This was the disruption forever of the Federal party in Connecticut; for though it had ceased to exist as a national organization, it still was sufficiently intact to control most of the New England States. Mr. Monroe's Administration had been so popular that in his second election he received every vote of every State in the Union, save New Hampshire: one man in her electoral college, who was appointed to vote for him, refused to do so, and gave as his reason that he was a slave-owner. New interests had supervened, old issues were dead--they had had their day--their mission was accomplished; old men were passing away, the nation was expanding into great proportions, and men of great talents were growing with and for the occasion; old party animosities were dimming out, and the era of good feelings seemed to pervade the national heart. Even John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were amicably corresponding and growing affectionate at eighty. It was but the lull which precedes the storm--the sultry quiet which augurs the earthquake. Upon one occasion I ventured to ask Governor Wolcott to tell me something of Washington. We were strolling in his garden, where he had invited me to look at some melons he was attempting to grow under glass. He stopped, and turning round, looked me full in the face, and asked me if I had not read the "Life of Washington." "Not the private life," was the reply. "Ah! a very laudable curiosity in one so young. I knew him well, and can only say his private was very much like his public life. I do not suppose there ever lived a man more natural in his deportment than Washington. He did nothing for effect. He was more nearly the same man on the street that he was in his night-gown and slippers, than any man I ever knew; I can't say I was intimate with Washington; no man can or ever could have said that. His dignity was austere and natural. It was grand, and awed and inspired a respect from every one alike. You breathed low in his presence--you felt uneasy in your seat, before him. There was an inspiring something about him, that made you feel it was a duty to, stand in his presence, uncovered, and respectfully silent. I have heard this sternness attributed to his habit of command; not so--it was natural, and he was unconscious of it. Most men, however stern, will unbend to woman. There is in woman's presence a divinity which thaws the rigor of the heart and warms the soul, which manifests itself in the softening of the eye, in the glow upon the cheek, and the relaxation of manner. It was not so with Washington. In his reception-rooms he was easily polite and courteously affable; but his dignity and the inflexibility of his features never relaxed.