Such are only a few among a mult.i.tude whose conversation filled up the few evenings we spent at home. Among the pleasantest visits we paid were dinners at the president"s, at the houses of heads of departments, at the British legation, and at the Southern members" congressional mess.
We highly enjoyed our dinings at the British legation, where we felt ourselves at home among our countrymen. Once, indeed, we were invited to help to do the honours as English ladies to the seven Judges of the Supreme Court, and seven great lawyers besides, when we had the merriest day that could well be. Mr. Webster fell chiefly to my share, and there is no merrier man than he; and Judge Story would enliven a dinner-table at Pekin. One laughable peculiarity at the British legation was the confusion of tongues among the servants, who ask you to take fish, flesh, and fowl in Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Irish, or French.
The foreign amba.s.sadors are terribly plagued about servants. No American will wear livery, and there is no reason why any American should. But the British amba.s.sador must have livery servants. He makes what compromise he can, allowing his people to appear without livery out of doors except on state occasions; but yet he is obliged to pick up his domestics from among foreigners who are in want of a subsistence for a short time, and are sure to go away as soon as they can find any employment in which the wearing a livery is not requisite. The woes of this state of things, however, were the portion of the host, not of his guests; and the hearty hospitality with which we were ever greeted by the minister and his attaches, combined with the attractions of the society they brought together, made our visits to them some of the pleasantest hours we pa.s.sed in Washington.
Slight incidents were perpetually showing, in an amusing way, the village-like character of some of the arrangements at Washington. I remember that some of our party went one day to dine at Mr. Secretary Ca.s.s"s, and the rest of us at Mr. Secretary Woodburys". The next morning a lady of the Ca.s.s party asked me whether we had candied oranges at the Woodburys". "No." "Then," said she, "they had candied oranges at the attorney-general"s." "How do you know?" "Oh, as we were on the way, I saw a dish carried; and as we had none at the Ca.s.s"s, I knew they must either be for the Woodburys or the attorney-general." There were candied oranges at the attorney-general"s.
When we became intimate some time afterward with some Southern friends, with whom we now dined at their congressional mess, they gave us an amusing account of the preparations for our dinner. They boarded (from a really self-denying kindness) at a house where the arrangements were of a very inferior kind. Two sessions previous to our being there they had invited a large party of eminent persons to dinner, and had committed the ordering of the arrangements to a gentleman of their mess, advising him to engage a French cook in order to ensure a good dinner. The gentleman engaged a Frenchman, concluding he must be a cook, which, however, he was not; and the dinner turned out so unfortunately, that the mess determined to ask no more dinner-company while they remained in that house. When we arrived, however, it was thought necessary to ask us to dinner. There was little hope that all would go rightly; and the two senators of the mess were laughingly requested, in case of any blunder, to talk nullification as fast as possible to us ladies. This was done so efficaciously, that, when dinner was over, I could not have told a single dish that was on the table, except that a ham stood before me, which we were too full of nullification to attack. Our hosts informed us, long afterward, that it was a bad dinner badly served; but it was no matter.
At the president"s I met a very large party, among whom there was more stiffness than I saw in any other society in America. It was not the fault of the president or his family, but of the way in which the company was unavoidably brought together. With the exception of my party, the name of everybody present began with J, K, or L; that is to say, it consisted of members of Congress, who are invited alphabetically, to ensure none being left out. This principle of selection is not, perhaps, the best for the promotion of ease and sociability; and well as I liked the day, I doubt whether many others could say they enjoyed it. When we went in the president was standing in the middle of the room to receive his guests. After speaking a few words with me, he gave me into the charge of Major Donelson, his secretary, who seated me, and brought up for introduction each guest as he pa.s.sed from before the president. A congressional friend of mine (whose name began with a J) stationed himself behind my chair, and gave me an account of each gentleman who was introduced to me; where he came from, what his politics were, and how, if at all, he had distinguished himself. All this was highly amusing. At dinner the president was quite disposed for conversation. Indeed, he did nothing but talk. His health is poor, and his diet of the sparest. We both talked freely of the governments of England and France; I, novice in American politics as I was, entirely forgetting that the great French question was pending, and that the president and the King of the French were then bandying very hard words. I was most struck and surprised with the president"s complaints of the American Senate, in which there was at that time a small majority against the administration. He told me that I must not judge of the body by what I saw it then, and that after the 4th of March I should behold a Senate more worthy of the country. After the 4th of March there was, if I remember rightly, a majority of two in favour of the government. The ground of his complaint was, that the senators had sacrificed their dignity by disregarding the wishes of their const.i.tuents. The other side of the question is, that the dignity of the Senate is best consulted by its members following their own convictions, declining instructions for the term for which they are elected. It is a serious difficulty, originating in the very construction of the body, and not to be settled by dispute.
The president offered me bonbons for a child belonging to our party at home, and told me how many children (of his nephew"s and his adopted son"s) he had about him, with a mildness and kindliness which contrasted well with his tone upon some public occasions. He did the honours of his house with gentleness and politeness to myself, and, as far as I saw, to every one else. About an hour after dinner he rose, and we led the way into the drawing-room, where the whole company, gentlemen as well as ladies, followed to take coffee; after which every one departed, some homeward, some to make evening calls, and others, among whom were ourselves, to a splendid ball at the other extremity of the city.
General Jackson is extremely tall and thin, with a slight stoop, betokening more weakness than naturally belongs to his years. He has a profusion of stiff gray hair, which gives to his appearance whatever there is of formidable in it. His countenance bears commonly an expression of melancholy gravity; though, when roused, the fire of pa.s.sion flashes from his eyes, and his whole person looks then formidable enough. His mode of speech is slow and quiet, and his phraseology sufficiently betokens that his time has not been pa.s.sed among books. When I was at Washington alb.u.ms were the fashion and the plague of the day. I scarcely ever came home but I found an alb.u.m on my table or requests for autographs; but some ladies went much further than pet.i.tioning a foreigner who might be supposed to have leisure. I have actually seen them stand at the door of the Senate Chamber, and send the doorkeeper with an alb.u.m, and a request to write in it, to Mr. Webster and other eminent members. I have seen them do worse; stand at the door of the Supreme Court, and send in their alb.u.ms to Chief-justice Marshall while he was on the bench hearing pleadings. The poor president was terribly persecuted; and to him it was a real nuisance, as he had no poetical resource but Watts"s hymns. I have seen verses and stanzas of a most ominous purport from Watts, in the president"s very conspicuous handwriting, standing in the midst of the crowquill compliments and translucent charades which are the staple of alb.u.ms. Nothing was done to repress this atrocious impertinence of the ladies. I always declined writing more than name and date; but senators, judges, and statesmen submitted to write gallant nonsense at the request of any woman who would stoop to desire it.
Colonel Johnson, now Vice-president of the United States, sat opposite to me at the president"s dinner-table. This is the gentleman once believed to have killed Tec.u.mseh, and to have written the Report on Sunday Mails, which has been the admiration of society ever since it appeared; but I believe Colonel Johnson is no longer supposed to be the author of either of these deeds. General Mason spoke of him to me at New-York with much friendship, and with strong hope of his becoming president. I heard the idea so ridiculed by members of the federal party afterward, that I concluded General Mason to be in the same case with hundreds more who believe their intimate friends sure of being president. But Colonel Johnson is actually vice-president, and the hope seems reasonable; though the slavery question will probably be the point on which the next election will turn, which may again be to the disadvantage of the colonel. If he should become president, he will be as strange-looking a potentate as ever ruled. His countenance is wild, though with much cleverness in it; his hair wanders all abroad, and he wears no cravat. But there is no telling how he might look if dressed like other people.
I was fortunate enough once to catch a glimpse of the invisible Amos Kendall, one of the most remarkable men in America. He is supposed to be the moving spring of the whole administration; the thinker, planner, and doer; but it is all in the dark. Doc.u.ments are issued of an excellence which prevents their being attributed to persons who take the responsibility of them; a correspondence is kept up all over the country for which no one seems to be answerable; work is done, of goblin extent and with goblin speed, which makes men look about them with a superst.i.tious wonder; and the invisible Amos Kendall has the credit of it all. President Jackson"s Letters to his Cabinet are said to be Kendall"s; the Report on Sunday Mails is attributed to Kendall; the letters sent from Washington to appear in remote country newspapers, whence they are collected and published in the Globe as demonstrations of public opinion, are p.r.o.nounced to be written by Kendall. Every mysterious paragraph in opposition newspapers relates to Kendall; and it is some relief to the timid that his having now the office of postmaster-general affords opportunity for open attacks upon this twilight personage; who is proved, by the faults in the postoffice administration, not to be able to do quite everything well. But he is undoubtedly a great genius. He unites with his "great talent for silence" a splendid audacity. One proof of this I have given elsewhere, in the account of the bold stroke by which he obtained the sanction of the Senate to his appointment as postmaster-general.[11]
Footnote 11: "Society in America," vol i., p. 60.
It is clear that he could not do the work he does (incredible enough in amount any way) if he went into society like other men. He did, however, one evening; I think it was at the attorney-general"s. The moment I went in, intimations reached me from all quarters, amid nods and winks, "Kendall is here:" "That is he." I saw at once that his plea for seclusion (bad health) is no false one. The extreme sallowness of his complexion, and hair of such perfect whiteness as is rarely seen in a man of middle age, testified to disease. His countenance does not help the superst.i.tious to throw off their dread of him. He probably does not desire this superst.i.tion to melt away; for there is no calculating how much influence was given to Jackson"s administration by the universal belief that there was a concealed eye and hand behind the machinery of government, by which everything could be foreseen, and the hardest deeds done. A member of Congress told me this night that he had watched through four sessions for a sight of Kendall, and had never obtained it till now. Kendall was leaning on a chair, with head bent down, and eye glancing up at a member of Congress with whom he was in earnest conversation, and in a few minutes he was gone.
Neither Mr. Clay nor any of his family ever spoke a word to me of Kendall except in his public capacity; but I heard elsewhere and repeatedly the well-known story of the connexion of the two men early in Kendall"s life. Tidings reached Mr. and Mrs. Clay one evening, many years ago, at their house in the neighbourhood of Lexington, Kentucky, that a young man, solitary and poor, lay ill of a fever in the noisy hotel in the town. Mrs. Clay went down in the carriage without delay, and brought the sufferer home to her house, where she nursed him with her own hands till he recovered. Mr. Clay was struck with the talents and knowledge of the young man (Kendall), and retained him as tutor to his sons, heaping benefits upon him with characteristic bounty. Thus far is notorious fact. As to the causes of their separation and enmity, I have not heard Kendall"s side of the question, and therefore say nothing; but go on to the other notorious facts, that Amos Kendall left Mr. Clay"s political party some time after Adams had been, by Mr. Clay"s influence, seated in the presidential chair, and went over to Jackson; since which time he has never ceased his persecutions of Mr. Clay through the newspapers. It was extensively believed, on Mr. Van Buren"s accession, that Kendall would be dismissed from office altogether; and there was much speculation about how the administration would get on without him. But he appears to be still there. Whether he goes or stays, it will probably be soon apparent how much of the conduct of Jackson"s government is attributable to Kendall"s influence over the mind of the late president, as he is hardly likely to stand in the same relation to the present.
I was more vividly impressed with the past and present state of Ireland while I was in America than ever I was at home. Besides being frequently questioned as to what was likely to be done for the relief of her suffering millions--suffering to a degree that it is inconceivable to Americans that freeborn whites should ever be--I met from time to time with refugee Irish gentry, still burning with the injuries they or their fathers sustained in the time of the rebellion. The subject first came up with Judge Porter; and I soon afterward saw, at a country-house where I was calling, the widow of Theobald Wolfe Tone. The poor lady is still full of feelings which amazed me by their bitterness and strength, but which have, indeed, nothing surprising in them to those who know the whole truth of the story of Ireland in those dreadful days. The descendants of "the rebels" cannot be comforted with tidings of anything to be done for their country. Naturally believing that nothing good can come out of England--nothing good for Ireland--they pa.s.sionately ask that their country shall be left to govern herself. With tears and scornful laughter they beg that nothing may be "done for her" by hands that have ravaged her with gibbet, fire, and sword, but that she may be left to whatever hopefulness may yet be smouldering under the ashes of her despair. Such is the representation of Ireland to American minds. It may be imagined what a monument of idiotcy the forcible maintenance of the Church of England in Ireland must appear to American statesmen. "I do not understand this Lord John Russell of yours," said one of the most sagacious of them. "Is he serious in supposing that he can allow a penny of the revenues, a plait of the lawn-sleeves of that Irish Church to be touched, and keep the whole from coming down, in Ireland first, and in England afterward?" We fully agree in the difficulty of supposing Lord John Russell serious. The comparison of various, but, I believe, pretty extensive American opinions about the Church of England yields rather a curious result. No one dreams of the establishment being necessary or being designed for the maintenance of religion; it is seen by Chief-justice Marshall and a host of others to be an inst.i.tution turned to political purposes. Mr. Van Buren, among many, considers that the church has supported the state for many years. Mr. Clay, and a mult.i.tude with him, antic.i.p.ates the speedy fall of the establishment.
The result yielded by all this is a persuasion not very favourable (to use the American phrase) "to the permanence of our inst.i.tutions."
Among our casual visiters at Washington was a gentleman who little thought, as he sat by our fireside, what an adventure was awaiting him among the Virginia woods. If there could have been any antic.i.p.ation of it, I should have taken more notice of him than I did; as it is, I have a very slight recollection of him. He came from Maine, and intended before his return to visit the springs of Virginia, which he did the next summer. It seems that he talked in the stages rashly, and somewhat in a bragging style--in a style, at least, which he was not prepared to support by a harder testimony--about abolitionism. He declared that abolitionism was not so dangerous as people thought; that he avowed it without any fear; that he had frequently attended abolition meetings in the North, and was none the worse for it in the slave states, &c. He finished his visit at the Springs prosperously enough; but, on his return, when he and a companion were in the stage in the midst of the forest, they met at a crossroad--Judge Lynch; that is, a mob with hints of cowhide and tar and feathers. The mob stopped the stage, and asked for the gentleman by name. It was useless to deny his name, but he denied everything else. He denied his being an abolitionist; he denied his having ever attended abolition meetings, and harangued against abolitionism from the door of the stage with so much effect, that the mob allowed the steps to be put up, and the vehicle to drive off, which it did at full speed. It was not long before the mob became again persuaded that this gentleman was a fit object of vengeance, and pursued him; but he was gone as fast as horses could carry him. He did not relax his speed even when out of danger, but fled all the way into Maine. It was not on the shrinking at the moment that one would animadvert so much as on the previous bragging. I have seen and felt enough of what peril from popular hatred is, in this martyr age of the United States, to find it easier to venerate those who can endure than to despise those who flinch from the ultimate trial of their principles; but every instance of the infliction of Lynch punishment should be a lesson to the sincerest and securest to profess no more than they are ready to perform.
One of our mornings was devoted to an examination of the library and curiosities of the State Department, which we found extremely interesting. Our imaginations were whirled over the globe at an extraordinary rate. There were many volumes of original letters of Washington"s and other revolutionary leaders bound up, and ordered to be printed, for security, lest these materials of history should be destroyed by fire or other accident. There were British parliamentary doc.u.ments. There was a series of the Moniteur complete, wherein we found the black list of executions during the reign of terror growing longer every day; also the first mention of Napoleon; the tidings of his escape from Elba; the misty days immediately succeeding, when no telegraphic communication could be made; his arrival at Lyons, and the subsequent silence till the announcement became necessary that the king and princes had departed during the night, and that his majesty the emperor had arrived at his palace of the Tuileries at eight o"clock the next evening. Next we turned to Algerine (French) gazettes, publishing that Mustaphas and such people were made colonels and adjutants. Then we lighted upon the journals of Arnold during the Revolutionary war, and read the postscript of his last letter previous to the accomplishment of his treason, in which he asks for hard cash, on pretence that the French had suffered so much by paper money that he was unwilling to offer them any more. Then we viewed the signatures of treaties, and decreed Metternich"s to be the best; Don Pedro"s the worst for flourish, and Napoleon"s for illegibility. The extraordinary fact was then and there communicated to us that the Americans are fond of Miguel from their dislike of Pedro, but that they hope to "get along" very well with the Queen of Portugal. The treaties with oriental potentates are very magnificent, shining, and unintelligible to the eyes of novices. The presents from potentates to American amba.s.sadors are laid up here; gold snuffboxes set in diamonds, and a glittering array of swords and cimeters. There was one fine Damascus blade, but it seemed too blunt to do any harm. Then we lost ourselves in a large collection of medals and coins--Roman gold coins, with fat old Vespasian and others--from which we were recalled to find ourselves in the extremely modern and democratic United States! It was a very interesting morning.
We took advantage of a mild day to ascend to the skylight of the dome of the Capitol, in order to obtain a view of the surrounding country. The ascent was rather fatiguing, but perfectly safe. The residents at Washington declare the environs to be beautiful in all seasons but early winter, the meadows being gay with a profusion of wild flowers; even as early as February with several kinds of heart"s-ease. It was a particularly cold season when I was there; but on the day of my departure, in the middle of February, the streets were one sheet of ice, and I remember we made a long slide from the steps of our boarding-house to those of the stage. But I believe that that winter was no rule for others. From the summit of the Capitol we saw plainly marked out the basin in which Washington stands, surrounded by hills except where the Potomac spreads its waters. The city was intended to occupy the whole of this basin, and its seven theoretical avenues may be traced; but all except Pennsylvania Avenue are bare and forlorn. A few mean houses dotted about, the sheds of a navy-yard on one bank of the Potomac, and three or four villas on the other, are all the objects that relieve the eye in this s.p.a.ce intended to be so busy and magnificent. The city is a grand mistake. Its only attraction is its being the seat of government, and it is thought that it will not long continue to be so. The far-western states begin to demand a more central seat for Congress, and the Cincinnati people are already speculating upon which of their hills or tablelands is to be the site of the new Capitol. Whenever this change takes place all will be over with Washington; "thorns shall come up in her palaces, and the owl and the raven shall dwell in it," while her sister cities of the east will be still spreading as fast as hands can be found to build them.
There was a funeral of a member of Congress on the 30th of January; the interment of the representative from South Carolina, whose death I mentioned in connexion with Mr. Calhoun. We were glad that we were at Washington at the time, as a congressional funeral is a remarkable spectacle. We went to the Capitol at about half an hour before noon, and found many ladies already seated in the gallery of the Hall of Representatives. I chanced to be placed at the precise point of the gallery where the sounds from every part of the house are concentred; so that I heard the whole service, while I was at such a distance as to command a view of the entire scene. In the chair were the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the Representatives. Below them sat the officiating clergyman; immediately opposite to whom were the president and the heads of departments on one side the coffin, and the judges of the Supreme Court and members of the Senate on the other. The representatives sat in rows behind, each with c.r.a.pe round the left arm; some in black; many in blue coats with bright b.u.t.tons. Some of the fiercest political foes in the country; some who never meet on any other occasion--the president and the South Carolina senators, for instance--now sat knee to knee, necessarily looking into each others"
faces. With a coffin beside them, and such an event awaiting their exit, how out of place was hatred here!
After prayers there was a sermon, in which warning of death was brought home to all, and particularly to the aged; and the vanity of all disturbances of human pa.s.sion when in view of the grave was dwelt upon.
There sat the gray-headed old president, at that time feeble, and looking scarcely able to go through this ceremonial. I saw him apparently listening to the discourse; I saw him rise when it was over, and follow the coffin in his turn, somewhat feebly; I saw him disappear in the doorway, and immediately descended with my party to the Rotundo, in order to behold the departure of the procession for the grave. At the bottom of the stairs a member of Congress met us, pale and trembling, with the news that the president had been twice fired at with a pistol by an a.s.sa.s.sin who had waylaid him in the portico, but that both pistols had missed fire. At this moment the a.s.sa.s.sin rushed into the Rotundo where we were standing, pursued and instantly surrounded by a crowd. I saw his hands and half-bare arms struggling above the heads of the crowd in resistance to being handcuffed. He was presently overpowered, conveyed to a carriage, and taken before a magistrate. The attack threw the old soldier into a tremendous pa.s.sion. He fears nothing, but his temper is not equal to his courage. Instead of his putting the event calmly aside, and proceeding with the business of the hour, it was found necessary to put him into his carriage and take him home.
We feared what the consequences would be. We had little doubt that the a.s.sa.s.sin Lawrence was mad; and as little that, before the day was out, we should hear the crime imputed to more than one political party or individual. And so it was. Before two hours were over, the name of almost every eminent politician was mixed up with that of the poor maniac who caused the uproar. The president"s misconduct on the occasion was the most virulent and protracted. A deadly enmity had long subsisted between General Jackson and Mr. Poindexter, a senator of the United States, which had been much aggravated since General Jackson"s accession by some unwarrantable language which he had publicly used in relation to Mr. Poindexter"s private affairs. There was a prevalent expectation of a duel as soon as the expiration of the president"s term of office should enable his foe to send him a challenge. Under these circ.u.mstances the president thought proper to charge Mr. Poindexter with being the instigator of Lawrence"s attempt. He did this in conversation so frequently and openly, that Mr. Poindexter wrote a letter, brief and manly, stating that he understood this charge was made against him, but that he would not believe it till it was confirmed by the president himself; his not replying to this letter being understood to be such a confirmation. The president showed this letter to visiters at the White House, and did not answer it. He went further; obtaining affidavits (tending to implicate Poindexter) from weak and vile persons whose evidence utterly failed; having personal interviews with these creatures, and openly showing a disposition to hunt his foe to destruction at all hazards. The issue was, that Lawrence was proved to have acted from sheer insanity; Poindexter made a sort of triumphal progress through the states, and an irretrievable stain was left upon President Jackson"s name.
Every one was anxiously antic.i.p.ating the fierce meeting of these foes on the president"s retirement from office, when Mr. Poindexter last year, in a fit either of somnambulism or of delirium from illness, walked out of a chamber window in the middle of the night, and was so much injured that he soon died.
It so happened that we were engaged to a party at Mr. Poindexter"s the very evening of this attack upon the president. There was so tremendous a thunder-storm that our host and hostess were disappointed of almost all their guests except ourselves, and we had difficulty in merely crossing the street, being obliged to have planks laid across the flood which gushed between the carriage and the steps of the door. The conversation naturally turned on the event of the morning. I knew little of the quarrel which was now to be so dreadfully aggravated; but the more I afterward heard, the more I admired the moderation with which Mr.
Poindexter spoke of his foe that night, and as often as I subsequently met him.
I had intended to visit the president the day after the funeral; but I heard so much of his determination to consider the attack a political affair, and I had so little wish to hear it thus treated, against the better knowledge of all the world, that I stayed away as long as I could. Before I went I was positively a.s.sured of Lawrence"s insanity by one of the physicians who were appointed to visit him. One of the poor creature"s complaints was, that General Jackson deprived him of the British crown, to which he was heir. When I did go to the White House, I took the briefest possible notice to the president of the "insane attempt" of Lawrence; but the word roused his ire. He protested, in the presence of many strangers, that there was no insanity in the case. I was silent, of course. He protested that there was a plot, and that the man was a tool, and at length quoted the attorney-general as his authority. It was painful to hear a chief ruler publicly trying to persuade a foreigner that any of his const.i.tuents hated him to the death; and I took the liberty of changing the subject as soon as I could. The next evening I was at the attorney-general"s, and I asked him how he could let himself be quoted as saying that Lawrence was not mad.
He excused himself by saying that he meant general insanity. He believed Lawrence insane in one direction; that it was a sort of Ravaillac case.
I besought him to impress the president with this view of the case as soon as might be.
It would be amusing, if it were possible to furnish a complete set of the rumours, injurious (if they had not been too absurd) to all parties in turn, upon this single and very common act of a madman. One would have thought that no maniac had ever before attacked a chief magistrate.
The act might so easily have remained fruitless! but it was made to bear a full and poisonous crop of folly, wickedness, and wo. I feared on the instant how it would be, and felt that, though the president was safe, it was very bad news. When will it come to be thought possible for politicians to have faith in one another, though they may differ, and to be jealous for their rivals rather than for themselves?
THE CAPITOL.
" ... You have unto the support of a true and natural aristocracy the deepest root of a democracy that hath been planted. Wherefore there is nothing in art or nature better qualified for the result than this a.s.sembly."--HARRINGTON"S _Oceana_.
The places of resort for the stranger in the Capitol are the Library, the Supreme Court, the Senate Chamber, and the Hall of Representatives.
The former library of Congress was burnt by the British in their atrocious attack upon Washington in 1814. Jefferson then offered his, and it was purchased by the nation. It is perpetually increased by annual appropriations. We did not go to the library to read, but amused ourselves for many pleasant hours with the prints and with the fine medals which we found there. I was never tired of the cabinet of Napoleon medals; the most beautifully composed piece of history that I ever studied. There is a cup carved by Benvenuto Cellini, preserved among the curiosities of the Capitol, which might be studied for a week before all the mysteries of its design are apprehended. How it found its way to so remote a resting-place I do not remember.
Judge Story was kind enough to send us notice when any cause was to be argued in the Supreme Court which it was probable we might be able to understand, and we pa.s.sed a few mornings there. The apartment is less fitted for its purposes than any other in the building, the court being badly lighted and ventilated. The windows are at the back of the judges, whose countenances are therefore indistinctly seen, and who sit in their own light. Visiters are usually placed behind the counsel and opposite the judges, or on seats on each side. I was kindly offered the reporter"s chair, in a snug corner, under the judges, and facing the counsel; and there I was able to hear much of the pleadings and to see the remarkable countenances of the attorney-general, Clay, Webster, Porter, and others, in the fullest light that could be had in this dim chamber.
At some moments this court presents a singular spectacle. I have watched the a.s.semblage while the chief-justice was delivering a judgment; the three judges on either hand gazing at him more like learners than a.s.sociates; Webster standing firm as a rock, his large, deep-set eyes wide awake, his lips compressed, and his whole countenance in that intent stillness which easily fixes the eye of the stranger; Clay leaning against the desk in an att.i.tude whose grace contrasts strangely with the slovenly make of his dress, his snuffbox for the moment unopened in his hand, his small gray eye and placid half-smile conveying an expression of pleasure which redeems his face from its usual unaccountable commonness; the attorney-general, his fingers playing among his papers, his quick black eye, and thin tremulous lips for once fixed, his small face, pale with thought, contrasting remarkably with the other two; these men, absorbed in what they are listening to, thinking neither of themselves nor of each other, while they are watched by the groups of idlers and listeners around them; the newspaper corps, the dark Cherokee chiefs, the stragglers from the Far West, the gay ladies in their waving plumes, and the members of either house that have stepped in to listen; all these I have seen at one moment const.i.tute one silent a.s.semblage, while the mild voice of the aged chief-justice sounded through the court.
Every one is aware that the wigs and gowns of counsel are not to be seen in the United States. There was no knowing, when Webster sauntered in, threw himself down, and leaned back against the table, his dreamy eyes seeming to see nothing about him, whether he would by-and-by take up his hat and go away, or whether he would rouse himself suddenly, and stand up to address the judges. For the generality there was no knowing; and to us, who were forewarned, it was amusing to see how the court would fill after the entrance of Webster, and empty when he had gone back to the Senate Chamber. The chief interest to me in Webster"s pleading, and also in his speaking in the Senate, was from seeing one so dreamy and _nonchalant_ roused into strong excitement. It seemed like having a curtain lifted up through which it was impossible to pry; like hearing auto-biographical secrets. Webster is a lover of ease and pleasure, and has an air of the most unaffected indolence and careless self-sufficiency. It is something to see him moved with anxiety and the toil of intellectual conflict; to see his lips tremble, his nostrils expand, the perspiration start upon his brow; to hear his voice vary with emotion, and to watch the expression of laborious thought while he pauses, for minutes together, to consider his notes, and decide upon the arrangement of his argument. These are the moments when it becomes clear that this pleasure-loving man works for his honours and his gains. He seems to have the desire which other remarkable men have shown, to conceal the extent of his toils, and his wish has been favoured by some accidents; some sudden, unexpected call upon him for a display of knowledge and power which has electrified the beholders. But on such occasions he has been able to bring into use acquisitions and exercises intended for other occasions, on which they may or may not have been wanted. No one will suppose that this is said in disparagement of Mr.
Webster. It is only saying that he owes to his own industry what he must otherwise owe to miracle.
What his capacity for toil is was shown, in one instance among many, in an affair of great interest to his own state. On the 7th of April, 1830, the town of Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, was thrown into a state of consternation by the announcement of a horrible murder. Mr. White, a respectable and wealthy citizen of Salem, about eighty years of age, was found murdered in his bed. The circ.u.mstances were such as to indicate that the murder was not for common purposes of plunder, and suspicions arose which made every citizen shudder at the idea of the community in which he lived containing the monsters who would perpetrate such a deed.
A patrol of the citizens was proposed and organized, and none were more zealous in propositions and in patrolling than Joseph and John Knapp, relatives of the murdered man. The conduct of these young men on the occasion exposed them to dislike before any one breathed suspicion.
Several acquaintances of the family paid visits of condolence before the funeral. One of these told me, still with a feeling of horror, how one of the Knapps pulled his sleeve, and asked, in an awkward whisper, whether he would go up stairs and see "the old devil." The old gentleman"s housekeeper had slept out of the house that particular night; a back window had been left unfastened, with a plank placed against it on the outside; and a will of the old gentleman"s (happily a superseded one) was missing. Suspicious circ.u.mstances like these were found soon to have acc.u.mulated so as to justify the arrest of the two Knapps, and of two brothers of the name of Crowninshield. A lawyer was ready with testimony that Joseph Knapp, who had married a grand-niece of Mr. White, had obtained legal information, that if Mr. White died intestate, Knapp"s mother-in-law would succeed to half the property.
Joseph Knapp confessed the whole in prison, and Richard Crowninshield, doubtless the princ.i.p.al a.s.sa.s.sin, destroyed himself. The state prosecutors were in a great difficulty. Without the confession, the evidence was scarcely sufficient; and though Joseph Knapp was promised favour from government if he would repeat his evidence on the side of the prosecution in court, it was not safe, as the event proved, to rely upon this in a case otherwise doubtful. The attorney and solicitor-general of the state were both aged and feeble men; and, as the day of trial drew on, it became more and more doubtful whether they would be equal to the occasion, and whether these ruffians, well understood to be the murderers, would not be let loose upon society again, from bad management of the prosecution. The prosecuting officers of the government were prevailed upon, within three days of the trial, to send to seek out Mr. Webster and request his a.s.sistance.
A citizen of Salem, a friend of mine, was deputed to carry the request.
He went to Boston: Mr. Webster was not there, but at his farm by the seash.o.r.e. Thither, in tremendous weather, my friend followed him. Mr.
Webster was playing checkers with his boy. The old farmer sat by the fire, his wife and two young women were sewing and knitting coa.r.s.e stockings; one of these last, however, being no farmer"s daughter, but Mr. Webster"s bride, for this was shortly after his second marriage. My friend was first dried and refreshed, and then lost no time in mentioning "business." Mr. Webster writhed at the word, saying that he came down hither to get out of hearing of it. He next declared that his undertaking anything more was entirely out of the question, and pointed, in evidence, to his swollen bag of briefs lying in a corner. However, upon a little further explanation and meditation, he agreed to the request with the same good grace with which he afterward went through with his task. He made himself master of all that my friend could communicate, and before daybreak was off through the woods, in the unabated storm, no doubt meditating his speech by the way. He needed all the a.s.sistance that could be given him, of course; and my friend const.i.tuted himself Mr. Webster"s fetcher and carrier of facts for these two days. He says he was never under orders before since his childish days; but in this emergency he was a willing servant, obeying such laconic instructions as "Go there;" "Learn this and that;" "Now go away;" and so forth.
At the appointed hour Mr. Webster was completely ready. His argument is thought one of the finest, in every respect, that he has produced. I read it before I knew anything of the circ.u.mstances which I have related; and I was made acquainted with them in consequence of my inquiry how a man could be hanged on evidence so apparently insufficient as that adduced by the prosecution. Mr. Webster had made all that could be made of it; his argument was ingenious and close, and imbued with moral beauty; but the fact was, as I was a.s.sured, the prisoners were convicted on the ground of the confession of the criminal more than on the evidence adduced by the prosecutors; though the confession could not, after all, be made open use of. The prisoners had such an opinion of the weakness of the case, that Joseph, who had been offered favour by government, refused to testify, and the pledge of the government was withdrawn. Both the Knapps were hanged.
The clearness with which, in this case, a mult.i.tude of minute facts is arranged, and the ingenuity with which a long chain of circ.u.mstantial evidence is drawn out, can be understood only through a reading of the entire argument. Even these are less remarkable than the sympathy by which the pleader seems to have possessed himself of the emotions, the peculiar moral experience, of the quiet, good people of Salem, when thunderstruck with this event. While shut up at his task, Mr. Webster found means to see into the hearts which were throbbing in all the homes about him. "One thing more," said he to my friend, who was taking his leave of him on the eve of the trial. "Do you know of anything remarkable about any of the jury?" My friend had nothing to say, unless it was that the foreman was a man of a remarkably tender conscience. To this we doubtless owe the concluding pa.s.sage of the argument, delivered, as I was told, in a voice and manner less solemn than easy and tranquil.
"Gentlemen--Your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner"s life; but, then, it is to save other lives. If the prisoner"s guilt has been shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such reasonable doubts still remain, you will acquit him. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot presume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless, we would all judge him in mercy. Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.
"With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded.
"A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the seas, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as G.o.d may have given us grace to perform it."
How must the mention of the tremendous "secret" have thrilled through the hearts of citizens who had for weeks been anxiously searching every man"s countenance to find it out. The picture given as from the pleader"s imagination was, as every man knew, derived from the confession of the criminal.
"The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circ.u.mstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held in their soft but strong embrace. The a.s.sa.s.sin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber.
Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges, and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim pa.s.ses, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death!
It is the a.s.sa.s.sin"s purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard. To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! he feels it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished.
The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, pa.s.ses out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no eye has seen him, no ear heard him. The _secret_ is his own, and it is safe! Ah, gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of G.o.d has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendour of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man"s blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circ.u.mstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper, a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circ.u.mstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labours under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it.
The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment which it does not acknowledge to G.o.d or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or a.s.sistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure.
He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarra.s.s him, and the net of circ.u.mstance to entangle him, the fatal _secret_ struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed; it _will be_ confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession."