University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER VI.

March 28th.—I was honored to-day by visits from a great
number of Members of Congress, journalists, and others.
Judging from the expressions of most of the Washington
people, they would gladly see a Southern Cabinet installed in
their city. The cold shoulder is given to Mr. Lincoln, and
all kinds of stories and jokes are circulated at his expense.
People take particular pleasure in telling how he came towards
the seat of his Government disguised in a Scotch cap
and cloak, whatever that may mean.

In the evening I repaired to the White House. The servant
who took my hat and coat was particularly inquisitive as
to my name and condition in life; and when he heard I was
not a minister, he seemed inclined to question my right to be
there at all: "for," said he, "there are none but members of
the cabinet, and their wives and daughters, dining here today."
Eventually he relaxed,—instructed me how to place
my hat so that it would be exposed to no indignity, and informed
me that I was about to participate in a prandial enjoyment
of no ordinary character. There was no parade or display,
no announcement,—no gilded staircase, with its liveried
heralds, transmitting and translating one's name from landing
to landing. From the unpretending ante-chamber, a walk
across the lofty hall led us to the reception-room, which was
the same as that in which the President held his interview
yesterday.

Mrs. Lincoln was already seated to receive her guests.
She is of the middle age and height, of a plumpness degenerating
to the embonpoint natural to her years; her features
are plain, her nose and mouth of an ordinary type, and her
manners and appearance homely, stiffened, however, by the
consciousness that her position requires her to be something
more than plain Mrs. Lincoln, the wife of the Illinois lawyer;

she is profuse in the introduction of the word "sir" in every
sentence, which is now almost an Americanism confined to
certain classes, although it was once as common in England.
Her dress I shall not attempt to describe, though it was very
gorgeous and highly colored. She handled a fan with much
energy, displaying a round, well-proportioned arm, and was
adorned with some simple jewelry. Mrs. Lincoln struck me
as being desirous of making herself agreeable; and I own I
was agreeably disappointed, as the Secessionist ladies at
Washington had been amusing themselves by anecdotes which
could scarcely have been founded on fact.

Several of the Ministers had already arrived; by and by
all had come, and the party only waited for General Scott,
who seemed to be the representative man in Washington of
the monarchical idea, and to absorb some of the feeling which
is lavished on the pictures and memory, if not on the monument,
of Washington. Whilst we were waiting, Mr. Seward
took me round, and introduced me to the Ministers, and to
their wives and daughters, among the latter, Miss Chase, who
is very attractive, agreeable, and sprightly. Her father, the
Finance Minister, struck me as one of the most intelligent
and distinguished persons in the whole assemblage,—tall, of
a good presence, with a well-formed head, fine forehead, and
a face indicating energy and power. There is a peculiar
droop and motion of the lid of one eye, which seems to have
suffered from some injury, that detracts from the agreeable
effect of his face; but, on the whole, he is one who would not
pass quite unnoticed in a European crowd of the same description.

In the whole assemblage there was not a scrap of lace or
a piece of ribbon, except the gorgeous epaulettes of an old
naval officer who had served against us in the last war, and
who represented some branch of the naval department. Nor
were the Ministers by any means remarkable for their personal
appearance.

Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War, a slight man, above
the middle height, with gray hair, deep-set keen gray eyes,
and a thin mouth, gave me the idea of a person of ability and
adroitness. His colleague, the Secretary of the Navy, a
small man, with a great long gray beard and spectacles, did
not look like one of much originality or ability; but people
who know Mr. Welles declare that he is possessed of administrative
power, although they admit that he does not know

the stem from the stern of a ship, and are in doubt whether
he ever saw the sea in his life. Mr. Smith, the Minister of
the Interior, is a bright-eyed, smart (I use the word in the
English sense) gentleman, with the reputation of being one
of the most conservative members of the cabinet. Mr. Blair,
the Postmaster-General, is a person of much greater influence
than his position would indicate. He has the reputation
of being one of the most determined Republicans in the
Ministry; but he held peculiar notions with reference to the
black and the white races, which, if carried out, would not by
any means conduce to the comfort or happiness of free negroes
in the United States. He is a tall, lean man, with a hard,
Scotch, practical-looking head—an anvil for ideas to be
hammered on. His eyes are small and deeply set, and have
a rat-like expression; and he speaks with caution, as though
he weighed every word before he uttered it. The last of the
Ministers is Mr. Bates, a stout, thick-set, common-looking
man, with a large beard, who fills the office of Attorney-General.
Some of the gentlemen were in evening dress;
others wore black frock-coats, which it seems, as in Turkey,
are considered to be en regle at a Republican Ministerial
dinner.

In the conversation which occurred before dinner, I was
amused to observe the manner in which Mr. Lincoln used
the anecdotes for which he is famous. Where men bred in
courts, accustomed to the world, or versed in diplomacy, would
use some subterfuge, or would make a polite speech, or give a
shrug of the shoulders as the means of getting out of an embarrassing
position, Mr. Lincoln raises a laugh by some bold
west-country anecdote, and moves off in the cloud of merriment
produced by his joke. Thus, when Mr. Bates was remonstrating
apparently against the appointment of some indifferent
lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President
interposed with, "Come now, Bates, he's not half as bad as
you think. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good
turn long ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court
one morning, with some ten or twelve miles of bad road
before me, and I had no horse. The judge overtook me in
his wagon. 'Hollo, Lincoln! Are you not going to the
court-house? Come in, and I'll give you a seat.' Well, I
got in, and the judge went on reading his papers. Presently
the wagon struck a stump on one side of the road; then it
hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver

was jerking from side to side in his seat; so says I, 'Judge, I
think your coachman has been taking a little drop too much this
morning.' 'Well I declare, Lincoln,' said he, 'I should not
wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset me half a
dozen of times since starting.' So, putting his head out of
the window, he shouted, 'Why, you infernal scoundrel, you
are drunk!' Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning
round with great gravity, the coachman said, 'By gorra!
that's the first rightful decision you have given for the last
twelvemonth.'" Whilst the company were laughing, the President
beat a quiet retreat from the neighborhood of the Attorney-General.

It was at last announced that General Scott was unable to
be present, and that, although actually in the house, he had
been compelled to retire from indisposition, and we moved
in to the banqueting-hall. The first "state dinner," as it is
called, of the President, was not remarkable for ostentation.
No liveried servants, no Persic splendor of ancient plate, or
chefs d'œuvre of art, glittered round the board. Vases of
flowers decorated the table, combined with dishes in what
may be called the "Gallo-American" style, with wines which
owed their parentage to France, and their rearing and education
to the United States, which abounds in cunning nurses
for such productions. The conversation was suited to the
state dinner of a cabinet at which women and strangers were
present. I was seated next Mr. Bates, and the very agreeable
and lively Secretary of the President, Mr. Hay, and
except when there was an attentive silence caused by one of
the President's stories, there was a Babel of small talk round
the table, in which I was surprised to find a diversity of
accent almost as great as if a number of foreigners had been
speaking English. I omitted the name of Mr. Hamlin, the
Vice-President, as well as those of less remarkable people
who were present; but it would not be becoming to pass over
a man distinguished for nothing so much as his persistent and
unvarying adhesion to one political doctrine, which has made
him, in combination with the belief in his honesty, the occupant
of a post which leads to the Presidency, in event of any
occurrence which may remove Mr. Lincoln.

After dinner the ladies and gentlemen retired to the drawing-room,
and the circle was increased by the addition of several
politicians. I had an opportunity of conversing with some of
the Ministers, if not with all, from time to time; and I was

struck by the uniform tendency of their remarks in reference
to the policy of Great Britain. They seemed to think that
England was bound by her anti-slavery antecedents to discourage
to the utmost any attempts of the South to establish its
independence on a basis of slavery, and to assume that they
were the representatives of an active war of emancipation.
As the veteran Commodore Stewart passed the chair of the
young lady to whom I was speaking, she said, "I suppose,
Mr. Russell, you do not admire that officer?" "On the contrary,"
I said, "I think he is a very fine-looking old man."
" I don't mean that," she replied; "but you know he can't be
very much liked by you, because he fought so gallantly against
you in the last war, as you must know." I had not the courage
to confess ignorance of the captain's antecedents. There
is a delusion among more than the fair American who spoke
to me, that we entertain in England the sort of feeling, morbid
or wholesome as it may be, in reference to our reverses at
New Orleans and elsewhere, that is attributed to Frenchmen
respecting Waterloo.

On returning to Willard's Hotel, I was accosted by a gentleman
who came out from the crowd in front of the office.
" Sir," he said, "you have been dining with our President tonight."
I bowed. "Was it an agreeable party?" said he.
" What do you think of Mr. Lincoln?" "May I ask to whom
I have the pleasure of speaking?" "My name is Mr.—,
and I am the correspondent of the New York—." "Then,
sir," I replied, "it gives me satisfaction to tell you that I think
a great deal of Mr. Lincoln, and that I am equally pleased
with my dinner. I have the honor to bid you good evening."
The same gentleman informed me afterwards that he had
created the office of Washington Correspondent to the New
York papers. "At first," said he, "I merely wrote news, and
no one cared much; then I spiced it up, squibbed a little, and
let off stories of my own. Congressmen contradicted me,—
issued cards,—said they were not facts. The public attention
was attracted, and I was told to go on; and so the Washington
correspondence became a feature in all the New York
papers by degrees." The hum and bustle in the hotel to-night
were wonderful. All the office-seekers were in the passages,
hungering after senators and representatives, and the ladies in
any way related to influential people, had an entourage of courtiers
sedulously paying their respects. Miss Chase, indeed,
laughingly told me that she was pestered by applicants for her

father's good offices, and by persons seeking introduction to
her as a means of making demands on "Uncle Sam."

As I was visiting a book-shop to-day, a pert, smiling young
fellow, of slight figure and boyish appearance came up and
introduced himself to me as an artist who had contributed to
an illustrated London paper during the Prince of Wales's tour,
and who had become acquainted with some of my friends;
and he requested permission to call on me, which I gave without
difficulty or hesitation. He visited me this evening, poor
lad! and told me a sad story of his struggles, and of the dependence
of his family on his efforts, as a prelude to a request
that I would allow him to go South when I was making the
tour there, of which he had heard. He was under an engagement
with the London paper, and had no doubt that if he was
with me his sketches would all be received as illustrations of
the places to which my letters were attracting public interest
in England at the time. There was no reason why I should be
averse to his travelling with me in the same train. He could
certainly go if he pleased. At the same time I intimated that
I was in no way to be connected with or responsible for him.

March 29th, Good Friday.—The religious observance
of the day was not quite as strict as it would be in England.
The Puritan aversion to ceremonials and formulary observances
has apparently affected the American world, even as
far south as this. The people of color were in the streets
dressed in their best. The first impression produced by fine
bonnets, gay shawls, brightly-colored dresses, and silk brodequins,
on black faces, flat figures, and feet to match, is singular;
but, in justice to the backs of many of the gaudily-dressed
women, who, in little groups, were going to church or chapel, it
must be admitted that this surprise only came upon one when
he got a front view. The men generally affected black coats,
silk or satin waistcoats, and parti-colored pantaloons. They
carried Missal or Prayer-book, pocket-handkerchief, cane, or
parasol, with infinite affectation of correctness.

As I was looking out of the window, a very fine, tall young
negro, dressed irreproachably, save as to hat and boots, passed
by. "I wonder what he is?" I exclaimed inquiringly to a
gentleman who stood beside me. "Well," he said, "that fellow
is not a free nigger; he looks too respectable. I dare say you
could get him for 1500 dollars, without his clothes. You
know," continued he, "what our Minister said when he saw a
nigger at some Court in Europe, and was asked what he

thought of him: 'Well, I guess,' said he, 'if you take off his
fixings, he may be worth 1000 dollars down.' In the course
of the day, Mr. Banks, a corpulent, energetic young Virginian,
of strong Southern views, again called on me. As the friend
of the Southern Commissioners he complained vehemently
of the refusal of Mr. Seward to hold intercourse with him.
" These fellows mean treachery, but we will balk them." In
answer to a remark of mine, that the English Minister would
certainly refuse to receive Commissioners from any part of the
Queen's dominions which had seized upon the forts and arsenals
of the empire and menaced war, he replied: "The case is
quite different. The Crown claims a right to govern the whole
of your empire; but the Austrian Government could not refuse
to receive a deputation from Hungary for an adjustment of
grievances; nor could any State belonging to the German
Diet attempt to claim sovereignty over another, because they
were members of the same Confederation. "I remarked" that
his views of the obligations of each State of the Union were
perfectly new to me, as a stranger ignorant of the controversies
which distracted them. An Englishman had nothing to do
with a Virginian and New Yorkist, or a South Carolinian—he
scarcely knew anything of a Texan, or of an Arkansian; we
only were conversant with the United States as an entity; and
all our dealings were with citizens of the United States of
North America." This, however, only provoked logically
diffuse dissertations on the Articles of the Constitution, and on
the spirit of the Federal Compact.

Later in the day, I had the advantage of a conversation
with Mr. Truman Smith, an old and respected representative
in former days, who gave me a very different account of the
matter; and who maintained that by the Federal Compact
each State had delegated irrevocably the essence of its sovereignty
to a Government to be established in perpetuity for the
benefit of the whole body. The Slave States, seeing that the
progress of free ideas, and the material power of the North,
were obtaining an influence which must be subversive of the
supremacy they had so long exercised in the Federal Government
for their own advantage, had developed this doctrine of
States' Rights as a cloak to treason, preferring the material
advantages to be gained by the extension of their system to
the grand moral position which they would occupy as a portion
of the United States in the face of all the world.

It is on such radical differences of ideas as these, that the

whole of the quarrel, which is widening every day, is founded.
The Federal Compact, at the very outset, was written on a
torn sheet of paper, and time has worn away the artificial
cement by which it was kept together. The corner-stone of
the Constitution had a crack in it, which the heat and fury of
faction have widened into a fissure from top to bottom, never
to be closed again.

In the evening I had the pleasure of dining with an American
gentleman who has seen much of the world, travelled far
and wide, who has read much and beheld more, a scholar, a
politician, after his way, a poet, and an ologist—one of those
modern Grœculi, who is unlike his prototype in Juvenal only
in this, that he is not hungry, and that he will not go to heaven
if you order him.

Such men never do or can succeed in the United States;
they are far too refined, philosophical, and cosmopolitan.
From what I see, success here may be obtained by refined
men, if they are dishonest, never by philosophical men, unless
they be corrupt—not by cosmopolitan men under any circumstances
whatever; for to have sympathies with any people,
or with any nation in the world, except his own, is to doom a
statesman with the American public, unless it be in the form
of an affectation of pity or good will, intended really as an
offence to some allied people. At dinner there was the very
largest naval officer I have ever seen in company, although I
must own that our own service is not destitute of some good
specimens, and I have seen an Austrian admiral at Pola, and
the superintendent of the Arsenal at Tophaneh, who were not
unfit to be marshals of France. This Lieutenant, named
Nelson, was certainly greater in one sense than his British
namesake, for he weighed 260 pounds.

It may be here remarked, passim and obiter, that the Americans
are much more precise than ourselves in the enumeration
of weights and matters of this kind. They speak of
pieces of artillery, for example, as being of so many pounds
weight, and of so many inches long, where we would use cwts.
and feet. With a people addicted to vertical rather than
lateral extension in everything but politics and morals, precision
is a matter of importance. I was amused by a description
of some popular personage I saw in one of the papers the
other day, which after an enumeration of many high mental
and physical attributes, ended thus, "In fact he is a remarkably
fine high-toned gentleman, and weighs 210 pounds."

The Lieutenant was a strong Union man, and he inveighed
fiercely, and even coarsely, against the members of his profession
who had thrown up their commissions. The superintendent
of the Washington Navy Yard is supposed to be very
little disposed in favor of this present Government; in fact,
Capt. Buchanan may be called a Secessionist, nevertheless, I
am invited to the wedding of his daughter, in order to see the
President give away the bride. Mr. Nelson says, Sumter
and Pickens are to be reinforced. Charleston is to be reduced
to order, and all traitors hanged, or he will know the reason
why; and, says he, "I have some weight in the country." In
the evening, as we were going home, notwithstanding the
cold, we saw a number of ladies sitting out on the door-steps,
in white dresses. The streets were remarkably quiet and
deserted; all the colored population had been sent to bed long
ago. The fire-bell, as usual, made an alarm or two about
midnight.