The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper CorrespondentBriggs, Emily Edson
History
The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent
Briggs, Emily Edson
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933; Washington (D.C.) -- History
With lightning leap the historical proceedings of the “High Court
of Impeachment” have flashed all over the country. The bone and
sinew of the matter have been given to the people, but the delicate
life-currents and details which go to make the creation perfect, if
not gathered by the pen, must be buried in the waste-basket of old
Father Time. Decorum, dignity, solemnity, are the order of the day,
and one might as well attempt a “glowing description” of a funeral as
to weave in bright colors the opening scenes of the greatest trial on
record.
Outside the Capitol, in the crowd, the incidents are beyond
description. Men are there from all parts of the country, pleading,
swearing for admittance--offering untold sums for a little
insignificant bit of pasteboard. But the police, stony, frightful
as the “head of Medusa,” shut the doors in their faces, inexorable
as the fiat of the tomb. A limited number of honest, tender-hearted
Senators are trying to smuggle in a few beloved “outsiders;” but the
police are instantly convened into a “court of impeachment,” and
the unfortunate Senator has to bow before the majesty of the law.
A ticket is the only open sesame, and a bit of yellow pasteboard
so dazzles the multitudes that even Andrew Johnson is forgotten
for a time. But the fortunate ticket-holder, when once beyond the
hurly-burly outside, finds that an entrance to a different atmosphere
has been attained. It is like leaving the famished, parched plain
at the mountain’s foot and climbing up into the cool region, almost
among the eternal snows. The Senate chamber, always chilly in
comparison with the warm, leaping blood of the House, is now wrapped
in judicial robes of coldest gray. When it is remembered that
Senators were allowed four tickets and members half that number,
it will readily be understood that even the aristocracy had to be
skimmed to fill the galleries, and with the exception of a few
newspaper correspondents, the chosen ones belong to or are attaches
of the proudest families in the land. And it is a most significant
fact that women hold nearly all the tickets. They sail into the
gentlemen’s gallery like a real “man of war,” shake out the silken,
feathery crinoline, rub their little gloved hands in an ecstasy of
delight, and while perching their heads significantly on one side,
gaze sorrowfully at the few forlorn men stranded amongst their
number, either through accident or to prove to the world that the
genus man under the most trying circumstances is not extinct. As the
Senate clock points to the hour of 1, Senator Wade leaves the chair,
and Chief Justice Chase, robed in his judicial drapery, enters at a
side door and takes the vacant seat. Very soon the managers of the
impeachment file in, Bingham and Boutwell taking the lead. A table
for their accommodation has been prepared, and as they take their
seats the silence seems like the dead, unbroken calm inhabited only
by time and space. The moment has arrived for the utterance of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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