VI Society immediately felt the effect of the tightening political lines. It was not notably brilliant that winter, albeit the war was over, and, with it, much anxiety. None of the old houses that had flourished and sparkled before the war were thrown open to entertainment. It was the boast of Mrs. Ogle Tayloe, dwelling in the fine old mansion on Lafayette Square, that she had not crossed the threshold of the White House since Harriet Lane went out.1 Old friends calling informally that winter found the pictures covered, the chandeliers wound with protective wrappings. The palatial home of Mrs. A. S. Parker at Four and a Half and C Streets which, with its fine conservatories, spacious parlors, and glistening dancing-floor, had been a favorite rendezvous in the days of Pierce and Buchanan, was quiet now. The old aristocracy, partial to the social leadership of the South, resented the new pushing crowd and gave it a wide berth. True, Kate Chase Sprague, unsurpassed in beauty, elegance, or charm by the haughtiest of the ante-bellum belles, was reigning now, but this winter she had laid aside the crown. The President's receptions were crowded, and throngs shoved and jostled in the drawing-rooms of Cabinet members, but entertaining on a large scale was confined to those whose official positions prescribed parties. It was not long until political differences, bordering even then on hatreds, divided society into groups. Even the French Minister's party was under suspicion. 'On Friday night went to the party at the French Minister's,' wrote Julian,2 'which was the grandest display I ever saw. I never knew before how much wealth could do in dazzling the eye and charming the senses.... French all over... dancing and waltzing perfectly charming... music superlative.... About half-past eleven a lunch was served consisting of choice fruits of all kinds, dainties and drinks, and when I left at midnight a regular supper was being prepared.' Merely a diplomatic function? Old Gideon Welles, scanning the horizon eagerly for signs of storm, was not so sure. ‘Last night at... a large party given by Marquis Montholon, the French Minister,' he wrote. 'Am inclined to believe there was something political as well as social in the demonstration.' It was just a 1 Mrs. Clay. 3 Welles, 11, 430. MS. Diary, February 11, 1866. ვ little before that Welles had been impressed by the large number of fashionable folk who had been former playmates of the Southerners who were frequenting his wife's receptions. 'So many who have been distant and reserved were present as to excite suspicion,' he wrote. No doubt, he thought, they took this method of manifesting sympathy with the Johnson policies. Indeed, he had noticed quite a sprinkling of these people at the last White House reception. And why not? 'If professed friends prove false and attack him, he will not be likely to repel such friends as sustain him,' he said. 'I certainly will not.' Thus society was dividing into the camps of the red and the white in the war of the roses, and with hostesses a bit timid, statesmen turned to such entertainment as they could find. Ristori was playing, and the playhouse was neutral ground where all could gather in safety.' And there was Handel's 'Messiah' with a chorus of a hundred voices, 'and the celebrated Miss Houston of Boston.' And there were the parlor readings at the home of Julia Ward Howe, where one might meet Chase, Guroski, and some Radical Senators and a few ladies. Or one could find gayety enough at the official receptions and see 'the new style of wearing the hair-turning it loose.' But when it 5 was possible to meet congenial political company at a séance, the entertainment was at its best. At the moment, spiritualism was fascinating the country, and some nervous editors were denouncing it as a free-love movement, but what would you have when the town was dull? Thus quite a gathering of Radical statesmen assemble now and then at 27 Four and a Half Street 'to hear the spirit of Theodore Parker through Mrs. Cora V. Daniels as medium.' The lady drifts into a trance, and 'after a very pretty prayer' invites the Nation's rulers to ask questions about 'the state of the country.' Serious? Listen to the lady conveying the message of Parker: In less than eight weeks Johnson will arrest the leading Republicans... convoke a Congress of Southerners and copperheads... and the 'patriots.' like Stevens, will hold another Congress, probably in Ohio... and a bloody conflict will follow, 'extending this time into the Northern States,' but in the end the Radicals will prevail. Thus Cora was less medium than mind 1 Welles, II, 421-22. 2 Grimes, 308. 3 Ibid., 322. Julian, MS. Diary, February 24, 1866. Ibid., January 26, 1866. reader. Of course these statesmen knew that Parker was not present and had sent no silly message, but it was the kind of message for the audience and so the statesmen hurry out into the night.' 1 VII And now began the great push for negro suffrage - with the District of Columbia for the first experiment. In the referendum election on the pending suffrage bills, Washington and Georgetown had cast 7369 votes against them and 36 for them, but no matter. The party whip began to swish in the air and cut the shoulders of the skeptics. General Sherman was writing his embarrassed brother that to place the ballot in the hands of an illiterate majority of blacks fresh from slavery would 'produce more convulsions.' The Northern intellectuals and literati, along with the politicians with an eye on votes, were earnest in the cause. William Cullen Bryant thought it would be setting a noble example to the Nation to force suffrage on the helpless District.3 Thus, one January day, the galleries of the House were packed to suffocation with whites and blacks. The debate was long and fervent. The opposition fought for time, but all motions for postponement were promptly voted down. Voorhees, from the Democratic side, moved a recommitment with instructions for the framing of a bill admitting all to the vote who could read the Constitution, or who were assessed for, and paid, taxes in the District, or who had served in, and been honorably discharged from the military or naval service. One or two Republicans proposed changes in these instructions. Thad Stevens turned and glowered. 'I hope we will not make these instructions any better than they are,' he rumbled; 'they are bad enough at best.' The recommittal motion failed; the roll was called. When Henry Raymond's name was reached and he voted for suffrage, "a benignant smile seemed to pass at that moment over old Thad Stevens's face' - he was dragging Raymond into camp by his whiskers. With the announcement of the result to a House and 1 Julian, MS. Diary, March 6, 1866. 2 Letters, 261-62. 3 Godwin, Life, Letter to Mrs. Watterson, 11, 241. 4 New York World, January 19, 1866. galleries tense with suppressed excitement, the chamber fairly rocked with cheers and shouts from floor and gallery. Radical members, in high glee, moved about the floor grasping each other's hands, and whites and blacks in the galleries and in the corridors later fraternized as brothers, and in the eyes of many were tears of joy.1 The pounding of the Speaker's gavel made no impression on the galleries, and Colfax, in resentful tones, shouted his inability to maintain order in the galleries if members would not on the floor.2 Thus the bill passed to the Senate, to be lost in the congestion of the closing hours, but notice had been served upon the South, and that was marking progress. VIII A very little while, and Frederick Douglass, mulatto orator, leading a delegation of blacks, filed into the White House. Sumner had just made one of his extravagant speeches in the Senate, and it was not a humble orator who approached the President, to be courteously received, and stepped forward to make his demands for suffrage in the South. Johnson stood at respectful attention through the speech, and then made reply. He had opposed slavery as a monopoly with the slave-owners in a minority controlling political power. During the days he was opposed to slavery, the negroes had looked with contempt upon the working white man. 'Where such is the case,' he said, 'we know there is enmity, we know there is hate.' The poor white was opposed both to the slave and the master, for the two combined to hold him in economic bondage. 'Now,' said Johnson earnestly, 'the query comes up whether these two races, situated as they were before, without preparation, without time for passion and excitement to be appeased, and without time for the slightest improvement, whether the one should be turned loose upon the other at the ballot box with this enmity and hate existing between them. The question comes up right here whether we do not commence a war of races.' This was a prophecy, almost immediately to be fulfilled. Johnson concluded by saying that the franchise was a matter for the States. While he was talking, the attitude of Douglass, smiling con1 Julian, MS. Diary, January 19, 1866. 2 Congressional Globe, January 18, 1866. descendingly, had been one of studied insolence, considering the station of the speaker. As the negro turned to leave at the head of his delegation, he uttered a threat: "The President sends us to the people, and we go to the people.' 'Yes,' said Johnson, keeping his temper, 'I have great faith in the people. I believe they will do what is right.' 1 This frank exposition of his views invited a deluge, and it descended. The 'Chicago Tribune' hysterically insisted that the negro had more ability, logic, and eloquence than the President; and Phillips, addressing a bitter crowd at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, denounced Johnson as a traitor and demanded his impeachment. Julian thought that 'his late speech to the colored people dooms him,' and was sure he was 'a very small man, and . . . a slave of the bottle.' 2 Meanwhile the Senate was brilliantly debating Trumbull's bill continuing the Freedmen's Bureau indefinitely, extending its operations to freedmen everywhere, authorizing the allotment of forty-acre tracts of the unoccupied lands of the South to negroes, and arming the Bureau with judicial powers to be exercised at will. Trumbull and Fessenden bore the brunt of the defense, and Hendricks, leading the attack, assailed the judicial feature, the extension of the Bureau's power throughout the country, and the creation of an army of petty officials. 'Let the friends of the negroes be satisfied to treat them as they are treated in Pennsylvania ... in Ohio... everywhere where people have maintained their sanity upon the question,' said Cowan of Pennsylvania. With some moved by a sincere interest in the freedmen's welfare, the average politician was thinking of the tremendous engine for party in the multitude of paid petty officials swarming over the South, for its possibilities had been tested. It was a party measure, and as such it was passed. While still pending in Congress, the bill had been carefully studied in Administration circles and found ‘a terrific engine. . . a governmental monstrosity.' Such was the opinion of Johnson, who calmly prepared to meet it with a veto. Thus one day he sat three hours with the Cabinet discussing his Message and taking 2 MS. Diary, February 11, 1866. McPherson, 53-55. 'Pierce, Freedmen's Bureau, 161. 5 Ibid., 11, 433. |