Four members of diverse parties take their seats beside the Clerk to count, and in a moment the call begins. “Sydenham E. Ancona.” “James Brooks” comes back for the first response, and the ill-mannered galleries laugh again. Then follows a running fire of “Schuyler Colfax,” “Schuyler Colfax,” “Colfax,” “Colfax,” with here and there a scattering shot for “James Brooks.” A moment’s figuring; the tellers rise; Mr. Morrill steps out in front of the Clerk’s desk. “The tellers agree in their count. One hundred and thirty-nine votes have been cast for Schuyler Colfax, and thirty-five for James Brooks.” Laughter again, while the Clerk repeats the figures of the result. Then, “Hon. Schuyler Colfax, one of the Representatives elect from the State of Indiana, having received a majority of all the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Mr. Morrill, of Vermont, and Mr. Brooks, of New York, will act as a committee to conduct the Speaker elect to the chair; and Mr. Washburn, of Illinois, who has been for the longest time a member of the House, will administer the oath of office.” And with this the bright-faced little Pennsylvanian steps down.
The Speaker turns as he reaches the steps to the chair, shakes hands again with the committee, and leaving them, ascends to his place, unfolds his roll of manuscript and reads his graceful little speech.
While he reads, one may move around and see who make up the crowd standing about the outer row of desks and filling the space back to the cloak-rooms. Near the door the portly form and handsome face of Secretary McCulloch are noticeable. The other Cabinet officers seem not to be present. An amazing shock of black, curly hair, of formidable length, surmounting a boyish face, in which the queer incongruities are completed by a pair of spectacles, can not be overlooked. Its owner moves about with some constraint; naturally enough, for the Rebels shot away his leg at Port Hudson, where he was one of the commanding Generals, (Wisconsin sent him,) and the wooden one is not quite perfect. Another spectacled hero, with fiery whiskers, and an asserting nose with the blooded race-horse thinness of nostril, is conspicuous—General Carl Schurz, for the time chief Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune; and, as all men know, the most eloquent foreigner taking part in our American politics. Half a score of Senators have come over; the ubiquitous and good-looking Henry Wilson, prominent among them.
But the Speaker elect closes; a ripple of applause runs over the audience; the bluff, hearty, downright Washburne is taking his place, book in hand, in the little space in front of the Speaker:
“You, Schuyler Colfax, a member of the House of Representatives of the United States, do solemnly swear that you have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since you have been a citizen thereof; that you have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that you have neither sought, nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that you have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And you do further swear that, to the best of your knowledge and ability, you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter: So help you God.”
It is the oath which the laws require and which the higher obligations of public safety demand, and it is the oath, facing which most of the Southern States have sent none who could take it without perjury. Even the venerable Jacob Barker would make a pretty figure taking that oath—especially if he should happen to see General Butler watching him while he swore!
Next comes the swearing of the members. State by State, they gather in rows around the Clerk’s desk; and the new Speaker descending from his chair, and standing in the center of each group of uplifted hands, reads over again the oath.
This scene of unavoidable confusion over, an unkinder thing than even the oath is thrust before the Democrats. Wilson, of Iowa, looking as honest as ever, downright proposes to elect McPherson and the remaining House officers by resolution. The Democrats squirm and protest; but Wilson guards every point; insists on the previous question, and carries the matter through with a whirl. The Democrats stand up, on the call, and their corporal’s guard contrasts so ludicrously with the great crowd that rises from all parts of the hall when the Union side is called, that the galleries can’t refrain from another burst of laughter. “We want at least the poor privilege of complimenting our candidates for these offices by nominating and voting for them” pleads one; but Wilson is inexorable, and the Democrats are not permitted even to make a nomination.