Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

THE 4th of March comes, and with it the fortieth congress, with Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, still in the speaker’s chair; Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and James G. Blaine are in the House. They were on their way up to the nation’s honors, and had seats near each other. The House, rather than the senate, is the place to look for presidents. There seems to be no special reason for it, unless it is that senatorial dignity and greatness are less approachable, not so easily grasped by the public mind, and farther away from the great masses of the people.

Mr. Blaine comes to the fortieth congress with the same soldierly spirit of fearlessness, the same scholarly spirit of intelligence, the same genial spirit of friendship, that have borne him through two former terms in Washington. He is now recognized as an adept in parliamentary law, and is put on with the speaker, Mr. Washburne, and others to revise the rules of the House, and is found reporting rule after rule for adoption. He is fairly in training now for the speakership, but before that can come he must be re-elected, and he has already been elected twice by way of compliment, as it is termed in Maine. But he is no dreamer, and so devotes himself to business, with enough to do, and no idle hours. He is quite methodical, and is heard frequently insisting upon the regular order of business, and that business on the speaker’s stand be attended to, and also that members attend the evening sessions for business. It worries him to see business of importance drag, and bills accumulate, and so the House get behind in its work. He uses every parliamentary method to prevent delays, and seldom is his way hedged up effectually when he has determined upon his course, and feels that fidelity to his trust requires expedition. He usually gets through without much opposition, for good nature in him begets it in others, and so when all are thus made willing, as by an opposite disposition they are made unwilling, it is an easy matter. But when the measure is at all political, as are some of the great measures which crystalize the war-victories into constitutional enactments, he is put upon his resources for ways and means, and is found usually to be as fertile as the occasion demands.

He is down in the Record as an editor, and this places him in relations of sympathy and friendship with journalists at the capital. He is known, and knows them, and shows by the favor of various acts of kindness that his editorial heart is still beating warm for the drivers of the quill. There are but three other editors besides himself in the House,—James Brooks, of New York city; Lawrence J. Getz, of Reading; and Adam J. Glassbremer, of York, Penn.

Gen. John A. Logan sits near enough to Mr. Blaine for them to get well acquainted, and they are soon found speaking upon the same question of appropriating seventy-five thousand dollars to purchase seed-corn for the South.

It is certainly a matter of peculiar interest to look in upon these men and see them at their work, all unconscious of the great future that lies before them; some of the time doing what seems like little things, as when Mr. Blaine moves “to exempt wrapping paper made from wood from internal tax,” and Mr. Garfield rises and says, “I ask the gentleman from Maine to allow an amendment by inserting the word ‘corn-stalks,’ which,” he added, “was a very important manufacture.” But all of these little things were part of the great internal-revenue tax bill, which was to bring millions into the treasury of the nation, and so support the government, and pay the war-debt.

The impeachment resolutions were having a history in the House, and a reference to them brings out one fact very conclusively,—that Mr. Blaine was not hot-headed in the sense of rashness. Many were at this time,—about a year before the impeachment trial,—filled with alarm, excited, aroused, and bent upon the work at once; but Mr. Blaine was cool, attentive, collected, and studious of the great subject, and he saw that as yet the country did not demand it, and so he moved, the senate concurring, “That when the House adjourn, on Tuesday next, it be to meet on Monday, November 11, at twelve o’clock, M.” Some six months would intervene, and many objected. General Butler was there, and offered a vigorous protest. He was for war, vigorous, uncompromising, and merciless. But Mr. Blaine replied, “I would ask the gentleman from Massachusetts, through what convention of the people, through what organism of public opinion, through what channel of general information anywhere throughout the length and breadth of the land, this demand is made upon congress? [It was then March 23, 1867.] Sir, I maintain that out of the seventeen or eighteen hundred newspapers that represent the loyal Union party of this country,—and these are the best indices of public opinion which a party has,—the gentleman cannot find twenty-five which regard the impeachment movement as one seriously to be undertaken on the part of congress at this time.”

It is exceedingly difficult for us now to go back to a year before the extraordinary spectacle of an impeachment trial of the President of the United States, and recall all the circumstances and the state of the country at that particular time. The best minds in the House seemed to be with Mr. Blaine in his feeling, that there was no immediate demand or warrant for the impeachment of the president. His acts were public, and known to the people, and from them to their representatives in congress must come the demand. Moreover, the resolutions of impeachment had been in the hands of a special committee for some months, but they, agreeing with Mr. Blaine, saw no cause for impetuous action.

It was evidently designed to be a matter of wholesome restraint, that this preliminary step had been taken. A great many speeches were made under the resolution to adjourn, upon the impeachment question.

Mr. Garfield said, “The gentleman said I desired congress to remain in session for two reasons; first, to compel the appointment of certain persons to office [there were several hundred postmasters to be appointed and confirmed], and second, for the purpose of impeaching the president. I call his attention to the fact, that I made no allusion whatever to the question of impeachment; I have nothing to say in that direction until I hear from the committee. I expressed it as my opinion merely that the President of the United States would be very glad to have the fortieth congress adjourn, and this I understood from the friends of the president.”

Mr. Boutwell, taking part, said, “The great and substantial reason is that whether this House shall proceed to impeach the president or not, the majority of the people of this country, South and North, black and white, loyal and rebel, have pretty generally lost confidence in him.”