No more time to notice those chosen amongst the women. The Senate has assembled, and General Butler has the floor. He takes the largest, most comprehensive view of the case. He is going to make his mark upon the age, if he has not already. He seems the very incarnation of force and will. He is followed by Judge Nelson of Tennessee, one of the President’s counsel. Originally a preacher, I am told, he brings the same kind of persuasion to bear upon the Senate that he would upon rebellious sinners. As the Senate do not look upon themselves in that light, it follows that something more substantial will have to be used; but, as the President has chosen each of his counsel for certain personal qualifications, it is very probable that he expects nothing but flowery sentiment from him--the ornamental, instead of the useful. Judge Curtis, the ablest of the President’s counsel, said but very little, seeming well content with Judge Nelson’s waste of words. Wilson, of Iowa, one of the ablest judicial minds in the country, made a few remarks, of which law was the cubic measure; and, after some amendments and voting, the day and the people vanished; and thus ended one of the great historical days of the age.
THE MAKER OF AND SHARER IN HER HUSBAND’S TRIUMPHS.
A calm steals over the restless political waters, and whilst we are waiting for the next act in the great drama let us draw near those who, by the sudden turn of the wheel of fate, are lifted high above the multitude. Never, even in the days of the French Revolution, have the women performed more conspicuous parts in the national play of politics than at the present time in Washington. It can truthfully be said that there is nothing so malignant and heart-rending in its effects upon a good man as the burning desire to be President. God help the man when this iron has entered his soul, for this fiery ambition drinks up every other sweet virtue, just as the July sun licks up the purling brook and precious dew drop. It is not man alone who is consumed by ambition; it is woman also, who, in this as well as in everything else, often takes the lion’s share. It was Eve who first ate of the fruit, and gave it unto Adam, and he did partake of it also. It is a woman who apparently has everything that the visible or invisible world has to bestow, and yet, like the princess in the fairy tale, deems her place incomplete unless a roc’s egg is hung in the centre of the jeweled chamber. There is only one position at the “republican court” that this most elegant woman has not attained. She has never “reigned” at the White House. Every other triumph has palled upon her taste, and if the nation would like the finest and amongst the largest of diamonds in the country to glisten in the Executive Mansion, and the most graceful and queenly woman of the day to eat bread and honey in the national pantry, they will hasten to withdraw their support from any military chieftain, and bestow the awful burden upon a man who at this very moment is staggering under as much as any faithful public servant can very well carry.