Part 25 (1/2)
”General Fry, you and I have been friends a life-time We hooked waterether ere boys We slept under the saht side by side at Palo Alto and Cerro Gordo; we shed our blood on the salorious Union I have loved you, General Fry, like a brother, but this is toofriendshi+p to a turrible test; it is a littlefor a moment, he apparently recovered himself fro, he said, ”What I have said about the way they treated old Jeff is true, and here is my witness” He called out, ”Bill, tell the General what you saw theallowsednear by, promptly deposed that he was present at the time, saw old Jeff led out, tied to a stake and finally disappear in a puff of smoke At this, General Fry, without the formality of a farewell, immediately shook theneither to the right nor to the left, retraced his steps to Danville, and without delay informed the State Committee that if they wanted _any further joint debates with old Frank Woolford,_ they would have to send some one else
Years after, seated at ton, after I had appointed a few cross-road postressman Woolford, I ventured to inquire of him whether he had ever had a joint debate with General Fry With a suppressed chuckle, and a quaint gleanificantly replied, _”It won't do, Colonel, to believe everything you hear!”_
XXII THE SAGE OF THE BAR
WITTY SAYINGS OF MR EVARTS--HE DEFENDS PRESIDENT JOHNSON BEFORE THE COURT OF IMPEACHMENT--DIFFERENT OPINIONS AS TO THE REAL CHARACTER OF THAT TRIBUNAL--MR BOUTWELL'S ATTEMPT TO INDICATE THE PUNISHMENT MERITED BY THE PRESIDENT--MR EVARTS'S REPLY--EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES BY MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE
The late William M Evarts, at one tihter moments worthy of remembrance
Upon his retirement from the bar to accept the position of Secretary of State, a farewell dinner was given him by prominent lawyers of New York The appointments, viands, etc, it is needless to observe were all after the nificent goose with all its appurtenances and suitably dished was placed irosser part of the feast concluded, the toast was proposed: ”The Sage of the Bar” Slowly arising, Mr Evarts surveyed for a an: ”What a wonderful transition! An hour ago you beheld a goose stuffed with sage; _you now behold a sage stuffed with goose!”_
It is not entirely forgotten that during the administration of which Mr Evarts was a part, total abstinence was faithfully enforced in the great dining-room of the Executive Mansion upon all occasions
To those who knew the Secretary of State, it is hardly necessary to say that he had little syement, that to him it was a custom ”more honored in the breach than the observance”
Now it so happened that at a state dinner, upon a tiuests in lieu ofto the Austrian Anificantly observed, ”Life-saving station!”
To a ”candid friend”--from whothy and somewhat involved sentences, Evarts replied, ”Oh, you are not the firstsentence”_
During his official term above mentioned, Mr Evarts accompanied a prominent me in front of the old uished visitor, looking across to the opposite shore, reton was a boy he threw a dollar across the Potomac; remarkable indeed that he could have thrown a dollar so far, a mile away across the Potomac; very remarkable indeed, I declare” ”Yes,” replied Evarts, ”but you reat deal farther then than it does now”_
This incident being told to a ress of Hibernian antecedents, he iht have told the Britisher that when Washi+ngton was a boy he sure enough threw a dollar across the Potorown-up n across the Atlantic”_
Mr Evarts was counsel for President Johnson in his fah Court of I many hours, was an able and exhaustive discussion of the salient questions involved in the trial The leading ers upon the part of the House of Representatives were Benjahaed into the close of the long-drawn-out prosecution
It is a singular fact, and to this generation renders the entire proceeding ers upon the part of the House, and the counsel for the i as to the real character of the tribunal before which they were appearing The latter regarded it as a court, and constantly addressed its presiding officer, the Chief Justice of the United States, as ”Your Honor”; while the former insisted that it was only the Senate, and continually addressed the Chief Justice as ”Mr President”
The issues involved were likewise argued by the opposing counsel from wholly different standpoints The contention of the defence as stated by counsel was:
”We are then in a court What are you to try? You are to try the charges contained in these articles of i else Upon what are you to try theold in New York, or upon any question of finance; not upon newspaper rumor; not upon any views of party policy; you are to try the else, by the obligation of your oaths”
The contrary contention as stated by one of the ers was as follows:
”We define, therefore, an ih crime or misdemeanor, to be one in its nature or consequences subversive of sohly prejudicial to the public interest; and this may consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, or of duty by an act co positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers froulf as broad betweenDives and Lazarus, not only as to the issues to be tried, but as to the nature of the functions and designation of the tribunal before which they were appearing, and with the decision of the Chief Justice upon questions of law arising continually over-ruled by the majority of the Senators, it may reasonably be supposed that there wasout of the record” in the heated discussion which followed
The associates of Mr Evarts--Stanberry, Curtis, Groesbeck, and Nelson--were the ht with the radiance of utterance” to lessen the tension of the protracted struggle, came froer Boutwell, in atte to indicate the punishment merited by the accused, said:
”Travellers and astronomers inform us that in the southern heavens near the Southern Cross there is a vast space which the uneducated call a hole in the sky, where the eye of man, with the aid of the telescope, has been unable to discover nebula, or asteroid, planet, coion of space, which is only known to be less than infinite by the evidences of creations elsewhere, the Great Author of celestialIf this earth were capable of the sentiments and es are the evidences and the pledge of our divine origin and iy of the elemental forces of nature, and project this eneion, there forever to exist in a solitude eternal as life, or as the absence of life, emblematical of, it not really, that outer darkness of which the Saviour of Man spoke in warning to those who are the enemies of themselves, of their race, and of their God”