The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-06-25
THE HISTORIC CONGRESS
A Picture Gallery of Prominent
Representatives.
The Men who Lead and the Men who
FOIIOW..-ThRddeus stevens at Full
Length.-.The Crisis and the Men.
fCs,r.rn.r,n,, lle,,ce N.,, Y,trL Tt-iI,ilnel


FOIIOW.!Thaddeus stevens at Full
Length.--The Crisis and the Men.
Correspondence NctC York TTi6tnlel
WASHINGTON, June l3, 1866.
Under the brOnZed and gilded ceiling
of the great Hall of Representatives
there is an Irregular and unusual con-
centration of people. In the galleries,
| it is true, the spectators are eq ually dlf-
fused but on the floor they have
crowded to single quarter, which
| is on the left hand of the Speak
er, midway between his desk and the
outer area of seats, leaving all the chairs
| to his right and the superior half ofthe
house vacant of either Republicans or
Opposition. Amid this dense and lis
tening assembly an old man with a
keen pale face is reading something he
| has written, in a quaint and solemn
voice. It is Thaddeus Stephens, pass
| ing the last word of debate upon the
| Amendment to the Constitution, which
| is to make treaSonimpotent and odious,
and freedom national.
THADDEUs STEVENS ON THE FLOOR.
AS he is the central, so he is the most
| Individual portrait of the great group.
| His face has Olympian lines i'll it, as
| Mr.. Carlyle would say. His hands are
| thin and white, though they SHOW no
auivering; and while his eyes are so
uenDlV sci uIlOGE SCNCAS
brows, and so belted beneath with al
most funeral shadows, that they look
| like a blind mans, he reads without
| glasses the writing which he holds two
| feet away, steadily, at n years OF age'
Standing like a statue-his back, lus-
terless wig making still more pallid his
ample forehead-thiS man of strong
and combntive physiognomy looks like
n manned and aged veteran, used to
fighting forlorn hopes. There is n
splendid convexity to his lips, when
they are shut, as If full of disdainful-
ness for all wrong and conventionali-
ty; and IL prompt and Splenetlc toss OF
the head, Indicating an easy and yet
intractable Indignation at whatever is
trucking or dishonest. OF broad and
bending back, plain and dark in his
parb, he seems the incarnation of an
indomitable life-time, content to be in
less than minority, to be quite alone
He has rare dignity, and an almost
religious mpressiveness of declama-
ton, disappointing to those who expect
only a redundant bitterness. His voice
is the expiring breath of eloquenceI al
most lost Mt times, but never shrlll,
and never broken, yet full of cadences,
and as he gestures with fierce and
difficult angularity, you see that MS
Joints are stiff, and that he has only an
old mans volition over his bodily
i,leTtin. 1t is feared by some that he
will never again take the floor, the
three-score- -and-ten years of mans life
having brought to him the aillngs OF
our species, and the occasion is omln-
Gus from this personal circumstance
as well as from the significance OF the
days legislation. Senators are mere,
therefore, and strange ambassadors,
and many people of repute in many
walks. so that this moment is an his
toric one, and suggestive of n more eX-
tended delination.
It has been asked how and why
Thaddeus Stevens came before the
country with hall-absOrbing prominence
so late in life, and what CHARACTERISTIC
he possesses to merit his apparently en-
tire authority. The answer to this is
crisp enough; he is n man of long and
consistent convictions; of thorough leg
islative experience, and of great nrEu-
ment and adroitnesS. There are speech
es extant ofthis statesman delivered 80
wears ago, which grasp with startltngac
curacy ali the issues verified in the pres
pnt- He also was u school teacher, and
is the virtual author of the PennsylVa-
mia school system. He was nurtured
in the deteStatiOn of whatever was con-
trary to pure republicanism, and in his
love of liberty has manifested an al
most romantic attachment. When the
war began, he was perhaps the only
man who saw in il the downfall "i
Slavery, and he devoted himself from
the booming of the first gun to the re-
construction of the country, so that not
only might Slavery and rebellion be
annihiIated, but all the atroclous pre-
| iudices and passions of its partisans.
His position was an advanced one.
When the events brought other men TO
| him they admitted his sagacity and dis
covered his intellect. He is II man OF
bold thoughts, of broad scope OF action,
full of many amiable tendernesses, but
| intlexibie in his devotion TO ireeqohl,
and his potentiality is the natural issue
of superior experience and resistless
will. Many of his violent enunclatlons
hnye n diplomatic purpose; he takes a
place ON the skirmIsh line sometimes
| that the battle-position may be chosen
weIl-up. He is prompt to recognize
| Justice in an adversary, as witness ms
forgiveness toward Mr.. Simon Came
ron when the latter, in the early part
of the War, declared for arming the
blacks. His closing speech upon the
constitutional amendment tells better
than any analysis the secret of his
eminence:
in my old age, have fondly dreamed
| that when any fortunate chance should
have broken up for a time the founda-
tions of our institutions, and released
MS from obligations the most tyranni-
| cal that were ever imposed in the name
of freedom, the intelligent, free ana
| lust men of this Republic, true to their
professions and their conscience, would
have SO remodeled all our institutions
as to have barred them from every YES
tipe of human oppression, OF inequall-
| ty of rights, of the recognized degrada-
| tion of the poor and the superior caste
| of the rich; in short, that no distlnctloh
would be tolerated in this purified Re
public but that which arose from merit
and conduct"
Basipe his political life up0AS this
| hroad Humanitarian wish, Thaddeus
stevens has steadily risen in greatness
as his platform became recognized.
| Therefore, to-day, he is the foremost
figure in Congress, and history must
| agree with the great phalanx OF bright
minds around him, that in the roster OF
| fame ais name will be pivotal and en-
during.
THE FIRST CONGRESS AFTER THE WAR.
The present Congress is only less re-
markabIe than that which immediately
preceded the war. In the interval be-
/ tween them, the business of the coun-
1 try was almost entirely administrative
| Fragmentary sketches exist of the Por-
tentous dramatic scenes which signal
ized the withdrawal of the Secession
| members. That was a passive Con-
| yress so far as those who remained
We're concerned; but in this, the First
| Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress
the great question of Reconstruction
/ has arisen, and the present Senate and
House of Representatives Will take
nlace in history beside the primary
/ Conpress which debated and establish
ed the Federal Constitution. As to the
speeches of that celebrated body, we
look for the intention and the spiritual
meaning of the various clauses of the