The Last President: Ch 10

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Again Congress had refused to adjourn over for the holidays.
The leaders of the Administration forces were unwilling to close their eyes, even for needful sleep, and went about pale and haggard, startled at every word and gesture of the opposition, like true conspirators, as they were, for the Federal troops had been almost to a man quietly removed from the Capital and its vicinage, lest the President in a moment of weakness, might do or suffer to be done some act unfriendly to the Reign of the Common People.

Strange as it may seem, there had been very little note taken by the country at large of the introduction at the opening of the session of an Act to extend the Pension System of the United States to the Soldiers of the Confederate Armies, and for covering back into the various treasuries of certain States of the Union, such portions of internal revenue taxes collected since the readmission of said states to the Federal Congress, as may be determined by Commissioners duly appointed under said Act.

Was it the calm of despair, the stolidity of desperation, or the cool and restrained energy of a noble and refined courage?

The introduction of the Act, however, had one effect; it set in motion toward the National capital, mighty streams of humanity — not of wild-eyed fanatics or unshaven and unkempt politicasters and bezonians — but of soberly-clad citizens with a business-like air about them, evidently men who knew how to earn more than enough for a living, men wha paid their taxes and had a right to take a look at the public servants, if desire so moved them.
But very plain was it that the mightier stream flowed in from the South, and those who remembered the Capital in antebellum day’s, smiled at the old familiar sight, the clean-shaven faces, the long hair thrown carelessly back under the broad brim felts, the half unbuttoned waistcoats and turn down collars, the small feet and neatly fitting boots, the springy loping pace, the soft negroese intonation, the long fragrant cheroot.

It was easy to pick out the man from the Northland, well-clad and well-groomed, as careful of his linen as a woman, prim and trim, disdainful of the picturesque felts, ever crowned with the ceremonious derby, the man of affairs, taking a business-like view of life, but wearing for the nonce a worried look and drawing ever and anon a deep breath.

The black man, ever at the heels of his white brother, set to rule over him by an inscrutable decree of nature, came forth too in thousands, chatting and laughing gayly, careless of the why or wherefore of his white brother’s deep concern, and powerless to comprehend it had he so desired. Every hour now added to the throng.
The broad avenues were none too broad.
The excitement increased.
Men talked louder and louder, women and children disappeared almost completely from the streets.
"The Southern element” drew more and more apart in knots and groups by itself.
Men threw themselves upon their beds to catch a few hours sleep, but without undressing, as if they were expecting the happening of some portentous event at any moment, the event of their lives, and dreaded the thought of being a moment late.

If all went well, the bill would come up for final passage on Saturday, the 30th day of the month, but so fierce was the battle raged against it, and so frequent the interruptions by the contumacy both of members and of the various cliques crowding the galleries to suffocation, that little or no progress could be made.

The leaders of the administration forces saw midnight drawing near with no prospect of attaining their object before the coming in of Sunday on which the House had never been known to sit.
An adjournment over to Monday of the New Year might be fatal, for who could tell what unforseen force might not break up their solid ranks and throw them into confusion.
They must rise equal to the occasion.
A motion was made to suspend the rules, and to remain in continuous session until the business before the House was completed.
"Cries of Unprecedented!”
"Revolutionary!”
“Monstrous!” came from the opposition, but all to no purpose; the House settled down to its work with such a grim determination to conquer that the Republican minority fairly quailed before it.
Food and drink were brought to the members in their seats; they ate, drank and slept at their posts, like soldiers determined not to be ambushed or stampeded.

It was a strange sight, and yet an impressive one withal — a great party struggling for long deferred rights — freemen jealous of their liberties, bound together with the Steel hooks of determination that only death might break asunder.

Sunday came in at last, and still the struggle went on.
“The people know no days when their liberties are at stake,” cried the leader of the House.
“The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.”

Many of the speeches delivered on that famous Sunday sounded more like the lamentations of a Jeremiah, the earnest and burning utterances of a Paul, or the scholarly and well-rounded periods of an Apollos.
The weary hours were lightened by the singing of hymns by the Southern members, most of them good methodists, in which their friends and sympathizers in the galleries joined full throated and fuller hearted; while at times, clear, resonant and in perfect unison, the voices of the staunch men of the North broke in and drowned out the religious song with the majestic and soul-stirring measures of John Brown’s Body, ”the Glory, Glory Halleluiah” of which seemed to hush the tumult of the Chamber like a weird chant of some invisible chorus breaking in upon the fierce rioting of a Belshazzar’s feast.

Somewhat after eleven o’clock, an ominous silence sank upon the opposing camps, the Republican leaders could be seen conferring together nervously.
It was a sacred hour of night, thrice sacred for the great Republic.
Not only a New Year, but a New Century was about to break upon the world.
A strange hush crept over the turbulent House, and its still more turbulent galleries.

The Republican leader rose to his feet.
His voice sounded cold and hollow.
Strong men shivered as they listened.
"Mr Speaker: We have done our duty to our country; we have nothing more to say, no more blows to strike.
We cannot stand here within the sacred precincts of this Chamber, and see our rights as freemen trampled beneath the feet of the majority.
We have striven to prevent the downfall of the Republic, like men sworn to battle against wrong and tyranny, but there comes a time when blank despair seizes upon the hearts of those who struggle against overwhelming odds.
That hour has sounded for us.
We believe our people, the great and generous people of the North, will cry unto us:
Well done, good and faithful servants.
If we do wrong, let them condemn us.
We, every man of us, Mr. Speaker, have but this moment sworn not to stand within this Chamber and witness the passage of this act. Therefore we go,... "

"Not so, my countrymen,” cried a clear metallic far-reaching voice that sounded through the Chamber with an almost supernatural ring in it.
In an instant, every head was turned and a thousand voices burst out with suppressed force :

"The President! The President!”

In truth, it was he, standing at the bar of the House, wearing the visage of death rather than of life.
The next instant the House and galleries burst into a deafening clamor which rolled up and back in mighty waves that shook the very walls.
There was no stilling it.
Again and again it burst forth, the mingling of ten thousand words, howling, rumbling and groaning like the warring elements of nature.
Several times the President stretched forth his great white hands appealing for silence, while the dew of mingled dread and anguish beaded on his brow and trickled down his cheeks in liquid supplication that his people might either slay him or listen to him.
The tumult stilled its fury for a moment, and he could be heard saying brokenly:

"My countrymen, oh, my countrymen,...”

But the quick sharp sound of the gavel cut him short.

"The President must withdraw" said the Speaker, calmly and coldly, “his presence here is a menace to our free deliberation."

Again the tumult set up its deafening roar, while a look of almost horror overspread the countenance of the Chief Magistrate.

Once more his great white hands went heavenward, pleading for silence with such a mute majesty of supplication, that silence fell upon the immense assemblage, and his lips moved not in vain.

“Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, I stand here upon my just and lawful right as President of the Republic, to give you information of the state of the Union.
I have summoned the Honorable Senate, to meet me in this Chamber.
I call upon you to calm your passions, and give ear to me as your oath of office sets the sacred obligation upon you."

There was a tone of godlike authority in these few words, almost divine enough to make the winds obey and still the tempestuous sea.
In deepest silence, and with a certain show of rude and native grandeur of bearing, the Senators made their entrance into the Chamber, the members of the House rising, and the Speaker advancing to meet the Vice-President.
The spectacle was grand and moving.
Tears gathered in eyes long unused to them, and at an almost imperceptible nod of the President's head, the Chaplain raised his voice in prayer.
He prayed in accents that were so gentle and so persuasive, they must have turned the hardest heart to blessed thoughts of peace and love and fraternity and union.
And then again all eyes were fixed with intensest strain upon the face of the President.

“Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, this measure upon which you are now deliberating,..."

With a sudden blow that startled every living soul within its hearing, the Speaker’s gavel fell.
“The President,” said he with a superb dignity that called down from the galleries a burst of deafening applause, "must not make reference to pending legislation.
The Constitution guarantees him the right from time to time to give to the Congress information of the Union.
He must keep himself strictly within the lines of this Constitutional limit, or withdraw from the bar of the House.”

A deadly pallor overspread the face of the Chief Magistrate till it seemed he must sink then and there into that sleep which knows no awakening, but he gasped, he leaned forward, he raised his hand again imploringly, and as he did so, the bells of the city began to toll the hour of midnight.

The New Year, the New Century was born, but with the last stroke, a fearful and thunderous discharge as of a thousand monster pieces of artillery, shook the Capitol to its very foundations, making the stoutest hearts stand still, and blanching cheeks that had never known the coward color.
The dome of the Capitol had been destroyed by dynamite.

In a few moments, when it was seen that the Chamber had suffered no harm, the leader of the House moved the final passage of the Act.
The President was led away, and the Republican Senators and Representatives passed slowly out of the disfigured Capitol, while the tellers prepared to take the vote of the House.
The bells were ringing a glad welcome to the New Century, but a solemn tolling would have been a fitter thing, for the Republic of Washington was no more.
It had died so peacefully, that the world could not believe the tidings of its passing away.
As the dawn broke cold and gray, and its first dim light fell upon that shattered dome glorious even in its ruins, a single human eye, filled with a gleam of devilish joy, looked up at it long and steadily, and then its owner was caught up and lost in the surging mass of humanity that held the Capitol girt round and round.