To say that Congress ought not to encourage ingenious foreign artists at all, would be contrary to our feelings and to all our history, but our own artists should have a preference, all other things being equal. And I do not say, that our artists may not with great propriety go to Europe and there study the best labors of the best artists. But let our Americans carry with them American hearts, and return to us untinged with European feelings, and not be imbued either with the ideas of paganism. Washington clad in a Roman dress, instead of his American uniform! Daniel Boone dressed in a toga, instead of his Western hunting shirt! An American Indian in a toga, fighting a battle in a personal contest, instead of his being clad in his simple breech clout! Why such sights are presented to us here, is a mystery—a mystery of Washington city which I cannot unfold to the reader. So of the pedestal of a bust of Mr. Jefferson, resting on the heads of infants, whose mouths are wide open, rendered so apparently by the pressure on the top of their skulls. Whose absurd taste produced these abortions? To mingle paganism with the ideas of christianity in our statues and in our architecture, is in bad taste, especially in this age. Within about three hundred years after the death of the Founder of our religion, against the superstition of Jews and pagans, against the ridicule of their wits and the reasonings of their sages, against the craft of their politicians, the power of their kings and the prowess of their armies, against the axe, the cross and the stake, christianity ascended the imperial throne, and waved her broad banner in triumph over the palace of the Cæsars. Her march and conquests extended to every part of the then civilized world. The idols and all the gods of paganism fell down prostrate, before the onward march of christianity, and who will now, set up these idols here, for the worship of Americans? Away then with these gods and goddesses—away with Mercury and his rod, with Minerva and Venus and Cupid, they are blemishes, not beauties, they are pagan and not christian, barbarous and not civilized signs of the times. We want a Congress sufficiently christian to overthrow these idol gods, and all idol worship in the capitol. The ancient Greeks and Romans have long since gone down to their graves, and even their gods have perished from off the face of the earth. Why dig them up and bring them here to imbue the minds of our youth with pagan ideas?
With a view to learn the mystery of wearing unnatural beards, some filled with vermin, and some with ginger bread! some resembling those of Saracens, Turks and Russians, I visited Lipscomb’s near Gadsby’s, on the avenue, and M’Cubbin’s on Eighth street, and there gravely sat often for a long time, studying beards and mustaches, but in vain. At last I came home to my lodgings at Mrs. Tilley’s on Tenth street, nearly opposite Peter Force’s large library, and falling asleep in my easy armchair, a form stood before me in my dream, with mild aspect a sympathising look, she thus addressed me: “Let not thy thoughts about beards and mustaches trouble thee, because I am sent to reveal to thee the sublime mysteries of beards and mustaches. All men are created with certain propensities, and He who made them, has marked them, so that their propensities may be known as soon as the eye sees them. Euruchs have little or no beards, but a man whose disposition is Saracenic, Turkish, Tartarean, Gothic, barbarous or christian, has given him a beard in accordance with his natural disposition, But if he is like, in all respects, a goat, in smell and sensuality, a goat’s beard is given him and he wears it, leading about some frail female, dressed in silk velvet, while his wife with six small children, and one at the breast is left to starve at home. Such a man will never buy or read thy book, otherwise he will buy it. In compassion to thee, I further inform thee, that as to beards full of vermin, that circumstance is owing to the poverty of their owners, whose purses do not contain money enough to pay for a comb! Those beards which contain ginger bread, it is owing to a fact which is as well known to me, as it is to this whole city, that many of the bearded race are so poor, that I have seen twelve of them contribute a cent a piece, to purchase a large roll of ginger bread; they would then tie a cord around its centre and suspend it to the ceiling over their heads in the middle of the room, and seating themselves flat on the floor, in a circle, and in that position each one of them would catch a bite, as the ginger bread was whirled around from mouth to mouth. And although every mouth was wide open like an anaconda’s when swallowing a rabbit, yet, sometimes the roll struck the beard and got entangled in it, until the mouth was filled with the delicious morsel. The beard itself retained the roll, until some of the beard stuck to the roll. The fragments of tobacco in the beard, are to be accounted for in the same way.” I awoke, refreshed in body and in mind, having had revealed to me one of the greatest mysteries of this city. My mind is now at ease about that mystery, because I know every man I see on the avenue, by the beard he wears, whether he is civilized or savage, rich or poor. If he is able to get shaved without running in debt for shaving, he is shaved clean and smooth. Has he a beard like a goat’s; his beard proves him to be one that will stand on the left hand. And so of all the other signs, they are all revealed to me, and I, without fee, tell the reader all about it.
There are other mysteries in this city of mysteries, which I cannot find out, although I have slept in my easy armed chair and on my pillow time and again.
What the Senate will do about the Texan treaty? whether they will discuss its merits public or privately? whether they will stay here, until they have gone through their long docket of nominations, now before them? Whether the House will continue to sit until they complete their business not yet finally acted on? or whether they will go home soon, and the people thereby lose all the benefit of what has been begun, I cannot divine in this chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
Officers of both houses of Congress.—Vice President Mangum.—Speaker Jones.—Members of Congress, their labors and unenviable state.—Eloquence of members.—Senators Choate, Crittenden, Morehead, &c. &c.—The Tariff, Oregon and Texas to go down to the foot of the docket and be postponed until next session of our honorable court.
Officers of both Houses of Congress.
In the Senate, the Honorable Willie P. Mangum presides. John Tyler, the Vice President, on the death of General Harrison became President of the United States. The Senate thereafter elected Samuel Southard, their presiding officer, he dying, they elected Judge Mangum their president. He lives, when at home, in Orange county, North Carolina. From his name, I should suppose that his ancestors were from Wales. However that may be, Judge Mangum’s family is an ancient one in North Carolina, the name being found among the earliest settlers of that colony. He presides in the Senate and occupies the Vice President’s room in the capitol. He is a man above the common size, of fair complexion and commanding air, rather grave in his manners, but very agreeable and appears to be kind hearted. His voice is clear, sufficiently loud and distinct to be heard all over the Senate chamber and its gallery. On the whole, he is, taking him all and all, the best presiding officer, that I ever saw in any legislative assembly. He is always at his ease, always dignified and always agreeable. His appearance is that of a man about forty years old. He is a whig, unwavering and unflinching, yet, like the Kentucky Senators, not a persecuting whig, often voting to confirm men in offices, who are not whigs, nor any thing else—long. He appears to look more to the interests of his country than his party. When I say this, I mean to draw no invidious distinctions between Judge Mangum and others in the Senate. The feelings of senators must have been often severely tried by having presented to them the names of very incompetent men. Where the man is not decidedly a bad one, though wanting decision of character, without which no man can be relied on, in any pressing emergency, the Senate let him pass as Hopson’s choice, because they expect nothing better. In this way they have confirmed many nominations which I should have rejected at once, as destitute of a qualification, without possessing which, no man is fit for any office or any calling. So far as Ohio is concerned, not even one appointment of a citizen of that State, has been a good one, nor such an one as I would have made, during the last two years. I feel no hostility to any one of these weak men, but wish they had belonged to some other State, not to ours. Where the imbecility of a country is placed in the offices, it shows the strength of our institutions and the virtue of our people, which can get along tolerably well, though such weak men are appointed to offices. To have found so much imbecility, so carefully selected from the very surface of society, must have cost those a vast deal of labor, care and diligence, who have succeeded so well, so perfectly in hunting it up, and in bringing it forward to the President and his secretaries for their acceptance and gratification! It is a strong argument in favor of the permanency of our institutions, which can bear such appointments. The Senate appear to be as hungry for the nomination of men well qualified for the offices to which they are nominated, as any trout ever was for a well baited hook—they jump at them in a moment and unanimously confirm them. The confirmation of Calhoun’s appointment as Secretary of State is a case in point. The news spread like wildfire, and fell upon the ear like the roar of a water fall in the ear of a thirsty traveller, in the desert of Sahara.