture. The vessel sailed the day before the storm and had not been heard of on Friday last. I had a great misfortune happen to my best trunk of clothei:. The vessel sprung a leak and my trunks got wet a foot high, by MRS. ADAMS' DESCRIPTION. 135 which means I have several gowns spoiled ; and the one you (Mrs. Smith) worked is the most damaged, and a black satin — • the blessed effects of tumbling about the world." After a while the City of Washington was laid out, and in the first year of this century, Mrs. John Adams started for the great new " Palace " of the President. The whole story is told in a letter to her daughter, Mrs. Smith, written November 21st, 1800. It is notable as being probably the first letter ever writ- ten in the White House by its mistress : " I arrived here Sunday last, and without meeting with any accident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on the Frederick road, by which means we were obliged to go the other eight through woods, where we wandered two hours without finding a guide or the path. Fortunately a straggling black came up with us, and we engaged him as a guide, to extricate us out of our diffi- culty ; but woods are all you see from Baltimore until you reach the e'lty^ which is so only in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed among the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing any human " The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables — an establishment very well proportioned to the Presi- dent's salary. The lighting of the apartments from the kitchen to parlor and chambers, is a tax indeed ; and the fires we are obliged to keep to secure us from daily agues is another very cheering comfort. To assist us in this great castle, and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you can obtain. This is so great an inconvenience that 1 know not what to do or how to do. * * * If they will put up some bells and let me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to be pleased. Surrounded with forests, can you be- lieve that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be 136 WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. found to cut and cart it ? * * * Briesler has had recourse to coal ; but we cannot get grates made and set. We liave indeed come into a new country. You must keep all this to yourself, and when asked how I like it, say that I write you the situation is beautiful, which is true. " The house is made habitable, but there is not a single apartment finished, and all within-side, except the plastering, has been done since Briesler (the steward) came. We have not the least fence, yard or other convenience without, and the great unfinished audience-room I make a drying-room of, to hang up the clothes in. The principal stairs are not up, and will not be this Winter. Six chambers are made comfortable ; two are occupied by the President and Mr. Shaw ; two lower rooms, one for a common parlor, and one for a levee room. Up stairs there is the oval room, which is designed for the drawing-room, and has the crimson furniture in it. It is a very handsome room now, but when completed, it will be beautiful. If the twelve years in which this place has been considered as the future seat of Government, had been improved, as they would have been in New England, very many of the present inconveniences would have been removed." Mrs. Adams, writing again November 27th, says that : " Two articles we are most distressed for ; the one is bells, but the more important is wood. Yet you cannot see wood for trees. We have only one cord and a half of wood in this house where twelve fires are constantly required. It is at a price, indeed ; from four dollars it has risen to nine ! " Again, Mrs. Adams shows us a picture of distress almost as bad as a Methodist preacher's wife's experiences : " The vessel which has my clothes and other matters is not arrived. The ladies are impatient for a drawing-room. 1 have no looking-glasses but " dwarfs" for this house ; nor a twen- tienth-part lamps enough to light it. Many things were stolen ; more broken by removal ; among the number my tea china is more than half missing. Georgetown affords nothing." Mrs. Adams was a preacher's daughter, married young, and THE CABINET CHAMIJER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. JEFFERSON'S HABITS. 137 she burst into tears when her husband got his first nomination to anything. They lived together fifty-three years. John was the son of a rehgious shoemaker, and himself a school-teacher. His conceit was large, his thrift equal to it, and all the Adamses since his day liave not degenerated from these standards. They were the original Yankees of the White House, and it is re- markable that every Northern President has saved some of his salary, while the contrary is true of every Southerner but one. They kept the unfinished mansion in a righteous sort of way, drank a good deal of tea, shopped cheap, went to church through mud and snow, and the plasterers told so many stories about what they saw through the cracks that Congress elected Adams out, and demanded a man who should be a little wicked and swear some. Lemonade and oat-cakes were the standard lunch in those times. Jefferson liked his social glass ; he used darkeys to do the chores ; he had to pay his own secretary, like everybody else down to Jackson's time, provide his own library, and meet deficits out of his own pocket.* His wife, who had been a widow, like Mrs. Washington, died long before his accession, and he had a house full of daughters and adopted daughters. It was French republican simplicity and camp-meeting court- ing. Jefferson talked with everybody freely, disliked clergy- men, never had an opinion but he ventilated it ; but he held more than his own, because he was a great man, without affeo *It is common saying in these days, that it costs a President for the first time more than $25,000 per annum to live in Washington. Mr. Jefferson wrote in 1807 : " I find on a review of my affairs here as they will stand on the 3d of March, that I shall be three oi: four months' salary behindhand. In ordinary cases, this degree of arrearage would not be serious, but on the scale of the establishment here, it amounts to seven or eight thousand dollars, which having to come out of my private funds, will be felt by me sensibly." He then directs his commission merchant to obtain a loan from a Virginia bank, and adds : " I have been under an agony of mortification * ♦ * Nothing could be more distressing to me than to leave debts here unpaid, if indeed, I should be permitted to depart with them unpaid, of which I am by no means certain." He may have appre- hended from tradesmens' rapacity, aided by political hostility, imprisonment for debt. 138 WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. tations. In those days, atheists, painters, editors, Bohemians, and carpet-baggers of all sorts, foreign and domestic, made free with the White House. The President, red-haired and spindle-shanked, read all the new poems, admired all that was antique and all that was new, but nothing between times. The White House was hung with no red tape. It stood all this loose invasion because there was a real, sincere man in it. In Mrs. James Madison the present White House found its brilliant mistress, albeit she had been brought up a Quaker, Mis- tress Dolly Payne, then Mrs. Todd, widow, and at last the wife of Congressman Madison, who had been jilted early in life by Miss Floyd, her townswoman. Madison was well along in years when he married, and Mrs. Madison had to take care of him. He had no children. The place was clear there for out- side company, and it is questionable as to whether the house has at any time since been so well administered. Madison was a diminished and watered copy of Washington, and made a good parlor ornament. There was nothing little about him, except a general want of character, compensated for by a good deal of respectability Mrs. Madison made the big house ring with good cheer ; dancing was lively, as in Jefferson's time ; the lady was " boss," and, unlike most of her imitators, had the genius for it. The whole cost of the President's house, now perfectly completed, had been 8333,307. After the British burned it, the total cost of rebuilding, and adding two porticoes, $301,496.25. The burning happened so unexpectedly, that one of Mrs. Madison's great dinners w^as eaten by the British, all smoking as they found it. The lady herself cut out of its frame a cherished portrait of Washington, still preserved in the mansion, and when the President returned, they opened house on the corner of Twentieth street and the avenue, near the " circle," on the way to Georgetown. After Madison died, his widow rented a house opposite the White House, and kept up the only secondary, or ex-Presidential Court, ever held in Washington. Mr. Monroe's wife was a fairly wealthy lady of New York, THE BLUE KOOM AT THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON- THE WHITE H0U3B. 139 and he came to the Presidency at an era when all parties har- monized. The White House was quite a court in his day, as he had an interesting family, gave great dinners, and looked benevolently through his blue eyes, at all the receptions. He had no brilliant qualities, and therefore had no " nonsense about him." By this time the White House had been all re- stored and furnished, although the grounds were still a good deal like a brick yard. Let us look at the furniture of it in those days, little changed down to the period of Harriet Lane and Mrs. Lincoln. James Hoban built both the original and the reconstructed White House. It stands on ground forty-four feet above high water, but the drainage all around it is bad, so that fever and ague may be caught there if you only prepare your mind to get them. A small chest of homoeopathic medicines in the house is a sure preventative, whetlier you take them or not. The building is THE WHITE HOUSE. one hundred and seventy feet long and eighty-six deep, built of , free-stone over all. There is an Ionic portico in front and rear, opening upon grounds of shade and lawn which are open to the public at all times. The front portico is double, so as to admit folks on foot and carriages also. About one-half of the upper part of this house belongs to the family elected to live in it, and also some of the basement ; but the wliole of the 140 WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. first or main floor is really public property, and half the second floor is tlie President's business office. Therefore, ladies, you will own as much of the White House when you come to live in it, as you own of the hotel in which you board. The great mansion has a wide hall in it, a stairway on one side, leading up to the office-rooms, and at the bottom, or, to be less Cockney, the end of the hall, there is a large oval room, opening out of which are two parlors, left and right ; go through the room to the right and you enter the great dining-room ; go through the room to the left and you enter the large banqueting- room. Now see the size of these rooms, which you will per- ceive at once to be home-like as a connected series of meeting- houses : Hall (entrance), 40 by 50 feet. Oval room, 40 by 30 feet. Square parlors (left and right), 30 by 22 feet. Company dining-room, 40 by 30 feet. Banqueting Cor East) room, 80 by 40 feet. All these rooms are twenty-two feet high. You will perceive that they are eminently cosy and contracted. The President's private rooms consist of a great barn-like waiting-room, and two or three connecting offices. Let us see how these rooms were furnished in the time of Monroe, Adams, and Jackson ; a de* scription which is nearly perfect for to-day. I get these facts from an old book, defunct since 1830, called " Jonathan Elliot's History of the Ten Mile Square." Oval-room, crimson flock paper, with deep gilt border ; crimson silk chairs, ditto window curtains ; one great piece of pattern carpet interwoven with arms of the United States ; tables and chimney-pieces of marble ; two huge mirrors and a cut-glass chandelier. Into this oval room the square rooms to left and right open on levee nights, with furniture as follows, distributed also amongst the dining- rooms : Paper ot green, yellow, white and blue, respectively sprinkled with gilt stars and bordered with gold ; between the two dining-rooms, company and private, the china (not your own, ladies), is stored, and the provender (enough in all con- THE EAST ROOM IN THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. THE FAMOUS EAST ROOM, 141 science to pay for) is kept on ice, subject only to the trifling pilferings of the aristocratic steward, who commonly keeps two or three small groceries in the suburbs running. These rooms are plentiful with panelings, mirrors, chandeliers, and a paint- ing or two of not much consequence comes in. There was no gas in these rooms till the time of Polk, and everybody was greasy with candles. It looked like a perpetual secular mass, got up for the masses. The enormous East room had lemon- colored paper with cloth border ; four mantels of black marble with Italian black and gold fronts ; great grates, all polished ; a mirror over each mantel, eight and a half feet high by five feet wide, ponderously framed; five hundred yards of Brus- sels carpet, colored fawn, blue and yellow with deep red bor- ders ; three great cut-glass chandeliers and numerous gilt brackets ; curtains of light blue moreen with yellow dra- peries, a gilded eagle holding up the drapery of each; a cornice of gilded stars all around the room ; sofas and chairs of blue damask satin ; interior east room. under every chandelier a rich round table of black and gold slabs, and in all the piers a table corresponding, with splendid lamps above each ; rare French China vases, etc. Here, you have the White House pretty much as it stands, barring the leaky roof that nobody can mend ; a huge hotel, full of the ghosts of dead men and the echoes of political gab- ble ; ringing of nights with the oaths of Jackson, the fiddle of Jefferson, the cooing of John Tyler, the dirges over the corpses of Harrison, Taylor, and Lincoln. If you come to live in it, you know nothing of who else is visitor. Marry a man who keeps a hotel, and you have about all that a President's lady possesses. 142 WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. John Quincy Adams was arraigned in the campaign of 1828 for having put up a billiard table in the White House. This had been bought by his son and secretary, Cliarles Francis Adams, out of the latter' s private allowance. It was the first billiard table ever set up in the White House. During his ad- ministration, the East room, in which his mother had hung clothes to dry, was so gorgeously furnished, that the Jackson people abused him for it on the stump, and in the party news- papers. He was the most perfect host, except Millard Fillmore, and possibly Frank Pierce, that the North ever gave to the White House. Modest, bold, widely experienced, he was the last learned man that has lived in the Executive Mansion, and more learned than any other occupant of it. He was too genteel to be re-elected. He went down to duty as cheerfully as to an apotheosis, and graduated out of the White House into Con- gress. " The White House," says James Parton, '' has more in com- mon with the marquee of a Commander-in-Chief than the home of a civilized family. Take it, therefore, as it looked under Old Hickory, the archetype of Mr. Johnson. To keep up the Presidential hospitality, he had to draw upon the proceeds of his farm. Before leaving Washington, in 1837, he had to send for six thousand dollars of the proceeds of his cotton crop in order to pay the debts caused by the deficit of the last yearV salary. A year previous to that time he had to offer for sale a valuable piece of land in Tennessee, to get three thousand dol- lars, for which he was in real distress. ''Here in Washington," he says, " 1 have no control of my expenses, and can calculate nothing on my salary." Earl was the painter Carpenter of Andrew Jackson, and painted his portrait in the White House. Earl used to get orders because he had the ear of Jackson. Everybody in Chris- tendom poured into the White House in those days. Mrs. Eaton was the Mrs. Cobb of the time, and Jackson's most per- sistent public effort was to make people visit her. He used Martin Yan Buren for the tolerably little business of forcing THE GllEKX KOOM IN' THE AVHITE HOUSE, ■\VASIIIXGTON. \> RA UNIVERSITY ANDREW JACKSON. 143 this lady into society, and finally dismissed all his cabinet and sent his daughter and son home to Tennessee, because they re- fused to embrace this lady. At the levees everybody ate cheese ; when there was no cheese they ate apples,. cold smoked sausage, anything provided it had a smell. The place stank with oh^ pipe and smoke ; it was redolent with Bourbon whiskey. For the first time the Executive Mansion became a police-office, a caucus-room, a guard-room, a mess-tent. But Jackson's vices were all of a popular sort. He called all his supporters by their first names. General Dale, of Mississippi, met Jackson strolling in the grounds in front of the President's house. (What President walks in the grounds familiarly any more?) " Sam," said the General, " come up and take some whiskey." He shivered his clay pipes, uttering emphatic sentences. He invited his friends to roam at will in the White House. He used to smoke corn-cob pipes, which he whittled and bored with his own hands. He had a collection of pipes greater than has ever been seen in this country outside of a tobacco-shop. There was wine always on his table. He cracked hickory-nuts on a hand-iron upon his knee. The cold-blooded and impene- trable Van Buren he called " Matty," as if Mr. Johnson should address Mr. Seward as " Little Bill." Ho drove all sorts of odd coaches, had street figlits, behaved like the incomprehen- sibly despotic old patriot that he was ; but the people always stood by him, because the people were about as bad as he was. He kept the city in dreadful fear ; all his friends were duelists and office-grabbers, desperate with thirst and low origin. Jack- son turned 2,000 people out of office in the first year of his reign. Prior to that time only seventy-three removals had been made in nearly half a century. Said one of Jackson's most intimate friends : "Our republic, henceforth, will be governed by factions, and the struggle will be, who shall get the offices and their emolu- ments — a struggle embittered by the most base and sordid pas- sions of the human heart." After the First Andrew had retired from the Presidency, he wrote to a Nashville newspaper in 1840, of Henry Clay : 144 WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. " How contemptible does this demagogue appear when he descends from his high place in the Senate, and roams over the country retailing slanders against the living and the dead." Jackson also encouraged Sam Houston to waylay and brutally beat Congressman AVilliam Stanberry, of Ohio, for words spoken in debate, saying : "After a few more examples of the same kind, members of Congress will learn to keep civil tongues in their heads." He also pardoned Houston when the latter had been lined by a District of Columbia court for the same act. When the First Andrew left the AYhite House with a farewell address, the New York American said : " Happily it is the last humbug which the mischievous popularity of this illiterate, vio- lent, vain and iron-willed soldier can impose upon a confiding and credulous people." Jackson returned home to Tennessee with just ninety dollars in money, having expended all his sal- ary and all the proceeds of his cotton crop. He was then an even seventy years of age, racked with pains, rheums, and pas- sions, a poor life to pilot by. Jackson kept two forks beside the plate of every guest, one of steel, another of silver, as he always ate, himself, with a steel fork. I have found in a sketch-book this j^icture of the White House as he was seen in it at his best : " A large parlor, scantily furnished, lighted from above by a chandelier ; a bright fire in the grate ; around the fire four or five ladies sewing, say Mrs. Donelson, Mrs. Andrew Jackson (adopted son's wife), Mrs. Edward Livingstone, &c. Five or six children, from two to seven years of age, playing about the room, regardless of documents and work-baskets. At a dis- tant end of the apartment, General Jackson, seated in an arm chair, wearing a long, loose coat, smoking a long reed pipe, with a red Virginia clay bowl (price four cents). A little be- hind the President, Edward Livingstone, Secretary of State, reading a despatch from the French minister, and the President waves his pipe absently at the children to make them play less noisily." Martin Yan Burcn, the first of the New York politicians, THE KK1> KOOM IX THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. VAN BUREN AND HARRISON. 145 and the political heir of Aaron Burr, was boosted into the White House by Jackson, to whom he played parasite for eight years, and who rode with him to inauguration. Van Buren's wife died in 1818 ; he had four sons ; kept the White House clean and decent, but never was heartily beloved. The East Koom was one cause of his political death, as Ogle, a Pennsyl- vania Congressman, described it as a warehouse of luxuries bought with the people's money. Ogle mentioned every orna- ment and its cost, and the ladies kept all the items going. Had Van Buren been a married man, they would have " skinned " his lady in every dreadful drawing-room in the Union. Haj> pily the poor woman was dead. I forgot to mention, that General Jackson's wife died of joy over his election. She was a very religious woman, very ignorant, and Jackson's friends thought it well that she was never tempted with the White House. The short month of President Harrison in the White House is chiefly memorable by his death. His was the first funeral ever held in the building. He was sixty-eight years old, a magnified physical portrait of William H. Seward, with some- thing of the bearing of Henry Clay. A full Major-General he had been, and, beloved by almost every one, his graces were nearly meek, except as relieved by the remembrance of his valor. The power of " hard cider," and " log cabin," nick names, while they elected him to the Presidency, also put him under a campaign pressure, which, added to the crowd of office-seekers who ran him down by day and night, quite terminated his life. He took cold seeking the outer air for privacy's sake, and diarrhoea carried him away. His last words were: "I wish the true principles of the gov- ernment carried out. I ask for nothing more !" John Tyler was the first President who brought a bride into the White House, as he was the first who buried a wife from its portal. The dead wife he had married in 1813, the new one in 1844. He took the oath of office, owing to Harrison's dying during the recess of Congress, to 1 146 WHITE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS. a District of Columbia Judge. The White House was there- fore in a tolerably dull condition all this time, and it im- proved very little under General Taylor. Two dead Presi- dents, one dead wife, and a i^idower's wedding are dismal stock enough for one house in \five years. Tyler approaches Johnson in some disagreeable respects. He went back on his: party, and never recovered goodl esteem even among traitors to the country. 1 President Polk suggests sometling of Johnson in the place of birth, North Carolina, and in hisiplace of adoption, Tennessee. He was just fifty years old when he took possession of the White House. Mrs. Polk Avas a daughter of Joel Childress, a merchant of Tennessee, and a Presbyterian, while the Presi- dent inclined toward the Methodists. She made a good host- ess and leaves a good name in the old mansion. As President Harrison was killed by office-seekers. President Taylor was killed by a Fourth of July, — standing out in the hot sun, after fourteen months' tenure of oflice. Taylor made more mistakes of etiquette than any other President, not excepting Mr. Johnson, but he had a heart. His war horse followed his rider's body out of the White House gate. In those days Jeff Davis, son-in-law of the President, came familiarly to the White House. Taylor was a good father and a jagged old host. But he always meant well. Millard Fillmore, his successor, was by odds the handsomest man that ever lived in the building, and also the most elegant. He was the American Louis Philippe. His wife died a few days after the expiration of his term, and also his daughter. Frank Pierce was a winning man, but without any large mag- netic graces. He rode horseback every day, unattended, miles into the country ; his wife was a perpetual invalid. We have now come clos© to the great clash of the rebellion. James Buchanan, the ancient news-carrier between Clay and Jackson, mounting upon the spiral stairs of office-holding, brought for his house-keeper, Hattie Lane, a red-haired, rosy- cheeked, buxom Lancaster county lass, not unused to fair VIEW IN THE CONSERVATORY, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. LINCOLN AND JOHNSON. 147 society, and the only drawback to her perfect happmess in the White House was the old uncle himself. He bullied small pol- iticians who had served him at his own table before his niece, but in the sense of outward courtliness, when it suited him, there were few such masters of deportment as old Buck him- self. He fell, like all Northern dough-faces, into the hands of rebel thieves like Floyd, and did their bidding till the powder was hot for the match. Then came Abraham Lincoln with his ambitious wife. Afterward with Mr. Johnson came his invalid lady, and his daughters, Mrs. Patterson and the widow Stover. CHAPTEE XII. SOME OF THE BUREAUX OP OUR GOVERNMENT VISITED — ^LIGHT SHED UPON THEIR MANAGEMENT AND CONTENTS. Some parts of the Federal Government are never noticed here, because they have not associated with politics, and, there- fore, never become the subject of party news. Few persons ever hear of the National Observatory, the only public building here which stands near our meridian of longi- tude, and where the computations are made by which American sailors grope their way over the main. Few know anything of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, one of those extraordinary enterprises of the Gallaudet family, where deaf mutes are educated for professions, and to be teachers of other institutions. The Coast Survey is also a lost institution to the great mass of Americans, although it is better known abroad than any bureau of our Government. It is the nearest of all the public ateliers to the Capitol edifice — only one block. A small tin sign set up against the jamb of the open door of a very old brick residence, has beci. its only advertisement for forty years. This old residence is one of half a dozen stretched along old New Jersey Avenue and on the scarp of Capitol Hill, which are tenanted by the office employees of a service embi*acing the largest area of labor in the government. Some of the buildings are across the way ; some are in a newer, smaller row on the same Avenue ; one building is a fire-proof safe, big enough for a family to live GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 149 in ; the main office is in Law's old block, a highly respectable, thread bare, Bleak House sort of pile, which is cracking and groaning through its hollow concavities more and more every year. If you have any business with the Coast Survey — and it is not to folks in general a " show" department — you might venture to peep into its office door some morning, and there you would see a bare vestibule, a couple of inhospitable naked rooms for clerks, and for the rest a couple of worn and creaking stairs, leading to former bed-chambers. Back passages, also uncarpeted, con- duct to some old and would-be stately saloons, where a few steel engraved plates of the coast surveyings hang, as well as photo- graphic pictures of the founders and Superintendents of this beneficent undertaking. As 'w^e wander around these grim and rheumatic old apart- ments, over the half-faded carpets, amongst the quaint patterns of furniture and plush in former woods, and modes of weaving, and feel the mouldering, dry smell of the rented rooms where science is driven by democracy, we may well experience a sensi- tiveness as to what a little chance the useful, the dihgent, and the conscientious attain amongst us, and how busy are the criticisms of ignorance, calling itself ''practicability," upon matters beyond its ken. The meanest committee of Congress has a fire-proof parlor, walnut and leather furniture, a sumptuous clerk and a lackey. But here is the Coast Survey, suggested by Jeffiarson, begun by Gallatin, organized by Hassler, perfected by Bach^, and recognized by every learned body in this world, — this institution may be said' to exist by the oversight of politicians ; it scarcely knows where to lay its head ; it lives like the poor scholar, up back-attics, and in neglected dormitories ; it steadily refuses to be regulated by politicians, and it only gets its regular appro- priation because of the ignorance of the caucus Congressmen, who are afraid to be voted asses if they denounce it. One of the most interesting personages of the Coast Survey is Mathiot, the electrotyper, who has been at his business for the Government about a third of a century. 150 GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. He is a Marylandcr, a quiet, spectacled, grave man, below tlie medium size, and he discovered the art of separating the engraved plates of coast survey charts from the metallic unpres- sions taken of them — these impressions being used to print from, while the original plate is deposited in the fire-proof magazine. This discovery has saved ours and other govern- ments tens of thousands of dollars, but it is needless to say that Mathiot never got any recompense, and perhaps little recogni- tion for it. He is one of those ancient, slow, dutiful men, such as grow up and ripen, and are happy under benignant govern- ments. Some years ago he went down the river on the memo- rable excursion which killed a part of Tyler's Cabinet, and wlien the gun called the " Peacemaker" burst, Mathiot licard the gunmakers discuss the causes. They agreed that all the vibrations of the metal were caught in the acute angle where . the breech was pealed down to the barrel — tons of pressure concentrated upon a spot. Mathiot got to thinking this over, as it applied to the substance he should interpose between his plates. He had tried wax, and many other mediums, but the problem seemed to be something which should receive and deaden the whole force of electrotyping, — not make the plates cohere, nor yet deface the original plate. After much groping he hit upon alcohol and iodine. This, transferred by galvanism, makes a thin coating between the plate and the metal copy, of the scarcely conceivable thinness of 1,400 of the billionth part of an inch. Then, by filing off the edges of the two plates, the copy comes off absolutely perfect. Prior to that discovery the costly plates were crushed and defaced in the press, and were good for nothing after a few hundred impressions. But by the Mathiot process a dozen printing plates could be produced from one engraving. It is the pleasantest siglit in this bureau, to see the plates separated, and the tin burnished silver faces of the large and delicate charts come perfect from tlieir delicate embrace, every line, figure, fluting and hair clearly defined, and, the microscope fihowing no difference whatever. They have not touched, yet GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 151 they have imparted and received the whole story. It makes the dogma of the Immaculate Conception credible. To reduce the original drawings of charts to plate and stan- dard size, the camera is used. The sheets are printed on a liand press, the ink being roiled over frequently. There is no line engraving in the world superior to these charts. By the establishment of the Coast Survey the sea is made as sure and as familiar as the land. Almost every port in the Union has derived benefit from this organization. A Judge of the Supreme Court was telling me, a few days ago, about some inordinate fees which counsel liad received, within his knowledge. For example : David Dudley Field re- ceived ^300,000 from the Erie Railroad. William M. Stewart was paid 825,000 cash by the Gould-Curry silver mine, and so many feet of the ore, which altogether netted him $200,000. Jeremiah S. Black received $80,000 from the New Alexander mine, and a lew months ago he sued them for $75,000 in addi- tion, and received judgment. Wm. M. Evarts has been paid $25,000 for defending Andrew Johnson, and his annual income is $125,000. He recently charged $5,000 for one speech, which occupied eighty minutes. The Justice who gave this information decried the high charges which lawyers everywhere receive in one day, making no apology for extorting $100, where, ten years ago, $5 and $10 were deemed good fees. A few days ago I had the pleasure of passing through the document and folding-rooms of the Capitol, which are under the custody of the Doorkeeper of the House. If you under- stand by the Doorkeeper of Congress, a person who stands on guard at the entrance thereof, you greatly err ; for the door- keeper has more than one hundred employees, and is literally a person in authority, saying to one person go and he goeth, and to another come and he conieth. The chief subject of superin- tendence with the doorkeeper is that of the printed bills, acts, memorials, petitions, reports, etc., of Congress, which are filed, preserved, and distributed in a series of rooms called the docu- ment room, and he also has all the printed matter of Congress 152 GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. wrapped up and mailed, after it has been franked. The Chief Doorkeeper's salary is $2,650, and his Chief of Folding Room and Chief of Document Room receive each |2,500. The fold- ing-rooms lie in the cellars and clefts of the old Capitol build- ing, and comprise twenty-six rooms, some of which are below the surface of the ground, and are packed with layers of books twelve deep, the fall of a pile of which would crush a man to death. About 260,000 copies of the Agricultural Report alone are printed every year, and these will probably weigh two pounds a-piece, or 260 tons. Each member of Congress has about 1,000 copies of this book, for distribution, and all these copies are put up and warehoused in the folding-room, subject to the member's frank, and when they are to be mailed they are packed in strong canvas bags, of the capacity of two bush- els of grain measure. Sometimes 200 of these heavy bags are sent of a single night to the Post-office, to take their turn on the much-abused mail train. The boys who put up speeches and books for the mail are paid by the quantity of work done, and good hands can make nearly $50 a month. It is a busy scene in the depths of the old Capitol building, to see wagons come filled with documents, long rows of boys sealing envel- opes, and others working with twine, and the custodians and directors of the work are generally free to admit that there is much unnecessary printing done, and that many of the books printed are stored away and forgotten, in the vaults of the mighty labyrinth. The document-room occupies what was once the Post Office for the House of Representatives, and a part of the lobby and galleries of that celebrated old hall, now many years deserted for the new wing, where subsequent to the year 1818, the pop- ular body of the Legislature assembled under the Speakership of Henry Clay, James K. Polk, John Bell, Philip Barbour, Andrew Stevenson, Robert C. Winthrop, Howell Cobb, and Linn Boyd. Here upwards of two millions of copies of bills and docmiients are annually received, distributed, and filed, for nearly the whole of the vast business of Congress is done by GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 153 aid of printing, — the bills, acts, etc., being on the desk for every member at the moment of debating them. The usual number of copies of a bill printed is 760, and, if five amend- ments should be proposed, this would make 3,750 copies. If, therefore, each Congress should pass or consider 1,000 bills, each having five amendments, there would be 15,000,000 copies issued. About 20,000 copies of the laws of the United States are printed every year at a cost of several thousand dol- lars, and the sum of $689,000 was expended last year in all sorts of Congressional literature. The documents of Congress go back to the first Congress, and a manuscript index to them is kept, but the repository for them is neither fire-proof nor of sufficient capacity, so that they are in danger of combustion or hopeless confusion. The Capitol edifice is already too small for the multifarious offices and uses required of it, and we shall soon be compelled to meet the question of a general enlarge- ment of the whole affair or a relinquishment of much of the work which has been imposed upon the legislative body. We shall have to expect differences of opinion on such ques- tions as concern the gravity and self-knowledge of the whole Federal Republic. Take this case : The Commissioner of the Land Office, Joseph Wilson, is a man of wide reading and wonderful indus- try, and every year he prepares a very voluminous report upon the condition of the public domain, not only returning the statement of the new surveys, the quantity of land sold, and Buch technical tables as belong to his duty, but he also com- poses and throws together in an admirable way, the latest problems of empire and extension, the history of gold, and many miscellaneous statements of the highest interest. In addition to this he has handsomely measured and executed in his office, by accomplished German map-makers, such charts as will illustrate his report. One of these maps in particular, in- tended to show, upon Mercator's projection, the past, the pre- sent, and the prospective routes to, and possessions of, the Pacific, is entirely unique and admirable, and it is, perhaps, twelve feet square. t 154 GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. The question at once arises in the mind of every Congress- man, '' Shall we accept and print that report and have the ex- pensive maps appended to it engraved ?" Here are two arguments at once ; and where would jou, if a Congressman, stand upon the question ? 1. Pro. ; It was good of the Commissioner to do so much good work, and he ought to be encouraged in it. He is justly , proud of his valuable map, and it will do much good to scatter it broadcast with the report. The nation rejoices to see itself in the light of its rivals, and to see the century in the light of the past. Few officials care to do overwork, and Wilson's re- ports are as readable as they are important. 2. Contra : The Commissioner's reports are too long, and undertake too much schoolmastership. His big map will cost 1200,000 to engrave it. The Republic is not a high school, and a Land Commissioner is not a Professor of History. If we print this report ^it will be putting a premium on extra and un- necessary printing, and if we circulate the map the private map-makers will find their trade gone. Where do you stand on this question ? Yet, this is one of the innumerable topics coming up to re- quire to be voted upon, and this one was discussed last session in all varieties of ways. Charles Sumner thought the Federal State ought to waste no expense to understand and properly represent itself, both before its own citizens and the world. Mr. Anthony thought economy and a due restriction of Federal endeavors inclined us to reject the map. I think that I should have voted with Anthony and against Sumner, and on this ground ; Under our institutions the Government has no business to try to do too much for us. If it content itself with giving us a fair chance, the people of themselves will write treatises and engrave maps, particularly upon special topics. An international copyright law, which will cost the Government nothing, will at once raise authorship to a profession here, and out of authorship will come maps, facts, excursions, discoveries, and books, all the more valuable that GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 155 tlie people were rational enough to do them without law. Too much help at the centre makes helplessness in the extremities. Mr. Wilson's maps ought to be deposited in the Library of Con- gress, and anj mai>maker should be allowed to take copies of them at his own expense. Help the Library, Mr. Sumner ! and give us a copyright law, and national instruction from American sources will ensue. "Are you a revenue detective ? " said I to a man of my ac- quaintance. " No, not exactly. I had been studying up whiskey frauds, and I told Mr. Boutwell, who is an old friend of mine, that I believed that 1 could recover some millions of money lost dur- ing the years 1866, 1867, 1868." " You see," continued Mr. Martin, " that during those years of Johnson's administration the revenue derived from whiskey was only about $15,000,000 a year, although five times as much whiskey was distilled then as now, and although the tax, which is now 60 cents a gallon, was then $2 a gallon. Now, the revenue from whiskey obtained during the first year of Grant's administration has been $72,000,000, and I believe that $200,000,000 can be recovered from the distilleries and the defaulting revenue officials at civil suit. My investigations have been confined to New York, where I am confident that I can recover $50,000,000." " What was the nature of those frauds ? " " It is my belief that in nine-tenths of the cases the govern* ment officials were the corrupters of the distillers. Those cor- rupt officials escaped summary expulsion by the operations of the Tenure-of-Office law, for, even when Johnson was willing to turn out a perjured collector or assessor, that willingness was interpreted by the Senate to be a political prejudice, and tlie rascal always kept his place by proving that he was an anti- Johnson man. The distillers have almost invariably admitted to me that they would have made more money, with less wear and tear of conscience, had they paid the whole tax and traded on the square " 156 HOW BEVENUE FRAUDS ARE COMMITTED. " Explain how the frauds were committed generally." " Well, the act of fraud was generally perpetrated in this manner : The law compels every distillery to have two receiv- ing tubs, into which the high wines or whiskey is run, and no liquor is to be run into those tubs after dark. The revenue officer is supposed to come to the distillery and watch the whis- key drawn from the tubs into barrels, at which time he takes note of the number of gallons, and collects the tax. I have found distilleries of the largest capacity to return fifteen or twenty barrels a day, whereas a thousand, fifteen hundred, or two thousand barrels was probably the actual quantity manufac- tured. The fraud was, of course, perpetrated by collusion with the revenue officers, and in this way : An underground pipe extended from the bottom of the receiving tubs to a neigiibor- ing building rented by the distiller and called a rectifying room. If the underground pipe was suspected or found to be awkward, some boards were loosened in the roof above, and a hose or pipe dropped into the whiskey, which was then pumped by a hand pump or a steam engine into the rectifying room, where it was secretly barreled. Now, we come to that part of the fraud by which it was made next to impossible to trace the illegal whiskey into the hands of the buyer. The distiller would go to a whiskey dealer or speculator and conclude a mock purchase from him of, say, two thousand barrels of whiskey. When the illegal whiskey from the rectifying room was sold and shipped, therefore, the distiller's books sliowed that he has purchased two thousand barrels of crude whiskey of a certain party, and rectified it merely ; while a detective, tracing up this whiskey, would find the books of the pseudo seller to cor- respond with those of the distiller ; everything, therefore seemed to be fair and square, and the detectives were baffled. But, I am able to show, even where I cannot prove such a sale to have been a false one, that the government has a right to damages because, in almost every case this mock sale is marked down at a price below the tax, and this of itself the law sup- poses to he primd facie evidence of evasion." GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 157 " But, Mr. Martin, were there not door-keepers placed upon all the distilleries ? " . " Certainly ; but they, like the gangers, and all the rest up to collectors, were put upon salary, and found it convenient to slip away whenever necessary. I am prepared to show that as much as $15,000 a week was paid for months and months by some single distilleries, and from that down to $100 and $500 a week, as blackmail. In many cases the first instalments of these enormous subsidies were paid as flat blackmail. Let me give you an example : A distiller, in one case which I investi- gated, was a matter-of-fact German, who was mentally incapa- ble of keeping himself informed upon the intricate system of laws affecting the distilleries, which were constantly being amended, repaired, or repealed by Congress. The character of legislation upon this subject is of itself a snare and a pitfall to the simple man. Well, my old German distiller, knowing little of some new turn in the law, was waited upon one day by a revenue officer, who told him that he was operating illegally, and that his place must be forthwith closed up. " ' Why,' says my simple-minded man, ^ I had no intention of violating the regulations. If you close me up now you will ruin me. Here I have stored away an immense quantity of grain and other material. Is there no way of avoiding this seizure ? ' " ' I don't know,' says the revenue man, dubiously, ' I have only one set of orders. But you may keep on until to-morrow, when I will see the Collector. I won't close you up to-day.' " The next day back comes the revenue man, with a serious face, and says : " ' We have talked this matter over at the office, and we don't want to shut you up. We think that you are a good man, and that you mean to do right. I am instructed to say that $5,000 will fix this matter for the present.' " The distiller sees no way of escape. Time is precious to him. So he gives his check for five thousand dollars drawn to ' cash.' Thus begins a series of blackmailings, and there is no 158 WHISKEY FRAUDS. going back, because the distiller's offence is a State's Prison one. At last weary of these repeated exactions, he agrees with the revenue officer to pay a fixed salary every week. " Take another case : A man has put up a distillery ; he finds the tax on whiskey is two dollars a gallon, and yet that he can buy it in the market for a dollar and a quarter, so he goes to the Collector. " ' I have spent a hundred thousand on my distillery,' he says, ' and I propose to go into the busines ; but, if I pay the tax and sell at the market rates, I do not see how I can make anything.' " Well,' answers the Collector, ' you must do as others do. I will send a man to you to-morrow, who will tell you how to act.' " The next day a man goes down and debauches the distiller with a statement of how others do. Thus a mighty net-work of villainy covers the whole trade. The distillers get tp look upon the government officials as a class of blackmailers, and, as I have said, at least a quarter of a million dollars has been lost to the Treasury. The distillers put upon their guard, effiict an organization for mutual defense, and send their attorneys to Washington. In the pursuit of these discoveries, I have been opposed by the majority of the revenue officers in New York most bitterly. But I believe that the distillers, as a class, have been seduced into dishonesty, and, instead of sending them to jail, I am in favor of beginning a series of civil suits to recover the money lost during the years I have named. At this point Mr. Martin gathered himself up like a box-ter- rapin, and refused to make whiskey frauds any more mysterious. Washington City is the paradise of blank-book and bill-head makers. There are about half-a-dozen firms of this sort on Pennsylvania Avenue, which keep up an ornamental shop front, sell an envelope or a bottle of ink twice a week, and for the rest exist, or rather prosper, upon government contracts. The fattest take these worthies have is tlie Interior Department, whose Secretary makes his stationery contracts blind-folded. GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 159 A couple of ex-Commissioners of Patents seem to have seconded him to the extent of ordering about ten thousand dollars in sta- tionery every month, and when, some time ago, Hon. Elisha Foote took charge of the office, and fouiid that a thousand dol- lars a month would be an extravagant outlay for this material, the combined cohorts of Browning, the stationers, the Patent agents, and the corrupt clerks of the Patent Office in collusion with the swindlers, charged home upon him. The subject-matter of this collusion was the merry contract of Dempsey and O'Toole, a pair of gentlemen whose losses in the lost cause of J. Davis & Co., naturally made them objects of sympathy. They were awarded the contract for stationery and printing for the entire Interior Department, being the low- est bidders, according to the extraordinary description of bid- ding in vogue in Washington. This manner of bidding is something like this ; the stationer sees that among a large num- ber of articles there are needed gold pens, steel pens, expen- sive bound books, and envelopes. He makes a mental guess that not more than twenty-five gold pens will be needed by the whole department ; therefore, he offers to furnish these at seven cents each, the price of the same being, perhaps, three dollars each. But steel pens, he guesses, will be required to the amount of a hundred thousand ; the price of these he sets at five times their value. So with the few expensive ledgers. These he bids for at half their value, while he charges 300 per cent, profit upon common envelopes, the demand for which is enormous. By taking the average of an audacious bid like this it will be found in the aggregate lower than an honest contract ; for the depart- ment is unable to specify precisely the amount of each article it may wish to use, and the stationer expects to regulate this use by collusion with parties inside the office. When Mr. Elisha Foote, the Commissioner of Patents, came to his office, he found that under this fraudulent contract he was burdened with useless stationery at enormous rates. Bond paper, worth two cents a sheet, charged eight cents, lay in the vaults of the Patent Office, cnougli to last twenty years. Nev- 160 GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING. ' ertheless, the contractors demanded to furnish $24,000 worth more at the same extravagant rate, and clahncd that a verbal contract to that effect had been made with A. M. Stout, ex Commissioner. Mr. Foote then, to test the honesty of the con- tract, ordered three hundred gold pens at the low rate annexed in the schedule ; at this the stationers raised tlie cry that Commissioner Foote was profligately buying gold pens for all his clerks. Small paper-covered entry-books, as big as a boy's " copy-book," worth twenty-five cents, were charged twen- ty-five dollars ! Fifty thousand strips of paste-board, three inches square, worth a mill apiece, were charged four cents apiece. A bill was exhibited, paid by one of Mr. Foote 's prede- cessors, for twenty-eight thousand Patent Office heads and forms whereas only eleven thousand had been delivered. Interro- gated upon this, the stationers, appearing by Richard Merrick, their counsel, alleged that they had been permitted to collect in advance and use the government funds in their business. Asked why the additional heads were not forthcoming, they accused Mr. Foote of taking away the printing plate. In brief, Mr. Foote refused to pay the bill of 124,000 without an investigation. This was ordered to take place before three patent-officers, B. F. James, of Illinois, Norris Peters, of Dela- ware, and E. W. W. Griffin of the District of Columbia. This report is one of the most extraordinary pieces of white-washing in the history of Washington audacity. " The terms and conditions of the contract proper," says this commission, " exclude, necessarily, any inquiry into its char- acter or of the prices stipulated to be paid, unless fraud is shown." " And we are also of the opinion that bills presented to the Patent Office, accepted and paid, are also an estoppel on the part of the office as to the character of goods purchased and the prices paid therefor. Such purchases may be considered a matter of contract," etc., * * * a other matters that refer to tlie interests of the Office, in which Dempsey & O'Toole have not by any testimony been implicated, and which GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. V n^ 161 in their nature should not be made public by the commission, will form the subject of a separate report." Meantime Secretary Browning, with unseemly haste, twice ordered Commissioner Foote to cash this bill. The Commis- sioner said he would go to jail first. Arrangements were then made to take him in front, flank, and rear, by threat, inuendo, and storm, and while the stout old gentleman was wondering whether it was wise or possible to be honest in any public place. Congress happily came to his relief, despite the objections of the Democrats, and forbade the bill to be paid without investiga- tion. This case is convincing that the whole business of contract- ing for stationery at Washington is unprincipled, that waste and profligacy of stationery is universal, and that the Patent Office is full of people in collusion with outside scoundrels. Here comes the manuscript of the Secretary of State, and it is set up by sworn compositors, who dare not disclose it. Here most generally by observance, but not at present by breach, comes the first draft of the President's message, and all its accompanying papers. The long reports of Committees of Congress upon every conceivable question, are put into type here. In a word, no where else is any printing done for the general Government except the debates of Congress, which are given out by contract, and the bonds and notes of the United States, which are printed in the Treasury Department. In this building even the money orders are printed and stamped, which go through the post-office like so many drafts. So are the lithographic plates prepared here to illustrate the large reports of explorations. In 1860, Cornelius Wendell, a celebrated typographical and political jobber, sold this establishment to the United States for $135,000, and it is now the very largest printing office in the world. Among the public printers have been Gales and Seaton, Jonathan Elliott, Armstrong of Tennessee, Duff Green, Blair and Rives, Cornelius Wendell, and John D. Defrees, who has hold the position since 1861. 162 COST OF GOVERNMENT PRINTING. If there is anything that is pretty, it is to see a pretty girl on an Adams' press, feeding tiie monster so daintily. Here is a double row of them — Una and the lion reduced to machinery — presses and girls, the press looking up as if it would like to " chaw " the girl up, if it could only get loose from the floor, and the girl dropping a pair of black eyes into the cold heart of the press, all warm now with friction, ashamed of its grimy mouth, burning to slip its belt and trample the paper to ribbons, and turn bondage into bliss. She, meantime, touches it with her little foot, thrills it with the gliding of her garment, poises over it on one white little finger the plain gold ring of some more Christian engagement, and black with jealousy, the press plunges into its slavery again, dishevelled with ink ; dripping varnish, cold and keen of teeth, the imp goes on, and the beautiful tyrant only smiles. The government printing-office involves a yearly expense of from one million and a-half dollars to over two millions, and this does not include the printing of the debates of Congress, which is done by contract at the Globe office, and which costs seven dollars a column to report them, and six dollars (I believe) a copy per session for the Globe, in which they are printed. The five successive stages of this building are busy in scenes and suggestions worthy of our attention, but tlie limits of your pages and your patience demand more substantial matter. Government printers get a trifle better prices than are paid elsewhere in the country. Steady work will give one $1500 a year in this manufactory. The work girls get from nine to twelve dollars a week. The printers are almost always in excess, however. The great Bullock press cost $25,490. In one year new type added cost $18,804 ; printing ink, $19,717 ; coal, seven hundred tons ; new machinery, $5,000. In the bindery, four thousand Russian leather skins were GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 163 used, seven hundred and sixty packs of gold leaf (costing nearly $7,000), nearly five thousand dollars worth of twine, and as much of glue. The Executive Departments, with the Courts, required in 1867 about $757,000 worth of printing, while the House of Representatives ran up a bill of 1454,000, and the Senate $186,000. In addition to this. Acts of Congress warranted about $233,000 additional of work done for miscellaneous objects. Mr. Seward was a dainty hand with the types, and would have no bindings but the best. His bill in one year was about $32,000. The Supreme Courts and its satellite courts take less than half as much, or nearly $15,000. The Congressional printer himself has a little bill of $700, but the Attorney-General is most modest of all, not reaching the figure of $600, nor does the new Department of Education consume more. The Agricultural Department, with its huge reports, passes $32,000. The monstrous appetite of the Treasury leads everything, with nearly $300,000, and the War Department follows it with $148,000. Next come the Post Oflice, Navy and Interior Departments, ranging from $78,000 to 852,000. No enlightened Government in this age can do without public documents, but the whole system of distributing them should be changed. There are, perhaps, 3,000 odd counties in the United States. Let Government content itself with presenting a copy of every public work to these, and let it sell the rest to the people at cost price. Of the agricultural report the extraordinary number of 220,000 copies have been ordered for last year alone, at a cost of $180,000, or about eighty-five cents a copy. This cost is enough to pay the President, Vice-President, all the Cabinet officers, the Speaker of the House, and two-thirds of the first- class foreign ministers. In these reports there are 450,000 pounds of paper, or 225 tons, enough to take 225 double-horse wagons to pull tliem. Now, put these 225 tons into the mail bags, franked by Congressmen to corner grocers and gin-mill 164 PATENT OFFICE. proprietors, and you get some notion of the reason why the Post-Office Department was not self-sustaining. One evil suggests and supports another. The swindles of the world are linked together, and the devil's forlorn expedients against the nation are " omnibussed." At this very moment there are 800,000 copies of the reports for various years lying in the vaults of the Patent Office build- ing, being the quantity annually printed in excess of the demands even of extravagance. These copies represent 180,000 of the people's money invested in waste paper, mildewing, rotting, the spoil of paste-rats and truss makers. The new Commissioner of Patents, Mr. Foote, when he took his seat some time ago, was not aware of this decaying mass of agri- cultural knowledge, manuring the ground instead of the yeoman intellect. The Patent Office is self-supporting, but that is no reason why it should print more books than it wants. The bill for engraving plates of models for the Patent Office last year, was $85,000. This is not mis-spent, but the excess of books was profligacy. The usual number of copies printed of any public document is 1,550, or about the average circulation of books printed by private publishing houses. Out of this number more than one-half are bound up, the rest being distributed in sheets by gift, mail, or otherwise. It is the current belief in "Washington that the Patent Office department of the Government is not without corruption, but the agents and lawyers whose offices lie in its environs, and who are at the mercy of its examiners, are chary to speak, much of their bread and butter being bound up in the good- will of the directory. A partial awarding of patents, in the interest of money instead of merit, involves unjust millions of dollars, besides discouraging inventors, and making them doubt the righteousness of the Government. With a corrupt Patent Office, infinite law-suits arise, and yet it is probable that money is freely used within the precincts of that building, the claims of inven- tors who are willing to pay being considered in many gross cases GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 165 beyond those of the needy. So is there preference among the patent agents— those who soHcit patents — some being under- stood to have the ears of the office at their disposal, others failing to secure patents which are afterwards willingly granted to cotcmporaries. One of the oldest patent lawyers in the city said to me a few days ago : " The Patent Office has been more or less corrupt for fifteen years ! Yes, twenty ! When I used to be an anti-slavery man, in the years of Pierce and Buchanan, laj clients were given to understand that they would be wise to apply for patents by some other agent. Recently, I have known the changing of the agent to get the patent promptly. The office ought to be thoroughly overhauled. It has become so that examiners expect to serve a brief term and go out rich." Mrs. Poote, the wife of the Commissioner, is an inventor, whose patents have been profitable. She has invented a skate without straps, and several other things. Thaddeus Hyatt, once incarcerated in the District Jail for a complicity which he affected to have with John Brown's raid, is now a successful inventor, his patents for glass-lights in pave- ments netting him a very large income. About fifty thousand patents have been issued in the United States in thirty years, the receipts for which in fees have been nearly two millions and a half of dollars, wdiile the British Government has granted only about forty thousand patents in 250 years. This shows the extraordinary mental activity of the American mind in mechanics, and the Patent Office build- ing, which has cost the government no money, is the best monu- ment to American shrewdness and suggestiveness in the world. Amongst nearly a hundred thousand models stored in the splen- did galleries of that institution, one may wander in hopeless bewilderment, feeling that every model, however small, is the work of some patient year, lifetime, and often of many life- times, so that the entire contribution, if achieved by one mind, would have extended far into a human conception of an eternity of labor. 166 PATENT LAWYERS. The best patent lawyers in the United States are Judp-e Cur- tis and Mr. Whiting of Boston, Messrs. Gafford and Keller of New York, George Harding of Philadelphia, and Mr. Latrobe of Baltimore. The most succesful firm of patent ai^ents is represented by the newspaper called the Scientific American, which began upwards of twenty-two years ago. One of its partners is one of the ancient enemies of Bennett, who classified them as " Old Moses Beach and those other sons of Beaches," proprietors of the New York Sun. The other partners are Munn and Wales. Their income is fifty thousand dollars a year to each partner, and they obtain one-third of all the patents issued, which are chiefly, however, what are classified as " cheap pat- ents," on small and simple inventions. The Scientific Amer^ ican was started by an inventor, Rufus Porter, who sold out to the present owners. They refused to insert in it the cards of other patent agents, and it being the only paper of its class, the inventors at large transact their business through its pro- prietors. It A^as lately edited by Mr. McFarland, and under his management was altogether the best paper for inventors in the world. The Commissioners of Patents include some good names, chief of whom was Attorney General Holt, others being Ellsworth and Bishop of Connecticut, Burke of New Hamp- shire, Ewbank of New York, Hooper of Vermont, Mason of Iowa, and Theaker of Ohio. The Patent Office building is generally adjudged to be the most imposing of all the national edifices of the Capital. To my mind the Post Office is a better adaptation. The former was the work of the present architect of the Capital, Edward Clark, and its three porticoes cost $75,000 apiece. The four grand galleries, or model rooms, are unlike and magnificent. It is related here that inventors who spend many years among these modnls commonly go crazy. These divers operations, possessing little affinity, are all to be transacted by one head. The Bureau of Pensions dispenses nearly nineteen millions of dollars a year ; the Land Office gives GOVERNMENT BUREAUX. 167 away from seven to ten millions of acres of land ; three liun- dred thousand Indians are dealt with by the Indian Bureau ; seventeen thousand patents are applied for to the Commission- er ; all the Pacific railways are superintended and subsidized ; the public buildings and property in the United States in the District of Columbia and all the territories are administered ; two millions of dollars are paid to the United States Courts ; the whole of this immense and various business is transacted by one man. The Secretaryship of the Interior is therefore one of the very strongest positions in the government. So manifold became its duties that sometime ago the Agricultu- ral Bureau Avas endowed with a special head, reporting directly to Congress, and moved out of the o'ercrowded Patent Office. Now the Indian Bureau demands to be also brought nearer to the executive head of the Government, or made independent, so that its Commissioner can' have his legitimate influence with Congress. The Patent Office building is packed with Clerks, who also occupy the whole or parts of adjacent buildings, and it is demanded that a Department of the Interior be built on the Judiciary square, in the rear of the city hall, with the earn- ings of the Patent Office. MOUNT VERNOS. CHAPTEE XIII. A PICTURE OP MT. VERNON IN 1789. On a Tuesday morning, the 14tli of April, 1789, a venerable old gentleman, with fine eyes, an amiable countenance, and long, white locks, rode into the lawn of Mount Vernon, coming from Alexandria. Two gentlemen of the latter town accompa- nied him. It was between 10 and 11 o'clock. A negro man sallied out to take the nags, and the old gentleman, entering the mansion, was received by Mrs. Washington. " Why, Mr. Thompson," said the good lady, " where are you from, and how are your people ? " " From New York, Madame," answered the old man. " I come to Mount Vernon on a good errand, for the country at least. The General has been elected President of the United States under the new Constitution, and 1 am the bearer of the happy tidings in a letter from John Langdon, the President of the Senate." The General was out visiting his farm, however, and the guests were entertained for two or three hours, as we take care MOUNT VERNON. 169 of our visitors in the country nowadays. A glass of the Gen- eral's favorite Madeira, imported in the cask, was probably not the worst provision made for them, and the cheerful gossip of Mrs. Washington, who had known Mr. Thompson, and visited his house in Philadelphia, helped to enliven the time. This grave and respectable old man was the link between the new Government at New York, and the new Magistrate at MounU Vernon. Charles Thompson had been the Secretary through all its eventful career of the Continental Congress which had directed the cause of the Colonies from desultory revolt to Independence and to Union, and now he had ridden over the long and difficult roads to apprise the first President of the Republic of the wishes of his countrymen. At 1 o'clock. Gen- eral Washington rode into the lawn of Mount Yernon, in ap- pearance what Custis, his adopted son, has described : An old gentleman, riding alone, in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed white hat, a hickory switch in his hand, and carrying an umbrella with a long staff, which is attached to his saddle-bow. The umbrella was used to shelter him from the sun, for his skin was tender and easily affected by its rays. Washington greeted Mr. Thompson with grave cordiality, as was his wont, inquiring for his family, and divining already the object of his visit, broke the seal of John Langdon's official letter. Dinner followed, and, while the visitors retired to con- verse or stroll about the grounds, the President-elect wrote a letter to tho President of the Senate, and sent it forthwith to the Post-Office at Alexandria by a servant. The letter was as follows : " Mount Yernon, April 14th, 1789. " Sir : — I had the honor to receive your official communica- tion, by the hand of Mr. Secretary Thompson, about 1 o'clock this day. Having concluded to obey the important and flatter- ing call of my country, and having been impressed with the idea of the expediency of my being with Congress at as early a period as possible, I propose to commence my journey on Thursday morning, which will be the day after to-morrow." This done, the rest of the day passed in conferences between 170 MOUNT VERNON. Washington and his wife, in the preparation of his baggage for the not-unexpected journey, while meantime the distin- guished guest was amused by the young official household in the library and grounds. At Mount Yernon was one of the brilliant Bohemians of his time, David Humphreys, colonel, poet, biographer, translator of plays, foreign traveler, courtier, and delightful fellow gen- erally, with locks like Hyperion, a " killing " countenance, and no fortune to speak of ; so he had become a permanent guest of his old General. To him Thompson was turned over for hospitality, and we may suppose them mixing the grog, discuss- ing France and the pleasures of the Palais Roy ale, and guessing the names in the new Cabinet with the staid Secretary, Tobias Lear, a New Englander, like Humphreys ; while, perhaps, the latter recited his tolerably bad rhymes : " By broad Potomack's azure tide, Where Vernon's mount, in sylvan pride, Displays its beauties far, Great Washington, to peaceful shades, Where no unhallowed wish invades, Retired from fields of war." The estate of Washington in this pleasant springtime of the year, was well adapted, with its deep shade and broad, peaceful landscapes, to be the home of the most honored American. Amidst the long grass of its lawn stood the mansion of Mount Vernon, such as we behold it now, when it has ceased to be- come a home, and has become a shrine, — a low-roofed, painted straight edifice, with a high piazza on the river-front, which covers the two stories ; and the whole is built of wood, cut in blocks to imitate stone. The light columns which uphold the porch are also of wood, sanded. There are dormer wijidows in all the four sloping sides of the roof, and a cupola full of wasps' nests, surmounts the whole, from which you can see the long reaches of the river. The house and immediate out-build- ings could be built, at the present price of lumber and labor, for about thirty thousand dollars. But nobody would now MOUNT VERNON. 171 build such a house. Instead of the high, hollow portico cover- ing the whole front of the building, we would now put a low veranda, and upper balconies. Instead of imitating stone, we would carve the wood into pleasing designs, or use stone outright. The interior of the mansion is pleasantly habitable to this day, but the naked, white-washed walls look very blank. The rooms are generally low of ceiling, and we would think it a hardship to live in the room where the Hero of the American hemisphere died. Neither gas, nor water-pipes, nor stoves, nor wall-paper, nor a kitchen under the mutual roof, — ^but simply a library, a drawing-room, with a carved marble-mantel, and an old, rusty, fine harpsichord ; a hall through the house, — a reaching up for grandeur with feeble implements ; some plain bed-chambers, and a few relics of the great man ; — this is Mount Yernon as an abandoned home. The house is now above a century and a quarter old, and good for another century, if pieced up and restored from time to time. Back of it a pair of covered walks reach to the clean negro-quarters, between which is seen a rear lawn, with garden-walls on the sides ; and across the lawn passes the road to Alexandria and Fredericks- burg, so often ridden by the General. The gardens are of a showy, imposing sort. He inherited this house from his half- brother, and lived in it for fifty years, not counting seven years during the Revolution, when he was absent. Washington, the son of a second wife, had been married to a widow fifteen years when he was put at the head of the Colo- nial armies. He belonged to a military and commercial fam- ily ; rather New Englanders in thrift and enterprise than like the baronial planters round about them. But he was a man who grew in every quality, except pecuniary liberality, and no book-keeper in Connecticut watched his accounts with more closeness, although he was very rich and childless. He was the most perfect fruit of virtuous mediocrity, and the highest exemplar of a disciplined life which the scrupulous, the pru- dent, and the brave can study. Every triumph he had was a genuine one, if not a difiicult one. Guizot, the best student of 172 MOUNT VERNON. his larger life, who had in his eye of neighborhood the careers of all the great men of that quarter of a century, including Bonaparte, Talleyrand, and WeUington, said that Washington's power came from his confidence in his own views, and his res- oluteness in acting upon them ; and that no great man was over tried by all tests and came out so perfectly. Jefferson said that he was the only man in the United States who pos- sessed the confidence of all, and that his executive talents were superior to those of any man in the world. He had wonderful power in influencing men by honorable sentiments, and he never gave a man an office to quiet him or gain him over. His character was a little picturesque, but he was as plain as Lin- coln in the parts which he himself prescribed. In that day Mount Yernon had all the fame it still retains. Engravings of it were common in Europe and America, and it was a place of resort for the curious and the eminent, the stranger and the politician, because its proprietor stood first amongst the private gentlemen of the world. His battles and his wisdom, his Republican principles, and the purity of his character, recommended him to men as the living model of all that Rousseau had delineated — a great unselfish citizen. The time had come when the vague, poetic, and earnest aspirations of humanity inclined towards this stamp of man. Europe did not contain his like. The mighty writers there had filled the people with a scorn for kings, while yet they had not created one citizen-hero. Distance led them to enchantment with the name and person of Washington ; and this was he, at home amongst his slaves, with his l^usy, knitting housewife, on the high, sequestered shores of the Potomac. He was aware of his fame, for every mail expressed it in the eulogies of authors, journalists, statesmen, and even princes. The gravity of pub- lic thoughts and things had deepened the shadows of a life by temperament reflective, almost austere ; and this planter and farmer had grown judicial in his calmness and equipoise, so that he was already a Magistrate in intellect, and his election did not, probably, so much as ruffle his feelings. MOUNT VERNON. 173 His mansion was a museum, illustrative of the ordinary culture and tastes of a planter of liis period. In liis parlor, doubtless, were these effigies which he had ordered from France thirty years before. " A bust of Alexander the Great ; another of Julius Caesar ; another of Charles XII. of Sweden ; another of the Duke of Marlborough, of Prince Eugene of Savoy ; and a sixth of Fred- erick the Great, King of Prussia. " These are not to exceed fifteen inches in height, nor ten in width. " Two wild beasts, not to exceed twelve inches in height, nor eighteen inches in length. " Sundry small ornaments for chimney-piece." — (Washing- ton's directions to liis foreign factor.) There had been exemplars of Washington at a younger period, when the military art was his delight. During the long war of the Revolution, his estate had escaped pillage, and what had since been collected were mainly the gifts of friends, or the reward of arms and eminence. But it appears from what re- mains to us, that Mount Yernon was supplied with all the com- forts and many of the luxuries of his time, — a period when foreign art and literature were at a high standard, and skill and science had begun to look for their patrons below Palaces and Ministers of State, to the firesides of the prosperous mid- dle-class. The social revolution had already transpired in America and in Europe. Commerce, education, and accumu- lated wealth had insensibly triumphed over ranks and reveren- ces. The Democratic age had not fairly dawned, but the men lived who were to lead it, and at the head of the middle class of conservative Republicans in America stood the men of home- steads, broad lands, and large crops, like Washington. They were yet to have a few years of semi-supremacy ; but a fiercer wave of equality was gathering in the distance, which should spare Mount Vernon alone amongst family slirines. Washington was rich, but not the richest of the planterSo At least two Presidents were to succeed hiin, better burdened 174 MOUNT VERNON. with money and lands. He was, however, always above the fear of poverty, excepting the possible calamities of war ; and the personal supervision of as many acres, servitors, and interests would be thought onerous in our time. Yet he was ever seek- ing, later in life, to increase the revenues of his farms, to lease, or to colonize them. His property was chiefly in stock, slaves, and land, but the land was already showing signs of giving out, and he made reference more than once to Pennsylvania and Maryland, " Where their wheat is better than ours can be, till we get into the same good management." Probably no account of his estate can be found so reliable as that of the President himself, written to Arthur Young, a cele- brated English authority on agricultural matters, just at the close of his first term of office : " No estate in United America," said Washington, " is more pleasantly situated than this. It lies in a high, dry, and healthy country, three hundred miles by water from the sea, and, as you will see by the plan, on one of the finest rivers in the world. Its margin is washed by more than ten miles of tide- water ; from the bed of which, and the innumerable coves, in- lets, and small marshes, with which it abounds, an inexhaustible fund of rich mud may be drawn, as a manure, either to be used separately or in a compost, according to tlie judgment of the farmer. It is situated in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, and is the same distance by land and water, with good roads and the best navigation, to and from the Federal City, Alexandria, and Georgetown ; distant from the first, twelve ; from the second nine ; and from the last, sixteen miles. The Federal City, in the year 1800, will become the seat of the General Government of the United States. It is increasing fast in buildings, and rising into consequence ; and will, I have no doubt, from the advantages given to it by nature, and its proximity to a rich interior country, and the Western territory, become the emporium of the United States." MOUNT VEilNON. 175 ^' The soil of the tract of which I am speaking is a good loam, more inclined, however, to clay than sand. From use, and I might add, abuse, it is become more and more consol- idated, and, of course, heavier to work. The greater part is a grayish clay ; some part is dark mould ; a very little is inclined to sand ; and scarcely any to stone." " A husbandman's wish would not lay the farms more level than they are ; and yet some of the fields, but in no great degree, are washed into gullies, from which all of them have not yet recovered." " This river, which encompasses the land the distance above mentioned, is well supplied with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year ; and in the spring, with the great- est profusion of shad, herring, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, &G. Several valuable fisheries appertain to the State ; the whole shore, in short, is one entire fishery." " There are, as you Avill perceive by the plan, four farms be- sides that at the mansion-house ; these four contain 3,260 acres of cultivated land, to which some hundreds more ad- joining, as may be seen, might be added, if a greater should be required." Again, he wrote to a foreign factor, to whom he shipped his tobacco, pretty much as Horace Greeley might write : " I am possessed of several plantations on this river (Poto- mac), and the fine lands of Shenandoah, and should be glad if you would ingeniously tell me what prices I might expect you to render for tobacco made thereon, of the same seed as that of the estates, and managed in every respect in the same manner as the best tobaccos on James and York Rivers are." It was the custom of the Virginian j^lanters, living upon tide-water, with the coasts deeply indented everywhere, to ship their crops direct from their estates to Bristol or London. "Washington wrote : " The best Potomac harbor (Piscataway) is within sight of my door. It has this great advantage, be- sides good anchorage and lying safe from the winds, that it is 176 MOUNT VERNON. out of the way of the worm, which is very hurtful to shipping a little lower down, and lies in a very plentiful part of the country.'^ The manner of putting crops aboard ship was generally by the use of scows, which could come up the shallow streams. Thus, he wrote : " So soon as Mr. Lund Washington returns from Frederick, I shall cause my wheat to be delivered at your landing, on Four Miles Run Creek, if flats can get to it conveniently." A few passages from the correspondence of Washington will make plain his mode of life and his business habits. He was always minute in his instructions to his superintendent, as thus, when closing up a notification to build roads : " At all times they must proceed in the manner which has been directed formerly ; and, in making the new roads from the Ferry to the Mill, and from the Tumbling Dam across the Neck, till it communicate with the Alexandria road, as has been pointed out on the spot." This shows that, though a planter, he was always a man ot affairs, having personal cognizance of all belonging to him. Again : " When the brick work is executed at the Ferry Barn, Gun- ner and Davis must repair to Doque Run, and make bricks there, at the place and in the manner which have been directed, that I may have no salmon bricks in that build- ing. " Oyster shells should be bought wherever they are offered for sale, if good, and on reasonable terms." As a landlord and creditor, Washington was exacting but not harsh. The year he was elected President, he wrote as to the collection of rents and debts : " Little is expected from the justice of those who have been long indulged." To his wife, grandchildren, and his own nephews and nieces, he was provident, but still never lavish. In the same year as above he wrote to certain needy ones : MOUNT VERNON. .^_. 177 " You will use j^our best endeavors to obtain the means for support of G. and L. Washington, who, I expect, will board, till something further can be decided on, with Dr. Ceaik, who must be requested to see that they are decently and properly provided with clothes from Mr. Porter's store. He will give them a credit on my becoming answerable to him for the pay- ment. And, as I know of no resource that H. has for supplies but from me, Fanny will, from time to time, as occasion may require, have such things got for her, on my account, as she shall judge necessary." These paragraphs convey to us, as fully as the twelve volumes of Sparks, the tone of the first Magistrate in affairs of private life. His estate, like that of many Virginians, labored under disadvantages Irom the unthrifty agriculture of slaves, and the sort ot improvidence which large estates seem to necessitate. Seven years after the period at which this chapter begins, he said : " From what I have said, that the present prices of land in Pennsylvania are higher than they are in Maryland or Vir- ginia, although they are not of superior quality, two reasons have already been assigned : First, that in the settled part of it, the land is divided into smaller farms, and is more im- proved ; and, secondly, it is in a greater degree than any other the receptacle of emigrants, who receive their first impressions in Philadelphia, and rarely look beyond the limits of tho State. But besides these, two other causes, not a little operative, may be added, namely: that until Congress passed general laws relative to naturalization and citizenship, foreigners found it easier to obtain the privileges annexed to them in Pennsyl- vania than elsewhere; and because there are laws there for the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither of the two states above-mentioned have at present, but wliich nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a period not remote." Unfortunately the first President failod to give his active support to emancipation, and those laws were delayed for seventy years. 178 DECAY OP VIRGINIA. The neighbors of Washington were, in some cases, of even greater social consideration than himself. Of the adjoining State he said : " Within full view of Mount Yernon, separated therefrom by water only, is one of the most beautiful seats on the river for sale, but of greater magnitude than you seem to have contemplated. It is called Bel voir, and belonged to George William Fairfax, who, were he living, would now be Baron of Cameron, as his younger brother in this country (George William dying without issue) at present is, though he does not take upon liimself the title." The land of the neighborhood, at the time we have indicated, sold at a good price, for he says at Fairfax : " A year or two ago, the price he fixed on the land, as I have been well informed, was thirty-three dollars and a third per acre." In the lifetime of Washington, the slow and henceforth steady decay of Virginia lands began. His own cherished fields steadily declined after his death, and will not now, probably, bring as much per acre as when he died. His chief crops were wheat and tobacco, and these were very large, — so large that vessels sometimes came up the Potomac, took the tobacco and flour directly from his own wharf, a little below his deer-park, in front of his mansion, and carried them to England or the West Indies. So noted were these products for their quality, and so faithfully were they put up, that any flour bearing the brand of " George Washington, Mount Vernon," was said to liave been exempted from the customary inspection in the British West India ports. Such was the home of Washington, where he spent the days of his private life, and his domestic enjoyments were of a dutiful rather than of an enthusiastic sort. His mother lived until he was fifty-seven years old, but his father died when he was eleven. His wife was rich, but not accomplished, and he set free 124 slaves at his death. He always rose to the needs of history, and, if his household seems MOUNT VERNON. 179 to lack pathetic and feminine features, that is, perhaps, because he was never out of the public regard, because he had no children, and also, possibly, because 'he was unfortunate in all his early loves. There are half-a-dozen cases on record of his direct rejection by ladies to whom he proposed. Bisliop Meade, the devout and careful chronicler of Yir- ginia, received the following note from one of the family of Fauntleroy : " My grandfather (who was called Colonel William Faunt Le Roy) was twice married. By the first wife he had one daughter (Elizabeth), who became the wife of Mr. Adams of James River, after having refused her hand to General George Washington." On this the Bishop remarked : " It would seem from the foregoing, and from what may be read in my notice of Mr. Edward Ambler and his wife, and from what Mr.- Irving and other writers have conjectured concerning Miss Grymes of Middlesex, and perhaps one other lady in the land, that General Washington, in his earlier days, was not a favorite with the ladies. If the family tradition respecting his repeated rejections be true, — for which I would not vouch, — it may be accounted for in several ways. He may have been too modest and diffident a young man to interest the ladies, or he was too poor at that time ; or he had not received a college or univer- sity education in England or Virginia ; or, as is most probable, God had reserved him for greater things, — was training him up in the camp for the defense of his country. An early mar- riage might have been injurious to his future usefulness." Much of his life was passed in camps, and in lonely surveys, and he made himself by acceptance, instead of choice, a rigid historical being. He was worth, during all his married life, about $100,000 sterling, not counting his slaves as mer- chandise, and it paid him not above 3 or 4 per cent in money, or about $20,000 per annum. In this quiet, almost elegant home, he received many princes, exiles, and refined travelers, lured so far by the 180 CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF WASHINGTON. report of his deeds and character. He disappointed not one of whom we have any record, and his neighbors, as well as those remote, forgot his austerities in his integrity. We could have placed no more composed and godlike character at the fountain of our young State; and his image, growing grander as the stream has expanded, is reflected yet in every ripple of ; the river. We have grown more Democratic since his time, ' and we often wish that Washington had been more pliable, popular, and affable ; but it is to be remembered that he was a Republican, and not a Democrat. " As one of his federalistic observers has said of his day : " Democracy, as a theory, was not as yet. Tlie habits and manners of the people were, indeed, essentially Democratic in their simplicity and equality of condition, but this might exist under any form of Government. Their Governments were then purely Republican. They had gone but a short way into those philosophical ideas which characterized the subse- quent and real revolution in France. The gieat State papers of American liberty were all predicated on the abuse of chartered, not abstract rights." (Note — Gibbs' Life ot Wolcott.) As an original suggestor, Washington was wise, without genius. His designs were all bounded by law, the rights of others, and the intelligent prejudices of his time. He told Coke, the Methodist, that he was inimical to slavery. The better elements of our age were all intelligent, and growing in him. But the mighty whirlwind raised by Rousseau, and by Jefferson, blew upon the country, and we are what we are, while Washington and Lafayette, soldier and pupil, stand the only consistent great figures of the two hemispheres, — the last Republicans of the school of Milton and Hampden. Such as he was, there he lived, and the vestiges of the breaking up of the past are all round his honored mansion, — tlie key of the Bastile ; his surveyor's tripod, which first measured the streams beyond the Alleghanies, and, at last, the forts which the North planted against Virginia slavery. MOUNT VERNON. 181 The life of Washington at Mount Yernon, subsequent to the War, had been lived with that rigid method which he pre- scribed for himself at an early age. Temperate, yet not disdaining the beverage of a gentleman of that time, and dividing the day between clerical and out-of-door duties, he had escaped other diseases than those incident to camp-life, and he was not fond of the prolonged convivialities of the table. His breaktast hour was seven o'clock in summer, and eight in winter, and he dined at three. He always ate heartily, but he was no epicure. His usual beverage was small-beer or cider and Madeira wine. He took tea and toast, or a little well-baked bread early in the evening, conversed with or read to his family, when there were no guests, and usually, whether there was company or not, retired for the night at about nine o'clock. He loved Mount Yernon, and had never expressed a desire to change its retirement for the concerns of a denser society ; but the wish seems to have been fixed in his heart at an early period, to see the banks of the Potomac become the seat of a great city. Annapolis, Baltimore, and Fredericksburg, were each a stout day's journey from his estate, and Georgetown and Alexandria, were his post-office and market places. It had now been fifteen years since he had considered the subject of breaking his alle- giance to his King and England, and fully half the time had been spent away from his estate. During more than seven years of the war, Washington had visited his pleasant home upon the Potomac but once, and then only for three days and nights. Mrs. Washington spent the winter in camp with her husband, but generally returned to Mount Yernon during his campaigns. From this mansion he had departed to take part in the first Continental Congress, as one of the four delegates from Yirginia, when, in the language of a diligent historian, on Wednesday morning, the 31st of August, 1774, two men approaching Mount Yernon on horseback, came to accompany him. One of them was a slender man, very plainly dressed in a suit of minister's 182 AN EMINENT COUNCIL. gray, and about 40 years of age. The other was his senior in years, likewise of slender form, and a face remarkable for its expression of unclouded intelligence. He was more carefully dressed, more polished in manners, and much more fluent in conversation than his companion. They reached Mount Vernon at 7 o'clock, and after an exchange of salutations with Wash- ington and his family, and partaking of breaktast, the three retired to the library, and were soon deeply absorbed in the discussion of the novel questions then agitating the people of the Colonies. The two travelers were Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton. A third, " the silver-tongued Cicero" of Virginia, B,ichard Henry Lee, was expected with them, but he had been detained at Chantilly, his seat in Westmoreland. All day long these eminent Virginians were in council ; and, early the next morning, they set out for Philadelphia on horse- back, to meet the patriots from other Colonies, there. Will Lee, Washington's huntsman and favorite body-servant, was the only attendant upon Washington. They crossed the Poto- mac at the falls, (now Georgetown,) and rode far on toward Baltimore before the twilight. On the 4th of September, the day before the opening of the Congress, they breakfasted at Christina Ferry, (now Wilmington,) and dined at Chester ; and that night Washington, according to his diary, " lodged at Dr. Shippen's in Philadelphia, after supping at the New Tavern." At that house of public entertainment, he liad lodged nearly two years before, while on his way to New York, to place young Custis, his wife's son, in King's (now Columbia) College. With that journey in 1774, began the glorious period of this Virginia planter's career. Even at that date, he drew upon himseU the admiration of the best of his contemporaries, and John Adams — now elected Vice-President with him — wrote to Elbridge Gerry — subsequently to be Vice-President with Presi- dent Madison — this warm compliment in his favor : " Tliere is something charming tome in the conduct of Wash- ington. A gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent, leaving his delicious retirement, his family and friends, MOUNT VERNON. 183 sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his coun- try ! His views are noble and disinterested. He declared, when he accepted the mighty trust, that he would lay before us an exact account of his expenses, and not accept a shilling for pay." The history of the war which speedily followed that first Con- gress is mainly the career of Washington. He was a persever- ing, a prudent, and a magnanimous captain, and his character grew round and lustrous as the independence of the country advanced. Foreign nobles, countries, and officers did him rever- ence, and his behavior was always modest, grave, and yet cheer- ful, so that he neither made enemies nor provoked severe analysis ; and he set the example of obedience to the civil powers, so that his army graduated in the love of law, and their transition to citizens became as natural as his own to the First Magistracy. If he had not the military genius of Bonaparte, he had not also the love of blood and of violence in the same ar- bitrary degree. As has been well said," war was to him only a means, always kept subordinate to the main and final object, — the success of the cause, the independence of the country." As a captain, he was subject to none of the petty and irritable jeal- ousies so common with conquerors ; and he saw, without chagrin and ill humor, the successes of his inferiors in command. Still more, he supplied them largely with the means and opportunity of gaining them. Only once was he tempted with the anony- mous proffer of a crown, and he rebuked it ; and the fomentor of the single conspiracy against him wrote in remorse, " you are, in my eyes, the great and good man." When the armies disbanded, and he had bidden adieu to his companions and staff at New York, and delivered up his com- mission at Annapolis, he made one or two of those long journeys of which he was so fond, and which acquainted him so well with the needs and capacities of the future State, and then he sought the society of his wife and the congenial pursuits of agriculture. But one of his fame and large acquaintance could no more bo permitted to dwell in solitude. For some lime, 184 GEN. WASHINGTON AS A PRIVATE GENTLEMAN. indeed, after his return to Mount Yernon, Washington was in a manner locked up by the ice and snow of an uncommonly rigorous winter, so that social intercourse was interrupted, ar\d he could not even pay a visit of duty and affection to his aged mother at Fredericksburg. But it was enough for him at pres- ent that he was at length at home at Mount Yernon. Yet the habitudes of the camp still haunted him ; he could hardly realize tliat he was free from military duties ; on waking in the morn- ing, he almost expected to hear the drum going its stirring rounds and beating the reveille. As spring advanced, however, Mount Yernon, as had been anticipated, began to attract numerous visitors. They were received in the frank, unpretending style Washington had deter- mined upon. It was said to be pleasant to behold how easily and contentedly he subsided from the authoritative Commander- in-Chief of armies, into the quiet country gentleman. There was nothing awkward or violent in the transition. Mrs. Wash- ington, too, who had presided with quiet dignity at headquar- ters, and cheered the wintry gloom of Yalley Forge with her presence, presided with equal amenity and grace at the simple board of Mount Yernon. She had a cheerful good sense, that always made her an agreeable companion, and was an excellent manager. She had been remarked for an inveterate habit of knitting. It had been acquired, or at least fostered, in the wintry encampments of the Revolution, where she used to set an example to her lady visitors by diligently applying her needles, knitting stockings for the destitute soldiery. While Washington was waited upon by scholars, inventors, suggestors, and people with projects of material, moral, and intellectual improve- ments, — and the two hundred folio volumes of his writings and correspondence attest how engaged he was for the five years between the peace and the Presidency, — his wife was busied with the care of her orphan grandchildren. There was another female dear to the newly-elected President, and he kept her in filial remembrance at the very moment of his greatest promotion. It was growing late in the evening of MOUNT VERNON. 185 the day on whicli our chapter opens, when "Washington mounted his horse, and, followed by his man Billy, rode off into the woods of Virginia with speed. His destination was Fredericks- burg, nearly forty miles away, with two ferries between, — one at the Occoquan, the other at the Rappahannock. His purpose was to see his old mother, now over eighty years of age, and drawing near the grave. It had been long since he had visited her, but he could not feel equal to the responsibilities of his great office until he should receive her blessing. Few candidates for the Presidency in our day would leave a warm mansion, filled with congratulating friends, to ride all night through the chilly April mists, to say adieu to a very old woman. But thus piously the administration of Washington began. He passed old Po- hick Church, of which he was, a Vestryman, — soon to tumble to ruins, — crossed the roaring Occoquan, and by its deep and picturesque gorge, where passed the waters of the future bloody Bull Bun, and, by night, he saw the old churches of Acquia and Potomac rise against the sky ; he saw the decaying sea- port of Dumfries. In the morning, he was at Fredericksburg, and his mother was in his arms. Marches, perils, victories, honors, powers, surrendered to that piteous look of helpless love, too deep for pride to show through its tears. And the President of the new State was to her a new-born babe again, — no dearer, no greater. He was just in time, for she had but the short season of summer to live, and, like many dying mothers, life seemed upheld, at four-score and five, by w^aiting love till he should come. History is ceremonious as to wliat passed between them, but the parting was solemn and touch- ing, like the event. " You will see me no more," she said, " my great age and disease warn me that I shall not be long in this world. But go, George, to fulfil the destiny which Heaven appears to as- sign you. Go, my son, and may Heaven's and your mother's blessing be with you always." Passing from that dear, pathetic presence, the President elect, perhaps, did not hear the plaudits of the people in tho 186 MOUNT VERNON. streets of Fredericksburg. He rode all day by the road he jfiad come, and reached Mount Yernon before evening, having ex- hibited his power of endurance at the age of 57, by riding eighty miles in twenty-four hours. His good wife had made all ready ; the equipage and bag- gage were at the door next morning ; and, leaving Mrs. Washington and most of the household behind, he set out for New York at 10 o'clock on Thursday, the* 16th of April, accompanied by Thompson and Humphreys. The new State was waiting anxiously for its Magistrate. CHAPTER XIY. CURIOSITIES OP THE GREAT BUREAUX OP THE GOVERNMENT. Few readers have ever pushed into the queer nooks and queerer documents around the Capitol which exhibit the multi- fold operations of a modern government. Let us run over some items of what is called the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Appropriation Bill, selecting the Bill of 1871 which was passed by a relatively honest Congress. CONGRESS. Do you know what it costs to pay the Senators' salaries and mileage per annum ? Four hundred thousand dollars ! Cheap at half the money ! Do you know what it costs the House for the same ? One million ! But halt ! The officers, clerks, and messengers of the Senate get, besides, $130,000 ; and the same officers of the House get about $200,000. The police, who patrol the Capitol, and sit around the little parks enclosing it, cost $43,000. The stationery and newspapers of the Senate cost about $14,000, and for the House $37,000. The little pages, who run around the floor, cost in the House $7,600, and in the Senate $8,000. What does the Senate want with so many pages, when the more numerous body requires so few ? It costs the Senate $46,000 for packing-boxes, folding docu- ments, furniture, fuel, gas, and furniture-wagons. It costs tlie House, for wagons and cartage, $16,000. The Committee clerks of the House cost $33,000, and of the Senate $25,000. 188 SALARIES OP OFFICIALS. The Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House get 84,320 each, and the Librarian of Congress gets 84,000. All the clerks of the Library of Congress, taken together, require $26,' 000 a year ; and the library is allowed only $12,500 per annum to buy books, purchase files of periodicals and newspapers, and exchange public documents with foreign Governments. Public printing costs an enormous sum, and the appropria- tions almost always fall short. Still, it is questionable whether, on the whole, we do not dignify ourselves, and confer benefit on the country by maintaining, as we undoubtedly do, the most perfect printing establishment in the world, not excepting Na- poleon's printing house in Paris as it used to be maintained. For the present year, there will be appropriated for the public printing, 8655,000 for composition and press work; 8709,000 for paper to print upon ; 8552,000 for binding books, and 8T5,- 000 for engraving and map-printing. Coming to Executive appropriations, we find that two police- men, two night-watchmen, a door-keeper, and an assistant door-keeper, at the White House cost unitedly 88,000. The President's Private Secretary gets 83,500 ; his assistant 82,500 ; two of the President's clerks 82,300 each ; the White House steward, who buys the grub and gets up the dinners, $2,000 ; and the messenger 81,200. At the State Department, it costs 812,000 to publish the laws in pamphlet forms ; and for proof-reading, packing the laws and documents off to our Consuls, and such, we spend 847,000 annually. The eternal Mexican Commission costs us 828,700 a year, and our Commissioner gets 84,700, and the umpire, who lives out of town and is seldom called on, 83,000. The Spanish Commission costs us 815,000. The High Joint busi- ness at Geneva was provided for by a special appropriation of 8250,000. They drink over there nothing less than chambertin. At the Treasury Department are required for the Secretary, his assistants and immediate clerks, 8384,000. What is a char-woman ? There are here provided for, ninety char-women, at 8180 a year each. These are, indeed, scrub wages. The CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 180 Architect's office, presided over by the great Inigo Jones Mullett, costs about 827,000. This bill provides that, from the contin- gent expense appropriation of $100,000, no part shall be ex- pended for clericd hire. The Comptrollers of the Treasury- cost, unitedly, f 11,500. The office of the Commissioner of Customs at Washington costs $37,000. The Auditors' offices cost as follows : First Auditor, $58,000 ; Second, $384,000 ; Third, $289,000 ; Fourth, $83,000 ; Fifth, $60,000 ; and the Special Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department requires $267,000. Uncle Spinner, the Treasurer, demands for his office $189,000. The office of the Register of the Treasury requires $85,000 besides additional compensation at the discretion of the Secretary. The office of the Comp- troller of Currency absorbs $117,000. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue demands merely for office assistance,— including Commissioner's salary of $6,000, — $364,000. His dies, paper, and stamps cost $400,000. To pay throughout the country the different Collectors, Assessors, Supervisors, Detectives, and Storekeepers, the Revenue Bureau demands $4,700,000. To punish violators ot the Internal Revenue laws, $30,000 arc a}> propriated. The Lighthouse' Board costs, to keep up the Wash- ington Office, $14,000. The Bureau of Statistics costs $65,000. The stationery of the Treasury costs $45,000 ; its postage, newspapers, seals, brooms, pails, lye, sponge, etc., $65,000 ; its furniture, $25,000 ; its gas, fuel, and drinking water, $40,000. Besides, the Secretary is allowed $45,000 tor temporary clerks. Perhaps you were not aware that we have an Independent Treasurer in this country. We have. His office is in New York, and he gets $8,000 a year personally, while his clerks receive $140,000. The office of the Assistant Treasurer at Boston costs $33,000, at San Francisco $21,000, at Philadel- phia $36,000, at St. Louis $16,000, at New Orleans $14,000, at Charleston, S. C, $10,000, and at Baltimore $24,000. The Treasury's Depositaries require, to pay salaries, $10,000 at Cincinnati, at Louisville $6,000, at Pittsburgh $4,000, and at Santa Fd $5,000. It costs $6,000 to pay Special Agents to 190 SALARIES OF OFFICIALS. examine these Depositaries. Then you come to the matter of Mints. The chief officers ot the Philadelphia Mint require 038,000 per annum, the workmen $125,000, and for incidental and contingent expenses, besides, $35,000, — in all about 1200,- 000. The Mint at San Francisco costs 8290,000, to pay sala- ries and wages next year; at Carson City $90,000, at Denver $30,000, at Charlotte, N'. C, $4,500, (provided the Mint be not abolished this year, as it will probably be.) The Assay office in New York costs $118,000, and at Boise City $12,000. On the whole, we pay a good deal of money in the way of salaries, considering we see so little coin floating around. If these Mint-men cannot diffiise hard money more, there ought to be some curtailment of their appropriations. Arizona costs us for salaries $14,000 a year, and there is a proposition also to pay its noble Legislature — that Legislature which fell upon the Apaches like Joal's band and slew them — $20,000, including their mileage. We pay Colorado, out of the National Treasury, $14,000, and nothing is said about mileage or paying the Legislature. We pay Dakota $54,000 for officers, and $20,000 for its Legislature. Idaho gets $15,- 000, and $20,000 for the Legislature. Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, get nothing for their Legislatures, but cost us for officials $15,000 apiece, and the District of Co- lumbia costs the Federal Government, for salaries, $28,000. The office of the Secretary of the Interior costs, for clerks immediately around his person, $47,000 ; for watchmen, $21,- 000 ; for stationery and packing, $16,000 ; and for rents and repairs, $26,000. The Land Office costs, for clerks, $53,000; for maps, telegraphs, etc., $244,000. The Indian Office costs, for salaries, $30,000, and for incidentals, $5,000. The Pension Office costs the extraordinary sum of $344,000, besides addi- tional clerks to the amount of $92,000. This office also uses $75,000 for stationery, engraving, printing, &c. The Patent Office costs, for salaries $319,000, besides, for extra clerks and laborers, $147,000. The stationery, &c., here cost $90,000, and for photo-lithographing, $40,000. The Bureau of Education, CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 191 an excrescence upon the Government, of no earthly account except as an auxiliary to take common-schools from the States and counties where they belong, and run them nationally, — this costs 127,000. Now we come to the Surveyor-GeneraFs office : In Minnesota, it costs $6,300, and in Kansas $2,000 ; in California $14,000. and in most of the other States about $30,000. The interest- ing Department of Agriculture, whose ornament — the bleached Capron— has been imported into Japan as a curiosity, costs. for salaries alone, $75,000, for statistics and fodder for the an- nual report, $15,000, to scatter seeds around and put them in bags, $45,000. These seeds make Yice-Presidents and Senators when properly distributed. The Experimental Garden of the Agricultural Department costs $10,000, the stationery and the books on bugs, $23,000 ; besides, there is a gorgeous report on the education of oysters, and the intellectual needs of pump- kins, for which a monster appropriation has to be made annu- ally. The salaries of the Post-Office Department in Washington City alone cost above $400,000, and the building demands for stationery, besides, $50,000. In this particular bill, Post- masters are not considered. The War Department takes $47,000 for salaries ; $46,000 are appropriated for examinations, and for copying from the Rebel archives, the Adjutant-General demands $100,000 per annum ; the Quartermaster-General, $18,000 ; the Postmaster- General, $70,000 ; the Commissary-General, $42,000 ; the Surgeon-General, $25,000 ; the Chief Engineer, $29,000 ; the Chief of Ordinance, $25,000 ; the office of Military Justice, $5,000 ; the Signal Office, $2,800 ; and the Inspecto'r-Gcneral, $1,600. These salaries are merely for clerks and stationery in the Washington Offices, and do not apply to salaries throughout the military service. The War Department, be- sides, requires for rents and repairs, $44^000. 192 THE JUDICIARY. To run the central office of the Navy Department, where Secretary Robeson sits at the table with an oar in his hand, crying " Heave ho !" the clerics get $36,000, and billet-doux are written to the extent of $5,000. Then the Bureaux have their particular clerks. The Yards and Docks Bureau requires $16,000 ; that of Equipment, $12,000 ; of Navigation, $6,000 ; of Ordnance, $10,000 ; of Construction and Repair, $113,000 ; of Steam Engineering, $8,000 ; of Provisions and Clothing, $15,000 ; of Medicine, $5,000, &c. THE JUDICIARY. And now we come to the Judicial part of our Government, — a third and co-ordinate part of the whole ; and what does it cost ? To pay the whole Bench demands $72,000 a year, ex- clusive of nine Circuit Judges, who cost $54,000 altogether. To pay the District Judges, and some retired Judges, costs $193,000, and the Court of the District of Columbia costs $20,000. The total salaries of all the District Attorneys of the United States is put down at $19,000, and of the Marshals also, $19,000. The Marshals and Attorneys get fees besides. The District Attorneys get 2 1-2 per cent, on all the money they recover for the country, and the District Attorney's office in New York City is said to^ bo worth $30,000 a year. The Court of Claims, at Washington costs about $35,000, and $400,000 is appropriated to pay its judgments. This extraor- dinary clause — the only piece of light reading in the bill — is put at the end of the Court of Claims appropriation : Provided, That no part of this $400,000 shall be paid in satisfaction of any judgment rendered in favor of George Chor- penning, growing out of any claim for carrying the mail. The Department of Justice requires $73,000. The Solicitor- General gets $7,500, which is only $500 less than the Attor- ney-General. Each of the Assistant Attorneys-General gets $5,000, and the Solicitor of Internal Revenue $5,000. The Solicitor of the Treasury costs, for himself and clerks, $22,000 ; CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 193 three Commissioners for codifying the laws of the United States cost 118,000 ; the British Claim Commission, meeting in Washington city at present, costs $49,000. The above, perhaps, dull reading, is an analysis of one of the large appropriation bills, and will give you some idea of what it costs merely for clerks, stationery, office service, and printing in the departments at Washington. Since that day back pay has been voted by Congress, and all the larger sala- ries increased. The greatest office of the Government, outside of Washing- ton, is the New fork Custom House. Consider that it employs nearly one-tenth as many men as constitute the regular army of the United States ! That it is the toll-gateway for the greater part of all the foreign cargoes which are poured amongst our forty millions of people ! That it is not only the most fruitful source of revenue which we possess, but also the most fruitful source of corruption ! Ten per cent, a head, levied upon its employees, — as was done every year down to the present, — will make a purse sufficient to carry an election in the largest community in the Union. Senator Morton, of Indiana, if I am properly informed, had no trouble in the world to get 115,000 from this hive ot pension- ers to help him lose the State of Indiana at an election in 1870. Out of this great den of revenue comes the cash which is mysteriously dispensed amongst us in the critical periods of partisan appeal. This Custom House has always been wielded for party purposes, and it is said never to have had an efficient chief. Its director is called the Collector of the Port of New York. He nominally receives $6,400 a year, his Assistant Collector $5,000, his Auditor $7,000, and his Cashier $5,000. His seven deputies receive $3,000 a piece. Under him are em- ployed an immense number of persons, as for example, 247 in- .spectors of one particular class, whose aggregate wages are $380,000 ; 120 night watchmen, getting altogether about $130,000 ; 100 store-keepers, wlio cost him, in gross, $150,000 ; 60 examiners, and several hundred clerks. Few 9 194 THE EXPENSE OP THE CUSTOM HOUSE of the salaries fall as low as $600, and the average salary- passes $1,000. Mr. Allison, the Register of the Treasury, alleges, in his newest report, that one set of items show a bill of expenditures at the New York Custom House of nearly $1,800,000. Mr. Boutwell sets down the revenue derived from all the customs in the year 1870, at $195,000,000, which was ten millions more than the gross receipts of the internal reve- nue system. If we go back to the year 1869, we shall be able to see more distinctly what a great part the New York Custom House plays in our finance and our politics. According to the statistics of that year, the value of all goods now imported into the United States is $414,000,000 per annum. Only $42,000,- 000 worth are entered free, and $160,000,000 are sent to bonded warehouses before their duties are paid. The gross custom duties received on this $414,000,000 reach the heavy figure of $180,000,000, or nearly 40 per cent, of the value. The New York port enters $270,000,000 of goods per annum pay- ing duty, and $27,000,000 of goods duty free. Of the dutiable goods, $120,000,000 worth go to New York bonded warehouses, or three-fourths of the warehoused goods in the country. Last year there entered the port of New York, subject to the Custom Plouse restrictions, 5,218 vessels, with a tonnage of 3,200,000 tons, and with crews amounting to 110,000 men. This is equal, therefore, to the head-quarters of one of the largest navies in the earth. Speaking of navies suggests the great old Marine Barrack of Washington city, which few visitors ever enter. The marines are under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy, and they may be described as the military of the ships. They stand guard at the gangways, magazine, forecastle, navy yards, and navy arsenals ; are the boarding party in the ulti- mate collision of vessels, and in time of action they must fight the after-division of guns. The service, although a useful one, is generally considered a fancy one, and it is in request. Can- didates are examined for it in our day, but there are no Marine cadetships at West Point, and to be between the years of 20 •CURIOSITIES OP THE BUREAUX. 195 and 25, to have a fair collegiate education and physical strength, are sufficient endowments. Appointees are put under drill, and one of the marine officers is now preparing a book upon the manipulation of the corps. There are in all ninety-two officers of the Marine Corps, counting the general staff; the file numbers 2,500 men. Privates, who formerly received $16 a month, now get $13 only, and there is much grumbling over the reduction, and desertions are more frequent. A corporal only receives the pay of a private. Two promotions from the rank are recorded. The uniform of the corps is dark blue jacket and light blue ^-vowsers, with white pipe-clay cross-belts, and, for dress, the -♦epical short hat, with red fringe pompon. Sailors are sel- dom enlisted in the corps ; they will not " set up " well, have a swagger incompatible with the noble stiffiiess of a true marine, and are averse to the service besides. The old black liigh stock forced upon the marines, to give them the quality of ramrodness, is now abandoned. Promotion to the head of the Marine Corps is made by selection, and not by seniority. A cosy part of the Navy Department is the Judge Advocate's room. Around it are a series of those old-fashioned naval pictures which one finds scattered through the Navy Depart- ment, executed in abundant blue, framed in dingy gilt, for- gotten as to their authors, and as to their date Immemorial. Doubtless they were the work of some old clerk, whose amateur, self-learned skill with the pencil got him relief from fuller duties ; perhaps the work of some old salt, officer or seaman, who so whiled away his lazy hours while out of commission ; possibly wrought by some decayed or embryo artist whom a past secretary has salaried to illustrate our naval career. All through the department, these unclaimed, unhonored canvasses lie, with portraits of distinguished " salts " set between ; here Bainbridge, there McDonough, yonder Hull. It is not improb- able that many of them are ascribed excellent for technical merits, which strike a sailor more than art ; but there they 196 THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT. are, forgotten as their episodes, useless to the world of action as are the old swords, scimeters, hari-karis, forbidden to our officials, which repose in the museum of the Patent Office. " Judge Bolles," said I, " does anybody know what these old ship-scenes represent ? '* " These in my room," said the Judge, from the depths of his leather-cushioned office-chair, " tell the whole story of the fight between the Guerriere and the Constitution. Here they are sailing for the action. Yonder they haul to, and the Guerriere opens at long distance. In the third picture, the Constitution being within pistol shot, delivered her first ter- rible broadside. In the next the Guerriere strikes. The last picture represents the hulk of the Guerriere, and the Constitu- tion turns on her heel,- sailing away in victory. Beside the Smithsonian Institute upon this flat, and on the site of what has been called the " Experimental Government Farm," a fine new building has arisen, 170 feet long by about 60 feet deep, made of pressed brick, with brown-stone dress- ings, built in the modern French style, with steep slate roof and gilt balustrades and galleries. This building is to be occupied within a month, and the Agricultural Department carried out of the vaults of the Patent Office ; then tlie thirty- five acres allotted to the new department will be supplied with an orchard-house, an orangery, a cold grapery, and houses for medicinal and textile plants. The building is one of the simplest and purest, in a modern sense, in Washington, the design of a Baltimore architect. It cost 8100,000. The Agricultural Department in toto costs about $150,000 a year, of which nearly one-sixth goes to tlie" distribution of seeds. In , the new building the happiest being will be our enthusiast,; Townsend Glover, the naturalist, him to whom your farmers apply for a knowledge of what birds eat the pippin apples, and what worm gets into the beet-root. Glover is a Brazilian by the accident of birth, a Yorkshire Englishman by parentage, a German by education, American by adoption and enthusiasm, lie is a singular-looking man, short, thick, near-sighted, pecu- CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 197 liar, an Admirable Crichton in the practical arts. Agriculture has been his fanaticism for forty years. He paints, models in plaster, engraves, composes, analyzes, and invents with about equal facility. His passion is to be the founder of an index museum to all the products of the American Continent, from cotton to coal oil, from joitch pine to wine. Heretofore he has had only two little rooms in the dingy basement of the Patent Office ; hereafter lie is to have a handsome museum-room in the new building, 103 by 52 feet, and 27 feet high. His objects, already largely perfected, are to methodize, by models and specimens, the natural history, diseases, parasites and remedies of every individual product in America. For example : A man wants to move to Nevada. What are the products of Nevada ? Glover has a series of cases devoted to that State, models of all its fruits, berries, prepared specimens of its birds, illustrations of its cereals, Jlors, grasses, trees. A small pamphlet conveys the same information ; the man knows what to expect of Nevada. A man forwards a blue bird ; is it toler- able or destructive, to be encouraged or banned? Glover forwards the names of fruits, etc., which the blue bird eats. He will show you, in living, working condition, the whole life- time of a cocoon : the processes of Sea Island cotton, from the pod to the manufacture ; the economical history of the common goat ; the processes of hemp from the field to the hangman. Every mail brings to him a hawk, a strange species of fish, a blasted potato, a peculiar grass, which poisons the cow. He is the most dogged naturalist in the world, probably ; a wrestler with the continent. He is a bachelor, married to his pursuit, one of those odd beings hidden away in the recesses of government, whose work is in itself its own fame and fortune. A curious subject, to the inquisitive reader, was debated before Congress in 1871. It was the revision of the laws per- taining to the mint and coinage of the United States. This measure originated with a quiet and indefatigable bach- elor official of the Treasury Department. Mr. John J. Knox, the Deputy Comptroller of the Currency. He has spent almost 198 THE UNITED STATES MINT AND COINAGE. his whole life in the atmosphere of banks, and, receiving a sal- ary of only $2,500 in a city where it costs $3,500 to live, he has made use of all his leisure time to put himself into asso- ciation with the former, as well as the present, practical men of the mints of the United States. You know what the United States Mint is — an institution ordained by Congress in 1792, while the Capital of the United States was yet at Philadelphia. The fine body of organizing men who were setting the nation right at that time, resolved upon giving their image and superscription to the world upon their hard money. The first Director of the Mint was the renowned David Rittenhouse, astronomer and mechanic, who made watches, orreries, telescopes, and mathematical instru- ments, and who went heartily to work in the new institution, devising machinery, organizing a clerical force, and otherwise establishing so handsome an institution, that, when the Capital was removed to Washington, the mint was permitted to remain in the city of the Quakers. Rittenhouse was succeeded by such strong men as De Saussure, Boudinot, and the two Doctors Patterson, father and son. These kept the mint up to a good standard of efficiency, but much of its machinery remains mod- eled upon the same pattern as the early days. Tliis mint is a staid, unattractive building, on Chestnut street, and it enjoyed the remarkable distinction of keeping a permanent set of officers down to the year 1861, when, for the first time, as we grieve to say, the new Republican administration put its hand upon the Directorship of this most responsible -concern, and made its management a part of the political patronage which curses the country. From that mint, as the necessities of the -country demanded — or rather the covetousncss of localities — branch mints sprang up in Georgia, North CaroHna, and Alabama, and an assay office was established at New York city. After the discovery of gold on the Pacific coast, a more needful mint was given to San Francisco, where really the larger part of the coinage of the country is now done. After a time the greed of localities, CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 199 and tlie growth of jobbery, gave a mint to Carson City, Nevada ; one to Dallas City, Oregon ; another to Denver, Colorado ; and, finally, an extra assay office to Boise City, Idaho. Thus the business of coining money, instead of being confined to one establishment, as in almost every other government, has got to be very nearly a State matter in the United States. According to the report of Architect Mullet, we have twelve pieces of Mint and assay property, which, altogether, have cost, or will cost, between four million and five millions of dollars. The New Orleans Mint, which has cost $620,000, is a dead loss, and of no use whatever. The Carson City Mint, which was put up to tickle the Nevada silver mining interests, cost nearly $300,000. The Mint at Charlotte, North Carolhia, cost upward of $100,000, and at Dahlonega, Georgia, $70,000. The old California Mint cost $300,000, and the new mint will cost more than $2,000,000. The assay office at New York cost upward of $700,000. Mr. Mullett'.s Mint at San Francis- co appears to be architecturally an adaptation of the Patent Office at Washington, with the front of the mint at Philadelphia appended, and there are two large smoke chimneys in the centre, which give the whole thing the appearance of a steam- boat ready to go right off through the Golden Gate. The edifice is to be 221 by 164 feet in dimensions. As the mint edifices have been scattered, so have the regula- tions about the coinage fallen behind the well-organized system of other nations, and the final capture of the mint by the politicians has proved to be a serious matter. The Philadel- phia Mint has continued to retain a traditional supremacy, its chief officer being "the Director" in name of the whole mint system of the country, while the executive officers at the places are called Superintendents merely. Yet the mint at Philadel- phia has latterly come to be, in great part, a mill for making nickel pennies, and engraving medals from the " Great Father" to his Indian braves, and other Generals. In 1873 the bill just referred to, passed, and hereafter the Commissioner of the Mint will reside in Washington city at the Treasury building. Jy CSV TTTK ^ I UlSriVERSTTY J 200 THE DETECTIVE SYSTEM. Another quaint bureau of the Treasury Department is the Petectives*, headed by Colonel Whitely. The position which Colonel Whitely maintains is more impor- tant than any secret police agent holds in the Union. He is charged with all the manifold and intricate offences against the currency and the Treasury, including counterfeiting, defalcation, whiskey, and tobacco frauds, the use of false stamps, etc. His headquarters are in Washington, and his main branch office is on Bleecker street, New York. His force is distributed through the Union, and the area of his personal superinten- dence is circumscribed only by our national boundaries. He is a tall, wiry, rather debilitated-looking young man, with a long, pale, youthful face, light eyes, and dark hair, a shy manner, without any worldliness in it, and a sober, modest, nearly clerical, black dress. He neither drinks nor smokes, and is as much of a Puritan as Mr. Boutwell. Whitely has been very successful and systematic in his operations, and he has a fair knowledge of the civilization of professional thieves, their jargon and methods, and their haunts and associates. With some youthful confidence and self-esteem, he is still thoughtful, persevering, and adroit, and, armed with the enor- mous moral and material power of the Federal State, and its great system of marshals and attorneys, he is not subject to the restraints of cross-jurisdiction and State laws, which im- pede the pursuit and capture of local criminals. He occupies the whole field, and is free from the jealous annoyances of police rivalry. If one could penetrate the Treasury building, and see the strange and motley character of the lesser clerks, he would find meat for wonder. In it, filling weary benches, are ex- Governors, ex-Congressmen, soldiers of rank, the sisters of generals like Richardson, decayed clergymen by the score, some authors, many hon vivants, and, they do say, young girls with dangerous attractions for public atmospheres or public individ- uals. The population of the Treasury building is that of a good-sized town, between three and five thousand. It is, and CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 201 will be till war comes again, the great position of public life, no sinecure, demanding profound statesmanship at its head. The destinies of the people lie bound up in it. It can over- balance all private sagacity if it be weakly administered, and if corruptly or partisanly, it will be our debaucher or tyrant. Next to the Capitol itself, the spot most consecrated to our marvels here is the old theater where Mr. Lincoln was mur- dered. The rash design, ascribed to Stanton, of leveling it to the ground, has happily not been approved, and in essentials of situation and exterior it is the same object. But all around it the zeal of housebuilding is at work to make the spot unrecogni- zable to the half-buried ghost of Booth. The alley of his bad escape is there and also the stable where he hid his nag, but the open areas and naked lots which lay around the old thea- tre and the hulks of dwellings are filled with brick walls and plaster-beds. A new Masonic temple faces the neck of the alley ; the theatre itself is pre- served only in its bare walls and these are freshly rough- casted, the doors and windows changed ; the boxes and gaU leries are torn out. Strong floors girded of iron and vaulted with brick replace at different heights the open canopy of the theatre, and iron stair- ways climb from floor to floor, guarded on every platform by one-armed soldiers standing to their crutches. The murder of the President still tenants the building like some lost trace of a skeleton hid away, or a spectre vaguely seen, but for the rest it is an association merely, and every day the incident grows less vivid and the narrative of it more wayward. But added to the martyrdom of the father of the people, the contests of tlio building are now of the aggregate reminder of the bruises, ford's theatre. 202 THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM. wounds, and agonies of the entire struggle for the Union. It is the Army Medical Museum, the depository of the names and casualties ot every stricken soldier and the perpetual min- iature of that vast field of war whose campaigns of beneficence followed in the footsteps of its heroes, and death and mercy went hand in hand. Here are 16,000 volumes of hospital registers, 47,000 burial records, 250,000 names of white and 20,000 names of colored soldiers who died in the hospitals. Here are the names and cases of 210,027 men besides, discharged from the army dis- abled. Here are names and statements of 133,957 wounded men brought to the hospital, and the particulars of 28,438 operations performed with the knife. In one year — so method- ized and perfect are the rolls and registers collected in this fire-proof building — 49,212 cases of men, widows and orphans demanding pensions have been settled in this edifice. If you look through the lower floors you will see a hundred clerks searching out these histories, cataloguing them, classifying them, bringing the history of the private soldier down to the reach of the most peremptory curiosity, and assisting " to heal the broken-hearted and set at liberty them that are bruised." It is this museum which is at once the saddest memorial of the common soldier and the noblest monument to the army surgeon. It contains a complete history of the surgery of the war, illustrated by casts, models, photographs, engravings, and preparations. There are here nine hundred medical patholog- ical preparations, and two thousand eight hundred microscopi- cal preparations. There is no similar army medical collection in the world, and from Baron Larrey down to Neleton and Joubert the published reports of this collection have delighted and surprised the savans of the world. Scarcely a leading surgeon in Europe but has written praises and sent them here. Let us see what this museum has to show us. It is a long, cool room, the whole length of the theatre. Show-cases extend lengthwise down it. Models of hospitals and skeletons of war- horses stand at top and bottom. The yellow standard of the CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 203 hospital planted with the blue colors of the regiment and the tricolor of the natioi> is fixed in midground. Two splendid human skeletons, at full length, guard, the head of the room. The walls are covered with large photographs, some of them two yards square, of the great hospitals of the war, those superb edifices which are now nearly all broken up. Near by are pho- tographs of the great army surgeons of all nations, Larrey, De Genette, O'Meara, and others of our own service. A table is full of books of photographs of surgical operations, where, spent, and unshaven, the camera has been turned upon the amputated man's freshly severed stump and made his sufferings vivid forever. So are the healed and scarcely less cruelly sug- gestive wounds photographed with views of men in the various transitions between the cutting of the bullet and the final con- valescence. Photographs of amputating tables all prepared and the victim stretched out insensible almost make you smell the fmnes of chloroform on the doctor's bloody sponge. Stereo- scopes are set near by, wherein you may examine the field of battle with the corpses yet unburied and see the bleached bones of the Wilderness as the camera discovered them to make their profanation eternal. So may you see the decks of battle-ships, where they are carrying the splintered and shot-riven below, and the cockpits where they seek to save the remainder of the carcass. Continuing on we come to great cases of artificial limbs, bandages, slings, lint, and crutches. Some of these latter arc actual crutches made of forked boughs, whereon wounded men hobbled unassisted to camp. After this are models of every sort of ambulance, stretcher, dissecthig table, hospital bed, and the interiors of miniature hospitals, clean and sweet-scented as their originals. Then follows a long array of human skulls, some perforated by bullets, some staven in by cannon-balls, some fractured by blows from sabres, some eaten with syphilis. Afterward fol- lows the vast collection of preparations, dissected parts of men corrupt with decompositions, abnormal by neglect or the results 204 THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY. of wounds, or swollen or attenuated with camp diseases and unwholesome food. Following these by hundreds are models in plaster or wax, of preparations too perishable to keep. Then come collections ol parasites, deposits, impassable articles of food tound in the liver and stomachs of the dead, strange in- stances which fell from drinking filthy water, and tokens of monstrous disease or indigestion beyond the reach of the dis- secting knife. Bones in catacombs come after, splintered, bro- ken, ill-set, amputated away from the man — whole jaws, noses, eyes, ears, shoulder blades, the leg from the hip-joint to the toe. Here is that cartilage of Wilkes Booth, broken by the ball of Boston Corbett. Here is a view ot Sickle's leg, amputated on the field of Gettysburg!!. Next are valuable cases of most minute microscopic preparations, a library of books, reports, experiments, suggestions made by the medical wisdom of the doctors of the war, and by this time the eye, running along so much that thrills it, wearies of even the fascinations of death and refuses to explore these painful wonders further. In this museum, the war will live as long as its moral and political influence. This collection is worthier than the proud- est victory won even for freedom. It is the infiltrating genius of mercy, unable to prevent the blow but claiming the victim when he is stricken. And not less extraordinary than this ocular demonstration are the figures deduced from the rolls of the surgeons, shedding light upon the natural history of man at large. From skulls to books is an easy step. Right off the Rotunda, that amphitheatre of politics, tlie Congressional library lies, its windows facing the pit of tlie city of Washington. Opposite the main door, behind a high table, piled full of books, sits, or stands the Librarian — a dark- skinned, black-haired man, perpetually at work with a pen, cataloguing, or, with a catalogue, directing ; and his self-im- posed labors are probably greater than his duties. He was never known to be in doubt about any volume, and probably never known to waste any time in mere book gossip. His CENTRAL ROOM, CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, CAPITOL, WASHINGTON. CURIOSITIES OP THE BUREAUX. 205 place is one for which he has personal ambition, and he indi- cated his choice beforehand by minute and extensive convers- ance with bibliography. His nights afe the Government's, like his days ; for he has resolved, of his own will and motive, to catalogue this large library by subjects and by authors, and not merely to catalogue its books by titles, but by contents, so that when one is interested in a subject, he can be apprised even of exceptional references to it. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Government, as we understand it, was also the author of the library, and in the first year of this century $3,000 was appropriated to buy books, only 2,000 volumes of which were collected, when the British burnt the Capitol. In 1814, Jefferson again appeared in the guise of Phoenix, and offered to replace the perished library with his own, consisting of 7,500 well-selected volumes. The usual hue and cry of Federal partisans was raised, but that small majority of common sense patriots which comes to the rescue at opportune times carried the measure, and nearly $24,000 was appropriated to make the purchase. It was not until 1825 that the library obtained good housing in the central Capitol, and by small yearly appropriations it had grown to be 55,000 books in 1851, when fire destroyed three-fourths of it, sparing many of Jefferson's books. Cut down to 20,000 vol- umes, its great days seemed to have passed. Congress cheer- fully voted within three years $157,000 to build a fire-proof library room, .and to buy new books, but only 70,000 volumes had been accumulated up to the period of the war, when there providentially appeared an old man who had devoted sixty years of his beautiful and dutiful life to saving from the ravages of time and waste, a library of American history for just such an exigency. This was Peter Force, now an inhabitant of his grave for nearly two years. He is, par excellence^ the founder of the " New Library of the United States.'* Peter Force was the greatest New Jerseyman, and the ear- liest collector of American books and antiquities. A printer in New York ; a resident of the Capital City half a century ; 206 PETER FORCE. Mayor of Washington ; editor of the American Historical doc- uments, and founder of the American Bibliography, his rank in our literary civilization was more eminent than Sloane's in English. There is nothing more interesting and peculiar than to follow this grand and ardent old man through the garrets and attics of old colonial homes, from Maine to Mexico, dis- covering in chests and rubbish heaps," the precious footprints of our history, raising from the brink of extinction some paper, autograph letter, or a pamphlet which, from its mouldy pages threw the phosphorescent spark upon some mistaken fame or injured cause, and kept for man the memory of an expiring episode to guide or to beguile him. His venerable presence haunted the frequent auction sales of all the towns and cities, and his hand interposed between the frivolous plunderer and the hammer, to guard many cherished data for the State. He touched with his wand many young men, and they, like him, went groping into the garrets of the past to add to his collections, and at last, from every side, books, pamphlets, and letters were forwarded to him from gainful people, who put upon his sinking shoulders the duties that elsewhere are under- taken by the State. He labored to the end, this Noah of our literature, bridging over the gap of oblivion with his prov- idence, and his house, at Tenth and D streets, was a veritable ark, containing the seeds ot our past species. Offers from all sides were made to him to sell, but he relinquished his library only to the United States, and then pined for its society, and died like the last man of the former generations. In all his life, but one great pain came to Peter Force. Sec- retary of State, Marcy, refused to accept his second series of American archives, probably in some pique of the politician's spirit, and Force declined to explain or to resume. The work ceased. It can never be done so well by any survivor. This is an episode of the old, interminable war between power and art — place and pride of scholarship — fought over by Johnson and Chesterfield, Chatterton and Walpole, Motley and Seward, Force and Marcy. CURIOSITIES OP THE BUREAUX. 207 Tlie Congressional Library is about 180 feet long, by 34 feet wide — a gallery, bent twice, so as to form a hall and two alcoves, the hall itself 91 feet long, and the height of all the three uniformly 38 feet. The hall contains the Librarian's desk and a few baize tables ; one of the wings or alcoves is exclusively for Congressmen, the other affords reading space for perhaps fifty people. Tlie floor is marble ; the ceiling is of decorated iron, with skylights ; all the shelving is iron. The arcliitecture of the room is pleasing, and the prevailing tints are cream-color, bronze, and gold. Like Georgetown College and the Smithsonian Institute, the Soldiers' Home of Washington is a contribution from outside parties. Gen Winfield Scott extorted the money with which the land was pur- chased from the city of Mex- ico on account of the viola- tion of a municipal obliga- tion affecting the truce. A very eligible site was chosen on the high ridge of hills about four miles from the city, and this may be con- soLDiERs' HOME. sidcrcd the Central Park of Washington. A few cents a month is subtracted from the pay of soldiers to support the institution, which has been so well managed that in 1868 the fund was about $800,- 000. Some of the ex-volunteer generals in Congress, who had no very magnanimous appreciation of the regular army, endea- vored to have this fund divided amonst the loosely managed volunteer asylums throughout the country. To prevent such spoliation, the beautiful estate of Harewood, belonging to W. W. Corcoran, was purchased in 1872, thus expanding the grounds to a truly ample and noble park. About the same time a statue of General Scott, the benefactor, was ordered from Launt Thompson of New York, wliich work was being 208 THE soldiers' home. modeled while the great equestrian statue of General Scott which the Government had ordered was being cast in Philadel- phia. This accounts for two statues of a hero of Mexico at the Capital. During the fierce times of the war Mr. Lincoln made his summer home at one of the cottages on the lawn of this institution, and it is a matter of tradition and general be- lief that one evening as he rode out he was shot at upon the road, but whether by assassins or mere highwaymen was not known. This led to his being accompanied by a small guard at the close of the war. From the upper windows of the central tower of the Soldiers' Home, a panorama can be seen much wider and more varied than that from the dome of the Capitol, including a back view of the Maryland country to- ward the Patuxent. Right under the eye is a very old church, Rock Creek, one of the old parishes of Maryland before the District was surveyed. This church was erected in 1719, re- built in 1775, and remodeled as we now see it, in 1868. Strong, hoary oaks surround it, and the old grave-yard is full of the tombs of people who lived at Washington and in the surround- ing country anterior to, and contemporary with, the founding of the Federal town. A large and neat soldiers' cemetery lies between Rock Creek church and the Soldiers' Home. In Sum- mer the drives in this region are enchanting, and one of the few roads in the vicinity of Washington which is passable in Winter and Spring for pleasure teams is that leading from Silver Springs toward Sandy Spring. Sandy Spring is one of the boarding-house settlements for Washingtonians. Silver Springs is the estate of Francis P. Blair, Andrew Johnson's official editor, who is still living in a hale old age. Between Silver Springs and the Soldiers' Home are the villas of Alex- ander H. Shepherd, Mathew G. Emery, and other prominent citizens of Washington. We will conclude this chapter with some sketch of the Smithsonian Institute : The will of James Smithson, like that of Stephen Girard, Mr. Rush, and many others, did not express with sufficient CURIOSITIES OF THE BUREAUX. 209 directness or coherence what he wished the United States to do with his money. Some members, as John Randolph, were opposed to receiving it on the ground, probably not wide of the mark, that a great nation was not a distributing reserA^oir for idosyncratic philanthropists. To add to this Mr. Smithson offended some of the more aristocratic members by his illegiti- mate descent. His original name had been James Lewis Macie ; his father had been the Duke of Northumberland and his mother the niece of the Duke of Somerset. He was a scientific man of much industry and good professional acquain- tance. His death occurred at Geneva, Italy, in 1829. He is SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. said never to have visited the United States, nor to have had any friends residing here. His bequest was announced to Con- gress by President Jackson in 1835. The money, which amounted to above $515,000, in gold, was obtained by Richard Rush and brought to the country in 1838. This money was lent to the United States Government by Levi Woodbury, Sec- retary of the Treasury, and was invested in Arkansas State bonds at par. Some of this money was squandered by Senator Sevier, of that State, and his harpies, and the whole amount was lost and the bonds repudiated. Congress debated what to do with the bequest for several years, and between John Quincy Adams and Robert Dale Owen, an agreement was completed 210 THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. by which the present Smithsonian Institute was organized in April, 1846. Professor Joseph Henry, of Princeton College, New Jersey, was made the Secretary, or really the Eegent, and Superintendent of the whole concern. This Secretary was the first official in Washington after the President who appropria- ted to himself a residence in one of the public buildings. A large reservation of 52 acres was selected on the knoll between the Tiber and the Potomac, nearly in the centre of the city. The architect was Mr. Renforth, of Washington, and he de- signed an edifice of mediasval character, a sort of battlemented abbey, of Seneca redstone, with towers, chapels, etc., 426 feet long by about 60 feet wide. This building cost $325,000, and when it burned down in the war period it was again rebuilt so that its erection and maintenance were said in 1869 to have involved an outlay of $450,000. As has been well said, the Smithsonian can be indefinitely extended, and there is archi- tectural reason why it should be, to eke out its shallow depth, in almost any mediaeval military style. Although a handsome object in the landscape of the city, contrasting well with the large classical offices of the Govern- ment, it is by no means a favorite with those around it. The interior of the building has an unsatisfying and inhospitable look, much of it being closed from the public and given up to mere inhabitancy, while the grounds around it, which, until recently, were separated from Pennsylvania Avenue by a nasty, exuding creek, were patrolled by lewd and offensivo vagrants, who often committed outrages upon citizens ventur- ing to cross from one part of the city to another after dark. The efficiency of the Smithsonian has been much disputed, although it has assisted several scientific expeditions and helped in the publication of technical treatises. It maintains a very perfect correspondence with foreign learned societies and publishes an annual report, which is said to be a little more dry than the report of its associate, the Agricultural De- partment. Its uses are nondescript, and the average inquirer will give it up when he asks precisely what they are, and re- ceives in response a whole essay, which he cannot recollect. CHAPTER XY. MY PURSUIT OF CREDIT MOBILIER. All previous sensations of a civil character in the history ot the nation were eclipsed in the years 1872-73 by the dis- closures which take the general name of Credit Mobilier. My connection, as one seeking information, with this celebrated scandal, may not improperly make the narrative of this chapter. It was in September, the tenth of the month, that I received by telegraph a commission to proceed to the State of Arkansas, and unravel some local mutiny there, and while making some preliminary readings, a second communication, from another source, asked me to visit Philadelphia and New York. It became necessary, therefore, to undertake the second commis- sion with immediate despatch in order to improve the oppor- tunity for the first and more distant one. The remainder of this chapter is my report of Commission No. 2, as published in the Chicago Tribune. The most uneasy and serious scandal which we have yet had : has undesignedly grown out of the lawsuit of Henry S.| M'Comb, of Wilmington, Del., to compel the delivery to him of certain shares of stock in the Credit Mobilier. The suit is taking place in Philadelphia, which staid and respectable Quaker City is the only part of the country uninformed about this cause eSUhre. The case in its context, has been charged to implicate two Speakers of the House of Representatives, 212 GETTING AT THE BEGINNING. half-a-dozen Congressmen, and other dignitaries. " Our Correspondent " in Washington was not, therefore, surprised to receive a telegraphic despatch, as follows : " Please go to Philadelphia and investigate impartially the Crddit Mobilier affair. — Horace White.'* The diary of this pursuit, as far as the first day's prosecu tion is concerned, will show a novice how many things have to be done within a given time to answer one newspaper requirement. At early daylight (September 12) I reached Philadelphia, investigated the docket at the Supreme Court Office there, saw the counsel for the plaintiff, telegraphed the plaintiff in New York for a meeting, after ascertaining his whereabouts ; traced the Credit Mobilier back to its origin, interviewed members of the Legislature contemporaneous with the passage of the act, and, in ten hours, was on my way to New York, reading, as I traveled, the long report of the Credit Mobilier suit with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in " Smith's Pennsylvania State Reports," volume 17. In half an hour after I reached New York, I was in con- versation with the plaintiff and other authorities, and that night sat up to " catch the manners living as they rise," by jotting down the matter most easily forgotten. At the early hour at which I began to perambulate Phila- delphia, I knew of but two attorneys nearly certain to be in their offices, the diligent and alert Henry R. Edmunds, one of my old schoolmates, now full of learning and business, and covered with venerable red hair ; and the gristly and tough Joseph A. Pile, who works all night amongst the Pandects, and labors all day over Roman and Quaker law. Sure enough, there they were. " Gentlemen, do you know anything of the suit of Henry S. M'Comb, who spells the Mick without a c, the c having dropped out by reason of the distant period when it got in — against the Credit Mobilier of America ? " " Why, no. There's nothing in the Ledger or the Franklin CREDIT MOBILIER. 213 Almanao about it. We've read everything this morning bat the obituary poetry and the editorials, which we preserve to the end of tlie year, for the solace of old age and the repose of children.'' " The Credit Mobilier," said the Hon. Joseph Pile, " is all the while here engaged in mysterious suits. They are often equity suits, before Masters in Chancery, or before the Supreme Court of the State, and everything about them is hushed up. Nothing much is published, and we are all in the dark. The State sued the Credit Mobilier for taxes, and this involved appeals and two trials. But we have seen no mention of any such case as M'Comb vs. The Cr<^dit Mobiher." Here the Hon. H. R. Edmunds produced a large volume of the Acts of the Legislature of 1859, and he said: " Gath, this is the beginning of the Credit Mobilier. It was snaked through the Legislature fourteen years ago, under the name of the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency." I took the book and made this note from it : The Fiscal Agency began November 1, 1859, W. F. Packer being Governor of the State. The '^ Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency " was incorporated, with the following Commissioners, or Directors: Samuel Reeves, ElHs Lewis, Garrick Mallory, Duif Green, David R. Porter, Jacob Zeigler, Charles M. Hall, Hon. R. Kneass, Robert J. Ross, William T. Dougherty, Isaac Hugus, C. M. Reed, William Workman, Asa Packer, Jesse Lazear, C. S. Kauffman, C. L. Ward, and Henry M. Fuller. The act of incorporation was of the most general and dis- cursive character, and covered all operations under the sun, banking, opening of offices in foreign lands, funding State debts, assuming the responsibility for corporation debts, guar- anteeing bonds, etc. It provides that the general offices shall be in Philadelphia, and that a certain proportion of the Directors shall be citizens of Pennsylvania. This act is in six clauses, and it provides that the corporation shall consist of 50,000 shares of flOO each, and that. when 5,000 shares are subscribed, and 5 per cent, thereon paid, the shareholders may 214 THE PENNSYLVANIA FISCAL AGENCY. elect five directors and begin business. The Fiscal Agency, therefore, contemplated a capital of 15,000,000, but required only ^25,000 to be put up in the first place, and all facilities were given for watering the stock, etc. The State was to be entitled to a tax of one-half a mill on capital stock for each 1 per cent, of dividends. And this little charter, said our correspondent, brought to life one year before the election of President Lincoln, is the foundation of the stupendous Credit Mobilier, which, as an alias of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, robbed the generous Age and Nation which endowed it, and bribed the Congress of the people ! " It had to stand a suit two years ago," said Mr. Pile, " for taxes due the State under the charter, amounting to above half a million of dollars. All tax-suits of this sort are tried in Dauphin, the county of the State Capital. The Company, thei:i under the alias of the Credit Mobilier, beat the State, reversed the decision of Judge Pearson, and paid nothing. You will find the suit here in Volume 67, Pennsylvania State Reports. " " And here," said Mr. Edmunds, is the continuation of the Fiscal Agency in a report only five years old. It put off its old apparel and took a disguise." Our correspondent then copied the original act by which the State gave the Fiscal Agency extended, powers to veil the operations of the Union Pacific Railroad Ring : " Laws of Pennsylvania, 1867, page 291, Act No. 278. " A further supplement to the act to incorporate the Penn- sylvania Fiscal Agency, approved November 1, 1859, empower- ing said Company, now known as the Credit Mobilier of America, to provide for the completion of certain contracts. " Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That, in every case where the Credit Mobilier of America — a body corporate established by the laws CREDIT MOBILIER. 215 of the Commonwealth — has heretofore agreed, or shall here- after agree, to aid any contractor with a railroad company, by advancing money to such contractor, or by guaranteeing the execution of a contract, for the building, construction, o'- equipment of a railroad, or for material or rolling-stock, i^ shall be lawful for the said Credit Mobilier of America to takr such measures as will tend to secure the full and faithful per- formance of the contract ; and the said Credit Mobilier oi America, may to that end, appoint its own officers, agent, or superintendent, to execute the contract in place of the con- tractor so aided or guaranteed, — saving, nevertheless, to all parties, their just rights under the contracts, according to their true intent and meaning. ("Signed,") " John P. Glass, Speaker, H. R,,'' " Louis W. Hall, Speaker, Senate.". " Approved, the 28th day of February, A. D. 1867." " John W. Geary, Governor." " You will find out here," said my informant, " that nothing ever leaks out about the Cri^dit Mobilier. Ben. Brewster is their attorney, and the papers are taken out of court, so that nobody can get at them. I don't believe that any considerable portion of the Bar knows anything about the suit of M'Comb rs. The Credit Mobiher." Our correspondent now set 'out to find somebody familiar with the Legislature at the period of the passing of the Fiscal Agency Act, so as to understand how this doppelgauger cor- poration came into the world. All inquiry was answered by the name of Colonel A. R. McClure, as the person who had, at the time specified, been an attendant or member of the State Legislature. Colonel McClure, a little grayer and redder in these cam- paign-times than of old, being full of patriotism and public speaking, said as follows : " The Fiscal Agency began in the vagary of old Duff Green, 216 THE INCORPORATORS. Tyler's editor, who was a visionary man ; and the Legislature humored him by the presentation of the charter he solicited. He came to Harrisburg in the fall of 1859, without a cent, and being a kindly old bore, whose name and years were venerable, he wormed the charter from the members by per- sonal solicitation. We all supposed that he wanted to assume the consolidation and care of our State debt, which is divided up in parcels, and scattered around in many forms. The charter got from Duff Green into the hands of Charles M. Hall, who sold it to the Credit Mobilier people, — some say to their proxy, George Francis Train. Hall is a creature of Simon Cameron, and was made Postmaster of Philadelphia under Johnson, and rejected." " Is that the way. Colonel McClure, that charters are bought and sold in this State ?" " Precisely. No business man thinks of applying for a char- ter, and hazarding blackmail. He goes into the street, and buys some oi the many charters which have been issued to charter-jobbers, and cover all forms of corporate enterprise, from raising wrecks to funding the debts of nations. If we are fortunate we shall get a General Incorporation Act passed in the next State Constitution, and so dispense with the present peddling in nondescript charters." " Will you please tell me whether you know any ot the names of the ' Commissioners ' or incorporators under the first charter,— that of 1859 ?" " That is not vital," said Colonel McClure, " as none of these men are retained in the Crddit Mobilier. However, Samuel J. Reeves is a wealthy iron-man of this city ; Ellis Lewis was Chief-Justice of the Slate ; Garrick Mallory was a great lawyer here ; David R. Porter Vas the father of Horace Porter, Grant's Secretary ; Jacob Zeigler was Clerk of the House ; Horn R. Kneass was a city politician ; Robert J. Ross is a banker at Harrisburg ; W. T. Dougherty is the brother of another banker there ; Isaac Hugus was a Democratic State Senator and Cameron man ; C. M. Reed lived at Erie ; Asa CREDIT MOBILIER. 217 Packer is the Liehigli millionaire ; Jesse Lazear was Congress- man from Greene County ; C. S. Kauffman was in the Legis- lature from Lancaster ; Henry M. Fuller was a Native Amer- ican Congressman ; and C. L. Ward, an operator of Towanda, is dead. The names in the Credit Mobilier are mainly ' blinds/ set up to stand for other people. The Fiscal Agency was a chimera ; the Credit Mobilier entered the skin of it as the devils possessed the crazy man." " Have you read the exposure of the Congressmen in the suit of M'Comb against the Credit Mobilier ?" " Yes. It's true. The only names that surprise me there are Dawes and Boutwell, because both are too shrewd. My experience in legislative things and corporations teaches me that the continuous legislation required to accomplish all the purposes of the Union Pacific Railroad, could not have been attained without bribery in the highsst seats. Only the influ- ence of the highest leaders could have passed such rapacious acts through Congress, and no men of reputation would have pressed them upon their colleagues except by pecuniary inter- est. The letters of Ames are recognized as perfectly valid, and M' Comb's reputation in the middle States is that of a gentle- man who will not lie. The people implicated, who have been quaking over the probability of these exposures, must be reliev- ed that they have come." * Our correspondent now visited the office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court, in the venerable State House row. It was a * The New York Sun published the Credit Mobilier exposure in the month of August, 1872, having, it is said, purchased a copy, surreptitiously- taken from the Commissioner's office. The vital part of the abstracts pub- lished were some letters of Oakes Ames to Henry S. M'Comb, saying that he had " placed Credit Mobilier Stock in Congress wnere it would do the most good," and stating the number of shares allotted to each ot certain States. A memorandum taken by M'Comb from Ames's pocket-book indi- cated that the Congressmen implicated were Dawes, Eliot, Blaine, Bout- well, Kelley, Sohofield, Fowler, Patterson, Garfield, H. Wltson, Bingham, Colfax, and Brooks. 10 218 GETTING AT IT. little old hole, and two wliite-liaired old parchment men were moving around the dockets, exceedingly impertinent as to the case we were looking for. As we approached the Cri^dit Mobilier, everybody's spectacles seemed to take a jump, and all the venerable ears flapped like a puppet's when you pull a; string. There was a smell of old sheepskins, and an impres-' sion of obsolete styles of stenography all over the place.. Everybody looked like aged phonographic characters in) motion. • : Our correspondent got behind the docket-desk, and over- hauled the ponderous manuscript tomes. After looking without reward for a while, he took up an equity docket, and, on page 313, found the long-expected case of M'Comb vs. The Credit Mobilier." It is set down for the January term of 1869, number 19 in order. About the wdiole of one of the great folio pages is covered with the successive dispositions of the case, as it is now continued, now put over, now referred, and again post- poned. The last entries show that, on the 20th of April, 1872, J. E. Gowan, for plaintiff, had the time extended for closing plaintiff's testimony 90 days from date ; and that a further extension of 60 days had also been granted. The case, there fore will go over the Presidential election, as both set of litig- ants are Grant people. He polls the undivided vote of the Credit Mobilier, who think Greeley will not be a " Safe Pre- sident " for such operations as theirs. The defendants enumerated in this suit are as follows : Sidney Dillon, John B. Alley, Roland G. Hazard, Charles McGlirisky,* Oliver W. Barnes,* Thomas Rowland, Paul Pohl, jr.,* Oakes Ames, Charles H. Neilson, Thomas C. Durant, James M. S. Williams, Benedict Stewart,* John Duff, Charles M. Hall, and II. G. Fant. The five names to which the asterisk is affixed are stool- pigeons, put on by Ames & Co. For instance, Thomas Row- land is a shovel-maker and compeer of Ames in the same business, and a quiet country-side man in a hamlet near Phila- CREDIT MOBILIER. 219 delpliia. The names of McGhrisky, Barnes, Rowland, Pohl, and Neilson were afterwards indicated; to me by M'Comb as of no potency or presence in the inside affairs of the Crddit Mobil- ier. Another suit had bx3en in process from October 3, .1868, a period of four years, and another commentary upon the end- less career of Chancery proceedings. Involving only 1300,000, here were four years' work put upon this single piece of litiga- tion. Yerily, one might say, in a paraphrase of Mr. Lincoln : *' Even so ; if every dollar taken by the swindler must be re- placed with another taken by the lawyer, still we must cry : ' The judgments of the Lord are good and righteous alto- gether.' " There have been, at various times, employed by Colonel M'Comb, as plaintiff in this case, such counsel as William Strong, now Judge Strong, of the United States Supremo Bench, Jeremiah S. Black, and James E. Gowan. It is at present managed by S. G. Thompson, son of the Pennsylvania Chief-Justice Thompson, as associate of the Hon. Jeremiah S. Black. The defence is entrusted to Robert McMurtrie, who stands at the head of the Philadelphia Bar, as successor to John O'Brien, James Ottarson, and other less lawyers in the same case. This would seem to show that Dillon, Alley, Ames &, Co. mean to contest strenuously the claims of M'Comb. It appeared that the Court had appointed A. W. Norris to take testimony in this proceeding in equity ; and searching out Norris's whereabouts, I found that he occupied the ofhce of S. G. Thompson, the plaintiff's counsel. The next step was to see whether Norris, or Thompson, or both, would satisfy a laudable curiosity, and give me the testimony to consume, assimilate, and exhale. Behold our correspondent, therefore on the way to the office of Thompson with a p. There arc periods in life when the p in Thompson's name appears to be an insurmountable barrier. Such was the pre- sent. The mind of the correspondent, in its anxious, not to say precipitate condition, transferred to the p all that might be 220 VISITING THE COUNSEL'S OFFICE. obdurate in mankind, and in Thompson individually, and fond- ly imagined that, if he had spelled the name in smooth, flow- ing fashion, Thomson, — with no thump to the pronunciation of the same, — he could have been a man of genial yiclina- tion, and those conversational talents which are conducive to a great deal of newspaper information unconsciously. Mentally assured that the p in Thompson's name would not permit him toj be an obliging man, I took the precaution of stopping at the telegraph office and sending a message to Wilmington, Del., to inquire the whereabouts of Thompson's client, Colonel JVrComb. Arriving at Mr. Thompson's office, I recognized in him an acquaintance not far from my own age, and then I despaired. The newspaper profession, abused as it is, is the only one where a man never puts on airs over being the repository of anything. He sheddeth and imparteth like the gentle dew of Heaven upon the place beneath, even if a person of the same age should occupy the place. The only, thing in which he is per- fectly at home is instruction. But your lawyer delights in magnifying his mission, and the extent of the confidence re- posed in him. In Thompson's manner there was a deep and bibliological mystery, associated with a covert and gentlemanly sense of delight that he had come to be an authority. At first, the social animal, beaming and gladsome (I say gladsome, because nobody ever knew a lawyer to be really glad), Thomp- son in a minute divined my errand, and asserted the counsel. What a dulcet sound to the young and ardent lawyer lies in that word, Counsel. Behold him, referring to his grandfather in a subdued tone, but with more or less apparent solemnity, as '' my client." Observe him step in advance of the pris- oner at the dock, saying : " 'Sli ! 'Honor, I appear as counsel for the prisoner ! " Nothing in life becomes him like these occasions, and, in the presence of a newspaper man, Thompson was now all counsel. " I think I know your purpose," he said; "it is the Credit CREDIT MOBILIER. 221 Mobilier dase. I am in an embarassing position as to that. I am — ahem ! — I am counsel for Colonel M'Comb." " Yes. But like Captain Cuttle when Sol Gills left his last will and testament, I say where's the testament, — the testi- mony ? " " A part of it has got out. Col. M*Comb has written to me to ask how it did leak out. Do you know a man named Gibson?" "Yes. Gibson is the industrious mouse. He published eleven columns of this testimony in the New York Sun^ as well as the Ames letter and memoranda." " There is a person of that name," said Mr. Thompson ; I suspect I know how the letters got out. A man came to me with a letter from Judge Black. Perhaps I don't know. I think I do." There was great and impressive mystery at this point. Mr. Thompson fell to examining a copy of the New York Sun in my possession. He read it all over as if he had never before beheld it. He smiled a counsellor-kind of smile at times, as if he had recognized something. The counsellor finally told me the trial had been long because all equity proceedings are So; that, when Judge Strong had charge of it, he could not take any step without consulting with Judge Black ; and that Colonel M'Comb had refused to leave the Ames letters, in their original, with the testimony, but had copies made. He said that the Ames letters were in existence ; that the implication of puolic men appeared not yet to be exhausted ; and that I could see the testimony with an order from M'Comb. As I left the office, Mr. Thompson said: " If you printed the testimony and letters, and all the people in the country read them, it wouldn't change a vote ? " " Perhaps not. But it is a horrible admission to make about one's countrymen. Nothing changes votes in this Christian age, but money and patronage ; is it so ? " I made up my mind that the part of the testimony already published, had first met the eye of Jerry Black, and that he 222 STARTING TO SEE M'COMB. had let it out to a reporter, who got access to the manuscript, and hastily copied or imitated such parts as he wanted. It also occurred to me, if any of the immaculate men referred to in that list of the bribed, had, all the while, been conscious that Jerry Black was aware of the purchase and sale, and that young lawyers had also found it out, and that the area of ex- posure was inevitably widening toward explosion, liow disturbed at times must have been their sleep ! The sleep of the dis- tinguished hypocrite, what agony it must be of nights ! To know that, in the hands of remorseless men there is a secret ; that all time and occasion press nearer and nearer to its revealment; that come it must, and that it must be met. Such is the modern Eugene Aram in high places. But then "it wouldn't change a vote ! " Yes, it will. Not this year, perhaps, but the next or the next, and it will change history, too, and men's conception of man, and the man's happiness, and the children's heritage of honor. Politics may apologize for bribery, but the dead corpse will be apparent the longer it is kept. No political party in the world can reason away the conclusion that, if a trusted statesman sold his vote and influ- ence, the public faith, and the public law, and all the while played the outward part of piety and honor, he did a thing of infamy, and lived a lie, and his face will be turned to the wall. Finding that the Colonel, the plaintiff, was not in Wilming- ton, but in New York City, I telegraphed to No. 20 Nassau street, and, in half an hour, got an answer, giving me his address, and saying he would see me. I bought the State Report with the long Credit Mobilier case in it, to read on the way, and was soon in the midst of a mass of villany. What things people will do to make money ! Half the world, it would appear from the law-book, ought to be in the penitenti- ary. Here is a charter begged by a poor old man for a vision- ary end, or, perhaps, to serve some scheme of rapacity never developed, which, stamped with mendicancy at its birth, goes through the stews of politics and commerce, and becomes at last the bawd of men to whom this country has been generous, CREDIT MOBILIER. 223 selecting them to lay a path between the coasts of the Conti- nent, and liberally advancing them money and credit to per- form the work with conscientious celerity, and make their lives useful and their names renowned. With the spirit of Joseph's brethren, they hasten to put the heir in the pit, and institute therefor a bastard corporation, parasitical in its nature, which shall eat the life of its wholesome brother, and divert the rev- enues and gifts of a highway whose achievement the world admires, into a mere " fence," or receiving-shop for stolen goods. Having succeeded in this, beyond the usual fate of roguery, they next turn about and swindle the Commonwealth, which gave them the bastard charter, out of above half a million of taxes. Such was the purport of the long report I read on the way to New York City. Prosperous we are indeed, but a;t what moral cost ? Will the world believe that, while we were waging a warfare with the slavery of the whole body, we were making the patriotism in whose name we fought, a cover for such crimes as the Credit Mobilier ? The Pacific Railway exists; but the corner-stone of the masons thereof was plunder. At 9 o'clock I walked into the great commercial, social, and gamester's market in New York, the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and soon afterward the handsome Colonel Harry M'Comb walked in. He had been a poor boy, native and now citizen of Wilming- ton, Del. Handsome and prepossessing from his childhood up, he was prosperous enough, when the war began, to become a merchant in supplies, and distinguished himself by the energy and resolution with which he competed with men of greater capital, and wider reputation. He is said to be the richest man in Delaware, the Duponts probably " excepted," and his business at liome, in Wilmington, is the tanning of leather. With an orthodox education, and the best social connections in a quiet and virtuous community, he superadds to the dashing contractor and merchant, the semi-Southern tone and spirit of genial address, magnanimous personal impulses, the touch of 224 COLONEL HARRY M'COMB. honor, and the carriage of a man of the world, yet heedful of his reputation. Nature designed him for a large part in life ; he is the equal of any to whom he speaks, and courteous to all. In New York he takes a rank relatively as high as at home. Invincible, imposing, cool, agreeable, he is the least provincial and the most exalted of men of his class. He is portly, care- ful of dress, loud in nothing, with honhommie, natural intelli- gence, and ease. " Our correspondent" at once made known the object of his errand, and the conversation which followed is here set down. An interview such as follows, often does injustice to a public man by the unavoidable misplacing of the order of questions and answers, so that statements often appear climatic, and things take context of themselves, and give impressions which the just order of the dialogue would not show. The subjoined is believed to be a fair and candid relation of this interview : " Colonel M'Comb,''' said our correspondent, my errand is to get from you the impartial truth as to the revelations of late made concerning the sums of Credit Mobilier stock allotted to members of Congress about the year 1868. You have seen the published extracts and the printed memorandum made by you upon the back of a letter from Oakes Ames, in which memo- randum 2,000 or 3,000 shares, respectively, are set down to these persons : Blaine, Colfax, Boutwell, Gparfield, Kelley, Bing- ham, Senators Patterson, of New Hampshire, Fowler and Henry Wilson ; Schofield and Kelley, the deceased member Eliot, and Henry L. Dawes. I wish to know if this is a hoax or a re- ality. I also wish permission, as so much has been said already, to see the testimony." Colonel M'Comb: "I have given my testimony before the Commissioner to take it by appointment of the Court. The letters from Oakes Ames are in my possession, and copies of them have been taken in the testimony. But I was surprised to see the letters and several columns of the testimony printed here in the public papers, and disclaim any agency in that reve- lation. It would not be proper for me to give you an order to CREDIT MOBILIER. 225' see the testimony, unless Mr. McMurtrie, counsel for the de- fense concurred." "But why permit these terrible excerpts to go broadcast, if they are- not parts of the testimony, to do injury to eminent and innocent people ? Colonel M'Comb : " They are parts of the testimony, and that is the reason why I can have no hand in anticipating their inevitable publicity. Somebody in your profession has had access to the Commissioner's manuscript, and taken that part of the evidence, sometimes copied it with haste, and often without accuracy, and again attempted to condense it. He has, besides, copied injurious parts without the link between. But what is printed is substantially there. I endeavored to keep the names of those gentlemen back, but Mr. Oakes Ames was perfectly indifferent to the exposure of his friends. He is about to retire from Congressional life, and will take no step to cover anybody's nakedness. " How did you seek to avoid this disclosure ? " Colonel M'Comb : " In the first place, I tried to have the pro- ceedings before a private Board of Beferees or Commissioners, to be named by the Court, both parties to the suit consenting. They had all along been saying that my suit was merely a blackmail operation ; and, when I brought it to trial, and ex- pressed my willingness to put it in arbitration, Ames, Alley, Dillon, and the rest, cried : ' Oh ! he will never dare to put it in open Court ; he has no case, and shows that he has none by making it a private trial ! ' I was thus forced to bring open suit in the State Courts of Equity. I laid my papers of all sorts, which bore reference to this suit, before my counsel, Judge Black. He read them over, and said : ' M'Comb, these men will never dare to let this case come to trial with these reputa- tions involved in it.' But tliey did, and fought and defied it at every step. Finally I came to a spot where, in the cross-ex- amination, these letters of Oakes Ames were vital to my cause, and I again notified Alley and the rest, that I should be com- pelled to put them in. Ames knew all about their contents, 226 WHY m'comb produceu the famous letters. but he did not move one step. I produced them after repeated taunts to do so, and a transcript of them has come to light, as could not, probably, be avoided. I have no hesitation in saying that, had I been assisted by gentlemen as Ames was, I should have made every sacrifice rather than betray them, as he has permitted the course of this suit to do. With all of those gentlemen we stand upon terms of fair fellowship, and most of ^ them are our party friends." *' There is no- politics in this suit, then ? " Colonel M'Comb: " None whatever! I told the editor of your paper, at the Brevoort House, last July, that I could not support Greeley ; that Grant was not my first choice, but that I could not be convinced to vote for Greeley. The suit in which I am plaintiff began before General Grant had fairly got into his office. It is for a direct and considerable money-loss which Oakes Ames obliged me to make by his bad faith, — a loss which is not merely in stock no-t delivered, but stock which I took from my own share to keep a contract with a friend. The letters of Ames belong to this suit, showing that he professed to divert my stock to Legislative uses, and act as the trustee for those Congressmen to wham he presented it; and the memorandum on the back of one of these letters shovrs that just the amount he took from me he put to tlie account of the persons thereon named. The names he read to me from a memorandum book, and I wrote them down in the office as he dictated them. They remain as they were put on that letter, many seasons ago, and 1 repeat that, if I had not got those letters in at the time I put them in, they would not have been in order subsequently." " How came you to lose your own stock through Ames' con- fiscating yours ? " Colonel M'Comb : " It happened in this wise : Hamilton G. Fant asked me to take up for him, when I came to New York, $25,000 worth of Crddit Mobilier shares. I gave the order for it, and told Crane, the secretary, to draw on him for the money. They said they did notknow much about Fant, and preferred CREDIT MOBILIER. 22T my check. I got a power of attorney from Fant to make the purchase, but the power of attorney was bad in form, and Crane, the Secretary of the Credit Mobih'er, made out a new and correct power of attorney, — which is a hnk of evidence in my suit. 1 got a certified check of my own, and paid for the stock. This check was mislaid in the ofhce ; and when, after some time, it was discovered that Fant had not paid for his stock, the Company drew a draft upon him for the amount. His circumstances had meantime changed, and the draft came back protested. The Company now notified me that they ex- pected me to pay the draft, and this led to a search for the cer- tified check,. whicli came to light. At this period I was called away, and was absent some time — some three or four months — attending to matters in a distant quarter. But I had prom- ised Mr. King, of Massachusetts, to deliver to him $25,000 worth of stock, and expected to give him Fant's stock. Cakes Ames, however, would not deliver to me Fant's stock, and, in excuse, showed me in the registry-book that he had disbursed the $25,000 amongst the members of Congress aforesaid. I was, therefore, forced to take of my own Credit Mobilier stock $25,000 worth at the original valuation, and deliver it to King. My suit is for this stock, and the dividends which it produced. Whether Cakes Ames kept it, or paid dividends bonds or money out of it to others, is not my business to in- quire. I want what is mine." " How does Fant's name appear in your suit added to the list of defendants ?" Colonel M'Comb : " They liad arranged at one time to get Fant on their side, to rout me in the suit, and I put him in with the rest." " Are not some of the names of the defendants used as mere blinds ? " Colonel M'Comb : " Yes. Rowland, Pohl, and several others are of no note in the Credit Mobilier." " Who got the charter for the Credit Mobilier ? " " George Francis Train got it for Durant, who paid him 150,000 for it." !1 228 CREDIT MOBILIER. " Why do the Ames party dislike Durant ? " Colonel M'Comb : "They were jealous of him, and have been slandering him for several years, saying that he is dis- honest ; that he made away with bonds, earnings, etc. At one time, I was induced to believe these things ; but I found Du- rant had more brains and more honesty than their party." " Is the testimony of Ames, Alley, and others, in the suit of the State ot Pennsylvania for taxes, reliable ? " i Colonel M'Comb : " No, it is all false. They swore they made no dividends, when Ames' letters to me assert just the contrary." " Colonel M'Comb, what does this line mean in the memo- randa as published : ' Painter (Rep.) for Quigley, 3,000 ? ' I know who Painter is, and suppose the * Rep.' means reporter. Who is Quigley ? " Colonel M'Comb: "Quigley is a townsman of mine, in Wilmington, Del. That has been erroneously copied from my memoranda in the Sun. The reporter who took it down for that paper must have been nervous, and he has made several mistakes. The names of Painter and Quigley belong to an- other memorandum. They are interested with me in the canal property between Washington and Alexandria, a piece of prop- erty owned and controlled by myself, Ames, Quigley, and some others. The figures 3,000 at the end of each name do not signify shares in the Credit Mobilier, but dollars' worth of stock. If you look at the published memoranda you will see that no word occurs after these figures. It is true that f 3,000, at the rate of profit obtained by the stock- holders, would come to about 118,000. Therefore, the 825,000 worth of stock which Cakes Ames says he held as trustee for the Congressmen named would be worth many times its face. I held my suit for this stock in the Credit Mobilier to be far above $300,000. That represents, as near as may be, tlie whole of the divided sum, provided Ames paid it to them, set down in that memorandum to the Congressmen implicated. I feel distressed at the publicity given to this thing, on account CREDIT MOBILIER. 229 of their reputations, and the annoyance it gives to these gentle- men ; but I have done all in my power to get what is due me without taking this step." "Will you give me an order upon your counsel, S. G. Thomp- son, to look at the testimony taken before the Commissioner, A. W. Harris?" Colonel M'Comb: " I will, if you get a similar or^er, or the consent of Robert C. McMurtrie, the counsel for the other side. But I do not want to be a party to any political designs which may be based upon the testimony, and my position as plaintiff is too delicate to take the advance in throwing that testimony open to the reporters. The fact is, Mr. McMurtrie, defendant's counsel, is now in possession of all the testimony ; he borrowed it some time ago, and keeps it under the excuse of wishing to read it carefully." " AVhere is Oakes Ames ?" Colonel M'Comb: "He is coming to this city to-morrow. If he denies those letters, I shall feel myself at liberty to let you see them : and, if you can get an authorized denial from him that he wrote them, I will give you an order on Thompson to look at the manuscript." Colonel M'Comb then said : " What use do you propose to make of all this matter you have been gathering up in Phila- delphia and New York ?" Correspondent; "Print it all to satisfy the wholesome inquis- itiveness of the period, pin the responsibility where it belongs, and let people unfairly implicated explain their way out. The matter is certainly the greatest of all Congressional scan- dals. If Golladay, Whittemore, and such poor shoats are to be expelled for selling West Point Cadetships for a few hun- dred dollars, don't you think Speakers of the House, Senators, and such magnates ought to be brought to the bar of public opinion for abetting a swindle like the Credit Mobilier, pushing private mortgage ahead of the Government's first mortgage, and otherwise prcfering the claims of a corporation to the rights of their country and the tax-payers ? " 2o0 CREDIT MOBILIER. Colonel -M'Cpmb : " Well, I have no responsibility in this personal pai;t of the suit ; and I tell you now that, if my object was merely scandal, I could produce a letter not yet printed or proffered in the testimony, which would extend the area of implication, draw in other names of persons not suspected of collusion in any gainful matter, and make the present untortu- nate disclosure secondary only." " Has Oakes Ames no feeling for his colleagues in Con- gress ?" . Colonel M'Comb : " No. Selfishness is implanted in Ames on the widest scale. He has the hide of a bull. If he had the sentiment of honor he would do anything, — leave the country, — rather than put the past services of his friends to the test." " What were the circumstances under which you took that memorandum ? Please repeat it." Colonel M'Comb : " Why, I took it from Ames himself, he reading from a memorandum which he took from his pocket, to account to me for the stock he would not furnish, and, by accident, I made the memorandum at that moment on the back of one of Ames' own letters to me, — the same which has got into the testimony. That is how the thing leaked out. The letter was coerced from me in the course of litigation, and being dis- covered, the memorandum was made public with it." " Then the weakness of the evidence is in the fact that you alone wrote the memorandum, and nobody can get the stock- register to confirm your memorandum. At the same time, the very incompleteness of this evidence at law will be moral proof to thousands of men. It lacks the lawyer's arrangement, but what is missing in evidence carries most conviction." Colonel M'Comb : " Ames might have made a false entry of the names of the Congressmen, or he might have dictated entries of names not on the register. I had no suspicion of such possibilities at the time. We were on fairly amicable terms, members of the same Company, and he read straight on, giving me time to copy the list." *' It seems to me, Colonel, that you are employing a formid- CREDIT MOBILIER. 231 able array of counsel for a very doubtful consequence. What do Ames, Allen, Dillon & Co. care for the Credit Mobilier char- ter now, having worn it out, and having no responsibility within the State of Pennsylvania longer ? The Cr(^dit Mobilier has about wound up, has it not ?" Colonel M'Comb: " No. It is still worth three millions of dollars at least, and its charter is worth preserving." " Are you still a stock-holder?" Colonel M'Comb : " Yes. I possess six [or sixty, corre- spondent not certain] shares, and my suit is not to get in, but to get my proportion of what I have paid for." " Is Oakes Ames worth anything ?" Colonel M'Comb : " Yes. Three or four millions." While a part of the above conversation was taking place, two gentlemen sat beside Colonel M'Comb and our correspondent, viz : H. D. Newcomb, President of the Louisville and Nashville Eailroad, and Josiah Bardwell, an owner of Cr(^dit Mobilier stock. Colonel Newcomb informed me that Mr. Bardwell invested $50,000 in the Credit Mobilier, and that his net drawings thereon had amounted to $360,000, Mr. Bardwell is a stout, brown- whiskered gentleman, and he said, pleasantly : " Gath, you ought to go and talk to Oakes Ames to-morrow. He will talk freely. He don't care." " How much do you infer," said Mr. Bardwell to ' our corre- spondent,' '' were the proceeds or profits of Credit Mobilier investments ?" Applying the information derived only a moment before on the other side, our correspondent answered : " About six or seven for one, — say on an investment of $5},- 000, about $360,00a net!" This shot seemed to tickle Mr. Bardwell, and he laughed in a serio-comic way. " W^ell," said he," provided that is true, we took a good deal of risk." " Yes," said another," I wish I had some of that risk. The 232 CREDIT MCBILIER. stock and the dividends I don't mind, but I am quite put out that I didn't get some of the risk." Here there was a general laugh. Colonel Newcomb said, direccly, — no other person at the moment present : " What surprises me most is, that the newspaper profession, with all its acuteness, did not discover this matter long ago, — four years ago, — it being an old subject of conversation amongst railway men and operators. You will observe that Speaker Blaine denies that he ever received or owned any stock or money in the Credit Mobilier. My understanding is, that no stock was given, but that the dividends were in the bonds given to the Railroad Company, which in turn became the dividends, etc., of the Credit Mobilier. A man set down as having an interest would merely be presented with bonds at periods when dividends came to be declared, and some of the earliest of such dividends would clear off his stock of indebtedness." It was now near midnight, and the company separated. Colonel M'Comb said, before going to bed : " I have talked more to-night on this subject than I have yet allowed myself to do. Three New York newspaper men have been to see me to-day, and I have refused to speak, being already annoyed at the publication of my garbled parts of evidence, and at the appearance of Ames' letters. There, for example, is the letter of Crane, the Secretary of the Credit Mobilier, which is omitted. I did not want anything published, and the omissions and the publications are equally annoying. I have told you this to satisfy you that I am merely going straight on to get my dues in a business suit, and am no politician at any time. I shall vote for General Grant, and could never vote for Greeley anyway." "Why?" "He is too much of a whirligig. Good-night." Wondering if Greeley were more of a whirligig than tu. Credit Mobilier, which began with Duff Green, passed along to George Francis Train, fell as a family chattel into the hands of CREDIT MOBILIER. 233 Tom Durant, was gobbled up by Oakes Ames, Sidney Dil- lon, and John B. Alley, and has finally become a bombshell in Congress, exploding the caucus, our correspondent also retired to his room, made his notes, and composed himself to rest, congratulating himself that he had deserved well of his coun- try. The above was the first letter published confirmatory of the disclosure from a principal. OHAPTEE XYI. CREDIT MOBILIER BROUGHT TO BAY, Perhaps nothing in American history will bear comparison with the Credit Mobilier as a drama in which all the human emotions have been played upon from farce to tragedy. The subject is of the grandest area, and the conspiracy within it close and criminal as in any scheme of treason aimed at a great empire. Look at the dates, and see what they imply : In the Summer of 1862, a Pacific Railroad was empowered by Congress. In 1869 the road was built, and cars were running from New York to San Francisco. In 1872, ten years after the Government exercised its generosity, the chief builders and capitalists of the enterprise appeared like common criminals at the bar of public opinion, and the highest heads in Congress were dragged down for complicity in their crime. Two separate investigations were held in the House of Repre- sentatives, and one in the United States Senate. Two mem- bers of Congress, Oakes Ames and James Brooks, and one Senator, James W. Patterson, were reported back for expul- sion. But public opinion was so far from satisfied, and Congress so wholly demoralized by apprehensions of other exposures, that neither House took definite action, and Con- gress adjourned under a cloud, and the entire country, which had just passed through a presidential election, was overcast with doubt, shame, and indignation. The two members marked for expulsion died in little more than two months CREDIT MOBILIER. 235 and within a few days of each other. It is true that one of them was a sufferer from bodily disease, and the other was an old man, but the pubhq superstition connected in their obitu- ary the tragedy and its context, and not all the funeral pomp could clear tlie stigma from the dead, nor obtain a revocation of public sentiment in favor of the score or more men who had been members and Senators, and had abused the magnificent dowry of the nation. Almost while the funeral services of Brooks and Ames were being said, the United States Govern- ment was filing complaint and bill in equity at Hartford, Connecticut, May 26, 1873, in the Circuit Court of the United States, against " The Union Pacific Railroad Company and others," of which a newspaper despatch said : " This marks the opening of the great legal struggle between the Government on one side and two of the greatest and most extraordinary corporations ever created on the oth^r, and will, beyond doubt, occupy some of the attention of the Courts for ten, perhaps twenty, years to come. It is, unquestionably, the most gigantic litigation on record, and the printed complaint and exhibits appended thereto, twenty-five in number, make a book of 134 printed pages. " The total sum to be accounted for will, if a verdict be given against all the defendants, be probably not less than $25,000,000, and interests in the litigation may be transmitted, in all likelihood, to the second generations of the posterity of some of the parties defendant." An examination of this bill shows that it makes defendants not only about one hundred rich individuals but also the following corporations : the Union Pacific Railroad Com- pany, a corporation created by acts of Congress of the United States, whose principal office for business is located at Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, and its President, Horace F. Clark, of the city, county and State of New York ; the Credit Mobilier of America, a corporation cre- ated by the Legislature of the State of Pennsylvania, and located in Philadelphia, in said State, and its President, 236 THE DEFENDANTS IN THE SUIT. Sidney Dillon, ot the city, county, and State of New York ; the Wyoming Coal and Mining Company, a corporation organ- ized under the general statutes of the State of Nebraska ; the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, a corporation organized under the general statutes of the State of New York, and its President, John Duff, of Boston, in the State of Massachusetts ; the Pullman Palace Car Company, a cor- poration transacting business in Chicago, in the State of Illinois, and its President, George M. Pullman, of Chicago; and the Omaha Bridge Transfer Company, a corporation transacting business at Omaha, in the State of Nebraska. Amongst the individual defendants are ex-Congressman Henry M. Boyer, and Helen Boyer, his wife ; William Tracy, the executor of Congressman Brooks, deceased ; General G. M. Dodge, and Anne M. Dodge, his wife ; the widow of ex- Senator Grimes ; and very many ex-Congressmen and hitherto respectable citizens. The United States attorneys claim in one paragraph of this bill that the following extraordinary state of morals and finance prevails in the Union Pacific Railroad Company : " The Union Pacific Railroad Company is insolvent. The cost of the railroad and telegraph line was considerably less than one-half the sum represented by the aggregate of stock and other pretended liabilities of the company outstanding. The largest part of the stock and bonds of the company before mentioned was issued, in the name of the ">ompany, by its managers, not in the interest of the company, but to enrich themselves in a manner and for purposes unauthorized by law. A large majority of the stock now habitually voted upon as of right, in electing officers and controlling the affairs of the company, is stock issued in a manner not authorized by law, and which was never paid for, in cash or in any other thing of equivalent value to the company. A large part of its income is used habitually in paying its managers high interest and commissions on loans, and in paying interest on bonds issued unnecessarily, without lawful motive or adequate consideration. CREDIT MODILIER. 237 " The earnings have not been sufficient to pay accruing interest on its floating debt and on the several classes of bonds issued by the company. Ten millions of dollars of its income bonds, so-called, will be due in September, 1874 ; but no fund has been provided or is accumulating for either new ties and rails or payment of said income bonds. Interest on United States bonds issued to the company is allowed to accumulate without payment, as before stated. The company is insolvent, and obliged to depend on temporary loans to save its ol^liga- tions and promises from dislionor. Its principal managers treat it as depending on their personal credit to save it from bankruptcy, and make profit by loaning it money for high interest and commission." The Wilson Committee of Congress showed that tlic Credit Mobilier conspirators made a': least twenty-four millions of money beyond a liberal profit by contracting witlr themselves, not only to build the road, but to rob it in every possible man- ner after it should go into operation. The rapacity and wcaltli of the conspirators, and the general demoralization of American commercial and political society at the time, involved a whole- sale purchase of engineers, examiners. Congressmen, news- papers, cabinet officers, state governors, and judges. Society stood back appalled, unwilling, but compelled to believe the disclosures, and there can be no doubt that Republican Government lost the faith of many thousand men and women. Let us look at the two railway companies which interlink midway from the one highway to the Pacific. The Central Pacific Company at tlie West End sprung out of the needs of California, and the yearning of all the people and capitalists there to have quick and reliable connection with the bulk of their countrymen in the East. The Union Pacific Road, on the contrary, did not aim to give relief to a rising nation of people, by affording them an outlet to civilization, but it was simply a tie which should bind the Central Pacific to the country east of the Missouri. Tliis intervening country wos Avithout laro-e towns, and. indeed, without any population 238 THE REAL OBJECT OP THE UNION PACIFIC. to speak of, except the few herders of cattle, and some isolated band of miners. The Union Pacific Road, therefore, did not promise to become, in a short time, a profitable highway to its devisors. It tumbled into the hands of certain lobbyists and Congressmen, who were much more concerned to make some- thing out of its construction than to build it up into a property, and wait, like the Central Pacific people, for the business to increase, the country to fill up, the mines to grow profitable, and the freights and passenger-travel to yield their legitimate award. The Union Pacific Railroad did not break ground until the 5th of November, 1865, — nearly two years after the Central Pacific had resolutely driven the spade, and looked with courage, almost beyond hope, at the steep sides of the Sierra Nevadas. To build the Union Pacific Road was a much lighter task than to lay the Central Pacific. On the former lines the long level plains and steppes afforded such easy accommoda- tions for railway buildei'S that it is a matter of history how even six miles a day of track were laid when the work had been fully undertaken. The Union Pacific Company laid but forty miles of track up to January, 1866 ; but, in that inter- val, and after it, the incorporators of the road found out an opportunity to make money more easily than by patient pro- cesses. When the Credit Mobilier, so called, had been created, to receive the proceeds of the Government bonds, and sieve the same into the railroad through the pockets of the manipula- tors of the Mobilier, they warmed up, and were able to lay 305 miles of road in one year, 235 in the next year, and finally, to complete the road, for the whole 1,085 miles, by the 10th of May, 1869. The Union Pacific Road retains to the present day 1,032 miles of road lying between Ogden and Omaha. It received a vast subsidy in land from Congress, besides such a stupendous bonded aid that, by the testimony of experts, it was able to lay the whole line within the amount in cash realized from the sale of its bonds, put a large fortune in the hands of everybody who belonged to the Credit Mobilier, and receive, CREDIT MOBILIER. 239 besides, the whole of its land-grant, as a clear margin of profit. The scandals which accompanied the building of this road are, perhaps, forgotten by many of the old generation, and are scarcely known to tens of thousands ot the new generation which has arisen since the Pacific was opened. The traveller over the liiie at this day will observe that, whenever a rich piece of level ground is attained, the road begins to snake around like a great brook which draws water from every spring ; and sometimes the eye is bewildered to see what appears to be an- other railroad, parallel with that on which he travels ; but the information is soon afforded that it is the same piece of road he had gone over half an hour before. If he asks why it should be so crooked, the answer will be : " That was a part of the job." The Union Pacific Company let out the building of the road to its own contractors, under the name of the Credit Mobilier ; and they had no desire to make a short line where it was easy lay- ing track, because they received so much per mile in bonds from the United States, and whenever they could build the road for less per mile than the bonded aid, they went winding round and round, like a circle, and put the overplus in their pockets. " But," you will ask, " was the Government so blind that it could not see that a swindle was being perpetrated upon it in describing three sides of a square to get the distance of the fourth side ?" " Yes," will be the answer ; " but the road will be ex- amined by persons selected at the suggestion of the Company, and these were induced to report that everything was cor- rect." All the above is literally true, as any man knows who has crossed the plains. The time between Omaha and Ogden could be greatly decreased had this railroad been laid on the thrifty principle of a responsible organization and honest en- gineering. Begun as a job, the Union Pacific Railroad soon failed to be of interest to those who had prostituted the Govern- 210 THE BIG SWINDLE. mciit Charity, after it was opened. While the Central Pacific Hoad, of which it is the receiver, is a splendid piece of proper- ty, with its stock jealously kept in the hands of its original conceivers, the Union Pacific has several times changed owner- ship, President after President going out ; and the scandal of its management was so notorious that the Tammany Hall Judges thought it would " come down " easily and pay them black-mail. So Judge Barnard put it into the hands ot a receiver in New York, and had its safe broken open with cold- chisels and gun-powder. At Saratoga, during the trial of Judge Barnard, Horace F. Clark, an associate of this road, was put upon the stand, and asked to give testimony concerning the Credit Mobilier. He declined to say anything about it, asserting that all he knew was hearsay and not evidence, and refused to bring the books of the corporation, which are now in the city of Boston, within the jurisdiction of the State of New York. Hence the mystery involving the Credit Mobilier, — which we may call, for short, the ring of Union Pacific Directors and stockholders, who get the bonds, put the road down cheaply, and filcli the remainder of the aid Government gives them, — and the difficulty of get- ting at any of the facts, although the people know that one of the most monstrous and impudent swindles ever perpetrated upon a magnanimous Nation was the act of that Union Direct- ory, of which Oliver Ames was President and Oakes Ames the Congressional Agent. It will ever be a subject of scandal to an inquiring posterity that Schuyler Colfax, as well as his successor, James G. Blaine, kept at the head of the Pacific Railroad Committee in the House of Representatives, this Oakes Ames. He was a large, heavy-set, secretive shovel- maker, from the Taunton District of Massachusetts, who kept his pocket full of free passes over this railroad, and dealt them out judiciously to whoever might be able to do him either good or injury. A member of Congress, and as such obligated t6 protect tlie State in its property in the Pacific Railways, Oakes Ames was, all the while, a member of the Credit Mobilier, and ^, . CREDIT MOBILIER. 241 a brother of the President of the road. He never made a pro- position concerning this road which did not become the law or the observance by act of Congress. He carried through Con- gress a scandalous proposition by which the Government abandoned its first mortgage of this highway, and allowed the private mortgage bonds of the Railroad Company to take pre- cedence, and crowded the Government with a second mort- gage. He was able, with the help of the most eminent men in the Republican party, to collect from the United States the gross sum for carrying the mails over this road, while, at the same time, he never paid the interest on the Government bonds as it accrued. In short, the Union Pacific Railroad first begged a loan from the United States of from sixteen to sixty thousand dollars a mile, and then robbed it of the inter- est on the loan, forced the loan itself back to a contingent place, and pasted it over with another, and a private loan of its own, and then swindled it out of the whole gross sums for the mail service. During the time that these robberies were taking place, and the Credit Mobilier could be daily heard to chuckle as it re- ceived Governmeut bonds, a great deal of wild and florid gam- mon was poured out upon the country. Our attention was called to the giant pines of California, whenever we proposed to look down to the ties, and see where our money had gone. If we presumed to ask when the road, under good manage- ment, might pay for itself, we were directed to spend no time upon such mercenary amusement, but to look, instead, on the splendor of Yo Semite Valley, and the wonderful apricots in the regjon of Los Angeles. There was so much drumming, and fifing, and fuss, and palaver, kept up about this glorious achievement (which was tlie easiest achievement ever under- taken by civilized man, when he had the money in his hands to do it with), that the imagination of the country was carried away from the solid business which belonged to the undertak- ing, and now, after many years of mystery, a private law-suit 11 242 WHAT OAKES AMES' LETTERS SHOW. in a secondary city proves that murder must out at last, and that what is so ugly can never be wholly concealed. The Credit Mobilier, it appears, built nearly the whole of the Union Pacific Railroad, or 1,038 J miles, which was a little more than the Union Pacific now retains. It really built 1,035 miles, but sold to the Central Pacific subsequently all that por- tion of the road between Ogden and Promontory, and now owns less, by 6J- miles of rails, than the Credit Mobilier, its stool-pigeon, built. For this 1,038 J miles of road the Credit Mobilier got United States bonds, amounting to more than 827,250,000, besides 12,080,000 acres of land. Upon this land were issued 7 per cent, land-grant bonds, to the amount of 810,400,000. The capital stock of the Credit Mobiher, mean- time, was 37,000 shares, at a par value of 8100. Exactly how designing and successful this transaction was, has come out in the letter of Oakes Ames to H. S. M'Comb. According to Ames' own admission in this letter, the Credit Mobilier paid less than 825,700 a mile to build the highway, or^ in gross, 825,900,000. The letters from Oakes Ames are valid and un- doubted ; they are written by him, and appear in his hand- writing ; they were indited in the due course of businesSj. and are now about four years and a half old. They show the secrecy, the Jesuitry, and the ingratitude of the corporation which could receive such an amount of help, and abuse the Government's confidence ; and they show, more than all, that it was a member of Congress who wrote these letters, and he implicated, in all secrecy and seriousness, men whom the country has delighted to honor. The country owes nothing perhaps to Henry S. M'Comb, who was one of the Credit Mobilier men, for having been the means of showing up their, system of plunder. It seems that M'Comb was a fellow capitalist with Thomas C. Durant and joined Du- r ant's faction when the Mobilier people got to cheating each other. Durant had been a physician in the western part of Massachusetts, but he had too much worldly enterprise for professional life, and took to railroad contracting. He observed CREDIT MOBILIER. 243 the drift of opinion to be in favor of a railway to the Pacific, and put himself forward in the project, but being a reckless speculator, without conscience toward his creditors, his country, his friends, or his friend's wife, he had no sooner become Yice-President of the Union Pacific railroad, than he sent George Francis Train to Pennsylvania to buy him one of those floating charters by which our modern legislatures em- power gamblers to cheat mankind. The name of Credit Mo- bilier was derived from a stock gambling corporation which existed in Paris during the reign of Napoleon III. Had the Pennsylvania legislature possessed anybody of general reading, and been particular about honesty, it would have suspected a corporation with such a title. Durant got his charter at such a time as to show that he meditated a swindle from the begin- ning. He gathered around him a set of loose law-defying con- tractors, men of means and vigor and associated these with him in the Credit Mobilier. Then the company moved to New York so as to get out of observation in Pennsylvania, and when one of Durant's clerks by the name of Hoxie, a man without means, had been given by the Union Pacific Company a contract to build 246 miles of road, Hoxie transferred the same to Durant, and Durant to the Credit Mobilier. At this time the whole Union Pacific Company had paid up but $218,- 000. The object of getting the Credit Mobilier charter was to protect themselves individually as partners for debts. As the Credit Mobilier, they turned around and bought the $218,000 worth of stock aforesaid. The Union Pacific stock was then watered one thousand per cent., and thus the Credit Mobilier ate up the Union Pacific Company. The Hoxie contract at $50,000 per mile was now fulfilled in a cheap way, at a cost of $27,500 per mile, including equipment. About 350 miles of road were built in this way, of which 58 miles alone netted the Crddit Mobilier more than a million and a third dollars " with- out any consideration whatever." August 16, 1867, the Oakes Ames contract was made for 66.7 miles, at from $42,000 to ,000 a mile, the Government meantime paying $96,000, in 244 ACTUAL COST OP THE ROAD. all about $48,000,000. The Credit Mobilier now lianded over to Ames the absolute disposition of the Union Pacific railroad. Ames associated with himself an ex-Congressman from Mass- achusetts named John B. Alley, and Messrs. Bushnell, Dillon, M'Comb, Durant and Bates, the core of the Credit Mobilier. The chief Engineer, Granville M. Dodge, was bribed with one hundred shares of Credit MobiUer stock, placed in the name of j his wife. The profit under this contract was nearly ^30,000,- 000, in stock, cash, bonds, '7S '¥> The Lottery Commissioners to build a canal in 1802 were Notley Young, Daniel Carroll, Lewis Deblois, George Walker, Wm. Mayne, Duncanson, Thomas Law, and James Barry. As early as 1803 Mr. Bacon of Massachusetts moved reso- lutions to re-cede the district to the States which had given it. After two days' debate they were lost, — 66 to 26. In 1816, there were but 750 assessable persons in Washing- ton, whose houses, land, and slaves were valued at $2,391,357. Georgetown had 645 such persons better possessed in propor- tion and Alexandria with 782 taxables was worth $3,259,901. In the whole ten miles square, there Avere but 3,000 tax-payers. The population of all the Maryland side of the District, had been about 17,000 when the British invaded it. The only water used in the city for years was well-water, and to this day the Capital is supplied from the springs on Tiber Creek. The source of Tiber Creek was estimated by Ellicott to be 236 feet above tide-water, or 158 feet higher than the base of the Capitol at the distance of two miles ; he designed at one time, to use Rock Creek for the source of permanent supply of the city. The highest ground in Washington within the city boundary is back of Massachusetts Avenue and is about ^03 feet above low tide. The base of the observatory is above six feet higher than the base of the Capitol, which is 89|- feet above low tide. Lafayette Square is about 15 feet above low- tide water. 282 THE NIAGARA. OF THE POTOMAC. The Great Falls are only 108 feet above tide-water, and can be relied upon for a supply of 86,000,000 gallons per diem. Andrew Ellicott first suggested the Great Falls as the source of the city's water-supply ; and sixty years afterward. Lieutenant Meigs confirmed his judgment. If this country had no Niagara, the Great Falls of the Poto- mac would be one of its most celebrated ornaments. It is astonishing to know how few people of Washington have ever visited it. The road to the spot leads over the gentle level of the great aqueduct, and is a charming succession of sights, prospects, and lonesome stretches; but the road is unfortunately unpaved, and, therefore, in w^et weather, is hardly passable. A slow but agreeable way of getting to the Falls is by a quaint little steamer, which runs up the canal, carrying mails and pas- sengers to Point of Rocks, every alternate day. The t^e great falls of the potomac. locks on this canal are among the most magnificent in the world ; and the entire trip to Harper's Ferry, which consumes all the hours of daylight, is one of the most agreeable in our landscapes. It passes the Little and the Great Falls, the groat arch over Cabin John Run, the Seneca quarries, the battle- fields of Ball's Bluff and Monocacy, and along the wliole line of that haunted stream which seems to echo forever those deep and olden tones : " All quiet on the Potomac." There are eleven tunnels on the Washington aqueduct and six bridges ; the bridge over Cabin John now is a stupendous arch 220 feet span and 100 feet high. The reservoir coveiB eighty acres. The Great Falls itself is something of a canal-village. There is a large and commodious house for the Canal Company, and IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 283 a storeiiouse and some shanties put up to accommodate laborers on the aqueduct. The canal and the ereek must be crossed to get to the Falls, which are situated a quarter of a mile from the village. The Fall itself can be beheld from the rocky preci- pices which inclose it, in all the solemnity of nature and lone- liness. A series of strong and heady rapids fleck the wide river as it comes narrowing down to a series of strewn rocks, some of them of formidable size. Between some of the great- est of these, the river tumbles in elbow-form, and, proceeding a few feet farther, dashes again into a dark gorge, surrounded with naked steeps, along which the firs and forest-trees are revealed in the back-ground, hemming in the lonesome pool with stern and befitting foliages. Back of the Great Falls, on the Maryland side, are the villages of Offutt's Cross-Roads and Rockville, as well as a gold-mine which has produced several fine nuggets. On the Virginia side are the towns of Drainesville and Leesburg, and the beautiful Difficult Creek, which formed a feature in the War of Secession. Washington City, without reference to its associate towns in the District of Columbia, remained nearly stationery in popu- lation between 1800 and 1810, with about 8,000 inhabitants. The British did the place no permanent injury but rather rein- sured it to be the immovable seat of government, and by 1820 Washington was enumerated at above 13,000 people. It missed 20,000 at 1830, and even at 1840 was a place of little above 23,000 people, but by 1850, it numbered one soul more than 40,000 and in 1860 contained above 60,000. In ten years more there were 110,000 residents at the Capital, and all the rest of the old District, including the discarded Virginia portion, could not now add to the city above 40,000 more than it possesses. The message of General Henry D. Cooke, May 28th, 1873, showed that ^856,597 had been collected of taxes and $619,000 due. In the nineteen months preceding, the cash receipts had been $10,007,676 and the expenditures $9,913,716. The funded debt was $9,016,891 and the bonds of the corporation were held at 97 cents on the dollar. There had been 1216 buildings 284 THE RAPID GROWTH OF THE CITY. erected in the city during the year 1872, valued at 13,209,250, and there had been 2,833 transfers of property. The bridge which precedes No. 3 over Rock Creek was a plank structure and that in turn was replaced by a bridge made of the refuse materials of the public buildings. When Hoban rebuilt the President's house the main portico was omitted until about 1831. About the same time a stable was proposed for the President. Mr. Bulfinch proceeded in 1830 to plant the Avenue with forest trees. In 1871 the arch- itect, Mullet, diverted an appropriation into a new stable for President Grant, which caused some animadversion. There were eighteen burying grounds in Washington in 1846 and but one modern cemetery, Glenwood. In 1873 there are half a dozen cemeteries besides national ones. One of President Harrison's first acts was to institute a commission of inquiry into what was feared to be a needless and extravagant expenditm^e of money upon the public works in the City of Washington. The only Presidents of the United States who are known to have bought property in Washington are General Washington, John Quincy Adams, and General Grant. Mr. Adams erected a commodious mansion still standing near Lafayette Square. General Grant disposed of his house, before he became Presi- dent, to his successsor at the head of the army. General Sher- man. The Treasury building was destroyed by fire in Jackson's administration, and he is said to have commanded Mills, the architect, to erect the new one in its present site, thereby con- cealing the White House from the Avenue. Mr. Mills was making strict measurements with instruments when Jackson, restive of delay, put down his walking stick and said : " Right here I want the corner stone ! " Jackson also ordered a pub- lic clock, the location of which had been a matter of debate, to be put up on the Treasury water-closet, and Mr. Mullet told me he took it down from that spot while building the extensions. IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 285 Seneca stone was used about the Capital at a very early period, and in 1828 there is a charge of $3,740 for it. Mr. Lee, the proprietor, charged fifteen dollars a ton, delivered. The stone was used for flagging and steps. The bill to build an aqueduct to carry the canal over the Potomac at Georgetown, was pressed in 1832, and met witli much opposition from Georgetown, whose people alleged that the piers would ruin their harbor. Oldish, castellated, with queer, feudal-looking round towers, stands Georgetown College on the heights above the Potomac, with a deep funeral vale winding below, and the sprawling, shining, islet-sprinkled river brawling away right opposite. Georgetown College is the largest Jesuit college in the coun- try. The oldest part was built 1789, the main edifice in 1791. It was founded by John Carroll, first Archbishop of Baltimore, who renounced his interest in the Duddington and other estates when he became a priest in 1771. He was educated at Bohe- mia, Md., and St. Omer, Flanders. He gathered together the Catholics ol Montgomery County and adjacent parts, while still in his youth, proceeded to Canada with Dr. Franklin, and Charles Carroll, his relative, to make an alliance for the Rev- olutionary Colonies, led a devout and beautiful life, and died Dec. 3, 1815, at Baltimore. In this College lived, for more than forty years after her husband's tragic death, the widow of Stephen Decatur, and his portrait hangs in the College. All the Carrolls of Duddington are buried there. The institution possesses a large estate. Washington City has never propelled a satellite or accessory town, nor have any of the older villages in its vicinity grown by receiving sustenance from it, Baltimore only excepted. Bladensburg declined at the beginning of the revolution by the flight of the Scotch factor and agents who carried on its commerce. Alexandria, about 1798, was quite flourishing, but the capture of American vessels by tlie French in the West Indies, occasioned many failures. In 1803, the yellow fever broke out there. The town in 1803 had but two or three ships in the trade with Great Britain. 286 A USELESS CANAL. As early as 1809 a company was incorporated to cut a canal through the city of Washington to extend from the deep nav- igation of the Eastern Branch, to the Potomac River, taking chiefly the course of the Tiber. No benefit was derived from this inefficient company, and in 1831 the city corporation pur- chased the right and interest of the Canal Company, in order to introduce the business of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal into the city. The lock connecting this Corporation canal with the Chesapeake and Ohio, was placed at the foot of 17th street, beside the Yan Ness mansion, where the old stone lock-house is standing yet, in dilapidation and loneliness. Just below this lock, a large basin was formed at the outlet of the Tiber. A small island called Goose-Egg Island stood in this basin, and both canal and basin were walled with stone throughout the whole course. The Corporation Canal cost $225,000, and between 1836 and 1838 it was of some utility as far up as the market at Seventh street. Being a sewer and a stench, it has been filled up by the present Board of Public Works, and henceforward will show no trace upon the landscape of Wash- ington. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal has been of little use below Georgetown for several years. Above Georgetown for 184 miles to Cumberland it is in active and useful operation, and probably will continue to be so with posterity. The average movement of freight by the Potomac Canal is now about 850,000 tonnage, bringing a net revenue of upwards of 8200,000. The toll per ton of coal from Cumberland to Georgetown has gen- erally been 46 cents, and on grain il.80 per ton. The canal has a debt of about $3,500,000. It costs in all, to deliver coal to vessel at Georgetown from the coal-field, 82. 13^ per ton, — wharfage standing at 35 cents. The Washington Navy Yard was provided for in 1804 under the encouragement of Mr. Jefferson. Benjamin H. Latrobe, architect of the Capitol, designed its arched gateway. Within the yard are about 28 acres of ground surrounded by a strong brick wall ; an exquisite object on this wall is the sentry-box at one corner, which is built of brick in the style of the feudal IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 287 turret. This was put up during the war, when it became nec- essary to guard enlisted seamen with -carefuhiess. Here were built some of the best old vessels in the Navy such as the ships Wasp and Argus, the brig Viper, the Columbus, of 74 guns, the frigates Essex, Potomac, Brandyivine, and Columbia, the schooners Shark and Grampus, and the sloop of war St. Louis. The corner stone of the old City Hall, now the United States and District Court building, was laid August 22, 1820. With- in it was deposited the following : " This corner-stone ot the City Hall, designed by George Hodfield, architect, was laid on the 22d day of August, A. D. 1820, A. L. 5820, and in the forty-fifth year of the independ- ence of the United States of America, by Wm. Hewitt, E. W. G. M. of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of the District of Columbia ; James Munroe, President of the United States ; Samuel N. Smallwood, mayor of the city of Washington." And on the reverse side of the plate : *' Commissioners for erecting City Hall — Samuel N. Small- wood, mayor ; R. C. Weightman, William Prout, Thomas Car- berry, John P. Ingle." The orator of the day was John Law, Esq. Many notable trials occurred in thi& building, amongst which were those of Daniel G. Sickles, for the murder of Philip Barton Key, and of John Surratt for the murder of Abraham Lincoln. In 1873 the United States Government gave the District $75,000 for its interest in this old freestone edifice, when it was determined to begin at once the construction of new municipal buildings on Market square. Mr. Law remarked at the laying of the corner-stone, that Washington then claimed 14,000 souls, and $6,000,000 capital, and the corporation revenue was $40,000. Thirty miles of streets had been opened and improved, and some turnpike roads and bridges opened. The Government had lent the town $100,000 in 1798, and $12,000 in 1800, both of which sums had been fully repaid with interest. The old market houses of the Federal City were destroyed in 1870 72, and the present elegant edifices built in their stead. 288 THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY. The longitude of the Capitol was determined in 1823, by "William Lambert, to be 76° 5o 30' .54 west from Greenwich. General Washington had designed the meridian of the Capital to be the first meridian of the United States, and instructed Andrew Ellicott to record 0° 0' longitude and 38° 53' noi latitude, in the original plan of the city. In 1809, Lamberv, above referred to, a Virginian, memorialized Congress to take the longitude, and a committee reported in favor of the plan, but it lapsed until 1811, when Secretary of State Monroe gave it a good, if a diffident, word, and endorsed Mr. Lambert's patriot- ism. The indefatigable astronomer addressed as many of the assembled Congressmen as would hear him, and in 1812, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, of New York, reported in favor of a National Observatory. Not until March 3d, 1821, did the pro- position meet with its deserts. Different observations were made by Andrew Ellicott, Abraham Bradley, and Seth Pease ; but, in 1821, Lambert, commissioned as astronomer, resigned his station of inferior clerk in the Pension Office, took lodgings on Capitol Hill, and borrowed his instruments from the Coast Surveying authorities of that time. He national observatory, on obser- , 1 , ., . , , VATORY HILL. had a transit instrument, a circle of reflections, an astronomical clock, and a chro- nometer. William Elliot, a teacher of algebra and mathemat- ics assisted him. A large platform was erected to facilitate the work. The latitude was declared to be 38° 52' 45". Lam- bert made a copious report to Congress, and advocated a National Observatory. He may be named among the great clerks — and there are many noble men in all departments of the Government — who have risen to eminence from a desk in the departments. In 1825, President J. Q. Adams advocated a National Observatory, and met with ridicule, and it was not until IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 289 1836 that Williams College became the pioneer observatory of the land. Finally both the Government and the Georgetown College built observatories. The longitude of the National Observatory on Braddock's hill is 77° 3' 2.4". The third session of the 13th Congress, called by President Madison, to convene on the 19th of September, 1814, met in Blodget's old hotel, which Dr. William Thornton had, mean- time, made habitable, and turned a part of it into a repository of arts, models, and inventions, and he had succeeded, as well, in saving it from the torch of the British incendiary by whom it was doomed. At this time Dr. Thornton was a clerk, at $1,500 a year, in the State Department. Morse's Geography for 1812 describes Blodget's hotel ; it was 60 feet by 120 and about 50 feet high, with three stories ; it was built of brick, with a freestone basement. The old jail of that day was 10 feet by 26, and two stories high, with low ceilings. The marine barrack, 300 feet long, and the War and State buildings, 120 feet front, were occupied. The yearly exports of the whole district were upwards of one million per annum. Georgetown had four churches and Washington three market houses. In 1810 a turnpike was incorporated by Con- gress from Mason's causeway to Alexandria. The turnpike company between Georgetown and Frederick- _ town was incorporated by the Maryland legislature, in 1812. The old poor-house of Washington stood on the elevated ground to the north of the old Post and Patent Offices. Not a vestige remains of those old buildings, where strangers from all parts of the Union, coming to prosecute claims and griev- ances and seek redress from the Government, often found tlieir last hospitality on this earth. ^ The old asylum of Georgetown still stands, and is a quaint, Flemish-looking structure of brick. The Treasury building was originally built between 1794 and 1799, and in 1801 a fire swept part of it off. The British burned it in 1814, and it again began to arise three years later, and was not finished until 1823. Ten years later, on March 29, 1833, it was destroyed by fire again, and now its 13 290 THE FALL AND RISE OF THE TREASURY BUILDING. architectural liistorj, as wo see it, began. In 1835, Eobcrt Mills, of South Carolina, was appointed to supervise it, and in four years he raised that facade of columns which was the glory of his period, [and the exceeding annoyance of Mr. Mullet, a subsequent architect, who said that [it resembled a box of cigars, escaped as they stood on end in a long row. The old State Department long stood at riglit angles to Mills's fagade, where the north end of the Treasury extension now is. Mills's Treasury was finished in 1839. In 1855 the arrived potentate in classical architecture, Thomas N. Walters, planned the extension of the Treasury. Instead of Virginia freestone, granite from Dix Island, Maine, was to be employed for these three great parts of the edifice remaining. Mr. A. B. Young, who is still a resident of the Capital City, living between the Treasury gate and the Poto- mac, on Fifteenth street, was the architect following Mills, and he superintended the work and drawings for six or eight years. Next in immediate supervision came Mr. Rogers, architect of the Astor House hotel, New York City. Mr. Alallet, of Chicin- nati, a native of England, but a resident of the United States since childhood, completed the work, and in his headquar- ters, in the basement of this Treasury, he subse- quently made the designs for the majority of the great Post-Offices, Custom Hous- es, Marine Hospitals, U. S. Courts, etc., in the country. The south wing of the Treasury was completed in TREASURY BUILDING. 1860 ; thc wcst wiug in 1864 ; and the north wing in 1869. This is the most costly of all our public buildings, considering its extent. It is 560 feet, by nearly 273, including the porticoes and steps. Its cost was more than half that of the far nobler Capitol. Mr. Mills long lived on New Jersey Avenue, Capitol Hill, in a cele- brated brick dwelling, with a peaked roof and sky-light. ill uililJllliiM I ^l!':'! IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 291 The State Department at Washington was originally in a private dwelling and then on the site of the present Treasury. It was removed to an Orphan Asylum at the foot of Meridian Hill during the rebellion, and in 1872 the plans of A. B. Mullet were accepted for an edifice of granite to cost from six millions to eight millions of dollars and to accommodate at once the Departments of War, the Navy, and the State. The building was forthwith begun and will be finished about 1876. It is in the style of classical renaissance, the basement of Rich- mond granite and the superstructure of Maine granite. While superintending its construction Mr. Mullet was also erecting thirty-five other government buildings in various parts of the country. UNITED STATES POST-OFFICE. The General Post-Office is said to have cost, in round num- bers, one million and a half. Its controlling masters were Meigs, Walters, and Edward Clark. It was commenced about the close of Pierce's administration, and at the outbreak of the civil war was finished only on the E street or rear wing where the chimneys stand and the rest wa's a Commissary storehouse. Tiie architecture of the exterior is due to Mills, the correction and completion of the remaining two-thirds to Walters and Clark. The edifice was wholly occupied in 18G6. The Post-Office extension was constructed of Kennebec, Me., and Woodstock, Md., granite at about 43 cents the cubic foot. The marble walls were of Lee and Baltimore granite ; the 292 ACCOUNTS OF THE BUILDING OF THE VARIOUS BUILDINGS monolithic columns and their trimmings from Carrara, Italy, at $1,500 per column. Nearly all the work was done hy the day. Captain Meigs superintended the work and Edward Clark, assistant superintendent, received $3 per diem. The office of Indian affairs was created by the Act of July 9, 1832 ; the Treasury was given a Solicitor in May, 1830 ; the Post-Office obtained an Auditor in the Treasury in 1836.^ The Attorney-General of the United States was created Sept. 24, 1789. The General Land Office was created April 25, 1872, and made a section of the Treasury Department. • In 1836, the records and models in the Patent Office were destroyed by fire, on the 15th of December. The following PATENT OFFICE — SOUTH FRONT. March, Congress made legislation compelling the recording of all patents and drawings, and models were in all proper cases demanded anew. The Patent Office goes back to 1790, and between 1793 and 1836 the Secretary of State issued patents subject to the revision of the Attorney-General. Above 9,000 patents had been issued up to 1836, but the loose regulation led to many infringements and much litigation. William Elliott, writing in 1837 of the destruction of the archives of the Patent Office, said : " There lie the ashes of the records of more than 10,000 inventions with their beautiful models and drawings. There lie also, smouldering in the same heap of IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 293 ruins, the elegant, classical correspondence of Dr. Thornton with the most of the ingenious and scientific men of this country and of Europe for upwards of 23 years." The Patent Office was the conception of two surveyors and engineers of Washington City who lived in the Jacksonian period, Messrs. Elliot and Town, the former of an English family notable in Washington for giving hints and doing con- scientious work. According to a legend amongst the architects of the city the plan was Town's, but as he left the firm the plan was usually named and accepted as Elliot's. The site of the building had previously been a nursery for trees and plants. In 1836, Robert Mills was made architect and he built the sand-stone portion on the F street side of Acquia Creek " free- stone." In 1851 Mr. Walters came to Washington, with the reputation of Girard College upon him, bringing Mr. Edward Clark as his assistant. Secretary of the Interior, S'eward,had become dissatisfied with Mr. Mills's work and he dismissed that gentleman, to the great ado of the period, and Mr. Clark was appointed to straighten out Mills's beginnings and make the windows face each other and the rooms assume some rectangu- lar form. The Seventh street side was the first marble part added, and the whole edifice was done in 1867. It cost $2,200,- 000. The marble came from Cockeysville, Md. The second edifice of the State Department was occupied in 1836, and it remained until the close of the civil war, but the great pile of the Treasury obliterated it. Columbian College was commenced by Rev. Mr. Rice in 1819 and chartered in 1821, the buildings erected and the institution opened speedily and its prosperity was exceptional until 1826, when its officers ran it in debt to the extent of $135,000. Then followed a pinching period, wherein the debts were mainly paid off, but the College lost its popularity. The Baptists have generally controlled it. The present building of the Columbian Law School was the orig- inal Trinity Episcopal Church, third in the city in point of time, and was consecrated May 11, 1829. The Third Trinity Church 294 BUILDING THE VARIOUS EDIFICES. was designed by Renwick, architect of the Smithsonian Insti- tute, and opened in 1857. This church is what is called " low" or ultra Protestant, and it was taken possession of by the Government during the war. Old Christ Episcopal Church points up its four little pinnacles near the Marine barracks. It was built about 1806 and the Society had been in existence since 1795. Jefferson and Madi- son were regular attendants of this church, and the Marines from the barracks formerly marched every Sunday to its min- istrations. The Congressional burying ground, otherwise Washington Parish Cemetery, belongs to this plain, crude little cottage-windowed edifice, which was the progenitor of nine other parishes in Washington City. The First Baptist Church, at I and 19th streets, was begun in 1803, and finished in 1809. In 1810 the Second Baptist Church was constituted near the Navy Yard. The Convent of the Visitation at Georgetown, was founded by Archbishop Neale, in 1798. The sisters of the order elect a mother superior every third year, eligible for only two con- secutive terms. The Academy of the Visitation was established at George- town, about 1808. St. Patrick's Church, destroyed in 1873, was built in 1810 ; St. Peters, Capitol Hill, in 1821 ; St. Matthew's Church, in 1839. The First Presbyterian Churcli, N Street, in the rear of Wil- lard's, was composed of persons who had belonged to the Asso- ciate Reformed Church, in Philadelphia, and removed with the Capital. It received a pastor in 1803, and the congregation first worshiped in the Treasury building. The Second Church followed, on Capitol Hill, and the Third, in New York Avenue, was instituted in 1820. At the latter Mr. Lincoln wor- shiped. The Methodist Church, in Georgetown, was built in 1806 ; the Navy Yard Methodist Church in 1810 ; the Foundry in 1815. IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 295 St. John's Episcopal Church was built from the gratuitously presented designs, and under the eye,. of B. H. Latrobc. Orig- inally it was a Greek cross, afterward enlarged to the Homan form, and endowed with a tower. It was consecrated by Bishop Kemp, December 27, 1816. The old Unitarian Church, on Louisiana Avenue, was designed by Bulfinch, and was provided with a bell of 900 pounds weight, cast by Air. Revere, in Massachusetts. The Penitentiary of the district was established at Green- leafs Point after 1830. It was 120 feet by 50, with 160 cells, surrounded by a wall 800 feet square and 22 feet high. Charles Bulfnich designed it. The present jail was erected in 1841, near by its predeces- sor. A new jail is going up (1873) at the Eastern Branch. The Washington Arsenal was re-built in 1815, from the designs of Colonel George Bomford. Another structure, by Major W. Wade, succeeded this. In 1831 there were nine banks, in the ten miles square : Bank of Washington, ^479,000 capital stock ; Metropolis, $500,000 ; Patriotic, $250,000 ; Farmers' and Mechanics'^ $486,000 ; Union of Georgetown, $478,000 ; Alexandria, $500,000 ; Potomac (Alexandria), $500,000 ; Mechanics' (Alexandria), $372,000 ; Farmers' (Alexandria), $310,000. The debt of Washington City was about $800,000 in 1837. To the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal the State of Maryland subscribed $5,000,000 ; the United States, $1,000,000 ; Wash- ington City, $1,000,000 ; Georgetown, Alexandria, and the State of Virginia, $250,000 each. Ground was broken July 4, 1828. The greatest freshet on the Potomac, of which there is any available record, occurred in 1852, raising the river at Chain Bridge 43 feet ; at Aqueduct Bridge, 10 feet ; and at the Arsenal 4 feet 9 inches. The flow of the Potomac river was gauged in 1863, above Great Falls, and found to be 1,176,000,- 000 imperial gallons for twenty-four hours, exclusive of the supply required for the district. The canal has an available 296 WASHINGTON HOTELS. fall, above Georgetown, of 34 feet, equal to 11,000 horse power. At the time of the Mexican war the leading hotels stood as follows, starting at the Capitol gate and going west : Gadsby's, Pennsylvania Avenue and Third street. Temperance Hotel, ) ^j^.^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ Gadsby's. St. Charles Hotel, ) United States, ) ^^^^^ ^^ p^ Avenue, between 3d and 4^. veranda, ) Exchange, C street, between 4 J and 6. Coleman's, Pa. Avenue, between 4J and 6. Brown's, Pa. Avenue, between 6 and 7. Fuller's, Pa. Avenue and 14 st. European, Pa. Avenue, between 14 and 15 street. During the Thirtieth Congress, the following notable men resided as indicated : Geo. M. Dallas, at Mrs. Gadsby's, President's Square. John C. Calhoun, Mrs. Read's, C Street, between 4^ and 6. Lewis Cass, Tyler's Hotel. John M. Clayton, Young's, Capitol Hill, N. J. Av. Jefferson Davis, Mrs. Owen's, Capitol Hill. Stephen H. Douglas, Willard's Hotel. A. H. Sevren, Hill's, Capitol Hill. Daniel Webster, Pa. Av., near 6th St. John Q. Adams, F street, bet. 13 and 14. Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. Sprigg's, Capitol Hill. At the time of the rebellion the leading hotels were as fol- lows : At Georgetown, the City Hotel and Lang's Hotel. On Pennsylvania Avenue, Willard's, Owen's, Brown's, National, Kirkwood, Henry Clay, Victoria. On Capitol Hill, Whitney's, Caspar's House. North of the Avenue, Hendon House, F Street ; Pennsylva- nia House, C Street. The National Hotel was the first building in Washington, of IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 297 large dimensions, for public accommodation, a few rods from Brown's, or the Metropolitan. Brown's was the first \ j estab- lish a bridal-chamber, and here Kossuth's compatriots went to bed with their boots and hats on, after getting very drunk at the National. Clay died at the National, and Buclianan took the mysterious sickness there. At Brown's, James B. Clay, Henry Clay's son, was struck in the face by General Cullom, of Tennessee, and a bloodless duel ensued at Bladens- burg, in 1858. WILLARD S HOTEL. The brothers Willard, of Vermont, had the largest house in the city when the war began, and they made a very advantag- eous lease of it. In their house the Peace Convention of 1861 was held. That hall has been turned by Mr. Cake, the new proprietor, into a reading and music room, which will probably be the place recherche, as the young men with pale neckties put it, for soft and non-percussion theatricals. The present proprietor of Willard' s belongs to the race of family magistrates, dignified, industrious, and agreeable as a Bishop. It is a great moral advance, if no more, to see the 298 WASHINGTON HOTELS. old, tawdry horse-racing race of innkeepers disappear, and public men and their families, and patriotic folks who visit the Capitol, receive the entertainment of quieter and more demure and responsible hosts. Persons familiar with Washington hotels will be interested to hear that the new Willard's has a grand marble and walnut office, a billiard-room where the bar formerly stood, a ladies cafe over the office, where used to be " Camp Sykes " (a lumber room), and the long and gawky sitting-room has been dissected, and half of it made a ladies' promenade. The Arlington Hotel, on Vermont Avenue, is celebrated over the country for the elegance of its apartments, and the experience of its proprietors. The hotel was built by W. W. Corcoran, Esq., and leased to Revesel and Sons, of Lake George, for $10,000 a year. The waiters wear a uniform, and like all the four large houses of Washington, it contains an elevator. THE EBBITT HOUSE. The Ebbitt House is one of the largest and decidedly the best-looking establishment, architecturally, at the Capital. It arose during the war, and became celebrated as the favorite headquarters of army and navy officers, and was extended from time to time to meet the demands upon its popularity, until in 1872, it was wholly reformed and reconstructed. It is now a IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 299 very elegant mansion, six stories high and of a bright, cheer- ful color, which lightens the spirits of the guests ; from every window canopies of canvass depend to cool the interior through the Summer ; for this house, unlike several in Washington, is kept open the whole year round. The taste of the proprietor, Caleb C. Willard, Esq., is displayed in the elegant French pa- vilions, and broken lines of the roof, and in the series of clas- sical window mouldings, which liken the establishment to the purer class of the public edifices. The new dining-room is made to include two entire stories in height, and the lofty ceiling is beautifully frescoed, while the windows are given nearly the loftiness of the hall, thus bathing the apartment in the exquisite light of this latitude. Beneath the dining-room is the historic line of offices known over the whole country as " Newspaper row." The newspaper correspondents had pitched upon this block before a hotel was devised, on account of its immediate proximity to the telegrapli offices, the Treasury, all the lines of city com- munication, and as it was centrally situated to the White House and the great departments. When the Ebbitt House -was rebuilt the proprietor reserved the basement stage for newspaper offices, and for the length of the whole block, lights can be seen shining at every night in the week, where these in- defatigable correspondents, representing the active press of the whole country, hang out their signs and feed the telegraph in- struments. On notable occasions. Newspaper Row is illumin- ated by its landlord. The Ebbitt House contains the largest rotunda and office in Washington ; it has an elevator and 300 rooms, and there is not a prettier piece of architecture in Washington than its ladies' portico and rich bay window at the angle of the building. In this house have put up nearly all the eminent sailors and soldiers of the country : Eogers, Farragut, Worden, Canby, Thomas, Porter, Winslow, Boggs, Case, Drayton, and the rest. The Ebbitt House set the exam- ple of making a deduction for army and navy officers at the close of the war. It is the newest hotel production at the na- tional Capitol. 300 THE MILITARY HISTORY OP WASHINGTON. Speaking of the army and navy hotel, suggests the capture of Washmgton in 1814, and the military history of the city. Washington had few military traditions, prior to the late civil war. Observatory hill was the camping and landing- ground of Braddock, Washington, and a part of the Britisli army, April 11-14, 17T5, and as Washington was at this time only 23 years of age, he may have paid especial attention for the first time to the beauty of the situation. A neck below Observ- atory hill was often designated by Peter Force, as Braddock's landing place. This hill was also designed to be the site of a fort, when the city was planned, and a brigade of militia en- camped upon it, August 23, 1814. During the Revolution, troops were almost constantly crossing Alexandria and George- town ferries. Fort Washington, on the Potomac, was origi- nally Fort Warburton, and at the time of the war of 1812, it was merely a water battery, with a block house on the hill above it, to protect it from being taken in the rear. This fort was built after the British war, and strengthened in 1861, when Fort Foote was also laid out by Major Alexander. Traces of breastworks exist at Whitestone point where the British vessels, retiring from Washington, were cannonaded. Here is a quaint item : July 10, 1814. General Wilkinson, temporarily suspended from command of the army, made a tour of the city in com- pany with General John Mason, of Mason's Island, and Charles Carroll, of Bellevue, to inform them of his plan, in the last resort, to repel a British surprise. It was as follows : Two redoubts, one in the fork of the Tiber and Potomac, the other on theheightnorthof the Avenue called " Davidson's orchard ;" also the fortification of the Capitol and the President's house, in this way : Of the Capitol, by ravelins, to connect the two disconnected blocks (wings) and round towers of stone up the angles, with loop- holes to defend the extension-ends of the blocks ; the windows to be barricaded with loop-holes for musketry, and the lower floor of the Capitol^ as well as the ravelins, to be sufficiently furnished HVIPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 301 with ai'tillery, and the preparation of the President's house for the reception of musketry ; competent garrisons for the several posts to he detailed and held in readiness to occupy them, should it become necessary, and suitable munitions of war to be previously deposited in each. It was also practicable to ar- range for the defense of the Navy Yard. "Had these obvious, economical precautions been adopted," says Wilkinson, " the rival ministers, Monroe and Armstrong, would not have been exposed to the humiliation of advising General Winder, when he reached the Capital, to rally and form his troops on the heights in the rear of Georgetown." The total strength of the United States soldiery, of various sorts, at the battle of Bladensburg, according to William Elli- ott, was 8,049, of which 1,100 were regular infantry, seamen, and marines, and 540 Yirginia, Columbia, Marylanxi, and regular dragoons. The whole number of regulars, including seamen, was 1,240. The Americans had 20 pieces of field artillery. The entire British force, August 17, 1814, was 3,500, without artillery. This is sufficient to show that there were enough men on the American side to have defended the city, and to blame the Administration, was probably to put the dis- grace upon sacrificial shoulders. This is further attested by the miserably disproportionate loss of life on the American side, as estimated by the importance of the object to defend and the number of the defenders — only ten men were killed and thirty wounded. Lossing says twenty-six were killed and fifty-one wounded. It was not believed by good observers on the field of battle, that the British brought up above 1,500 men. Their loss was nearly 500 killed and' wounded.* The following buildings were destroyed by the British in 1814 — the unfinished Capitol, the President's house, two build- *Gcneral Wilkinson's estimate is 64 killed and 249 wounded, on the British side, and 10 horses killed and 8 wounded. On the American side, 8 men killed, 13 marines wounded. 302 WASHINGTON DURING THE WAR. ings containing public offices, and the fort at Greenleaf s point, Mr. Sewell's house on Capitol Hill, Mr. Carroll's hotel on Cap- itol Hill, General Washington's house and Mr. Frost's house, on the same elevation ; work-shops in the Navy Yard ; a sloop of war and public stores ; Fort Washington, and two bridges over the Eastern Branch. The British soldiers and the run- away negroes who attended them, plundered a few houses, amongst them Mr. A. McCormick's, Mr. D. Rapine's, and Mr. Elliott's. The types and presses of Gales & Seaton were cast out of the window. The Potomac was first crossed in the rebellion on the night of May 23, 1861,* in three columns at the Georgetown Aque- duct, the Long Bridge, and by water to Alexandria. The three columns were commanded respectively by Major Wood, Major Heintzelman, and Colonel Ellsworth. The first defences were laid out by General Mansfield, and Captain H. G. Wright next day at Forts Corcoran, Runyon, and Ellsworth. For seven weeks the work of defining and throwing up works went on, until the three forts named were built, and also Forts Bennett, Haggerty, and Albany. Fort Runyon exceeded any of the subsequent works. After the disaster of Bull Run, the works in Virginia were immediately connected, strengthened, and extended. By the beginning of the year 1862, there were 48 forts in all, 23 south of the Potomac, 14 (and three batteries) between the Potomac and the Eastern Branch, and 11 forts be- yond the branch. The greater portion were enclosed works of earth, but several were lunettes with stockaded gorges. In Oc- tober, 1862, Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, took the responsi- bility of ordering new works, and he appointed a commission consisting of Generals Potter, Meigs, Barry, Barnard, and Cullum, to report upon those already completed. They reported ed 53 forts and 22 batteries with 643 guns and 75 mortars mounted, and demanding 25,000 infantry for garrisons, and * The hills of Maryland opposite Alexandria were filled with troops, and the gunboat Pawnee had been lying for weeks in the channel, when on the 24th of May that outpost of the rebellion was captured. IMPKOVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 303 9,000 artillery men. Enormously increased works were built in the early part of 1863, and three beautiful " semi-permanent field works" were those of Fort Whipple, Fort C. F. Smith, and Fort Foote.* The whole system of works was strengthened in 1864, and in July of that year, Early advanced within sight of them and retired. The aggregate length of good military roads for the defences of Washington was 32 miles ; the circuit of defences was at least 37 miles. The Long Bridge was reconstructed by the enemy in 1861, and the railroad bridge beside it was built by the Engineers also in 1864. " The stone piers of the Aqueduct are works of the highest class of engineering, resting on bed rock 20 to 30 feet below the surface of the river." The hired labor force on the forts was at its greatest in 1863, — 1,500 men, wagons trains of 25 to 44 horse teams were used. The disbursements for hired labor and material, were all made by James Evelett, and amounted to more than one million of dollars. No compensation was paid land owners for injury, although a church, many dwellings, and many orchards were demolished. At the close of the war in 1865, Washington was surrounded by 68 inclosed forts and batteries having an aggregate perim- eter of 13 miles, and a circuit of 37 miles, with 807 mounted guns, and 98 mortars and implements in all for 1521 guns. Compared with the Torres Yedras, constructed by Wellington from the Tagus to the sea, which cost X 200,000, the works of Washington cost $1,436,000, and exceeded the former in length of circuit. The whole line from the Chickahominj; Pine Works in 1865 was 32J miles long. The highest fort around Washington was Gains, 403 feet above mean tide. At forts Reno, Totten, and Lincoln, the heights are respectively 440, 330, and 230 feet above the tide. From Fort Meigs to Fort Stanton, the ridge is about 300 feet high ; the Theological Seminary back of Alexandria has an elevation of 400 feet above the Potomac. * Fort Foote is still occxxpied ( 1 872). 304 THE GEOLOGY OF WASHINGTON. The geology of Washington is peculiar : at the head of tide water, it stands amongst the vertically stratified metamorphic rocks which, varying in composition from hard grains to soft mica slate, yield unequally to degrading action, and thus pro- duce the bold headlands and deeply excavated valley in which the land terminates at the margins of the Potomac. Overly- ing these rocks is a series of nearly horizontal beds which form the various distinctive earth masses around Georgetown, Washington, and Alexandria. These peculiar sands and clays, with their fossil woods, belong to the older part of the Atlantic cretaceous formation. The underlying metamorphic rocks, are only exposed on Rock Creek, which took its name from them. Northwest of the city may be seen the material eroded over the sandstone of red Seneca, where the river once flowed 400 feet higher than now. Few things even in our notable time have come up with more suddenness than Washington City since the abolition of slavery. At the close of the contest for a division of the country, it was inevitable that there should have been such an agitation for a change of the seat of government as followed the burning of the young city by the British in 1814. After sixty-five years of preparation Washington seemed to be still unfinished in any part. The Capitol was not done ; the President's mansion was out of repair ; the streets were generally unpaved, and the social chaos following the war, had made old and new elements dissatisfied with their associations, and despondent about the site. Nothing seemed so necessary to Washington as a good fright- ening,* and that it received through an authority sufficiently amusing at the present distance. A red-bearded, crippled, Quilpish looking man of St. Louis, Missouri, — ^by name Mr. L. Q. Reavis, — with a certain sense of resistance about him and an uncertain sense of reformation, took it into his head that St. Louis had been slighted and ought to be the Capital of the. Government. He had a simple nature, a love of circulation and public consideration, and some hope^ IMPROVEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 305 of autliortjiiip. Perfectly honest, always approachable, always approaching, loose and continuous in argument, striking high for eminent attention, and carrying acquaintance by the assidu- ity with which he cultivated it, Mr. Reavis tested to extremities the power of the unit of citizenship to upset the Capital City and drag it away. His ingenuities were all in the noblest nature of destructiveness. He had very little to propose in the way of reconstruction, and was indifferent whether the pub- lic edifice should be carried away piecemeal or abandoned to the unworthy people on the Potomac. But it happened at the moment that the strength of the dominant party in the West, the fever of change, the opening of the Pacific railroad and other lines to the extreme frontier, and perhaps more than all the rising agitation on the subject of free trade which the West- ern free traders hoped to settle in their favor by getting Con- gress amongst them, gave a noisy and it was thought a favora- ble celebrity to Mr. Beavis's scheme. Mr. Horace Greeley favored the removal in the New York Tribune^ and a convention or two were held at St. Louis. The conservative sense, rever- ence and thrift of the nation prevailed, however, and Congress settled the question by voting a large sum of money to begin a grand State Department at Washington which should cost several millions. The city itself at its own expense put on a new apparel, and the national appropriations of 1872-3 were unusually generous and even excessive. After the peace of 1865 a little timid building began about the city, led by A. R. Shepherd, a native of the District who had made some accumulations while the armies and hospitals centred here, by conducting plumbing and gas fitting on a large scale. He put up several Philadelphia rows of brick houses adjacent to the old Duddington house of the Carrolls and also erected the first business edifice of consequence on the lower side of the Avenue. His architect was Mr. Cluss, a German, whose domestic architecture has given Washington a style of its v^wn. He designed the central market house, the Franklin, Jefierson,Wallack and other public schools, and the dwellings of 306 ARCHITECTS OF THE VARIOUS BUILDINGS. Jeffreys, Hutchinson, and other new arrivals. Walter S. West, a Virginia architect, showed his skill in the transformation of the old Crawford property on Highland place and in the eleva- tion of the residences of Mr. Schenck and Senator Stewart. Ploughman and Starkweather of Philadelphia designed the Freedman's bank, the Young Men's Christian Association Halls, and the quaint row of dwellings which are occupied by Speaker Blaine, Fernando Wood, Senator Buckingham, and Thomas Swann. The Howard University and the large modern man- sion of George Taylor on Vermont Avenue, were designed by Mr. Searle of Rochester, N. Y. Vernon Row, an elegant busi- ness block on the Avenue, was the plan of architect Fraser. Mr. A. Grant of Wisconsin, designed the block of lofty brick on East Capitol street. A Baltimore architect planned the little opera house near the central market and the Arlington hotel. Marshal Brown's and Mr. Thompson's brown stone houses on I street were by F. G. Myers, a German. Edward Clark designed Merrell's and Edmunds' neat houses on Massa- chusetts Avenue. Prominent builders in this new period are Robert I. Fleming of Va., W. H. Baldwin, Entwistle and Bar- ron, and Edmonstone. It has been mentioned in another chapter that the territorial government expended from ten millions to fourteen millions in 1872 ; three new bridges were thrown across Rock Creek ; three large market houses were partly finished ; a new city hall was designed ; a reform school was begun ; new railroads and depots were added ; new school houses built and the entire system of street paving, sewerage, parks, suburban roads, and street railways reformed and made metropolitan. Destiny seems to be against the city in the matter of commerce and manufactures. Factories do not flourish here ; the great glass works near the observatory which were so long successful have fallen into decay, but rural gardening has taken the start and it is to be hoped that some day Washington will be fed from the fields within sight of its hills. In 1871, when the project for the removal of the Capital was IMFROYEMENTS IN WASHINGTON. 307 rife in the Western country, two members of Congress, John Coburn, of Indiana, and Philetus Sawyer presented a minority report in favor of the scheme. Their energies came to naught, but we are indebted to them for extracting from the Treasury Department a very complete statement of the cost of Wash- ington City and of the District to the taxpayers of the United States. These have amounted in gross to above forty-five and one-half millions of dollars in three qyarters 'of a century. To make this grand fcotal every possible appropriation and in- vestment in the District was brought out, inclusive of several uncompleted edifices, some of which will not be wholly built until about 1876. By that time we may safely assume that the expenditures of the Federal Government in the district will have been hard upon sixty millions of dollars. CHAPTER XYIII. A RECORD OP HISTORIC EVENTS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FROM 1861 TO 1876. 1861. Jan. 4. Mrs. Robert Anderson passes through Washington to join her husband in Fort Sumpter. Returns Jan. 9, and stops at Willard's Hotel. 1861. Jan. 5. The South Carohna Commissioners leave the city. Cockades of both zones blossom in hundreds of hat- bands. Captain Charles P. Stone organizes the militia and troops in the district. Fourteen Senators, amongst them Jef- erson Davis, caucus in Washington, to form themselves into a directory, and take control of the South. 1861. Jan. 12. The Gulf State Congressmen and Sena- tors begin to withdraw from Congress. Jan. 21st. Jefferson Davis withdraws. February 4th. Slidell and Benjamin withdraw. 1861. Feb. 4. The Peace Convention meets at Willard's Hall, on F St., John Tyler presiding ; adjourns March 1st. 1861. Feb. 23. President Lincoln, accompanied by Ward Lamon and Norman Judd, arrive at the Washington depot, at daylight, and are received by Elihu Washburne ; he goes to Willard's Hotel, where Mr. Seward meets him. On the 27th, the Mayor and Council wait on the President- Qlect. HISTORIC EVENTS. ' 309 1861. March 4tli. Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Buchanan, in a carriage, with Senators Pearse and Baker, proceed to the Capitol, flanked by troops on the parallel streets. Chief-Jus- tice Taney administers the oath. 1861. March 5. Three Confederate Commissioners arrive, and stop at Willard's. 1861. April — . Mayor James G. Barrett arrested. 1861. April 13. The Virginia Commissioners meet the President. 1861. April 18. The Cassius M. Clay battalion organized at Willard's Hall, and given arms to patrol the city. The Capitol and Treasury guarded by howitzers. Five volunteer companies from Pennsylvania and forty regulars arrive at the depot, in all 530 men. They are quartered in the House of Representatives ; the same evening Harper's Ferry armory destroyed. 1861. April 19. The Massachusetts Sixth arrives. 1861. April 20. Seizure of telegraph despatches, followed by the weeding of the disloyal out of the Departments. 1861. April 21. Eobert E. Lee leaves Arlington House for Richmond, to offer his services to the State of Virginia. 1861. April 25. Arrival of the Seventh New York Regi- ment ; two other regiments arrive next day. 1861. May. All the public buildings filled with troops and the Glacis converted into bakeries. 1861. May 1. Lieut. Tompkins raids through Fairfax Court House. 1861. May 11. Washington severed from the North by the burning of bridges north of Baltimore. 1861. May 18. A Confederate flag seen on the Virginia heights. 1861. May 25. Colonel Ellsworth's body embalmed at the Navy Yard. 1861. June 16. Confederate soldiers seen at Chain Bridge and High Point ; Vienna and Falls Church occupied. 1861. July 4. A special session of Congress is held. 310 HISTORIC EVENTS. 1861. July 9. One hundred and sixty-one millions appro- priated to carry on the war. 1861. July 15. McDowell's army advances. 1861. July 21. All the horses and vehicles in the Dis- trict of Columbia seized to bring in the wounded. Hospitals hnprovised. 1861. July 25. McClellan makes headquarters in Wasli- ington, at the head of 50,000 infantry and thirty pieces of cannon, the city fortified, and the army recruited and reorgan- ized. 1861. October 1st. The Potomac blockaded for nearly six months after this date. 1861. October 15. The city circumvallated by earthworks ; seventy thousand men armed and disciplined ; the Potomac picketed from Liverpool Point to Williamsport ; great reviews in September and October, opposite Wasliington. 1861. October 17. The Confederates again fall back to Centreville. 1861. Oct. 25. General Baker's dead body brought from Ball's Bluff to Washington. 1861. Dec. 20. Fight at Drainsville, near Washington. 1862. Street railroad laid on Pennsylvania Avenue. 1862. March 10. McClellan advances to Manassas and Warrenton Junction. 1862. April 1st. McClellan descends the Potomac, leaving 18,000 men in garrison, and 20,000 in Virginia around Man- assas. 1862. June 28. General Pope takes command of the forces before Washington, and takes the field July 29th. 1862. Sept. 1st. Battle of Chantilly, and return of the army to the fortifications of Washington. 1862. Sept. 4th. The Confederates cross the Potomac 40 miles above Washington. 1862. Sept. 7th. The Army of the Potomac, 87,000 strong, moves north of Washington. Battle of Antictam. 1862. Dec. 31st. Burnside recalled to Washington, from before Fredericksburg, and removed from his command. HISTORIC EVENTS. 311 1863. Jan. 1. President Lincoln proclaims emancipation from Washington. 1863. Washington Fire Department organized ; it consist- ed in 1873, of five steamers, six hose carriages and tWo trucks, a fire-alarm telegraph and twenty-eight horses. Annual ex- pense 180,000. 1863. Mar. 8. John S. Mosby dashes into Fairfax and captures Colonel Stoughton ; the Confederate draft enforced in counties opposite W^ashington. 1863. June 16. Hooker's army, defeated at Chancellors- ville, falls back to Fairfax. 1864. July 6. The Sixth Corps, under General Ricketts, passes through Washington northward. 1864. July 9th. The battle of Monocacy, for the defence of the city, with a Federal loss of 2,000. 1864. July 12th. Battle at Silver Springs, with a loss of 600 men on each side ; Early re-crosses the Potomac. 1865. April 10. President Lincoln returns to Washington from Richmond ; the city illuminated. 1865. April 14. General Grant arrives. 1865. April 15. Death of Mr. Lincoln, at the house of Mr. Peterson, opposite Ford's theatre. 1865. May. Grand review, for two days, of the armies of Grant and Sherman. 1865. July 7. Mrs. Surratt, Payne (or Powell), Harold, and Atzerodt hanged in the yard of the old penitentiary, Greenleaf s Point. 1865. Nov. 10. Henry Wirz, the Andersonville jailer, hanged, in the rear of the house where Calhoun died, and which w^as called " The old Capitol." 1865. Dec. Only 35 votes are cast in favor of negro suf- frage in the District ; 7,369 against. 1866. June 3. Calvary Baptist Church dedicated ; burned December 15th, 1867. 1867. March 7th. President Johnson vetoes the District of Columbia suffrage bill, but it is passed over the veto by more than two-thirds of each House 812 HISTORIC EVENTS. 1869. December 24. Death of Edwin M. Stanton, at his home, on Franklin square. 1869. Completion of the Howard University for freedmen. 1871. • Feb. 20, 21. Grand Carnival and Masquerade on the completion of the wood pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue from the Treasury to the Capitol ; the same day the President signs the bill making a Territorial Government for the District of Columbia, with a Governor and Council, a House of Dele- gates and a Delegate in Congress. 1872. Opening of the Baltimore and Potomac, and Washing- ton, Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroads. 1872-3. Complete rehabilitation and reformation of the city, at a cost to the taxpayers of eight millions, and to the Government of four millions. Commencement of the new State Department. 1873. May 12. Salmon P. Chase interred at the Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown. Services in the Capital. 1873. May 26. Opening of the Metropolitan branch rail- road to Point of Rocks, 1873. Sept. The sum of fifteen millions five hundred thousand dollars in gold, awarded to the government of the United States, to pay to its citizens for losses incurred by the depredations of the Alabama and other Anglo-Confederate vessels, was paid into the Treasury of the United States. 1874. March 11. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, died suddenly. 1875. Nov. Yice-President Wilson stricken with apoplexy, and after lingering a few days, died. 1876. March. General Babcock, the President's private secretary, on trial and acquitted, for complicity in the whiskey frauds. CHAPTEE XIX. SOCIAL SKETCHES OF THE OLD AND NEW IN WASHINGTON. If we ever have a literature in America, much of it must illustrate the government and collateral society at the national capital. Many agreeable pens have been at work jotting down the materials for this work, and it would be an oversight in our book to say nothing of the old families and the new in the city by the Potomac. It is already hard to realize with precision and picturesque- ness the state of social life and living which existed in the early days of our Capital. The city has found it necessary in the course of improvement to take out of the landscape many familiar forms and vistas which will belong to the biographer, novelist, and poet of that great period in letters which must be approaching. Amongst the local landmarks of the District of Columbia which have been recently obliterated in the leveling processes of the new corporation, are the mound and stone to mark the centre of the ten miles square, set up by Andrew Ellicott, in 1791. Gen. Babcock said he thought it was merely the base of a derrick to hoist things to the Washington Monument. The other landmark was the Yan Ness Mausoleum, in which was buried David Burns, the Scotch farmer who owned the ground on which the most popular part of Washington stands. This fine old relic (see cut below) was taken down in the latter part of 1872, to give room for a new alley. It stood between 14 314 A QUAINT TALE. the Church of the Ascension and an Orphan Asyhim, on II street near Ninth, — the ground for both of which was presented by Mrs. Yan Ness, or Marcia Burns, daughter of the Scotch farmer aforesaid. As to this family there is a quaint tale which may be worth telling : David Burns was a farmer at the river-side behind the Pres- ident's Mansion, who had been fortunate enough, under the law of primogeniture prevailing in tlie Province of Maryland, to inherit his father's property, to the exclusion of his kin. He was a positive old fellow, and annoyed Washington very much when the President sought to " locate the Capital City upon his farm." "The obstinate Mr. Burns," as Washington called him, will be the subject of portraiture often in the future, stick- ling for the largest equity and conditions, and paying little relative respect to the opinion of the General, whom he once declared to be of eminence chiefly on the score of having mar- ried the rich widow Custis. Burns had a daughter, as well, whoso prospective wealth in Washington City-lots was to make another man historic. This was Marcia Burns, a fairly-educated, fair-looking, clear-headed young woman, the only child of the crusty David. When the Congressmen settled on the agueish site of the new city, and found the distances too magnificent for patience, they sought relief from poor lodgings by visiting the Carrolls, Calverts, Taylors, Laws, Peters, Lloyds, Keys, and others ; and imme- diately there was a courteous contest for the hand and fortune of Davy Burns' child. The Congressmen filled the long, low, one-story-and-garret farm-house of nights, and the most assid- uous and good-looking of them all was John P. Yan Ness, of New York. They all besieged Miss Marcia Burns, and she followed the rule of choosing trumps when in doubt. She beamed upon the handsome Dutch member. John P. Yan Ness was now past 30, and the son of a celebra- ted New York anti-Federalist and Revolutionary officer, Judge Peter Yan Ness. His father was a supporter of Aaron Burr SOCIAL SKETCHES. 315 against the Livingston and Clinton interest ; and William P. Yan Ness, liis brother, " that talented man, of dark and indignant spirit," as Jabez Hammond says, was Burr's second in the duel with Hamilton, and afterwards secreted Burr in the family home of Kinderhook, where subsequently Irving wrote a part of his Knickerbocker's History, and Martin Van Buren raised cab- bages and smiled on Nature. The elder Yan Ness sent Aaron Burr, recently United States Senator, to sound the young woman Burns, and ascertain the degree of her worldly wisdom and her father's worldly pros- pects. Burr, always plastic in match-makings, reported in an exalted strain upon Miss Marcia's strength of mind and prob- abilities, and thus Columbia County, New York, and the Dis- trict of Columbia, united tlicir leading families. The groom had been educated at Columbia College, New York, and was of such equal spirits, that, till death, he retained all his popularity in Washington, and "filled all the high offices that the citi- zens of Washington had the power to be- stow upon him." His marcia burns. van ness. bride was equal to her alliance, and kept a tender memory in Washington long after her obstinate father was laid in the Cave of Macpelah. For a little time the bridal party inhabited old Burns's cot- tage, still standing at the foot of Seventeenth street. Next, Mr. Yan Ness built a two-story brick house on the corner of Twelfth and D streets. The city lots selling well, and money being unstinted, Yan Ness next erected, right beside old Burns's cottage, a great brick mansion, still perfect, and inhabited now by Thomas Green, the son-in-law of the elder Ritchie, the celebrated Richmond editor. This great house was designed 316 THE VAN NESS MANSION. by the architect Latrobe, and it cost about $50,000, upwards of half a century ago. The country-place of the bridal couple was meantime the " Glebe," situated in Virginia, not many miles from Washington, where they possessed 1,500 acres, part of which is now owned by Caleb Gushing. In 1865 the man- sion on " The Glebe" burned down. VAN NESS MANSION, AND DAVY BURNS 8 COTTAGE. It is customary to refer to Bums as a common old fellow, but he appears to have used the first moneys derived from the sale o£ his land and lots to educate his daughter in a manner to fit her for the exalted company expected on the site of his farm. Seven or eight years elapsed between this good fortune and her marriage. A copy of the funeral discourse of Rev. William Hawley, (Nicholas Callan's copy), rector of St. John's Church, deliver- ed on the occasion of the death of Mrs. Van Ness, 1832, is in possession of W. H. Philip, Esq. Parts of this discourse say_ as follows : * " She survived her only child, Mrs. Ann E. Middleton. Born on the spot on which she expired, the whole of Mrs. Van Ness's life had been passed in witnessing the beginning, the rise, and progress of this flourishing metropolis. She was placed by her parents in the family of Luther Martin, Esq., of ROCIAL SKETCHES. 317 Baltimore, who was then at the liftight of his fame as the most distinguished jurist and advocate in the State of Maryland, and with his daughters and family she had the best opportunity of education and society.* At the age of twenty she was married to the ' present worthy mayor of our Capital.' "In early life,'* continues the clergyman, " she had great sprightliness of mind and amiableness of disposition. The se- dateness of her manner gave her dignity, and the genuine piety of her heart became her rule of life, when her daughter had been born and educated. This daughter returned from boarding- scliool at the time the splendid dwelling on Mansion square was prepared for the reception of the family. Leaving the cottage which stands at hand, and under whose humble roof she had been born and nurtured, Mrs. Van Ness witnessed the subsequent marriage of her daughter. But in November, -1822, the bride who had been but a few months before ' attired in nuptial dress, adorned with jewels and surrounded with gay attend- ants,' plighted her vows, was consigned, with her infant, to the grave. ^'- From this period Mrs. Yan Ness seemed to have bid the world and all its gaieties farewell. She endowed an orphan asylum with $4,000 in real property, left it by will $1,000— the legacy an old friend, widow of Governor Blount, of North * Luther Martin married a daughter of Col. Cresap, of Maryland, long the reputed slayer of the family of Logan, the Indian chief. Martin was a shiftless genius, who had been born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1 744, and re- moved, in 1762, to the little Eastern shore Maryland, part of Queenstown, where he studied law and taught school until 1770. He was a protege of Judge Samuel Chase, and in 1778 became Attorney-General of Maryland, dis- tinguishing himself by prosecuting tories. In 1804 he defended Judge Chase, in the unfinished capital. Burr presiding, in a speech pronounced " wonder- ful " at the period. In 1807 he defended Aaron Burr, at Richmond, and lost his popularity in Maryland for years. Intemperance grew upon him, and he became, at last, a guest of Buit's banished years, and died in 1826. Chief Justice Taney describes him as a rambling talker, with slovenly rhetoric, using vulgarisms, but fair and weighty in argument, and wearing ruffles at the wrist, richly edged with lace, but dabbled and soiled, and with rich clothes unbrushed, and intoxication often paramount. 818 SKETCH OF THE HEIRESS. Carolina, — and labored witti Congress for its further endow- ment of $10,000. She attended the church and Sunday School in this church constantly, and sought out orphans with a mother's yearning. The old cottage house in which she was born and in which her beloved parents ended their days, was an object of her deep veneration and regard. In this humble dwelling, over whose venerable roof wave the branches of trees planted by her dear parents, she had selected a secluded apart- ment, with appropriate arrangements for solemn meditation, to which she often retired, and spent hours in quiet solitude and holy communion. Her sickness was long and painful. A few days before the end she celebrated the sacrament with a few of her Christian friends around her bed. She bade all the several members of the family an affectionate farewell, and on parting with her dear husband, while he kneeled by her dying bed, she said, with her hand upon his head : ' Heaven bless and protect you ; never mind me.' " The funeral took place Monday, September 10, at 4 P. M. The mahogany coffin was covered with black velvet, and orna- mented with a silver plate, on which was engraved her name, the day of her birth, marriage, and death. A leaden coffin was inside tho wooden one. Another plate, the gift of citizens who had held a meeting of condolence at the " Western Town House," referred to her piety, charity, and worth, and it was fastened on the coffin, " a little below the former." It told the story thus : " Born 9th May, 1782. Married 9th May, 1802. Died 9th Sept. 1832." The Mausoleum had been erected some years previously. Her hearse and family carriage (coach and four) were dressed in mourning. Little female orphans, in divided ranks, march- ed to the bier and strewed it with branches of the weeping willow. A poem in the Globe, by H. G., (Horatio Greenough ?), said : " Mid rank and -wealtli and worldly pride, From every snare she turned aside. « « !|C « » « SOCIAL SKETCHES. 319 Slie sought the low, the humble shed, Where gaunt disease and famine tread. And from that time in youthful pride, She stood Van Ness's blooming bride, No day her blameless head o'er past, But saw her dearer than the last." After Yan Ness had been a Bank President, Militia Com- mander, and what not, he died several years after his wife. He had provided a tomb, unrivaled in the New World, a copy of a temple of Vesta, where the Burns and the Van Ness alli- <>?>^ v^T^x ance should be monument- ■^^\ ally inurned. This tomb was constructed of stone, and was an open dome, with stone pillars, and a deep vault be- neath it, eight feet in depth, with three tiers of cells, six cells to the tier. Mr. Edward Clark, architect of the Cap- VAN NESS MAUSOLEUM. J^ol, told Col. W. H. PMlip, who recently removed and set up the Mausoleum, that it was one of the few tombs strictly monumental in the country, and that the material in it, and the fashioning of them, would cost, at the present time, $^34,000. They took the structure down, and have re-built it precisely as it was, in Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown. Underneath it they found seven bodies, viz. : 1. David Burns, — a few bones, and a skull and teeth, and the relics of an old-fashioned winding-sheet, which wrapped the defunct around and around, as if afraid he might get out of it, as out of some other bad bargain. The undertaker of the latter part of the nineteenth century looked at this winding- sheet as if he were stumped at last. It was too much for him. 2. Mrs. Burns, wife of David. On this lady history is silent. 320 THE VAN NESS FAMILY. 3. Gen. Yan Ness. A fine old body, who sued the Govern- ment of the United States for violating its agreement with the original proprietors of Washington in the matter of selling to private purchasers lots near the Mall. He was beaten, although he had Roger B. Taney for counsel. He gave an annual en- tertainment to Congress, and his six horses, headless, are said to gallop around the Yan Ness mansion annually, on the anni- versary of his death. I 4. Marcia Yan Ness, heiress of Washington. Mrs. Yan Ness's portrait is at the Orphan Asylum, and at Colonel Philip's residence ; a sweet, thin Scotch face, with gleaming, dewy eyes, crowned with a lace cap. 5. Mrs. Ann E. Middleton, only child of John P. and Marcia Yan Ness ; married Arthur Middleton, son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence ; she died in childbirth, and Mid- dleton married for his second wife a daughter of General Ben- tevolia, of Rome. 6. General Montgomery, a relative of the family. 7. Gov. Cornelius P. Yan Ness, ex-Collector of the Port of New York, Chief Justice and Governor of Yermont, and for nine years Minister to Spain. He was the father of Mrs. Judge Roosevelt, of New York City, and of Lady Ouseley, wife of Sir William Ouseley, Secretary of the British Legation, who was married at the Yan Ness mansion. The square on which the Mausoleum stood sold for $160,000 not many years ago, and the proceeds went to the Bente- volia alliance. The heirs of John P. Yan Ness were three, in equal parts : 1. One-third to Mrs. Philip, whose son is W. H. Philip, Esq., of Washington City. 2. One-third to Gov. C. P. Yan Ness. 3. One-third to the heirs of Judge W. P. Yan Ness, Burr's friend. Of this celebrated estate there arc still many lots in the pos- session of the heirs of the above. SOCIAL SKETCHES. 321 General Yan Ness lived down to the period of the Mexican war, attaining tlie ripe age of seventy-six. He became the first President of the Bank of the Metropolis in 1814. Several portraits are extant of him. In one he is represented as wear- ing a powdered wig and toupee with very light, fine, brown hair and side-whiskers, with a short forehead, and strong perceptive brows, very full and memory-keeping, a fine, aquiline nose, straight lip and chin, and small mouth and a fine, hazel, open eye with brown lashes and eyebrows. A handsomer man, a woman, nor a novel reader never looked upon. There is a lus- cious, Dutch look about that portrait Gilb*ert Stuart painted of Yan Ness which does not fail to account for his success with Miss Burns. He left no will and never made one. The toast after his death was, " well fed, well bred, well read : we never shall look upon his like again !" William P. Yan Ness, brother of the Mayor, was also a striking-looking man of larger intellectual development than General Yan Ness, but of less pleasing expression ; he enjoyed a larger area of career than the Mayor. The Yan Nesses were said to be descended from Aerd Yan Ness of West Yriesland, Lieutenant Admiral of Holland. Amongst the episodes of the old Yan Ness mansion is the story of Ann G. Wightt, well known in her day as " sister Ger- trude." She was a cousin of Mrs. Marcia Yan Ness, and of a Mary- land family. A young and beautiful child, she was sent to school at Georgetown Convent, and while her parents were absent in Europe she became enamoured of the ideal convent life and took the veil. She is said to have risen to such con- sideration that she was talked of as Lady Superioress. When about thirty years of age she slipped on the dress of one of the monks or fathers, and one evening, left the Convent by stealth and was driven to the Yan Ness mansion, where she claimed the protection and hospitality of John Yan Ness on the score of cousinship. A day or two after she arrived, two priests called at the house and demanded to talk with her. She 822 THE LAST OF THE VAN NESS MANSION. answered them from the head of the stairs that under no cir- cumstances would she return to the Convent. It was never known why she had taken flight, but she became the reverse of a recluse and was a gay and brilliant woman in society, but she never married. Amongst her intimate acquaintances at a later period was Isis Iturbide, a daughter of the Emperor of Mexico, who left Miss Wightt a legacy of $10,000, and the lat- ter had the sagacity and perseverance to go to the city of Mex- ico and obtain the money while the other Iturbi^es got little or nothing. She was notable for her splendid black, flowing hair, superb teeth, and great conversational power. She died at the residence of Honorable John Y. Mason in Richmond, a short time prior to the civil war. The Van Ness Mansion made its last public appearance in the Assassination Conspiracy when its affable and inoff"ensive proprietor, Mr. Green, was put into a military prison upon a newspaper rumor that the mansion was to have been used as a place of incarceration for President Lincoln preparatory to his removal to Virginia by stealth. It is a noble old property, and when the Board of Public Works or whatever is responsible hereabout arranges Seventeenth street and fills up the canal, the ride around this mansion up the shaded river side to Braddock's Rock and Camp Hill will be one of the best in Washington. A word on the subject of the original proprietors of the site of Washington. To their titles all deeds for property in the Federal city date, and I spent an hour looking them over one day recently in the Room of the Commissioners. The Carroll estate was divided into " New Troy," 500 acres, Duddington pastures 431 acres, and Duddington Manor 497J acres. St. Thomas bay entered the Manor from the Eastern branch and St. James's creek, behind it, separated Duddington pasture from Notley Young's farm of 400 acres. East of Dud- dington, and nearer the Navy Yard was " Houp's addition," laid out for Madame Ann Young by Jeremiah Riley and his father, Eliphas Riley in 1757. Part of the same was resurveyed for Charles Carroll, Jr., in 1759 and called ' Cerve Abbey Manor/ SOCIAL SKETCHES. 323 The dwelling (70x22 feet), great smoke house, spring house and brick stable (95) at Duddingtonwere erected after the city was laid out. A log house and a frame hen house in the cor- ner nearest the Capitol were on the square previously. Robert Peter's log mansion house (36x22), quarters and outbuildings stood on the square between 13th and 14th streets west of W and boundary. Mr. Young's mill (36x24), stood between 1st and 2d streets East and M and N streets in what is now " Swampoole." The widow Digges had log houses in Delaware avenue near by. John Davidson's heirs occupied his frame mansion and log wings (32x20) (12x12) between 12th and 13th streets west and K and L north ; his family graveyard was at the corner of K and 13th. Mr. Fenwick's house, 60 by 31, stood riglit on the space where Georgia Avenue intersects S. Capitol Street, at the water side ; the graveyard was just by. Messrs. Lynch and Sands lived in a " mansion house," 20 by 17 at tlie corner of L Nortli, and 6th West, near the old Seventh Street Market. The widow Young had a mansion house 36 by 23, with half a dozen tenements, right on the Eastern branch, between 17th and 18th streets East, at the burnt bridge. James M. Lingan's frame mansion and office attached, 66 by 22 feet, was right in Ninteenth street, nearest N, at M and N North. Samuel Davidson's log dwelling and kitchen (original) stood on square 183, at 17th and M streets, four squares north of Lafayette Square. David Burns's house and graveyard, occupied then by James Burns, 20 by 16 — graveyard 30 by 30 — stood on H street North, between 9 and 10 West, identical with the subsequent Mausoleum. The residence of Notley Young was a staunch and roomy brick, which stood near the Potomac side, upon the bluffs near the Washington wharves, and was taken away within a com- pai-atively recent period, to accommodate a new street. 324 VARIOUS SITES. Notley Young's mansion (original proprietor) was in the middle of South G street (between Squares 389 and 390) and between 9th and 10th streets West, half way between the steamboat landing and Long Bridge. One of his barns was at 10th and D, and another at 7th and I. His graveyard was at the riverside where South H strikes the water. > Abramam Young's mansion house (22 by 22) and grave- yard stood on North D, by 15th East, at the city boundary. Samuel Blodget's mansion, 29 by 12, stood in 16th Street West, between P North and Massachusetts Avenue, half way between the White House and the boundary. George Walker's mansion — 53 by 32, graveyard, and log tenements stood between Maryland Avenue, North E, 6th Street East and 7tli, Square 862, on the Bladensburg route. Mrs. Front's house — 53 by 24, and graveyard stood on Square 90, M and 8th streets. Mr. N. Young's dwelling, above referred to (42 by 52), stood in G street, between 9th and 10th, Square 389-90, and it had 27 cabins, sheds, houses, barns, etc., attached, between 7th and lltli, and F Street and the river. At Alexandria, in 1798, Mr. Fairfax's house was on the op- posite heights of Hunting Creek, opposite " Parry Hill." Cam- eron's Mills were just above the neck of the creek ; Lee's house was on the first knoll back of the town, just opposite Cameron Street, if extended ; the Episcopal Church was at Columbus and Cameron Streets ; the Quaker meeting-house at St. Asaphe and Wolf; the Presbyterian and Methodist, on the same square, between Royal and Fairfax and Wolf and Duke. Catholic and Dutch Lutheran Cimrches were suggested at Church and Washington Streets. Widow Wheeler's log buildings, and three distinct corps of graves, in rows, stood three squares above the Navy Yard bridge, between Virginia Avenue and 14th East, and South M Streets and tlie Eastern Branch, right behind the Commission- ers' wharf, where also was the upper ferry. One of the most notable estates around Washington is that SOCIAL SKETCHES. 325 of the Calvert family, which existed in somewhat better than its present condition, before the District was laid out. The estate of Mount Airy lies one mile north of Bladens- burg, upon the Old Stage road to Baltimore, and the Washing- ton Branch Steam Railway passes through the noble level park where once, I have heard " Porte Crayon " say, herds of deer roamed at will. Lodges of plastered brick, quaint to the eye, flank the main gate, and as the visitor canters down the drive to the mansion, he sees upon a low eminence to the left, within MT. AIRY. view of both lodge and villa, the burial ground of the family. Two flat tombs, vault-fashion, enclose the remains of John and of Rosalie Eugenia Calvert, and the memorial stone of Charles B. Calvert is an upright piece of marble, — the three substantial and plain, and thus inscribed : In memory of Charles B. Calvert; Born August 23d, 1808, Died May 12, 1864. Blessed are the merciful ; for they shall obtain mercy. — Matt. v. 7. Here lies the body of John Calvert, Esq., of Riversdale ; youngest son of Benedict Calvert, Esq., of Mt. Airy, Prince George County, Maryland, and grandson of Charles Calvert, sixth Lord. Baltimore, who died January 28, 1838, aged 70. Here rests the body of Roealie Eugenia Calvert, wife of Geo. Calvert, and daughter of Henry J. Strie, Esq., of Antwerp. May she be remembered among the children of God, and her lot be cast among the Saints. 826 SOCIAL SUBJECTS OF INTEREST. ** We see the hand we worship and adore, And justify the all-disposing power." From this mound of sepulture a pleasant view is afforded of the picturesque negro cabins scattered over the estate, of the large barns and improvements which were in their prime about 1830, and of the blue and gray wooded hills of Prince George's, which almost enclose the estate, as well as that vista of declin- ing terraces toward the Anacosta, at Bladensburg. The man- sion is built of brick and stone, rough plastered, and in color, bright yellow. It is flanked with offices wliich are connected with the centre by short colonnades, and the grounds are taste- fully ornamented with glass houses and fountains. This estate has been the home of one of the natural branches of the Calvert family for many generations — that of Benedict Calvert, son of Charles, Fifth Lord Baltimore, whose daughter Nelly became the youthful bride of the child of Mrs. George Washington, and Mother of George Washington Parke Custis, with whose estate of Arlington in Virginia, the fine old aristocratic coaches of the Calverts exchanged ceremonial visits, up to the periods of Jackson and Van Buren. Following the fashipns and opportunities of their time and station, the Lords Baltimore strewed natural offspring, even from the beginning. The pious George, first of the title, left Philip Calvert, born out of wedlock ; Benedict Leonard, Fourth Baltimore, married the grandchild of a mistress of Charles II, and this lady bore illegitimate children whom the husband petitioned the House of Lords " to bastardize." Charles, the Fifth Baltimore, left Benjamin (called Benedict) Calvert, who is, in the above inscription, for some reason at- tributed to the Sixth Baltimore. Finally, Frederick, the last Baltimore, died without other issue than Henry Harford and his sister, both natural offspring. The family of Benedict Calvert of Mt. Airy, has always been honorably associated and held in high esteem in Maryland. The great families of that early day in the vicinity of Wash- ington were the Calverts of Mount Airy, the Curtises of Vir- SOCIAL SKETCHES. 327 ginia and Georgetown, and the Carrolls of Duddington. Mrs. George Washington's son married Eleanor Calvert, and the eldest daughter of this marriage married Thomas Law, the second married Thomas Peter of Georgetown, and the son mar- ried Mary Lee Fitzhugh and moved to Arlington House after the death of his grandmother Washington. Here we have a family association both mutable and memorable. Thomas Law, brother of Lord Ellenborough, a Lord Chief- Justice of the King^s Bench, and son of a Bishop of Carlisle, made a great fortune by the aid of Warren Hastings in India, and his brother was one of Hastings' counsel. It was thought better for the interests of Hastings that Law should slip off to America, and as at that time an immense speculation was cur- rent in Washington City lots, Law embarked and lost the greater part of his fortune in building houses around the new Capitol. He erected several of the fine old edifices on New Jersey Avenue heights, and there he dwelt in widower solitude after his divorce from his wife, who had taken advantage of a visit he made to Europe in 1804 to assume male apparel and consort with officers at the marine barracks. The house where Law dwelt after obtaining the divorce was then a boarding house for Congressmen kept by Mitchel, a Frenchman. It was Law who obtained the consent of Congress to open the Tiber Creek by lottery. These points are derived from C. W. Janson's American book, published in London, 1807. Miss Josephine Seaton tells us that Thomas Law was a younger brother of Lord Ellenboioagh, L r 1 Chief-Justice of the King's Bench and brother of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He served in the civil list under Lord Cornwallis in India and came to America enraptured with Washington's character and Republican prospects. He married Anne Custis, sister of George Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, and built blocks in the city with his India accumulations, and had a country house. Like Joel Barlow he was a deist. He had two sons, John and Edmund, and possessed considerable random genius. Jefferson wrote to him respectfully in 1822 from Monticello. Colonel John Tayloe, one of the wealthiest land-holders in 328 THE FAMOUS OCTAGON. Virginia, moved to Washington and built a town house in 1798. He had an income of $60,000 a year, was married to the daughter of Governor Ogle of Maryland, and was thirty years of age when his house was finished. It was called the Octa- gon.* The following year he established the Washington race, course nearly on the site of the present Columbia College. His income in 1804 was said to have been $75,000 a year, and he expended -133,000 annually in the purchase of land, having great tracts on both sides of the Potomac. He died in the Octagon, March 3, 1828, in the 58th year of his age ; liis widow lived until 1 855. Tayloe was undoubtedly the wealthiest citizen of Washington in the first quarter of a century of its history. Probably no other person has had as much income since within the District limits, if we except Mr. Corcoran the banker. Tayloe was educated in England after the revolution. A considerable portion of his large property remains in the hands of his connections. On the Maryland side of the Potomac within a few hours' ride of Washington are two great old mansions called respect- ively Notley Hall and Marshall Hall. Notley Hall is referred to in the novel of Rob of the Bowl in these terms : " Think of my ride all the way to Notley Hall — and round about by the head of the river too — for I doubt if I have any chance to get a cart over the ferry to-night. The boat-keeper is not often sober at this hour. Would you rather ride twenty miles (from old St. Mary's) to Notley, or twelve toMattapany ?" George Notley was mentioned in the remodeled school laws of 1723 as one of the seven trustees of the principal and better sort of inhabitants of Prince's Georges county named by the Assembly. The Marshalls were a leading church of England family in St. George's Hundred as early as 1612. Marshall Hall is now (1872) a pic-nic resort owned by a Washington City inn-keeper. The Addison family of Oxon-Hill came to America between 1650 and 1660. *■ Engravinpr of Tayloe's Octagon on page 118. SOCIAL SKEICHES. 329 More than two hundred feet above the Potomac stands Arlington House, one of those huge • adaptations of classical architecture to domestic uses which abounded in the Middle States and the South about the period of the Kevolution. It shows to admirable advantage from Wasliington, with its front of a hundred and forty feet breadth, mucli of which is taken up with a heavy Doric portico, designed, as old Custis, its proprie- tor, used to say, in his affectation of art, after the Temple of Paestum. But when the grandson of George Washington's wife got the great columns up, his patience, his money, or his art gave out, and he hastily covered the Temple of Paestum with a barn roof. The house is not split up into so many small rooms as Mount Yernon, and some of its larger apart- ments are cool and spacious. It used to be the depositary of many Washingtonian trophies and portraits, ajid we owe to Custis an account of nearly all the pictures and casts of Wash- ington that were taken. In the light of the late war Arling- ton House might have become a sort of rebel Mount Yernon had Lee been victorious, and its position is strikingly like that of Washington's homestead. It has the same yellow color of rough casting, a lawn and natural fresh timber, and Custis and his wife are buried together privately upon their estate, like George and Martha Washington. But by the reverse of fortune, and by the many thousand Federal soldiers buried around the mansion, Arlington is the Mount Yernon of that collective Wasliington of the second Union — the volunteer soldier of the people. Here are fifty or sixty acres of graves, a white head-board to every one ; and the natural level of the grass rolls over all, so that the dismal coffin-like mound common to church yards is not manifest. The grounds are laid out in an unaffected way, and on the great carriage-drives the officers are buried. Amongst the soldiers' graves there are some rebels, laid away in honorable equity, but accredited to their cause upon their head-boards. The effect of the ceme_ tery is to make one think of rest, neatness, and coolness. Over- head, the hickory, walnut, elm, oak, and chestnut trees, some 330 THE ARLINGTON ESTATE. of them a century old, make shadow without mourning. There are no funereal willows or cypresses. The graves project their files of head-boards to the limit of the timber, and they ramble into the realm of sunshine, mak- ing the semblance of a silent encampment of tents in min- iature. The disconnected remains of two thousand soldiers of Bull Kun are laid away together under a single granite scroll, which bears a dignified descriptive title. The cemetery proper does not occupy more than a third of Arlington wood and park, which is probably composed of 200 acres, and is a fine instance of Virginia landscape, covered with great trees, containing springs and rills, and from many parts of it the city of Washington and the suburb of Georgetown are seen directly below, in all the clear chiseling of a Potomac atmos- pliere. The mansion of Arlington is merely an office for the Warden of the cemetery now. The old estate, of which it was the homestead, embraced eleven hundred acres, and was the property of Daniel Parke Custis, the first husband of Mrs. George Washington, and one of the richest men in the colo- nies. Washington left it to his wife's grandson and his own adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, who died in 1857, leaving this estate to his daughter, Mrs. Colonel Robert E. Lee, during her life, and then to Custis and Fitzhugh Lee, his grandsons. Arlington could not be confiscated, therefore, as it was not the property of the traitor Lee, but by the accu- mulation of taxes upon it, the State of Yirginia ordered it to be sold. Edwin M. Stanton, to wdiom we owe the purchase and preservation of a good many relics, such as Ford's theatre, resolved at any price to buy Arlington. He bid it in without opposition for twenty-six thousand dollars. Previous to this time all the AVashington relics that had not been carried off by Mrs. Lee, were taken to the Patent-Office, that temple of sewing machines and martyrs' relics. The old house is naked of everything but flower-pots now. SOCIAL SKETCHES. 831 " BRENTWOOD.* "Brentwood," the estate (1873) of Captain Carlisle Patterson, IT. S. N., stands in the hilly woods north of the Capital. It was the farm of Robert Brent, Esq. , a Mary- . ^ land farmer, whose daughter ^- married Joseph Pearson, Con- gressman from North Caroli- na. Soon after the Capital was pitched in the neighborhood. The house was built in 1816 from designs by Latrobe, who threw his habitual dome over it, but devised a really elegant residence. The main building is three rooms broad, including a very elegant crosswise hall and the dome behind it as rooms, which they are, and of exquisite proportions at that. The wings are five rooms deep. The Pearson Mill stood until the Civil War, on the Tiber near Boundary street, when it was pulled down, but not until a painting of it had been made by Mr. Cranch, the artist. Many years before the water had been diverted, to supply the Cap- ital and its fountains. Mr. Pierson was thrice married, and to Miss Worthington of Georgetown at last. One of the daughters of this marriage was wedded to Augustus Jay, grandson of Chief-Justice John Jay. There remained of this estate in 1873 about 150 acres ; nine- ty-six acres had been detached and turned into the Kendall Green, and Columbian Institute properties. The present owner, Captain Patterson, is the brother-in-law of Admiral David Porter. Daniel Carroll, the first Commissioner of Washington, was born at Upper Marlbro, — an old Maryland court-house town, recently opened to the outer world by railway, — and he was sixty years of age when he became a Commissioner to locate the Capital City upon a part of his estate. He was a Catholic, and therefore for a small part of his life not eligible to political 332 TUDOR PLACE. promotion. But his wealth, prudence, and patriotism, and tho leading position of his brother, Bishop Carroll, and of the Carroll family at large, made him, to the end of his days, a prominent man in public counsels. He had been a member of Congress, and a member of the Constitutional Convention, and was near the close of his days when he became the Federal Commissioner. Reduced by infirmities he was unable to work with much energy upon the Capital site and he resigned hia office in three or four years, and died May, 1796. The Carrolls of the western shore of Maryland were a very numerous family, and much confusion has grown out of tlie similarity of their names. At Bishop Carroll's chapel, eight miles north of Washington, arc tombs of Eleanor Carroll, relict of Daniel Carroll, Esq., who died in 1796 at the remarkable age of 92, so that she must have been born m 1704. What a remarkable old lady this would be to tell us about pre-Wash- ingtonian incidents ! In the same grave-yard lies Ann Brent, daughter of Daniel Carroll, and widow of Robert Brent, who was born in 1733, and died in 1804. In the same grave-yard lie the Digges, a notable family in their day. and patrons of Major L' Enfant. At Georgetown College Cemetery, a cross of marble stands at the head of a slab which is said to cover the general remains of those elder Car- rolls who were re- moved from Dud- dington at a com- paratively recent period. At the base of the cross is the inscription, set up over the son of the Simon tudor place. Carroll : " Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, Obt. May 9, 1849, aged 84." Tudor Place, of which we give an engraving, is the finest villa in Georgetown, and was built by Thomas Peter. Here Robert E. Lee paid his last visit to the District of Columbia, SOCIAL SKETCHES. 333 about 1869. It is now occupied by Thos. Beverley Kennon, of the Peter family. Threekall's addition to Georgetown celebrates the name of a notable family, whose estate was near the convent, and is now destroyed. " Kalorama," used to be a celebrated Washington villa, the seat of Joel Barlow, Esq., poet, diplomatist, soldier, and suc- cessful speculator. Colonel William Washington lived at Kalorama prior to Barlow. Another notable place in Georgetown is the Linthicum house, built by Colonel Dorsey, next owned by Robert Bever- ley and occupied for many years by John C. Calhoun, while in the height of his national reputation. Thomas Lin Lee, who was at the time fifty years old, was addressed by Washington, in July, 1794, and asked to serve with Richard Potts, as Commissioner, in place of Governor Johnson and Dr. Stewart. " The year 1800," said the Presi- dent, " is approaching with rapid strides, equally so ought the public buildings to advance. The prospect is flattering ; . . the crisis is, nevertheless, delicate." Washington then inti- mated that he wished to avoid past negligence by naming Com- missioners who would reside on the Federal site and consider their salaries as paid to them with that understanding to defray their expenses. Mr. Lee had been Governor of Maryland between 1779 and 1783, and an efficient co-operator with General Washington in supporting the armies of the country. He was a delegate both to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, and had just retired from the Governorship of the State when he received the nomination of Federal Commissioner. He died in 1810. Richard Potts, another Commissioner, lived at Frederick- town, and had been a patriot and Governor of Maryland between the early terms of Governor Lee, and was a United States Senator. He was an educated gentleman. 334 SOCIAL SKETCHES. Frederick, in Maryland, was a flourishing place, with an arsenal, five churches, and about seven hundred houses, in the last year of Washington's administration. Travelers in those days describe the portion of Maryland intermediate between Frederick and Washington, as nearly reduced to the condition in which it remains, to a great degree. Yellow clay and gravel, tilled with the hoe instead of the plough, worn out with tobacco culture, and often lying in naked prospects, with scarcely an herb to cover it. The people, however, were pry- ing and inquisitive, compared to that phlegmatic German popu- lation on the Monocacy, whose fields were thrifty and green with wheat. An English traveler, who visited the Great Falls as early as 1796, turned off at Montgomery Court-house, and crossed about three miles above them, by a ferry, one mile and a quarter wide, to the Virginia' shore. Thomas Johnson, another Commissioner, had been a dele- gate from Maryland to the Constitutional Congress, and Gover- nor during the early part of the Revolution. Between 1791 and 1793 he was Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. He died at the age of eighty-seven, in 1819. Alexander White, Commissioner as above, had been a dele- gate from North Carolina to the Continental Congress, and a representative up to 1793 ; he is said to have been an ardent and eloquent man, and he died at Woodville, Virginia, 1804. Mr. Commissioner Scott died in the year 1800, and his place was filled by W. Church. Analostan Island, in the Potomac, opposite Georgetown, con- taining 70 acres, was the celebrated residence of General John Mason, where was entertained Louis Philippe, by the descend- ant of George Mason, of Gunston Hall. The house was burned down during the civil war, and the island is now a pleasure resort. Jas. M. Mason, rebel Commissioner to Europe, pas- sed his childliood here. Government built a causeway, connecting this island with the Virginia shore. The novel- SOCIAL SKETCHES. 335 ist and poet Paulding wrote as follows, in 1825, on " Ana- dostan :" ' " On either side, and all around, The weltering wave is seen to flow, Noiseless, or, if you hear a sound, 'Tis but a murmur, soft and low. The great trees, nodding to and fro In stately conelaves not a few, Whisper as secretly and slow As bashful lovers ever do. Tlie tinkling bell, the plashing oar, The buzzing of the insect throng, The laugh that echoes from the shore, Tlie unseen thrush's vesper song — And when I count the earthly hours That I shall cherish most of all, That walk in Anadostan's bowers Will be the first that I recall." A few sketches of the early Commissioners of the city are appended : In Georgetown College Cemetery is this tombstone bearing reference to the family which owned a part of the river front where the city was pitched. " To the memory of the Eev. Notley Young, who departed this life August 1st, 1820, aged 54 years." Opposite Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown is Avhat is called the Colonel Carter place, on which the houses burned down about the close of the war. Here lived the French minister Sartiges and M. Mercier, with whom Prince Napoleon stopped on his visit to this country. Governor Henry D. Cooke bought the grounds and ruin for $50,000 and laid the foundations of a large mansion on which work has been suspended for several years. 336 AMOS KENDALL — HIS HONESTY. The following inscriptions are in Glen- wood Cemetery. Our father John Lessford, The Chronicler of Washington, Died Feb. 23d, 1862. Aged 36. Amos Kendall. Born August 16th, 1789. Died Nov. 12th, 1869. Jane Kyle, wife of Amos Kendall, Born October 12th, 1807. Died June 2,5th, 1864. On Postmaster General Kendall's tomb are these mottoes : " Charity is love in action." '• Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." " The path of the just is as the shining light." TOMB OF AMOS KENDALL. As a public official, Mr. Kendall was one of the best in our service, and he may truthfully be called the great Postmaster General. He went into his office poor and left it very poor. Every cent that he has made was acquired subsequent to his resignation, and it was gained almost entirely by his business association with Mr. Morse, the inventor. When Kendall took the Post-Office in charge he turned out every clerk, and for a week had the books of the department overhauled. Those clerks whose accounts were straight were re-appointed, and the derelict dismissed. He was so poor that a tempter appeared to him in the person of a subordinate and clerk, who pertly said : " Mr. Kendall, I am aware that you have no money. I have an account in the bank, and will lend you some when you are in need of it." " Thank you," said Kendall coldly, " I don't know that I SOCIAL SKETCHES. 337 have need to borrow any money, but when I have, I cer- tainly shall not borrow it from a subordinate." This clerk wanted some favors in the way of pickings. Next morning he was turned out of the Post-Office. Morse, the inventor, lacking business qualifications entirel}' , had made up his mind to secure Amos Kendall to popularize his telegraph apparatus. Kendall set to work with rigid method, and, proceeding to organize companies, arranged that Morse should have so much stock in each company, according to its capital, and that he (Kendall) should have a certain portion of Morse's revenue. In this way both of them grew speedily to riches, but Kendall had business thrift and vigilance, and at this time he is probably richer than Morse — unless he be dead. Kendall has been in two tilings consistent all his latter days — he has been a Jacksonian Democrat, and a rigid member of the Baptist Church. I met him at the close of the Impeachment trial, and inter- rogated him as to Johnson's criminality. " I take little sympathy in politics these days," he said ; " neither with Mr. Johnson nor his opponents. I never admired him." Last New Year's day the old man stood am_ong his married daughters, receiving visitors, the handsomest septuagenarian in Washington. His residence, until of late, has been in a grove, called Kendall Green, on the borders of the city, and he is rich in real estate all round about here. The Baptist Church, with the high iron spire, at the corner of Eighth and H streets, has cost him probably $150,000. Kendall was a Northern man who began life a school teacher in Kentucky, and he never lost sight of the New England economical virtues, while he was conservative in politics. I asked him last New Year's day what he thought, after this long interval, of the cliaractei of Andrew Johnson. " He grows larger as he recedes," said Kendall ; " he was the greatest American I ever looked upon, and second to only him to whom all greatness is subordinate, the first President." 15 338 THE HOME OF JEFFERSON. The later life of Mr. Kendall has been troubled by but one considerable loss, that of his son, who was shot dead in a street collision with the son-in-law of his old friend, John C. Rives. Ho made no upbraidal nor mutiny, but laid away vindictive- ness with the bones of the lad, who was at fault. Kendall was not a man that the nation will weep over. He w^as too strict, too well-balanced, too much guided by pure, cold human judgment to wring from men affectionate regrets that he never desired. Sufficient unto liimself, within his own resources, architect of the wealth he evolved, his life has been so complete and fortunate that there is no urn upon his tomb for tears. Heaven makes some men exceptionally perfect in life, that, dying, it may show how poor they vvere, lacking weaknesses. A few hours ride by rail from Washington will take the vis- itor to Charlottesville, the home of Jefferson of which I shall give a short description.. Jefferson's university and home. Leaving Washington nt 7 o'clock A. M., I breakfasted at Alexandria, and crossed Bull Run befoiv 9. There arc two Northern settlements on the weird old stream, — its deep pools and frequent eddies lying gloomily among the rocks, — one set- SOCIAL SKETCHES. 339 tlement completely new, and hewn out of tlie timber and un- derbrush lying beside the railroad, and its neat frame cottages and warehouses standing upon smart boulevard streets, with per- spectives of bold hills in the street vistas ; the other village is at Manassas Junction, amongst Beauregard's old forts, and it contains five hundred traders, tavern-keepers, and mechanics. The view at Manassas is the first of the great series of Blue Ridge landscapes, which make what is called the Piedmont terrace of Virginia so entrancing. Manassas is a bold, open plateau, bounded by blue mountains, which make the land- scapes look wide and stately. Bull Run is the gulf to the northward where the plateau drops away. Nothing now remains of the battle fought here but certain redoubts, breastworks, and forts, overgrown with sedge or dribbling off to weed. The Rappahannock and its outlying stations — every one the si;C of a battle — soon passed by. I saw the pretty soldiers' cemetery at Culpepper, and then Cedar Mountain arose, where I had wandered bareheaded on the night of the fierce battle there, feeling the first paralysis of the fear of death. All the crops of oats, wheat, potatoes, and corn were thriving, and the wlieat liarvcs.t was nearly over. I dined at Gordons- ville, a town of railway junction, wliich the rebels held during nearly the whole of the war — a pretty, struggling, whitewashed town at the foot of hills ; and here leaving the Richmond road to the left, I passed through the Southwest Mountains, under the base of Monticello, and crossing the Red Ravenna River, was at Charlottesville. Being here to attend commencement, I took advantage of the proximity of Monticello to ride there. It is only three miles from the town, and on the side opposite to the site of the University. It is a doomed mansion, standing on the crest of a conical mountain, the promontory of a ridge of such, and the Ravenna River washes the base of the hill. Hiring a horse for one dollar and a half, or at the rate of half a dollar an hour, I rode briskly out the south road, forded Moore's Creek, and turned up the base of Sneed's Mountain. 840 Jefferson's home. Fine forest trees shaded the way ; the fields were tinted bhie with the stalks of weeds ; the wheat, all cut and shocked, stood on the shoulders of the hills, and slipped into the dips and curls of rich valleys ; the streams were heard saying liquid things to the dry air, and rabbits, tame as the mice that play round a baby's crib, cocked up their plump bodies in the road and looked sideways archly and squintingly. All the streams caught a reddish tinge from the oxides of iron in the clay, and yet they reflected the sky and their banks like crystal ; locust trees grew amongst the stone walls that enclosed the fields ; some large oaks stood in the barest vistas, and the loose horses rested beneath them from the sun ; I heard few birds or grass- hoppers singing, and my whole attention and ecstacy felt the impression of the expanding sceneries, which widened as I mounted, showing the humped backs of blue mountains, and loftier ranges further off, which were swung across the sky like a scarf of gauze. The forms of these nearer mountains were like the postures of Michel Angelo's marbles, unique, sinewy, startling, elbowed, and hipped, and bending and yawning, and their strong outlines were filled in with the bluest, grayest, sweetest mists and herbages, while between the isolated cones and spines the valleys rolled like the Illinois prairies, and, wherever there Avas a depression, you could guess a stream. Rising higher and higher, the narrow roadway became a terrace on the brink of a ravine, and at times there were deep creases and rocky shelves over which the way had to be carefully picked, but the higher I climbed the purer and rarer grew the air, the nobler the stature of the oaks and ash trees, and the deeper the sense of majesty in nature round about. I pictured the tall, strong, buoyant man who had ridden over this road so often, looking away at the plains and eminences, and feeling in his spirited nature the inspiration of their rolling freedom. Like the backs of bisons thundering along in herd and suddenly arrested by some alarm, they stood silent, picturesque, and gigantic along the plain. Glimpses of other mountains were seen through the foUage, as I rose into the purer air, and at SOCIAL SKETCHES. 341 last, gaining the crest of the ridge, I turned along the moun- tain spine and began to climb Monticello. No fence nor wall lined the road, which wound round and round through the timber, till, suddenly, in the wildest part of the wood, I came to a tall, brick enclosure, partly broken down and pierced in the middle to make place for a panel of iron rods, through which I saw a rough granite obelisk and some granite slabs. This I knew to be the family cemetery of Jefferson. It was a part of the natural woods, and tall locusts, linden, and hickory trees grew amongst the graves, while an abundance of small herbage, bushes, weeds, and climbing vines grew upon the walls and amongst the slabs and vaults. The enclosure was about one hundred feet square, the wall was ten or twelve feet high, and within it were, perhaps, thirty vaults and tombs. No words can convey to you an idea of the desolation of the scene as associated with such a man. The first glimpse through the bars filled me with a sense of pity and indignation. The bars contained no wicket, and a barred gate on another side was fastened with a large padlock, so I climbed over the grille and the tottering wall, and let myself down amongst the graves. A thunder storm Avhich had been gradually moving and mut- tering overhead now began to bellow, and some lightning attended it, but not a drop of rain fell. Jefferson's tomb is made of granite, and is about eiglit feet high ; almost every letter is gone from it, chiseled and chip- ped off by vandal students, and it looks battered and nonde- script, like a Druid stone. Under the monument is a plain slab, more perfect, covering the remains of his favorite daugh- ter, Martha, and this, like almost every other stone in the grave- yard, contains a religious or poetic inscription. One or two of the slabs have fallen off the brick vaults, and some are cracked or overgrown with moss. The grave-yard seems to have no keeper, and to be falling to decay unregretted ; weeds grow under the trees ; the road to the gate is blocked with bushes ; the great President's tomb itself is simply frightful. He has many living descendants, but, as the livery stable man said to me : 342 Jefferson's home. " You know how it is down yur, now. It's every man for himself, and ' Ole Tom' being dead, has no friends." Mounting my horse anew, I passed through the remainder of the wood of Monticello, entered a cornfield, and finally drew near a garden fence and some vineyard poles ; before me stretched a straight and narrow orchard lane, with some out- buildings at the further end ; to my left, on the crest of the mountain arose the dome of Monticello. You must understand that Jefferson's house is set upon a lawn, made by shaving down the cap of the mountain, and that it stands probably five hundred feet above the little town of Charlottesville and the Kavenna River. This house was not finished when the Revolutionary War began, but Jefferson inhabited it while ho was Governor, the Legislature at that time meeting at Char- lottesville, and here were entertained nearly all the officers captured with Burgoyne at Saratoga, as well as Lafayette, and all the great leaders of troops and opinions for fifty years. Monticello, like almost every celebrated Virginia mansion of the old planter time, wears a look of dilapidation, and, as you draw near it, you feel a sense of shiftlessness, of old black imported bricks, of gates unhinged and hats stuffed in windows, of threadbare stateliness and imposing imposition, bankruptcy, reduction, failure, woe, these are the impressions. The style of the house is that of a Corinthian villa, with a dome over the middle, and with two irregular wings, one portico opening into a green lawn, littered over with carts, harness, rotten benches, and beautiful shade trees, — of the latter, par- ticularly lindens, poplars, and locusts. The portico on the reverse side of the house looks out upon a sort of parterre^ which is enclosed on three sides by the state stables and by a continuous underground passage which, after an old notion, had connected the whole series of stables, dry wells, and so forth, with the mansion. The stable wings arc concluded at the two ends by two-story pavillions, one of which was Jeffer- son's library in the Summer time, and the other was his office in the Winter. The house is large, roomy, and manorial, but SOCIAL SKETCHES. 343 it is in a sad state of dilapidation. The shingles on the roof are so rotten that tlie rain drives in at everj frequent shower, and all the wood work of the place is decayed ; the paint of a former time has left no vestiges ; therefore all the woodwork has a whitish dun-color, but the well- blackened English bricks are said to be as durable and as good as eycr. A shambling boy, who had lost one arm at the battle of Lit- tle Rock, fighting with Sterling Price, told me to tie up my horse, and he charged me fifty cents to enter the old mansion. Over the door, under the portico, was a great clock, balanced with cannon balls, which had not been going for forty years. The great hall of the house is partly surrounded abovo by a gal- lery or balcony, where it is the tradition that the President used to show himself to crowds of students and admiring visi- tors. From this room I passed into the dining-room, with deep butteries, pantries, and so forth, where there was no particle of furniture and a bad smell of funky wood. On the other hand, I walked into a great, naked drawing-room, where there were two large mirrors, made of difierent pieces of glass set in the wall, and as my face skimmed over them, I had a melancholy presentiment of the many historic visitors whose countenances had also rested there, and — perished. The room under the dome was an octagonal ball-room, with a place at one side where the ladies could descend into the pediment of one of the porticoes, and use it for a dressing-room. I said to my guide at this spot : " I believe Jefferson never danced ?" " Oh, I expect that he did," said the guide, " for he was a rale infidel, fetched up by old Voltaw." The indescribably humorous pronunciation of " Yoltaw" com- pelled me to laugh. Said I ; " Was Jefferson really brought up by Yoltaire ?" " Oh, yes, he raised him." Now, this sort of anecdote is just as true as the mass of thmgs related of Jefferson by orthodox people. 344 Jefferson's home. Voltaire died in 1778, while Jefferson did not visit France until 1784 ; so that he never saw Voltaire at all. But Frank- lin was a friend of Voltaire, and Jefferson succeeded Franklin as Minister to France, and he probably had a higher admira- tion for Franklin than for any man of his time. I observed, all through the low, uncomfortable bed-rooms of Monticello, that Franklin stoves were ubiquitous, — real, genuine, original Franklins, — and the guide said tliat these same stoves could be found in broken pieces all over the farm. There was never a bedstead in all Monticello, alcoves having been substituted in the walls, and slats were fixed to staples in these alcoves. On one of these uncomfortable beds Jefferson's wife died, and they were obliged to lower her body out of one of the semi-circular windows which abounded there, because there was no stairway commodious enough to permit them to take out the coffin. I wandered through these old bed-rooms, walking out upon the dangerous roof, haunted the rotten old stables, peeped through the dry w^alls and the covered walks ; saw the front of the house, all chopped and chiseled over with names of boys and boors. In some of the rooms the farmer's wife was drying apples and making raspberry jam ; in others farm-gear, harness, and old barrels were strewn about. In one room a dog had littered ; the man of the house had the rheumatism ; not far off they pointed out the house of Mr. Randolph, Jef- ferson's chief grandson, and looking southward, we could see Willis' Mountain, said to be 150 miles away. I think in all America there is no such landscape for size and beauty equal to this from Monticello. It far surpasses the view from the terrace of St. Germain. At one time Jefferson owned nearly the whole country round about, but toward the end of his life he became in debt, and sold parcel after parcel, until now the estate is reduced to about 250 acres, which rents for $250 a year. A field hand is capable of possessing the home of the richest President. Monticello belonged to Captain Levey, a Hebrew, and a SOCIAL SKETCHES. 345 Commander in the United States Navy, who was a rich man, and who had a romantic attachment to the great leader ; for he not only took Jefferson's house and dwelt in it, but he had a statue of that chieftain made and presented to the United States, and it now stands in front of the White House. Levey^ I am told, married his own niece, w^hich was contrary to the laws of Virginia, and he left the State before the war, w^here- upon the rebel Commonwealth confiscated his property. It is now in litigation. Levey is said to have expressed in his will the desire that it should be repaired, and made an institute for the children of United States Navy officers. The neighbors consider the estate valued at about twelve thousand dollars. It is now occupied by a farmer named Wheeler. Jefferson's nail factories, grist-mills, and various other expensive enter- prises, are now extinct or in ruins. The neighbors say that Monticello will make the finest vineyard hill in America, but at present tumbles more and more to ruin every year, and seems to possess neither master nor patron. As a change from old times to new, I would relate a passage of a ride recently taken to the Great Falls of the Potomac, passing on the way the celebrated Cabin John bridge. The name of Jefferson Davis has been obliterated from this bridge, as from almost every piece of architecture and engin- eering in the country. The hollow ruin of a hotel at the Great Falls is kept by one Jackson, the brother of that inn-keeper who, at Alexandria, shot Colonel Ellsworth dead ; and the survivor is a good specimen of a tavern-keeper in an old settled, pro-slavery region ; a slouchy, shiftless, greasy-haired man, whose humor is chiefly an appal- ling exhibit of his manifold offences, seasoned up with a wild amiability and familiarity. His black hair falls in snaky long locks, behind his ears, and his gray eye has the light of des- peration in it. Behind his bar stand a pair of double-barreled rifles and game-bags, and one of the guns he shows as the identical weapon which slew Ellsworth. Jackson says that the gun was not the property of his brother, but borrowed. I S46 BLOCKADE-RUNNING ON THE POTOMAC. took up the rifle, giving it the benefit of the doubt, and found it to have been purchased in the year 1836, at a hardware store in Alexandria, and used for many years as a favorite par- tridge-piece. It was on deposit at the time ac the Marshall House, and had been loaded w^th slugs by its fraternal borrower, with the intent of killing two men with it — a man with each barrel. The lirst barrel was aimed fairly at the heart of Ellsworth, and in an instant the second would have slain Brownell, but the Zouave threw up his musket, so that Jackson's shot passed over his head, and at the same time the desperate assassin was both shot and bayoneted. '' Where is your brother buried ? " I asked of the inn-keeper at Great Falls. " In the family burying-ground, sir, over in Fairfax County, Virginia. The widow lives on a nice little property she owns at Fairfax Court House." " I believe there was afterward a military company formed called the " Jackson Avengers V " " Yes, sir. And they had it reported that I was sworn to kill Brownell. That ain't so, sir. I left him to a just Gord. I never bore him no hate. He was afterwards in Washington City, and at last he was killed at the second Bull Eun. I had one other brother in the rebel army, but 1 kept out to make money. Ha! ha! ha! There is a picture of the shooting of Ellsworth ; somebody came along and gave it to me, and I stuck it up behind the bar. Some people says it will make people dislike me, but I think not. Everybody knows I'm his brother, and it's a sort of eppropriarte." The Aqueduct authorities ordered Jackson away in 1872. The Loudon Valley, above Great Falls, which runs parallel with the Shenandoah, was the haunt of Moseby's men, and the great conduit of treasonable information and contraband goods, from Washington and Baltimore to Lynchburg and Richmond. Leesburg was the nearest den of runners to the SOCIAL SKETCHES. 347 Capital of the country — thirty-four miles — and it was, per- haps, the most lawless village in Virginia. The rebels several times passed to and fro between Virginia and Maryland this way, as they had no railway lines to advance upon, while we generally moved by the lines of rail, and paid little attention to the ferry passengers, between Point of Rocks and Chain Bridge, except to patrol and picket them. Leesburg was illuminated the night of the defeat of Ball's Bluff, and it was the scene of many of the debauches of Moseby's men. The wild torrent region between the mouth of Goose Creek and Great Falls was signally adapted to blockade running, and the dangers of fording and navigating in the roaring river of dark nights, lent a terrible interest to the enterprise of the smug- glers and spies. These crossed most generally in small, flat- bottomed scows, hastily nailed together during the day, to evade the order forfeiting every private boat on the Upper Po- tomac, and the cargo was generally whisky and drugs. Jackson told me that he had been fifteen times confined in the Old Capitol Prison for running the blockade, and, on one occasion, he walked straight from the jail to the hand-ferry, below tlie Great Falls, and paddled across with five barrels of whisky. He had been threatened with execution, if he were caught again, but he sent a boy half a mile down stream to fire off pistols, and, being himself shot at several times, finally re-crossed the river with his cai-go twice before lie could man- age to I'un it into Leesburg. Tliere it was sold to officers and guerrillas for 81, in gold, a gill. Such opposite social passages as have been given, bring to view the changes wrouglit amongst the old Potomac people by pitching the national Capitol amongst them. There is a cem- etery in Georgetown — the most beautiful suburb of Washing- ton — which is worthy of a visit from anybody. It stands on the green heights, where they decline in steep terraces to Rock Creek, and ravines making up from the base, describe inex- pressibly cool amphitheatres, on whose successive shelves the obelisks of the dead stand motionless and white among the 348 THE CAPITAL CITY AS APPROACHED. foliages. Here are buried old citizens, whose village existence the nation invaded, and planted the Capital City upon their fields, so that they grew often rich and married their daughters to shrewd Congressmen, whose intelligence made the best of every foot of ground. Marriage is the destiny of an accident. Shipwrecked so- cially upon this marshy island, many a politician made the best of the site and married Sukey Brown or Betsy Wilson, who became the mother of Indian contractors and foreign min- isters, instead of bearing a herd of young sovereigns who could fight a game chicken, burn an abolitionist, or wallop a nigger, without the aid of the art of reading, or the distress of knowing how to write. It has occurred to me that in all this running narrative I have not given the distant reader a description of the Capital town, as you might have approached it, any time within the past fifteen years. Here is the city, as you come to it by the oldest railway from the North. First, a series of grassy hills, with sandy creeks at their passes ; then Bladensburg, an angular stretch of old, gable-chimneyed, bent-roofed houses half a mile from the rail ; then a line of red clay breastworks, worming up to the hill tops, where stand dismantled forts ; then an octagonal building with a cupola on it ; standing out in the country next to a farm- house and beside a great green imitation bronze horse on a pedestal in the lawn ; the home and foundry of Clark Mills, sculptor ; then the uneasy outlying landscapes of a city, cul- verts planted nowhere, streets graded to no place, brick-kilns and pits, a cemetery, frame shanties on goose pastures disputed by cows made sullen by overmilking ; boys, babies, friendless dogs, and negro women " toting " great bundles on their heads, no more fence, the smell of apparent garbage and ash heaps, signs of ground-rents and dirt throwing invitations ; and all this time you are descending into basin land and down the val- ley of a bare creek ; at last a dome, such majesty and whiteness as you never saw elsewhere, appears sailing past the clouds : the Capitol ! SOCIAL SKETCHES. 349 Out of the long, cramped, green-painted saloon-cars you de- scend, into a depot that is first a shed, then a dark, dull, dirty vestibule ; for the republican government is not yet independ- ent enough to make corporations, erect buildings here worthy of the Capital City. The exterior of this depot is also mean and squatty. Backed up against the depot are omnibusses and cabs, whose drivers, white and negro, bully you with whip-han- dles. Over this pirate body you see close by like a marble majesty, the Capitol, dome and wing, stand silent, sentient, scintillant, regardless of the bare lots, shanties, barracks, ma- chineries, marble slabs, and unfinished dirt terraces that sur- round it. To comprehend this city further, climb to the dome of the Capitol. It is enveloped by a range of fort-capped hills, half in Maryland, half in Virginia. Through these- hills the Poto^ mac makes two broad clefts, coming down from the West and departing to the South. Down where it departs, a point stands out in the water, the City of Alexandria, Virginia, near where it comes in, on a hill-top, connecting with Washington, is Georgetown, Maryland. Between Alexandria and Washington, a river makes up acutely from the Potomac, the East Branch, whose real name — the Anacostia — is now nearly obsolete. In the angle between the Potomac and the Anacostia lies the Capital City, about fifteen miles from the tomb of the patriarch who selected the site and gave it the name. The dome where you stand is nearly in the geographical centre of the city, yet by the force of circumstances, the actual, settled city lies away from the junction of the two rivers, between the Capitol and Georgetown, and in a lower, baser site. Out on the extreme cape, between the rivers, lies the Arsenal, connected with the city by a straggling line of liouses ; it was the place of the trial and execution of the assassins of President Lincoln. Further up the East Branch, where the only bridge crosses it, lies the Navy Yard, a walled in and busy area of twenty-eight acres ; over this bridge Booth and Ilarrold escaped to Surrats- viUe and lower Maryland; still further up the East Branch 350 VIEW OP THE CITY. and of to both the disconnected CONGRESSIONAL BURYING GROUND. lies the Congressional Burying Ground, Navy Yard and the cemetery, hues houses radiate from the Cap- itol. Around the Navy Yard there is a large and elderly settlement, to which a street railway runs, and amidst it the town tower of the oldest church in Washington, where worshiped Jefferson and Mad- ison. The front of the Cap- itol inclines this way, and over the high, thickly settled plateau looks out the Statue of Liberty over your head. Its back is toward the real city ; behind it eighty-nine thou- sand people live ; in front of it not more than fifteen thousand. Now turn yourself around, with your back against the back of the statue, and look away from the Navy Yard : Beneath you are the terraces of the Capitol and the lawn. From the bottom of the lawn great avenues radiate ; that to the left leads to the Long Bridge and indices Arlington Man- sion, far up the Virginia Hills, a steam railroad passes along it and crosses the bridge to Alexandria. The second avenue is a canal, straight as a sunbeam, and it points to the white, chalky stump of the abandoned Washington Monument. The third is the famed Pennsylvania Avenue, dense with the costly shops and hotels, revealing at the bottom the granite Treasury building ; the fourth to the right is a short avenue, and it leads to the City Hall, the seat of municipal government. Half lost in houses beyond this are the great marble piles of the Post- Office and Treasury, which lie in the densest centre of the city. Other avenues to the right go out to the open Northern country and the far forts which Early invested in 1864. Away off, on the crest of one of tliese hills, you see dimly the white tower of the Soldiers' Home, Mr. Lincoln's summer residence. SOCIAL SKETCHES. 351 Objects between this latter and your eye are the brick block where General Grant resided, the dingy brick factory of Gov- ernment Printing, and the Church of St. Aloythus, with the highest tower and the merriest bells of Washington. Now, return your eye to the Patent-Office, which stands on its own separate though inferior hill. A great market-house lies on each side of it, nearly equi-distant. The market-house to the left is on the Avenue. Between this market-house and the Potomac are the fine towers of the Smithsonian Institute. Continuing South to the Potomac, you come to the Ferry to Virginia, and the shipping piers Follow out the Avenue to the Treasury, and beyond it are the President's House, the War and Navy Departments, General Grant's head-quarters, and the elegant residences of Lafayette Square, where live most of the ambassadors and rich officials. Beyond these a stream called Rock Creek falls through a deep valley to the Potomac, and on the other side of it is Georgetown. Another creek, immediately beneath the Capitol where you stand, is called the Tiber ; it bends around the base of Capitol Hill, and, by a long detour nearly parallel with the Potomac, gets an outlet not very far from the mouth of Rock Creek. Tliis Tiber makes, with a canal leading from it to the East Branch, an island of one-fourth the city. All the forts around or overlooking the city are dismantled, the gims taken out of them, the land resigned to its owners. Needy negro squatters, living around the forts, have built themselves shanties of the officers' quarters, pulled out the abattis for firewood, made cord-wood or joists out of the log platforms for the guns, and sawed up the great flag-staffs into quilting poles or bedstead posts. Still the huge parapets of the forts stand upright, and the paths left by the soldiers creep under the invisible gun muzzles. Old boots, blankets, and canteens rot and rust around the glacis ; the woods, cut down to give the guns sweep, are overgrown with shrubs and bushes. Nature is unrestingly making war upon War. The strolls out to these old forts are seedily picturesque. Freedmen, who 852 THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. exist by selling old horse-shoes and iron spikes, live with their squatter families where, of old, the ai-jny sutler kept the can- teen ; but the grass is drawing its parallels nearer and nearer the magazines. Some old clothes, a good deal of dirt, and forgotten graves, make now the local features of the war. Meantime the too ambitious monument to the pater patrix stands like a stunted giant, the superfluous blocks at its base grown over with grass, and few approach it, even in curiosity. Its foundations are said to be defective, and no money has been voted toward building it this long time. A few boxes, in various parts of the country, receive dimes and quarters towards its completion, but, standing as it now does, a hundred and thirty feet in the air, it has probably reached its highest. I heard a humorous explanation of the failure of this monu- ment, from an Irishman. " They broke the Pope's block of stone," he said, " it was an onlucky act. The holy Father cursed the whole thing, and immediately the foundation settled.'* I have spent part of a day in the shaft and workshops of the Washington Monument, a mournful instance of the short life of public impulse, and of the defects in the macliinery of mis- cellaneous private enterprise. This monument is already raised to the height of 175 feet. It has already cost nearly 1250,000, and is rais- ed to more than one-third its total height. The found- ations are perfectly secure, and capable of supporting all the height yet to be added. There are stones from all parts of the world ready to be inserted in the shaft or subsidiary temple ; but work has been suspended upon it for about twelve years. The monument was discouraged, because the people believed WASHINGTON MONUMENT. SOCIAL SKETCHES. 353 that the contributions, being dropped into Post-office boxes all over the country, were stolen, and never applied to the edifice, and also because the artists and art critics kept up a steady- fire of deprecation upon the plan of the monument. This plan was an obelisk, surrounded with a Greek Temple. There is no notion, at present, of adding the temple, but the Monument Association hope to raise enough money to finish the obelisk. It is easy to do this, and it ought to be done ; for the unfinish- ed shaft in the Capital City is a record of popular impotence, worse than if a monument to Washington had never been begun. This age and people are no exception to the human passion for monumentalization. If ten thousand churches and schools would give twenty-five dollars a-piece, this monument could be finished. The interior of the shaft is of twenty-five feet diameter, between the inner sides of the walls, and so thick are the walls, that the exterior diameter is fifty-five feet. The material is marble from Maryland. Within there is a yawning chasm of shaft, very impressive to look up into, and see, at the farthest height, a scaffold hung, from which a rope droops dizzily, and on the floor the dampness splashes and the dark- ness lies all around the year, save when some melancholy visitor puts his head within, and feels dejected over the sus- pended gratitude of the land of Washington. I hope no more great monuments will be commenced, but I hope a feeling will be revived to see this one finished. The memorial stones, to decorate some portions of the shaft, represent all companies, lands, and ages — lava, from Vesuvius ; aerolites, shaken out of crazy satellites or planets ; rocks of copper and of porphyry ; stones from Jerusalem and Mecca ; everything but the Pope's stone, which, not the builders, but the mob rejected. 1 1 tlie Washington monument ever be reared 600 feet high, according to the original plan, it will be of the weight of 125.800,000 pounds ; the portion already completed exceeds 80;000,000 pounds. CHAPTEE XX. JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. We can get little comfort by consulting the early records of the country, to show that there were some bad things done in those days. There is less apology for evil in a great and prospered nation, than in a series of jarring colonies, where few local leaders sought after the revolution to remedy their desperate fortunes. Early in the history of the country we were without organization, authority, or means. Able men in those days had few resources, unless endowed with estates, or surrounded with family influence. But it never was true of the United States, that corruption got to be organized, flagrant and backed by a large part of public opinion, until a few years prior to the civil war. The Confederate Government was as corrupt at Richmond, considering its opportunities, as the Federal Government at Washington. Both were swindled by currency printers, contractors, quarter-masters, and beset by rapacious Congressmen, who endeavored to retard the general cause where they could not take the advantage. What is called the scalawag element in the South, has to some degree been the development of the stealing element at Richmond. In the North the big army contractors have gone to railroad building, and the naval harpies are trying to restore Ameri- can commerce with the old hulks which were four or five times paid for when chartered by the nation. It was also true at the close of the Revolutionary War, that JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 355 contractors, clothes-furnishers, and others, endeavored to spoil the new government, but we can nearly count up on our fingers the early scandals in the history of our country. Let us look at some of them : 1789. The State of Georgia was the first to inaugurate a land swindle. It sold out' to three private companies pre- emption rights to tracts of land ; these companies were called the South Carolina Yazoo, the Virginia Yazoo, and the Ten- nessee Yazoo; the whole amount ot land. disposed of was fif teen and a half million acres, and the sum agreed to be paid was upwards of $200,000. Subsequently the same lands were sold to other companies, because the first purchasers insisted upon making their payments in depreciated Georgia paper. Hence arose the controversy on the celebrated Yazoo claims, so called. 1790. Mr. Jefferson, who is not good authority on a ques- tion of the Treasury, in the first administration, thus speaks of what he believes to be corruption , under General Hamilton, after the Federal assumption of State debts : '* The base scramble again. Couriers and relay horses by land, and swift-sailing pilot-boats by sea, were plying in all di- rections. Active partners and agents were associated and em- jDloyed in every State, town, and country neighborhood, and this paper was bought up at five shillings, and even as low as two shillings on the pound, before the liolder knew that Con- gress had already provided for its redemption at par. Immense sums were thus filched from the poor and ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough before." 1790. Mr. Jefferson is authority for the statement that Robert Morris, and other advocates of the national assumption of the State debts, made a lobby amongst the Federal Con- gressmen, to concede for this point the latitude for the Capi- tol in 1790. Two Virginia members changed their votes on the financial subject ; therefore the seat of government was given to the South. If this was the case, both Morris and Hamilton were well punished for the intrigue. Mr. Hamilton closed his 356 ORGANIZATON OP NATIONAL BANK. public career before the middle of his life, and Mr. Morris is commemorated in the local history of the seat of government as the victim of the most tremendous speculative failure ever recorded in that city. His houses, put up on the spot since called for his partner, Greenleaf s Point, tumbled to ruins be- fore the public buildings were complete, and he himself spent a venerable portion of his romantic history in the debtor's jail at Philadelphia. The funding bill was then adopted as an act of barter, and twelve millions of dollars were authorized to be borrowed to pay the foreign debt, and twenty-one millions, five hundred thousand dollars, to pay off tlie State debts. The tariff was immediately pushed up to meet tliese obligations, and here began the manipulation of duties in the interest of domestic manufacturers. 1791. The same year that the Capital was conceded to the banks of the Potomac, Mr. Hamilton's proposition for a Na- tional Bank was brought forward. It passed the Senate in Philadelphia, without division. In the house it was attacked by James Madison and others, but it finally passed by a vote of 39 to 20. President Washington required the written opinions ot the members of his Cabinet, as to its constitution- ality, and Hamilton and Knox endorsed it with vigor, while Jefferson and Randolph took the opposite side. Its charter was limited to twenty years, and its capital was to consist of $10,000,000, of which the United States subscribed -^2,000,000. The bank was to be established in Philadelphia, and was to be managed by twenty-five directors. The bank stock was the favorite speculation of tlie day, and within a few liours after opening the books the whole amount was subscribed, witli a surplus. Branches were established in the chief commercial towns of the republic. This bank and its successors, as we shall see further on, was assailed as one of the corrupt influ- ences of the early period of the republic. 1793. The first charge of general corruption was made in Congress by John F. Mercer, of Maryland ; lie intimated that the first assumption of State debts had been dishonestly engiu- JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 357 eered, and that members of the House had not been wholly guiltless. To this Theodore Sedgwick replied, saying that the ears of the House had already been more than once assailed by insinuations of the base conduct of individual members in speculating in their own measures. " If," said Sedgwick, " there be so base and infamous a character within these walls, if there is one member of this House who has been guilty of plundering his constituents in the manner represented, let his name be mentioned, let the man be pointed out." Another member admitted that speculation had been carried to a very great extent during the pendency of the funding system, but that could not be avoided. The matter was then dropped, but Secretary Hamilton was attacked by Mr. Giles, of Virginia, and charged with failing to account for upwards of a million and a half of the public money. He was called upon to explain this as well as his mismanagement and intrigue in the negotiation of loans. Hamilton replied that the alleged defalcations were made up by reckoning bonds as money, and omitting deposits, etc. Hamilton liad, how- ever, borrowed too much money through the forwardness of the American bankers in Holland. Mr. Giles and his associ- ates introduced nine resolutions of censure, charging Hamilton with exceeding his powers, with dereliction of duty, with mis- appropriating loans, deviating from his instructions, and vio- lating the law. A debate followed in committee of the whole, and although Madison voted to censure Hamilton on all counts, the resolution of censure failed. 1795. Th(^ first charge of personal bribery was made in 1795, and was brought up on the question of a breach of priv- ilege. The charge was very similar to that made against Mr. Oakes Ames, nearly eighty years later. Two persons named Randall and Whitney, from Maryland and Vermont, respectively, had formed a scheme for obtaining from Congress, for the sum of $500,000, the right to purchase of the Indians twenty millions of acres, in the peninsula of Michigan. The proposed purchase was divided into forty shares, some of which were offered to members of Congress, who were guaranteed 358 "CREDIT mobilier" in 1796. that the shares would be taken off their hands if they should lose confidence in the speculation. Randall boasted that he had secured thirty members. Mr. Murray, of Maryland, ex- plained the attempt at bribery to the House, and Randall was ordered to be arrested and put on trial at the bar. His defence was that he had been misunderstood, and that his conduct was merely foolish and imprudent, and not corrupt. He was declared guilty ot a high contempt, in attempting to influence members as to their legislative functions, and only 17 votes' were cast against the resolution, amongst them Mr. Madison's; lie maintained that the members had no privilege against such attempts except in their own integrity. Randall was sentenced to be reprimanded by the Speaker, and was put in custody. 1796. In 1796 a transaction in Congress of a disgraceful nature occurred, growing out of the Georgia or Yazoo land speculation, which would look, in our times, quite like a piece of corruption. Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, of the lower House, had received a memorial, to be presented to Congress, asking it to do nothing recognizing the validity of the Yazoo sale until an investigation could be had. Amongst the Sen- ators who had personal interest in this Georgia speculation were Frederick Frelinghuysen, the grand-uncle of the present Senator from New Jersey, and James Gunn, Senator from Georgia. Gunn, who was represented to have been a fire- eater, demanded that Baldwin show him the memorial, before its presentation, and give the names of the signers up to his vengeance. When Baldwin refused, Gunn sent him a chal- lenge, through the precious Frelinghuysen aforesaid. Baldwin laid the challenge before the House, and the matter was re- ferred to a committee, which reported that both Gunn and Frelinghuysen had been guilty of a breach of privilege. The land-speculating Senators made apologies to the House, and the matter was allowed to languish. 1797. The first case of the expulsion of a Senator was that of William Blount, of Tennessee, a very popular man in that new State. He was exposed by President Adams in 1797, JOBBING COEA'AL WITH GOVERNMENT. 359 who sent to Congress some papers showing the condition of ,JiJie country concerning Spanish intrigues in the soutli-west, and amongst these papers was the cop}" of a letter from Blount to a Cherokee Indian agent, written while the former was governor of the American territory south of the Ohio. The agent sent the letter to the President, who asked the British Minister what it meant. It then appeared that Blount had played the traitor to the British, in order to right himself in a desperate land speculation. He had designed selling his lands to an English Company, and was afraid that the non-commercial French nation would come into possession of them, by a re- transfer, before he could complete the sale. To anticipate this, Blount had proposed lo raise a force of barbaric back- woodsmen and Indians, to co-operate with a British naval force, and put the English into possession on the Gulf. This scheme had avarice for its motive and cool treason for its in- strument. The House of Bepresentatives voted to impeach Blount, and the Senate put him under bonds amounting to $50,000. The House also asked that he be " sequestered " from his seat in the interim, which the Senate interpreted to mean expulsion, and forthwith set Governor Blount outside the door, with much less delicacy than the Senate lately showed Messrs. Caldwell, Pomeroy, and Harlan. Blount's sureties,' one of whom was his brother, surrendered him into custody, but the case was postponed until the next session, and after the fashion of Mr. Colfax at South Bend, a great re- ception was prepared for Blount at Knoxville ; he was elected to the State Senate, and chosen president thereof. Blount's brother, in the House, meantime sent a blackguard letter and challenge to Mr. Thatcher, of Massachusetts. Strife ran so high at this period that gentlemen of different politics would not speak to each other on the street. Senator Blount died unexpectedly, before his constituents had an opportunity to disgrace themselves by giving him enlarged honors. The first great scandal against a public official was made public while the Capital was pitched in Philadelphia, in 1797. 860 INTRIGUES OF ALEX. HAMILTON. Its object was no less a personage than Alexander Hamilton. One Callender had published a book containing a quantity o^- correspondence and documents which seemed to show that' Hamilton and one Reynolds had been buying up old claims against the United States, and that the latter had received advances of money from the former to make these purchases. Reynolds, and a man named Clingman, had some time before been prosecuted for perjury, and for seeking to obtahi fraud- ulent payment from the Treasury of an alleged debt due them from the Government. By Hamilton's influence the Controller of the Treasury stopped the prosecution. This Reynolds was the son of a Revolutionary officer, and some letters which he and his fascinating wife possessed seemed to indicate that a dark affair was going on. Three members of Congress who had explored the matter, went frankly to General Hamilton and laid the proofs before him, and required an explanation. This was given but it was hardly less astounding than if Hamilton had been detected in corruption. He confessed to having paid one thousand dollars hush money to Reynolds not on account of any peculation, but to avoid exposure in a very shameless intrigue between Hamilton and the wife of Reynolds. Hamil- ton resolved to take a desperate step and save his official honor, at the expense of his private reputation and happiness. He published certified copies of the correspondence. We take a few paragraphs of his tolerably bulky pamphlet from an auto- graph copy owned by William Duane, and inscribed with his name, March 28, 1799. The title is " Observations on Certain Documents Contained in Nbs. V. and VL of ' The History of the United States for the year 1797,' in which the charge of speculation against Alexander Hamilton^ late Secretary of the Treasury^ is fully refuted. Written hy Himself, Philadel- phia^ printed for John Fenno, hy John Bioren. 1797." Hamilton shows in this pamphlet all his graces of literary composition, and strikes from the shoulder at the outset : *' The charge against me," he says, " is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary spec- JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 361 ulation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife, for a considerable time with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the hus- band and wife, with the design to extort money from me." The next salient point is this, well- worded : " This confession is not made without a blush, I cannot be the apologist of any vice because the ardor of passion may have made it mine. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang which it may inflict in a bosom eminently entitled to all my gratitude, fidelity, and love. But that bosom will approve that, even at so great an expense, I should effectually wipe away a more serious stain from a name which it cherishes with no less elevation than tenderness." These must, indeed, have been hard passages to commit to print, and it argues nobly for woman that, havingbeen assured from the lips of her husband of his offences against her, she could forgive him for his honor's sake, and, when he came home wounded to die, receive him in her arms as if he were stainless. Men never do these acts of iorgiveness. The gist of Hamilton's confession is in these paragraphs : " Some time in the summer of the year 1791 a woman called at my house, in the city of Philadelphia, and asked to speak with me in private. I attended her into a room apart from the family. With a seeming air of affliction, she informed me that she was the daughter of a Mr. Lewis, sister to a Mr. G. Livingston, of the State of New York, and wife of a Mr. Rey- nolds, whose father was in the Commissary Department during the war with Great Britain ; that her husband, who, for a long time, had treated her very cruelly, had lately left her to live with another woman, and in so destitute a condition that, though desirous of returning to her friends, she had not the means ; that knowing I was a citizen of New York, she had taken the liberty to apply to my humanity for assistance. " I replied that her situation was a very interesting one ; that I was disposed to afford her assistance to convey her to her home, but this at the moment nof> being convenient to me 16 862 ALEX, Hamilton's f^^mous intrigue. (which was the fact), I must request the place of her residence, to which I should bring or send a small supply of money. She told me the street and the number of the house where she lodged. In the evening I put a bank bill in my pocket and went to the house. I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shown up stairs, at the head of which she met me and con- ducted me into a bedroom. 1 took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to her. Some conversation ensued, from which it Avas quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation Avould be acceptable. " After this I had frequent meetings with her, most of them at my own house, Mrs. Hamilton, with her children, being absent on a visit to her father. " In the course of a short time she mentioned to me that her husband had solicited a reconciliation, and affected to consult me about it. I advised to it, and was soon after informed that it had taken place." The next thing was that the husband wrote to Hamilton that he had discovered the intrigue, and that his heart was crushed ; but he Avrote shockingly bad English. He reproached Hamil- ton with having taken advantage of his wife's necessities, and Mrs. Reynolds wrote that he had meant to assassinate the Sec- retary of the Treasury. Hamilton found himself considerably demoralized. He says : " In the workings of human inconsistency, it was very pos- sible that the same man might be corrupt enough to compound for his wife's chastity, and yet have sensibility enough to be restless in the situation, and to hate the cause of it." Of course, after Hamilton let the real facts out right can- didly, his enemies discredited him. " It is showed," he says, " that the dread of the disclosure of an amorous connection was not a sufficient cause for my humility, and that I had nothing to lose as to my reputation for chastity, concerning which the world had fixed a previous opinion." He goes on to show that, having first black-mailed him for JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 363 nearly ten thousand dollars, the panel-thieves then accused him of taking money from the Treasury, and entering into speculation with Reynolds and others. This pamphlet is signed Alexander Hamilton, Philadelphia, July, 1797, and in the appendix to it are all the amorous epistles to and fro, which must have made " live" reading when they first saw the light. 1798. The House of Representatives, during this session refused to pass a resolution previously adopted in the Senate to authorize Thomas Pinckney to receive certain presents which in accordance with custom had heen tendered him by the Courts of Madrid and London at the close of his missions thither, and which he had refused to accept because of the Constitutional provision relating to presents from foreign powers. The reso- lution was rejected on grounds of public policy as was after- wards declared by unanimous vote of the House.* We will now make a step out of the past, and come to a memorable claim of the present day — that of Mrs. Gaines : Mrs. Gaines is the great female character in New Orleans. She is a small, plump, bright-eyed woman, and she has been the heroine of the very heroic law suit which she has person- ally conducted, raising money for the purpose to the amount of half a million, recovering nearly a million, and with all the probabilities in her favor of getting a million more. But, if she were to get what she would receive under other conditions than those of democratic public opinion, she would possess half the city of New Orleans in its most valuable part, and be a wealthier woman than Miss Burdett-Coutts, whom Wellington endeavored to marry out of covetousness to her fortune. The home of this lady is in New York City, bj^t she spends much of her time in New Orleans, where she has strong friends and strong enemies, almost equal in number. Her suit has involved many of her intimate friends, from whom she has borrowed money to pay lawyers' fees and court fees. Her second husband. General Gaines, believed implicitly in the merits of her case, and gave her |200,000 to fight * Additional matter illustrating this Chapter may be found in Chap. VII. 864 MRS. GAINES AND HER CAREER. it out. She has been twice married, and to excellent men both times ; and I was told that the brother of her first husband had helped her with nearly the whole of his funds. There is a dash, piquance, and nimbleness about this woman which distinguishes her as one of the queens of her sex. She is said to be about 60 years of age, but would pass for 40 ; and, wliile her education is defective, she is a natural authoress and. lawyer, and can write a stinging brief where sauce and justice are mixed together. She is just the sort of woman to be identified with New Orleans — Provincialism and Cosmopolitanism mingling in her as amongst many of these old hahitans. Her mother had married a French bigamist, and, discovering the fact after she reached New Orleans, presumed to marry again the great Daniel Clarke, one of the wealthiest men of the South. He was one of the earliest property-holders in New Orleans, and represented that territory in Jefferson's administration. Clarke was smitten with the beauty of the French lady, and contracted a secret marriage with her — made secret in order to anticipate a di- vorce from his French predecessor. But, while he was absent in Washington City, his relatives and connections, who had expected to get his money, told him that his wife was unfaith- ful, and hired her lawyer to tell her that her marriage with Clarke was not legal. Having a natural affection for man, the French lady proposed to take a third husband. This offended Clarke, and it seemed to confirm the lies which had been said against his lady ; and meantime his daugliter was born — the present Mrs. Gaines — for wliom he maintained affection, so that, while h^ let the wife slide, he gave a very considerable sum of money to a man in Wilmington, Del., to be used, and applied to educate his daughter, and at her maturity to present her with the principal. Thus the banks of the Brandy- wine, where Thomas LaFayette, Harry McComb, and your humble correspondent passed their youth, became the playground of the future Mrs. Gaines. As they had no penitentiary in the State, and never whipped white people at the post, the custodian of JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 365 the baby saw no business reason why he should not squander her money. He did squander it, and history has made no mention of the innumeral)le fried chickens, roast capons, and deviled crabs which this unfaithful guardian devoured out of the inheritance of the babe in the woods. A Mr. Croasdale, who is the best journalist in Delaware, some time ago collected the story of Mrs. Gaines's childhood in Wilmington, and it was published, over another name, in the Galaxy Magazine. When the guardian had squandered all the money, and both his liver and conscience were disordered, some faint recollec- tion of her childhood inspired a dream in the little ward. She dreamed that her father was another person than the man she called father ; that he was rich and lived in a distant State, amongst negroes, molasses, and such other things as children like. She came down to breakfast the next morning, where the unfaithful guardian was thinking, in a morose w^ay, how fortunate it was for him that the State had no peniten- tiary, and how unfortunate that there were no other little girls to be let out with endowments. Unhappy Delawarean. For him no longer the fried oyster gamboled, or the chicken frica- seed ! While he was thinking over this thing the little girl told her dream. He immediately fainted, and. they had to bor- row some old Delaware rye, next door, to bring him to con- sciousness. As he came to, he said, " Myra [he pronounced it Myrie, as did the future gallant husband of the little girl], who has been putting that nonsense into your head?" He answered his own question by confessing, like an honest criminal in one of the fairy books. • The little girl was at once put in possession of a law suit. She became a heroine, married two husbands, and has living grandchildren. Both her husbands were devoted men, who be- lieved in her claim ; she does the same, lighting it out. I have a theory that Nature's chief use for us in this life is employment ; and that, like the flies which convert into healthy motion the mortification and decay in the atmosphere, we are S66 PUBLIC SERVICE VS. LOBBY. all right enough when something is given us to do. But Na- ture makes a very unhappy fly of us when she leaves us a vast law suit, and at the same time impresses us with the fact that we are after our rights. Who would know much about Daniel Clarke, or the man in Delaware, if it were not for Mrs. Gaines ? To show how the public service and the lobby come into col- lision, it may be well after reciting such matters as the above, to relate a conversation which I had in 1873 with one of the most gallant and distinguished men in the army, whose name I shall not give, because he might be injured by the political harpies of that service. " What is our relative position amongst the navies of the earth ?" said I. " We stand not above the sixth in rank. " Great Britain could whip all the navies of the earth to-day, one after the other. Her salvation lies in keeping up her com- mercial supremacy. I have seen a single vessel in her navy, in the China Seas, which could take in detail, the whole Ameri- can fleet, and beat every ship successively. The iron-clad to which I allude cost about $1,500,000, whereas we have just voted $3,000,000 to build ten ships. Next to England comes France in the perfectness of her navy. Russia and Spain have enormously improved their efficiency upon the seas. North Germany, since she has acquired seaports, has become very ambitious, and not only are her vessels-of-war remarkable, but her naval officers are of a remarkably shrewd and vigilant de- scription. Even Turkey has a better navy yard than the Uni- ted States, strange as it may appear." '' Do you think that we are defenseless in our great cities by reason of the prostration of our navy ?" " Well, New York City might be defended, because of its remarkable natural defenses. A ship or two sunk in the chan- nel, at the Narrows, or in the Lower Bay, would prevent an entire fleet from getting up to the city ; but an iron-clad navy could go right into Boston harbor or into Portsmouth or San JOBBING C0E7AL WITH GOVERNMENT. 367 Francisco. A few months ago, we barely missed getting into a war with Spain, and the State Department had really got us right in, when suddenly it was suggested that we examine our naval resources for the moment. Word was sent that three or four ships might be ready in twelve months, and two or tliree more in eighteen months. It is needless to say that we backed right out of the war matter ; and the Govern- ment, to-day if it knows anything, knows that even Spain could drive right into us, because now-a-days men do not count, but mechanism in ships does all the business. Anticipating trouble w^ith us on the Cuban account, Admiral Paolo, now Spanish Minister, visited the United States, and took an inven- tory of the armored navy. He had all the points ; and, by George ! we would have been humiliated in the estimation of the earth. You see, about 1864 or '5, we were the first naval power in the world, having gotten up the earliest iron-clads. But that navy was created for an emergency, constructed of green timber, and a late investigation shows that every shot fired into those old rotten iron-clads would have crumbled the whole framework. The English and other foreigners built upon our suggestions, and they have made a series of ships which can steam 13 knots an hour. Prior to the war, our old wooden vessels were also the best afloat. The Minnesota, and such other great ships in the American navy, made good speed, and gave our sailors confidence ; but, as we stand, to-day, we must keep mum, or be terribly humiliated." '' What is the best opinion in the navy — I mean amongst the large and high-minded officers — on the proper method of building a ship-of-war, whether in a navy-yard or in private yards ?" " There is but one way," responded my informant," of con- structing a legitimate vessel-of-war, and that is in the National navy-yards. Private shipbuilders work only to complete a job, get their money, and show the ship, which will be good enough for a short period. But the greatest thing to be looked to in a ship-of-war is the timber ; which must be thoroughly seasoned ; o68 OUR SHIPBUILDING. for green timber warps, rots, and is nnable to hold its outer armor in a very little time. The English build of that mag- nificent teak ; and I have seen, in the Japanese Seas, one of Nelson's old ships, which had come out in eighty days from Great Britain, as sound and buoyant as he found it at Trafalgar. We built for an emergency, in private navy-yards, of green oak, which has no longevity. The corrupt shipbuilding in- terests of the country press forward whenever we want new ships, and, under the tariff system, rob the Government, and, under the modern job system, carry off the prize from the navy-yards, where we should have work of the best class slowly and surely made. The tariff interests, in the estimation of the honest officers of the navy, will some day be our scorn as a people, and get us such a flogging that we will cut the throats of these jobbers in the public necessities. The great iron-clad ships of Russia, Prussia, and Spain have been built by the En- glish, under free-trade, and the work superintended by Com- missioners from the respective nations which wanted the ves- sels. We cannot build a ship-of-war for our lawful needs in any foreign ship-yards, without an act of Congress, and that act never will be granted under the horrible system of the modern tariff. I have heal'd naval men say tl>at, if the United States got into a war, and was flogged out of its life, so that the whole bluster would be taken out of her, and we should have to begin, like France, from the bottom, and work out an lionest salvation, we would be better off. Something calami- tous is necessary to stop the unpatriotic excesses of our busi- ness people." I asked the gentleman who spoke thus intelligently what the leading men of the navy thought of Secretary Robeson and Admiral Porter. ; " For Robeson," said he, " there is such contempt that I do not care to relate the character of it. Instead of demanding, like a man, that Congress give the country a navy sufficient to protect us, he begs for everything, as if he were apologizing for making the demand. JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 369 " Admiral Porter reduced himself in the estimation of all men ot courage when he wrote those sycophantic letters to the President. But he is equal to his position. He always was a shrewd, prying, suggestive fellow, and no portion of the navy has come under his supervision but he has improved it. There is no fear of him. Robeson is a mere shyster, and the civil head of the navy is the disgrace and contempt of every genuine officer in it. We have no navy whatever. Every one of those monitors and iron-clads built during the war is rotted, and an appropriation of $3,000,000 will do nothing more than build some fair iron-clad coasters for defense." Some of the scandals so-called of modern Washington par- take of the marvelous and get little consideration from people who demand testimony as well as theory. Let me give an in- stance : You have probably met, amongst your acquaintances, this kind of a man y An agreeable, decorous, thrifty well-to-do gen- tleman, who will talk with you intelligently about the growing evils of the country and of the general corruption of politics, but will, at the same time, inflexibly pursue his private pur- poses against the Government, under the belief that, in the de- struction imminent over everybody, the best way to anticipate it is to make one's stake and share so big that it can bear one up above the common calamity. The country is full of people who deprecate corruption, but do not arrest their personal scheme, which is a part of it. The gentleman in this case referred to was taken with a communicative mood. He knew perfectly well that he could tell me nothing of consequence which I would not print, but it is queer that very many careful men have some- where concealed about them a hidden desire to give points against their class to newspaper men. Said this gentle- man : " I am one of the oldest engravers in this country. There is an investigation one day to be made into the currency of the country, which will startle you, and your newspapers and 370 isOML ox^ THE CLEVER WAYS. all their readers. There is a 810 bill. Take it, — look at it ! Do you see anything notable about it ?'* I looked the bill all over, and then the man all over, and saw nothing to excite a remark in either. " There is nothing particular about that bill," he said, " except that it is counter- feit. There are eighteen distinct counterfeits on the $10 bill, and, as an engraver, I know that they represent eighteen dif- ferent counterfeiting gangs. I got this bill from a street-car conductor in New York. I got into his car, and, as he came along, I said, ' My friend, I am sorry to ask you for so much change, but really I have nothing less than $20.' ^ !' said he, * I'll oblige you,' and, m a smiling way, he gave me this bill and a quantity of 50-cent fractional currency. I put the whole away in my pocket, and, being an engraver, I got to looking at the number 37 on the lantern window of the car. Thought I to myself, ' That's a remarkably handsome 7 for a common painter to make.' You know that an engraver notices such things. Well, that evening I went into the Astor House, and, going up to the fine, old, white-haired man who sells cigars there, and is known to everybody in New York, I ten- dered him one of the 50-cent papers. Old Jimmy looked at it and said to me, ' I am sorry, Mr. Robinson, but that stamp is counterfeit. It's a very well-executed one, but I have nothing better to do in my leisure time than to look over such things.' At this Jimmy handed me the stamp, and I looked at it, and then at the others, and, sure enough, they were all counterfeit. I quietly stepped outside the Astor House, and looked for No. 37, amongst the cars. I found that the conductors ran eight hours off and on, and that my man would not come on till next morning. There I found, at the appointed time, my conduc- tor, and stepped up to him, and said in a low tone, ' Young man, you changed a bill for me yesterday, and gave me a quantity of counterfeit money. Now I want you to take it back without any noise.' He affected to grow indignant, but I said, ' Stop ! stop ! Do you see that policeman ? If you don't veturn me in good money the amount which you changed for JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 371 me, I will have you under arrest in two minutes !* Well, it was interesting to see the promptness with which that ' shover of the queer ' gave me all of my money, and forgot to ask for his own. " Mr. Gath, you newspaper men know nothing whatever about the duplication of United States Bonds, and about the quantity of counterfeit scrip afloat. If you, as a newspaper- man, were to go to Gen. Spinner and to the heads of tlie Treasury, and ask how much counterfeit currency was in cir- culation, they would probably tell you 10 per cent. ; but I tell you, as an engraver, tliat they have admitted to me that there is 25 per cent., or one quarter of the whole amount of the stamps current in this country, which are fraudulent. Do you know, sir, that the postal currency is renewed six times every year ? That is the case, and see the possibilities for its in- creased duplicatio]! and counterfeiting. We could better afford to pay 50 per cent, premium, and use gold, than have to deal as w^e do w^ith a lot of paper which is beyond the control, to a great extent, of tlie Government officials. The extravagantly high prices, and the corruption in our politics and life, hinge upon the currency. Tlie duplication of the United States bonds will some day be found such an alarming matter that it will bring the whole country to its feet. Tliat crime began in the Treasury so far back as Chase's time. John Covode and others in Congress made strenuous efforts to expose it, but they were gagged by the gavel and a party majority. An official, who at that time was connected wilh the printing, liad, in some w^ay, got a grip upon the Secretary, and could not be budged from his place by any power in the country. His ac- counts were short 'one year $63,000, and he could not tell where the money had gone. They kept after him, however, and, on one occasion, he appeared before the examiners with his arms full of bonds, and throwing them down, said, * There are your $63,000 !* Now, there was a press used for printing at that time, and it ran repeatedly in the night. The official himself was seen to emerge after dark, on two occasions, with 372 MAGNITUDE OF LOBBY PLUNDER. a great tin box in his hand, which he put into his buggy and carried away. Now, how much duplication of bonds do you suppose it required to make $63,000 w^orth of coupons so as to equalize that account ?" " Several hundred thousand, T suppose." ^ ^ " No, sir ; it took between $18,000,000 and $19,000,000 of bonds ; and about that time happened the first duplica- tion.' " I looked suddenly into the old gentleman's eyes, and was in great doubt whether I was speaking to an intelligent lunatic or a great reformer. If one-tenth of the propositions annually considered in the committees of Congress was to be passed, the burden of tax- ation would be felt immediately at every fireside of the coun- try, and it is much to be feared that the people will never be sufficiently earnest until the iron enters into the flesh, and job-^ bery makes them howl. In order to give an idea of the magnitude of the plunder in- volved in the schemes of the lobby, which have been defeated in the Congress of 1873, Senator Chandler has employed some of his leisure moments to make out the following list of attempted steals : Soldiers' Bounty Bill, . . . $400,000,000 Agricultural Lands bill, . . 90,000,000 Cotton Tax refunding, . . . 72,000,000 Compound interest to States, . 32,000,000 Australian subsidy, .... 5,000,000 Oriental subsidy, . . . . 13,000,000 Ship-yard subsidy, .... 6,000,000 Other subsidies, .... 5,000,000 The two per cent, job, . . . 1,500,000 Total, .... $624,500,000 The Soldiers' Bounty Bill and the Agricultural Lands bill were passed by the House, but squelched by the Senate. The JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 373 Treasury has had a narrow escape of several of these plunder- ing schemes. Taking into account the stupendous jobs that have been carried through, with the aid of an unscrupulous lobby, plain folk may well stand aghast at the costliness of Congressional legislation. Those members of Congress who are always looking out for a " spec." have come to despise the constituency. They see that the people soon forget a dishonored public man, and hence the audacious villainy known as back pay passed the Congress of 1873, its champions not scrupling to register themselves in black and white. In order to involve the whole government, judicially and administratively, in this villainy, the general pay of all was increased and made retroactive. The following table shows the new salaries provided by the bill. The increased salaries of the Speakers of the House and of all other officials took effect on the 4th of March : The President, Yice-President, . . . . . Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Justices of the United States Supreme Court, Cabinet officers, Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, State and In terior Departments, .... Supervising Architect of tlie Treasury, Examiner of Claims in State Department, Solicitor of the Treasury, .... Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Customs, Auditor of the Treasury, Commissioner of the Land-Office, Assistant Postmaster-General, Superintendent Money Order System, Superintendent Foreign Mails, Speaker of the House of Representatives, . Senators, Representatives, and Delegates, $50,000 10,000 10,500 10,000 10,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 10,000 7,500 374 REASONS FOR THE BACK-PAY GRAB. The salaries of all the clerks, doorkeepers, messengers, and other employees of the House were increased from 15 to 25 per cent. All sorts of ingenious excuses had been manufactured, and were ready at hand, to defend hack pay ; amongst other pleas was that against the old mileage system. Under the system of mileage the grossest inequality in the compensation of members of Congress has always prevailed. Just before the war the father of the present Senator Bayard, of Delaware, who received about $200 mileage, sat by " Duke " Gwinn, of California, who got f 19,000. To make the matter more uneqal and unjust the fact was that, although receiving this immense amount on account of travel, Mr. Gwinn actually did not go to Callifornia for years. After the war when Reverdy Johnson was Senator from Maryland, he received $128 mileage for a Congress, while Messrs. Nye and Stewart, of Nevada, received about $10,000 apiece. A few years ago so much complaint was made about this unjust discrimination between members, that a modification of the mileage rates was established, but it has still worked very unequally. It appears that for the Congress just expired the mileage paid to Senators from the States named was as follows : Cali- fornia, $4,029.60 ; Oregon, $6,492.80 ; Nevada, $3,513.60 ; Texas, $3,000 ; Louisiana, $2,531 ; Arkansas, $2,400 ; Min- nesota, $2,475.25 ; Kansas, $2,352.10 ; Nebraska, $2,147.20; Mississippi, $2,160. The idea of making an Omnibus bill to include with the long talked-of increase for the President, the Supreme Court Judges, and the Heads of Departments, the never before talked-of in- crease for members of Congress, apparently originated with Butler, of Massachusetts, the Guy Fawkes of Congress. He brought the bill back from the Judiciary Committee, on the 7th of February, 1873, with a long report, — historical, argu- mentative, and didactic, — in which he labored hard to prove that there were strong reasons of justice, morals, and public economy for raising the salary to $8,000 per annum. In the JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 375 same report lie advocated the increase of the President's salary to $50,000, and proposed to raise the pay of the Judges and the heads of Departments to $8,000. His bill to accomplish all this was recommitted without action. Some time before, Sargent had tried to put an amendment on the Executive and Legislative Appropriation bill, raising the President's salary to $50,000. Dawes, who was in the chair, ruled it to be in order, but an appeal was taken, and the House, by a vote of 60 yeas to 67 nays, refused to sustain the ruling. Butler's next move was to get his bill hitched on to an ap- priation bill. He made the first effort to accomplish this on Feb. 11, when he moved to suspend the rules so as to instruct the Appropriations Committee to bring in the bill as a part of the Miscellaneous Appropriation bill, then about to be reported to the House. He was beaten by a vote of. 81 yeas to 119 nays, but he gained a point — he got a showing of hands ; he knew the strength of his forces, and could see how many recruits ne must get to win. He had foreseen that it was es- sential to secure the help of the outgoing members, who num- bered nearly 100, and there was only one way to do this : by allowing them to share in the profits of the proposed raid on the Treasury. He therefore inserted the words, " including members of the XLHd Congress," the effect of which was to make the increase retroactive — going back two years. Up to this time comparatively few members had faith in the process of the movement, and very little had been said about it in the informal canvasses in the lobbies and cloak rooms, which influence the disposition of bills far more than the debates upon the floor. Now it was seen that the bill had a strong backing of pledged supporters, and an active canvass for recruits began. Late in the night of Monday the 25th, Butler sprung his bill upon the House, as an amendment to the Ex- ecutive, Legislative, and Judicial Appropriation bills, which had come back from the Senate with amendments. No one but the friends of the measure had notice of his intention. A large number of members had gone home on the assurance of 876 HOW THE BACK-PAY BILL WAS CARRIED THROUGH. Garfield that the bill would be called up only to get it in place, and that he expected no action upon it. Garfield protested, but Butler insisted on a vote on his amendment, and carried it by a vote of 71 to 67, on a vote by tellers in Committee of the Whole. The Credit Mobilier debate intervened next day, and it was Friday before the question came up again. Butler's amendment, adopted in Committee ot the Whole, was rejected by the House, on a call of the yeas and nays, by a vote of 69 to 121. Butler changed his vote to No, in order to move a re- consideration. Next morning he made the motion, and promised if it was carried to admit an amendment, prepared by Sargent, fixing the salary at $6,500, with no allowance for traveling expenses. This seemed a fair proposition, and the recommendation was carried without much opposition. Sargent offered his amend- ment, but by the time it began to dawn upon the minds of the members who opposed an increase, that, if any change were made in the salary, the whole question would, in the end, go to a Conference Committee of six men, who could put in any amount they pleased, and then force the House to agree to their report, or run some risk of losing the entire Appropriation bill, which would make an extra session necessary. Sar- gent's amendment narrowly escaped defeat, the vote being 100 to 97. Amendments offered by Garfield were adopted, raising the salaries of all the clerks in the House, and adding 15 per cent, to the pay of all other employees, and adding 82,000 a year to the salaries of the Assistant Secretaries of the General Departments. The bill went to the Senate, and when the question arose on concurring in the salary admendment, some Senators opposed it because it did not increase their pay enough, and others because they thought it wrong to make any increase. Both these elements of opposition united to defeat a motion to con- cur. The vote stood 23 to 36. The bill then went, of necessity, to a conference committee. Speaker Blaine now took a hand in the game, and appointed as the House conferees Garfield, Butler, and Randall, knowing f JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 377 that the two latter were in favor of a larger increase of salary than the House had, at any time, endorsed. They were both advocates of a beaten proposition, and it was in violation of a well-recognized jDrinciple of parliamentary practice to appoint either of them on the Committee. The Senate conferees, named by the Vice-President, were all high-salary men, who insisted that $6,500 was not enough, and would be less than the Pacific Coast Senators got already, with their mileage. The Conference agreed to put another $1,000 on, making the salary $7,500, and they restored Butler's provision for the payment of actual traveling expenses, and retained the retro- active clause, dating the increase back to March 4, 1871. The President's salary, and those of the other officials, they left as passed by the House. The report was made to the House on Monday morning, March 3. It was vehemently denounced by Farnsworth and others, and freely defended, on the ground that the Senators were so stubborn that the House conferees had to yield for fear of losing the bill. The shameful retro- active clause did not find a single apologist, either in this or in any previous debate. It was vigorously assailed and de- nounced, but no one had the hardihood to say a word in its favor. Everybody knew that it was a barefaced robbery of the Treasury of nearly $1,500,000— a bribe of $5,000 a piece to induce outgoing members to vote to increase the pay of their successors. The provision doubling the President's salary escaped with very little criticism. Members were so much occupied with the question of their own pay that they gave small attention to the portions of the bill relating to other officials. The conference report was finally adopted by the House by yeas, 103 ; nays, 94. This was a fair test vote, although the liigh salary men , tricky to the last, tried to make it appear otherwise by falsely saying that the bill would be lost if the report was rejected. The effect of rejecting the report would have been to send the bill to a new conference committee, which could have reported back in an hour with the salary 378 THE EFFECT OF THE BACK-PAY GRAB. amendment stricken out. Every member who voted yea must, therefore, be held to have favored the salary grab, retroactive clause and all. It was late Sunday night before a vote was had in the Senate on adopting the report. The result was yeas, 36 ; nays, 27. The bill was signed by the President the same niglit. Under the retroactive provision dating the in- creased pay to Congressmen back two years, every member re- ceived $5,000 as extra compensation for services in the Forty- second Congress, less sum already drawn by him as mileage. The amount of money taken from the Treasury for this pur- pose we cannot give with accuracy, because we do not know the exact amount of the mileage to be deducted. At a moder- ate estimate it was $1,400,000. No justification was attempted in either the Senate or the House for dating back the increased salary. It was so dis- graceful a proceeding that it admitted of no defense. The members of Congress, in accepting their offices, agreed to serve for the salary provided by law. On the last day but one of their term of office, they voted themselves nearly $5,000 apiece as additional pay. They had the power to do it, and are amenable to no punishmant except such as their constitu- ents may provide for them at the next election ; but their con- duct in a moral point of view is very little better than that of a merchant's clerk who should increase his salary by helping himself from his employer's cash drawer. Observe the effect of the back-pay and other swindling schemes of its class : The total amount of the various appropriation bills passed at that scandalous session of Congress exceeds the amount of the previous session about fifty-four millions of dollars : The details of the various appropriations of 18T3 are as follows : Preliminary deficiency, $1,699,833 ; Texan border commission, $18,490 ; pension, $30,480,000 ; American and British claims commission, $613,500 ; Indian, $5,512,218 ; fortification, $1,- 899,000 ; consular and diplomatic, $1,311,359 ; Military Aca- demy, $344,317 ; legislative, executive and judicial, estimated. JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. 379 ^19,500,000 ; naval, 122,275,757 ; army, $31,796,008 ; Post- Office, $3,529,107 ; river and harbor, $6,112,900 ; sundry civil, $32,175,415 ; deficiency, $9,242,871— total, $195,310,- 839. Truly the 43d Congress was a shameless body. The corrupt members from the extreme Puritan states exceeded in effront- ery those from Pennsylvania or Kansas. In the last hours of the session after the Cr<^dit Mobilier case had been disposed of in the House, we had the most extraordinary spectacle of the session presented by a colleague of Oakes Ames, of John B. Alley, of Samuel E. Hooper, of Mr. Dawes, and of Senator Wilson, another Representative from Massachusetts, the Hon. Ginery Twichell, openly and actively lobbying on the floor of the House for the passage of a bill, introduced by himself, in favor of a railroad corporation of which he is president. When the point of order had twice been made upon him, that he could not vote in favor of a bill in which he was personally interested, the Hon. Ginery Twichell left his own desk to take a seat beside the tellers, upon the final division of the House on the question of the passage of the bill, and personally expostu- lated with members who were voting " nay." Evidently the example of Oakcs Ames and the lessons of investigation were utterly thrown away upon the Hon. Ginery Twichell." Midst all of this scandal the moral and Christian world was doing notliing to show its disgust at wliat was going on at Washington. The great business house of Phelps, Dodge & Co., of New York, whose leading partner was the patron of ortliodox philanthropy, was at the same time paying $271,000 to the government to be let out of prosecution for smuggling, and the moral newspapers were pompously parading the following solemn declaration of Mr. John Alexander, of Philadelpliia : " By the Grace and Providence of God enabling mc, I -will contribute to the treasury of the National Association for securing the amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the sum o^ Jive hundred dollars annu- ally, ur^til an amendment (in substance such as at present proposed ly the A^- sociation) shall he made to the Constitution of the United States, 380 THE GREAT NEEDS OF THE PRESENT. " If this amendment is not made during my lifetime, I shall hope to con- tinue the aforesaid annual payments through the agency of the legal repre- sentatives of my estate. " I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.'' After such an exhibition of pious stupidity we may answer the question which every reader is probably putting in his mind : What can we do about it ? And this we answer in the words of that admirable review, the New York Nation, with whose advice we shall close our chapter : " We maintain, and with increased confidence," says the Nation, " that the shameful corruption in the Government which is showing itself side by side with overwhelming Repub- lican majorities all over the country, is a fresh proof that the Republican party is a common human organization, for the ordinary political purposes — namely, the embodiment in legis- lation of a small cluster of ideas ; that that purpose was car- ried out at the close of the rebellion ; that the party is now functus officio, and has for several years been kept in office by the popular dread of " reaction " and the force of the great patronage and enormous handling of money resulting from the war ; and that in the absence of any great controlling ideas, of real work, and of a powerful and respectable opposition, its leading men, who, for all practical purposes, are the party and represent it, have grown careless, and insolent, and indifferent to public opinion, and finally corrupt. There is nothing eccle- siastical about them or it. It has no divine mission, and they have no personal consecration. It is simply the consensus of a large body of the American people on a few points of home policy, and they are a number of not very remarkable gentlemen, whom the American people has put in charge of its aifaire. " The remedy is to be found in the formation of another' organization for other purposes. What these purposes are we have frequently intimated. We may venture to repeat them — the reform of the civil service ; the restoration of the judiciary to its old position of independence and respectability ; the sim- JOBBING COEVAL WITH GOVERNMENT. ^ 381 pliiication of political machinery, so that honest and industrious citizens can attend to their political affairs without the help of professional tricksters ; the release of the States from the con stant interference and supervision of the central authority ; the purification of Congress by the reform of the tarifi, and the prohibition of grants, subsidies, bounties, " protective " duties, and the total exclusion of Congressmen from a share in the appointing power. These objects can only be obtained by a party formed for that purpose, and for nothing else. Whether we are near the formation of any such party Ave do not know. "We acknowledge with sorrow and disappointment that the events of last year undoubtedly postponed it, but we would fain believe that those who last year honestly strove to bring about a better state of things, have not abated one jot of heart or hope. We are sure that they must find in w^hat is now pass- ing both abundant justification for their course and abundant reason for trying again, whenever the opportunity offers. It is needless to say, of course, that any such organization would contain, if successful, w^hatever good elements the Republican party now contains, and many good elements which that party does not contain, and nothing short of this combination of the good of all parties will save us. The good Republicans are not likely to be removed in chariots of fire when the party organi- zation disappears.'* CHAPTEE XXL THE WHISKEY FRAUDS. In February, 1875, there was received at the Treasury De- partment, information which led to an exposure scarcely less startling than the famous Credit Mohilier transactions, and which in its final results has been far more decisive, and in that sense, far more satisfactory. Like the CrSdit Mohilier, it reached close to the doors of the White House ; but in this case, too, no sufficient evidence was discovered for believing the President dishonest. He was evidently only the tool of his friends. The country congratulates itself that though its chief magistracy has been so thoroughly belittled by the Pres- ident, it has not been stained by his corruption. In the early stages of the preparation of this book, the au- thor gave a detailed account (page 242) of the manner of operation of the " Whiskey Ring." In the light of the recent trials, and those yet to come, it will be seen that the operations of these distillers were very correctly given. This circum- stance shows that all parties the least familiar with affairs at Washington, were fully apprised of this thoroughly organized effort to defraud the government. Why, then, have not these frauds been punished before ? Simply because, until the advent of Bristow, we have lacked a public official, who either had the moral courage to fight the " Ring," or whose record was suffi- ciently unstained to render such a fight effective. It was well known that the " Ring " possessed unlimited means ; that they POWER OP THE RING. 383 could hire the most skillful counsel, and could also "hire" almost any kind of witnesses that they desired. There was too, another great obstacle. It was one thing to know that these frauds were being perpetrated, and another, and very different matter to prove them so conclusively that a jury could not do otherwise than convict. The " Ring " cared little that it was known that they were defrauding the revenues, so long as they could successfully stop any effort to bring them to jus- tice. So long had they succeeded in doing this, that they be- came so confident of their power, that they did not believe that they could be disturbed. They had either ignored or quieted Boutwell and Richardson, and supposed they could do the same with Bristow. So surprised were they at their mis- take, that Bristow had matters well in his own hands, before they recovered themselves and were ready to act.. Our previous account did not exhibit either the magnitude or the impudence of the Ring in anything like the true propor- tions. The great difficulty with which it seems to labor was not that some of the government officers were corrupt, but that there were some honest ones, who occasionally, though very rarely, gave them trouble. Even the efforts which were at first made in behalf of honest administration of the laws were rendered useless by the thorough system with which the opera- tions were carried on. Every movement about the distilleries was so guarded, that the parties who were collecting evidence, were maltreated, and even threatened with death ; while at Washington, some of the officers highest in the government service, were in the pay of the " Ring.'* Consequently, when- ever there was any plan devised, these parties in the pay of the Ring immediately telegraphed the news to where the inves- tigation was to take place, and the distillers and collectors would be ready to have everything going perfectly right. When the government detectives retired, they would resume their regular operations. With these parties who thus kept them informed, the Ring, of course, divided equally. The regular tax levied by Congress 384 THE WHISKEY FRAUDS. is fifty cents per gallon. The distillers paid the collectors thirty cents. These collectors, by fixing the returns, paid a small portion to the government, (it need hardly be said that the portion was as small as it was safe to make it,) and divided the balance among themselves. How much this amounted to, to these corrupt officials, may be estimated from a paragraph published in the Chronicle (Washington) of May 8th, 1876. It says : " One of the effects of breaking up the whiskey rings of the country has been a large increase in the internal reve- nue receipts for the month of April. The increase has been over three and a half millions as compared with the same month last year, which can be attributed to no other cause than the faithfulness and vigilance which now mark the collec- tion of the revenue." To the distillers, this difference in the tax amounted to a practical monopoly. Of course distillers who paid the regular tax of fifty cents could not begin to compete with those who paid only thirty cents. They must either join the Ring or quit the business. Secretary Bristow labored for a long time to correct these evils, but the paid servants of the Ring, within his own force, thwarted him. At one time, it was determined to make a gen- eral transfer of the collectors, sending, for instance, those at St. Louis to Philadelphia. This, of course, would probably have brought exposure, as faithful officials would, in some cases, have gone where corrupt ones had been. But immediately the representatives flew to Washington, and soon the President was influenced to revoke the order, and the "Ring" was happy. This proved conclusively to Mr. Bristow, that whatever was done, must be done secretly, and without even the knowledge of his subordinates. A happy discord occurred in St. Louis, which aided him greatly. The two leading papers of St. Louis had a disagreement which resulted in February, 1875, in the receipt, by Secretary Bristow, of a message from Mr. Fishback, owner of the St. Louis Democrat^ confidentially informing him that if he (Bristow) would appoint a reliable agent, he him- PLAN OP EXPOSING THE RING. 385 self would give liim such aid as would expose the St. Louis Whiskey Ring. Mr. Colony, commercial editor of the Dem- ocrat, was thereupon appointed, and at once began operations. All communications were made with Bristow personally, or with solicitor Bluford Wilson. Such secrecy was necessary in conducting the investigations, that only a very few persons were taken into confidence, and much of the correspondence was conducted in a new cipher, through a citizen of Washing- ton totally unconnected with the government. In this way legal proof and matters of record were fully obtained before an arrest was made. Mr. Colony, and his assistants, went to work by appointing twenty men to watch the distilleries and rectifying houses, and determine the amount and character of the work done after dark, all of which is illegal. These watchmen .were many of them assaulted and beaten ; but enough was discovered to piece out the other revelations, which were mainly as to the amount of whiskey shipped from the city. Mr. Colony, to ascertain this, made an exhaustive examination of all the freight ship- ments by all the lines for quite a period, professedly in his capacity as commercial editor. These returns show the excess of fraudulent whiskey. The fraud itself was consummated in various ways, all of which require connivance on the part of the revenue agent. We cannot better show the opposition which these parties met with, than by quoting the testimony of the detective who went to the Pacific coast to unearth the frauds there. Special Agent D. L. Phillips of Illinois, detailed to investi- gate the Whiskey Rings supposed to exist on the Pacific coast, made a report to the House of Representatives. The main facts are as follows : Mr. Phillips reached San Francisco on the 14th of September, 1875, and one of the first discoveries which he made was that men earnestly intent upon enforcement of law, if they hailed from States east of the Rocky Mountains, were not regarded with favor, either by those in office or by distillers or liquor dealers on the Pacific coast. He also found 17 386 THE WHISKEY FRAUDS. great demoralization in the ciyil service, which was caused by the partisan and despotic authority of those in California who control Federal patronage at Washington. Honest and up- right men who have self-respect and moral worth do not want office in California, nor could they find employment in public service if they desired. The remote situation of the Pacific coast from the seat of government, and the general understand- ing that appointments to office are really made by Senators and Representatives in Congress, inspired, he said, in all office- holders a very lively and grateful sense of loyalty, not to the Government or any of its departments, but to the Senator or Representative through whom such appointments are held, and the results are that so long as offices can be held under such circumstances and surroundings the civil service must be utterly debased, venal, and purely personal, and such, he says, in his judgment, is the condition of affairs in California. It was assumed almost everywhere he went that there was a "Whiskey Ring in San Francisco, and that to build up its inter- ests, protect its members, and secure its immunity, the inter- ests of brandy and whiskey distillation in all other portions of the State were oppressed and well-nigh destroyed. The dis- tillation of whiskey from wheat has for many years been a favored interest. It has been more or less mixed up in all po- litical struggles, and spending its money freely, it had its share of political recognition. Mr. Phillips says he investigated carefully the accusations made by Senator Sargent against Revenue Agent Clark, now on duty at San Francisco. He found that the affidavits upon which the charges were based were made by distillers, whiskey dealers, and one Johnson, a Revenue Agent, who was admitted to have been a spy upon Clark. The attacks upon him were intended, he thinks, to impair the confidence of the Depart- ment in his honesty, and thereby secure the removal of a pub- lic servant who was proving troublesome in California to rev- enue officials and distillers engaged in plundering the Govern- ment. Mr. Phillips thinks that Clark had abundant reason SAN FRANCISCO OFFICIALS. 387 for urging the Collector to seize the Antioch distillery, notwith- standing the fact that it was owned by Charles Joel, who had been a member of the California Legislature, and had voted for Mr. Sargent to be United States Senator. Mr. Phillips says that the Executive has made many remov- als and appointments, without consultation with members of either House of Congress, and asks why not make the rule uniform and apply it to California. Until this is done, there will be no improvement in the public service in that State. The following extract from Mr. Phillips* report is very in- teresting : "About the time that Senator Sargent filed his charges against Clark, it was learned that one Chas. Warner, formerly engaged in distilling at Atlanta and Canton, 111., and now residing in the town of Watsonville, Cal., was in possession of important information concerning frauds on the revenue in the distillation of whiskey, at San Francisco. After protracted efforts and earnest protestations on his part of personal dan- ger, Warner was prevailed upon to surrender certain books kept by him, which disclosed most startling frauds on the rev- enue in 1865-6 and 1868-9, and these frauds were perpetrated by the very men who have since, and do now, control the dis- tilling and liquor business of California, especially in San Fran- cisco. * • The details ot these frauds, explained at length and sworn to by Warner, are on file in the office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and need not be set out in this report. The amount of these frauds approaches to nearly $1,500,000, and covers a little over two years' time. The men who perpetuated them are men who met Mr. Clark with insolence, abuse, and threats, and some of their affidavits form the basis in part of the charges of Mr. Sargent against him. " Mr. Warner, from whom I was mainly instrumental in pro- curing information, and whose testimony was taken in my room in the night, at his earnest request, with no one present but Supervisor Hawley and myself, has been threatened with 388 THE WHISKEY FRAUDS. death for his disclosures, and informed of men who will mur- der him. He has written to Hawley to furnish him protection, and says to escape assassination he expects to be forced to leave California. It is well known that hired spies in the liquor interests the past Winter, watched by day and night every step of Hawley, Clark, and myself, and every word in- cautiously uttered was known and reported to Government! officials and Whiskey men continually." Mr. Phillips details at considerable length the attempts made by himself and Supervisor Hawley to prosecute persons engaged in defrauding the Government, but failed, as he says, because of the failure of the District- Attorney's office to do its duty. He became convinced, not only of a total disinclination to prosecute distillers and liqaor dealers for the violation of law, lest officials should be found involved, but of a fixed de- termination in the District-Attorney's office not to do so, if escape therefrom was possible. He closes this branch of his report as follows : "After a long and careful observation, I am convinced that, under the present Federal officials on the Pacific coast, the prosecution and conviction of guilty distillers and whiskey dealers in San Francisco are out of the question. I wish, however, to say that in the Federal Judges, the Government has great reason to take an earnest, honest pride. They are able, learned, patriotic, and just ; and no man can more keenly feel than they, the impossibility of faithfully executing law and vindicating the just claims of the Government as matters now stand." After all the evidence had been carefully collected, " the lightning" struck with a vengeance. Distilleries were seized, in St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indiana, New Orleans, and a few in other smaller places. In St. Louis over thirty parties were at once indicted, and many of them were of the most respectable men in the city, moving in the. best society. In Chicago over sixty were indicted at one time, and over one nundred indictments in all, including some ol the most prom- TESTIMONY OP M'GRUE. 389 inent men in the city. The trials were speedy, impartial, and decisive, resulting in almost every case in the conviction of the accused. Avery, Chief Clerk of the Revenue Bureau at Wash- ington, a man high in the Government service, together with Joyce and McKee, were sent to the penitentiary and heavily fined. A host of minor lights in ^the " Ring " have gone to keep them company. It is hardly necessary to say they will not be so jolly a band as when they were filling their pockets with Government greenbacks. The interest of the country has centered in the trials at St. Louis, as that city seemed to be the head-center of the work, and as the whole fraud has been there laid before the public in the trials of the most important conspirators ; we cannot give a clear idea of the ways in which these things were carried out in any other way so well as by giving the testimony of the man who confessed. In the trial of McDonald and Avery, Deputy Collector McGrue testified as follows ; I came to St. Louis in June, 1871, and remained until November, 1872. I had repeated conversations witli McDonald and Joyce about making money out of illicit distilling, the substance of which was, that the distillers should be protected in making crooked whiskey on condition that they should give a certain part of the taxes saved to certain parties. From September, 1871, to November, 1872, 1 collected money from the distillers, Bevis & Frazer, Thompson, Curran & Ulrich, to pay to other parties. I had a talk with all the distillers mentioned, and assured them that they could run in violation of law, and they would be protected by Government Officers on the conditions mentioned. I did this on the authority of Joyce and McDonald. The amounts were collected every Saturday night and averaged $8,500 per week. The distillers brought it to me at my room, generally about noon, and I disbursed it. A certain sum was taken out to pay the gangers and the storekeepers, and the balance was divided into five parts. The money for the subordinates was given to S90 THE WHISKEY FRAUDS. John Leavenworth for disbursement. Of the other five pack- ages, I kept one, McDonald got one, Joyce got one, and the other two were given to Leavenworth with the understanding that McKee got one, and Ford the other. This work began in the first part of September, 1871. McDonald complained once tliat Joyce ought not to receive as much as the rest, and so on one occasion I gave him $200 more than the rest, without giv- ing Joyce his full one-fifth. By the arrangement the distillers were to retain one-half of the profits on crooked whiskey. Leavenworth was a ganger, and part of the time, storekeeper. The tax on whiskey at that time was fifty cents per gallon, and I collected about thirty cents per gallon. It was under- stood at the supervisor s office, that the gangers, store-keepers, and other subordinates were to receive from $1.00 to $1.60 per barrel, but generally Leavenworth paid them more. I took the money for the main members of the ring to the supervisors, and there was no particular disguise about my delivering it to them. I always set aside a portion of the money ; part of the time, $100 per week, and part of the time $300 per week for "Wm. 0. Avery, Chief Clerk of the Internal Revenue Bureau at Washington. The increase was made at the instance of Joyce, who came from Washington once and said that Avery was complaining of not receiving enough money ; hence we in- creased it to $300 per week. Randolph W. Ulrich, one of the most prominent distillers in St. Louis, testified that he had talked several times with Joyce in 1871, about making crooked whiskey, but that he declined entering into any arrangement. Subsequently, however, when he found that several other distillers were in the illicit business, he went in and remained till October, 1872. He had several talks with Fitzroy, and paid him money several times. He reported the amount of crooked whiskey to McGrue and afterwards to Fitzroy. He paid thirty and thirty-five cents per gallon. He did not know where the money went and did not care. Alfred Bevis, of the firm of Bevis and Frazer, one of the TESTIMONY OP ALFRED BEVIS. 391 witnesses, testified to the crooked whiskey operations of his firm, carried on with the knowledge. and collusion of McDon- ald and Joyce, and said that the firm paid the Ring from 83,000 to 15,000 per week, and previous to the last presidential elec- tion he paid the Ring from $10,000 to$20,000. His firm, he said, went into the crooked whiskey business with the understanding that they were subserving political pur- poses and would he protected by the officers there and at Washington. The witness said he was in the Collectors' office when the- records were destroyed, the destruction of which was arranged by Joyce and Con. Cannon, the latter Chief Clerk of the Collectors' Office. The witness had been shown letters by Joyce, purporting to come frOm Avery and from Babcock, the President's private secretary, giving assurance of protection from seizure ; witness had one of these in his possession about twelve hours, having taken it to show to Frazer. The witness said that he did not remember reading the Babcock letter, but thought it was signed "Bab!" The Avery letter was given him by Joyce in his office. There were reports that the Ring was in danger and Joyce showed these letters to convince them that they were protected and that he kept posted. They were frequently shown letters of that kind. What a sad commentary on humanity ! What a discourag- ing thought for the enthusiastic believer in Republicanism, that her citizens combine together to forward a scheme of wholesale fraud, and that the most trusted officers of the Government are leagued with them. But still more stunning to our national pride to know that the officers of our Government actually in- augurated this plan of wholesale fraud and compelled those to go into it whom they could not persuade. It is an ugly fact that officers sworn to support the Government and faithfully execute its laws, are in the main responsible for these frauds. They rendered it impossible for a man to pay the honest tax and live. Those who were paying but thirty cents per gallon tax could drive out of the market and into bankruptcy those who honestly paid the full fifty cents. 892 THE WHISKEY FRAUDS. Against all the parties the evidence was so conclusive as to produce a conviction except in tlie case of Babcock. The coun- try has this consolation at least, that however much it may have been degraded by the treachery of its chosen officers, it did convict and punish them. Most of thena are now serving out contracts with the Government in the Penitentiary. The case of General Babcock who was private secretary to the President has been an exception to the otherwise uniform success of the Government in convicting the accused. Very strong accusations were made, that he being private secretary to the President, and thus knowing almost the first, any move- ment about to take place, informed the Ring. The charges failed of proof sufficiently conclusive to cause the jury to con- vict, but the general way that Babcock's defense was managed showed the public quite conclusively that he was guilty. His counsel seemed to rely on the inability of the prosecution to prove his guilt rather than their ability to prove his innocence. The very fact that he, on a very moderate salary, was living in the style and extravagance of a large income did not help the case in his favor, at least in the popular mind. Since his acquittal it has come to light that this method of proceeding followed by his counsel, was with good reason. It transpires that just before his trial a letter was written by the Attorney General to the various prosecuting officers, that no terms must be made with any guilty man. This sounds very well, but when it is remembered that it is only by the confes- sions and testimony of guilty parties that any prosecution could have been sustained, it is equally clear that no guilty man would confess and testify for the benefit of the Government unless he could be secured from punishment himself. He would have no object in doing so. This letter was in some way left, so that Babcock's counsel got it, and straightway it was telegraphed to the various papers throughout the land. Of course those who would otherwise have testified for the Gov- ernment sealed their lips, and the prosecution was too weak to convict. Why the Attorney General wrote such a letter at THE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S LETTER. 393 that particular time, and why it was left so that Babcock could get hold of it, can only be accounted for, that Grant and Pierre- pont are very stupid men, or that there was a belief among our very highest Government Officials that Babcock was guilty, and a determination that he must be acquitted. Below will be found the sentences of the principal men engaged in the whiskey ring at Chicago : A. C. Hesing, two years imprisonment and a fine of $5,000. H. B. Miller, six months imprisonment and a fine of $3,000. Frederick L. Reed (Miller's son-in-law), one day imprison- ment and a fine of $1,000. William Cooper, three months imprisonment and $2,000 fine. Jacob Rehm (the squealer), six months imprisonment and a fine of $10,000. CHAPTER XXII. OUR NATIONAL DISGRACE. As if the arrest and conviction of some of the most trusted officers of the Government was not enough to almost shake one's faith in the stability of republican institutions, the whiskey frauds were followed by the discovery of wholesale corruption in the Secretary of War's office, the accused person being no less than the Secretary himself, General William W. Belknap. Gen. Belknap was comparatively an unknown man until President Grant nominated him for Secretary of War. He came of good stock, his father. Gen. William G. Belknap, hav- ing been an officer in the regular army from 1813 to 1851, served with marked gallantry through the Florida and Mexican wars, and enjoyed the intimate friendship of Gen. Scott. Wil- liam Worth Belknap was born at Newburg, N. Y., on the 22d of September, 1829, and graduated from Princeton College in the class of 1848, among his college acquaint- ances, singularly enough, being Messrs. Clymer and Blackburn of the committee that has just exposed his guilt, as well as Secretary Robeson. He studied law at Georgetown, D. C, and in 1851 began the practice of his profession at Keokuk, la. He served one term, in 1857-8, in the Iowa Legislature as a democrat, but being unwilling to give countenance to the Le- compton swindle, he separated from the radical wing of his party, and was known as a Douglas democrat up to the out- SKETCH OF GEN. BELKNAP. 395 break of the Rebellion. He entered the army as Major of the 15th Infantry, and served with his regiment in the army of the Tennessee, rising through the various grades and participat- ing in the battle of Shiloh, siege of Corinth, campaign and siege of Atlanta. After the capture of that place, he marched with Sherman to the sea, and finally to Washington,, taking a prominent part in all the actions of these brilliant campaigns. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General for special gallantry in the memorable battle near Atlanta, in which his regiment fought from either side of the line of breast-works, was afterwards breveted Major-General, and, at the date of his muster-out, on the 24th of August, 1865, was regarded by Gen. Sherman and his companions as one of the most accomplished and promising officers of the army. Shortly afterward, he was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Iowa, and, upon Gen. Rawlins' death, soon after Gen. Grant entered upon the Presidency in 1869, he became Secretary of "War. His second wife was then living, but she died of con- sumption in the latter part of 1870, and about three years ago he was married to his present wife, her sister, Mrs. Bowers, at Harrisburg, Ky., her birth-place, at the residence of her brother, Dr. William Tomlinson, her kinsman John H. Pendleton of Ohio, giving away the bride. She was understood to have property, and lie soon rented a large house, and they launched out into a very extravagant style of living. Mrs. Belknap has been one of the handsomest and most elegantly dressed ladies in Washington, and received many of her dresses from Worth, the Paris milliner. It is probable that the extravagant living and the "Paris milliner" are in a great degree responsible for the awful fall which is best given in the testimony of Mr. Caleb P. Marsh before the Congressional Committee, appointed to examine into this corruption. " In the summer of 1870 myself and wife spent some weeks at Long Branch, and on our return to New York, Mrs. Belknap [the Secretary's second wife, who died in the following Decern.- 396 OUR NATIONAL DISGRACE. ber] and Mrs. Bowers [the present Mrs. Belknap, wlio is a sis- ter of the second Mrs. Belknap] , by our invitation, came for a visit to our house. Mrs. Belknap was ill during this visit, some three or four weeks, and, I suppose in consequence of our kind- ness to her, she felt under some obligation, for she asked me, one day, in the course of a conversation, why I did not apply for a post-tradership on the frontier. I asked what they were, and was told that they were many of them very lucrative offices, in the gilt of the Secretary of War, and that, if I wanted one, she would ask the Secretary for me. Upon my replying that I thought such offices belonged to disabled soldiers, and besides that I was without political influence, she answered that politicians got such places, etc., etc. I do not remember saying that, if I had a valuable post of that kind, I would re- member her. But I do remember her saying something like this : ' If I can prevail upon the Secretary of War to award you a post, you must be careful to say nothing to him about presents, for a man once offered him $10,000 for a tradership of this kind, and he told him that, if he did not leave the office, he would kick him down stairs.* Bemembering, as I do, this story, I presume the antecedent statement to be correct. " Mrs. Belknap and Mrs. Bowers returned to Washington, and, a few weeks thereafter, Mrs. Belknap sent me word to come over. I did so. She then told me that the post-tradership at Fort Sill was vacant, that it was a valuable post, as she under- stood, and that she had either asked for it for me, or had pre- vailed upon the Secretary of War to agree to give it to me; at all events, I called upon the Secretary of War, and, as near as I can remember, made application for this post on a regular printed form. The Secretary said he would appoint me, if I could bring proper recommendatory letters, and this I said I could do. Either Mrs. Belknap or the Secretary told me that the present trader at the post, John S. Evans, was an applicant for re-appointment, and that I had better see him, he being in the city, as it would not be fair to turn him out of office with- out some notice, as he would lose largely on his buildings, mer- TESTIMONY OP EVANS. 897 chandise, etc., if the office was taken from him, and that it would be proper and just for me to make some arrangement with him for their purchase, if I wished to run the post myself. I saw Evans, and found him alarmed at the prospect of losing the place. I remember that he said that a firm of Western post-traders, who claimed a good deal of influence with the Secretary of War, had promised to have him appointed, but he found on coming to Washington this firm to be entirely with- out influence." " Mr. Evans first proposed a partnership, which I declined, and then a bonus of a certain portion of the profits, if I would allow him to hold the position and continue the business. We finally agreed upon 115,000 per year. Mr. Evans and myself went to New York together, where the contract was made and executed which is herewith submitted. During our trip over, however, Mr. Evans saw something in the Army and Navy Journal, which led him to think that some of the troops were to be removed from the post, and that he had offered too large a sum, and before the contract was drawn, it was reduced by agreement to $12,000, the same being payable quarterly in ad- vance. When the first remittance came to me, say probably in November, 1870, I sent one-half thereof to Mrs. Belknap, cither, I presume, by certificate of deposit or bank notes by express. Being in Washington at a funeral (the funeral of Mrs. Belknap) some weeks after this, I had a conversation with Mrs. Bowers to the following purport, as far as I can now remember, but must say that just here my memory is ex- ceedingly indistinct, and I judge in part perhaps from what fol- lowed, as to the details of the conversation : I went up-stairs in the nursery with Mrs. Bowers to see the baby; I said to her, ^ This child will have money coming to it before a great while.' She said, ' Yes. The mother gave the child to me, and told me that the money coming from you I must take and keep for it.' I said, " All right,' and it seems to me I said that per- haps the father ought to be consulted. I say it seems so, and yet I can give no reason for it, for, as far as I know, the father 898 OUR NATIONAL DISGRACE. knew nothing of any money transactions between the mother and myself. I have a faint recollection of a remark of Mrs. Bowers that, if I sent th^ money to the father, then it belonged to her, and that she would get it any way. I certainly had some understanding then or subsequently, with her or him, for, when the next payment came due and was paid, I sent the one- half thereof to the Secretary of War, and have continued sub- stantially from that day forward to the present time to do the same. "About, I should say, a year and a half or two years after the commencement of these payments, I reduced the amount to $6,000 per annum. The reason of this reduction was, partly because of the combined complaints on the part of Mr. Evans and his partner, and partly, as far as I now remember, in con- sequence of an article in the newspapers, about the time, re- flecting on the injustice done to soldiers at this fort, caused by the exorbitant charges made necessary on the part of the trader by reason of the payment of this bonus. " The money was sent according to the instructions of the Secretary of War, sometimes in bank notes by Adams' express ; I think on one or two occasions by certificates of deposits on the National Bank of America in New York. Sometimes I have paid in New York in person. Except the first payment in the fall of 1870, and the last in December, 1872, all were made to the Secretary in the modes I have stated, unless per- haps on one or two occasions, at his instance, I bought a gov- ernment bond with the moneys in my hand arising from the contract with Evans, which I either sent or handed to him. " The first payment to me by Mr. Evans was made in the fall of 1870, at the rate of $12,000 a year. He paid at that rate about a year and a half or two years, and since then at the rate of 16,000 a year. It would aggregate about $40,000, one- half of which I have disposed of as above stated.'* " Usually when I sent money by express I would send Mr. Belknap the receipt of the company, which he would either return marked "0. K.," or otherwise acknowledge the receipt ADDITIONAL FACTS. 399 of the same. Sometimes I paid to him in person in New York, when no receipt was necessary. I have not preserved any receipts or letters. When sent by express, I always deposited the money personally, and took a receipt for it." There are some facts in the Belknap business not developed even in this testimony. Prior to the present peculiarly " cen- tralized" national administration, the wants of the officers and soldiers of the army on the frontier were supplied by " sutlers," who were chosen by the officers at each station, and the prices of their commodities controlled by well-defined regulations. The buyers had the power of preventing imposition and extor- tion on the part of the seller. But very soon after the Presi- dent's discovery of his late war minister, an act was passed by Congress, under administration influence, abolishing the old and quite satisfactory sutler system, and substituting these " post-traders," to be appointed and removed at the pleasure of the Secretary of War solely. The management of these trad- ing posts has been but one of the many arbitrary acts which have characterized the last administration of the war office, and caused general comment and open criticism in army cir- cles on the frontier, where it is a serious offense to speak dis- respectfully of the powers that be at Washington. For several years these positions as post-trader have been known to have a fixed market value, and the amount of the bonus paid annu- ally by the actual traders at each of the more important sta- tions to the nominal incumbents, friends of the Secretary of War, has been an open secret on the frontier. It should be borne in mind that this Fort Sill tradership, for which $40,000 has been paid during the last five or six years, is but one of a number. How about the others ? The newspapers have already had a good deal to say about one in the Northwest held by a Mr. Orville Grant. The case of the Fort Sill trader, Mr. J. S. Evans, thus made prominent, is an excellent one to illustrate the wliole system and its bearings. Fort Sill was first estabUshed in the south- west part of the Indian Territory in the winter of 1868-9. It 400 OUR NATIONAL DISGRACE. soon became one of the largest and most important of the army stations. Mr. Evans of Kentucky, an experienced and fair-dealing merchant and a gentleman, — far above the typical army sutler, — opened the first store there upon the authority of the troops. When the change was made, he became trader on the recommendation of the officers of the post, and pro- ceeded to erect buildings and lay in a stock of general merchan- dise. This required a large capital, as the nearest railroad was then the Kansas Pacific, and much of his building mate- rial, as well as all his merchandise, had to be hauled in wagons for hundreds of miles through a country without roads. In most classes of goods the transportation costs more than the merchandise itself. Had the Secretary appointed liis friend Marsh to the original vacancy in the Fort Sill tradership, it would not have effected the desired object ; the appointee would have been obliged to command large capital, and then, conducting the business in person or by deputy, be contented with fair profits. So Mr. Evans was permitted to cstablisli himself with a large and valuable stock, investing his whole fortune, get the business well established, and then, although giving full satisfaction to those for whose accommodation, the- oretically, the place is provided, he was unexpectedly notified of the appointment of a successor. To have quietly stepped aside would have ruined Mr. Evans ; he could not have re- moved his goods to the nearest settlement at less than their cost. He was at the mercy of Belknap's appointee, and the latter well knew it. Mr. Evans could do nothing but comply with the terms dic- tated by Mr. Marsh. And so he returned to his frontier store under obligations to add to the selling price of his goods one thousand dollars a month, to be paid in advance to the figure- head at New York. Now it is a sad fact that these post- traders make their profits on the sales to the enlisted men of the army rather than on sales to the officers. The latter have various other means of procuring supplies, and the traders favor tliem also. Practically, therefore, this bonus had to be taken from ADDITIONAL FACTS. 401 the pockets of the soldiers of the seven companies at Fort Sill. Those troops then consisted of colored men of the 10th regi- ment of cavalry, about 600 in number. Each of these poor fellows, many of them freedmen earning their first wages, had to contribute from his monthly pay of thirteen dollars, about two dollars toward this bonus fund. In other words, during the last five years, the enlisted men in the army of the United States serving at this post of Fort Sill have had extorted from them, with the knowledge and consent of the Secretary of War, the sum oi forty thousand dollars^ half of which has helped toward the brilliant social display of that Secretary at Wash- ington, while the other half has remained with the friend in New York as hush-money. At how many other places the same thing has been done, remains to be seen. The facts of the case cited, now first made public, have been well enough understood all along out at Fort Sill. Mr. Evans was obliged to tell his friends of the state of affairs to justify his exorbitant prices. The former commander of a company of the colored troops at that station, who were thus mercilessly bled to pay those bills of the Paris dress-maker, visited Fort Sill in the summer of 1872, and, finding that appeals througli the military channels had been fruitless, he reported the facts fully to Senator Sumner, in behalf of the freedmcn-soldiers. A similar letter was written at the same time to Hon. F. W. Bird. But, as the Republican aptly remarks, to-day, although the military ring in 1871-2 was too strong to be broken by Senators Sumner and Schurz, its time had to come. Four years have brought changes, indeed. Two departmental heads, that withstood assaults far more formidable then, now fall be- fore " a Mr. Marsh." After Gen. Belknap saw that his friend Marsh was bound to tell the full truth, he called on the President, and in great excitement offered his resignation, which the President un- wisely accepted. This unwise step may save Belknap from punishment for his crime, as Congress has not yet been able to convince itself that it has a right to impeach a man after he 402 OUR NATIONAL DISGRACE. ceases to hold office. Whatever flimsy excuse may save Bel- knap from the full punishment for his crimes, the fact that he has so publicly branded himself as thoroughly wanting in hon- esty and honor, and that he stands disgraced in the eyes of the world, is the worst of punishments. ^ CHAPTEE XXIII. THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OP 1876. The Convention which was to nominate candidates for the Republican party for the office of President and Vice-President, met in Cincinnati on the 14th day of June, 1876. The Convention was called to order at noon by Ex-Governor Morgan of New York, and made a brief statement of the du- ties of the Convention. After this speech the temporary organ- ization was at once completed by the choice of Theodore M. Pomeroy, Chairman. The various committees were then appointed. The Com- mittee on Organization presented Honorable Edward McPher- son of Pennsylvania. The Chairman of *' The Committee on Resolutions" was Honorable Joseph R. Hawlcy of Connecticut. The platform which was adopted as a sign-board in the coming political cam- paign was mostly his work. After due deliberation General Hawley on the second day presented the following platform ; THE PLATFORM. When, in the economy of Providence, this land was to be purged of human slavery, and when the strength of the Govenrment of the people, by the people, for the people, was to be demonstrated, the Republican party came into power. Its deeds have passed into history, and we look back to them with pride, incited by their memories and high aims for the good of our country and mankind ; and, looking to the future with an- faltering courage, hope, and purpose, we, the representatives of the party, in National Convention assembled, make the following declaration of principles. 404 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1876. I. The United States of America is a nation, not a league. By the com- bined workings of tlie National and State Governments, under their re- spective constitutions, the rights of every citizen are secured at home and protected abroad, and the common welfare promoted. II. The Republican party has preserved those Governments to the hun- dreth aniversary of the Nation's birth, and they are now embodiments of the great truths spoken at its cradle — that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that for the attainment of these ends governments have been instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Until those truths are cheerfully obeyed, and, if needed, vigorously enforced, the work of the Republican party is unfinished. III. The permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union, and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, are duties to which the Republican party are sacredly pledged. [Applause.] The power to provide for the enforcement of the principles embodied in the recent constitutional amendments is vested by those amendments in the Congress of the United States, and v.e declare it to be the solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of the Government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their consti- tutional powers for removing any just causes of discontent on the part of any class, and securing to every American citizen complete liberty and ex- act equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public rights. [Ap- lause.] To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and Chief Exec- utive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall. [Applause.] IV. In the first act of Congress signed by President Grant, the Na- tional Government assumed to remove any doubts of its purpose to dis- charge all just obligations to public creditors, and solemnly pledged its faith to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemp- tion of the United States notes in coin. [Applause.] Commercial pros- perity, public merits, and National credit demand that this promise be fulfilled by a continuous and steady progress to specie payment. [Loud and long-continued applause.] V. Under the Constitution the President and heads of Departments are to make nominations for ofliice ; the Senate is to advise and consent to appointments, and the House of Representatives is to a,ccuse and pros- ecute faithless officers. The best interests of the public service demand that these distinctions be respected; that Senators and Representatives who may be judges and accusers should not dictate appointments to office. The ilivariable rule for appointments should have reference to the honesty, fidelity, and capacity of appointees, giving to the party in REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1876. 405 power those places where harmony and vigor of administration require its policy to be represented, but permitting all others to be filled by persons selected with sole reference to efficiency of the public service, and the right of citizens to share in the honor of rendering faithful service to their country. VI. We rejoice in the quickened conscience of the people concerning political affairs. We will hold all public officers to a rigid responsibility, and engage that the prosecution and punishment of all who betray official trusts shall be speedy, thorough, and unsparing. [Cheers.] VII. Tiie public school system of the several States is the bulwark of the American Republic, and with a view to its security and permanence we recommend an amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbidding the application of any public funds or property for the bene- fit of any school or institution under sectarian control. [Great cheering, continuing several minutes.] VIII. The revenue necessary for current expenditures and the obliga- tions of the public debt must be largely derived from duties upon impor- tations, which so far as possible should be so adjusted as fo promote the interests of American labor and advance the prosperity of the whole country. [Cheei-s.] IX. We re-affirm our opposition to further grants of the public lands to corporations and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be devoted to free homes for the people. X. It is the imperative duty of the Government to so modify existing treaties with European governments that the same protection shall bo afforded to adopted American citizens that is given to native-born, and all necessary laws be passed to protect immigrants in the absence of power in the State for that purpose. XI. It is the immediate duty of Congress to fully investigate the effect of the immigration and importation of Mongolians on the moral and material interests of the country. [Applause.] XII. The Republican party recognize with approval the substantial advance recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women by the many important amendments effected by Republican Leg- islatures in the laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives, mothers, and widows, and by the appointment and election of women to the superintejidence of education, charities, and other public trusts. The honest demands of this class of citizens for additional rights and privileges and immunities should be treated with respectful consid- eration. [Applause.] XIII. The Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and in the exercise of this power it is the right and duty of Congress to prohibit 406 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1876. and extirpate in the Territories that relic of barbarism, polygamy; and we demand such legislation as will secure this end and the supremacy of American institutions in all the Territories. [Applause.] XIV. The pledges which our nation has given to our soldiers and sailors must be fulfilled. The grateful people will always regard those who perilled their lives for the country's preservation in the kindest remembrancc.- XV. We sincerely deprecate all sectional feeling and tendencies. We therefore note with deep solicitude that the Democratic party counts as its chief hope of success upon the electoral vote of a united South, secured through the efforts of those who were recently arrayed against the nation, and we invoke the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth that a success thus achieved would re-open sectional strife and imperil the national honor and human rights. XVI. We charge the Democratic party as being the same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason, and with making its con- trol of the House of Representatives the triumph and opportunity of the nation's recent foes; with re-asserting and applauding in the National Capitol the sentiments of unrepentant rebellion ; with sending Union sol- diers to the rear ; with deliberately proposing to repudiate the plighted faith of the Government ; with being equally false and imbecile upon the overshadowing financial question ; with thwarting the ends of justice by its partisan mismanagement and obstruction of investigation ; with prov- ing itself, through the period of its ascendency in the Lower House of Congress, utterly incompetent to administer the Government. We warn the country against trusting a party thus alike unworthy, recreant, and incapable. [Cheers.] XVII. The National Administration merits commendation for its hon- orable work in the management of domestic and foreign affairs, and President Grant deserves the continued and hearty gratitude of the American people for his patriotism and his immense services in war and in peace. [Cheers.] After tlie reading and accepting of the Platform, balloting commenced. The candidates proposed were : Hon. Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut ; Hon. Oliver P. JMorton, of Indiana ; Hon. Ben- jamin H. Bristow, of Kentucky ; Ex-Speaker James G. Blaine, of Maine ; Hon. Roscoe Conkling, of New York ; Gov. R. B. Hayes, of Ohio ; Gov. Hartranft, of Pennsylvania. These proceedings occupied the second day of the Conven- REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OP 1876. 407 tion, and early on tlie third the balloting commenced. Seven ballots were cast. We give these in full, as they are valuable for reference. FIRST BALLOT. Whole number of votes cast, . - - _ 759 Necessary to a choice, ------ 380 Blaine, ------- 291 Morton, ------- 125 Bristow, ------- 113 Conkling, - -i - - - - 96 Hayes, -------- 65 Hartranft, ------- 58 Jewell, •«• ' - - - - - 11 SECOND BALLOT. Applying the rule adopted by the Convention to the second ballot it stands as follows ; Whole vote, - - 747 Necessary for a choice, - « - - - 374 Blaine, ---..-,. t. - - 298 Bristow, - - - "* - - - 114 Morton, - '- ^ -• -^ - - m Conkling, - .« - » ... -* - 93 Hayes, -«^-»-»* -64 Hartranft, - - - - - . -^ - 63 Wheeler, -----^-3 Washburne, - - --*-••- _i THIRD BALLOT. There being no choice a third ballot was ordered. The clerk called the roll of States. The third ballot resulted as follows : Whole vote, ------- 755 Necessary to a choice, - - - - - 878 Blaine, - - ^ -. - - - 293 Bristow, * - - - - - - 121 Morton, - - - - - - - 113 Conkling, .-----.90 Hartranft, - - - -- - -68 Hayes, ----..-67 Wheeler, - * -. - - -. - 2 Washburne, -------1 408 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OP 1876. FOURTH BALLOT. There being no choice the fourth ballot was then taken as follows : Whole vote, - , - 759 Necessary for a choice ) . 378 Blaine, - . 292 Bristow, - . 126 Morton, . . 108 Conkling, - . 84 Hartranft, - . 71 Hayes, - . 68 Washburne, - - 8 Wheeler, ~ FIFTH BALLOT. 2 The Chair (Lieut. -Gov. Woodford) announced the result of the ballot as follows : Whole vote. - - - m m - . 753 Necessary for s I choice ) - .- • 377 Blaine, - - ■- - 287 Bristow, - • • - 114 Hayes, - - - 102 Morton, - ^ - 95 Conkling, Hartranft, - - Zi - 82 69 Washburne, - - - 3 Wheeler, SlXTk BALLOT. 2 Whole vote, _ . . . _ 754 Necessary for a choice » - 378 Blaine, - - - 308 Hayes, - - - 113 Bristow, - - - 111 Morton, - - - 85 Conkling, _ - . 81 Hartranft, - - - 50 Washburne, - - - 4 Wheeler, - - - - 2 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1876. 409 SEVENTH BALLOT. The Chair amiounced the vote as follows : Whole vote, 756 Necessary for a choice, - - . _ _ 373 Hayes, - - - - - - - 384 Blame, - - - - - - - 351 Bristow, - - - - - - -21 After Gov. Hayes had been nominated, the convention quickly proceeded to nominate a candidate -for vice-president. Mr. Stewart L. Woodford and Mr. William A. Wheeler of New York ; Gen. Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, were nomin- ated, but before the first ballot was finished the balloting was suspended, and William A. Wheeler nominated by acclamation. The Eepublican Convention of 1876 having put forth as its centennial ticket, RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, op Ohio ; FOR VICE-PRESIDENT, WILLIAM A. WHEELER, op New York, Adjourned. 18 CHAPTER XXIY. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT. Rutherford B. Hayes was born at Delaware, Ohio, October 4, 1822. His birth, as far as one can see, was in no way- responsible for his rapid rise to the summit of American fame. His parents were respectable, thrifty people, born in New England, who migrated to the West carrying wdth them that industry which has characterized New England people and which has helped so much to develop the West. Like all New England people, the parents of young Hayes were anxious to give their children a thorough education. This he received at the schools of his native place and at Kenyon College, finishing his professional studies at the cele- brated law school at Cambridge, Mass. From his early youth he showed marks of good abilities, and in his college course, was the first scholar in his class — a result more of industry than genius. During his youth, as in his manhood, he has always been characterized by genial manners and a hearty good fellowship, which have always won for him the love of all of those with whom he has come in contact. These char- acteristics were the result of a hearty good will towards his fellows, and an earnest interest in all matters, rather than any zeal for the interests of others and the success of public or private matters, in order that reputation might accrue to him- self. While a youth he never sought any preeminence, but often it was accorded to him as the natural results of his industry, intelligence, and practical common sense. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 411 From tlie Cambridge Law School, he entered the law office of Thomas Sparrow, of Cincinnati, and completed his legal studies. After scarcely a year at this, he opened an office for himself, and began to build up his own business, and a career for himself, little thinking at that time that he would ever be a candidate for the highest office within the gift of the Ameri- can people. Bis genial manners and fine voice at once com- mended him in his profession, and he soon built up a fine legal practice. In 1858, his reputation had become so good that he was elected city solicitor. At the outbreak of the war, Hayes entered the service at once. With his practical nature he saw at once the nature of the contest, and the need of every able-bodied man in the field. He was appointed Major of the 23d Ohio Infantry. This was one of the first regiments in the field, and was com- manded by the distinguished leader. Col. William S. Rosecrans. Early in June, 1861, the regiment was mustered into service for three years, but before it started for the seat of war, its colonel received the commission as brigadier-general in the regular army. Late in July, the regiment was ordered to Clarksburg, W. Va., and had its first active service in hunting down the guer- rillas that infested the spurs of the Kich Mountain range. Major Hayes served temporarily as Judge-Advocate on Gen. Rosecrans' staff, and in November, 18G1, received his commis- sion as lieutenant-colonel. In April, 1862, the regiment, under command of Licut.-Col. Hayes, left its winter quarters and moved in the direction of Princeton. After two weeks of skirmishing and foraging, the force was attacked by four regi- ments of infantry under command of Gen. Heath, and after making a determined stand, was compelled to retire. In the heart of August, orders were received to march with all possi- ble dispatch to the Great Kanawha. The regiment made 104 miles in about three days, embarked on transports for Parkers- burg, and took the cars for Washington, where it joined Gen. McClellan's army. 412 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. Tlie first shots at South Mountain were fired by Col. Hayes* command. The regiment was ordered to ascend the mountain at an early liour by an unfrequented road. The enemy were posted behind stone walls, and greatly out-numbered their assailants, and the regiment was exposed to a murderous fire of musketry and grape at short range. Out of the 350 men who went into action, 100 soon lay dead or wounded on the field. Lieut.-Col. Hayes was badly wounded, his arm being broken, and the command devolved upon Major Comly. The commander, however, was not ready for ambulance or hospital ; there was still a good deal of fight in him, for he re-appeared on the field undaunted, with his wound half dressed, and fought until he was so weak that his men had to carry him away. After the battle of Antietam the regiment was ordered to the Kanawha Yalley. Lieut.-Colonel Hayes was appointed to the colonelcy of the regiment, and in December, 1862, was placed in command of the First Brigade of the Kanawha divi- sion. During the campaign of 1863, his division was exposed to arduous rather tlian dangerous service, but in 1864 he won his promotion by his gallantry at Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek: In the battle of Opequan, Col. Hayes' brigade, after advancing across several open fields, gained the crest of a hill and caught a glimpse of the enemy's line. Mov- ing forward under a heavy fire, the brigade dashed through a fringe of underbrush and halted on the edge of a slough 40 or 50 yards wide and nearly waist deep. When he saw the whole line wavering. Col. Hayes plunged in under a shower of bullets and grape, and dragged his way through. He was the first man over. The infantry floundered through the morass, and the enemy were driven back. Col. Hayes exposed himself recklessly, and was half the time in advance of the line. At Winchester his horse was shot under him, and he narrowly escaped with his life. As he lay on the field stunned by his fall, and wondering why the troops were not ordered to charge the enemy's line, there was a cloud of dust on the Winchester turnpike, and Sheridan rode into camp on his magnificent RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 413 liorse in time to save the day. During this terrible campaign, Col. Hayes had three horses shot under him and was wounded four times. In the Spring of 1865, he was given the com- mand of an expedition against Lynchburg, and was preparing to cross the mountains of West Virginia when the war was brought to a close. For his bravery at Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek he was breveted major-general. Throughout the war. General Hayes not only showed him- self to be an able general and a brave soldier, but what has still more of a bearing on his present condition, he proved himself a thorough patriot and a commander who had at heart the welfare of the members of his command. His courage was shown only in the battle. In camp he was quiet and unobtrusive, attending to the duties of his position with the same assiduous zeal which had characterized his previous life. Every soldier of his command loved him, and it has been remarked, by those who have had an opportunity of knowing, that in his canvass for the governorship of Ohio, he met his most enthusiastic support from his old soldiers, who knew him best. We have, during the present administration, had too much of the spirit which animated too many of the commanders of the army, which may be best termed selfish zeal. Their own interests were first considered, the interests of the country afterwards, if at all. It is one of the gratifying hopes in this campaign that our candidates are men who will have some regard for the wishes of the people and tliB interests of the country. Before Gen. Hayes left the army, he was nominated by the Republicans for Congress. He was urged to obtain a furlough and take the stump in his own behalf. To the letter he sent this characteristic reply : " Thank you. I have other business, now. Any man who would leave the army to electioneer for Congress, ought to be scalped.'* He was elected easily to Congress. His career there is briefly described by a corres- pondent of the New York Tribune, in the following words : 414 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. " In the fall of 1864, Gen. Hayes was elected to Congress from Cincinnati by a large majority. He seldom appeared on the floor of the House, not making any elaborate speeches, nor taking a prominent part in the reconstruction measures which engrossed the attention of Congress. He was a mem- ber of the Committee on Private Land Claims, and was Chair- man of the Committee on Library. The delegation from Ohio at that time, was a very strong one, including Gen. Schenck, ' John A. Bingham, James M. Ashley, Samuel Shellabarger, and Columbus Delano, and it is not surprising that the inex- perienced member took a lower seat than his brilliant col- leagues, and was content to be a listener. Li 1866, he was reelected, but resigned the position in 1867, in order to accept the Republican nomination for Governor." This brief resum^ would be very incomplete and inadequate if we did not add that Gen. Hayes accomplished a great deal of silent, effective work. He at first was considered a good party man, but of no very positive characteristics ; but it was soon discovered that whenever a conference or consultation was held, Hayes was called in ; that his opinions were always given quietly and briefly, but that the final conclusion always coincided with them. This has always been a characteristic of his life, and all his work has been quiet but effective. The Democratic nominee for the governorship was Judge Thurman, and the contest was a very close one, as Judge Thurman is one of the ablest and most popular leaders of his party. He was the only man whom many western dem- ocrats thought able to beat Hayes in the coming campaign, and whom they consequently desired the St. Louis Conven- tion to nominate. The Republican platform that year had several unpopular planks, and the Democratic candidate was an exceedingly strong one, but Gen. Hayes entered upon the canvass with unwonted vigor, won hosts of friends by his bearing on the stump, and was elected by a majority of nearly 3,000 votes. In 1869 he was re-nominated, his opponent being Mr. Pendleton, and he increased his lead by several RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 415 thousand votes. After his retirement from office he resumed tlie practice of his profession. In 1872 he was a candidate for Congress, but was defeated by Henry B. Banning, a Liberal Republican, by 2,500 votes. In April, 1873, he was nominated for Assistant Treasurer at Cincinnati, but the Senate adjourned without confirming the appointment. In 1875 he was nomi- nated for Governor in the face of his letter of withdrawal in favor of Judge Taft. The canvass which followed was almost without parallel in the political annals of Ohio. After mani- festing a strong disposition to screen themselves behind the school question the Republicans assumed the offensive on the currency question, came out boldly for hard money, and with the aid of Carl Schurz won the day. During this heated can- vass Gov. Hayes was constantly on the stump, and the great victory for hard money which was won last October was due in largo measure to the zeal and fire of the Republican leader. Thus it will be seen that Gov. Hayes has been kept constantly in public life ever since he first entered it, except while he was in the army. As soon as the presidential strife began to fill the air, his name was mentioned as a candidate by the Repub- licans of Cincinnati, and endorsed by many prominent men, all of whom have re-echoed tlie testimony of Senator Sherman, who says : '• I believe the nomination of Gov. Hayes would give us more strength, taking the whole country at large, than any other man. He is better known in Ohio than elsewhere ; but the qualities that have made him strong in Ohio will, as the canvass progresses, make him stronger in every State. He was a good soldier, and though not greatly distinguished as such, ho performed his full duty, and I noticed, when traveling with him in Ohio, the soldiers who served under him loved and respected him. As a member of Congress he was not a lead- ing debater or manager in party tactics, but he was always sensible, industrious, and true to his convictions and the prin- ciples and tendencies of his party, and commanded the sincere respect of his colleagues. As a Governor thrice elected he has shown good executive abilities and gained great popularity, 416 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. not only with Republicans, but with our adversaries. On the currency question, which is likely to enter largely into the can- vass, he is thoroughly sound, but is not committed to any par- ticular measure, so as to be disabled from cooperating with any plan that may promise success. On the main questions, pro- tection for all, equal rights, and the observance of the public faith, he is as trustworthy as any one named. He is fortu- nately free from the personal enmities and antagonisms that would weaken some of his competitors ; he is unblemished in name, character, and conduct, and he is a native-born citizen of our State. I have thus, as you requested, given you my view of the presidential question, taken as dispassionately as if I was examining a proposition in geometry, and the result drawn from the facts not too strongly stated is that the Repub- lican party in Ohio ought, in their State Convention, to give Gov. Hayes a united delegation instructed to support him in the National Convention. Not that we have any special claim to have a candidate taken from Ohio, but that in Gov. Hayes we honestly believe the Republican party in the United States will have a candidate who can combine greater popular strength and greater assurance of success than other candidates, and with equal ability to discharge the duties of President of the United States in case of election." To Senator Sherman is due the honor of first bringing Gov. Hayes' name prommently before the country as a candidate. From this sketch it will be seen that the candidate of the Republicans has a record to which he can appeal with much confidence and pride. In personal appearance Gov. Hayes is strong, and a very large man, weighing about 190 pounds. He has a family of which he is very fond. His wife is a truly amiable woman, and of great intellectual and social power. If her husband should be so fortunate as to receive the honor for wliich he is nominated, she would preside at the White House with eminent grace and good sense. Gov. Hayes' letter of acceptance will complete the record RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 417 of an eventful and so far successful life, for the present. What will be the next chapter of it, the fall elections alone can tell : Columbus, O., July 8, 1876. Honorable Edward McPherson, Honorable William A. Howard, Honor- able Joseph H. Rainey, and others, Committee of the Republican National Convention : — Gentlemen : In reply to your official communication of June 17th, by which I am informed of my nomination for the office of President of the United States by the Republican National Convention at Cincinnati, I accept the nomination with gratitude, hoping that, under Providence, I shall be able, if elected, to execute the duties of the high office as a trust for the benefit of all the people. I do not deem it necessary to enter upon any extended examination of the declaration of principles made by the Convention. The resolutions are in accord with my views, and I heartily concur in the principles they announce. In several of the resolutions, however, questions are consid- ered which are of such importance that I deem it proper to briefly ex- press my convictions in regard to them. The fifth resolution adopted by the Convention is of paramount inter- est. More than forty years ago, a system of making appointments to of- fice grew up, based upon the maxim, " To the victors belong the spoils." The old rule, the true rule, that honesty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the only real qualifications for office, and that there is no other claim, gave place to the idea that party services were to be chiefly considered. All parties in practice have adopted this system. It has been essentially modified since its first introduction. It has not, however, been improved. At first tlic President, either directly or through the heads of departments, made all tlie appointments, but gradually the appointing power in many cases passed into the control of members of Congress. The offices in these cases have become, not merely rewards for party services, but rewards for services to party leaders. This system destroys the independence ot the separate departments of the government. It tends directly to extrava- gance and official incapacity. It is a temptation to dishonesty. It hin- ders and impairs that careful supervision and strict accountability by which alone faithful and efficient public service can be secured. It ob- structs the prompt removal and sure punishment of the unworthy. In every way it degrades the civil service and the character of the govern- ment. It is felt, I am confident, by a large majority of the members ot Congress to be an intolerable burden and an unwarrantable hindrance to the proper discharge of their legitimate duties. It ought to be abolished. The reform should be thorough, radical, and complete. "We should return 418 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. to the principles and practice of the founders of the government, supply- ing by legislation, when needed, that which was formerly established by custom. They neither expected nor desired from the public officer any partisan service. They meant that public officers should owe their whole service to the government and to the peo^Dle. They meant that the officer should be secure in his tenure as long as his personal character remained untarnished and the performance of his duties satisfactory. If elected, I shall conduct the administration of the government upon these principles, and all constitutional powers vested in the Exective will be employed to establish this reform. The declaration of princij)les by the Cincinnati Convention makes no announcement m favor of a single Presidential term, I do not assume to add to that declaration, but, believing that the restoration of the civil service to the system established by Washington and followed by the early Presidents can be best accomplished by an Executive who is imder no temptation to use the j)atronage of his office to promote his own re-elec- tion, I desire to perform what I regard as a duty in stating now my inflex- ible purpose, if elected, not to be a candidate for election to a second term. On the currency question I have frequently expressed my views in pub- lic, and I stand by my record on this subject. I regard all the laws of the United States relating to the payment oi the public indebtedness, the legal-tender notes included, as constituting a pledge and moral obligation of the government, which must in good faith be kept. It is my convic- tion that the feeling of uncertainty inseparable from an irredeemable pa- per currency, with its fluctuations of values, is one ot the great obstacles to a revival of confidence m business and to a return of prosperity. That uncertainty can be ended in but one way — the resumption of specie payment. But the longer the instability connected with our present money system is permitted to continue, the greater will be the injury inflicted upon pur economical interests and all classes of society. If elected, I shall approve every appropriate measure to accomplish the desired end, and shall oppose any step bacRward. The resolution with respect to the public school system is one which should receive the hearty support of the American people. Agitation upon this subject is to be apprehended, until by constitutional amendment the schools are placed beyond all danger of sectarian control or interfer- ence. The Republican party is pledged to secure such an amendment. The resolution of the convention on the subject of the permanent paci- fication of the country, and the complete protection of all* its Citizens in the free enjoyment of all their constitutional rights, is timely and of great importance. The condition of the Southern States attracts the attention and commands the sympathy ot the people of the whole Union. In their RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 419 progressive recovery from the effects of the war, their first necessity is an intelligent and honest administration of the government, which will pro- tect all classes of citizens in all their political and private rights. What the South most needs is peace, and peace depends upon the supremacy of law. There can be no enduring peace if the constitutional rights of any portion of the people are habitually disregarded. A division of political parties resting merely upon distinctions of race, or upon sectional lines, is always unfortunate, and may be disastrous. The welfare of the South, alike with that of every other part of the country, depends upon the at- tractions it can offer to labor, to immigration, and to capital. But labor- ers will not go, and capital will not be ventured, where the constitution and the laws are set at defiance, and distraction, apprehension, and alarm take the place of peace-loving and law-abiding social life. All parts of the constitution are sacred, and must be sacredly observed — the parts that are new no less than the parts that are old. The moral and material pros- perity of the southern states can be most effectually advanced by a hearty and generous recognition of the rights of all, by all — a recognition with- out reserve or exception. With such a recognition fully accorded, it will be practicable to promote, by the influence of all legitimate agencies of the general government, the efforts of the people of those states to obtain for themselves the blessings of honest and capable local government. If elected, I shall consider it not only my duty, but it will be my ardent de- sire, to labor for the attainment of this end. Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern states that, if I shall be charged with the duty of organizing an administration, it will be one which will regard and clierish their truest interests, the interests of the white and of the colored people, both and equally, and which will put forth its best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will wipe out for ever the distinction between North and South in our common countiy. With a civil service organized upon a system which will secure purity, experience, efficiency, and economy, a strict regard for the public welfare solely in appointments, and the speedy, thorough, and unsparing prosecu' tion and punishment of all public officers who betray official trusts, with a sound currency, with education unsectarian and free to all, with simplic- ity and frugality in public and private affairs, and with a fraternal spirit of hamiony pervading the people of all sections and classes, we may rea- sonably hojje that the second century of our existence as a nation will, by the blessing of God, be prominent as an era of good feeling and a period of progress, prosperity, and happiness. Very respectfully, your fellow-citizen, R. B. Hayes. CHAPTER XXT. WILLIAM A. WHEELER, THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR VICE- PRESIDENT. William A. Wheeler, the Republican candidate for Yice- President, was born in Malone, Franklin County, New York, June 30, 1819, and is consequently fifty-seven years of age and but a few days the senior of Thomas A. Hendricks, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency. His early life was the same as tliat common to the large majority of the early settlers of tliat part of New York State which was at that time almost the frontier section. His early education was gained under great difficulties, which are fitly set forth in his address to the people who welcomed him home on his return to Malone after his nomination. Speak- ing to the young men, he said : " I know every phase of tlie struggle of young men seeking to make their way ; years ago I trampled through the storms and snows of winter to my first district school in an adjoining town. In the log houses of the neighborhood, through the shrunken roofs of the humble farmers' houses, I have at night literally been a star gazer; but in my wildest dreams and high- est building of castles in the air, so great an honor as that now conferred upon me never occurred to me. This result shows that in this country every man of character is the equal of every other man." Despite all difficulties he succeeded in getting, what in those WILLIAM A. WHEELER. 421 days was tlien considered a good common school education, and before lie attained his majority he was elected Town Clerk, and lie says the emoluments — $30 per year — were more to him than the thousands he has since earned. He was early chosen District Attorney in his own county, and was then chosen mem- ber of the Assembly for two terms. At the age of seventeen years he entered the University of Vermont. He remained there two years, and then concluded to leave college and enter upon the study of law. When he liad completed his course he was admitted to practice, and at once opened an office. His first pleadings were very success- ful, and he became very popular with his clients and neigh- bors, so that after a few years he was nominated by the Demo- crats to be District Attorney of Frankhn County — a position which he continued to fill during several years. His first election occurred immediately after the adoption of the new Constitution, being the first that was held under its provisions. He became a candidate for the Assembly at tli-e close of liis last term as District Attorney, and was elected on the Whig ticket, the county having cast a tie vote at the last election between the Locofoco and Whig candidates. Mr. Wheeler was again chosen to represent his county in the Leg- islature, and at the close of his term gave several years to his profession, and became cashier of the local bank, a position which he held for fourteen years. He became President of the Ogdensburg and Rouse's Point Railroad, and continued to be the active and supervisory officer for eleven years. When the Republican party was formed from the Whig organization, he followed its fortunes, and in 1858 was elected State Senator. He was chos(in President pro tern, for two terms, the Senate in 1858 being the first in this State in which the Republican party had control. In the Fall of 1859 he was a candidate from the XYIth Con- gressional District, composed of the Counties of Clinton, Es- sex, and Franklin. This was the XXXVlIth Congress, mem- orable for its grave responsibilities at the war crisis. The three 422 WILLIAM A. WHEELER. counties were all slightly Republican, and gave Mr. Wheeler a majority of about 1,000. During the long and active sessions of this Congress Mr. Wheeler acted with his party in the Anti- Slavery measures and in the prosecution of the war. Mr. Wheeler retired to private life, where he remained for four years. In 1867 he was elected a member of the State Constitutional Convention, which assembled in June, 1868. In the Republican caucus, preliminary to the election of the offi- cers of the Convention, Mr. Wheeler's name was mentioned for presiding officer with those of Thomas G. Alvord of Syracuse, and Charles G. Folger of Geneva, now one of the Judges of the Court of Appeals. Mr. Wheeler was elected. Ilis position as the presiding officer removed him from participation in the debates whicli gave opportunities for a display of legal abilities. His opening speech on taking the chair was about the only ef- fort calculated to attract public attention. It had an important bearing upon the subject of negro suffrage, and the Committee before whom this question came reported an article embodying the proposed change in the Constitution. In the Autumn fol- lowing the adjournment of the Convention, Mr. Wheeler was again a candidate for Congress in the XVIIth District, com- posed of the counties of Franklin and St. Lawrence, and was elected. This was the XLIst Congress, of which Mr. Blaine was chosen Speaker for the first time. Mr. Wheeler was ap- pointed by him Chairman of the Committee on the Pacific Railroad, and upon his re-election in November, 1870, with very little opposition was appointed to the same position. To the XLIIId Congress he was elected by a very large majority, and was returned in the succeeding contest. He was at that time appointed a member of the Committee on Appropriations, but the most important achievement of his Congressional ser- vice, and that which gave him prominence before the country, was the " Wheeler Compromise." Previous to this a sub-com- mittee of the Select Committee on Louisiana Affairs, consisting of Charles Foster, William Walter Phelps, and Clarkson N. Potter, had visited Louisiana, and presented a unanimous re- WILLIAM A. WHEELER. 423 port to tlie effect that the government of which William Pitt Kellogg- was the head, was largely responsible for the misfortmies of the people in that State. This report was accepted by all but the blindest of partisans in the North as a truthful present- ation of the situation. The other members of the Select Com- mittee took the extraordinary step of going to Louisiana and repeating the work already done. The result was that one of the other members of the Committee, Samuel S. Marshal, agreed with Messrs. Foster, Piielps, and Potter that the Kellogg Government was a usurpation, and should not be recognized, and that the action of the Returning Board was illegal, but stated that a compromise was desirable. This was the majority report. Messrs. Hoar, Wheeler, and Frye, as a minority, also presented a report which contained little that was new, reciting the events in Louisiana before 1874, and concluding that a main source of trouble lay in suf-' ficient education not being provided for the negro. Out of these reports grew the " Wheeler Compromise," from which the complexion of the Louisiana Legislature became Republican in the Senate and Democratic in the House, while Mr. Kellogg retained the office of Governor. CHAPTER XXVI. THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OP 1876. The Democratic Convention was unlike the Republican in almost every particular. Gov. Tilden, like Ex-Speaker Blaine, was largely the favorite, but unlike him, was speedily nom- inated. The Convention assembled on the 27th of June, 1876, and its work was speedily accomplished. The only matters of its history worth recording are The Platform, and the ballots for the candidates. After spending the first day in preliminary work, the Con- vention met on the second day, and adopted the following platform : The Platform. We, the delegates of the democratic party of the United States in national convention assembled, do hereby declare the administration of the federal government to be in urgent need of immediate reform. We do hereby enjoin upon the nominees of this convention and of the demo- cratic party in each state, a zealous effort and co-operation to this end, and do hereby appeal to our fellow-citizens of every former political con- nection, to undertake with us this first and most pressing patriotic duty of the democracy of the country. We do here reaffirm our faith in the permanency of the federal Union, our devotion to the constitution of the United States with its amendments, universally accepted as a final settle- ment of the controversies that engendered civil war, and do here record our steadfast confidence in the perpetuity of republican self-government in absolute acquiescence to the will of the majority, the vital principle of republics ; in the supremacy of the civil over the military authority ; in the total separation of church and state, for the sake alike of civil and religious freedom ; in the equality of all citizens before the just laws of their own enactment ; in the liberty of individual conduct unvexed by sumptuary laws ; in the faithful education of the rising generation that DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF 1876. 425 they may persevere, enjoy, and transmit these best conditions of human happiness and hope. We behold the noblest product of a hundred years of changeful history, but while upholding the bond of our union and tlie great charter of these our rights, it behooves a free people to practice that eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty. Reform is necessary to rebuild and establish in the hearts of the whole people the union, eleven years ago happily rescued from the danger of a corrupt centralism, which, after inflicting upon ten states the rapacity of carpet-bag tyrannies, has honeycombed the offices of tlie federal govern- ment itself with incapacity, waste, and fraud, infected states and munici- palities with the contagion of misrule, and locked fast the prosperity of an industrious people in the paralysis of hard times. Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit, and maintain the national honor. We denounce the failure for all these eleven years to make good the promise of the legal tender notes which are a changing standard of value in the hands of the people, and the non-payment of which is a disregard of the plighted faith of the nation. We denounce the improvidence which, in eleven years of peace, has taken from the people in federal taxes thirteen times the whole amount of the legal ten- der notes, and squandered four times this sum in useless expense, without accumulating any reserve for their redemption. We denounce the finan- cial imbecility and immorality of the party which, during eleven years of peace, has made no advance toward resumption ; that, instead, has obstructed resumption by wasting our resources and exhausting all our surplus income, and while annually professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has annually enacted fresh hindrances thereto. As such a hindrance we denounce the resumption clause of the act of 1875, and we here demand its repeal. We demand a judicious system of prep- aration by public economies, by official retrenchments, and by wise finance which shall enable the nation soon to assure the whole world of its per- fect ability and its perfect readiness to meet any of its promises at tlie call of the creditor entitled to payment. We believe such a system well devised and above all, intrusted to competent hands for execution, creat- ing at no time an artificial scarcity of currency, and at no time alarming the public mind into a w^ithdrawal of that vaster machinery of credit by which ninety-five per cent, of all business transactions are performed ; a system open, public, and inspiring general confidence, would from the day of its adoption bring healing on its wings to all our harassed indus- tries, and set in motion the wheels of commerce, manufactures, and the mechanical arts, restore employment to labor, and renew in all its natural force the prosperity of the people. Reform is necessary in the sum and mode of federal taxation, to the end that capital may be set free from distrust and labor lightly burdened. We denounce the present tariff. 426 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OP 1876. levied upon nearly 4,000 articles, as a masterpiece of injustice, inequality, and false pretence. It yields a dwindling, not a yearly rising, revenue ; it has impoverished many industries to subsidize a few; it prohibits imports that might purchase products of American labor ; it has degraded American commerce from the first to an inferior rank on the liigh seas ; it has cut down the sale of American manufactures at home and abroad and depleted the returns of American agriculture — an industry followed by half our people ; it costs the people five times more than it produces to the treasury, obstructs the processes of production, and wastes the fruits of labor; it promotes fraud and fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest officials and bankrupts honest merchants. We demand that all custom house taxation shall be only for revenue. Reform is necessary in the scale of public expenses, federal, state, and municipal. Our federal taxation has swollen from sixty millions gold in 1860 to four hundred and fifty millions currency in 1870, or in a decade from less than five dollars per head to more than eighteen dollars per head. Since the peace the people have paid to their tax gatherers more than thrice the sum of the national debt and more than twice that sum for the Federal government alone. We demand a vigorous frugality in every department and from every ofl[icer of the government ; reform is necessary to put a stop to the profli- gate waste of the public lands and their diversion from actual settlers by the party in power, which has squandered 20,000,000 of acres upon rail- roads alone, and out of more than thrice that aggregate has disposed of less than a sixth directly to tillers of the soil. Reform is necessary to correct the omissions of the Republican Congress and the errors of our treaties and our diplomacy which have stripped our fellow citizens of foreign birth and kindred race recrossing the Atlantic of the shield of American citizenship, and have exposed our brethren of the Pacific coast to the incursions of a race not sprung from the same great parent stock, and in fact now by law denied citizenship through naturalization as being neither accustomed to the traditions of a progres- sive civilization nor exercised in liberty under equal laws. We denounce the policy which thus discards the liberty-loving German and tolerates the revival of the Coolie trade in Mongolian women imported for immoral purposes and Mongolian men hired to perform servile labor contracts, and demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese empire, or such legislation by Congress within a constitutional limitation as shall prevent the further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race. Reform is necessary and can never be effected but by making it the con- trolling issue of the elections and lifting it above the two false issues with which the ofiice-holding class and the party in power seek to smother it. The false issues with which they would enkindle sectional strife in respect ov r'Bv > TJNIVEBSITYJ DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF ffe^CALIFO^^^^^ to the public schools of which tlie establishment and support belongs ex- clusively to the several states, and "which the Democratic party has cher- ished from their foundation and resolved to maintain without partiality or preference for any class, sect, or creed, and without contribution from the treasury to any of them, .and the false issue by which they seek to light anew the dying embers of sectional hate between kindred peoples once estranged, but now reunited in one indivisible Republic, and a com- mon destiny. Reform is necessary in the civil service. Experience proves that the ef- ficient economical conduct of the governmental business is not possible if its civil service be subject to change at every election, to be a prize fought for at the ballot box, to be the brief reward of party zeal instead of posts of honor assigned for proved competency and held for fidelity in the pub- lic employ, that the dispensing of patronage should neither be a tax upon the time of all our public men nor the instrument of their ambition. Hero again professions falsified in the performance, attest that the party in power can work out no practical or salutary reform. . Reform is necessary even more in the higher grades of the public ser- vice. President, Vice-President, judges, senators, representatives, cabinet officers — these and all others in authority are the people's senators. Their offices are not a private perquisite; they are a public trust. When the annals of this Republic show the disgrace and censure of a Vice-President, a late Speaker of the House of Representatives, marking his rulings as a presiding officer, three senators profiting secretly by their votes as law makers ; five chairmen of the leading committees of the House of Repre- sentatives exposed in jobbery, a late secretary of the treasury forcing bal- ances in the public accounts, a late attorney general misappropriating public funds, a secretary of the navy enriched or enriching friends by per- centages levied off the profits of contractors within his department ; an embassador to England censured in a dishonorable speculation, and the President's private secretary barely escaping conviction upon trial for guilty complicity in frauds upon the revenue, a secretary of war impeached for crimes and confessed misdemeanors, the demonstration is complete that the first step in reform must be the people's choice of honest men from another party, lest the disease of one political organization infest; the body politic, and lest, by making no change of men or party, we can get no change of measures and no reform. Allthese abuses, wrongs, and crimes, the product of sixteen years' ascendancy of the republican party, create a necessity for reform confessed by the republicans themselves, but their reformers are voted down in convention and displaced from the cabinet. The party's mass of honest voters are powerless to resits the eighty thousand office-holders, its leaders and guides. Reform can only be had by a peaceful civic revolution. We demand a 428 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF 1876. change of system, a change of administration, a change of parties, that we may have a change of measures and of men. After but little discussion, the platform was adopted, and the Convention proceeded to ballot for a candidate for Presi- dent. The candidates were Samuel J. Tilden, of New York ; Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana ; Gen. Hancock, of Penn- sylvania ; Ex-Governor Parker, of New Jersey ; Ex-Governor William Allen, of Ohio ; and Senator Bayard, of Delaware. FIRST BALLOT. Whole number of votes cast, - - - - 713 Necessary for a choice, ----- 476 Samuel J. Tilden had ----- 403 Thomas A. Hendricks, - - - - - 134 General Hancock, - - - - - - 75 William Allen, - - - - . - - 56 Senator Bayard, - - - - - - 37 Joel Parker, - - - - - - -18 SECOND BALLOT. Whole number of votes cast, - - - - 726 Necessary for a choice, ----- 434 Samuel J. Tilden, - - - - - - 508 Thomas A. Hendricks, - - - - - 75 General Hancock, - - - - - - 60 William Alleh, 54 Senator Bayard, - - - - - -11 Joel Parker, - -- - - - -18 and Governor Tilden was declared elected. On the third and last day of the Convention Governor Hen- dricks was nominated on the first ballot with so much unan- imity that the Indiana delegation which refused to have him considered for any but the first place on the ticket acquiesced, and the Democratic Centennial Ticket stands FOR PRESIDENT, SAMUEL J. TILDEN of New York. FOR VICE-PRESTDENT, THOMAS A. HENDRICKS of Indiana. CHAPTER XXVII. SAMUEL J. TILDEN. Governor Tilden was born at New Lebanon, in the county of Columbia and State of New York, in tlie year 1814 — the year which ruined the fortunes of the great Napoleon. One of his ancestors, Nathaniel Tilden, was Mayor of the city of Tenter- den, Kent, England, in 1623. He was succeeded in that office by his cousin John, as he had been preceded by his uncle John in 1585 and 1600. He removed with his family to Scituate, in the colony of Massachusetts, in 1634. His brother Joseph was one of the merchant adventurers of London who fitted out the Mayflower. This Nathaniel Tilden married Hannah Bourne, one of whose sisters married a brother of Governor Winslow, and another a son of Governor Bradford. Governor Tilden's grandfather, John Tilden, settled in Co- lumbia County. The Governor's mother was descended from William Jones, Lieutenant-Governor of the colony of New Haven, who in all the histories of Connecticut is represented to have been the son of Colonel John Jones, one of the regi- cide judges of Charles I, who is said to liave married a sister of Oliver Cromwell and a cousin of John Hampden. The Gov- ernor's father, a farmer and merchant of New Lebanon, was a man of notable judgment and practical sense and the accepted oracle of the county upon all matters of public concern, while his opinion was also eagerly sought and justly valued by all his neighbors, but by none more than by the late President Yan 430 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. Bur'en, who till his death was one of his most cherished inti- mate and personal friends. From his father Governor Tilden inherited a taste for polit- ical inquiries, and in his companionship enjoyed peculiar op- portunities for acquiring an early familiarity with the bearings of the various questions which agitated our country in his youth. In early youth Governor Tilden showed a strong love for study, and a determination to be the master of every subject Avhich came to his notice, which has marked his life at every step of his upward course. From a very early age there has been every evidence that no j)osition was beyond his powers, and that with favorable circumstances he would become one of the great men of his day. Young Tilden entered college in his eighteenth year. The fall of 1832, when he was to enter college, was rendered mem- orable by the second election of General Jackson to the Presi- dency and Martin Yan Buren to the Yice-Presidency of the United States, and of William L. Marcy to the Governorship of the State of New York. In that contest an effort was made to effect a coalition between the National Republicans and the Anti-Masons. The success of the Democracy depended upon the defeat of that coalition. Samuel heard the subject dis- cussed in the family, and was especially impressed by what fell from the lips of an uncle who deplored his inability to " wreak his thoughts upon expression." Samuel disappeared for two or three days, and in the seclusion of his chamber proceeded to set down the views he had gathered upon the subject, and in due time brought the result to his father, at once the most ap- preciative and the least indulgent critic of his acquaintance. The father was so highly pleased with the paper that he took his son to see Mr. Yan Buren, then at Lebanon Springs, to read it to him. They found so much merit in the performance that they decided it should be published with the signatures of a dozen or more leading Democrats, and it shortly after appeared in the Albany ^ry/ws as an address, occupying about half SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 431 a page of that print, and from which it was copied into most of the Democratic papers of the state. . The Evening Journal paid it the compliment of attributing it to the pen of Mr. Van Buren, and the Albany Argus paid it the greater compliment of stating "by authority" that Mr. Yan Buren was not the author. Mr. Tilden had not been long at Yale College before his hcaltli gave way, and obliged him to leave. After some rest he was enabled to resume his studies, and in 1834 entered the University of New York, where he completed his academic education. He then entered the law office of the late JohnW. Edmunds, in the city of New York, where he enjoyed peculiar facilities for the prosecution of his favorite studies of law and politics. The accession of Mr. Yan Buren to the Presidency in 1837 was followed by the most trying financial revulsion that had yet occurred in our history. During that summer appeared the Presidential message calling for a special session of Con- gress, and recommending the separation of the Government from the banks and the establishment of the independent Treasury. This measure provoked voluminous and acrimo- nious debate throughout the country, even before it engaged the attention of Congress. Mr. Tilden, though still a student, sprang to the defense of the President's policy, and wrote a series of papers, marked by all the characteristics of his maturity, and advocating the proposed separation and the redeemability of the Government currency in specie. These articles were signed " Crino." In the fall of 1838, Nathaniel P. Talmadge, a Senator of the United States from New York, wdio had separated from the Democratic party and joined the Whigs in opposition to the financial policy of President Yan Buren, was announced to speak on the issues of the day in Columbia County. A meet- ing had been arranged very quietly, at which it was lioped he might exert an influence upon the doubtful men and change the political complexion of the party. The Tildens heard of 432 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. the proposed meeting about noon of the day upon which it was to be held. They promptly sent word to all the Democrats of the vicinity, and the result was one of the largest meetings ever known in that region. Talmadge, in the course of his speech, took great pains to convince his audience that it was the Democrats that had changed their position, but that he and his friends were unchanged. At the close of his remarks one of the Whig leaders of the movement offered a resolution, which passed without opposition, inviting any Democrats in the assembly that might be so disposed to reply to the Senator. The young Democrats, who had mostly gathered in the rear of the hall, regarding this as a challenge to them, shouted for Til- den. Samuel, yielding to the obvious sentiment of the meet- ing, came forward, and took the place just vacated by the Sen- ator. After discussing the main question of the controversy, he adverted to the personal aspects of the Senator's speech, and especially to his statement that the Democrats had changed position, while he himself had remained consistent. By way of testing the truth of this declaration, he turned to the Whigs on the platform and, pointing to each of them in turn, asked if it was they or if it was the Senator who had opposed them in the late contest for the Presidency, that had changed. Finally, fixing his eye upon the chairman, Mr. Gilbert, a ven- erable farmer and almost an octogenarian, he said, in a tone of mingled compliment and expostulation ; " And you, sir, have you changed ?" By this direct inquiry the honest old man was thrown off his guard, and stoutly cried out : " No !" Mr. Til- den skillfully availed himself of this declaration of his old neighbor and friend, and applied it to the Senator in a strain of masterly sarcasm and irony. The effect was electric; it thrilled the assembly and completely destroyed the objects of the meeting. The spectacle of a young college student so easily vanquisli- ing in an intellectual contest, a United States Senator had not SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 433 then been witnessed. How often it might now be done is not so certain. In these times, when the whole business of the country is utterly prostrated we can realize what an excitement attended the financial debate of 1837, and after ; all who read this speech must be convinced that even if Webster and Nicholas Biddle were the champions of a system under which the revenues of the nation were made the basis of commercial discounts there was another very strong side to the case and that young Tilden ably presented it. Mr. Tilden, who had watched this financial revolution of 183T from the beginning, and knew its merits as thoroughly, per- haps, as any man of his time, undertook a defense of the Presi- dent's scheme and to overthrow the sophistries of his enemies in a speech which he delivered in New Lebanon -on the third day of October, 1840. It is marvelous, that in so short a time our people should have forgotten, as to a very considerable ex- tent they appear to have done, the lessons taught in this speech, and those still better taught by the war then waged by the Democratic party with the policy of inflation, irredeemable cur- rency and irresponsible credits. At the time this speech was delivered the Whigs were meditating the re-establishment of the United States Bank if they could succeed in dividing the Democrats on the Sub-Treasury scheme. This effort provoked Mr. Tilden to review the history of the bank and expose its ill- founded claims to be regarded in any sense as what it claimed to be, " a regulator of the currency." What he says upon that subject possesses to the reader of to-day not only considerable historical interest, but is pregnant with lessons which will never be out of season. Upon his admission to the bar Mr. Tilden opened an office in Pine street, in the city of New York. In 1844, in anticipation and preparation for the election which resulted in making James K. Polk President, and Silas Wright Governor of the State of New York, Mr. Tilden, in 19 434 SAMUEL J. TILDEX. connection with John L. O'Siillivan, founded the newspaper called the Daily News. In the fall of 1845 ho was sent to tlie Assembly from the city of New York, and while a member of Uiat body was elected to the convention for the remodelHng of the constitution of the State, which was to commence its sessions a few weeks after the Legislature adjourned. In both of these bodies Mr. Tilden w^as a conspicuous authority, and left a permanent impression upon the legislation of the year, and especially upon all the new constitutional provisions affecting the finances of the State and the management of its system of canals. The defeat of Mr. Wright in the fall of 1846, and the cool- ness whicli had grown up between the friends of President Polk and the friends of the late President Van Buren, resulted fortunately for Mr. Tilden, if not for the country, in withdraw- ing his attention from politics and concentrating it upon his profession. He inherited no fortune, Imt depended upon his own exertions for a livelihood. Thus far his labor for the State, or in liis profession, had not been lucrative, and, despite his strong tastes and pre-eminent qualifications for political life, he was able to discern at that early period the importance in this country, at least, of a pecuniary independence for the suc- cessful prosecution of a political career. With an assiduity and a concentration of enei'gy wliich have characterized all the transactions of his life, Mr. Tilden now gave himself up to his profession. Tt was not many years before he became as well known at the bar as he had before been known as a poli- tician. His business developed rapidly, and though he contin- ued to take more or less interest in political matters, they were not allowed after 1857 to interfere with his professional duties. At the New York municipal election held in November, 1855, a desperate attempt was made to defeat Azariah C. Flagg, one of tlie candidates for City Comptroller. Mr. Flagg was of the same school of politics as Mr. Tilden, and was renowned throughout the State, as well as in the city, for his fidelity to public trusts. The seekers after profitable jobs from the pub- SAMUEL S. TILDEN. 435 lie had nominated as his opponent a popular mechanic of gentle manners by the name of Giles, whom they hoped to control by the usual persuasives in case of his election. He ran upon what was then known as the " Know-Nothing " or " Native American " ticket. The returns gave Mr. Magg the office by a small plurality of 1 17—20,313 against 20,131 for Giles. His opponent was to prosecute a quo warranto^ and Mr. Flagg's title to the office was tested at a Supreme Court held before Judge Emott and a special jury. The claimants seemed to have monopolized all the proof at- tainable, and to have left little or nothing for the defense. Add to this the original canvass had been made, as usual, upon dis- tinct papers commonly called tallies. The split tally comprised three foolscap sheets, which contained the original canvass of the split votes, and tranfers from the tally of the regular vote and the aggregate result, showing the number of votes that each candidate had received. The tally of the regular votes had disappeared, at least could not be produced, and its loss was accounted for. The papers of split tallies, transfers, and summaries that were produced corresponded with the oral tes- timony, and confirmed the relator's theory of the alleged error in the return. Such was apparently the desperate attitude of the Comptrol- ler's case, Avhen Mr. Tilden was called upon to open for the defense. The defense, if any could be made, had to be con- structed upon the basis of the testimony offered by the relator, for other testimony there was none. The return showed, as the law required, the entire number of votes given in the dis- trict, and the rcgi^lar varieties of what are called regular votes appeared from the prosecutor's own oral evidence. On this slight basis of actual testimony Mr. Tilden constructed an im- pregnable defense. In his opening, and after reviewing the weak points in the testimony of the relator which he was en- abled to discover by the light of his midnight researches, he, for the first time, gives an intimation to his adversaries of tho weapon ho has improvised in a night for their destmction ! 4.Z6 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. Before Mr. Tilden took his seat the case was von and Mr. Flagg's seat was assured. Within fifteen minutes after the case was submitted to the jury they returned with a verdict in his favor. Two years later Mr. Tilden achieved another, and in some respects, even a more signal professional triumph, in the Bur- dell-Cunningham contested will case. Soon after Mrs. Cun- ningham's acquittal on the trial for the murder of Dr. Burdell she applied to the Surrogate for letters of administration and a widow's third, on the ground of a private marriage shortly before Burdell's death. Mr. Tilden was retained by the heirs of Dr. Burdell to contest the fact of the alleged marriage. In this, as in the case of Mr. Flagg, his adversaries had all the affirmative testimony, the marriage certificate, the positive oath of the clergyman who solemnized the marriage, of the daughter Augusta, the only witness of the alleged ceremony, and the subscribing witness to the marriage certificate, and of the two serving girls employed in the house. For the defense there was no affirmative testimony whatever. Its only resource was the evolution of sufficient internal and external evidence on the cross-examination, to overthrow the compact and careful array of the testimony of the petitioners. Though satisfied in his own mind that Burdell had been murdered, and by Mrs. Cun- ningham, and never married, Mr. Tilden found himself unable to jDroduce a single witness who, from personal knowledge, could testify as to any important fact about either the murder or the marriage. He had besides to contend with tlie indefat- igable energy of the petitioners in producing "willing" wit- nesses ready to supply any defect in her case as fast as it was exposed. Mr. Tilden adopted a course which, though not en- tirely original in the profession, was probably never more skil- fully and effectively put in practice. Proceeding upon the principle which guided him in his defense of Mr. Flagg, that the trutli in regard to any particular fact was in harmony with eveiy other fact in the world, and that a falsehood could only be even apparently harmonized with a limited number of facts, SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 437 he determined to conduct liis defense by a species of moral triangulation. There is probably no case in which Mr. Tilden has been em- ployed that required the exercise of so high a range of meta- physical powers, or in which his penetration of character ap- peared to greater advantage. His defense seemed almost a creation, and tlie result produced the more profound impression as it removed whatever doubt existed in the minds of the peo- ple as to Mrs. Cunningham's participation in the murder of Burdell. The conviction took immediate possession of the public mind that had Tilden conducted the case for the prosecution when she was under indictment she would undoubtedly have been convicted. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Surrogate did not confer letters of administration upon Mrs. Cunningham, or leave her any further pretext for wearing the widow's crape. His defense of the Pennsylvania Coal Company in its suit with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company is another il- lustration of his legal abilities. The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company had a contract with the Pennsylvania Coal Company by which, among other things, it was agreed in case of the enlargement of their canal the coal company should pay for the use of their canal extra toll equal to such portion of one- half the reduction in the expense of transportation as might result from such enlargement. In due time the canal company put in their claim for extra toll. The coal company denied that the cost of transportation had been reduced, or that they had derived any advantage whatever from the enlargement. After tedious and futile negotiations suit was instituted by the canal company and Mr. Tilden was retained for the defense. The case was tried before Judge Hogebdom, of the Supreme Court, sitting as referee. Seventy odd days were consumed in the hearing, and testimony offered by the plaintiff fills several large printed volumes. As in the Flagg case, the plan of the defense, as advised by Mr. Tilden, was a surprise both to Court and counsel. 408 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. The amount claimed was 20 cents a ton on an annual trans- portation of five or six hundred thousand tons a year for some ten years, besides a royalty of the same amount for an indefi- nite future. It was a crisis in the fortunes of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, through which it was successfully conducted. Among the more important cases in which Mr. Tilden has been concerned, one in which his strictly professional abilities appeared to special advantage, was the case of the Cumberland Coal Company against its directors, heard in the State of Mary- land in the year 1858. Mr. Tilden's success in rescuing cor- porations from unprofitable and embarrassing litigation, in re- organizing their administration, in re-establishing their credit and in rendering their resources available, soon gave him an amount of business which was limited only by his physical ability to conduct it. Since the year 1855 it is safe to say that more than half of the great railway corporations north of the Ohio and between the Hudson and Missouri rivers have been at some time his clients. The general misfortunes which overtook many of these roads between 1855 and 1860 called for some comprehensive plan for relief. It was here that his legal attainments, his un- surpassed skill as a financier, his unlimited capacity for con- centrated labor, his constantly increasing weight of character and personal influence found full activity, and resulted in the re-organization of the larger portion of the great net-work of railways, by which tlie rights of all parties were equitably pro- tected, wasting litigation avoided, and a condition of great de- pression and despondency in railway property replaced by an unexampled prosperity. His relation with these companies, his thorough comprehension of their history and requirements, and his practical energy and decision, have given him such a mastery over all the questions that arise in the organization, administration, and financial management of canals, as well as railroads, that his influence more than that of any otlier man in the country seems inseparably associated with their prosper- ity and success, not only in his own country but abroad. It is, SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 439 we believe, an open secret that his transatlantic celebrity brought to him quite recently an invitation from the European creditors of the New York and Erie Railway to undertake a reconciliation of the various Interests in that great corporation, which the proprieties and duties of his official position con- strained him to decline. Till the war came Governor Tilden made every effort to avert the rebellion. When his efforts, combined with those of other prominent patriots, had proved abortive, his convictions of duty were perfectly decided and clear. They were to maintain the integrity of our territory and the supremacy of the constitutional authorities. He had been educated in the school of Jackson, and had been a diligent student of the les- sons taught by the nullification controversy of 1833. He had studied carefully and profoundly the relation of the Federal and State governments, and of the citizens of those governments. He had thus early formed perfectly clear and settled opinions, about which his mind never vacillated. They were the opin- ions of Jackson, of Van Buren, of Wright, and of Marcy, with whom, during most of their public lives, he had been on terms of personal intimacy. During the winter of 1860-61 he attended a meeting of the leading men of both parties in the city of New York, to con- sider what measures were necessary and practicable to avert an armed collision between what were then termed the free and the slave States. To the north he urged reconciliation and forbearance, appreciating as he did more clearly than most of those around him the fearful and disastrous consequences of a civil war, whatever might prove its ultimate result. To the South he urged a deference to the will of the majority and a respect for the provisions of the Federal Constitution, within which they would be sure of adequate protection for themselves and for their property ; but he warned them that outside of the Constitution they could expect protection for neither. When the war did come Mr. Tilden associated himself with and was the private adviser of Mr. Dean Richmond, then at 440 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. the head of the Democratic party of this State, and who was accustomed on all important questions to visit Mr. Tilden in his retirement and seek his counsel. At a meeting held at the house of General Dix, just after the first call of President ^liiicoln for 75,000 troops, Mr. Tilden was present and participated in the discussions which took place. He then and there expressed the opinion that they were on the eve of a great war, and maintained that instead of 75,000 troops Mr. Lincoln should have called out at least 500,000, half for immediate service and the other half to be put in camps of instruction and trained for impending exigen- cies. Unhappily that generation had seen so little of war and had such limited means of comprehending the rapidity with which the war spirit, once lighted, will spread among a people, that it was not competent to appreciate the wisdom of this ad- vice, which, if adopted, would probably have prevented the necessity of any further increase of military force. To Secretary Chase and his friends, Mr. Tilden insisted that the war ought to be carried on under a system of sound finance, which he did not doubt the people would cheerfully sustain if the Government would have the courage to propose it. At a later period of the war he was invited by the Government at Washington to give his advice as to the best methods for its further conduct. He said to the Secretary of War; " You have no right to expect a great military genius to come to your assistance. They only appear once in two or three centuries. You will probably have to depend upon the average military talent of the country. Under such circumstances your only course is to avail yourself of your numerical strength and your superior military resources resulting from your greater progress in industrial arts and your greater producing capacities. You must have reserves and concentrate your forces on decisive points, and overwhelm your adversaries by disproportionate numbers and reserves." His advice was not taken, but he had the satisfaction, within a year after it was given, of hearing the Secretary of War ac- SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 441 knowledge its wisdom and lament his inability to secure its adoption. With the peace, came to Mr. Tilden the most important polit- ical labor of his life. With the assistance of diaries 0' Conor, who followed the members of that band of conspirators with all his usual vigor and adroitness until it was not only broken up, but its leading members scattered to the four quarters of tlie globe, he assailed and overthrew the combined Republican and Democratic Ring which ruled and ruined New York. This " ring " had its origin in an act passed by the Legislature of the State of New York in 1857, in connection with the charter of that year, which provided that but six persons should be voted for by each elector and twelve chosen. In other words, the nominees of the Republican and Democratic party caucuses should be elected. At the succeeding session of the Legislature their term of office was extended to six years. This gave a Board of Supervisors, consisting of six Republicans and six Democrats, to change a majority of which it was necessary to have control of the primary meetings of both of the great national and State parties for years in succession — a series of coincidences which rarely happens in a generation. This was doubly a " ring." It was a " ring" between the six Republican and the six Democratic Supervisors. It soon grew to be a "ring" between the Republican majority in the Legislature and the half-and-half Supervisors and a few Demo- cratic officials of the city. It embraced just enough influential men in the organization of each party to control the action of both party organizations — men who in public life pushed to extremes the abstract ideas of their respective parties, while secretly they joined hands in common schemes for personal power and property. It gradually transferred its seat of ope- rations to Albany. The lucrative city offices — subordinate ap- pointments, which each head of department could create at pleasure, with salaries in his discretion, distributed among the friends of the legislators ; contracts, money contributed by city officials, assessed on their subordinates, raised by jobs under 442 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. the departments, and sometimes taken from the city treasury, were the corrupting agencies which shaped and controlled all legislation. Year by year the system grew worse as a govern- mental institution — more powerful and more audacious. The Executive Department swallowed up all the local powers, which gradually became mere deputies of legislators at Albany, on whom alone they were dependent. It became completely or- ganized on the 1st of January, 1869. But its power was enor- mously extended by an act passed on the 5th of April in the following year, giving the power of local government to a few individuals of the "ring" for long periods, and freed from all accountability. Within a month after the passage of this Tweed charter the Board of Special Audit — one of the fruits of this Legislature — were making an order for the payment of over six millions of money, of which it is now known that scarcely 10 per cent, in value was realized by the city. Tweed got 24 per cent., and his agent, Woodward, 7 ; the brother of Sweeny, 10 ; Watson, Deputy Collector, 7 ; 33 per cent, went to mechanics who fur- nished the bills, though their share had to suffer many abate- ments ; and 20 went to other parties. Over '^250,000 were sent to Albany to be distributed among the members of the Legislature. The percentages of theft, comparatively moderate in 1869, WBached 6Q per cent, in 1870, and later, 85 per cent. The Senators who voted on the 6th of April, 1870, with but two dissenting voices, to deprive our great commercial metrop- olis, with its million of people, of all power of self-government, as if it were a conquered province, to confer upon Tweed, Con- nolly, Sweeny, and Hall for a series of years the exclusive power of appropriating all moneys raised by taxes or by loans and an indefinite power to borrow — who swayed all the institu- tions of local government, the local judiciary and the whole machinery of elections — did not come again within reach of the people until the election of the 7th of November, 1871, when their successors were to be chosen. All hopes of rescuing the SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 443 city from the hands of the freebooters depended upon recover- ing the legislative power of the State, in securing a majority of the Senate and Assembly. To this end Mr. Tilden directed all his efforts. In a speech at the Cooper Union in New York, he stated Mr. Tweed's plan, which was to carry the Senatorial representation from that city, and then re-elect eight, and, if possible, twelve of the Republican Senators from the rural dis- tricts whom he had bought and paid for the previous year, and thus control all the legislation that might be presented there which involved his freebooting dynasty. A party in power is naturally disposed to risk the continu- ance of abuses rather than hazard the extreme remedy of "cut- ting them out by the roots." The executive power of the State and all its recently enlarged official patronage were exerted against the latter policy. And since the contest of 1869 the " Ring" had studied to extend its influence in the rural dis- tricts, and had showered legislative favors as if they were or- dinary 2)atronage. But fortune favors the brave. Without an office or a dollar's worth of patronage in city or State to con- fer, Mr. Tilden planted himself on the traditions of the elders, on the moral sense and forces of Democracy, and upon the in- vincibility of truth and right. That undaunted faith in the harmony of truth and its irreconcilability with error, which we have found sustaining him at the bar and carrying him from victory to victory against more desperate odds, sustained him here. As always happens to those who battle for the right, Providence came to his aid. The thieves fell out, and one of their number betrayed them. A clerk in the Comptroller's of- fice copied a series of entries — afterwards known as " secret accounts " — and handed them to the press for publication. They showed the dates and amounts of certain payments made by the Comptroller, the enormous amounts of which, compared with the times and purposes of the payments and the recurrence of the same names, awakened suspicions that they were the memorials of the grossest frauds. Mr. Tilden soon became satisfied of this, from the futility of the answers received from 444 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. the city officers when questioned about them and from other sources, and reached the conclusion that the city had been tlie victim of frauds far transcending anything ever suspected. He immediately formed his plan, for the execution of which — as it involved the control of the approaching State Convention — the co-operation of several leading Democrats was first secured. He accepted an arrangement by which he was to be sent to the convention from his native district, Columbia County, which had always during the "Ring" ascendency afforded him that opportunity of being heard. Early in September he issued a letter to some seventy-six thousand Democrats, reviewing the situation and calling upon them " to take a knife and cut the cancer out by the roots." But before the meeting of the convention an event happened which could not have been foreseen, but which was pregnant with the most important consequences. To the eternal honor of the Democratic party of the city and State, on the issue thus made up by Mr. Tilden they gave gave him their cordial and irresistible support. The result was overwhelming, and not only changed the city representation in the legislative bodies of the State, but, in its moral effect, crushed the " Ring." Mr. Tilden was one of the delegates chosen to represent the city in the next Legislature. In deference to the views of his principal coadjutors, Mr. Tilden devoted the six weeks' inter- val between his election and the meeting of the Legislature to the prosecution of its investigation in the city departments and in preparing the vast mass of accurate information which was the basis of nearly all the judicial proofs that have since been employed successfully in bringing the members of the "Ring" to justice or driving them into exile. Mr, Tilden gave his chief attention during the session of the Legislature to the promotion of those objects for which he con- sented to go there, the reform of the judiciary and the impeach- ment of the creatures who had acquired the control of it under the Tweed dynasty. Mr. Tilden had thus by his bold acts made himself promi- SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 445 nent in the work of reform, and recognized as the man to lead it in the State. Prominent friends of reform urged him to ac- cept the nomination for Governor. They said he could be nominated without difficulty and elected triumphantly, and in his triumph the great cause of administrative reform would receive an impulse which would propagate it not only over the whole State, but over the Union. Mr. Tilden ultimately consented to take the nomination for Governor, his objections to which were overcome by a single consideration. It was the only way in which he could satis- factorily demonstrate that a course of fearless and persistent resistance to wrong will be vindicated and sustained by the masses of the people ; that honesty and courage are as ser- viceable qualities and as well rewarded in politics as in any other profession or pursuit in life. He was unwilling to leave it in the power of the enemies of reform to say that he dared not submit his conduct as a reformer to the judgment of the people ; to say that his course had ruined his influence ; that his name should be a warning to the rising politicians of the country against following his example. He felt that, whatever might be the result of his administration, the moral effect of his election would be advantageous, not only in his own State, but throughout the country. But for these considerations, Mr. Tilden would have allowed himself to be made the candidate of the Democratic party for the Senate of the United States, a position more congenial to his tastes, and for which his per- sonal preferences were well-known. He was nominated and elected, and whatever lessons or eloquence could be expressed in big majorities were not want- ing to lend their eclat to his triumph. Mr. Tilden's plurality over John A. Dix, tlie Republican candidate, was 53,315. Mr. Dix had been elected two years previously by a plurality of 53,451. The first message of Governor Tilden foreshadowed with distinctness the controlling features of his administration. First — Reform in the Administration. Second — The restoration of tlie financial principles and 446 SAMUEL J. TILDEN. policy which triumphed in the election of Jackson and Van Buren, and which left the country without a dollar of indebt- edness in the world and a credit abroad with which no other nation could then compete. In furtherance of liis policy of administrative reform, he recommended a revision of the laws intended to provide crim- inal punishment and civil remedies for frauds by public officers and by persons acting in complicity with them. These rec- ommendations, during the same session carefully wrought into the legislation of the State, bore especially upon those forms of administrative abuse which the exposure and arrest of William M. Tweed had recently revealed, and also upon another and kindred class of abuses in the management of our canals, with which the Governor was already acquainted, but of which the public as yet had only an imperfect realization. But the feature of the message which produced, perhaps, the most profound impression, not only upon his own imme- diate constituents, but upon the whole nation, was that which related to the financial policy of the Federal Government. A generation had grown up who had never seen or used any other money than a printed promise of the Government, and it had become a widespread conviction among the aspiring politicians of both the great parties that the current public opinion in favor of an inflated and irredeemable currency would over- whelm and destroy any public man who would attempt to stem it. No convention of either party in any State of the Union had ventured the experiment ; the active leaders of both had either avoided or yielded to the current. Mr. Tilden deemed it his duty to lose no time in advocating the only financial policy which ever had insured or can insure a substantial and enduring national prosperity. On the 19th of March, and as soon as he had secured from the Legislature such additional remedies for official delin- quencies as were requisite for his purpose, the Governor in a special message invited the attention of the Legislature to the mismanagement of the canals. He pointed out, in this communication, with considerable SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 447 detail, the fraudulent processes by which, for an indefinite number of years, the State had been plundered, its agents debauched, its politics demoralized, and its credit imperilled. The fullness, boldness,, and directness of his statements pro- duced a profound impression, not only throughout the State, but throughout the country. The Legislature, though containing in both branches many of the most notorious canal jobbers, and constituted largely in that interest, was obliged to yield to the irresistible public sentiment which the Governor's policy and message had awakened, and granted him the authority to name such a commission. The results of the investigations, communicated to him from time to time during the summer of 1875 and to the succeeding Legislature of 1876, arrested completely the system of fraudulent expenditure on the canals which he had denounced at the bar of public opinion. Through the adoption of various other financial measures upon his recommendation, and by the discreet but vigorous exercise of the veto power, the Governor was fortunate enough to secure a reduction of the State tax — the first year of his administration, about 17 per cent. — and to inaugurate a finan- cial policy by which the State tax, which was 7i mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation, when he came into office, will be reduced to 4 mills at least at the expiration of his term of two years, and at the expiration of the next succeeding year to not exceeding 3 mills. Mr. Tilden is now in the sixty-third year of his age. He is five feet ten inches in height, and he has what physiologists call the purely nervous temperament, with its usual accompa- niment of spare figure, blue eyes, and fair complexion. His hair, originally chestnut, is now partially silvered with age. For some reason best known to himself (and the gossips), Mr. Tilden is a bachelor, and should the suff*rages of the peo- ple send him to the White House, we may perhaps compromise with the female suffragists who presented their case so persist- ently to the convention, by allowing them to elect a matron of the White TTouse. CHAPTEE XXYIIL THOMAS A. HEITORICKS, Nominated as the candidate for Yice-President of the United States, was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, September 7th, 1819, and reaped the advantages of the common schools of his boyhood days, completing his education in South Hanover College. He studied law at Chambersburgh, Pa., in 1843, and shortly afterwards settled in Indiana and practiced his profes- sion in the courts of that state. His reputation for ability and fairness in dealing with his clients made him very popular, and attracted the attention of the people of his state, and in 1848 he was elected a member of the legislature by the Demo- cratic party. Of that body he at once became a leader. He declined a re-election. In 1850 he was elected a member of the constitutional convention, and distinguished himself by imparting in committees and debate in convention a thorough knowledge of the theory of government. In 1851, Mr. Hen- dricks was elected by the Democratic party a member of the United States House of Representatives, and served in that capacity until 1855, when President Pierce appointed him Com- missioner of the General Land Office. He continued in that position, by re-appointment by President Buchanan, through most of the term of that President. In 1863, the legislature of Indiana, having a Democratic majority, elected Mr. Hendricks to the United States Senate, and he took his seat at the special session which was convened \ THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 440 on the 7tli of December of that year. He entered upon his duties when a majority of the Senate was supporting the Ad- ministration, which Mr. Hendricks had opposed. He, never- theless, viewed the war waged against the government by the Confederate forces as against the life of the nation, and disre- garding it as a party matter, voted with the Administration party for army supplies. From these facts Senator Hendricks took his place among the progressive statesmen of those times, who were familiarly known as " War Democrats." Mr. Lin- coln always counted upon Senator Hendricks as one of tlie men in the Democratic party upon whom he could confidently rely in the darkest hour of the nation's peril. In the Senate Mr. Hendricks was never demonstrative. He was always a hard worker and valuable man in committees. He brought to its business a considerate judgment, large expe- rience, and great patience. In debate his speeches were ever marked by candor, coolness, and dignity, carrying conviction. His whole public record in the senate, the legislature, and as a land commissioner, stands unchallenged in point of capacity and honesty. In 1868 he was one of the prominent candidates named for the presidency, but gave way for the sake of harmony. A Democratic State Convention held at Indianapolis, on the 12th of July, 1872, nominated Mr. Hendricks as a candidate for Governor. He accepted in a speech in which he took occa- sion to give his hearty endorsement to the Cincinnati platform and nominees, saying " Henceforth offices shall be filled and laws administered, not for individual profit or personal aggran- dizement but for the common weal.'* His term of office as Governor expires January 1, 1877. w Such is the public record of Gov. Hendricks as it is impar- tially recorded. Like his associate Gov. Tilden, he will suffer in the coming campaign many aspersions, especially as to his views during the war and the currency question. During the war, his desire that the difficulties might be settled without recourse to arms, caused him to delay too long to suit the 450 THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. fieiy ardor of the aroused North, but the cool, unimpassioned historian will accord to Gov. Hendricks probably a juster name, as one who had at heart the welfare of his country, though differing from the views then controlling the Adminis- tration. His views on the currency question represent those of the western wing of his party, and while many may not coincide with them, these many must remember that he is by no means alone in cherishing them. Gov. Hendricks is well known and held in high esteem by his fellow citizens of Indiana, and if the wheel of fortune should throw him into power, Indiana would vouch for him to the country. CHAPTER XXIX. VARIOUS POLITICAL STATISTICS. ELECTORAL VOTE FROM 1824 TO 1872. 1824 Andrew Jackson, 99 John Q,. Adams..,. 84 W.H.Crawford.41 Henry Clay 57 1828 Andrew Jackson. 178 John t . Adams.... 83 Henry Clay 49 Wm. H. Harrison.. 73 1832 Andrew Jackson. 219 JohnPloyd 11 Hugh L.White. 26 William Wirt 7 18:36 Mart. Van Buren.170 Daniel Webster.. 14 1840 Wm.H.Harrison.2;J4 Martin Van Buren.. 60 1844 James K.Polk... no Henry Clay 105 Will. P. Mangum.ll 1848 Zachary Taylor.. 163 Franklin Pierce. 254 Lewis Cass 127 1852 Winfield Scott 42 1856 James Buchanan. 174 John C.Fremont.. 114 Millard Fillmore.8 1S()0 Abra'm Lincoln.. 180 J. C. Breckinridf;:e..72 John Bell 39 Step.A. Douglass.ia 1864 Abra'm Lincoln. !213 Geo. B. McClellan..21 miH Ulysses S. Grant.214 Horatio Seymour. SO 1872 Ulysses S. Grant.300 Thos. A. Hendricks 42 B. Gratz Brown.l8 Scattering 6 POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT FROM 1854 TO 1872. Alabama Arkansas California Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Iowa Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts.. Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri New Hampshire New Jersey New York North Carolina.. Ohio Oregon Pennsylvania.. .. Rhode Island... Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia.. ....... Wisconsin TotaL 1852. Scott, Whiff. 15038 7404 35407 30357 6293 2875 16600 649.'}4 80001 1.5856 570(« 17255 32513 35066 17548 29984 16147 38556 234882 89058 152526 179174 7(i26 58898 4995 22173 5a572 22240 Pierce, Hale, Dem. F. Soil. 26881 12173 40()26 a3249 6318 4318 .347('5 80597 95340 177()3 53806 18()47 41609 40020 44569 41842 26876 38.3.53 29997 44305 2620&3 39714 169220 i98.5f;8 87^5 57018 135.52 13044 738-8 &3058 1601474 100 31(50 62 9966 6929 1604 54 28023 7237 6695 350 25329 31682 '8525 8621 '88i4 1856. Frem. Hep. 20691 42715 308 96189 94375 43954 314 67379 281 108100 71762 38345 2a3.38 276007 187497 147510 11467 89561 291 1341264 Buch'n, l)em. 46739 21910 5:3365 34095 8004 63;58 5<)578 105348 118670 36170 74642 22164 39115 39240 35446 58164 32789 46943 195878 48246 170874 230710 6()80 736:38 31169 105(i9 89706 52&13 1&38169 Film., Amer. 10787 36165 2615 6175 4a33 42228 87444 9180 67416 20709 3325 474(50 19(526 1660 24i95 48524 422 24115 124(504 36&S6 28126 82175 1675 66178 15639 545 60310 579 ffr4534 452 VARIOUS POLITICAL STATISTICS. POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT FROM 1S54 TO 1872— Continued. 1860. 1864. STATES. Linc"ln, Hep. Doug., Dtm. Breck., Deni. Bell, Union. McClel. Dem. Linc'ln, Hep. Dem. maj. Hep. maj. Alabama Arkansas California "mhz mm 3815 i72i6i 1390;33 70409 "1364 '62811 2294 10653;i 88480 22U69 '17028 '37519 58324 862646 mm 5270 268030 12244 '33803 1929 'soiio 13651 5227 3a516 15522 1023 367 11590 1(50215 115.509 55111 '250.51 7625 26693 5906 34372 65057 11920 31 as 58801 '2588i 62801 312510 2701 187232 3951 16765 7707 'iisso ' '6849 16290 '65021 48&31 28732 343:54 14641 7:W7 8543 51SS9 2404 12295 1048 '53i43 22f581 6368 42482 5939 805 748 40797 31317 "2ii2 '48339 11405 3006 178871 '64709 47548 218 74323 ""888 27825 20094 6817 3291 3864 5437 42886 3913 5306 1763 *666.58 20204 2046 41760 22:i31 405 62 25040 68372 "*44i '44996 12194 183 12776 '69274 15438 1969 74681 ■"iei 'kmi 42285 8767 158730 130233 49596 3691 6^301 '44211 32739 48745 74604 17375 '3i678 "6594 32871 68024 361986 205568 8457 276316 8470 '13321 "16438 65884 '62i34 44691 8155 189496 150422 89075 16441 27786 'eisns ^0153 126742 91521 25060 '72756 "9826 36400 60723 368735 265154 9888 296.':91 13692 '424I9 '23152 83458 '"els "365i5 "■736! '18293 Connecticut. 2406 Delaware . Florida Georgia '3(;766 Indiana 20189 Iowa 39479 Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine 12750 'I7592 Marj'land ... 7414 Massachusetts Michigan 77997 16917 Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey 7685 "4I672 "32:52 3529 NevrYork 6749 North Carolina Ohio Oregon '59586 1431 Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee Texas Vermont .. 20075 '29098 Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin .... 'l27i4 17574 Total 1866352 1375157 845763 589581 1808725 2216067 44428 451770 1S6G. 1872. STATES. Sevm. Dem. Grant, Jiep. Dem. maj. Jiep. maj. Grcery, Liberal. Grant, Adm. Lib. maj. Adm. maj. Alabama 72088 19078 54077 479.J2 10980 70366 22112 54583 50995 7023 '57134 250303 176548 120399 31048 39566 a3263 70493 30438 13(H77 128550 43545 "3:i57 "45588 '76324 46962 'sigig 4278 soai 506 3043 "siieo 9568 463:59 17058 '28033 '77069 31481 15470 79444 37927 40718 45880 10206 15427 76356 184938 163632 71196 32970 99995 57029 29087 67687 59260 7a355 34423 90272 41373 54020 50638 11115 17763 62550 241944 186147 1315G6 67048 88766 71663 61422 66760 132172 13ai55 55117 '13806 "II229 '"927 108248 Arkansas. . 34.36 California 13302 Connecticut 4758 Delaware . 909 Florida , 2336 Georgia 102722 199143 166980 74040 13990 115890 80225 42460 62357 59108 97;r>9 28075 Illinois.. . 57006 Indiana. 22515 Iowa 60370 Kansas . ... 84078 Kentucky Louisiana .. Maine '14634 82335 Maryland.. Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota 74212 60100 20694 VARIOUS POLITICAL STATISTICS. 453 POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT FROM 1854 TO 1872— CoNTriOTED. 1868. 1872. STATES. Scvm. JJtm. Grant, Ilep. Dem. Rep. maj. Greel'y, TAberH. Grant, Adm. Liberal maj. Adm. VUlj. Mississippi Missouri 5139 5:il8 31224 83J01 4298S3 84G01 2=38(306 11125 31338-J 6548 45237 26129 '86866 972!) 6480 38191 80131 410883 96769 280223 10961 342280 12993 62301 56628 "44167 '29175 108857 "2870 loooo 'ioi '21232 4290 1262 6967 'i2i68 41617 *28898 (H45 17064 30499 ■32122 "8869 24150 47288 151434 7812 62^36 31424 7(i456 387281 70094 244321 7730 212041 5329 22703 94391 66500 10927 91654 29151 86477 82175 119196 18329 8413 37168 9165 13967 2343 13346 4829 5452 54.55 6051 4.505 1382 4047 2518 2784 2906 6062 4263 1412 2549 5542 5279 829 3513 i;i694 2427 8128 3.386 5198 4464 4179 4571 1610 4a51 2445 2552 1729 4275 2217 1003 2878 4887 3737 24:34 11360 1960 102:37 4663 4594 4367 5224 37.33 1112 3:i22 2348 2457 3148 4304 4056 1.343 2()48 5648 4330 728 S411 10847 2501 7281 3023 4621 4175 4021 3771 15.36 4141 2.361 2264 mJ9 3767 2117 1096 2789 5206 3656 688 2394 11720 1796 11301 4795 4480 4325 5:J03 4074 1020 8431 2220 25.39 3211 8789 4122 16.32 Bep'cn, 2149 Burlinsjton, 5891 Camden 4126 Cape May, 946 Cumberland, Essex Gloucester, :3742 12902 2460 Hudson 7103 Hunterdon, 8384 Mercer, 43;J8 Middlesex 3912 3706 4210 1856 Passaic, 4032 Salem, 2553 Somerset, Sussex, 2179 2219 Union. :3.373 Warren, 2620 Total, 97283 53.65 840.50 46.35 82.362 51.88 76.383 48.12 8.39.55 51.42 7933.3 Per cent., 48.58 Joseph D. Bedle's majority, 13.2.33: Joel Parker's majority in 1871.5.979; Theodore F. Randolph'8 majority in 1868,4,622. Total vote in 1874,181,33:3; iu 1871,158,745; in 1868, 163.288. 456 VARIOUS POLITICAL STATISTICS. PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS FROM THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS TO THE PRESENT TIME. PRESIDENTS. 1.— Prior to the Adoption of the Constitution. Peyton Randolph. Henry Middle ton. . John Hancock Henry Laurens John Jay Sam'l Huntington. Thomas McKean. . State. Va. S. C. Maps. S. C. N. Y. Conn. Del. Date of Ap- Died pointment. Sept. 5,1774 1775 Oct. 22,1774 .... May 24, 177511793 Nov. 1,1777:1792 Dec. 10,1778 1829 Sept. 28, 1779 1796 July 10, 1781 1817 John Hanson Elias Boudinot... Thomas Mifflin., hich'd Henry Lee Nathan'lGorham. Arthur St. Clair. . Cyrus Griffin State. Md. N.J. Penn. Va. Maes. Penn. Va. Date of Ap- ponitmeut. Nov. 5, 1781 Nov. 4, 1782 Nov. 3, 178:3 Nov. 30, 1784 June 6, 1786 Feb. 2, 1787 Jan. 22, 1788 Died 17&3 1824 1800 1794 1796 1818 1810 11.— Under the Constitution. HAME. State. Term of Service. Died. NAME. State. Term of Service. Died. Georj^e Washington . Va. 1789—1797 1799 John Tyler Jaifies K.Polk Va. 1841-1845 1862 John Adams Mass. 1797—1801 182(; Tenn. 1845-1849 1849 Thomas Jefferson . . . Va. 1801— 18U9 1826 Zaihary Taylor Mi lard Fillmore... La. 1849-1850 1&50 James Madison Va. 1809-1817 1837 NY. 1850-1853 1874 James Monroe Va. 1817-1825 1831 Frftnklin Pierce N. H. 1853-1857 1869 John Quincy Adams. Mass. 1825-1829 1848 Jahies Buchanan. .. Penn. 1857—1861 18(i8 Andrew Jackson Tenn, 1829-ia37 1845 Abraham Lincoln.. Til. 1861-1865 18<)5 Martin Van Buren. . . N. Y. ia37-1841 1862 Andrew Johnson. . . Tenn. 1865—1869 1875 William H.Harrison. Ohio. 1841—1841 1841 Ulysses S. Grant... 111. 1869—1876 VICE-PRESIDENTS. KAMB. State. Term of Service. Died. NAME, State. Term of Service. Died. John Adams Mass. Va. N. Y. N. Y. Mass. N. Y. S. C. N. Y. Ky. 1789-1797 1797—1801 1801—1805 1805—1812 1813—1814 1817—1825 182.5— ia32 1&3.3— 18.37 1837—1841 1826 1826 1836 1812 1814 1825 1850 18(52 1850 John Tyler George M. Dallas. . . Millard Fillmore... William R.King... J.C.Breckinridge.. Hannibal Hamlin. . . Andrew Johnson,. . Henry Wilson Va, Penn. N. Y, Ala, Ky, Me. Tenn. Mass. 1841—1841 1845-1849 1849-1850 1853-1853 1857— 18