of
the fair; but he was frankness itself. He wanted no restoration of the
Union under the Constitution, which he called a worthless bit of old
parchment. The white people of the South ought never again to be trusted
with power, for they would inevitably unite with the Northern
"Copperheads" and control the Government. The only sound policy was to
confiscate the lands and divide them among the negroes, to whom, sooner
or later, suffrage must be given. Touching the matter in hand, Johnson
was a fool to have captured Davis, whom it would have been wiser to
assist in escaping. Nothing would be done with him, as the executive had
only pluck enough to hang two poor devils such as Wirtz and Mrs.
Surratt. Had the leading traitors been promptly strung up, well; but the
time for that had passed. (Here, I thought, he looked lovingly at my
neck, as Petit Andre was wont to do at those of his merry-go-rounds.) He
concluded by saying that it was silly to refuse me permission to visit
Jefferson Davis, but he would not say so publicly, as he had no desire
to relieve Johnson of responsibility.

There was no excuse for longer sporting with this radical Amaryllis
either in shade or in sunshine; so I sought Henry Winter Davis. Like the
fallen angel, Davis preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in
heaven or on earth. With the head of Medusa and the eye of the Basilisk,
he might have represented Siva in a Hindoo temple, and was even more
inaccessible to sentiment than Thaddeus Stevens. Others, too numerous
and too insignificant to particularize, were seen. These were the
cuttle-fish of the party, whose appointed duty it was to obscure popular
vision by clouds of loyal declamation. As Sicilian banditti prepare for
robberies and murders by pious offerings on shrines of favorite saints,
these brought out the altar of the "nation," and devoted themselves
afresh, whenever "Credits Mobiliers" and kindred enormities were afoot,
and sharpened every question of administration, finance, law, taxation,
on the grindstone of sectional hate. So sputtering tugs tow from her
moorings the stately ship, to send her forth to winds and waves of
ocean, caring naught for the cargo with which she is freighted, but,
grimy in zeal to earn fees, return to seek another.

Hopeless of obtaining assistance from such statesmen, I visited Mr.
Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, who received me pleasantly.
A rebel, a slave-driver, and, without the culture of Bo