Perley's Reminiscences Part 21

Mr. Marcy continued: "This language is further corroborated by a despatch to this department from our Minister at Paris."

De Sartiges took a hurried leave, but sought revenge by making himself generally disagreeable. He had a row with Mr. Barney, a venerable ex-member of the House and a gentleman of the old school.

At evening parties before leaving he would enter the drawing-room where ladies and gentlemen were a.s.sembled, with his hat on and a cigar in his mouth, which he would light by the chandelier. He also persisted in firing at cats and rats from the back windows of his house, thus endangering the lives of persons in the adjacent back yards.

Mr. Crampton was recalled and received a diplomatic promotion, going to St. Petersburg as Sir John Crampton. While there, in 1861, he married a young daughter of Balfe, who afterward procured a divorce, after a curious suit at law, tried before "a jury of matrons."

England was forced to admit that Mr. Crampton's conduct was "notoriously at war with the rights of neutrality and national honor." This was not altogether pleasant to some of the old Nestors of the Senate, who wanted once more to sound the war tocsin.

General Ca.s.s, who had had a bad fall on the outside steps of the Department of the Interior, was "eager for the fray;" the valiant Clayton, of Delaware, saw an opportunity to wipe out the stigma cast upon his treaty; and although the patriarchal Butler (owner of men-servants and maid-servants, flocks and herds) displayed the lily flag of peace in the Senatorial debate, it was as eccentric as were his weird-like white locks. Lord Clarendon had then his hands full, but his successors took their revenge in 1862, when attempts were made to obtain recruits in Ireland for the Union Army. Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng's elaborate arguments against enlistments for a foreign power were copied and sent back to the Department of State at Was.h.i.+ngton.

The diplomatic representatives of Queen and Czar, Emperor and Kaiser, were greatly troubled during the Crimean and other European wars, and it would not answer for them to be seen in friendly relations with each other. These foreign diplomats delude themselves with the belief that they play an important political part at Was.h.i.+ngton. So they do in the opinion of the marriageable damsels, who are flattered with their flirtations, and in the estimation of sn.o.bbish sojourners, who glory in writing home that they have shaken hands with a lord, had a baron to dine with them, or loaned an _attache_ a hundred dollars. But, in reality, they are the veriest supernumeraries in the political drama now being performed on the Was.h.i.+ngton stage. Should any difficulty arise with the foreign powers they represent, special Ministers would be appointed to arrange it, and meanwhile the _Corps Diplomatique_ "give tone to society," and is a potent power--in its own estimation.

The various legations all exhibit their national characteristics.

The British attaches represent the Belgravian of the London magazines; their hair parted just a line off the exact centre, their soft eye only one degree firmer than those of their sisters', while their beautiful, long side-whiskers are wonderful to behold. The Spanish gentlemen one recognizes by their close-shorn black heads and smooth faces, all courtesy, inevitable pride and secretiveness, eyes that, like those of their women, betray a hundred intrigues, because they seek to conceal so much. The exquisite politeness of the South Americans make you wonder if you rally can be dust and ashes after this perfect deference, and their manners are marked by more vivacity than those of the Spanish people. The Russian diplomatists have generally been on the most friendly terms with Congressmen and citizens generally, while the Prussians and the Frenchmen have had several little difficulties with the Department of State and with the residents of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Although Mr. Marcy was unwilling to cater for the favor of the press to the extent which characterized the conduct of many other public men, he generally had a good word for the reporters and correspondents whom he met. "Well, Mr. ----," he would say, as he walked up the steps of his office in the morning, to some member of the press, who affected or had a great acquaintance with the secrets of State--"Well, what is the news in the State Department?

You know I have always to go to the newspaper men to find out what is going on here." At another time he would suggest a paragraph which, he would quizzically intimate, might produce an alarm in political circles, improvising, for example, at a party of Senator Seward's, some story in the ordinary letter-writer style about Seward and Marcy being seen talking together, and ending with ominous speculations as to an approaching coalition, etc., in doing which he would happily hit off the writers for the press.

Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng was more accommodating. He would converse freely with those correspondents in whom he had confidence, and permit them to copy his opinions in advance of their delivery upon their pledges that they should not be printed before they were officially made public. He wrote a great many editorials, somewhat ponderous and verbose, for the Was.h.i.+ngton _Union_, and the elaborate statements on executive matters made by the correspondents who enjoyed his favor were often dictated by him.

Mr. Buchanan, removed from the intrigues of home politics, kept up an active correspondence with his friends. "I expected," he wrote to Mr. Henry A. Wise, "ere this to have heard from you. You ought to remember that I am now a stranger in a strange land, and that the letters of so valued a friend as yourself would be to me a source of peculiar pleasure. I never had any heart for this mission, and I know that I shall never enjoy it. Still, I am an optimist in my philosophy, and shall endeavor to make my sojourn here as useful to my country and as agreeable to myself as possible.

"I have been in London," Mr. Buchanan went on to say, "long enough to form an opinion that the English people generally are not friendly to the United States. They look upon us with jealous eyes, and the public journals generally, and especially the Leviathan _Times_, speak of us in terms of hostility. The _Times_ is particularly malignant, and as it notoriously desires to be the echo of public opinion, its language is the more significant. From all I can learn, almost every person denounces what they are pleased to call the crime of American slavery, and ridicules the idea that we can be considered a free people whilst it shall exist. They know nothing of the nature and character of slavery in the United States, and have no desire to learn. Should any public opportunity offer, I am fully prepared to say my say upon this subject, as I have already done privately in high quarters."

The first hotel in the District of Columbia was Suter's Tavern, a long, low wooden building in Georgetown, kept by John Suter. Next came the Union Hotel there, kept by Crawford. The National Hotel in Was.h.i.+ngton was for some years under the management of Mr. Gadsby, who had previously been a noted landlord in Alexandria, and what was afterward the Metropolitan Hotel was the Indian Queen, kept by the Browns, father and sons. Another hotel was built nearer the White House by Colonel John Tayloe, and was inherited by his son, Mr. B. Ogle Tayloe. It was not, however, pecuniarly successful, as it was thought to be too far up-town. Mrs. Tayloe, who was born at the North, used to visit her childhood's home every summer, and in traveling on one of those floating palaces, the day-boats on the Hudson River, she was struck with the business energy and desire to please everybody manifested by the steward. On her return Colonel Tayloe mentioned the want of success which had attended his hotel, and she remarked that if he could get Mr. Willard, the steward of the Albany steamer, as its landlord, there would be no fear as to its success. Mr. Tayloe wrote to Mr. Willard, a native of Westminster, Vermont, who came to Was.h.i.+ngton, and was soon, in connection with his brother, F. D. Willard, in charge of Mr. Tayloe's hotel, then called the City Hotel. The Willards gave to this establishment the same attention which had characterized their labors on board of the steamboat. They met their guests as they alighted from the stages in which they came to Was.h.i.+ngton. They stood at the head of their dinner-tables, wearing white linen ap.r.o.ns, and carved the joints of meat, the turkeys, and the game.

They were ever ready to courteously answer questions, and to do all in their power to make a sojourn at the City Hotel homelike and agreeable.

Success crowned these efforts to please the public, and the City Hotel soon took the first rank among the _caravanserais_ of the national metropolis. Mr. E. D. Willard retired, and Mr. Henry A.

Willard took into partners.h.i.+p with him Mr. Joseph C. Willard, while another brother, Mr. Caleb C. Willard, became the landlord of the popular Ebbitt House. In time it was determined to rebuild the hotel, which was done under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Willard, who was designed by nature for an architect. When the house was completed it was decided that it should be called henceforth Willard's Hotel, and about one hundred gentlemen were invited to a banquet given at its opening. After the cloth was removed, the health of the Messrs. Willard was proposed as the first toast, and then Mr. Edward Everett was requested to make a reply. He spoke with his accustomed ease, saying that there are occasions when deeds speak louder than words, and this was one of them. Instead of Mr. Willard returning thanks to the company present, it was the company that was under obligations to him. In fact, he thought that in paying their respects to Mr. Willard, they were but doing a duty, though certainly a duty most easily performed. "There are few duties in life," said Mr. Everett, "that require less nerve than to come together and eat a good dinner. There is very little self-denial in that. Indeed, self-denial is not the principle which generally carries us to a hotel, although it sometimes happens that we have to practice it while there." Mr. Everett went on to say that under the roof which sheltered them he had pa.s.sed a winter with John Quincy Adams, Chief Justice Marshall, Judge Story, Mr.

Calhoun, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster. These were all gone, but with them he could name another now living, and not unworthy to be a.s.sociated with them, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving. "Think of men like these gathered together at the same time around the festive board under this roof! That was, indeed, the feast of reason, not merely the flash of merriment, which set the table in a roar, but that gus.h.i.+ng out of convivial eloquence; that cheerful interchange of friendly feeling in which the politician and the partisan are forgotten.

Yes, gentlemen," Mr. Everett went on to say, "there were giants in those days; giants in intellect, but in character and spirit they were gentlemen, and in their familiar intercourse with each other they had all the tenderness of brethren."

The new hall of the House of Representatives was finished about this time. It was throughout gayly decorated, and its ceiling glittered with gilding, but it was walled in from all direct communication with fresh air and sunlight. Captain Meigs, of the Engineer Corps, who had been intrusted by Secretary Davis with the erection of the wings, had added to the architect's plans an encircling row of committee-rooms and clerical offices. Instead of ventilating the hall by windows, a system was adopted patterned after that tried in the English House of Commons, of pumping in air heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and Captain Meigs had thermometers made, each one bearing his name and rank, in which the mercury could only ascend to ninety degrees and only fall to twenty-four degrees above zero. He thought that by his system of artificial ventilation it would never be hotter or colder than their limits; but he was woefully mistaken, and immense sums have since been expended in endeavoring to remedy the deficient ventilation. The acoustic properties of the new hall were superior to those of the cla.s.sic and grand old hall, but with that exception, the gaudily embellished new hall was less convenient, not so well lighted and ventilated, and far inferior in dignified appearance to the old one.

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Abbott Lawrence ABBOTT LAWRENCE was born at Groton, Ma.s.sachusetts, December 16th, 1792; was a Representative in Congress from Ma.s.sachusetts, 1835- 1837, and 1839-1840; was Minister to Great Britain, 1849.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS.

The entrance of William Pitt Fessenden into the Senate Chamber was graphically sketched years afterward by Charles Sumner. "He came,"

said the Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, "in the midst of that terrible debate on the Kansas and Nebraska bill, by which the country was convulsed to its centre, and his arrival had the effect of a reinforcement on a field of battle. Those who stood for freedom then were few in numbers--not more than fourteen--while thirty- seven Senators in solid column voted to break the faith originally plighted to freedom, and to overturn a time-honored landmark, opening that vast Mesopotamian region to the curse of slavery.

Those anxious days are with difficulty comprehended by a Senate where freedom rules. One more in our small number was a sensible addition. We were no longer fourteen, but fifteen. His reputation at the bar, and his fame in the other House, gave a.s.surance which was promptly sustained. He did not wait, but at once entered into the debate with all those resources which afterward became so famous. The scene that ensued exhibited his readiness and courage.

While saying that the people of the North were fatigued with the threat of disunion, that they considered it as 'mere noise and nothing else,' he was interrupted by Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, always ready to speak for slavery, exclaiming, 'If such sentiments as yours prevail I want a dissolution, right away'--a characteristic intrusion doubly out of order. To which the newcomer rejoined, 'Do not delay it on my account; do not delay it on account of anybody at the North.' The effect was electric; but this incident was not alone. Douglas, Ca.s.s, and Butler interrupted only to be worsted by one who had just ridden into the lists. The feelings on the other side were expressed by the Senator from South Carolina, who, after one of the flashes of debate which he had provoked, exclaimed: 'Very well, go on; I have no hope of you!' All this will be found in the _Globe_ precisely as I give it, but the _Globe_ could not picture the exciting scene--the Senator from Maine, erect, firm, immovable as a jutting promontory, against which the waves of ocean tossed and broke in a dissolving spray. There he stood.

Not a Senator, loving freedom, who did not feel on that day that a champion had come."

A most extraordinary claim was presented at Was.h.i.+ngton during the Pierce Administration by Mr. Francis B. Hayes, a respectable attorney, who had Reverdy Johnson as his legal adviser. It was from the heirs of Sir William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, who was regarded as the most brilliant man in the courts of James VI.

and of Charles I. He received from these monarchs grants of an immense domain in North America, including, in addition to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, and Canada, a considerable portion of Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin, together with a strip of land reaching from the headwaters of Lake Superior to the Gulf of California, and "the lands and bounds adjacent to the said Gulf on the west and south, whether they be found a part of the continent or mainland, or an island," as it was thought they were, which was commonly called and distinguished by the name of California.

The immensity of this land-claim was sufficient to defeat it, and it was a.s.serted that the claimant, whose father had established his t.i.tle to the Earldom of Stirling in the Scotch courts, was a pretender, and that the most important papers substantiating the claim were forgeries. Just then there appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ an elaborate article of more than sixty pages, showing up the worthlessness of the claim, and the _North American Review_ published a reply, in which it said: "If the present claimant is indeed (as we believe him to be) the legal representative of the first Earl, there can be no doubt that he is, morally speaking, ent.i.tled to the princ.i.p.al and interest of the debt secured by royal bond to his ancestor, and that it would not be unworthy the magnanimity of both the British Government and our own to tender him some honorable consideration for the entire loss to his family, through the fortunes of war, of revenue and benefit from the _bona fide_ and, for the times, immense outlay of his ancestor in the colonization of the Western wilderness." No capitalists were found, however, who were willing to advance the funds for the prosecution of the claim, and Lord Stirling finally accepted a department clerks.h.i.+p, which he creditably filled.

The last winter of President Pierce's Administration was a very gay one at Was.h.i.+ngton. In addition to the official and public entertainments at the White House, Secretaries McClelland and Davis, and several of the foreign Ministers, gave elegant evening parties, the Southern element predominating in them. Senator Seward and Speaker Banks also gave evening receptions, and the leading Republicans generally congregated at the pleasant evening tea- parties at the residence of Mr. Bailey, the editor of the _Era_, where Miss Dodge, afterward known in literature as "Gail Hamilton,"

enlivened the cozy parlors with her sparkling conversation.

The wedding of Judge Douglas was a social event. His first wife had been Miss Martin, a North Carolina lady, who was the mother of his two young sons, who inherited from her a plantation which had belonged to her father in Lawrence County, Mississippi, on which there were upward of a hundred slaves. The "Little Giant's" second wife was Miss Ada Cutts, a Was.h.i.+ngton belle, the daughter of Richard Cutts, who was for twelve years a Representative from Maine when it was a district of Ma.s.sachusetts, and afterward Comptroller of the Treasury. Miss Cutts was tall, very beautiful, and well qualified by education and deportment to advance her husband's political interests. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and they were married in a Roman Catholic Church, where the bridegroom did not seem at home. She had no children, and after having been for some years a widow, she was married a second time to Colonel Williams, of the Adjutant General's Department of the Army.

The last session under the Pierce Administration was a stormy one.

Vice-President Breckinridge delivered an eloquent address when the Senate removed into its new chamber, which was followed by angry debates on the tariff, the Pacific Railroad, the fish bounties, the admission of Minnesota, and the submarine telegraph to England.

In the House Mr. Banks won laurels as Speaker, displaying a thorough acquaintance with the intricacies of parliamentary rules and prompt action in those cases when excited Representatives sought to set precedence at defiance. There was an investigation into a charge of bribery and corruption, made by Mr. Simonton, the correspondent of the New York _Times_, and he was kept in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms for not giving the facts upon which he had based his charges. It was evident to all, however, that Mr. Simonton was correct when he stated that "a corrupt organization of Congressmen and certain lobby-agents existed."

With the exception of a few favored ones, the officers of the army were glad when the termination of the term of service of Colonel Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War approached. He had acted as though he was Commander-in-Chief, treating the heads of bureaus as if they were his orderlies, and directing everything, from a review down to the purchase of shoe-blacking. He also changed the patterns of uniforms, arms, and equipments several times, and it was after one of these changes that he received a communication from Lieutenant Derby, well known in literary circles as John Phoenix, suggesting that each private have a stout iron hook projecting from a round plate, to be strongly sewed on the rear of his trousers. Ill.u.s.trations showed the uses to which this hook could be put. In one, a soldier was shown on the march, carrying his effects suspended from this hook; in another, a row of men were hung by their hooks on a fence, fast asleep; in a third, a company was shown advancing in line of battle, each man having a rope attached to his hook, the other end of which was held by an officer in the rear, who could restrain him if he advanced too rapidly, or haul him back if he was wounded.

When Secretary Davis received this he was in a towering rage, and he announced that day at a Cabinet meeting that he intended to have Lieutenant Derby tried before a court-martial "organized to convict"

and summarily dismissed. But the other Secretaries, who enjoyed the joke, convinced him that if the affair became public he would be laughed at, and he abandoned the prosecution of the daring artist- author.

Mr. Healy came to Was.h.i.+ngton in the last winter of the Pierce Administration, and painted several capital portraits. Mr. Ames, of Boston, who exhibited a life-like portrait of Daniel Webster, and Mr. Powell also set up their easels, to execute orders. Captain Eastman, of the army, was at work on the sketches for the ill.u.s.trations of Schoolcraft's great work on the Indians, and Mr. Charles Lanman, the author-artist, added to his already well-filled portfolios of landscapes. Mr. George West, known to fame as a painter of Chinese life, was engaged by Captain Meigs to paint prominent naval events in s.p.a.ces in the elaborate frescoing on the walls of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, but after he had completed two he refused to submit to the military rule of Meigs, and stopped work.

What he had done was then painted out. An Italian fresco-painter, Mr. Brimidi, was more obedient to orders and willing to answer the roll-calls, so he was permitted to cover the interior walls of the new Capitol with his work--allegorical, historical, diabolical, and mythological.

President Pierce was the most popular man personally that ever occupied the Presidential chair. When, in 1855, the Orange and Alexandria Railroad was completed to Culpepper Court-House, Virginia, John S. Barbour, president of the road, invited a number of gentlemen to inspect it and partake of a barbecue. President Pierce, Mr.

Bodisco, the Russian Minister, and other distinguished officials were of the invited guests. The party went to Alexandria by steamer, and on landing there found a train awaiting them, with a baggage- car fitted up as a lunch-room. The President was in excellent spirits, and when the excursionists reached the place where the barbecue was held, he enjoyed a succession of anecdotes told by the best story tellers of the party. The feast of barbecued meats was afterward enjoyed, and early in the afternoon the party again took the cars to return. On the return trip a gentleman with an enormous beard, having imbibed very freely, leaned his head on the back of the seat and went to sleep. A blind boy got in at one of the stations, and moving along the aisle of the car, his hand came in contact with the man's beard, which he mistook for a lap-dog, and began to pat, saying "Pretty puppy, pretty puppy." This attention disturbed the sleeper, who gave a loud snort, when the boy jumped back and said, "You wouldn't bite a blind boy, would you?" President Pierce was much amused with this occurrence, and often spoke of it when he met those who had witnessed it with him.

Mr. George W. Childs, then a courteous and genial book publisher in Philadelphia, endeavored to obtain from Congress an order for an edition of Dr. Kane's work on the Arctic regions. The House pa.s.sed the requisite resolution, but the Senate refused to concur, although it had ordered the publication of several expensive accounts of explorations at the far West. The Congressional _imprimatur_ was also refused to the report of the Hon. J. R. Bartlett, who was the civilian member of the Joint Commission which had established the new boundary between the United States and Mexico. He had refused to bow down and wors.h.i.+p the "bra.s.s coats and blue b.u.t.tons"

of his military a.s.sociates, so his valuable labors were ignored, while an enormous sum was expended in ill.u.s.trating and publis.h.i.+ng the work of Major Emory, the ranking army officer on the Commission.

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Nathl P. Banks NATHANIEL PRENTISS BANKS was born at Waltham, Ma.s.sachusetts, January 30th, 1816; was a Representative in Congress, December 5th, 1853, to December 4th, 1857, when he resigned, having served as Speaker in the Thirty-fourth Congress; was Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, January 1858, to January, 1861; served throughout the war as major- general of volunteers; was a Representative in Congress, December 4th, 1865, to March 3d, 1873, and again December 6th, 1875, to March 3d, 1877; was appointed United States Marshal for the district of Ma.s.sachusetts.

CHAPTER XL.

EXCITING PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST.

As the time for the Presidential election of 1856 approached, the Democrats, thoroughly alarmed by the situation, determined to make a last struggle for Southern supremacy, and Was.h.i.+ngton was agitated by the friends of the prominent candidates for the Democratic nomination for months before the National Convention at Cincinnati.

President Pierce earnestly desired a renomination, and had distributed "executive patronage" over the country in a way which he hoped would secure him a majority of the delegates. He had done all in his power to promote the interests of the South, but success had not crowned his efforts, and he was ungratefully dropped, as Daniel Webster had been before him.

James Buchanan, then in the sixty-fifth year of his age, had started in public life as a Federalist, and in 1819 had united in a call for a public meeting to protest against the admission of Missouri as a slave State. But he had become converted to pro-slavery Democracy, and although he had been defeated three times in Democratic Conventions as a candidate for the Presidential nomination, he was regarded as the most "available" candidate by those who had been in past years identified with the Whigs. His political views are summed up in the following extract from one of his speeches in Congress: "If I know myself, I am a politician neither of the West nor the East, of the North nor of the South. I therefore shall forever avoid any expressions the direct tendency of which must be to create sectional jealousies, and at length disunion--that worst of all political calamities." That he endeavored in his future career to act in accordance with this uncertain policy no candid mind can doubt.

Stephen A. Douglas' doctrine of "squatter sovereignty" was repudiated by the Southern Democrats with but few exceptions. Bold, das.h.i.+ng, and energetic in all that he undertook, with almost superhuman powers of physical endurance, he even forced the admiration of men who did not agree with his opinions. No man ever lived in this country who could go before the ma.s.ses "on the stump," and produce such a marked effect, and his personal magnetism won him many friends. One day the "Little Giant," going up to Beverly Tucker, a prominent Virginia politician, threw his arm on his shoulder, and said, in his impulsive way, "Bev., old boy, I love you."

"Douglas," says Tucker, "will you _always_ love me?" "Yes," says Douglas, "I will." "But," persisted Tucker, "will you love me when you get to be President?" "If I don't, may I be blanked!" says Douglas. "What do you want me to do for you?" "Well," says Tucker, "when you get to be President, all I want you to do for me is to pick some public place, and put your arm around my neck, just as you are doing now, and _call me Bev.!_" Douglas was much amused, and used to relate the circ.u.mstance with great glee.

General Ca.s.s had a few faithful friends, and Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, who was a blatant Buchanan man, was not without hope that he himself might receive the nomination.

Many of the delegates to the Cincinnati Convention pa.s.sed some time in Was.h.i.+ngton City. Ma.s.sachusetts sent Charles Gordon Greene, the veteran editor of the Boston _Post;_ Benjamin F. Butler, then known as a smart Lowell lawyer, and the old anti-Mason, Ben. F. Hallet, then United States District Attorney. Among the Kentuckians were the gallant John C. Breckinridge, the pugnacious Charles A. Wickliffe, J. W. Stevenson, and T. C. McCreery, afterward Governors and Senators, and the courteous William C. Preston, afterward Minister to Spain. From Louisiana were Senators Slidell and Benjamin, prominently connected with the Rebellion a few years later, and Pierre Soule. Florida was to be represented by Senator Yulee, of Israelitish extraction, who in early life spelled his name L-e-v-i.

Then there were Vallandingham, of Ohio; Captain Isaiah Rynders, of New York; James S. Green, of Missouri; James A. Bayard, of Delaware, and other party magnates, who all expressed their desire to sink all personal grievances to secure victory.

The Democrats met in Convention at Cincinnati, where the friends of each candidate had their headquarters, that of Mr. Douglas being graced by Dan Sickles, Tom Hyer, Isaiah Rynders, and other New York politicians, while at a private house leased by Mr. S. M. Barlow, the claims of Buchanan were urged by Senators Bayard, Benjamin, Bright, and Slidell. General Pierce had few friends beyond the holders of Federal offices, and General Ca.s.s received a cold support from a half-dozen old friends.

The first two days were occupied in settling the claims of contestants to seats. The anti-Benton delegates from Missouri were admitted, and the New York wrangle was finally settled by adopting the minority report of the Committee on Credentials, which admitted both the "Hards" and the "Softs," giving each half a vote. On the first ballot, Buchanan had one hundred and thirty-five votes, Pierce one hundred and twenty-three, Douglas thirty-three, and Ca.s.s five.

The balloting was continued during four days, when, on the sixteenth ballot (the name of Pierce having been withdrawn), Buchanan received one hundred and sixty-eight votes, Douglas one hundred and twenty- one, and Ca.s.s four and a half. Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, then withdrew the name of Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Buchanan was unanimously nominated. The Convention then balloted for a candidate for Vice- President, and on the second ballot John C. Breckinridge was nominated.