he insidious efforts of slave-driving rebels to regain
influence in the Government. The author of the natural history of
Ireland would doubtless have welcomed one specimen, by describing which
he could have filled out a chapter on snakes; and there is temptation to
dwell on the character of Senator Morton as one of the few Radical
leaders who kept his hands clean of plunder. But it may be observed that
one absorbing passion excludes all others from the human heart; and the
small portion of his being in which disease had left vitality was set on
vengeance. Death has recently clutched him, and would not be denied;
and he is bewailed throughout the land as though he had possessed the
knightly tenderness of Sir Philip Sidney and the lofty patriotism of
Chatham.

The President received me pleasantly, gave much time to the Louisiana
difficulty, and, in order to afford himself opportunity for full
information, asked me frequently to dine with his immediate family,
composed of kindly, worthy people. I also received attention and
hospitality from some members of his Cabinet, who with him seemed
desirous to find a remedy for the wrong. More especially was this true
of the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, with whom and whose refined
family I had an acquaintance. Of a distinguished Revolutionary race,
possessor of a good estate, and with charming, cultivated surroundings,
this gentleman seemed the Noah of the political world. Perhaps his
retention in the Cabinet was due to a belief that, under the new and
milder dispensation, the presence of one righteous man might avert the
doom of Gomorrah. An exception existed in the person of the
Attorney-General, a man, as eminent barristers declare, ignorant of law
and self-willed and vulgar. For some reason he had much influence with
the President, who later appointed him Chief Justice of the United
States; but the Senatorial gorge, indelicate as it had proved, rose at
this, as the easy-shaving barber's did at the coal-heaver, and rejected
him.

Weeks elapsed, during which I felt hopeful from the earnestness
manifested in my mission by the President and several of his Cabinet.
Parties were in hostile array in New Orleans, but my friends were
restrained by daily reports of the situation at Washington. Only my
opinion that there was some ground for hope could be forwarded.
Conversations at dinner tables or in private interviews with the
Executive and his advisers could not, then or since,