We touch the honest, ungloved hand of the host of the evening, Senator Harlan, one of the superb pillars of the Republican party; one who has stood upon principles as firmly as though his feet were planted upon the rock of ages; but once he became Secretary of the Interior, and an angel from Heaven could not go into that sink of pollution and come out with clean, unstained wings. If Senator Harlan lives in a respectable mansion in Washington it is because the interest of the unpaid mortgage upon it is less than the rent would be if owned by a landlord; and let it be remembered that Senator Harlan is the only man in the Iowa delegation who has a whole roof to shelter his head; that his house is the only place where citizens of Iowa can gather together and feel at home. It was the noble idea of hospitality to the State that made the Senator pitch his tent outside the horrors of a Washington boarding-house or a crowded hotel, and not to “shine,” as the envious and malicious would have it. A thrust at Senator Harlan is a stab at every man, woman and child who knows him best, and if it was for the good of this nation that the New York Tribune should be broiled like St. Lawrence on a gridiron, it would only be necessary to make it a Secretary of the Interior, with the Indian Bureau in full blast, as it is to-day, and in less than a single administration there would be nothing left of it but a crumpled hat, an old white coat, and a mass of blackened bones. As honest Western people, let us take care of our honest Western statesmen. Let us have a care for the reputation of the men whom we have trusted in war and in peace, and who have never yet proved recreant to the trust.
Dear Republican: Let us dedicate this letter to our sister State, Iowa, most honest, virtuous, best beloved niece of Uncle Sam. A greeting to the Hawkeyes. May their shadows never grow less, and may her thousands of domestic fires that now dot every hill, slope and valley be never extinguished until the sun and the stars shall pole together and creation be swallowed up in everlasting night.
Olivia.
[BINGHAM AND BUTLER.]
Characteristics of These Congressional Giants In Debate.
Washington, March 27, 1867.
Scarcely has the day dawned upon the Fortieth Congress before it is our unpleasant task to chronicle its decline. As we say about the month that gave it birth, “it came in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” At the beginning of the session mutterings of impeachment growled and thundered in the political horizon, but for some unaccountable but wise reason it has all subsided, and the passing away is peculiarly quiet and lamb-like. It almost reminds one of a young maiden dying because of the loss of a recreant lover. The Judiciary Committee are expected to sit all summer on the impeachment eggs; but no woman is so unwise as to count the chickens before they are hatched. It is said that Congress has tied the hands of the President so that he is perfectly incapable of doing any more mischief, and the members go home, and leave Washington desolate. Washington is a live city. It has two states of existence, sleeping and waking. When Congress is in session it is wide awake; when Congress adjourns it goes to sleep, and then woe to the unfortunate letter-writer, for her occupation is gone—everything is gone—the great men, the fashionable women; the great dining-room in the principal hotels are all closed, small eating houses disappear; even stores of respectable size draw in their principal show windows, which proves to the world that they were only “branches” thrown out from the original bodies, which can be found either in Philadelphia or New York, and that the branches never were expected to take root in Washington. Only the clerks in office, the real honey bees in the great national hive, work, and work incessantly, and keep Washington from degenerating into an enchanted city, such as we read about in the Arabian tales.
At the moment of writing Congress is expected immediately to adjourn. The members are in their seats, with the exception of the Honorable, Ben Butler, who at this instant has the floor. He is talking about “confiscated property,” and an observer can see that he has taken the cubic measure of the subject. He is interrupted every few moments, but his equilibrium is not in the least disturbed. As his photographs are scattered broadcast over the land, a pen-and-ink portrait is unnecessary. But we will say that he is a disturbing element wherever he “turns up,” or wherever he goes. It seems to be his fate to be all the time cruising about the “waters of hate.” No man in this broad land is so fearfully hated as Benjamin F. Butler. We do not allude to the South, for that is a unit; but to other surroundings and associations. Some men are born to absorb the love of the whole human race, like the ill-fated Andre; others have the mystic power of touching the baser passions, and Honorable Benjamin F. Butler is master of this last terrible art. But it may be possible that he bears the same relation to the human family that a chestnut burr does to the vegetable world, and if we could only open the burr we might forget our bloody fingers and find ample reward for our pains.