Although Mr. Marcy was unwilling to cater for the favor of the press to the extent which characterized the conduct of many other public men, he generally had a good word for the reporters and correspondents whom he met. "Well, Mr. ——," he would say, as he walked up the steps of his office in the morning, to some member of the press, who affected or had a great acquaintance with the secrets of State—"Well, what is the news in the State Department? You know I have always to go to the newspaper men to find out what is going on here." At another time he would suggest a paragraph which, he would quizzically intimate, might produce an alarm in political circles, improvising, for example, at a party of Senator Seward's, some story in the ordinary letter-writer style about Seward and Marcy being seen talking together, and ending with ominous speculations as to an approaching coalition, etc., in doing which he would happily hit off the writers for the press.
Mr. Cushing was more accommodating. He would converse freely with those correspondents in whom he had confidence, and permit them to copy his opinions in advance of their delivery upon their pledges that they should not be printed before they were officially made public. He wrote a great many editorials, somewhat ponderous and verbose, for the Washington Union, and the elaborate statements on executive matters made by the correspondents who enjoyed his favor were often dictated by him.
Mr. Buchanan, removed from the intrigues of home politics, kept up an active correspondence with his friends. "I expected," he wrote to Mr. Henry A. Wise, "ere this to have heard from you. You ought to remember that I am now a stranger in a strange land, and that the letters of so valued a friend as yourself would be to me a source of peculiar pleasure. I never had any heart for this mission, and I know that I shall never enjoy it. Still, I am an optimist in my philosophy, and shall endeavor to make my sojourn here as useful to my country and as agreeable to myself as possible.
"I have been in London," Mr. Buchanan went on to say, "long enough to form an opinion that the English people generally are not friendly to the United States. They look upon us with jealous eyes, and the public journals generally, and especially the Leviathan Times, speak of us in terms of hostility. The Times is particularly malignant, and as it notoriously desires to be the echo of public opinion, its language is the more significant. From all I can learn, almost every person denounces what they are pleased to call the crime of American slavery, and ridicules the idea that we can be considered a free people whilst it shall exist. They know nothing of the nature and character of slavery in the United States, and have no desire to learn. Should any public opportunity offer, I am fully prepared to say my say upon this subject, as I have already done privately in high quarters."
The first hotel in the District of Columbia was Suter's Tavern, a long, low wooden building in Georgetown, kept by John Suter. Next came the Union Hotel there, kept by Crawford. The National Hotel in Washington was for some years under the management of Mr. Gadsby, who had previously been a noted landlord in Alexandria, and what was afterward the Metropolitan Hotel was the Indian Queen, kept by the Browns, father and sons. Another hotel was built nearer the White House by Colonel John Tayloe, and was inherited by his son, Mr. B. Ogle Tayloe. It was not, however, pecuniarly successful, as it was thought to be too far up-town. Mrs. Tayloe, who was born at the North, used to visit her childhood's home every summer, and in traveling on one of those floating palaces, the day-boats on the Hudson River, she was struck with the business energy and desire to please everybody manifested by the steward. On her return Colonel Tayloe mentioned the want of success which had attended his hotel, and she remarked that if he could get Mr. Willard, the steward of the Albany steamer, as its landlord, there would be no fear as to its success. Mr. Tayloe wrote to Mr. Willard, a native of Westminster, Vermont, who came to Washington, and was soon, in connection with his brother, F. D. Willard, in charge of Mr. Tayloe's hotel, then called the City Hotel. The Willards gave to this establishment the same attention which had characterized their labors on board of the steamboat. They met their guests as they alighted from the stages in which they came to Washington. They stood at the head of their dinner-tables, wearing white linen aprons, and carved the joints of meat, the turkeys, and the game. They were ever ready to courteously answer questions, and to do all in their power to make a sojourn at the City Hotel homelike and agreeable.
Success crowned these efforts to please the public, and the City Hotel soon took the first rank among the caravanserais of the national metropolis. Mr. E. D. Willard retired, and Mr. Henry A. Willard took into partnership with him Mr. Joseph C. Willard, while another brother, Mr. Caleb C. Willard, became the landlord of the popular Ebbitt House. In time it was determined to rebuild the hotel, which was done under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Willard, who was designed by nature for an architect. When the house was completed it was decided that it should be called henceforth Willard's Hotel, and about one hundred gentlemen were invited to a banquet given at its opening. After the cloth was removed, the health of the Messrs. Willard was proposed as the first toast, and then Mr. Edward Everett was requested to make a reply. He spoke with his accustomed ease, saying that there are occasions when deeds speak louder than words, and this was one of them. Instead of Mr. Willard returning thanks to the company present, it was the company that was under obligations to him. In fact, he thought that in paying their respects to Mr. Willard, they were but doing a duty, though certainly a duty most easily performed. "There are few duties in life," said Mr. Everett, "that require less nerve than to come together and eat a good dinner. There is very little self-denial in that. Indeed, self-denial is not the principle which generally carries us to a hotel, although it sometimes happens that we have to practice it while there." Mr. Everett went on to say that under the roof which sheltered them he had passed a winter with John Quincy Adams, Chief Justice Marshall, Judge Story, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster. These were all gone, but with them he could name another now living, and not unworthy to be associated with them, Washington Irving. "Think of men like these gathered together at the same time around the festive board under this roof! That was, indeed, the feast of reason, not merely the flash of merriment, which set the table in a roar, but that gushing out of convivial eloquence; that cheerful interchange of friendly feeling in which the politician and the partisan are forgotten. Yes, gentlemen," Mr. Everett went on to say, "there were giants in those days; giants in intellect, but in character and spirit they were gentlemen, and in their familiar intercourse with each other they had all the tenderness of brethren."
The new hall of the House of Representatives was finished about this time. It was throughout gayly decorated, and its ceiling glittered with gilding, but it was walled in from all direct communication with fresh air and sunlight. Captain Meigs, of the Engineer Corps, who had been intrusted by Secretary Davis with the erection of the wings, had added to the architect's plans an encircling row of committee-rooms and clerical offices. Instead of ventilating the hall by windows, a system was adopted patterned after that tried in the English House of Commons, of pumping in air heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and Captain Meigs had thermometers made, each one bearing his name and rank, in which the mercury could only ascend to ninety degrees and only fall to twenty-four degrees above zero. He thought that by his system of artificial ventilation it would never be hotter or colder than their limits; but he was woefully mistaken, and immense sums have since been expended in endeavoring to remedy the deficient ventilation. The acoustic properties of the new hall were superior to those of the classic and grand old hall, but with that exception, the gaudily embellished new hall was less convenient, not so well lighted and ventilated, and far inferior in dignified appearance to the old one.
[Facsimile] Abbott Lawrence ABBOTT LAWRENCE was born at Groton, Massachusetts, December 16th, 1792; was a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, 1835- 1837, and 1839-1840; was Minister to Great Britain, 1849.
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS.
The entrance of William Pitt Fessenden into the Senate Chamber was graphically sketched years afterward by Charles Sumner. "He came," said the Senator from Massachusetts, "in the midst of that terrible debate on the Kansas and Nebraska bill, by which the country was convulsed to its centre, and his arrival had the effect of a reinforcement on a field of battle. Those who stood for freedom then were few in numbers—not more than fourteen—while thirty- seven Senators in solid column voted to break the faith originally plighted to freedom, and to overturn a time-honored landmark, opening that vast Mesopotamian region to the curse of slavery. Those anxious days are with difficulty comprehended by a Senate where freedom rules. One more in our small number was a sensible addition. We were no longer fourteen, but fifteen. His reputation at the bar, and his fame in the other House, gave assurance which was promptly sustained. He did not wait, but at once entered into the debate with all those resources which afterward became so famous. The scene that ensued exhibited his readiness and courage. While saying that the people of the North were fatigued with the threat of disunion, that they considered it as 'mere noise and nothing else,' he was interrupted by Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, always ready to speak for slavery, exclaiming, 'If such sentiments as yours prevail I want a dissolution, right away'—a characteristic intrusion doubly out of order. To which the newcomer rejoined, 'Do not delay it on my account; do not delay it on account of anybody at the North.' The effect was electric; but this incident was not alone. Douglas, Cass, and Butler interrupted only to be worsted by one who had just ridden into the lists. The feelings on the other side were expressed by the Senator from South Carolina, who, after one of the flashes of debate which he had provoked, exclaimed: 'Very well, go on; I have no hope of you!' All this will be found in the Globe precisely as I give it, but the Globe could not picture the exciting scene—the Senator from Maine, erect, firm, immovable as a jutting promontory, against which the waves of ocean tossed and broke in a dissolving spray. There he stood. Not a Senator, loving freedom, who did not feel on that day that a champion had come."