The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1873-12-10
Picture of a Scene I'm the House.

The Washington correspondent o.
the Brooklyn Argus says: "Chief o.
them was Alexander II. Stephens, Gen
P. NJ. B. Young and General Waddell
of North Carolina, supported the bril-
liant, intense, magnificent tactician OF
other days to his feet. He took tn Ell,
arms and dispensed with the significant
clutches that had been stacked in front
Of his desk. lie stood right at the be-
ginning of the middle aisle OF the House.
By felicitously dramatic accident OF
happy design, all the rest Of the many
ex-Coniederates ranged in a semi circle
on either side of their former Vice Pres.
idert. Then the modified oath was
taken by them with uplifted hands, and
assented TO with q unanimous and
quietly elegant bow. There were many
magnificent looking men in the COM
pany; doubt that any one observed
them the pale, suffering, little man in
the middle was the cynosure OF all eyes.
He was dressed in exquisite black, as il
in mourning for his country. In sitting
he wore his hat to protect him from
the draught. In standing, he dispensed
with it, and disclosed an abnormally
large head, pierced with intensely black
and deep eyes, and covered with short
growth OF iron gray hair. When he re-
sponded to his name the strong soul in
him was manifest, for his clear, sharp,
penetrating voice, the echo Of that soul,
was heard distinctly all over the house.
The ETHEREAL part OF the man is as strong
as ever. The physical is wreck. 1t
was a historical scene. He who for
fifteen years before the war had been
the leader par excellence of the House,
returned to subscribe to the oath ad-
ministered by Speaker, who was never
heard of when Stephens left Congress,
or three years thereafter, In all the
House were but two men who had been
his congressional contemporaries-'Sun-
set Cox, then OF Ohio, and John B.
Clarke, then and now OF Missouri, who
had three months OF notoriety fifteen
years ago by flinging John Sherman
endorsement of Hinton Rowan Helper 8
Impending Crisis at John She-man's
head, and thereby defeated him for
Speaker, though Henry Winter Davis's
single vote elected William r. Penning.
ton, Jersey Republican, to that office.
Well could Stephens say he stood dying
the solitary survivor OF many great dead.
Gone was Thad. Stevens, the incarns-
ton OF hate; gone was j. R. Giddings,
the Abolitionist, whom Stephens him.
self loved gone was the courtly ex-
Governor Briggs, OF New York, and the
uncouth Mike Walsh; gone was the
fiery Keith, and gone the fearful and
wonderful John Covode; gone the elo-
quent Lovejoy and the mellow Mallory i;
gone Herschell V. johnson gone Boz
cock, and Yulee, and Edmodston, and
Clingmau, and the impetuous Brooks,
and Potter, and Rector, and Phelps, and
Rollins, andWinter Davis, and thou
sand, once statesmen OF Of either party,
and there was the man on whom twenty
years ago Death had apparently set his
seal, survivor of them all, and represen-
tative OF the greatest district OF the Ems
pire State Of the South. Background
this contrast with the fearful four years
of intersectional throat cutting, and the
dram attic facts of the occasion stand
out grim with graves and lighted by
intense cerebral fire"