Washington, December 10, 1859.
One week of congressional life is over, and I think it to be
the stupidest business I was ever engaged in. We have done nothing in the
Senate but discuss “John Brown,” “the irrepressible conflict,” and “the
impending crisis,” and no one can imagine where the discussion will stop. The
House of Representatives is still unorganized, and daily some members come near
to blows. The members on both sides are mostly armed with deadly weapons, and
it is said that the friends of each are armed in the galleries. The Capitol
resounds with the cry of dissolution, and the cry is echoed throughout the
city. And all this is simply to coerce, to frighten the Republicans and others
into giving the Democrats the organization of the House. They will not succeed.
I called on Mrs. Trumbull to-day. She is the only woman I
have spoken with since I came here. I called on another, to whose party I was
invited the other day, and did not go; but she was not at home. You cannot
imagine how I dislike this fashionable formality. It is terribly annoying, and
I think I shall repudiate the whole thing.
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 121-2
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