The Irish members retired, and messengers summoned the President’s advisers to the White House. The Cabinet meeting was a long and gloomy one. From no quarter of the political heavens was a single ray of light apparent. Plan after plan was proposed, discussed, and abandoned as impracticable. Day was breaking in the east when the Secretary of State, with a firm voice but a haggard face, rose and expressed his belief that no chance remained unless by the acceptance of the Irish terms to gain perhaps a little time. It was not possible, he said, that the revolutionists comprised a majority of the people. They would grow constantly weaker, and the internal dissensions which were sure to arise would divide them, perhaps set them fighting among themselves. Every day’s delay offered at least a chance to strengthen the Government and unite the friends of good order, still in a scattered and demoralized condition. He advised that the Irish terms be accepted, and O’Halloran and Wagner invited to the Cabinet. His resignation was at the President’s disposal. The Secretary of War briefly expressed his agreement, and also tendered his resignation.
When the Senate met, at noon, the President sent in the names of O’Halloran and Wagner as nominees for the places demanded. One of the Irish members who had been sent to New York volunteered to take the message from the White House to the Capitol. Many of the senators were absent, having hurried from Washington in order to protect their families when the first general outbreak occurred. But a quorum remained. An executive session was ordered the moment the message was received. Before the Irish member who bore the document presented it, he had carefully interpolated a sentence which was construed by the Senate as a threat on the President’s part to resign if the nominations were not confirmed. It was supposed by the Senate to be a genuine part of the message. Under its influence, and despite the astonishment caused by the character of the nominations, they were speedily confirmed.
Without ceremony the new secretaries took possession of their offices. Messages were despatched in the name of the Government to the heads of Irish organizations all over the country, ordering them at once to send men, fully armed and equipped, to Washington for Government service. O’Halloran drew up a proclamation, signing it with the President’s name as well as his own, and affixing the great seal of the United States, calling on all insurgents “in the name of the Republic, by the hope they cherish of carrying liberty to their oppressed kindred beyond the sea, and as the surest and speediest way of securing the rights of all the down-trodden,” to lay down their arms and send delegates to a great peace convention, which he announced would be held at Washington on the first secular day of the next month, October. He did not go through the formality of showing this document to the President, but hurried it to the telegraph office for circulation over the country. For days the Government had been unable to transmit messages to New York, on account of the control which the insurgents held of the wires. But this pronunciamento met with no delay. It is a fact that copies had been struck off in the form of placards, and were being read on the streets of New York before the President knew that a proclamation had been issued.
X.
THE LAST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.
It is needless to say that the President did not endure with silence this ignoring of his rank and, in fact, of his very existence. He sent for O’Halloran, who appeared at the White House, accompanied by Wagner, Congressmen Hagarty, Tomlinson, and several other ardent and influential Irish “patriots.” This gathering of the clans warned the President that O’Halloran understood the purpose for which he had been summoned, and was prepared with a reply and a backing. Nevertheless, the President did not hesitate to rebuke him in sharp words for his imprudence and meddlesomeness.
O’Halloran’s response was an angry declaration that he had assumed office at the President’s request, and with the implied understanding that his policy was to be that of the Administration. If he was not wanted, if his policy was not to be accepted, he would decline to retain the secretaryship, and would leave the President to his own devices. So, he added, would the Secretary of War. Mr. Wagner truculently confirmed this remark of his colleague. O’Halloran’s friends joined uninvited in the debate, which soon became undignified and angry on both sides. It ended by O’Halloran flaming into a simulated but apparently uncontrollable rage and defying the President.
An Irish regiment, which had left New York for Washington in suspicious proximity to the departure of “Patsy” and the Irish members of Congress after their conference in that city, had that morning arrived at Washington and was encamped on the Mall. O’Halloran begged the President to take notice of this regiment’s presence, and of the fact, hitherto not mentioned, that twenty thousand more armed men of the same race and actuated by the same spirit were, under his orders, en route for the capital. They were his followers. They would obey him. He would see if the Administration could safely deny its promises to him, and fail to sustain him in whatever course he saw fit to undertake. “When you send for me next on such an errand as this, I will bring them with me,” he shouted. Turning his back on the President, he strode out of the White House, followed by his friends, who had been at no pains to conceal their hearty approval of his defiance and his threat.
O’Halloran proceeded straight to the Irish camp on the Mall. The President, summoning a public carriage, whose movements would attract no attention, drove to the residence of the Ex-Secretary of State. A few other friends and prominent men were called in. While they were debating what steps should be pursued under the new circumstances which had arisen, information reached them that two more bodies of men had arrived at the Pennsylvania station, one, like the regiment then on the Mall, unquestionably Irish, the other as indubitably composed of German and Austrian socialists. They were marching in a certain order and discipline to join the body already in the city. Other messengers brought the news that O’Halloran was in close and secret conference with the officer commanding the regiment then in camp on the Mall.