National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-04-06
UNITED STATES SENATE.
TEE CHANGES WROUGHT IN TWEN.
TY-F0UR TEARS.

1
NO MORE POLITICAL GoLIAHs-HENRY
CLAY AS A LEADER-A TRANsFoRMA-
TON.
An old correspondent of the New York Her.
aid writing from this city makes running
comment, and draws contrast between the
Senate of to-day and that of quarter of CEN
tuy ago. He says the impression widely pre-
walls that the United States Senate of 1874,
compared with that of the old pro-slavery
regime, which was swept away by the deluge of
our great Southern rebellion, is body of small
politicians and commonplace men, representing
only party expediences, caucus intrigues, the
power Of money. or some lucky chances in The
chapter of accidents. This general opinion,
though practically true, is essentially mis-
take. It is true that the giants of the Senate
have disappeared; true that through sdroit
intrigues, or money, or lucky accidents, many
seats in the Chamber are now occupied; but 1t
is also true that the average intellectual calibre
qualifications and practical experience of the
members have been greatly enlarged Any
man, for example, conversant with the ele-
ments of the Senate of 1S49- '50-that Senate
which marks the last of the compromises with
Southern slavery, and the beginning of the end
will be satisfied, from the observations of o
day or two from the Senate galleries at this
time, that, though the peers of the old giants
of the Chamber are wanting, there is in the
body, collectively, manifest Improvement.
Indeed, there is an improvement corresponding
with the advance of the country from the
fugitive slave law TO the fifteenth amendment.
STARTLING TRANSFORMATION.
The impartial critic of the Senate of 1850, in
looking down from the galleries upon the Sen
ate of 1874, will observe that there Ia less of
the plantation and more of the shop in the
equipment of the members and in their bearing
towards each other. He will see in the faces of
the Senators, and In the tone and temper of the
debates, that much has been gained in the vir-
tues of moderation, decorum, and dignity. He
will observe that the proportion of venerable
bald heads and thoughtful gray boards In the
chamber is very large; that the younger men,
bers are modest and deferential toward their
elders; that with the end of the violent and
desperate conflict over slavery there was an
which in the old time frequently led to brutal
collisions or deadly challenges on the floor. In
short, the change in the morale and esprit du
corps Of the Senate within the period indicated
is quire as remarkable and gratifying es that
which Dickens discovered as having occurred
in America and the Americans in the interval
between his first and second visit to this
country.
THE SENATE OF 1850.
What was the composition of the Senate of
lS5Of 1t embraced such men as Clay, Web
ster, Calhoun, Benton, Seward, Chase, Case,
Douglas, Hale, Hamlin, Corwin, Dayton, Ma
SON, Hunter, Badger, Berrien, Soule, Foote and
JEFF DaVi5-hostile forces in a conflict which
even in those compromise measures was Drift
ir,rrt oI acL O.
ate gave us the last hopeful adjustment on
slavery in behalf of peace, and it opened the
door to the war. There were then fifteen free
States and fifteen slave States, and the admis-
sion of California as a free State turning the
scale led the South first to "bleeding Kansas
and then to Fort Sumter.
From 1850 the great revolution set in; from
1850 the giants of the Senate began to drop of,
and now they have all disappeared. The con-
iditions which developed these no longer exist,
and the political Goliaths have simply become
impossible under the new order of things. We
no longer want towering mediator between
the North and South like Clay, for the bayonet
has settled the slavery and the negro questions.
We want no more q great constitutional ex-
FOUNDER like Webster; for, slavery being
stricken out, the Constitution is no longer
Greek to the common reader as a charter of
liberty. There is no opening for sectional
abstractionist and revolutionist like Calhoun,
lor ne mas nothing 10 build upon.
THE DAY OF GIANTS PASSED.
So it is that such oyershadowing orators and
oracles as we had in the Senate OF 1850 are not
to be found in the Senate of 1874. The Consti-
tuition has been made so plain on the basis of
liberty and equality, the masses of the people
have become so far enlightened, from the diff
fusion of fixed facts, free thought, free speech
and public documents, that the old time politi-
cal orator finds his vocation gone. The tele-
| Oranh has 0hnlishpd him Thar
volumes of his rubbish in the Library of Con-
gress, which have become useless, except as
marking the drift of an epoch before the flood.
The constitutional distractions of Calhoun, the
arguments of Webster and the pleadings of
Clay are as dusty in their pigeonholes as the
windy raphsodies of Andy johnson while
Swinging round the circle"
THE AGE OF oRAToRY GONE.
The age of oratory, like the age of chivalry,
Is gone. Our jubilee of political poetry, in
augurated with the log cabin and hard cider
campaign Of 1910, ended, we may say, with the
melancholy minstrelsy which hurried the
iamented Greeley to his grave. The fifteenth
amendment has made the political orator
sounding brass and tinkling cymbal." Like
the relic Of the legitimate drama, or an owl in
the open field at daylight, he has remained
abroad too late, and he is blinded by the
| strange glare and noises around him. The
I
a great transformation. Almost insensibIS to
| itself II has come down from the loftv declsma-
ttop and Offering processions of the fornsn
| to the hard facts and testimony of an investi-
eating committee.
Recently. in the discussion of a certain hi,
we had some feeble displays of the snread eaoIe
and "Hafl Columbia;'f but as thew were f6I.
lowed by appropriate apologies, these obsolete
| ebulIitlons Of patriotism were excused. And
yet, while the venerable Senator Cameron was
telling how the old bell of INDEPENDENCE Hall
rang out the glad sdinps of the birth of a preat
nation, and how this nation has grown In
strength and beauty till its glory fills the whole
earth, it evidently warmed the old boys around
him like the chorus of the 'Star spangled
banner" But It was CLEAN of glory which
In moment passed away under the shadow of
the almighty dollar. 'iHow much will this
thing COST" was too much for the eloouence of
Cameron. ~.
TIE DoAIhANT FAHTf WITHOUT LEADER.
But II eloquenee has become q thing of the
past, II long orations OF wind and gas have been
displaced by hard facts and figures, how is 1t
tba fo,,r+b -roai, of 49,, Az S..o,-.-.S
$500 -. 49, ooa,,.-sas 800 1eeo
a seeminoIv endless and nnrnoseless porvwo,v
on the cSrrencv question which has sictanad
a.. ...-.--s - s.,.