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.
CHAPTER XXXII. FOREIGN INFLUENCE AND KNOW-NOTHINGISM.
The forcible acquisition of territory was the means by which the pro-slavery leaders at the South hoped to increase their territory, and they defended this scheme in the halls of Congress, in their pulpits, and at their public gatherings. Going back into sacred and profane history, they would attempt to prove that Moses, Joshua, Saul, and David were "filibusters," and so were William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon. Walker simply followed their example, except that they wore crowns on their heads, while he, a new man, only carried a sword in his hand. Was it right, they asked, when a brave American adventurer, invited by the despairing victims of tyranny in Cuba or of anarchy in Central America, threw himself boldly, with a handful of comrades, into their midst to sow the seeds of civilization and to reconstruct society—was it right for the citizens of the United States, themselves the degenerate sons of filibustering sires, to hurl at him as a reproach what was their ancestors' highest merit and glory?
General Walker, the "gray-eyed man of destiny," was the leading native filibuster, but foremost among the foreign adventurers—the Dugald Dalgettys of that epoch—who came here from unsuccessful revolutions abroad to seek employment for their swords, was General Heningen. He had served with Zumala-Carreguy, in Spain, with Schamyl, in the Caucasus, and with Kossuth, in Hungary, chronicling his exploits in works which won him the friendship of Wellington and other notables. Going to Central America, he fought gallantly, but unsuccessfully, at Grenada, and he then came to Washington, where he was soon known as an envoy of "Cuba Libre." He married a cultivated woman, and his tall, soldier-like figure was to be seen striding along on the sunny sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue every pleasant morning, until in later years he went South to "live or die in Dixie."
President Tyler having sent Mr. Dudley Mann as a confidential agent to Hungary to obtain reliable information concerning the true condition of affairs there, the Austrian Government instructed its diplomatic representative at Washington, the Chevalier Hulsemann, to protest against this interference in its internal affairs, as offensive to the laws of propriety. This protest was communicated to Mr. Webster after he became Secretary of State, and in due time the Chevalier received an answer which completely extinguished him. It carefully reviewed the case, and in conclusion told the protesting Chevalier in plain Anglo-Saxon that nothing would "deter either the Government or the people of the United States from exercising, at their own discretion, the rights belonging to them as an independent nation, and of forming and expressing their own opinion freely and at all times upon the great political events which might transpire among the civilized nations of the earth." The paternity of this memorable letter was afterward ascribed to Edward Everett. It was not, however, written either by Mr. Webster or Mr. Everett, but by Mr. William Hunter, then the Chief Clerk of the Department of State.
Meanwhile, Kossuth had been released from his imprisonment within the dominion of the Sublime Porte, by request of the Government of the United States, and taken to England in the war steamer Mississippi. In due time the great Behemoth of the Magyar race arrived at Washington, where he created a marked sensation. The distinguished revolutionist wore a military uniform, and the steel scabbard of his sword trailed on the ground as he walked. He was about five feet eight inches in height, with a slight and apparently not strongly built frame, and was a little round-shouldered. His face was rather oval; a pair of bluish-gray eyes gave an animated and intelligent look to his countenance. His forehead, high and broad, was deeply wrinkled, and time had just begun to grizzle a head of dark, straight hair, a heavy moustache, and whiskers which formed a beard beneath his chin. Whether from his recent captivity or from constitutional causes, there was an air of lassitude in his look to which the fatigues of his voyage not improbably contributed. Altogether, he gave one the idea of a visionary or theoretical enthusiast rather then of a great leader or soldier.
Kossuth was the guest of Congress at Brown's Hotel, but those Senators and Representatives who called to pay their respects found members of his retinue on guard before the door of his apartments, armed with muskets and bayonets, while his anteroom was crowded with the members of his staff. They had evidently been reared in camps, as they caroused all day and then tumbled into their beds booted and spurred, furnishing items of liquors, wines, cigars, and damaged furniture for the long and large hotel bill which Congress had to pay. Mr. Seward entertained the Hungarian party at an evening reception, and a number of Congressmen gave Kossuth a subscription dinner at the National Hotel, at which several of the known aspirants for the Presidency spoke. Mr. Webster was, as became the Secretary of State, carefully guarded in his remarks, and later in the evening, when the champagne had flowed freely, he indulged in what appeared to be his impromptu individual opinions, but he unluckily dropped at his seat a slip of paper on which his gushing sentences had been carefully written out. General Houston managed to leave the table in time to avoid being called upon to speak, and General Scott, who regarded Kossuth as a gigantic humbug, had escaped to Richmond. Kossuth was invited to dine at the White House, and on New Year's day he held a reception, but he failed in his attempt to secure Congressional recognition or material aid.
A number of the leading public men at Washington were so disgusted by the assumption and arrogance displayed by Kossuth, and by the toadyism manifested by many of those who humbled themselves before him, that they organized a banquet, at which Senator Crittenden was the principal speaker. "Beware," said the eloquent Kentuckian, in the words of Washington, "of the introduction or exercise of a foreign influence among you! We are Americans! The Father of our Country has taught us, and we have learned, to govern ourselves. If the rest of the world have not learned that lesson, how shall they teach us? We are the teachers, and yet they appear here with a new exposition of Washington's Farewell Address. For one, I do not want this new doctrine. I want to stand super antiquas vias —upon the old road that Washington traveled, and that every President from Washington to Fillmore has traveled."
The main effect of Kossuth's visit to the United States was an extraordinary impetus given to "The Order of United Americans," from which was evolved that political phenomenon, the American, or Know-Nothing, party. The mysterious movements of this organization attracted the curiosity of the people, and members of the old political organizations eagerly desired to learn what was carefully concealed. Secretly-held lodges, with their paraphernalia, pass- words, and degrees, grips, and signs, tickled the popular fancy, and the new organization became fashionable. Men of all religions and political creeds fraternized beneath the "stars and stripes," and solemnly pledged themselves to the support of "our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country."