USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Washington : the capital city and its part in the history of the nation > Part 4
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There were two important changes in the
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diplomatic corps during the Presidency of Tay- lor. Sir Henry Bulwer, in April, 1849, was appointed British minister at Washington, where he remained three years, negotiating with Sec- retary Clayton the treaty bearing their joint names. Sir Henry was a brother of Bulwer, the novelist, and during his residence at Wash- ington had for his private secretary his nephew Robert Bulwer, afterwards Lord Lytton, and known in literature as "Owen Meredith." Another member of the diplomatic corps at this time was William Tell Poussin, who had for- merly been a naturalized American citizen and a captain of engineers in the United States army, and who, in 1848, came to Washington as min- ister of France. His career as a diplomatist was a brief and troubled one, and ended in peremptory dismissal. Commander Carpenter, of the United States war-ship " Iris," had saved a French vessel in a gale off the Mexican coast. A question of salvage arising, the commander's course was fully approved by the Navy Depart- ment, and sustained by the Attorney-General. Poussin, however, wrote a letter to the State Department, declaring that the French flag had been grossly insulted by Commander Carpenter,
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and demanding the dismissal of that officer. Secretary Clayton had the affair investigated and sent to Poussin a full statement of the facts, together with all the documents, showing that no offence against the French flag had been com- mitted. He expressed the hope that this state- ment would prove satisfactory to the French government.
Poussin, instead of transmitting the docu- ments to Paris, addressed a letter to Clayton, giving free vent to his private opinion concern- ing American methods and motives. No direct reply was made to this extraordinary insult. Instead, the entire correspondence was for- warded to Richard Rush, the American minister at Paris, with instructions to bring it to the attention of De Tocqueville, French Minister of Foreign Affairs. A month later De Tocque- ville informed Rush that his government saw no occasion for doing anything, and at the same time intimated that there might be fault on both sides at Washington. This reply stirred to honest wrath the soul of "Vieux Zach," as the French newspapers called Taylor. Rush was instructed to inform De Tocqueville that his opinion of the conduct of the United States
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had not been solicited. At the same time, by Taylor's orders, the Secretary of State prepared the passports of Poussin, and forwarded them to that diplomat with a note informing him that every proper facility for quitting the United States would be given him whenever he should signify his desire to return to France. There the matter ended. Poussin left Wash- ington, and in due time his place was taken by another.
The Taylor Administration soon had to face a much more serious task than the dismissal of an unruly minister. The slavery question would not down. The Thirtieth Congress had rejected the proposal advanced by Douglas to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific,-making all south of that line slave territory,-and the growing antagonism be- tween the sections was strikingly exemplified when, in December, 1849, the popular branch of the Thirty-first Congress attempted to or- ganize by the selection of a Speaker. The Whig candidate was Robert C. Winthrop, but nine free-soil Whigs from the North and six pro-slavery Whigs from the South refused to vote for him. Winthrop, on the first ballot, had
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ninety-six votes to one hundred and three votes for Howell Cobb, the Democratic candidate. The remaining votes were divided between David Wilmot and half a dozen others.
There was no choice, and the voting went on from day to day, amid great and steadily increasing excitement alternated by vehement and passionate speeches, chiefly by Southern members, denouncing the North for its inter- ference with the domestic affairs of the South. " The time has come," said Robert Toombs, " when I shall not only utter my opinions, but make them the basis of my political action here. I do not, then, hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God, that if, by your legislation, you seek to drive us from the Territories of California and New Mexico, and to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, I am for disunion; and if my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of my conviction of right and duty, I will devote all that I am and all that I have on earth to its consummation."
Toombs's outburst provoked indignant replies, and after a heated debate William A. Duer, of New York, declared that he " would never, un-
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der any circumstances, vote to put a man in the Speaker's chair who would, in any event, advocate or sanction a dissolution of the Union." This brought a dozen angry Southerners to their feet. " There are no disunionists!" shouted Bayly, of Virginia. "There are!" was Duer's quick reply. " Name one!" retorted Bayly. Richard K. Meade, of Virginia, chanced at that moment to pass in front of Duer. " There is one," said the New Yorker, pointing at Meade. " It is false!" replied Meade. " You lie, sir !" responded Duer in ringing tones, while his political friends and foes clustered angrily about him. Quiet was finally restored by the sergeant-at-arms, after which Duer apologized to the House for having been provoked into the use of unparliamentary language, but justified himself by referring to a speech Meade had lately delivered, in which Northern men saw disunion sentiments. A challenge to a duel fol- lowed, as a matter of course, but friends inter- fered and effected an amicable settlement.
The twelfth day of the session Winthrop with- drew from the contest for Speaker, expressing his belief that the peace and safety of the Union demanded that an organization of some sort
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should be effected without delay. The balloting went on for another week. Then it was voted that a plurality should elect, and on the sixty- second ballot Cobb was declared the Speaker of the House. Several new members took an active and conspicuous part in this memorable contest. These included Horace Mann, father of the common school system of Massachusetts, who had lately succeeded to the seat made va- cant by the death of John Quincy Adams; Wil- liam A. Sackett, of New York, an eloquent anti-slavery Whig who was soon to become one of the founders of the Republican party ; Lewis D. Campbell, who had long been counted one of the ablest Whig editors in Ohio; Charles Durkee, of Wisconsin, like his colleague, James P. Doty, an avowed opponent of slavery ; George W. Julian, of Indiana, another intrepid champion of free soil for free men; and Al- bert G. Brown, of Mississippi, who a little later was to represent his State in the Senate. An- other new member of the House was Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, who quickly proved himself a most dexterous and effective contro- versial debater. Conscious of his strength, and aggressive in his disposition, Stevens defied all-
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comers, and rarely found his match in a per- sonal discussion.
Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, had now been promoted from the House to the Senate, where he had for a colleague James M. Mason, a man of pompous address but undoubted abil- ity. Truman Smith, of Connecticut, and George W. Jones, of Iowa, had also been transferred to the Senate, and other new members of that body were Thomas G. Pratt, of Maryland, long the leader of the Whig party in his State; James Shields, of Illinois, one of the volunteer heroes of the Mexican War; and Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Georgia, and Jeremiah Clemens, of Alabama, each of whom took and held high rank as ready and persuasive debaters.
Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, and William H. Seward, of New York, entered the Senate in 1849. The former's advent as a national figure dates from that time, and he maintained his prominence until his death. Sent to the Senate through a coalition of the Free-Soilers and the Democrats in the Ohio Legislature, he served there until 1855, when he was elected governor by a somewhat similar coalition, and two years later re-elected, this time by the Republican
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party. He was again chosen Senator in 1861, but resigned on being appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Lincoln. Chase had in early life been a Democrat, and was the most dis- tinguished accession the free-soil cause had en- listed up to that time. A man of noble pres- ence, rare moral courage, and superb mental endowment, he never spoke without careful preparation, and in debate few could stand against him. Fluent, logical, and incisive, he was always defiant, and often triumphant.
Seward came to the Senate as a Whig and by way of the governorship of his State. He had already won more than local reputation as an orator, and in the field of national politics he at once made his influence felt. No man forestalled him in accurate perception of the drift and goal of the slave power or in an- nouncing what he saw. His utterances on the great issue of the time soon came to be listened to with breathless interest by the whole nation, their dignity, calmness, and cogency giving them a weight which created or changed opinion. At the same time, because he was not only a statesman but a philosopher, and because he knew how to tell the truth, even the whole truth,
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without discourtesy, those who hated his views were compelled to respect the man who held them.
Two days after the election of Cobb as Speaker Taylor transmitted his first and only annual message to Congress. One of the topics with which it dealt was the proposed admission of California as a State. The discovery of gold in that Territory had caused it to receive a large population, mainly from the North, and a convention held at Monterey, in September, 1849, had framed a State constitution expressly prohibiting slavery. Thus, from an unexpected quarter, the dogma of squatter sovereignty re- turned to plague its inventors. The President's recommendation that California should be ad- mitted met with a cool reception from the pro- slavery Democrats and Whigs in Congress, who denounced such admission without the counter- poise of a slave State as a gross violation of the rights of the South. They demanded, in- stead, that California should pass through the territorial stage,-its existing government was a military one,-with non-interference by Con- gress in its domestic institutions; this with the hope that slavery might be ultimately established
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in it. The pro-slavery leaders were also prompted to perceive that the preponderance of the North in the Senate assured by California's admission as a free State would be increased at an early day by the admission of Minnesota, Oregon, and other States in the Northwest, while the chances of offsetting additions in the South were hopeless. Intense excitement pre- vailed all over the slave States, while threats of disunion became ominously frequent and spread alarm throughout the country.
Meantime, on January 29, 1850, Henry Clay, who had lately cancelled his vow of retirement and returned to the Senate, ca ne forward in that body with the third and last of his famous compromises. Clay was now in his seventy- fourth year and in feeble health, but he was still the leader of the Whig party, and, passion- ately devoted to the Union, he conceived it to be his mission to pour oil on the troubled waters and defer, if possible, all further agitation of the slavery question. He, therefore, united all the conflicting demands of the sections in one great scheme of adjustment which had for its basis these propositions: the admission of such new States as might be properly formed out of II .- 6
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Texas; the immediate admission of California with its new constitution; the organization of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah with- out the Wilmot proviso, but with squatter sov- ereignty ; Texas to be indemnified for its losses by war; the abolition of the slave-trade, but not of slavery, in the District of Columbia, and the enactment of a more stringent fugitive slave law.
Clay supported his proposed compromise by a speech occupying two days in its delivery. The Senate chamber and gallery were crowded in anticipation of the event, and when Clay arose in his place he was greeted with an out- burst of applause that the sergeant-at-arms could not suppress for many minutes. When his speech was done, a great throng of admirers rushed forward to thank him and to shake his hand, women kissed him with effusive tears, and the crowd outside greeted him with cheers and followed him to his carriage.
Clay's speech opened a debate memorable for its brilliancy, for the number of historically great men who took part in it, and for the in- tensity of the interest which-it aroused through- out the country. Calhoun, worn and wasted
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by disease, followed Clay, requesting that his friend, Senator Mason, might read some re- marks which he had prepared. The request was, of course, granted, and, while Mason read Calhoun's last despairing plea for that equilib- rium in the Union which would be disturbed by the admission of California, its author sat wrapped in his cloak, his eyes glowing with meteor-like brilliancy, as he glanced at Senators upon whom he desired to have certain passages make an impression. It could no longer be denied, he argued, that the Union was in dan- ger, and that, unless something decisive was done to arrest the existing agitation, the South would be forced to choose between abolition and secession. He demanded, in closing, that the federal Constitution be so amended that the South would have the power through all time "to protect herself;" but he did not explain how this amendment was to be worded.
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Webster followed Calhoun with a complete and, as it proved, profitless surrender to the slave power. Webster had been an eloquent and apparently sincere defender of human liberty ; he had opposed the admission of Texas, because it was linked with the pro-slavery programme,
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and he had complained in the Massachusetts Whig convention of 1847 that the author of the Wilmot proviso had " stolen his thunder." But now, while denouncing secession and plead- ing for the Union in glowing periods, he spoke of slavery in almost apologetic accents, de- nounced the abolitionists as mischievous mar- plots, earnestly advocated the proposed com- promise, and commended that feature of it most odious to Northern sentiment,-the fugitive slave law. Nothing in the famous debate gave so great a shock of surprise as Webster's speech. Many saw in it the treacherous bid of a Presidential candidate for Southern fa- vor. In his own State, where he had been idolized, Webster's stanchest adherents fell away from him with sorrow, and for a time he was refused the privilege of speaking in Faneuil Hall.
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Following Webster's remarkable deliverance, the debate went on for weeks that lengthened into months. During that time Clay, doubtless conscious that the task that he had undertaken would be the last service he would ever have the opportunity to render to his country, was ever on the alert, now delivering a long argu-
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ment, now eloquently replying to other Sena- tors, and again suggesting points to some one who was to speak on his side. Benton, Chase, and Seward led the opposition to the compro- mise, and the Senator last named, in the course of a speech, tens of thousands of copies of which were sent out over the country, enun- ciated his doctrine of "the higher law," by which he was ever afterwards known as one of the foremost champions of the slave.
Blows equally telling were dealt by Benton, who again and again assailed the compromise with argument, ridicule, and contempt, and every sort of weapon he could bring to bear upon it. His truculent egotism had grown with the years, and his impatience of contradiction induced most of the few amusing passages which marked the progress of the debate. On April 17, 1850, Benton occupied the attention of the Senate with a speech to show that the South was really in no danger from the anti-slavery movement, and that her demands for protection were as harmful as they were misleading. This provoked Senator Foote, of Mississippi, into the use of some sarcastic comments in reply. Benton soon manifested signs of excitement,
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and at last sprang to his feet and started towards Foote's desk as if to attack him. Foote, noting Benton's approach, suspended his remarks and retreated to the secretary's desk, where he drew a revolver, cocked it, and stood at bay.
The Senators Dodge, father and son, sought to arrest Benton's progress, but he struggled for- ward, shouting, "Let me pass! Don't stop me ! Let the assassin fire! Only cowards go armed ! I have no weapon ! Let the assassin fire !" While the Vice-President, pounding his table with his mallet, loudly called for order, a num- ber of Senators left their seats, some clustering around Foote and others blocking the passage of Benton, who finally permitted his friends to lead him to his seat, exclaiming as he went, " Let the assassin fire! I scorn to carry weapons!" At the same time Dickinson, of New York, took the revolver from Foote, un- cocked it, and locked it in his desk. Then, to turn the minds of the Senators to other mat- ters, he inquired of the Vice-President what the question was before the Senate. " This is not going to pass off in this way!" shouted Ben- ton, again springing to his feet. "I ask Sena- tors to take immediate action upon what has
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happened. A pistol has been drawn, sir ! It has been aimed at me, sir! I demand the im- mediate action of this body, sir!" Finally, Sena- tor Mangum, to placate the excited Missourian, submitted a resolution appointing a committee to investigate the matter, and here the affair virtually ended.
Though Clay's propositions, divided into three bills, were defeated, all were passed subsequently as separate measures by the coalition of different elements in Congress. But when this result was finally achieved Calhoun had been five months in the grave. The day of his speech upon the compromise he left the Senate never to return, and four weeks later he died. His passing elicited glowing eulogies in both Houses of Congress. Webster's 'remarks to the Senate were signally eloquent and touching, but the most impressive address was that of Clay. "I was his senior in years, but in nothing else," said the great Kentuckian, standing on the brink of his own grave. "According to the course of nature I ought to have preceded him. It had been decreed otherwise; but I know that I shall linger here only a short time, and shall soon follow him."
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On July 9 President Taylor passed away. Five days before, though much run down by hot weather and place-hunters, he had sat in the sun at the Washington Monument during the delivery of two long and tedious orations, and on his return to the White House had par- taken freely of iced milk and cherries. That evening he was seized with violent cramps. This was on Thursday, but he did not consider himself dangerously ill until Sunday, when he said to his attendants, "In two days I shall be a dead man." Eminent physicians hastily summoned could not arrest the fever which supervened, and on Tuesday morning the end came. "You have fought a good fight, but you cannot make a stand," said the dying man to one of the physicians at his bedside. "I have tried to do my duty," he murmured a moment later, and with these words peacefully breathed his last.
For three days following his sudden death the remains of General Taylor lay in state in the East Room of the White House. Then with becoming pomp and ceremony they were escorted to a temporary grave in the Congres- sional Cemetery. An imposing force of regu-
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lars and volunteers, with General Scott at the head, acted as escort, and behind the high and ponderous funeral car was led the dead man's charger, a noble animal which gave no sign of fright when the cannon thundered a farewell salute at the conclusion of the ceremonies. Some time after his death Taylor's remains were removed to Kentucky, where a suitable shaft now marks their final resting-place at St. Matthew's, a suburb of Louisville.
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CHAPTER IV
THE PASSING OF THE WHIGS
T HE solemn tolling of a score of bells an- nounced Taylor's sudden death to the people of Washington. At noon of the follow- ing day, July 10, 1850, Millard Fillmore ap- peared in the Hall of Representatives at the Capitol, where the houses of Congress had met in joint session, and took the oath of office as his successor. The public career of the new President, a white-haired, stalwart man of fifty, with broad, florid features, shrewd gray eyes. and of dignified speech and bearing, had begun with the birth of the Whig party. A wool- carder in his youth, and later a school-teacher and successful lawyer, he first held office as a member of the New York Legislature. He was elected to Congress in 1832 and served there eight years. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Vice-President before the Whig convention of 1844, but in the same year the Whigs nomi- nated him by acclamation for governor of New York. He was defeated at the ensuing election
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by Silas Wright, but three years later he was chosen comptroller of his State, and in 1848 was nominated for Vice-President on the ticket with Taylor, whom he now succeeded.
President Fillmore, while a practising lawyer in Buffalo, had married Abigail Powers, the daughter of a Baptist clergyman of Puritan descent. Mrs. Fillmore, a tall and comely woman, with auburn hair, light-blue eyes, and a fair complexion, had been a teacher before her marriage, and she was always a student. It is to her credit that to her personal needs was due the fact that Congress was induced for the first time to supply books as a part of the furniture of the Executive Mansion. She never aimed to become a social leader,-her health while hostess of the White House was delicate,-but she performed all of the duties devolving upon her with grace and intelligence, and her death, a few weeks after the close of her husband's term, was no doubt hastened by her attention to the onerous requirements of her station.
Washington social life, however, has seldom been more animated and delightful than it was during the portion of Taylor's term which Fill-
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more served out. The President's receptions were always well attended, and so were the occasional entertainments given by Queen Vic- toria's minister, Sir John Crampton, a splendid specimen of the olden English gentleman. There were also frequent dancing-parties at the several hotels, dinners at Boulanger's restaurant, and a constant round of house-gatherings to which those in political sympathy with the host of the evening were invited.
One of the most popular houses in Washing- ton at this period was that of Senator Dickin- son, of New York, whose accomplished wife was acknowledged by all as a social leader, while the proscribed free-soilers met with a hearty welcome at the house of Dr. Bailey, editor of the National Era, whose informal "Saturday evenings" weekly brought together most of the anti-slavery men in Congress. "Seward and Corwin," writes Grace Green- wood, "came occasionally, but oftener Hale and Chase. Giddings, Wilmot, Hamlin, and Julian came also. Some visitors there were who dropped in and dropped out early, as chary of their political reputation. Even brave Horace Greeley, happening in for a twilight chat, would
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be off before the gathering of the clan. No efforts were made to entertain these guests ; they entertained each other. All just talked, fast and free, as they pleased, with no master or mistress of ceremonies to rap on the piano, hush the happy hum, and make afraid."
Varied and brilliant, also, were the public amusements at Washington during the Fill- more Administration. Lola Montez danced to crowded houses ; Parodi sang in concerts; Bur- ton and Brougham were seen in comedy; For- rest appeared in tragedy, and Cushman thrilled the town as Meg Merrilies. Much admired off the stage as well as on was the English actress, Jean Davenport, who a decade later became the wife of General Frederick W. Lander, of the regular army.
But more welcomed than any of these popular favorites was Jenny Lind, who visited Washing- ton in the winter of 1851 and sang in concert to a delighted audience. It chanced that on the day of her appearance several members of the Cabinet and Senate were the guests at dinner of Bodisco, the Russian minister, and the con- cert was half over when Webster and the other members of the party entered the hall. When
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