INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT HARRISON: HIS CABINET—CALL OF CONGRESS—AND DEATH.
March the 4th, at twelve o'clock, the Senate met in its chamber, as summoned to do by the retiring President, to be ready for the inauguration of the President elect, and the transaction of such executive business as he should bring before it. The body was quite full, and was called to order by the secretary, Mr. Asbury Dickens; and Mr. King, of Alabama, being elected temporary President of the Senate, administered the oath of office to the Vice-president elect, John Tyler, Esq., who immediately took the chair as President of the Senate. The scene in the chamber was simple and impressive. The senators were in their seats: members of the House in chairs. The justices of the Supreme Court, and the foreign diplomatic corps were in the front semicircle of chairs, on the floor of the Senate. Officers of the army and navy were present—many citizens—and some ladies. Every part of the chamber and galleries were crowded, and it required a vigilant police to prevent the entrance of more than the allotted number. After the Vice-president elect had taken his seat, and delivered to the Senate over which he was to preside a well-conceived, well-expressed, and well-delivered address, appropriately brief, a short pause and silence ensued. The President elect entered, and was conducted to the seat prepared for him in front of the secretary's table. The procession was formed and proceeded to the spacious eastern portico, where seats were placed, and the ceremony of the inauguration was to take place. An immense crowd, extending far and wide, stood closely wedged on the pavement and enclosed grounds in front of the portico. The President elect read his inaugural address, with animation and strong voice, and was well heard at a distance. As an inaugural address, it was confined to a declaration of general principles and sentiments; and it breathed a spirit of patriotism which adversaries, as well as friends, admitted to be sincere, and to come from the heart. After the conclusion of the address, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Taney, administered the oath prescribed by the constitution: and the ceremony of inauguration was at an end.
The Senate returned to its chamber, and having received a message from the President with the nominations for his cabinet, immediately proceeded to their consideration; and unanimously confirmed the whole. They were: Daniel Webster, Secretary of State; Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury; John Bell, Secretary at War; George E. Badger, Secretary of the Navy; Francis Granger, Postmaster-general; John J. Crittenden, Attorney-general.
On the 17th of March, the President issued a proclamation, convoking the Congress in extraordinary session for the 31st day of May ensuing. The proclamation followed the usual form in not specifying the immediate, or direct, cause of the convocation. It merely stated, "That sundry and weighty matters, principally growing out of the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, appear to call for the convocation of Congress at an earlier day than its next annual session, and thus form an extraordinary occasion which, in the judgment of the President, rendered it necessary for the two Houses to convene as soon as practicable."
President Harrison did not live to meet the Congress which he had thus convoked. Short as the time was that he had fixed for its meeting, his own time upon earth was still shorter. In the last days of March he was taken ill: on the fourth day of April he was dead—at the age of 69; being one year under the limit which the psalmist fixed for the term of manly life. There was no failure of health or strength to indicate such an event, or to excite apprehension that he would not go through his term with the vigor with which he commenced it. His attack was sudden, and evidently fatal from the beginning. A public funeral was given him, most numerously attended, and the body deposited in the Congress vault—to wait its removal to his late home at North Bend, Ohio;—whither it was removed in the summer. He was a man of infinite kindness of heart, affectionate to the human race,—of undoubted patriotism, irreproachable integrity both in public and private life; and of a hospitality of disposition which received with equal welcome in his house the humblest and the most exalted of the land.
The public manifestations of respect to the memory of the deceased President, were appropriate and impressive, and co-extensive with the bounds of the Union. But there was another kind of respect which his memory received, more felt than expressed, and more pervading than public ceremonies: it was the regret of the nation, without distinction of party: for it was a case in which the heart could have fair play, and in which political opponents could join with their adversaries in manifestations of respect and sorrow. Both the deceased President, and the Vice-president, were of the same party, elected by the same vote, and their administrations expected to be of the same character. It was a case in which no political calculation could interfere with private feeling; and the national regret was sincere, profound, and pervading. Gratifying was the spectacle to see a national union of feeling in behalf of one who had been so lately the object of so much political division. It was a proof that there can be political opposition without personal animosity.
General Harrison was a native of Virginia, son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a descendant of the "regicide" Harrison who sat on the trial of Charles I.
In the course of the first session of Congress after the death of General Harrison—that session which convened under his call—the opportunity presented itself to the author of this View to express his personal sentiments with respect to him. President Tyler, in his message, recommended a grant of money to the family of the deceased President "in consideration of his expenses in removing to the seat of government, and the limited means which he had left behind;" and a bill had been brought into the Senate accordingly, taking one year's presidential salary ($25,000) as the amount of the grant. Deeming this proceeding entirely out of the limits of the constitution—against the policy of the government—and the commencement of the monarchical system of providing for families, Mr. Benton thus expressed himself at the conclusion of an argument against the grant:
"Personally I was friendly to General Harrison, and that at a time when his friends were not so numerous as in his last days; and if I had needed any fresh evidences of the kindness of his heart, I had them in his twice mentioning to me, during the short period of his presidency, that, which surely I should never have mentioned to him—the circumstance of my friendship to him when his friends were fewer. I would gladly now do what would be kind and respectful to his memory—what would be liberal and beneficial to his most respectable widow; but, to vote for this bill! that I cannot do. High considerations of constitutional law and public policy forbid me to do so, and command me to make this resistance to it, that a mark may be made—a stone set up—at the place where this new violence was done to the constitution—this new page opened in the book of our public expenditures; and this new departure taken, which leads into the bottomless gulf of civil pensions and family gratuities."
The deceased President had been closely preceded, and was rapidly followed, by the deaths of almost all his numerous family of sons and daughters. A worthy son survives (John Scott Harrison, Esq.), a most respectable member of Congress from the State of Ohio.
[ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN TYLER.]
