1900; or, The last President
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 the 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.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as
printed.