National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-03-12
HISTORIC HALLS,
WITH THEIR ECHOES FROM THE PAST.
The Old Senate Chamber and Hall of Representa-.
tiyes, and the Men Who Figured in Them
Some Interesting Pictures
from the Past.

| from tnt thsts
The tourist who visits our magnificent
Capital, supposed to be the handsomest in the
world in his admiration of the frescoed rotunda,
adorned with the realistic pictures of Trumbull
| and Peale, the stately Library with its crowded
| alcoveS the Senate Chamber and House of Repre-
sentatives imperial in their gilded decorations and
ornate panel work. passes by with little attention
to the most interesting objects of allthe old Senate
and Hall of Representatives.
An odor of republican simplicity peryades the
very air of these time ehonored legislative halls,
which, in years gone by, have rung with the fervid
eloquence of Clay, Webster, Pinckney, Calhoun,
Prentiss, Randolph of Roanoke, and others.
| The old Hall of Representatives stripped of its
! furniture and surroundings to the unobsesyant
eye OF the stranger possesses seemingly but small
attraction brief survey of the statues, a care
! less glance at the old fashioned dome, half
skeptical trial of the wonderful transmitter of
| sound and the visitor passes out quite much
enlightened as when he first stepped on its thresh
old. Yet this hall is the most interesting of all
| relics of times gone by and has story of absorb
ing and thrilling interest. The student of history,
as he stands within its venerable walls recalls its
appearance twenty five years ago, with its heavy
faded red drapery, its plain mahogany desks, and
historic Speakers chair, over which lowered the
mute but eloquent figure of the Goddess of Lib
| erty, the impressive portrait of Washington by
! Stuart, the lofty dome, the stately pillars the
ghoSty echoes which startled the visitor at every
sound Of his voice. thrilling him as he fingered on
its time -honored threshold with anindefnable awe
and conspiring to fill the contemplative observer
with mingled emotions of veneration and respect.
As we gaze it seems as though the hall once more
was filed with desks and moving figures. The
ladies gallery, supported by the Potomac marble
| columns and festooned with its dingy red hang
ingS fills up the gap, while the reporters desks,
ranged round in semi circle space, monopolize
the lobby, where the obscrvant eye Of a Robinson
found wide range for congressional gossip, and
where ex-members lolled on the sofa or cast en-
Yious glances from behind the green curtain that
separated them from the sacred floor of the House.
Those were
GOOD OLD TIMES,
when lobbyist could securely edge himself in
members seat, and while the roll was being called
survey with complacent satisfaction the crowded
galleries on either side where Senator'S tired of
the nonotony of manuscript speech had strolled
negligently in to peer around and air their super
| lative grandeur; when pages fitted restlessly to
and fro, dreaming of the day when they too could
enter that hall invested with the dignity of official
greatness; when lunches were eaten in contempt
of etiquette, cigars smoked oblivious of House
rules, and loud talking INDUCED in without fear
of ofinterruption or reportorial comment; when, in
short, members were the cynosure, the worshiped,
| and the feared. Good old times they were when
the galleries were unencumbered with the
almond eyed Chinese and black-skinned freed
man, but jammed and packed with demo-
cratic crowd that relentlessly trod on your toes
| and crushed your beaver in the struggle for
| place; when boys hung over the railings
and menaced members heads with the inevitable
peanut shell, or slid noiseessly from their perch
and sdled behind the big pillars in defiance of the
| lynx-eyed dOOrkeeper and contempt of all House
| rules to come These were good old times, we re-
peat, when writing materials were furnished and
| let to the members and pocket-knives supplied by
the bushel, and unwashed linen sent home by
country members under the magic influence of a
| frank; when Wing and Democrat met in friendly
| tilt; when speeches were poured out like water,
| to be remodeled and repeated over again by an
other generation.
| All this was pleasant social and mediaval but
ii the surface and not the depth, and the old
hail. with its grand associations meant something
else. For half q century it had echoed with the
eloquence of the most gifted statesmen of the age;
it had been frequented year after year by men
whose names are as household words to the Ameri-
can people it had been the theatre of some of the
most remarkable events recorded in our national
history. In this hall of solemn grandeur and re-
publican simplicity Clay. Webster, Adams. Mar
shall, Randolph, Prentss, and a host of
| others burst upon their countrys vision
resplendant in oratery and statesman ability.
When the semi-circle of desks extended
but halfway across the green -carpeted floor Mar
shall spoke his valedictory and the setting sun of
his departing glory tinged the young cheek of the
black-eyed descendant of Powhatan as he stepped
| forward to occupy his vacant chair; when Harry
Clay, fresh from his glorious mission to Ghent,
tered for the first time to make name second only
to the great Chatham himself, and whose brow was
destined to be wreathed with unfading laurels ere
he left. 1t was here where the eloquent Prentiss
courageously pleaded his cause, and gained therst
judicial victory ever won in that hall 1t was
here where
JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOKE,
in burning language and with sarcastic scorn,
boldly arraigned the then Secretary of the Treas
ury the Hon. Henry Clay, a corrupt bargainer
and intrigant which afterward lead to the men,
| orable duel between these distinguished men.
1t was here where the same eccentric Randolph,
| during heated debate, attacked Hon. John Shelf
fey Of Virginia, and 'contemptuously referring to
| his humble origin Ia shoemaker, advised him, in
his peculiarly ironical language. to return to his
| bench, and was met by this stnging rebuke:
my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia.
| advises me to return to my last and the shoe
makers bench. 1 compassionate the honorable
gentleman's sneer at an honest calling, and under
stand why he is unable to appreciate the act of
conquering the disadvantages of an humble birth
! right. He may rest assured that if he had ever
been on the bench he would have never left it,"
| 1t was here too, where the younger Adams
| John Quincy amazed his friends and enraged the
| Southern Wings by offering a petition for the
abolition of slavery, coming from the QuakerS of
| Pennsylvania, which no Representative from that
| State had ever dared to present before, and was
hy nf nd ,nt Had tba
flames whic h, in later days, was to break out in
vast confagration.
1t was here W here Mr.. Clay, with his eloquent
voice and wise counsel, checked the popular ex-
citement growing out of the admission of a slave
| State into the Union, and, with his famous Mis-
souri, Compromise, staid the fires ofsecession and
rebellion.
| 1t was here where the Southern Democracy for
years dominated over the country, until the Re-
publican party new offspring of liberty, rose up
and. crowding into this historic hall, elected for
the first term, q Speaker committed to a fresh and
| vigorous policy. 1t was here where Brooks the
assailant of Charles Sumner, stood up and hurled
defiance the representative heads of Massachu-
| sets, and where that grand champion of human
freedO m, Joshua Giddings, wreSted from the
Southern members the prestige they had held so
long.
And then there were other characters who, ifnot
~ iio'0u aic PiodoIt 1t Actst, W u"eii upoi Inc
witty aud dissipated Tom Marshall the FIRM and
manly-spirited Tristan Burgess the eccentric
David Crockett, who notched his desk with his
jack-knife and frequently very irreverent fell
asleep with his hat on.
A FAMOUS DEAD LOCK.
Here also occurred the famous dead lock conse-
quent the refusal of the clerk to recognize the
Jersey delegation. After many weary days and
nights of prOstrated sitting, when the House
seemed powerless to organize John Quincy Adams,
by mastery coup Getat, brought the Clerk, Mr.
Garland, to terms, and caused Henry A. Wise to
confer on him the memorable and familiar title of