Walks about Washington

by Francis E. Leupp

Where Dolly Madison Gave Her Farewell Ball

was this the end. For the correspondent went home, ran for Congress and was elected, while the wrathful Representative dropped into obscurity under the nickname, which he was never able to shake off, of “Sausage Sawyer.”

Many newspaper publications have been made subjects of special investigation by committees of Congress, but in no instance has a threat of expulsion from the gallery or of prosecution in the courts produced any practical results; and the locking up of recusant committee witnesses has become a mere mockery. The most notable case on record was that of Hallet Kilbourn, a former journalist who had become a real estate broker and a leading participant in a local land syndicate which the House undertook to investigate. Kilbourn was commanded to produce certain account-books, as well as the names and addresses of sundry persons who, not being members of Congress, he insisted were outside the jurisdiction of that body. For his refusal to furnish the information demanded he was thrown into jail and kept there nearly six weeks. From the first, he had declared that he had no objection to opening his accounts to the whole world or to publishing the data desired, as all the transactions covered by the inquiry had been honorable; and this assertion he proved later by voluntarily printing everything. But he was resolved to make a legal test of the right of Congress to arrogate to itself the arbitrary powers of a court of justice, and he got a good deal of enjoyment out of the experience.

For the whole period of his imprisonment he lived like a prince at the expense of the contingent fund of the House; drove about the city at will in a carriage, merely accompanied by a deputy sergeant-at-arms; and entertained his friends at dinner within the jail walls. Of course, the newspapers exploited the whole episode gladly, and when he had held his prosecutors up to popular ridicule long enough, he sued out a writ of habeas corpus and was released. Then he brought a suit for damages against the Sergeant-at-Arms for false imprisonment and won it on appeal after appeal, till the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a sweeping decision that “there is not found in the Constitution any general power vested in either house to punish for contempt.” In spite of the efforts of all the judges in the lower courts to cut down the damages granted by their juries, Congress was finally obliged to pay Kilbourn twenty thousand dollars, or about five hundred dollars a day for his forty days’ incarceration. It took him nine years to carry his case through all its stages.

Both chambers open their daily sessions with prayer. Clergymen of nearly all denominations have served as Chaplains, including Father Pise, a very eloquent Catholic priest who was a close friend of Henry Clay and was invited at his instance to lead the devotions of the Senate. As a rule, the prayers are extemporaneous, and it seems almost inevitable that, in periods of political upheaval, some color of partisanship should creep into them. Yet such slips have been very rare indeed. The most startling was made by the late Doctor Byron Sunderland, who was Chaplain of the Senate in 1862. He was the foremost Presbyterian minister in Washington and a strong anti-slavery advocate. One day Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, who was an accomplished biblical scholar, made a speech reviewing the references in the Hebrew scriptures to human servitude, as proof that slavery was of divine origin. Doctor Sunderland, having left the hall, did not hear the speech made, but was told about it when he arrived at the Capitol the next morning. He was nettled by the news, and, before he was fairly conscious of it, he caught himself saying something like this in his opening prayer: “Oh, Lord God of Nations, teach this Senate and all the people of this country that, if slavery is of divine institution, so is hell itself, and by Thy grace help us to abolish the one and escape the other!” These few words caused a great sensation, and later in the day Mr. Saulsbury vented his indignation in a resolution to expel the offending clergyman from the chaplaincy; but some quick-witted Senator on the opposite side cut off debate by moving to adjourn, and the matter died there.

Every day’s proceedings of Congress are published in a special journal called the Record; but it must not be too lightly assumed that every speech reported has been made in Congress. One of the rules of the House of Representatives permits a member, with the consent of the House, to be credited with having made remarks which, as a matter of fact, he has only reduced to writing and handed to the Clerk. That is what is meant by the “leave to print” privilege. Into the authorship of these speeches, or even of some that are delivered, it is not wise to probe too far. There are trained writers in Washington who earn a livelihood by digging out statistics and other data and composing addresses on various subjects for orators who are willing to pay for them, and Congressmen are among their customers. Once in a while something happens which casts a temporary shadow over this traffic. Several years ago, for example, two Representatives from Ohio were credited in the Record with the same speech. Inquiry developed the fact that it had been offered to one of them, who had refused either to pay the price demanded for it or to give it back; so the author had sold a duplicate copy to the other. But worse yet was the plight of two members who delivered almost identical eulogies on a dead fellow member, having by accident copied their material from the same ancient volume of “Rules and Models for Public Speaking.”

I have alluded to disorders which occasionally mar the course of legislation, when members hurl ugly names at each other or even exchange blows. While some such affrays have carried their high tension to the end and sent the combatants to the dueling field to settle accounts, others have taken a comical turn which decidedly relaxed the strain. Perhaps the most picturesque incident of this kind was the historic Keitt-Grow contest in February, 1858. The House had been engaged all night in a wrangle over an acute phase of the slavery question, and two o’clock in the morning found both the Northern and the Southern members with their nerves on edge. Mr. Keitt of South Carolina, objecting to something said by Mr. Grow of Pennsylvania, struck at him, but Grow parried the blow, and a fellow member who sprang to his assistance knocked Keitt down. From all sides came reinforcements, and in a few minutes what started as a personal encounter of minor importance developed into a general free fight.

Potter of Wisconsin, a man of athletic build, whirled his fists right and left, doing tremendous execution. Owen Lovejoy, seeing Lamar of Mississippi striding toward a confused group, ran at him with arms extended, resolved on pushing him back, while Lamar as vigorously resisted the obstruction. Covode of Pennsylvania, fearing lest his friend Grow might be overpowered by hostile numbers, picked up a big stoneware spittoon and hurried forward, holding his improvised projectile poised to hurl at the head where it would do most good; but having no immediate need to use it, he set it on top of a convenient desk. Everybody was too excited to pay any attention to the loud pounding of the Speaker’s gavel, or to the advance of the Sergeant-at-Arms with his mace held aloft. Even the unemotional John Sherman and his gray-haired Quaker colleague Mott could not keep out of the fray entirely.

But Elihu Washburne of Illinois and his brother Cadwallader of Wisconsin proved by all odds the heroes of the occasion. They were of modest stature, but sturdy and full of energy. Elihu tackled Craig of North Carolina, who was tall and had long arms, which he swung about him with a flail-like motion; and it would have gone hard with the smaller man had he not suddenly lowered his head and used it as a battering-ram, aiming at the unprotected waist-line of his antagonist and doubling him up with one irresistible rush. Just then Cadwallader, seeing Barksdale of Mississippi about to strike Elihu, ran toward him; but being unable to penetrate the crowd, he leaped forward and reached over the heads of the intervening men to seize the Mississippian by the hair. Here came the culmination; for Barksdale’s ambrosial locks, which were only a lifelike wig worn to cover a pate as smooth as a soap-bubble, came off in his assailant’s hand. The astonishment of the one man and the consternation of the other were too much for the fighters, who, in spite of themselves, united in wild peals of merriment; and their hilarity was in no wise dampened when Barksdale, snatching at his wig, restored it to his head hind side before, or when Covode, returning to his seat and missing his spittoon, marched solemnly down the aisle and recovered it from its temporary perch.