CHAPTER XXXI. ARRAIGNMENT OF DANIEL WEBSTER.
Mr. Clayton, when Secretary of State, had received a proposition from August Belmont, as the agent of the Rothschilds, to pay the Mexican indemnity in drafts, for which four per cent. premium would be allowed. Then Mr. Webster became Secretary of State, and he entered into an agreement with an association of bankers, composed of the Barings, Corcoran & Riggs, and Howland & Aspinwall, for the negotiation of the drafts by them at a premium of three and a-half per cent. The difference to the Government was about forty thousand dollars, but the rival sets of bankers had large interests at stake, based on their respective purchases of Mexican obligations at depreciated values, and a war of pamphlets and newspaper articles ensued. The dispute was carried into Congress, and during a debate on it in the House, Representative Cartter, of Ohio, afterward Chief Justice of the Courts in the District of Columbia, was very emphatic in his condemnation of all the bankers interested. "I want the House to understand," said he, with a slight impediment in his speech, "that I take no part with the house of Rothschild, or of Baring, or of Corcoran & Riggs. I look upon their scramble for money precisely as I would upon the contest of a set of blacklegs around a gaming-table over the last stake. They have all of them grown so large in gormandizing upon money that they have left the work of fleecing individuals, and taken to the enterprise of fleecing nations."
Mr. Charles Allen, of the Worcester district of Massachusetts, availed himself of the opportunity offered by this debate on the payment of the Mexican indemnity to make a long-threatened malignant attack on Daniel Webster. He asserted that he would not intrust Mr. Webster with the making of arrangements to pay the three millions of Mexican indemnity. He stated that it was notorious that when he was called to take the office of Secretary of State he entered into a negotiation by which twenty-five thousand dollars was raised for him in State Street, Boston, and twenty-five thousand dollars in Wall Street, New York. Mr. Allen trusted that the Democratic party had yet honor enough left to inquire into the matter, and that the Whigs even, would not palliate it, if satisfied of the fact.
Mr. George Ashmun, Representative from the Springfield district, retorted that Mr. Allen had eaten salt with Mr. Webster and received benefits from him, and that he was the only one who dared thus malignantly to assail him. Mr. Ashmun alluded to a letter from Washington, some time previously published in the Boston Atlas, stating that a member of the House had facts in his possession upon which to found a resolution charging a high officer with "corruption and treason," and he traced a connection between that letter and Mr. Allen's insinuations.
Mr. Henry W. Hilliard, of Alabama, followed Mr. Ashmun with a glowing eulogy of Mr. Webster, in which he declared that, although Massachusetts might repudiate him, the country would take him up, for he stood before the eyes of mankind in a far more glorious position than he could have occupied but for the stand which he had taken in resisting the legions which were bearing down against the rights of the South. This elicited a bitter rejoinder from Mr. Allen, who alluded to the fact that Mr. Hilliard was a clergyman, and said that he had found out how to serve two masters. Mr. Ashmun, asking Mr. Allen if he had not published confidential letters addressed to him by Mr. Charles Hudson, received as a reply, "No, sir! no, sir! You are a scoundrel if you say that I did!" The debate between Messrs. Ashmun and Allen finally became so bitter that Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, and other Representatives objected to its continuance, and refused to hear another word from either of them. The next day Mr. Lewis, of Philadelphia, improved an opportunity for eulogizing Mr. Webster, provoking a scathing reply from Mr. Joshua Giddings.
Immediately after this debate, Mr. Ashmun wrote to Mr. Hudson to inquire whether the statement was true or false, and received the following telegraphic dispatch:
"BOSTON, March 3d, 1851.
"HON. GEORGE ASHMUN: I wrote a confidential letter to Hon. Charles Allen just before the Philadelphia Convention in 1848. He read the letter in a public meeting at Worcester and published it in the Worcester Spy. (Signed) CHARLES HUDSON."
Mr. Ashmun declared on the floor of the House, by the authority of Mr. Webster, that the statement of Mr. Allen was "false in all its length and breadth, and in all its details," but there was doubtless a foundation for the statement. The friends of Mr. Webster admitted that a voluntary contribution had been tendered him as a compensation for the sacrifices he had made in abandoning his profession to accept the office of Secretary of State, and they justified his acceptance of the money on the ground that after having devoted the labors of a long life to his profession, and attained in it a high rank, which brought large fees, he should not be asked to relinquish those professional emoluments without, in justice to his obligations to his family, accepting an equivalent. Without indorsing this State-Street view of the case, it is to be regretted that the charges were made, to trouble Mr. Webster's spirit and sour his heart.
Mr. Webster often sought consolation in his troubles from the grand old poetry of the Hebrew Bible, which awakened peaceful echoes in his own poetic soul. His chosen "crony" in his latter years, though much younger than himself, was Charles Marsh, a New Hampshire man. Well educated, polished by travel, and free from pecuniary hamper, Marsh was a most delightful companion, and his wit, keen as Saladin's cimeter, never wounded. Fletcher Webster was also a great favorite with his father, for he possessed what Charles Lever called "the lost art of conversation." Sometimes, when Mr. Webster's path had been crossed, and he was black as night, Marsh and Fletcher would, by humorous repartees and witticisms, drive the clouds away, and gradually force him into a conversation, which would soon become enlivened by the "inextinguishable laughter of the gods."
That Mr. Webster felt keenly the attacks upon him was undeniable, and atonement could not afterward be made by eulogizing him. It has been well said, that if charity is to be the veil to cover a multitude of sins in the dead as well as in the living, cant should not lift that veil to swear that those sins were virtues. Mr. Webster was sorely troubled by the attitude taken by many Massachusetts men at a time when he needed their aid to secure the Presidency, which he undoubtedly believed would be tendered him by the Southern Whigs, seconded by many Southern Democrats. He lost flesh, the color faded from his cheeks, the lids of his dark eyes were livid, and he was evidently debilitated and infirm. At times he would be apparently unconscious of those around him, then he would rally, and would display his wonderful conversational qualities. Yet it was evident to those who knew him best that he was "stumbling down," as Carlyle said of Mirabeau, "like a mighty heathen and Titan to his rest."
One pleasant afternoon in March, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, delivered a long speech in the House upon the politics of that State, in which he defended the State Rights party and ridiculed the Union movement as un-necessary, no one then being in favor of either disunion or secession. This, one of his colleagues, Mr. Wilcox, denied. "Do you mean," said Mr. Brown, "to assert that what I have said is false?" "If you say," bravely responded Mr. Wilcox, "that there was no party in Mississippi at the recent election in favor of secession or disunion, you say what is false!" The last word was echoed by a ringing slap from Brown's open hand on the right cheek of Wilcox, who promptly returned the blow, and then the two men clinched each other in a fierce struggle. Many of the members, leaving their seats, crowded around the combatants, while Mr. Seymour, of Connecticut, who temporarily occupied the chair, pounded with his mallet, shouting at the top of his voice, "Order! order!" The Sergeant-at-Arms was loudly called for, but he was absent, and before he could be found the parties had been separated. The Speaker resumed the chair, and in a few moments the contestants, still flushed, apologized to the House—not to each other. A duel was regarded as inevitable, but mutual friends intervened, and the next day it was formally announced in the House that the difficulty "had been adjusted in a manner highly creditable to both parties, who again occupied the same position of friendship which had existed between them previous to the unpleasant affair of the day before." Thus easily blew over the terrific tempests of honorable members.
Mr. Leutze, a talented artist, petitioned Congress to commission him to paint for the Capitol copies of his works, "Washington Crossing the Delaware," and "Washington Rallying his Troops at Monmouth," but without success. Mr. Healy was equally unsuccessful with his proposition to paint two large historical paintings for the stairways of the extension of the Capitol, one representing the "Destruction of the Tea in Boston Harbor," and the other the "Battle of Bunker Hill;" but subsequently he received an order to paint the portraits of the Presidents which now grace the White House. Mr. Martin, a marine artist of recognized ability, also proposed in vain to paint two large pictures, one representing the famous action between the Constitution and the Guerriere, and the other the night combat between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis. Indeed, there have been scores of meritorious works of art offered to and declined by Committees of Congress, which have expended large sums in the purchase of daubs disgraceful to the Capitol of the nation. The recognition refused these painters at Washington was freely accorded elsewhere, however. Leutze's "Columbus Before the Council at Salamanca" is justly deemed one of the gems of the Old World, and has given him an imperishable name. Among the really great works of our own country is Healy's painting, "Webster's Reply to Hayne," now in Faneuil Hall.
So with sculpture. Hiram Powers endeavored, without success, to obtain an order for his colossal statue of America, which was highly commended by competent judges, while Mr. Mills was liberally remunerated for his effigy of General Jackson balancing himself on a brass rocking-horse. Powers wrote: "I do not complain of anything, for I know how the world goes, as the saying is, and I try to take it calmly and patiently, holding out my net, like a fisherman, to catch salmon, shad, or pilchards, as they may come. If salmon, why, then, we can eat salmon; if shad, why, then, the shad are good; but if pilchards, why, then, we can eat them, and bless God that we have a dinner at all."
The honors secured for Colonel Fremont by his father-in-law, Mr. Benton, for his path-findings across the Rocky Mountains, inspired other young officers of the army, and some civilians, with a desire to follow his example. Returning to Washington, each one had wonderful tales of adventure to relate. Even the old travelers, who saw the phoenix expire in her odoriferous nest, whence the chick soon flew forth regenerated, or who found dead lions slain by the quills of some "fretful porcupine," or who knew that the stare of the basilisk was death—even those who saw unicorns graze and who heard mermaids sing—were veracious when compared with the explorers of railroad routes across the continent. Senator Jefferson Davis did much to encourage them by having their reports published in quarto form, with expensive illustrations, and Cornelius Wendell laid the foundation of his fortune by printing them as "Pub. Docs."
The National Era, edited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, was a source of great annoyance to the pro-slavery men, and one occasion they excited an attack on his house by a drunken mob. Dr. Bailey was a small, slender man, with a noble head, and a countenance on which the beautiful attributes of his character were written. Taking his life in his hands, he went to his door-way, attended by his wife, and bravely faced the infuriated crowd. He denied that he had any agency in a recent attempt to secure the escape of a party of slaves to the North, and then called the attention of his hearers to the fact that at a public meeting of the citizens of Washington, not very long before that night, resolutions had been passed denouncing the French Government for having fettered the press, yet they were proposing to do in his case what their fellow-citizens had condemned when done by others. His remarks produced an effect, but the leaders of the mob raised the cry, "Burn the Era office!" and a movement was made toward that building, when Dan Radcliffe, a well-known Washington lawyer with Southern sympathies, sprang upon Dr. Bailey's doorstep and made a eloquent appeal in behalf of a free press, concluding with a proposition that the assemblage go to the house of the Mayor of Washington and give him three cheers. This was done, Radcliffe's good nature prevailing, and the mob dispersed peacefully.
Dr. Bailey was, however, no novice in dealing with mobs. Ten years before he came to Washington he resided in Cincinnati, where, in conjunction with James G. Birney, he published The Philanthropist, a red-hot anti-slavery sheet. During his first year in this enterprize his office was twice attacked by a mob, and in one of their raids the office was gutted and the press thrown into the river. These lively scenes induced a change of base and settled the good Doctor in the national metropolis.
The ablest newspaper correspondent at Washington during the Fillmore Administration was Mr. Erastus S. Brooks, one of the editors and proprietors of the New York Express. He was then in the prime of life, rather under the average height, with a large, well-balanced head, bright black eyes, and a swarthy complexion. What he did not know about what was going on in political circles, before and behind the scenes, was not worth knowing. His industry was proverbial, and he was one of the first metropolitan correspondents to discard the didactic and pompous style which had been copied from the British essayists, and to write with a vigorous, graphic, and forcible pen. Washington correspondents in those days were neither eaves-droppers nor interviewers, but gentlemen, who had a recognized position in society, which they never abused.
[Facsimile] R. J. Walker ROBERT J. WALKER was born at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, July 19th, 1801; removed to Mississippi in 1826, and commenced the practice of law; was United States Senator from Mississippi, 1836- 1845; was Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, 1845- 1849; was appointed, by President Buchanan, Governor of Kansas in 1857, but soon resigned, and died at Washington City, November 11th, 1869.