A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
Late in the evening of the twenty-ninth of August I reached Washington.
Nearly every reader, I suppose, is familiar with descriptions of the
national capital;—its superb situation on the left bank of the Potomac;
the broad streets, the still more spacious avenues crossing them
diagonally, and the sweeping undulations of the plain on which it is
built, giving to the city its “magnificent distances”; and those grand
public buildings of which any country might be proud,—the Capitol
especially, with its cloudlike whiteness and beauty, which would be as
imposing as it is elegant, were it not that its windows are too many and
too small.
The manner in which the streets are built up, with here and there a fine
residence surrounded by buildings of an inferior character, often with
mere huts adjacent, and many an open space, giving to the metropolis an
accidental and heterogeneous character,—the dust in summer, the mud in
winter, the fetor, the rubbish, the garbage; and the corresponding
character of the population, the most heterogeneous to be found in any
American city, comprising all classes strangely mixed and fluctuating,
the highest beside the lowest, the grandest and broadest human traits
jostled by the meanest and foulest,—one half the people preying upon the
other half, which preys upon the government;—all this has been too often
outlined by others to be dwelt upon by me.
I noticed one novel feature in the city, however. At the hotel where I
stopped, at the Attorney-General’s office which I had occasion to visit,
and again at the White House, where I went to call on the President’s
military secretary, I met, repeatedly, throngs of the same or similar
strange faces.
It happened to be one of the President’s reception days; and the east
room, the staircases, the lower and upper halls of the White House, were
crowded. The upper hall especially, and the ladies’ parlor adjacent to
the President’s room, were densely thronged. Some were walking to and
fro, singly or in pairs; some were conversing in groups; others were
lounging on chairs, tables, window-seats, or whatever offered a support
to limbs weary of long waiting. One was paring his nails; another was
fanning himself with his hat; a third was asleep, with his head resting
much cramped in a corner of the walls; a fourth was sitting in a window,
spitting tobacco-juice at an urn three yards off. When he took pains, he
hit the urn with remarkable precision, showing long and careful
practice. But he did not always take pains, for the extreme heat and
closeness of the apartments were not favorable to exertion; and, indeed,
what was the use of aiming always at the urn, when nearly every man was
chewing tobacco as industriously as he, and generally spitting on the
floors,—which had already become the most convincing argument against
the habit of tobacco-chewing of which it is possible for the nauseated
imagination to conceive.
Faces of old men and young men were there,—some weary and anxious, a few
persistently jocose, and nearly all betraying the unmistakable Southern
type. It was, on the whole, a well-dressed crowd, for one so abominably
filthy.
“Nineteen out of twenty of all these people,” I was told by the
President’s secretary, “are pardon-seeking Rebels. The most of them are
twenty-thousand-dollar men, anxious to save their estates from
confiscation.”
As the President’s doors were expected soon to be opened, and as I
wished to observe his manner of dealing with those men, I remained after
finishing my business with the secretary, and mingled with the crowd.
The fumes of heated bodies, in the ill-ventilated halls, were far from
agreeable; and as the time dragged heavily, and the doors of the
President’s room continued closed, except when some favored individual,
who had sent in his card, perhaps hours before, was admitted, I was more
than once on the point of abandoning my object for a breath of fresh
out-door air.
The conversation of my Southern friends, however, proved sufficiently
interesting to detain me. One gay and jaunty old man was particularly
diverting in his remarks. He laughed at the melancholy ones for their
long faces, pretending that he could tell by each man’s looks which
clause of the exceptions, in the President’s amnesty proclamation, his
case came under.
“You were a civil officer under the Confederate government. Am I right?
Of course I am. Your face shows it. My other friend here comes under No.
3,—he was an officer in the army. That sad old gentleman yonder, with a
standing collar, looks to me like one of those who left their homes
within the jurisdiction of the United States to aid the Rebellion. He’s
a number ten-er. And I reckon we are all thirteen-ers,”—that is to say,
persons of the thirteenth excepted class, the value of whose taxable
property exceeded twenty thousand dollars.
“Well, which clause do you come under?” asked one.
“I am happy to say, I come under three different clauses. Mine’s a
particularly beautiful case. I’ve been here every day for a week waiting
on the President, and I expect to have the pleasure of standing at this
door many a day to come. Take example by me, and never despair.” And the
merry old man frisked away, with his cap slightly on one side, covering
gray hairs. His gay spirits, in that not very hilarious throng,
attracted a good deal of attention: but his was not the mirth of an
inwardly happy mind.
“You are not a Southern man?” said one, singling me out.
“No,” said I; “I am a Yankee.”
“You are not after a pardon, then. Lucky for you!”
“What have you done to be pardoned for?” I asked.
“I am worth over twenty thousand dollars; that’s my difficulty.”
“And you aided the Rebellion?”
“Of course,”—laughing. “Look here!”—his manner changed, and his bright
dark eye looked at me keenly,—“what do you Northerners, you
Massachusetts men particularly, expect to do now with the niggers?”
“We intend to make useful and industrious citizens of them.”
“You can’t!” “You never can do that!” “That’s an absurdity!” exclaimed
three or four voices; and immediately I found myself surrounded by a
group eager to discuss that question.
“The nigger, once he’s free, won’t work!”
“No,” said another; “he’ll steal, but he won’t work.”
“I pity the poor niggers, after what you’ve done for him,” said a third.
“They can’t take care of themselves; they’ll starve before they’ll work,
unless driven to it; and in a little while they’ll be exterminated, just
like the Indians.”
“I don’t think so,” said I. “The negro is very much like the rest of us,
in many respects. He won’t work unless he is obliged to. Neither will
you. So don’t blame him. But when he finds work a necessity, that will
drive him to it more surely than any master.”
“You Northerners know nothing of the negro; you should see him on our
plantations!”
“I intend to do so. In the mean time you should see him in our Northern
cities, where he takes care of himself very well, supports his family,
and proves an average good citizen. You should look into the affairs of
the Freedmen’s Bureau, here in Washington. There are in this city and
its vicinity upwards of thirty thousand colored people. The majority
have been suddenly swept into the department from their homes by the
chances of war. You would consequently expect to find a vast number of
paupers among them. But, on the contrary, nearly all are industrious and
self-supporting; only about three hundred of the number receiving
partial support from the government. Now take my advice: give your
negroes a chance, and see what they will do.”
“We do give them all the chance they can have. And it’s for our interest
to induce them to work. We are dependent on labor; we are going to ruin
as fast as possible for want of it. In the course of eight or ten years,
maybe, they will begin to find out that everything in creation don’t
belong to them now they are free, and that they can’t live by stealing.
But by that time, where will we be? Where will the negro be?”
Of these men, one was from Georgia, one from North Carolina, and others
from Florida and Virginia; yet they all concurred in the opinion, which
no argument could shake, that the freedmen would die, but not work.
Our conversation was interrupted by the opening of the President’s room.
A strong tide instantly set towards it, resulting in a violent jam at
the door. I was carried in by the crowd, but got out of it as soon as
possible, and placed myself in a corner where I could observe the
proceedings of the reception.
President Johnson was standing behind a barrier which extended the whole
length of the room, separating him from the crowd. One by one they were
admitted to him; each man presenting his card as he passed the barrier.
Those who were without cards were refused admission, until they had
provided themselves with those little conveniences at a desk in the
hall.
I should scarcely have recognized the President from any of his
published pictures. He appeared to me a man rather below the medium
height, sufficiently stout, with a massy, well-developed head, strong
features, dark, iron-gray hair, a thick, dark complexion, deep-sunk
eyes, with a peculiarly wrinkled, care-worn look about them, and a weary
expression generally. His voice was mild and subdued, and his manner
kindly. He shook hands with none. To each applicant for pardon he put a
question or two, sometimes only one, and dispatched him, with a word of
promise or advice. No one was permitted to occupy more than a minute or
two of his time, while some were disposed of in as many seconds. On the
whole, it was an interesting but sad scene; and I still carry in my
memory the President’s weary look, and the disappointed faces of the
applicants, who, after long waiting, and perhaps going through with this
same ceremony day after day, received no intimation that the object of
their hopes was near its accomplishment.