CONGRESS.
In the interior of the Capitol much space is at present wasted, but
this arises from the fact of great additions to the original plan
having been made. The two chambers,--that of the Senate and of the
Representatives, are in the two new wings, on the middle, or what we
call the first-floor. The entrance is made under a dome, to a large
circular hall, which is hung around with surely the worst pictures by
which a nation ever sought to glorify its own deeds. There are yards
of paintings at Versailles which are bad enough; but there is nothing
at Versailles comparable in villany to the huge daubs which are
preserved in this hall at the Capitol. It is strange that even
self-laudatory patriotism should desire the perpetuation of such
rubbish. When I was there the new dome was still in progress, and an
ugly column of woodwork, required for internal support and affording
a staircase to the top, stood in this hall. This of course was a
temporary and necessary evil; but even this was hung around with the
vilest of portraits.
From the hall, turning to the left, if the entrance be made at the
front door, one goes to the new Chamber of Representatives, passing
through that which was the old chamber. This is now dedicated to the
exposition of various new figures by Crawford, and to the sale of
tarts and gingerbread,--of very bad tarts and gingerbread. Let that
old woman look to it, or let the House dismiss her. In fact this
chamber is now but a vestibule to a passage, a second hall as it
were, and thus thrown away. Changes probably will be made which will
bring it into some use, or some scheme of ornamentation. From this
a passage runs to the Representative Chamber, passing between those
tell-tale windows, which, looking to the right and left, proclaim the
tenuity of the building. The windows on one side, that looking to the
east or front, should, I think, be closed. The appearance, both from
the inside and from the outside, would be thus improved.
The Representative Chamber itself--which of course answers to our
House of Commons--is a handsome, commodious room, admirably fitted
for the purposes required. It strikes one as rather low, but I doubt
if it were higher whether it would be better adapted for hearing.
Even at present it is not perfect in this respect as regards the
listeners in the gallery. It is a handsome, long chamber, lighted by
skylights from the roof, and is amply large enough for the number to
be accommodated. The Speaker sits opposite to the chief entrance,
his desk being fixed against the opposite wall. He is thus brought
nearer to the body of the men before him than is the case with our
Speaker. He sits at a marble table, and the clerks below him are also
accommodated with marble. Every representative has his own arm-chair,
and his own desk before it. This may be done for a house consisting
of about 240 members, but could hardly be contrived with us. These
desks are arranged in a semicircular form, or in a broad horseshoe,
and every member as he sits faces the Speaker. A score or so of
little boys are always running about the floor, ministering to the
members' wishes, carrying up petitions to the chair, bringing water
to long-winded legislators, delivering and carrying out letters, and
running with general messages. They do not seem to interrupt the
course of business, and yet they are the liveliest little boys I
ever saw. When a member claps his hands, indicating a desire for
attendance, three or four will jockey for the honour. On the whole,
I thought the little boys had a good time of it.
But not so the Speaker. It seemed to me that the amount of work
falling upon the Speaker's shoulders was cruelly heavy. His voice was
always ringing in my ears, exactly as does the voice of the croupier
at a gambling-table who goes on declaring and explaining the results
of the game, and who generally does so in sharp, loud, ringing
tones, from which all interest in the proceeding itself seems
to be excluded. It was just so with the Speaker in the House of
Representatives. The debate was always full of interruptions; but
on every interruption the Speaker asked the gentleman interrupted
whether he would consent to be so treated. "The gentleman from
Indiana has the floor." "The gentleman from Ohio wishes to ask the
gentleman from Indiana a question." "The gentleman from Indiana gives
permission." "The gentleman from Ohio!"--these last words being a
summons to him of Ohio to get up and ask his question. "The gentleman
from Pennsylvania rises to order." "The gentleman from Pennsylvania
is in order." And then the House seems always to be voting, and the
Speaker is always putting the question. "The gentlemen who agree to
the amendment will say, Ay." Not a sound is heard. "The gentlemen who
oppose the amendment will say, No." Again not a sound. "The Ayes have
it," says the Speaker, and then he goes on again. All this he does
with amazing rapidity, and is always at it with the same hard, quick,
ringing, uninterested voice. The gentleman whom I saw in the chair
was very clever, and quite up to the task. But as for dignity--!
Perhaps it might be found that any great accession of dignity would
impede the celerity of the work to be done, and that a closer copy of
the British model might not on the whole increase the efficiency of
the American machine.
When any matter of real interest occasioned a vote, the ayes and noes
would be given aloud; and then, if there were a doubt arising from
the volume of sound, the Speaker would declare that the "ayes" or the
"noes" would seem to have it! And upon this a poll would be demanded.
In such cases the Speaker calls on two members, who come forth
and stand fronting each other before the chair, making a gangway.
Through this the ayes walk like sheep, the tellers giving them an
accelerating poke when they fail to go on with rapidity. Thus they
are counted, and the noes are counted in the same way. It seemed
to me that it would be very possible in a dishonest legislator to
vote twice on any subject of great interest; but it may perhaps be
the case that there are no dishonest legislators in the House of
Representatives.
According to a list which I obtained, the present number of members
is 173, and there are 63 vacancies occasioned by secession. New
York returns 33 members, Pennsylvania 25, Ohio 21, Virginia 13,
Massachusetts and Indiana 11, Tennessee and Kentucky 10, South
Carolina 6, and so on, till Delaware, Kansas, and Florida return only
1 each. When the constitution was framed, Pennsylvania returned 8,
and New York only 6; whereas Virginia returned 10, and South Carolina
5. From which may be gathered the relative rate of increase in
population of the Free-soil States and the Slave States. All these
States return two senators each to the other House, Kansas sending
as many as New York. The work in the House begins at 12 noon, and is
not often carried on late into the evening. Indeed this, I think, is
never done till towards the end of the session.
The Senate House is in the opposite wing of the building, the
position of the one house answering exactly to that of the other.
It is somewhat smaller, but is, as a matter of course, much less
crowded. There are 34 States, and therefore 68 seats and 68 desks
only are required. These also are arranged in a horse-shoe form,
and face the President; but there was a sad array of empty chairs
when I was in Washington, nineteen or twenty seats being vacant in
consequence of secession. In this house the Vice-President of the
United States acts as President, but has by no means so hard a job
of work as his brother on the other side of the way. Mr. Hannibal
Hamlin, from Maine, now fills this chair. I was driven, while in
Washington, to observe something amounting almost to a peculiarity in
the Christian names of the gentlemen who were then administrating the
Government of the country. Mr. Abraham Lincoln was the President, Mr.
Hannibal Hamlin the Vice-President, Mr. Galusha Grow the Speaker of
the Representatives, Mr. Salmon Chase the Secretary of the Treasury,
Mr. Caleb Smith the Attorney-General, Mr. Simon Cameron the Secretary
at War, and Mr. Gideon Welles the Secretary of the Navy.
In the Senate House, as in the other house, there are very commodious
galleries for strangers, running round the entire chambers, and these
galleries are open to all the world. As with all such places in the
States, a large portion of them is appropriated to ladies. But I came
at last to find that the word lady signified a female or a decently
dressed man. Any arrangement for classes is in America impossible;
the seats intended for gentlemen must as a matter of course be open
to all men; but by giving up to the rougher sex half the amount of
accommodation nominally devoted to ladies, the desirable division
is to a certain extent made. I generally found that I could obtain
admittance to the ladies' gallery if my coat were decent and I had
gloves with me.
All the adjuncts of both these chambers are rich and in good keeping.
The staircases are of marble, and the outside passages and lobbies
are noble in size and in every way convenient. One knows well the
trouble of getting into the House of Lords and House of Commons, and
the want of comfort which attends one there; and an Englishman cannot
fail to make comparisons injurious to his own country. It would not,
perhaps, be possible to welcome all the world in London as is done in
Washington, but there can be no good reason why the space given to
the public with us should not equal that given in Washington. But, so
far are we from sheltering the public, that we have made our House of
Commons so small, that it will not even hold all its own members.
I had an opportunity of being present at one of their field-days
in the Senate. Slidell and Mason had just then been sent from Fort
Warren across to England in the Rinaldo. And here I may as well say
what further there is for me to say about those two heroes. I was in
Boston when they were taken, and all Boston was then full of them. I
was at Washington when they were surrendered, and at Washington for
a time their names were the only household words in vogue. To me it
had, from the first, been a matter of certainty that England would
demand the restitution of the men. I had never attempted to argue the
matter on the legal points, but I felt, as though by instinct, that
it would be so. First of all there reached us, by telegram, from Cape
Race, rumours of what the press in England was saying;--rumours of a
meeting in Liverpool, and rumours of the feeling in London. And then
the papers followed, and we got our private letters. It was some days
before we knew what was actually the demand made by Lord Palmerston's
cabinet; and during this time, through the five or six days which
were thus passed, it was clear to be seen that the American feeling
was undergoing a great change--or if not the feeling, at any rate the
purpose. Men now talked of surrendering these Commissioners as though
it were a line of conduct which Mr. Seward might find convenient; and
then men went further, and said that Mr. Seward would find any other
line of conduct very inconvenient. The newspapers, one after another,
came round. That, under all the circumstances, the States Government
behaved well in the matter no one, I think, can deny; but the
newspapers, taken as a whole, were not very consistent and, I think,
not very dignified. They had declared with throats of brass that
these men should never be surrendered to perfidious Albion; but when
it came to be understood that in all probability they would be so
surrendered, they veered round without an excuse, and spoke of their
surrender as of a thing of course. And thus, in the course of about a
week, the whole current of men's minds was turned. For myself, on my
first arrival at Washington, I felt certain that there would be war,
and was preparing myself for a quick return to England; but from the
moment that the first whisper of England's message reached us, and
that I began to hear how it was received and what men said about it,
I knew that I need not hurry myself. One met a minister here, and a
senator there, and anon some wise diplomatic functionary. By none of
these grave men would any secret be divulged; none of them had any
secret ready for divulging. But it was to be read in every look of
the eye, in every touch of the hand, and in every fall of the foot of
each of them, that Mason and Slidell would go to England.
Then we had, in all the fulness of diplomatic language, Lord
Russell's demand and Mr. Seward's answer. Lord Russell's demand was
worded in language so mild, was so devoid of threat, was so free
from anger, that at the first reading it seemed to ask for nothing.
It almost disappointed by its mildness. Mr. Seward's reply, on the
other hand, by its length of argumentation, by a certain sharpness of
diction to which that gentleman is addicted in his State papers, and
by a tone of satisfaction inherent through it all, seemed to demand
more than he conceded. But, in truth, Lord Russell had demanded
everything, and the United States Government had conceded everything.
I have said that the American Government behaved well in its mode
of giving the men up, and I think that so much should be allowed to
them on a review of the whole affair. That Captain Wilkes had no
instructions to seize the two men is a known fact. He did seize them
and brought them into Boston harbour, to the great delight of his
countrymen. This delight I could understand, though of course I did
not share it. One of these men had been the parent of the Fugitive
Slave Law; the other had been great in fostering the success of
filibustering. Both of them were hot secessionists, and undoubtedly
rebels. No two men on the continent were more grievous by their
antecedents and present characters to all northern feeling. It is
impossible to deny that they were rebels against the Government of
their country. That Captain Wilkes was not on this account justified
in seizing them is now a matter of history, but that the people of
the loyal States should rejoice in their seizure was a matter of
course. Wilkes was received with an ovation, which as regarded him
was ill-judged and undeserved, but which in its spirit was natural.
Had the President's Government at that moment disowned the deed
done by Wilkes, and declared its intention of giving up the men
unasked, the clamour raised would have been very great, and perhaps
successful. We were told that the American lawyers were against
their doing so; and indeed there was such a shout of triumph that no
ministry in a country so democratic could have ventured to go at once
against it, and to do so without any external pressure.
Then came the one ministerial blunder. The President put forth his
message, in which he was cunningly silent on the Slidell and Mason
affair; but to his message was appended, according to custom, the
report from Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. In this report
approval was expressed of the deed done by Captain Wilkes. Captain
Wilkes was thus in all respects indemnified, and the blame, if any,
was taken from his shoulders and put on to the shoulders of that
officer who was responsible for the Secretary's letter. It is true
that in that letter the Secretary declared that in case of any future
seizure the vessel seized must be taken into port, and so declared
in animadverting on the fact that Captain Wilkes had not brought the
"Trent" into port. But, nevertheless, Secretary Welles approved of
Captain Wilkes's conduct. He allowed the reasons to be good which
Wilkes had put forward for leaving the ship, and in all respects
indemnified the captain. Then the responsibility shifted itself to
Secretary Welles; but I think it must be clear that the President, in
sending forward that report, took that responsibility upon himself.
That he is not bound to send forward the reports of his Secretaries
as he receives them;--that he can disapprove them and require
alteration, was proved at the very time by the fact that he had in
this way condemned Secretary Cameron's report, and caused a portion
of it to be omitted. Secretary Cameron had unfortunately allowed his
entire report to be printed, and it appeared in a New York paper.
It contained a recommendation with reference to the slave question
most offensive to a part of the Cabinet, and to the majority of Mr.
Lincoln's party. This, by order of the President, was omitted in the
official way. It was certainly a pity that Mr. Welles's paragraph
respecting the "Trent" was not omitted also. The President was dumb
on the matter, and that being so the Secretary should have been dumb
also.
But when the demand was made the States Government yielded at once,
and yielded without bluster. I cannot say I much admired Mr. Seward's
long letter. It was full of smart special pleading, and savoured
strongly, as Mr. Seward's productions always do, of the personal
author. Mr. Seward was making an effort to place a great State paper
on record, but the _ars celare artem_ was altogether wanting; and,
if I am not mistaken, he was without the art itself. I think he left
the matter very much where he found it. The men however were to be
surrendered, and the good policy consisted in this,--that no delay
was sought, no diplomatic ambiguities were put into request. It was
the opinion of very many that some two or three months might be
gained by correspondence, and that at the end of that time things
might stand on a different footing. If during that time the North
should gain any great success over the South, the States might be in
a position to disregard England's threats. No such game was played.
The illegality of the arrest was at once acknowledged, and the
men were given up,--with a tranquillity that certainly appeared
marvellous after all that had so lately occurred.
Then came Mr. Sumner's field day. Mr. Charles Sumner is a senator
from Massachusetts, known as a very hot abolitionist and as having
been the victim of an attack made upon him in the Senate House by
Senator Brookes. He was also at the time of which I am writing
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which position is
as near akin to that of a British minister in Parliament as can
be attained under the existing constitution of the States. It is
not similar, because such chairman is by no means bound to the
Government; but he has ministerial relations, and is supposed to be
specially conversant with all questions relating to foreign affairs.
It was understood that Mr. Sumner did not intend to find fault either
with England or with the Government of his own country as to its
management of this matter; or that, at least, such fault-finding was
not his special object, but that he was desirous to put forth views
which might lead to a final settlement of all difficulties with
reference to the right of international search.
On such an occasion, a speaker gives himself very little chance of
making a favourable impression on his immediate hearers if he reads
his speech from a written manuscript. Mr. Sumner did so on this
occasion, and I must confess that I was not edified. It seemed to me
that he merely repeated, at greater length, the arguments which I had
heard fifty times during the last thirty or forty days. I am told
that the discourse is considered to be logical, and that it "reads"
well. As regards the gist of it, or that result which Mr. Sumner
thinks to be desirable, I fully agree with him, as I think will all
the civilized world before many years have passed. If international
law be what the lawyers say it is, international law must be altered
to suit the requirements of modern civilization. By those laws, as
they are construed, everything is to be done for two nations at war
with each other; but nothing is to be done for all the nations of the
world that can manage to maintain the peace. The belligerents are to
be treated with every delicacy, as we treat our heinous criminals;
but the poor neutrals are to be handled with unjust rigour, as we
handle our unfortunate witnesses in order that the murderer may, if
possible, be allowed to escape. Two men living in the same street
choose to pelt each other across the way with brickbats, and the
other inhabitants are denied the privileges of the footpath lest they
should interfere with the due prosecution of the quarrel! It is, I
suppose, the truth, that we English have insisted on this right of
search with more pertinacity than any other nation. Now in this case
of Slidell and Mason we have felt ourselves aggrieved, and have
resisted. Luckily for us there was no doubt of the illegality of the
mode of seizure in this instance; but who will say that if Captain
Wilkes had taken the "Trent" into the harbour of New York, in order
that the matter might have been adjudged there, England would have
been satisfied? Our grievance was, that our mail-packet was stopped
on the seas while doing its ordinary beneficent work. And our resolve
is, that our mail-packets shall not be so stopped with impunity.
As we were high-handed in old days in insisting on this right of
search, and as we are high-handed now in resisting a right of search,
it certainly behoves us to see that we be just in our modes of
proceeding. Would Captain Wilkes have been right according to the
existing law if he had carried the "Trent" away to New York? If so,
we ought not to be content with having escaped from such a trouble
merely through a mistake on his part. Lord Russell says that the
"Trent's" voyage was an innocent voyage. That is the fact that should
be established;--not only that the voyage was, in truth, innocent,
but that it should not be made out to be guilty by any international
law. Of its real innocency all thinking men must feel themselves
assured. But it is not only of the seizure that we complain, but of
the search also. An honest man is not to be handled by a policeman
while on his daily work, lest by chance a stolen watch should be
in his pocket. If international law did give such power to all
belligerents, international law must give it no longer. In the
beginning of these matters, as I take it, the object was when two
powerful nations were at war to allow the smaller fry of nations to
enjoy peace and quiet, and to avoid if possible the general scuffle.
Thence arose the position of a neutral. But it was clearly not fair
that any such nation, having proclaimed its neutrality, should, after
that, fetch and carry for either of the combatants to the prejudice
of the other. Hence came the right of search, in order that unjust
falsehood might be prevented. But the seas were not then bridged with
ships as they are now bridged, and the laws as written were, perhaps,
then practical and capable of execution. Now they are impracticable
and not capable of execution. It will not, however, do for us to
ignore them if they exist; and therefore they should be changed. It
is, I think, manifest that our own pretensions as to the right of
search must be modified after this. And now I trust I may finish my
book without again naming Messrs. Slidell and Mason.
The working of the Senate bears little or no analogy to that of our
House of Lords. In the first place, the senator's tenure there is not
hereditary, nor is it for life. They are elected, and sit for six
years. Their election is not made by the people of their States, but
by the State legislature. The two Houses, for instance, of the State
of Massachusetts meet together and elect by their joint vote to the
vacant seat for their State. It is so arranged that an entirely new
senate is not elected every sixth year. Instead of this a third of
the number is elected every second year. It is a common thing for
senators to be re-elected, and thus to remain in the House for twelve
and eighteen years. In our Parliament the House of Commons has
greater political strength and wider political action than the House
of Lords; but in Congress the Senate counts for more than the House
of Representatives in general opinion. Money bills must originate in
the House of Representatives, but that is, I think, the only special
privilege attaching to the public purse which the lower House enjoys
over the upper. Amendments to such bills can be moved in the Senate;
and all such bills must pass the Senate before they become law. I am
inclined to think that individual members of the Senate work harder
than individual representatives. More is expected of them, and any
prolonged absence from duty would be more remarked in the Senate than
in the other House. In our Parliament this is reversed. The payment
made to members of the Senate is 3000 dollars, or £600, per annum,
and to a representative, £500 per annum. To this is added certain
mileage allowance for travelling backwards and forwards, between
their own State and the Capitol. A senator, therefore, from
California or Oregon has not altogether a bad place; but the halcyon
days of mileage allowances are, I believe, soon to be brought to an
end. It is quite within rule that the senator of to-day should be
the representative of to-morrow. Mr. Crittenden, who was senator
from Kentucky, is now a member of the Lower House from an electoral
district in that State. John Quincy Adams went into the House of
Representatives after he had been President of the United States.
Divisions in the Senate do not take place as in the House of
Representatives. The ayes and noes are called for in the same way;
but if a poll be demanded, the clerk of the House calls out the names
of the different senators, and makes out lists of the votes according
to the separate answers given by the members. The mode is certainly
more dignified than that pursued in the other House, where during the
ceremony of voting the members look very much like sheep being passed
into their pens.
I heard two or three debates in the House of Representatives, and
that one especially in which, as I have said before, a chapter was
read out of the book of Joshua. The manner in which the Creator's
name and the authority of His Word was bandied about the house on
that occasion, did not strike me favourably. The question originally
under debate was the relative power of the civil and military
authority. Congress had desired to declare its ascendancy over
military matters; but the army and the Executive generally had
demurred to this,--not with an absolute denial of the rights of
Congress, but with those civil and almost silent generalities with
which a really existing Power so well knows how to treat a nominal
Power. The ascendant wife seldom tells her husband in so many words
that his opinion in the house is to go for nothing; she merely
resolves that such shall be the case, and acts accordingly. An
observer could not but perceive that in those days Congress was
taking upon itself the part, not exactly of an obedient husband, but
of a husband vainly attempting to assert his supremacy. "I have got
to learn," said one gentleman after another, rising indignantly on
the floor, "that the military authority of our generals is above that
of this House." And then one gentleman relieved the difficulty of the
position by branching off into an eloquent discourse against slavery,
and by causing a chapter to be read out of the book of Joshua.
On that occasion the gentleman's diversion seemed to have the effect
of relieving the House altogether from the embarrassment of the
original question; but it was becoming manifest, day by day, that
Congress was losing its ground, and that the army was becoming
indifferent to its thunders:--that the army was doing so, and
also that ministers were doing so. In the States, the President
and his ministers are not in fact subject to any parliamentary
responsibility. The President may be impeached, but the member of
an opposition does not always wish to have recourse to such an
extreme measure as impeachment. The ministers are not in the houses,
and cannot therefore personally answer questions. Different large
subjects, such as Foreign affairs, Financial affairs, and Army
matters, are referred to Standing Committees in both houses; and
these Committees have relations with the ministers. But they have no
constitutional power over the ministers; nor have they the much more
valuable privilege of badgering a minister hither and thither by
_vivâ voce_ questions on every point of his administration. The
minister sits safe in his office--safe there for the term of the
existing Presidency if he can keep well with the President; and
therefore, even under ordinary circumstances, does not care much for
the printed or written messages of Congress. But under circumstances
so little ordinary as those of 1861-62, while Washington was
surrounded by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, Congress was
absolutely impotent. Mr. Seward could snap his fingers at Congress,
and he did so. He could not snap his fingers at the army; but then he
could go with the army,--could keep the army on his side by remaining
on the same side with the army; and this, as it seemed, he resolved
to do. It must be understood that Mr. Seward was not Prime Minister.
The President of the United States has no Prime Minister,--or
hitherto has had none. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has usually
stood highest in the Cabinet, and Mr. Seward, as holding that
position, was not inclined to lessen its authority. He was gradually
assuming for that position the prerogatives of a Premier, and men
were beginning to talk of Mr. Seward's ministry. It may easily be
understood that at such a time the powers of Congress would be
undefined, and that ambitious members of Congress would rise and
assert on the floor, with that peculiar voice of indignation so
common in parliamentary debate, "that they had got to learn," &c.,
&c., &c. It seemed to me that the lesson which they had yet to learn
was then in the process of being taught to them. They were anxious
to be told all about the mischance at Ball's Bluff, but nobody would
tell them anything about it. They wanted to know something of that
blockade on the Potomac; but such knowledge was not good for them.
"Pack them up in boxes, and send them home," one military gentleman
said to me. And I began to think that something of the kind would be
done, if they made themselves troublesome. I quote here the manner in
which their questions, respecting the affair at Ball's Bluff, were
answered by the Secretary of War. "The Speaker laid before the House
a letter from the Secretary at War, in which he says that he has the
honour to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution adopted on the
6th instant, to the effect that the answer of the department to the
resolution passed on the second day of the session, is not responsive
and satisfactory to the House, and requesting a further answer. The
Secretary has now to state that measures have been taken to ascertain
who is responsible for the disastrous movement at Ball's Bluff, but
that it is not compatible with the public interest to make known
those measures at the present time."
In truth the days are evil for any Congress of debaters, when a great
army is in camp on every side of them. The people had called for the
army, and there it was. It was of younger birth than Congress, and
had thrown its elder brother considerably out of favour, as has been
done before by many a new-born baby. If Congress could amuse itself
with a few set speeches, and a field-day or two, such as those
afforded by Mr. Sumner, it might all be very well,--provided that
such speeches did not attack the army. Over and beyond this, let
them vote the supplies and have done with it. Was it probable that
General Maclellan should have time to answer questions about Ball's
Bluff,--and he with such a job of work on his hands? Congress could
of course vote what committees of military inquiry it might please,
and might ask questions without end; but we all know to what such
questions lead, when the questioner has no power to force an answer
by a penalty. If it might be possible to maintain the semblance of
respect for Congress, without too much embarrassment to military
secretaries, such semblance should be maintained; but if Congress
chose to make itself really disagreeable, then no semblance could be
kept up any longer. That, as far as I could judge, was the position
of Congress in the early months of 1862; and that, under existing
circumstances, was perhaps the only possible position that it could
fill.
All this to me was very melancholy. The streets of Washington were
always full of soldiers. Mounted sentries stood at the corners of all
the streets with drawn sabres,--shivering in the cold and besmeared
with mud. A military law came out that civilians might not ride
quickly through the street. Military riders galloped over one at
every turn, splashing about through the mud, and reminding one not
unfrequently of John Gilpin. Why they always went so fast, destroying
their horses' feet on the rough stones, I could never learn. But I,
as a civilian, given, as Englishmen are, to trotting, and furnished
for the time with a nimble trotter, found myself harried from time
to time by muddy men with sabres, who would dash after me, rattling
their trappings, and bid me go at a slower pace. There is a building
in Washington, built by private munificence and devoted, according to
an inscription which it bears, "To the Arts." It has been turned into
an army clothing establishment. The streets of Washington, night and
day, were thronged with army waggons. All through the city military
huts and military tents were to be seen, pitched out among the mud
and in the desert places. Then there was the chosen locality of the
teamsters and their mules and horses--a wonderful world in itself;
and all within the city! Here horses and mules lived,--or died,--_sub
dio_, with no slightest apology for a stable over them, eating their
provender from off the waggons to which they were fastened. Here,
there, and everywhere large houses were occupied as the head-quarters
of some officer, or the bureau of some military official. At
Washington and round Washington the army was everything. While this
was so, is it to be conceived that Congress should ask questions
about military matters with success?
All this, as I say, filled me with sorrow. I hate military
belongings, and am disgusted at seeing the great affairs of a nation
put out of their regular course. Congress to me is respectable.
Parliamentary debates, be they ever so prosy,--as with us, or even
so rowdy, as sometimes they have been with our cousins across the
water,--engage my sympathies. I bow inwardly before a Speaker's
chair, and look upon the elected representatives of any nation as the
choice men of the age. Those muddy, clattering dragoons, sitting at
the corners of the streets with dirty woollen comforters round their
ears, were to me hideous in the extreme. But there at Washington, at
the period of which I am writing, I was forced to acknowledge that
Congress was at a discount, and that the rough-shod generals were the
men of the day. "Pack them up and send them in boxes to their several
States." It would come to that, I thought, or to something like
that unless Congress would consent to be submissive. "I have yet to
learn--!" said indignant members, stamping with their feet on the
floor of the house. One would have said that by that time the lesson
might almost have been understood.
Up to the period of this civil war Congress has certainly worked well
for the United States. It might be easy to pick holes in it;--to show
that some members have been corrupt, others quarrelsome, and others
again impracticable. But when we look at the circumstances under
which it has been from year to year elected,--when we remember
the position of the newly-populated States from which the members
have been sent, and the absence throughout the country of that old
traditionary class of Parliament men on whom we depend in England;
when we think how recent has been the elevation in life of the
majority of those who are and must be elected,--it is impossible
to deny them praise for intellect, patriotism, good sense, and
diligence. They began but sixty years ago, and for sixty years
Congress has fully answered the purpose for which it was established.
With no antecedents of grandeur, the nation, with its Congress, has
made itself one of the five great nations of the world. And what
living English politician will say even now, with all its troubles
thick upon it, that it is the smallest of the five? When I think of
this, and remember the position in Europe which an American has been
able to claim for himself, I cannot but acknowledge that Congress on
the whole has been conducted with prudence, wisdom, and patriotism.
The question now to be asked is this,--Have the powers of Congress
been sufficient, or are they sufficient, for the continued
maintenance of free government in the States under the constitution?
I think that the powers given by the existing constitution to
Congress can no longer be held to be sufficient; and that if the
Union be maintained at all, it must be done by a closer assimilation
of its congressional system to that of our Parliament. But to
that matter I must allude again, when speaking of the existing
constitution of the States.