"Subscribed and sworn to before me this 1st day of May, 1874.
M. W. GIBBS,
"City Judge."
The warrant was duly served and return made, with the seal. Baxter, having now ignored the men who placed him in power, called around him as supporters and advisers the brain and strength of the Democratic party. Meanwhile each party had representatives in Washington, urging their claims for recognition. As a party, the Republicans were at a disadvantage. When Brooks, being elected, was contesting Baxter's right to the Governorship, Baxter was supported by the leading and most prominent republicans of the State, who swore "by all the gods at once" that he and not Brooks was elected; but now they swore at once at all opposing gods, who said that Baxter was.
A committee of Brooks men, of whom the writer was one, was sent to Washington to present the claims and conditions to the President. When the train, en route, stopped at Alexandria a gentleman came hurriedly in and, accosting another, said: "What do you think? Grant has recognized Baxter." I did not learn the thought or hear the response, being possessed immediately by a feeling not unlike the boy whose "piece of bread and butter falls with the butter side down." We pursued our way to Washington to find the report true. We called at the White House several times, but the engagements of the President prevented an interview. Late of an afternoon, sitting in my room on I Street, I saw the President approaching slowly and alone. I put on my hat, and was soon with him, and, with becoming salute, addressed him. General Grant, who was ever accessible to the most humble, attentively listened, as we walked, to my brief statement of our case. He replied that his sympathies were with us, for he believed that Brooks was elected; but that his Attorney General had given an opinion that the people, through the expression of their last Legislature, had endorsed Baxter, and that he must acquiesce.
That this avowal was sincere was shown by a subsequent message to Congress on the subject, condemning the process by which the Democracy had vaulted into power. When the dispatch from Washington recognizing Baxter was received at the Antony House the faithful, while making the welkin ring, made immediate preparations to take undisturbed possession of the State House. The march of Governor Baxter and his adherents to the capital was made, as imposing as had his former exclusion been humiliating. A band playing inspiring music not unlike "See, the Conquering Hero Comes," and stepping to the air came an array, led by General King White, on horseback, with flags flying, animated and exhilarated with all the pomp and circumstance of a victorious legion, entered and occupied the building which Brooks and his following, defeated and depressed, had vacated, in obedience to the President's mandate. The prospect for their rehabilitation seemed shadowy, but, with that hope said "to spring eternal in the human breast," they had resolved to carry their contest to Congress.
It may be properly said of Joseph Brooks, as of Charles II, "His fault—and no statesman can have a worse one—was that he never saw things as they really were. He had imagination and logic, but he was an idealist, and a theorizer, in which there might have been good if only his theories and ideals had not been out of relation with the hard duties of a day of storm."
There was opportunity for him to have secured the approval of the Poland Committee. But the tenacity of his ideal of no concession allowed it to pass.