Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

The Grand Duke soon afterward arrived at Washington, and was welcomed at the Russian Legation by Madame de Catacazy, who wore a dress of gold-colored silk, with a flowing train, elaborately trimmed with gold-colored satin. On her right arm she wore a double bracelet, one band being on the wrist and the other above the elbow, the two joined together by elaborately wrought chains. Her other ornaments were of plain gold, and above them was a wealth of golden hair. As the Grand Duke entered the Legation, Madame de Catacazy carried a silver salver, on which was placed a round loaf of plain black bread, on the top of which was imbedded a golden salt-cellar. The Prince took the uninviting loaf, broke and tasted of it, in accordance with the old Russian custom.

The Grand Duke was cordially welcomed at the White House, but Monsieur de Catacazy was treated with studied coolness. It was openly intimated that there was a little Frenchwoman at Washington, young, sprightly, and accomplished, who had won the way into the Catacazy's household through the sympathies of its handsome mistress. She was made a companion of, advised with, and intrusted with whatever the house or Legation contained, confidential and otherwise. All the public or private letters, papers, and despatches passed under they eyes of this bright little woman, all that was said went into her sharp ears, and every day she made a written report of what she had heard and seen, which was privately sent to the Department of State, and for which she was handsomely remunerated from the Secret Service Fund.

Charles Sumner purchased (before it was completed) an elegant dwelling-house between the Arlington Hotel and Lafayette Square, but when he occupied it at the commencement of the next session, he was alone. The energetic reporters at once began to intimate that the Senator's marriage had not been a happy one, and from that time until the great Senator passed over the dark river this painful subject was, as it were, a base of supplies from which a great variety of theories were drawn and sustained. One was sure that the attentions of a diplomat had troubled the Senator, another declared that he was too arrogant, another that he was too exacting —in short, there was not an editorial paragraphist who did not sooner or later give a conjectural solution of Mr. Sumner's domestic infelicity. They were divorced, and he lived alone for several years in his sumptuous house, which he adorned with superb works of art. Here he hospitably entertained personal friends and distinguished strangers. Unforgiving and implacable, his smile grew sadder, the furrows on his face deepened, and he lost his former bonhomie. He was a Prometheus Vinctus, bound to the desolate rock of a wrecked life, but heroically refraining from revenging his great wrong by attacking a woman.

General Grant's difficulty with Mr. Sumner began when the President did not consult the Senator about the formation of his Cabinet. The breach was gradually widened, and thorough it the Senator finally became completely estranged from his old friend and associate in the Senate, Secretary Fish. When Mr. Motley was removed from the English mission, Mr. Sumner insisted upon regarding it as a personal insult, which he sought to repay by opposition to the acquisition of San Domingo. General Grant endeavored to appease the offended Senator, and on the evening of the day on which the San Domingo treaty was to be sent to the Senate he called at Mr. Sumner's house. General Grant found the Senator at his dinner- table with Colonel Forney and the writer, and was invited to take a seat with them. After some preliminary conversation, General Grant began to talk about San Domingo, but he did not have the treaty or any memorandum of it with him. He dwelt especially upon the expenditures of General Babcock at San Domingo of a large sum taken from the secret service fund for promoting intercourse with the West India Islands, which Mr. Seward, when Secretary of State, had prevailed on Representative Thad Stevens to have inserted in an appropriation bill during the war. The President impressed Mr. Sumner with the idea that he looked for an attack in Congress on the manner in which much of that money had been spent. Mr. Sumner unquestionably thought that General Grant had come to enlist his services in defending the expenditure by General Babcock of one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and fifty thousand dollars for a light battery purchased at New York. The President meant, as Colonel Forney and the writer thought, the treaty for the acquisition of the Dominican Republic. The President and the Senator misunderstood each other. After awhile General Grant promised to send General Babcock to the Senator the next day with copies of the papers, and then left. While escorting the President to the door, Mr. Sumner assured him that he was a Republican and a supporter of the Republican Administration, and that he should sustain the Administration in this case if he possibly could, after he had examined the papers. He meant the expenditure of General Babcock, but the President meant the treaty.

The next morning General Babcock called on Senator Sumner with a copy of the treaty, which he began to read, but he had not gotten beyond the preamble, in which Babcock was styled "aid-de-camp of His Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant," before Mr. Sumner showed signs of disapprobation. When General Babcock proceeded and read the stipulation that "His Excellency General Grant, President of the United States, promises perfectly to use all his influence in order that the idea of annexing the Dominican Republic to the United States may acquire such a degree of popularity among the members of Congress as will be necessary for its accomplishment," Senator Sumner became the enemy of the whole scheme. He did not believe that the President of the United States should be made a lobbyist to bring about annexation by Congress. Some of Mr. Sumner's friends used to tell him that he should have gone at once to General Grant and have told him of his purpose to oppose the treaty, and that he had declared his hostility to it to General Babcock in unmistakable terms.

This was the time when well-meaning friends of both of these great men might have secured satisfactory mutual explanation, although no living power could have made Senator Sumner a supporter of the acquisition of the port of Samana in San Domingo. In the Senate sycophants who "carried water on both shoulders," and men who always delight in fomenting quarrels, embittered Mr. Sumner against the President. One had served his country well in the camp, while the other had performed equally valuable services in the Senate; one was a statesman, the other was a soldier. What did not appear to be wrong to the General, the Senator regarded as criminal. Conscious of the value of his services in saving the Union, General Grant accepted with gratitude the voluntary offerings of grateful citizens; but Senator Sumner, who had seen so much of political life and of politicians, knew too well that those who make gifts to public men expect favors in return, and that every public man should be inflexibly opposed to the reception of presents. Remarks by him about the President, and remarks by the President about him were carried to and fro by mischief-makers, like the shuttle of a loom, and Mr. Sumner directly found himself placed at the head of a clique of disappointed Republicans, who were determined to prevent, if possible, the re-election of General Grant to the Presidency.

Henry Wilson, when Vice-President of the United States, endeavored to restore harmony, and said, in a letter to General Grant: "Your Administration is menaced by great opposition, and it must needs possess a unity among the people and in Congress. The head of a great party, the President of the United States has much to forget and forgive, but he can afford to be magnanimous and forgiving. I want to see the President and Congress in harmony and the Republican party united and victorious. To accomplish this, we must all be just, charitable, and forgiving."

[Facsimile] SchuylerColfax SCHUYLER COLFAX was born at New York City March 23d, 1823; was a Representative from Indiana, 1855-1869, serving as Speaker of the House of Representatives six years; was elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with General Grant, serving 1869- 1873, and died at Mankato, Minnesota, January 13th, 1885.

CHAPTER XXV. INTRIGUES AND INTRIGUERS.

General Grant, when elected President of the United States, had endeavored to elevate his views beyond the narrow sphere of party influences, and had consolidated in his own mind a scheme of policy which he had before shadowed out for the complete reconstruction of the Union, and for the reform of abuses which had crept into the Federal Government during the war. The qualities which insured his success as a soldier had not enabled him to succeed as a statesman, but he displayed the same fortitude under apparent disaster and courage at unexpected crises when he found himself again passing "the wilderness," darkened, not with the smoke of battle, but with detraction and denunciation. Again, in the old spirit he exclaimed, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."