The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-01-06
sketches in the Senate.

spseial Correspondence or the Enquirer.
WxzaIssros, DEcEmBna- %, 1868.
1t ia not difficult to take in with q
single glance TIE whole of the Senate
Of the United States. a. d
There are only seyenty-four mem
bers. now in their seats. This num-
Der, small in the aggregate, IS SO arrag-
ed rs to make them appear even less.
They look much like a school. The
pedagogue is Mr.. Wade, and he just
about as high above the general level
as q country teacher is won't to be
raised. The members, each at a desk
with paper in front, an stand for
pupils very well, and there is nothing
to reject the supposition that they
need instruction. One is on his feet
talking, and, for all the world, looks
as if speaking a piece or reciting a
task, while others listen, lo1, or write,
and other things. which good and bad
scholars do. The Senate room itself
has been described often enough to JUS
fifS letting it alone. Moreover, it has
no features of grandeur, task, or sim
plicity, but is a sort of hotch-potch
of c%olors, piled on each other with the
evident design to cheat the eye out of
an ability to analyze them, or a desire
to attempt it. But what of the men
who save this room from insignifcance,
and whose presence, happily, prevents
it from becoming a receptacle for
Clark Mills models2
VIZ. p. fEssENDEs.
The senior Senator from Maine, it
need not be said, is VIM. Pitt Fessen-
den. heard Wendell Phillips once
across his table in Boston summarize
and dismiss MFR, Fessenden as chat
dyspetic Scotch terrier" Without
giving to the epithet its malicious
meaning, it accurately describes MI.
Fessenden's appearance. He Is dyse-
pepticlooking in the sallow parched
east of an intense face, in the arid, set
fixedness of large features within a
very narrow frame: in the painful
thinness of his whole body, and in the
conscious struggle of expression, sug-
gesting a conflict between a desire to
duty and a liability to succumb at any
moment to acute abdominal pain. The
terrier inculpation is confirmed by the
eccentric cut of whiskers, and by their
pepper-and-salt color. They have been
allowed to growjust IN such parts as the
razor would be apt to touch with diff
and just where a slip of the tool
would bring a little blood and a good
deal of temper out of an attenuated
and irritable man. Consequently the
sides of Mr.. Fcssenden's face, and the
swelling horseshoe shape running I'M
der the neck, from ear to ear, are &C.
cupied by beard. The rest, includ-
ing the pallid lips, and the spare, sharp
chin are as bald as Mr.. Mieawber's
pate. The whiskers themselves are
scissored down to an average depth
of two inches all round, and out of the
they form, the man looks forth,
stern, pale, and more like a Scotch
deacon than a down-east Yankee. Mr..
Fessenden is more respected than
warmed to by his associates. He is
known to be able, studious, sincere,
captious, biting, obstinate, diligent,
conscientious, "posted" and modest.
He is a good touchstone. Those Sena-
tors who do not concede to him great
ability and entire integrity, are such
as would not have those qualities at
trlbuted to themselves exceptb By them
selves. The only Senators who pro-
fess to contemn his powers + Sunni
er and Drake. MI. Sumner does not
like Mr.. Fessenden, because Mr..
Fessenden thinks MI. Sumner does
not hold the universe in the hollow of
his hand. Mr.. Drake does not like
Mr.. Fessenden, because Mr. Fessen-
den is Mr.. brakes peer III Feasibility.
But as the Missourian and the Bos-
tonian do not like, and are not liked
by, any one in the Chamber, their
opinion of Mr.. Fessenden is not excep-
Mr.. Fessenden's n is
vocal. He uses no gestures.
stands straight as a lath, and, not
one, says what he has to say,
directly, wisely and withoutornament.
His command oflanguage appearsjust
equal to every occasion, and ne moro.
is constItutionally deprived of
humor, and you would a soon expect
to see Hunlpty DMspty in a pulpit as
to hear a joke out his mouth. His
sentences are of the declamatory kind.
That is, they are such as are always
in speeches, not such as by a
phrasing could be turned into
editorials or essays, as Mr.. Motley's
ear. In their structure, subject, pre-
dicate and object come in regular ord
er, which fits the direct processes of
his mind, and which rejects all involu-
ton as opposed to his sense Of order,
order only consisting with simple
of statement.
Mr.. Fessenden's strength in debate
is based upon what he dismisses as
much as upon what he considers. He
travels on a straight road, and never
stops to pick up flowers of sentiment
gems of fancy. He is logical, and
nothing else. He always has reasons
and he never has rhetoric to commend
his course. 1t was required ofhim to
be born into certain convictions, and
to imbibe them with his mother'smilk,
till they became as u~nconseiously a
part of himself as the language. Then
education only stimulated what child
hood had impressed, and the lawyer
became in full what the boy wal in
inception. The p%rejudices and the
of an ancestry of pilgrims
literally permeate him. So much for
his opinions, and for his enforcement
of than There ora two ouoIifia- in