So, on the other hand, obtuse, dense-headed observers, unaccustomed to make distinctions, rush to the Constitutional with confused or ill-defined recollections of the patterns or styles they want, and buy and bring away packages of goods which, when exposed to a clear light, are at once seen to be wholly dissimilar. As in large stores, some people become confused by the variety, and select at random, or in a perplexed glamour, articles to match pieces at home either in color, texture, or quality, and assent with a mixed mind to the adroit suggestions of the salesman; so in the various sections into which our Constitutional store is divided up, many good people, even deacons, vestry-men, the annual subscriber to missionary papers, and systematic charity bestowers, become, in the shifting cross-lights of commentaries, and remarks of story-tellers and others, as confused and astray in their notions, and lose their own not over-strong heads as completely as congressmen at an evening session, or the President during the closing hours of the last night of the congressional barbecue.
There is no store so much talked about all over the United States as this Constitutional one; and there are no goods so generally used or so popular as those which are either actually obtained there, or fancied to be in it for sale. Nicholas Biddle once got a gold-colored suit there which he wore in and around the vaults of the United States Bank, in Philadelphia, from 1816 to 1836; but General Jackson, for various reasons, some of which were very peculiar and of a hickory color, others as sound as oak, took such a dislike to it, that he finally persuaded the people that it was a very poor suit, and, in fact, never came from the Constitutional store, but was a deceptive imitation of goods there.
Many persons have gone to the Federal store, to procure water-proof constitutional goods, to wear in dredging rivers and harbors, in laying down watery ways across States, and when at work on the coast, or exposed to the chilling winds from State capitols. Others insist upon purchasing there, also, long selvedges, or narrow, iron-colored strips, which some declare to be very excellent material for binding States; while others assert that it is only calculated for hemming them in uncomfortably. Some of these strips have a very elastic element in them, and can be made to stretch in parallel lines from Washington to the farthest border of the Union. The bands, or bindings, which they use, are also wonderfully elastic, and can be multiplied like stars to the bewildering gaze of an enthusiastic drinker.
On the whole, it may be said, that while this great American store contains piles of invaluable goods, it is supposed by intelligent persons to hold more rights than were ever left to men.
The Irrepressible Negro.
(p. 322)
CHAPTER II.
CONSTRUCTION; OR, WASHINGTON’S ADMINISTRATION.
1789–1797.
How the Thirteen Colonial Children crept into their New Bed.—The Upholstering described.—Why Rhode Island was last in.—Who tucked her up.—Washington as Superintendent, and John Adams as First Assistant.—The Family low in Credit.—Amount of their Indebtedness compared with ours.—Washington’s Inaugural.—His Exemption, from Office Beggars, Committees, Pugilistic M. C.’s, boring Place-Seekers, enterprising Donors, etc.—Washington as a Spirit.—His Capacity to select a Cabinet.—Who they were.—Of Henry Knox.—The Chief Justice and Attorney-General.—Amendments to a perfect Constitution.—The Supreme Court as a Sound, Seaworthy Tribunal.—Why States cannot be sued by Individuals.—How Governments get around paying Interest on Principle.—Streaks of the Millennium.—Of the Public Debt.—Discrimination among Creditors.—Misfortune of being a Cisatlantic Holder of American Bonds.—Alexander Hamilton’s Notions.—Washington’s Receptions and Dinner-Parties.—The Political Color of the President’s Silver Spoons and Window Curtains.—The Honeymoon of the new Government disturbed.—Ganderous Long-bills splash Washington.—The French Revolution and its Conundrums.—How answered by Washington and the Federals; how by Jefferson and the Anti-Federals.—The Census Act procures names without Owners.—The Naturalization Laws and their Pat-riot Products.—Polls and Polling-Places.—A Sinking Fund that did not sink.—How Vermont made the Thirteen States old.—An Indian War.—Cincinnati begins.—Kentucky starts.—Mistakes about Bourbon.—Washington’s second Term.—What Genet did, and how he was done for.—Helpful Americans.—The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.—The Year of Treaties; how they enlarged while they tied us.—Tennessee the Sixteenth State.—Nashville gets warm.—Washington’s Farewell, and its cheap Imitations.—The Shades of Office.—Who crept in and who stepped into the Sunshine.
The thirteen colonial children, emancipated from parental mis-government in 1783, tired of sleeping together in the same old, rickety confederate bed, which had been hastily put together in 1777, and whose cords they found so small and hard as to cut through the thin mattress above, and so weak as to creak and threaten to go down under them, whenever they stirred or even spoke above a whisper, at last, in 1789, obtained a new first-class constitutional bedstead. It was wide and roomy, with even, strong springs, and was easy to get in and out of, as well as very comely in shape, and well polished externally.
This new article was, however, not decided upon by all the thirteen immediately. It was spoken for in 1787, and, during that and the next year, eleven signified their preference for it over the old tumble-down rumbly. Little Rhody was the baby in the old family, and, fearing to be overlaid and perhaps smothered by her larger bedfellows, did not crawl under the sheets of the newly upholstered bed until 1790; and not until New York and Virginia had agreed to be content with a fixed amount of bedclothing, instead of claiming, for themselves, that large Western comforter, those earth-colored strips, of the empire pattern, extending to the Pacific side of the bed, and large enough to cut up into a dozen good-sized State counterpanes.