This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[29]
I remember that old Houston, of Alabama, who weighed about a ton, ran up, puffing like a porpoise, and threw his immense bulk into Vallandigham's arms, rolling him upon the floor.
Poor Barksdale lost his wig in the scrimmage.
In a twinkling the hero of the moment was lifted high upon the shoulders of his party friends, who marched triumphantly all over the House, bearing him aloft and almost waving him like a banner.
By this flash of lightning out of the heavens, as it were, the Democrats gained another day, though they did not win the fight.1
I cannot forbear another anecdote of this remarkable man; for while not an eye and ear witness to it as to that just related, the utterance attributed to him bears so unmistakably the impress of his vigorous, incisive intellect and his power of crushing sarcasm, that I am almost willing to vouch for the truth of the recital.
As the story goes, some time during the first half of the war Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, or some other equally singlehearted patriot, alarmed at the rapid depreciation of the currency, offered in the House a measure providing in substance that gold should not be sold at a premium; when from
1 It is proper to say that the Congressional Globe makes no mention of this remarkable episode — that is, of the startling culmination of itthough the facts and circumstances leading up to this culmination are there set out substantially as above related. The proceedings of the House, as recorded in the Globe at and about the date, are orderly and consecutive and the adjournments regular. The record, however, does show an adjournment over a day, and it may be well that the unparalleled occurrence above described took place upon that day. Those familiar with Congressional proceedings are aware of the usage or rule preventing any trace upon the record of an irregular or illegal session or adjournment of the House; e. g. the House has occasionally met for business on Sunday and even remained in session all that day, but the entire Sunday session — with everything transacted thereat — is entered as of the preceding day. Therefore, while not assured precisely how the thing was done in this instance, it is not unlikely that the irregular, illegal and abortive proceedings above described took place upon the day covered by the adjournment, and that the entry of the adjournment over that day was an after-thought.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.