to me at the president's dinner-table. This is the gentleman once
believed to have killed Tecumseh, 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. Documents 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
superstitious 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 pronounced 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 superstitious to throw off their dread of him. He probably does not
desire this superstition 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 passionately 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 institution
turned to political purposes. Mr. Van Buren, among many, considers that
the church has supported the state for many years. Mr. Clay, and a
multitude with him, anticipates 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 institutions."
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 anticipation 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
documents. 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 ambassadors 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 space 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 crape round the left arm;
some in black; many in blue coats with bright buttons. 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 passion 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 assassin who had waylaid him in the portico, but that both pistols
had missed fire. At this moment the assassin 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 passion. 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
assassin 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 circumstances 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 anticipating 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 assured 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 constituents 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 assembly."--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 passed 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.