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
It is the work of a biographer to follow a great man through a long
and well spent life; and it is extremely unfortunate that Mr. Stevens
has never been known to make the acquaintance of a Boswell, for how
much that is crisp and readable must now be lost. It may be pleasant
to know that he has sold his lots in the two cemeteries of which he
was an owner because colored people were refused burial in them;
though it may be possible that he feels that he shall have future use
for them. It is so natural to forget to say that a noble character
has any faults. But who remembers the spots on the sun? It is enough
to know that we owe life to its benign influence.
Long, long, will Mr. Stevens remain photographed upon the minds
of those who now have the honor to behold him, as he sits in his
easy chair day after day. Nature did not make him handsome, but she
fashioned him with a bold, rugged outline, suggesting power and
sublimity, like the solemn mountain or the surf-beaten cliff.
OLIVIA.
JOHN A. BINGHAM.
ACQUITS HIMSELF WITH HONORS IN FORENSIC CONFLICT.
WASHINGTON, _May 7, 1868_.
Never, even during the late days of storm and darkness, has the sun
set upon such scenes as were enacted on the last day of argument
before the High Court of Impeachment. No more can it be said that the
age of oratory has fled, for John A. Bingham has shown that there
is a man amongst us who possesses the rare power of electrifying
the multitude: of making one vast sea of humanity throb with
overwhelming emotion. I might as well attempt to “paint the sunbeams”
as to give a description of his glowing words. From history he drew
the parallel between James the Second and our recreant President.
Mirabeau’s immortal answer to the king’s usher, “Go tell your master
that bayonets have no power over the will of the people,” seemed
as if uttered anew by the spirit of the great Frenchman. Never in
the history of the world has any man been called to plead before
such a bar, and for such a cause. No court has existed like it in
the world’s annals, and no such criminal has been called to answer.
Only the attributes of conceded genius sustained Mr. Bingham, and
made him strong for the work assigned to him. He seemed to feel that
this trial was not simply a means for the punishment of one daring
offender, but that it was to prove the strength and stability of
republican institutions for all time--to prove that the strongest
are as imbecile before the majesty of the law as the beggar of the
highway.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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