The senators are all in their places; ministers of foreign Powers and their suites are seated on the row of benches under the gallery; the expectant masses are waiting outside; voices are suddenly hushed, and all eyes turned towards the door of the senate-chamber; the herald walks in, and says, "The President Elect of the United States." The chosen of his country appears with as little form or ceremony as a gentleman walking into an ordinary drawing-room. All rise as he enters.
I watched the man of the day as he proceeded to his seat on the floor of the senate. There was neither pride in his eye nor nervousness in his step, but a calm and dignified composure, well fitted to his high position, as though gratified ambition were duly tempered by a deep sense of responsibility. The procession moved out in order to a platform in front of the Capitol, the late able president walking side by side with his untried successor, and apparently as calm in resigning office as his successor appeared to be in entering upon it. Of the inaugural speech I shall say nothing, as all who care to read it have done so long since. But one thing should always be remembered, and that is, that the popular candidates here are all compelled to "do a little Buncombe," and therefore, under the circumstances, I think it must be admitted there was as little as was possible. That speech tolled the knell, for the present at least, of the Whig party, and ushered in the reign of General Pierce and the Democrats.
Since these lines were penned, the "chosen of the nation" has passed through his ordeal of four years' administration; and, whatever private virtues may have adorned his character, I imagine the unanimous voice of his countrymen would unhesitatingly declare, that so utterly inefficient a man never filled the presidential chair. He has been succeeded by Mr. Buchanan, who was well known as the accredited Minister to the Court of St. James's, and who also made himself ludicrously conspicuous as one of the famous Ostend manifesto party. However, his talents are undoubted, and his public career renders it probable that, warned by the failure of his predecessor, his presidency will reflect more credit upon the Republic than that of Mr. Pierce. Mr. B.'s inaugural address has been published in this country, and is, in its way, a contradictory curiosity. He urges, in diplomacy, "frankness and clearness;" while, to his fellow-citizens, he offers some very wily diplomatic sentences. Munroe doctrine and manifest destiny are not named; but they are shadowed forth in language worthy of a Talleyrand. First, he glories in his country having never extended its territory by the sword(?); he then proceeds to say—what everybody says in anticipation of conquest, annexation, or absorption—"Our past history forbids that, in future, we should acquire territory, unless this be sanctioned by the laws of justice and honour" (two very elastic laws among nations). "Acting on this principle, no nation will have a right to interfere, or to complain if, in the progress of events, we shall still further extend our possessions." Leaving these frank and clear sentences to the consideration of the reader, we return from the digression.
The crowd outside was very orderly, but by no means so numerous as I had expected; I estimated them at 8000; but a friend who was with me, and well versed in such matters, calculated the numbers at nearly 10,000, but certainly, he said, not more. The penny Press, by way of doing honour to their new ruler, boldly fixed the numbers at 40,000—that was their bit of Buncombe. One cause, probably, of the crowd not being greater, was the drizzling snow, which doubtlessly induced many to be satisfied with seeing the procession pass along Pennsylvania Avenue.
I cannot help remarking here, how little some of their eminent men know of England. A senator, of great and just reputation, came to me during the ceremony, and said, "There is one thing which must strike you as very remarkable, and that is, that we have no soldiers here to keep order upon an occasion of such political importance." He was evidently unaware that, not only was such the case invariably in England, but that soldiers are confined to barracks, or even removed during the excitement of elections. There is no doubt that the falsehoods and exaggerations with which the Press here teems, in matters referring to England, are sufficiently glaring to be almost self-confuting; but if they can so warp the mind of an enlightened senator, how is it to be wondered at that, among the masses, many suck in all such trash as if it were Gospel truth, and look upon England as little else than a land of despotism; but of that, more anon. The changing of presidents in this country resembles, practically speaking, the changing of a premier in England; but, thank Heaven! the changing of a premier in England does not involve the same changes as does the changing of a president here.
I believe it was General Jackson who first introduced the practice of a wholesale sweeping out of opponents from all situations, however small; and this bright idea has been religiously acted upon by all succeeding presidents. The smallest clerkships, twopenny-halfpenny postmasterships in unheard-of villages—all, all that can be dispensed with, must make way for the friends of the incomers to power. Fancy a new premier in England making a clean sweep of nine-tenths of the clerks, &c., at the Treasury, Foreign-office, Post-office, Custom-house, Dockyards, &c., &c. Conceive the jobbing such a system must lead to, not to mention the comparative inefficiency it must produce in the said departments, and the ridiculous labour it throws upon the dispensers of these gifts of place. The following quotation may be taken as a sample:—
OUR CUSTOM-HOUSE—WHAT A HAUL.—The New Hampshire Patriot, in an
article on proscription, thus refers to the merciless decapitation of
the Democrats of our Custom-house, by Mr. Collector Maxwell:—
"Take the New York Custom-house as a sample. There are 626 officers