Part 38 (1/2)

The Georgian slave-holder, late secretary of the treasury, was accused of ”diverting” some millions to the South, as that for the war office similarly ”diverted” ordnance and munitions to the same quarter; the head of the navy, with what ”looked” like collusion, had scattered the war-vessels so as to be long delayed in concentrating.

”THAT'S WHAT'S THE MATTER.”

In a Spiritualist performance at the White House, which seemed to have been ”edited” by the President himself--as often royalty revises plays--for his special entertainment, the Cabinet being invited, after a rigmarole of stilted phrases purporting to be by Was.h.i.+ngton, Franklin, Napoleon, and other past celebrities, Mr. Welles, secretary of the navy, remarked: ”I will think this matter over, and see what conclusion to arrive at!” (His set phrase.)

There was a smile at this, as the aged minister's prolonged meditations were the laughing-stock of the country, he being the clog on the wheels of the car of state. Instantly raps were heard in the spirit-cabinet, and, the alphabet being consulted, the result was spelled out as:

”That's what's the matter!”

This. .h.i.t at Mr. Welles' stereotyped fault aroused more mirth, and the crowd at the back of the room, domestics, petty officials, and sub-officers, laughed prodigiously, while the secretary stroked his long white beard musingly.

To this cant term hangs a tale apropos of the President. Its origin was low, but humorous. A benevolent gentleman pierced a crowd to its center to see there, on the pavement under a lamp-post, a poor woman, curled in a heap, with a satisfied grin on her flushed face, breathing brokenly. ”What's the matter?” eagerly inquired the compa.s.sionate man.

A bystander removed his pipe from his mouth, and with it pointed to a flattened pocket-flask sticking out of her smashed reticule, half-under her, and sententiously explained:

”That's what's the matter with Hannah!” The sentence took growth and spread all over the Union. It has settled down, as we know, to a fixed form at political meetings, where the audience beguile the waiting time with demanding ”What is the matter?” with this or that favorite demagogue. In the sixties, it patly answered any problem. At the presidential election-time of Lincoln's success, a negro minstrel, Unsworth, was a ”star” at ”444” Broadway, dressing up the daily news drolly under this t.i.tle--that is, ending each paragraph with that line.

On the 22d of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, scheduled to pa.s.s on from Harrisburg, where he made a speech as arranged, instead of waiting to depart by the morning train, sped to Philadelphia and thence by a special train detained for ”a military messenger with a parcel,” to Was.h.i.+ngton, by the regular midnight train. The news of his arrival at the capital by this unexpected and clandestine route, and in disguise--this was denied--of a Scotch cap and plaid shawl, startled everybody. Rumors of an attempt to make mischief, as he called it, were rife. But the public still took things as quake-proof, and Mr. Lincoln a.s.sured his audiences, as he spoke at every city on his way, that ”the crisis was artificial.” On the evening of the twenty-third, the writer dropped into the Broadway negro minstrel hall. Newspaper men knew that Unsworth introduced the latest skimming of the press into his burlesque lecture and liked to hear his funny versions and perversions. The comic sheet of the metropolis, _Vanity Fair_, enframing the witty scintillations of ”Artemus Ward,” George Arnold, and a brilliant band, complained that this ”n.i.g.g.e.r comedian”

used or antic.i.p.ated their best effusions. On the whole the public saw in the surrept.i.tious flight of the ruler into his due seat only a farce, in keeping with his jesting humor--he was regarded as a Don Quixote in figure, but a Sancho Panza, for his philosophic proverbs, widely retailed and considered opportune. So the indignation proper toward the forced escapade was absent; everybody still mocked at the ”terrible plots,” as so much stale quail, and when the blackened-face orator, coming to a pause after enunciation of his ”That's what's the matter” looked around wistfully, the audience were agog. Suddenly out of the wing an attendant darted with alarmed manner and face.

He carried on his arm a shawl, gray and travel-stained, and in one shaking hand a Scotch bonnet. Unsworth s.n.a.t.c.hed them in hot haste and fright, clapped on the cap, and, draping himself in the plaid, rushed off at the side, forgetting his own high silk hat. This, with the black suit, the orthodox lecturer's, now gave him a resemblance to Mr. Lincoln, not previously perceived, for they were men of opposite shapes. The eclipse brought home to the spectators the ludicrousness of the President entering his capital in secret, but, I repeat, no one felt any shame, and the audience went forth to relate the excellent finish to the parody, at home or in the saloons, to hearers as obtuse as themselves, to the seriousness of the episode. Somehow, so far, the elect from Illinois was ever the Western buffoon. But when, in his inaugural address, Lincoln thundered the new keynote, the veil fell:

”In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, is the momentous issue of the Civil War.”

War! The crisis was no longer ”artificial”--he admitted that! What impended, what had fallen? Jest and earnest were still coupled, but earnest took the lead from that hour. Said the Chief Magistrate, in his first official speech: ”Physically speaking, we cannot separate--that's what's the matter.”

”THE s.h.i.+P OF STATE” SIMILE.

On the morning of Lincoln's arrival in Was.h.i.+ngton, General Logan and Mr. Lovejoy called on him at Willard's Hotel, to urge a firm and vigorous policy. He replied:

”As the country has placed me at the helm of the s.h.i.+p, I'll try to steer her through.” The Sangamon River pilot spoke there.

”I understand the s.h.i.+p to be made for the carrying and the preservation of the cargo, and so long as the s.h.i.+p can be saved with the cargo, it should never be abandoned, unless it fails in the probability of its preservation, and shall cease to exist, except at the risk of throwing overboard both freight and pa.s.sengers.”-- (Speech, New York reception, 1861.)

”I trust that I may have the a.s.sistance of the members of this legislature in piloting the s.h.i.+p of state through this voyage, surrounded by perils as it is; for, if it should suffer s.h.i.+pwreck now, there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage.”--(Speech, Trenton, New Jersey, 1861.)

A PILL FOR THE PUBLIC PRINTER.

In Lincoln's first message to Congress, special session, July 4, 1861, is seen this pa.s.sage:

”With rebellion thus _sugar-coated_, they have been drugging the public mind,” etc.