purpose of expressing popular approval of the President's reconstruction
policy. The crowd marched from the meeting-place to the White House to
congratulate the President upon his successful veto of the Freedmen's
Bureau Bill. The President, called upon to make a speech in response,
could not resist the temptation. He then dealt a blow to himself from
which he never recovered. He spoke, in the egotistic strain usual with
him, of the righteousness of his own course, and then began to inveigh
in the most violent terms against those who opposed him. He denounced
the joint Committee on Reconstruction, the committee headed by
Fessenden, as "an irresponsible central directory" that had assumed the
powers of Congress, described how he had fought the leaders of the
rebellion, and added that there were men on the other side of the line
who also worked for the dissolution of the Union. By this time some of
the uproarious crowd felt that he had descended to their level, and
called for names. He mentioned Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and
Wendell Phillips as men who worked against the fundamental principles of
the government, and excited the boisterous merriment of the audience by
calling John W. Forney, the Secretary of the Senate and a prominent
journalist, "a dead duck" upon whom "he would not waste his ammunition."
Again he spoke of his rise from humble origin,--a tailor who "always
made a close fit,"--and broadly insinuated that there were men in high
places who were not satisfied with Lincoln's blood, but, wanting more,
thought of getting rid of him, too, in the same way.
I remember well the impression made by this speech as it came out in the
newspapers. Many if not most of the public men I saw in Washington,
remembering the disgraceful appearance of Andrew Johnson in a drunken
state at the inauguration, at once expressed a belief that he must have
been in the same condition when delivering that speech. Most of the
newspapers favoring the President's policy were struck dumb. Of those
opposing him, most of them spoke of it in grave but evidently restrained
language. The general feeling was one of profound shame and humiliation
in behalf of the country.
In Congress, where Mr. Stevens, with his characteristic sarcasm,
described the whole story of the President's speech as a malignant
invention of Mr. Johnson's enemies, the hope of preventing a permanent
breach between him and the Republican majority was even then not
entirely extinct. On the 26th of February, Sherman made a long and
carefully prepared speech in the Senate, advocating harmony. He
recounted all the virtues Andrew Johnson professed and all the services
he had rendered, and solemnly affirmed his belief that he had always
acted upon patriotic motives and in good faith. But he could not refrain
from "deeply regretting his speech of the 22d of February," He added
that it was "impossible to conceive a more humiliating spectacle than
the President of the United States invoking the wild passions of a mob
around him with the utterance of such sentiments as he uttered on that
day." Still, Mr. Sherman thought that "this was no time to quarrel with
the Chief Magistrate." Other prominent Republicans, such as General
J. D. Cox of Ohio--one of the noblest men I have ever known,--called
upon him to expostulate with him in a friendly spirit, and he gave them
amiable assurances, which, however, subsequently turned out to have been
without meaning. Then something happened which cut off the last chance
of mutual approach.
On March 13th the House passed the Civil Rights Bill, which the Senate
had already passed on the 2d of February. Its main provision was that
all persons born in the United States, excepting Indians, not taxed,
were declared to be citizens of the United States, and such citizens of
every race and color should have the same right in every State and
Territory of the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be
parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and
convey real and personal property, and to have the full and equal
benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and
property as was enjoyed by white citizens. The bill had nothing to do
with "social equity," and did not in any way interfere with Mr.
Johnson's scheme of reconstruction. In fact, it was asserted, no doubt
truthfully, that Mr. Johnson himself had at various times shown himself,
by word and act, favorable to its provisions. It appeared, indeed, in
every one of its features so reasonable and so necessary for the
enforcement of the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment prohibiting
slavery, that disapproval of it by the President was regarded as almost
impossible. Aside from the merits of the bill, there was another
reason, a reason of policy, for the President to sign it. Had he done
so, he would have greatly encouraged the conciliatory spirit which, in
spite of all that had happened, was still flickering in many Republican
bosoms, and he might thus, even at this late hour, have secured an
effective following among the Republicans in Congress. But he did not.
He returned the bill to Congress with a veto message so weak in argument
that it appeared as if he had been laboriously groping for pretexts to
kill the bill. One of the principal reasons he gave was again the
sinister one that Congress had passed the bill while eleven States were
unrepresented, thus repeating the threatening hint that the validity of
the laws made by such a Congress might be questioned.
_False Encouragement to the South_
Congress promptly passed the bill over the President's veto by a
two-thirds majority in each House, and thus the Civil Rights Bill became
a law. President Johnson's defeat was more fatal than appeared on the
surface. The prestige he had won by the success of his veto of the
Freedmen's Bureau Bill was lost again. The Republicans, whom in some way
he had led to expect that he would sign the Civil Rights Bill, now
believed him to be an insincere man capable of any treachery. The last
chance of an accommodation with the Republican party was now utterly
gone. But, worse than all, the reactionists in the South, who were bent
upon curtailing the freedom of the emancipated negroes as much as
possible, received his veto of the Civil Rights Bill with shouts of
delight. Believing him now unalterably opposed to the bestowal, upon the
freedmen, of equal civil rights such as were specified in the bill, they
hailed President Johnson as their champion more loudly than ever.
Undisturbed by the defeat of the veto, which they looked upon as a mere
temporary accident, they easily persuaded themselves that the President,
aided by the Administration Republicans and the Democratic party at the
North, would at last surely prevail, and that now they might safely deal
with the negro and the labor question in the South as they pleased. The
reactionary element felt itself encouraged to the point of foolhardiness
by the President's attitude. Legislative enactments and municipal
ordinances and regulations tending to reduce the colored people to a
state of semi-slavery multiplied at a lively rate. Measures taken for
the protection of the emancipated slaves were indiscriminately denounced
in the name of the Constitution of the United States as acts of
insufferable tyranny. The instant admission to seats in the national
Congress of senators and representatives from the "States lately in
rebellion" was loudly demanded as a constitutional right, and for these
seats men were presented who but yesterday had stood in arms against the
national government, or who had held high place in the insurrectionary
Confederacy. And the highest authority cited for all these denunciations
and demands was Andrew Johnson, President of the United States.
The impression made by these things upon the minds of the Northern
people can easily be imagined. Men of sober ways of thinking, not
accessible to sensational appeals, asked themselves quite seriously
whether there was not real danger that the legitimate results of the
war, for the achievement of which they had sacrificed uncounted
thousands of lives and the fruits of many, many years of labor, were in
grave jeopardy again. Their alarm was not artificially produced by
political agitation; it was sincere and profound, and began to grow
angry. The gradual softening of the passions and resentments of the war
was checked. The feeling that the Union had to be saved once more from
the rule of the "rebels with the President at their head" spread with
fearful rapidity, and well-meaning people looking to Congress to come to
the rescue were becoming less and less squeamish as to the character of
the means to be used to that end.
This popular temper could not fail to exercise its influence upon
Congress and to stimulate the radical tendencies among its members. Even
men of a comparatively conservative and cautious disposition admitted
that strong remedies were necessary to avert the threatening danger, and
they soon turned to the most drastic as the best. Moreover, the partizan
motive pressed to the front to reinforce the patriotic purpose. It had
gradually become evident that President Johnson, whether such had been
his original design or not,--probably not,--would by his political
course be led into the Democratic party. The Democrats, delighted, of
course, with the prospect of capturing a President elected by the
Republicans, zealously supported his measures and flattered his vanity
without stint. The old alliance between the pro-slavery sentiment in the
South and the Democratic party in the North was thus revived--that
alliance which had already cost the South so dearly in the recent past
by making Southern people believe that if they revolted against the
Federal Government the Northern Democracy would stand by them and help
them to victory.
THE JULY INSTALMENT OF CARL SCHURZ' MEMOIRS WILL CONCLUDE THE STORY
OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S STRUGGLE WITH CONGRESS
[Illustration]
THE CRYSTAL-GAZER
BY MARY S. WATTS
AUTHOR OF "THE GREAT NORTH ROAD," ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK A. NANKIVELL
The carrier's cart--for my means afforded no more lordly style of
travel--set me down at an elbow of white highroad, whence, between the
sloping hills, I could see a V-shaped patch of blue, this half water and
that sky; here and there the gable of a farmhouse with a plume of smoke
streaming sidewise; and below me, in the exact point of the V, the masts
and naked yards of a ketch at her moorings. Even in that sheltered
harbor, to judge by the faint oscillations of her masts, she felt the
tug of the waters around her keel. There had been a storm the night
before; without, the sea ran strong about all these exposed coasts; and
I knew that, hidden from sight behind the upper headland, the surf must
be bursting in a cloud over the Brown Cow, and the perturbed tide
setting like a mill-race between that great dun rock and the shore
through the narrow gut we called the Cat's Mouth.
"You'll be noticing some changes, Mr. Nick?" the carrier hinted at last,
lingering to observe me. "Well, there's a deal may happen in two or
three years. You can't look to find things just the way you left 'em."
He used a certain respectful familiarity, having known me all my life,
and, as he spoke, eyed me with the kind and open curiosity of a dog. He
was a gentle little man, with a manner oddly compounded of the sailor's
simplicity and the rustic's bootless cunning,--for he had followed both
walks in his day,--and was popularly held to be somewhat weak-witted
since a fall from the masthead to the decks of the brig _Hyperion_ some
years before.
"I am not near enough to see any changes yet, Crump," I answered him.
"The changes, if any, show most, I dare say, in myself."
"So they do, sir; so they do," he assented heartily. "My wife used to
say you were a pretty boy, and had the makings of a fine, personable
man. First thing I thought, when I clapped eyes on you to-day, was:
'Well, this here's a lesson to Sarah not to be hasty in her judgments!'
'Tain't often I get the better o' Sarah, you know, sir. They tell me
you've been in Italy and learned to paint?"
"I'm afraid I haven't quite learned all the art yet, Crump. It takes
more than two or three years."
"Depends on the person, I shouldn't wonder," he said, wagging his head.
"Some people are slow by nature. Could a man make his living by it, d'ye
think, sir?"
I answered this devious inquiry as to my own financial standing by
assuring him that I had contrived so far to make mine. "I'm not riding
in my coach-and-four yet, as you see, Crump, but the time may come."
"I'm sure I hope it will, Mr. Nick," he said rather dubiously. "But it's
kind o' tempting Providence, seems to me. You might 'a' been walking
your own quarter-deck, captain o' some tall East Indiaman by this, like
your father and grandfather before you, making a safe, easy living, and
looked up to by everybody."
I interrupted his moralizing to ask, as, indeed, I had already done more
than once, without being able to get his attention: "How does my
grandfather seem?"
Momentary gravity fell upon him. "He--he don't always answer the helm,
Mr. Nicol," he said, and touched his forehead with a meaning look.
"Barring that, I'd rate him seaworthy, for all he's cruised so
long--nigh eighty year, ain't it?"
"I'm glad I came home," I said, concerned. "The old man should not be
alone."
"He ain't exactly alone," said Crump, with an uneasy glance into my
face. "He's signed on two new hands here lately--about a month ago, I
b'lieve. I dessay he was making pretty heavy weather of it by himself,
and so he--er--well----" He cleared his throat, hesitating in an odd
embarrassment; he plainly felt that here was information bound to be
distasteful, and set about imparting it with a painful diplomacy. "The
cap'n--Cap'n Pendarves, your grandfather, sir, was, as you might say,
short-handed, you being in foreign parts, and old John Behenna having
slipped his cable 'long about the last o' May, as I was telling you; and
so the cap'n he ups and ships these here--and--and, in fac', Mr. Nick,
one of 'em's a woman!" He drew a long breath and wiped his forehead.
"You don't mean he's married!" I shouted, and with, I am afraid, a
pretty strong term of disapproval.
"There, now, I _thought_ you'd take it that way!" Crump remarked, not
without gratification. "But it ain't so bad as that, Mr. Nicol." And he
went on to explain, with a variety of nautical metaphors, that the
couple, an elderly man and a young girl supposedly his grandchild, had
appeared in Chepstow some weeks ago during fair-time; that the young
woman "took observations," which I translated to mean that she told
fortunes, supporting them both, it would seem, by the pennies she gained
this way, for the man did no work, and was most often seen "hove to,
transhipping cargo," at the bar of the Three Old Cronies or elsewhere,
Crump said. He did not know how or when or where my grandfather had
first fallen in with these vagabonds. For several successive days he had
been noticed in their company, or laying a straight course for the
little booth wherein the girl plied her mean trade; and then, all at
once, to the stupefied astonishment of Chepstow,--where the captain was
reckoned, with reason, a particularly hard, sour, dour sort of body,
anything but friendly or hospitable,--the pair of them were discovered
comfortably installed beneath the Pendarves' roof, as snug as if they
had lived there all their lives and never meant to go away! The thing
was a mystery; it went near to being a scandal. For a final touch, Crump
assured me that these precious gentry were all but nameless; no one had
ever heard the woman called anything, and the man's name defied
pronunciation.
Upon all this agreeable intelligence, we parted, as Crump's way was by
the round-about hill road, while I struck straight across by short cuts
to my grandfathers house. If I had been content to loiter on the path
heretofore, no amount of haste could satisfy me now. I doubt if any
honest artist lad returning to the place of his birth after three years'
absence ever met a grayer welcome. I had left my grandfather unimpaired,
and it was well-nigh impossible to figure that harsh and domineering
spirit in decay. Abram Pendarves belonged to the ancient hearty, savage
race of British sea-captains, now fast waning to extinction. After a
youth of wild and black adventure under the rule of just such salt-water
despots as he himself became, he had spent some two score years
practising the tyrannies and what one may call the brutal virtues he had
learned on every sea and beneath every sky this planet owns; then came
at last to settle down in the storm-beaten house on the cliffs by
Chepstow (the house his father's father had built), whence he could see
the surf whiten on the rocks and gulls forever circling about the Brown
Cow. His was a narrow and surly old age, not overwell provided, for he
had never been a thrifty man; and he found among the rattletrap
furnishings of his neglected home one living chattel quite as
worthless--a weird, lean goblin of a boy, his sole descendant,
fatherless and motherless, playing lonely little games in corners,
making crass drawings with a charred stick on the walls, and viewing the
blossoming orchards of spring with a crazy delight in color. I fear
there was not much affection between this ill-matched couple. For long
years I saw in my grandfather only a coarse, violent old man, niggardly
and censorious. And to him there was doubtless something unwholesome
and repellent in the most innocent of my tastes; I could not even sin
roundly, like other boys, by pilfering or truantry, but must display an
exotic passion for reading forbidden books, an abhorred dexterity at
caricature. I think we were equally headstrong and unreasonable, I in my
young way, he in his old one; and as I trudged along the quiet homeward
paths, it shamed me to remember with what hard words we had parted.
II
The sun was going down as I conquered the last steep rise toward my
grandfather's gate. Hereabouts a pair of steps had been cut into the
cliff and a hand-rail erected to help the visitor against the wind,
coming, as it so often did, in flaws of extraordinary force and fury
around the headland. From this high point a great expanse of ocean
filled the eye, and the ceaseless, uneasy rumor of water assailed one
even in the fairest weather. There was always a thin run of surf about
the base of the Brown Cow and among those narrow conical rocks which,
set in a rough crescent near the lower end of the Cat's Mouth, had not
inaptly been named the Cat's Teeth.
[Illustration: "'YOU DIDN'T SEE THE SIGN, I SUPPOSE?'"]
The path followed the edge of the cliff on the hither side of a stone
wall, behind which some few experienced old apple-trees bent and
flattened themselves into strange, tortuous shapes to escape the winds.
The inclosure went by the name of orchard, though it was in truth little
else than a wild jungle of weeds and rubbish; but one tree in the most
sheltered corner yearly made a conscientious effort to supply us with a
bushel or so of pippins, and adventurous Chepstow urchins as regularly
defeated the hope. I purposed to shorten my road by crossing here; and
so, finding a toe-rest in certain familiar crannies of the masonry,
clambered easily to the top of the wall, and paused there a moment,
astride of the coping, to put aside the branches and take a distant view
of the forlorn pile of ruins I called home. It was a dreary place; its
roofs sagged, its chimneys leaned at perilous slants. Yet my heart
warmed to the sight of it. I took hold of the stoutest bough to swing me
to the ground, when----
"Don't touch those apples, young man!" said somebody sharply.
I was so startled as nearly to lose my hold, and came down with a run
and hands well scored on the rough bark. There I stood, knee-high in
rank undergrowth, staring all about in a surprise that must have been
not a little ludicrous, for the voice uttered a short cicada-chirrup of
laughter, shrill and sweet.
"Here I am. What bats men are!" it said.
I looked. She was standing almost immediately beneath the place where I
had climbed over; my boot must have grazed her. She was what old women
call a slip of a girl, in a cotton gown, white, figured with fine sprigs
of green sadly faded, for it was not new. The wind whipped her red hair
into her eyes. Her face was very much freckled; properly speaking, it
was one freckle from brow to chin. She wore, besides, as I remember, a
little muslin tucker (I think the garment is so named) and a little
frilled muslin apron; and these articles, together with her old print
frock, were washed, starched, and ironed to a degree it hath not entered
into the mind of man to conceive. I took off my hat; and something about
this young woman moved me thereafter hastily to adjust my cravat and
shirt-ruffle. I believe these signs of perturbation (which were entirely
genuine) pleased her in some subtle way, like a tribute, for she stopped
to inquire: "You want to cut through here to the highroad? I'm very
sorry, but I really cannot allow it. I've had a great deal of trouble
keeping the village boys away from this tree. These are fine apples and
good winter keepers--that is, I think they are----" she added a little
tentatively, searching my face. "You didn't see the sign, I suppose?"
I followed her gesture and beheld, nailed aloft on the stub of a dead
tree, a square of white planking whereon was neatly lettered the legend:
NO TRESPASSING UNDER PENALTY OF
THE LAW
ABRAM AND NICOL PENDARVES, PROPRIETORS
PER MARY SMITH
"I did it myself with a red-hot poker," she said proudly.
I gazed from her to the sign-board, all but speechless. "It's very well
done," I managed to get out at last.
"Yes, isn't it? But, somehow, it doesn't keep the boys from coming.
They're not at all law-abiding. I don't think they've been very well
brought up. And then, of course, they're not accustomed to seeing any
one in charge here." She looked around, and smoothed her apron with the
most astonishing little air of resource and command. "I saw a bill with
the names at the bottom that way, and per So-and-So below, so I copied
it," she continued, surveying her handiwork fondly.
"Ah? You are Miss Mary Smith?"
"Yes." And now she looked at me, and away again, with a strange and
sudden flush. "Yes, _Smith_. That's--that's a very good name, _I_
think." There was a kind of tremulous defiance in her tone, as if she
half expected me to question it.
"I've heard it before, I believe," said I stupidly--for, in fact, I had
scarcely yet got myself together. "You live here?"
She nodded, with a perplexed and inquiring eye on me. "I'm Captain
Pendarves' housekeeper," she said, with a prim and bridling air, and
once more her expression challenged me. "Deny it if you can, sir!" was
evidently her unspoken thought.
"And how long has my--ahem!--has Captain Pendarves been employing you,
may I ask?" I said, wondering that Crump had not prepared me for this as
for the other changes.
"Young man," said Mary Smith severely, "I have no time to stand here
answering idle questions. If you want to see Captain Pendarves, I will
speak to him; but if not, I really think you had better be getting on,
for it's late."
"I was thinking of stopping awhile," said I humbly, "with my
grandfather. You see, I'm Nicol Pendarves."
Had I said, "I am the Prince of Darkness," the announcement could not
have wrought a more appalling change in her. She fell back a step,
putting out one faltering hand to the wall for support. Her small
bullying mien vanished like a garment twitched from her shoulders by
unseen magic. Her face blanched piteously; terror looked from her eyes.
"Oh, I was afraid of this!" she gasped, in a voice that went to the
heart. "Sir, I--I--meant no harm!"
"Harm!" said I, both touched and puzzled. "Why, you've done none. There
is no need for excuses. I never saw a better steward; you did not know
me, and you were within your rights to send me about my business."
"Sir," she said, still in a tremble, "I have done no wrong. You will
find everything just as you left it."
"I shall find everything in a good deal better case, judging by what
I've seen already, I think," said I heartily. "How long have you been
here?"
"Four weeks--next Wednesday," she answered nervously.
"Then," said I, "maybe you can tell me something about the drift of
things here. For--not to boggle about it--I am in some uneasiness, Miss
Smith. These people--this man and woman who I hear have settled
themselves upon Captain Pendarves of late--who are they? what are they?"