CHAPTER XXXI.
OLD BEN.
That evening, Case and Bart went in rather late to supper at the Jefferson House, and Case pointed out B.P. Wade sitting at the head of one of the tables. Bart studied him closely.
He was then about thirty-five or thirty-six years of age; of a fine, athletic, compact and vigorous frame, straight, round, and of full average height, with an upward cast of the head and face that made him look taller than he was. He had a remarkably fine head and a striking face—a high, narrow, retreating forehead, a little compressed at the temples, aquiline nose, firm, goodish mouth, and prominent chin, with a deep dark eye, and strongly marked brow, not handsome, but a strong, firm, noticeable face, which, with his frank, manly, decided manner and carriage, would at once arrest the eye of a stranger, as it did that of Bart, who knew that he saw a remarkable man. The head was turned, so that the light fell upon the face, giving it strong light and shadow in the Rembrandt style; and Bart studied and contemplated it at great advantage.
He tried to reproduce the recent scene in the Ohio Senate, in which Wade performed so conspicuous a part. It was in the worst of the bad days of Northern subserviency to slavery, which now seem almost phantasmagorical; when, at the command of the Kentucky State Commissioners, the grovelling majority of the Ohio Legislature prostrated the State abjectly in the dust beneath its feet, it was demanded that no man of African blood should be permitted to remain in the State unless some responsible white man should become bail for his good conduct, and that he should never become a public charge.
The bill was about to be put on its final passage in the Senate, by a majority made up of men so revoltingly servile, that even such infamy failed to preserve their names. "Tin Pan" had decreed that a vote should be taken before adjournment for the night, and the debate ran into the deep hours. Gregg Powers, a tall, dark-haired, black-eyed, black-browed young senator, from Akron, had just pronounced a fervent, indignant, sarcastic and bitter phillipic against it, when, after midnight, Wade arose, with angry brow and flashing eye. Argument and logic were out of place; appeals to honor could not be comprehended by men shameless by nature, abject by instinct, and infamous by habit, and who cared nothing for the fame of their common State. Wade, at white heat, turned on them a mingled torrent of sarcasm, scorn, contempt, irony, scoffing, and derision, hot, seething, hissing, blistering, and consuming. He then turned to the haughty and insolent Commissioners of slavery, who were present, that the abasement of the State might lack no mark or brand, and with an air haughtier and prouder than their own, defied them. He declared himself their mortal foe, and cast the gauntlet contemptuously into their faces. He told them they would meet him again in the coming bitter days, and with prodigious force, predicted the extirpation of slavery. Nobody called him to order; nobody interrupted him; and when he closed his awful phillipic, nobody tried to reply. The vote was taken, and the bill passed into a law. And as Bart called up the scene, and looked at the man taking his tea, and conversing carelessly, he thought that a life would be a cheap price for such an opportunity and effort.
Nature had been generous to Wade, and given him a fine, well-balanced, strong, clear intellect, of a manly, direct, and bold cast, as well of mind as temperament. He was not destitute of learning in his profession, but rather despised culture, and had a certain indolence of intellect, that arose in part from undervaluing books, and although later a great reader, he was never a learned man. His manners were rude though kind; he had wonderful personal popularity, and was the freest possible from cant, pretence, or any sort of demagogueism. He was as incapable of a mean thought as of uttering the slightest approach to an untruth, or practising a possible insincerity. He was a favorite with the young lawyers and students, who imitated his rude manner and strong language; was a dangerous advocate, and had much influence with courts. In all these early years he was known as Frank Wade; "Ben" and "old Ben" came to him years after at Washington.
When he left the supper room Case found an opportunity to introduce Bart to him. Wade received him very cordially, and spoke with great kindness of his brother Henry, and remarked that Bart did not much resemble him.
"So I am generally told," said Bart; "and I fear that I am less like him in intellect than in person."
"You may possibly not lose by that. Most persons would think you better looking, and you may have as good a mind—that we will find out for ourselves."