USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Washington : the capital city and its part in the history of the nation > Part 16
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these would break with their party associates and with the twelve Democratic Senators de- clare for the President's acquittal became the all-absorbing question as the trial drew to a close, and lent an interest intensely dramatic to the day set for the first vote on the articles of impeachment.
That day was May 16, and an early hour found the galleries of the Senate thronged to their utmost with a brilliant and eager auditory. Every chair on the floor was filled with a Sena- tor, a Cabinet officer, a member of the Presi- dent's counsel, or a Representative, for the House had adjourned, and its anxious members had at once thronged to the Senate chamber. Every foot of standing room in the area and about the Senatorial seats was occupied. Not only in the Senate chamber, but throughout the country there was a palpable, ominous fore- boding, for those not blinded by the passions of the moment had come to realize that if the proposed degradation of Johnson was accom- plished, the President, ceasing to be a co-ordi- nate branch of the government, would become a pliant tool of Congress; that in the increase of legislative power thus prepared for, the judi-
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ciary would also be subordinated in turn, and that what was contemplated was the transfor- mation of a wisely balanced government into a Congressional autocracy.
Chief Justice Chase called the court to order, and instantly a profound stillness settled upon the great assemblage. The names of the Sena- tors were called in alphabetical order, and each gave his response standing at his desk. It was well known what the first dozen responses would be, but when the name of Fessenden was called subdued whispering, token of increased inter- est, was heard on every hand. In the Senate caucus a few days before he had argued with earnestness and power against the impeachment of the President, and since then unexampled efforts had been made to induce him to favor conviction,-all without avail. His pale face and the tense lines about his mouth showed that he saw clearly the personal consequences of the step he was about to take, but in a firm voice he voted against conviction. Fowler, of Ten- nessee, one of the youngest of the Republican Senators, was the next to vote. He was a radical Republican and personally unfriendly to the Pres- ident, but he did not feel that the case against
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the latter had been proved, and he also voted " not guilty." After this the name of Grimes, of Iowa, was called by the chief justice. This Senator had come from a sick-bed to record his vote, and he had to be supported on either side by friends as he rose to his feet. His vote was against conviction, and it was the last important act of his public career. Henderson, of Mis- souri, was the next anti-impeaching Republican to cast his vote, and then the call went on down the alphabet, with responses of "guilty" from the Republican Senators until the name of Ram- sey, of Minnesota, was reached and passed.
Two of the Republican Senators whose names were yet to be called, Trumbull and Van Winkle, were known to oppose impeachment. A third, Ross, of Kansas, had given no sign of his de- cision, and when he rose to record his vote every one felt that the supreme moment of the trial had come. Ross's vote would decide the ver- dict ; all its import hung upon his answer. Both sides hoped for it; both sides feared it. The Senator was young, ambitious, popular, and the friends of the President doubted if he had the courage to throw away a political future. They did not know the man. He rose calmly when
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his name was called, and in a clear, firm voice voted " not guilty." His vote practically ended the historic trial of the age. The call went on down the alphabet, with the issue already known, and at its close the chief justice announced that the President was acquitted of the charges con- tained in the eleventh article, upon which the vote had been taken. Ten days later votes were had on the second and third articles; but the results were the same, and the remaining articles were never put to test of vote. Secretary Stan- ton at once resigned his office, and the country turned to watch the progress of another Presi- dential contest.
Johnson was a Democrat, but he had not won the confidence of his old associates by earning the hostility of the Republicans, and though the Democratic national convention, when it met in New York on the Fourth of July, endorsed his policy of reconstruction, it put him aside as an impossible candidate for President. John- son's rejection, however, had an unexpected se- quel. Months before the convention met it had been decided by Horatio Seymour and other Democratic leaders that Chief Justice Chase, who had become estranged from the Republican II .- 22
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party, should be nominated for President, and save for one man's craft and cunning this plan would have been carried into execution. That man was Samuel J. Tilden, who decided that the candidacy of Chase would spell defeat. In- stead, he planned with subtle and masterly strat- egy to nominate Seymour. It had been arranged that Seymour, who had been chosen president of the convention, was to leave the chair to nomi- nate Chase. This moment was chosen by Til- den for the fulfilment of his purpose, and when Seymour called another to preside, an Ohio dele- gate, shrewdly selected for the occasion, sprang to his feet and demanded the nomination of Seymour, the acknowledged leader of the De- mocracy. Men in other delegations, previously assigned to their task, swelled the hurrah for Seymour, and when some of the New York dele- gates joined in the cheering, the end became evident to all. " Your candidate I cannot be," said Seymour, in a faltering tone, as he left the platform, but the wave surged on, and he was made the nominee by a practically unanimous vote. Seymour, prevailed upon to consider the subject, reluctantly submitted to the result thus achieved, and the convention completed its work
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by nominating General Frank P. Blair, of Mis- souri, for Vice-President.
The Republican convention had met six weeks earlier at Chicago. Grant's tardy assent to be- comme its candidate had made his nomination a mere matter of form, and there was not a dis- senting voice to his election in the entire con- vention. However, considerable interest and excitement attached to the choice of a candidate for Vice-President. The names of Ben Wade, Reuben E. Fenton, and Schuyler Colfax were presented, and the friends of Wade, who, as presiding officer of the Senate, would have been President had Johnson been convicted on the impeachment charges, were especially earnest and active in his behalf. Their fight, though stubborn, was a hopeless one. WVade, on the fifth and final ballot, had but thirty-eight votes to five hundred and forty-one for Colfax and sixty-nine for Fenton.
The Republicans triumphed decisively in the ensuing election. Nearly all of the Southern States were dominated by négro majorities, while most of the Northern States supported Congress in its policy of "Thorough," and, though Seymour took the stump late in the cam-
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paign and delivered speeches of great ability, he was overwhelmingly defeated, receiving but eighty votes in the electoral college to two hun- dred and fourteen for Grant. Johnson withdrew from the White House the day before the inau- guration of his successor, and a few days later left the capital, which saw him no more until in 1875 he began the term in the Senate speedily cut short by his death.
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CHAPTER XITI
THE PRESIDENCY OF GRANT
G RANT'S first inauguration, March 4, 1869, differed in some respects from all
of its predecessors. Several companies of colored men had places in the military escort, while Union veterans generously swelled the throng which flocked to Washington to witness the event and to make it a tribute to the chief hero of the war. Contrary to the etiquette of the occasion, the President-elect was not es- corted to the Capitol by his predecessor, for a bitter personal quarrel between Johnson and Grant had been one of the issues of the former's stormy Administration. Instead, Grant's per- sonal friend and chief of staff, General Raw- lins, accompanied him. The oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Chase, and Grant read his brief inaugural address in so low a voice that it was only heard by those nearest to him. The ceremonies attending his second in- auguration, in 1873, were almost identical with
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those of the first, an enormous and enthusiastic crowd again filling the capital, and the oath being again administered by Chief Justice Chase.
President Grant carried with him into the White House the simple and regular habits of a soldier. He rose early, read the morning pa- pers, and at eight o'clock breakfasted with his family. A short stroll followed, and from ten until three o'clock he was engaged with the offi- cial duties of the moment. Work ended for the day, came a visit to the White House stables, for the President was fond of horses, and an- other short stroll about the grounds or along the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Din- ner was served at five o'clock, and the evening was usually passed with his family. A few chosen friends would call now and then, usually by appointment, " but business matters were for- bidden, and offices were not to be mentioned." The children retired at nine o'clock, Mrs. Grant soon followed them, and between ten and eleven the President sought his pillow.
Nellie Grant grew from girlhood into win- some womanhood while her father filled the Presidency. The pet of the social world, she
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was the idol of her father, who, though deeply disappointed, raised no objection when she told him that she had given her heart to Algernon 'Sartoris, a British subject. The prospective groom, a son of Edward Sartoris of Hampshire, England, came to America in 1870, to seek his fortune. Two years later, on the steamship " Russia," while Miss Nellie was returning from a trip to Europe, the couple met and formed an attachment which terminated in courtship and engagement. Their wedding took place in the East Room of the White House on the morning of May 21, 1874. The bride had a trousseau fit for an emperor's daughter, and the gifts show- ered upon her represented a fortune. The wed- ding déjeuner was in keeping. Flags of two nations and flowers adorned the table; the ser- vice was of gold, and the menu was printed in gilt on white silk. After the déjeuner the Presi- dent and Mrs. Grant and a few friends accom- panied the bridal couple by special train to New York. The President gave his daughter away at the altar, and he bade her Godspeed on her departure the next day for her residence in Eng- land. His forebodings, however, were well founded. The union, ended by the husband's
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death a few years ago, did not prove a wholly happy one, and the rumors which came from over the sea caused the father constant solicitude in his last days. Hugh Hastings, an old family friend, journeying to Long Branch to visit the Grants, found the general seated on a rock over- looking the sea. He stole softly up and covered Grant's eyes, saying, "Now, guess who it is." But in another instant he drew back his hands -- wet with tears. Grant looked up. " Hello, Hugh," said he, kindly. " You are crying,
general ; what has happened ? What is the matter?" demanded Hastings. " We get bad news from England," was the reply. " Nellie is unhappy, and I can't help thinking about it-thinking about it all the time. I amı in trouble, Hugh; the greatest trouble of my life."
Grant's Cabinet underwent many changes during his first years in the Presidency. The nominations originally sent to the Senate in- cluded Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, as Sec- retary of State; Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, as Secretary of the Treasury; John A. Rawlins, of Illinois, as Secretary of War; Adolph E. Borie, of Pennsylvania, as Secretary
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of the Navy: Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, as Secre- tary of the Interior; John A. J. Creswell, of Maryland, as Postmaster-General; and Eben- ezer R. Hoar, of Massachusetts, as Attorney- General. Washburne retired at the end of a week, to become minister to France, and was succeeded by Hamilton Fish, of New York. Stewart, to his own and the President's chagrin, was unable to serve because of a law which pre- vented any man interested in the importation of merchandise from becoming head of the Treas- ury, and George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, was named in his place. Rawlins died in Sep- tember, 1869, and was succeeded, after a brief interregnum, by William W. Belknap, of Iowa. Borie speedily gave way to George M. Robeson, of New Jersey, and Cox to Columbus Delano, of Ohio; while Hoar, after three months' ser- vice, was succeeded by Amos T. Ackerman, of Georgia, who, in December, 1871, was replaced by George H. Williams, of Oregon.
Grant left to the members of his Cabinet all matters concerning their own departments, and he expected them to decide all ordinary questions for themselves. A newly appointed member, a few days after taking office, submitted to the
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President a score of important appointments and one or two questions involving the expenditure of money. He had the briefs concerning these in his hand, and he asked Grant to look at them. " Have you read them?" asked the President. " Certainly," was the reply. "Have you con- sidered what is best to do about them?" " Yes : here are my recommendations as to the disposal of them." "That is all I want to know," said Grant. "I will make the appointments and sign the papers." "But don't you want to look into the records of the men and see the arguments in the briefs?" " No, I do not," was the reply. " That is what I have you for. If your judg- ment is not sufficiently strong to pass upon such things and to investigate them, I will have to look around for some man who is out of a job to take your place. All I want you to do is to look into such matters and decide them for me. If you are sure that they are right I will do as you say." And he there- upon made the appointments and signed the papers.
The President, however, considered for him- self all questions of public policy, and he did not hesitate on occasion to set aside the recom-
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mendations of his Cabinet advisers in other mat- ters. Dr. H. W. Hasslock had been a friend of Grant in the days when he most needed friends. When Grant was living in poverty in St. Louis, Hasslock asked him to accept a loan of such an amount as would answer his needs. The loan was accepted and afterwards repaid with in- terest, but Grant was most grateful, and seemed to feel that he could not do enough for his bene- factor, though pecuniarily he had squared the account. A few years before the Civil War Dr. Hasslock removed to Nashville, Tennessee, and during that struggle was an avowed and ardent sympathizer with the South. Nevertheless, in the middle of Grant's first term, being in reduced circumstances, he visited Washington, seeking an office. When he sent in his card he was promptly received by the President, who said, as he grasped his hand, " My old friend, I am glad to see you. Is there anything I can do for you ?" " Yes," replied Hasslock, "I am poor now, and. though a Democrat, I have come to ask you for an office." " You shall have it," said Grant, " no matter what your politics now are, have been, or may hereafter be. What place do you want?" Hasslock replied that he wanted the Nashville
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post-office. Without a moment's hesitation he was appointed, though it was the best office in the State, and to give it to him it became necessary to remove a Republican. A few days later the Senate confirmed his appointment, and he re- mained in office until the end of Grant's second term.
After the President, the man most conspicu- ous in public life during the period under review was James G. Blaine, who from 1869 till 1875 served as Speaker of the House. Blaine dur- ing these years grew steadily in popularity and public favor, a result due alike to his personal magnetism and to his unfailing readiness to serve a friend. In 1873 General Zachary Tay- lor's daughter, the widow of Assistant Sur- geon-General Wood of the army, appeared in Washington, destitute, and applied to
General Sherman for a loan of one thousand dollars to enable her to reach a sick daughter in Austria. "I had not the money," writes Sherman in his memoirs. After a few moment's thought, he said, " Mrs. Wood, we must get you a special pension, and have it date from your husband's death. What member of Congress do you know?" Mrs. Wood replied that she did
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not know a single member. "Don't you know Mr. Blaine?" demanded Sherman. "He is the Speaker of the House, a fellow of infinite wit and boundless generosity." Mrs. Wood did not know Blaine. Sherman took her to the Capitol and called the Speaker from the chair. "Has it come to this," exclaimed Blaine, after a few words of inquiry as to the case, " that the daugh- ter of Zachary Taylor should be knocking at the doors of Congress for the pitiful pension of fifty dollars a month? I will do all a man can in this complicated government. I will make your case my own."
Sherman, satisfied with this assurance, left the case in the Speaker's hands. "The sequel," he concludes, " I learned from a friend. Blaine returned to the chair, but when a lull occurred called some member to take his place and walked straight to Holman, the Universal Objector, saying, ' Holman, I have a little matter of great interest which I want to rush through; please don't object.' 'What is it?' asked Holman. ‘ A special pension for the widow of Surgeon Wood, the daughter of General Zachary Taylor.' ' Is it all right?' demanded the great objector. ' Of course it is all right, and every American
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should blush that this thing could be.' 'Well,' said Holman, 'go ahead; I'll be out of the way, in the cloak-room.' Watching his opportunity, Blaine got the eye and ear of the acting Speaker, made one of his most eloquent and beautiful speeches, introduced a bill for the pension of Mrs. Wood for fifty dollars a month, to date back to the time of her husband's death four years before, which would give her twenty-four hundred dollars of arrears and six hundred dol- lars a year for life. It was rushed through the House by unanimous consent, and Blaine fol- lowed it through the Senate and to the Presi- dent, where it became law, and this most de- serving lady was enabled to go to Austria to be with her daughter during her illness."
New members of the House during Grant's eight years in the Presidency, some of whom are still in public life, included Eugene Hale and Wiliam P. Frye, of Maine; Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire; George F. Hoar, of Massa-" chusetts; Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut; Samuel S. Cox, Henry W. Slocum, Thomas C. Platt, William A. Wheeler, and Abram S. Hew- itt, of New York; William Walter Phelps, of New Jersey; Frank Hurd, Charles Foster, and
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Henry B. Payne, of Ohio; Omer D. Conger and Jay Hubbell, of Michigan; James N. Ty- ner, of Indiana: William M. Springer, of Illi- nois ; John A. Kasson, of Iowa ; Jeremiah Rusk, of Wisconsin; Richard P. Bland, of Missouri; Joseph S. C. Blackburn, Henry Watterson, and Milton J. Durham, of Kentucky; Eppa Hunton and J. Randolph Tucker, of Virginia; Wash- ington C. Whitthorne, of Tennessee; Robert Brown Elliott, of South Carolina; Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia; Lucius Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi; and Roger Q. Mills, of Texas. Cox and Conger demand individual mention.
The political career of Cox was an exceptional one. A native of Ohio, he was elected to Con- gress for four terms from that State, and then, moving to New York City in 1865, was not long resident there until he was again elected to Congress for six terms in succession, with but a single break. During his long period of service he was the laughing philosopher of the House, whose keen wit and rare sense of the humorous could find material for mirth in the dullest subject. He possessed, nevertheless, an underlying stratum of solid sense, and this, with incessant activity on the floor and keen insight
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into the pith of measures proposed, made him a dreaded opponent and an ally whose support always worked for success. Perhaps the great- est of his achievements for the public good was the establishment of the life-saving service. It was he who originated, and, in the face of dis- couraging opposition, carried through. the bill which resulted in the establishment of a service which has already saved many thousand lives and millions of dollars' worth of property.
Conger was twelve years a member of the House, and during his last days of service he was the Republican leader on the floor. To a parliamentary knowledge second to none he added a most thorough knowledge of the men he was pitted against, and he never yielded, no matter how great the odds. Quick at repartee and merciless when he had an opponent foul, he had also a keen sense of the ludicrous which often saved him from discomfiture. An under- sized member from Mississippi, whose uncomely personal appearance seemed to prove the Dar- winian theory, while delivering a rabid and sec- tional speech, was interrupted by a sarcastic question from Conger. He answered the inter- ruption with the declaration that in olden times
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kings had their court fools, whose insignia of office was a cap and bells; that the Republican party, following the ancient custom, had its court fool, but in this instance the insignia of office was a swallow-tail, alluding to Conger's con- stant habit of wearing a dress-coat. There was great laughter on the Democratic side and the speaker grinned as Conger rose to reply. "I asked the heroic gentleman," said he, " a plain, simple question; instead of answering it, he jumps upon his music-box and makes grimaces before the House and the country." The like- ness in the attitude and expression of the little man from Mississippi to the organ-grinder's best friend was apparent. The House, however, seemed to take the bitter jest in sections, and when the roar of laughter died out in one strip it reappeared in another, until everybody was convulsed. Nor did the discomfited member receive much sympathy, so richly did he merit punishment.
Hannibal Hamlin returned to the Senate in 1869, succeeding to the seat of William Pitt Fessenden, and among the new Senators of mark during the years under review were Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware; Allen G. Thurman, of II .-- 23
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Ohio; Joseph E. McDonald, of Indiana; Mat- thew H. Carpenter, of Wisconsin; and John J. Ingalls, of Kansas. Bayard, the fourth of his family to win a seat in the Senate, served there sixteen years. A ready and aggressive debater, he held from the first a leader's place on the Democratic side, and, if his advice was not al- ways followed, his voice was always heard with respect. Thurman was one of the really great constitutional lawyers of his generation. When he addressed the Senate every one interested in the subject in hand was compelled to listen, for he was not only capable of mastering the facts involved in a complex question, but he was able to present them forcibly and even vividly, and he had a rough humor which seldom failed to emphasize his best points. He was, both in theory and in practice, a most efficient contribu- tor to that kind of discussion, patient, searching, and fruitful, which has now become only too rare in the Senate. McDonald looked and dressed like a well-to-do farmer, and he had in his youth followed the trade of saddler and harness-maker, but he was also a man of strong mental caliber, positive convictions, and clear political vision. His single term in the Senate
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proved him one of the most capable legislators of his time.
Carpenter, who entered the Senate in 1869, served there, save for a break of four years, until his death in 1881, and during that period he was ranked as one of the foremost of Senatorial orators. His was a person of singular attrac- tiveness; his manners were charming, and few there were who could withstand the genial warmth of his presence and kindliness. He was a natural orator, gifted with a voice of wonder- ful sweetness and compass, and so acute and versatile was his intellect, that he charmed equally by the manner and substance of his speeches. He excelled also in the clear state- ment of a case, and though he spoke often it was never without saying something which elu- cidated the subject before the Senate. Ingalls entered the Senate in 1873, and, twice re-elected, remained a member for eighteen years, during which time he was of Republican Senators the one most dreaded in debate. In style, manner, logic, and keen repartee he approached nearer to Fessenden than any other Senator of recent years, while to natural gifts of a high order he added scholarship and a large store of valua-
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