seemed to give equity to the title of "Prince," bestowed by his enemies and adopted by his friends.

James T. Brady's massive head, with its coronal of curls, his graceful form, electric wit, ready rhetoric, and Irish enthusiasm-how I see and hear and feel them all, now that he, too, like Van Buren, has been gathered by the great Shepherd to the eternal fold.

The best dinner-table orator, the sharpest wit when the cloth is removed, the most genial of public hosts, is my dear friend, Morton McMichael, of Philadelphia. Time has not withered him, either in humor or digestion, judging by my last two experiences that when he spoke to the trustees of the Peabody fund, some weeks ago, at the Continental Hotel, in Philadelphia, and that when he presided over the dinner given by the journalists of Philadelphia to Colonel Charles J. Biddle, the editor of The Age, the Democratic organ of Pennsylvania.

Probably no man ever lived in this country who made, at least in his short career, more impression upon society generally than John T. S. Sullivan, a Boston-born gentleman, the college-mate of Charles Sumner, who removed to Philadelphia, and died there on the 31st of December, 1848, aged thirty-five. He was singularly, perhaps dangerously, gifted. Lawyer, orator, scholar, and man of society, loved alike by men and women, he passed away too early, but left behind him a name never to be forgotten by his friends.

Nobody I know excels Daniel Dougherty, of Philadelphia, in ready wit at the dinner-table, in powers of imitation, in graceful conversation, and apt response. He is our James T. Brady. Gray hairs are gathering over you, dear friend, but you have preserved an unspoiled name, and are growing in wisdom and caution with increasing greenbacks and years.

[April 23, 1871.]

XVI.

A GREAT many people who read the proceedings of Congress puzzle themselves with the question what is meant by the executive session of the Senate of the United States. This session is, in fact, the Masonry of American legislation. There is perhaps nothing like it in civilized government, although the theory of it pervades the administration of all nations. This theory is that there are certain things in public affairs which can not be intrusted to the public. Among these are treaties with foreign powers, and important official nominations. To discuss these in the presence of an inquisitive newspaper world would be to reveal to outside rivals much that ought to be concealed, and to expose private character to universal criticism. The executive session of the Senate is in many respects like the confidential meetings of the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, and the Masons, without partaking of any of the peculiar traits of these honored and honorable orders. When the Senate resolves to go into executive session the galleries are cleared of spectators, and the newspaper and Globe reporters retire, frequently with a gladsome smile, because, in many cases, they have become fatigued with the "damnable (rhetorical) iteration." Our friend Murphy, the pleasant successor of the venerable Mr. Sutton, with his official corps of rapid and ravenous short-handers who transcribe the oratorical volume poured out day after day by the Senate, and poured into the columns of The Globe-recedes to his little room when the president announces that the Senate will go into executive session, unutterably relieved. Sometimes a motion to go into executive session is carried before a word has been spoken in public debate, and that is the welcome exception to Murphy. I wish I could tell you all that transpires when the doors of the Senate are shut, and the spectators and newspaper men are driven out;

IN EXECUTIVE SESSION,

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but as my obligations to keep this secret did not terminate with my resignation as Secretary of the Senate, I can only talk to you of the manners of that highly respectable conclave. The first thing is the utter abandon of the Senators. They have no audiences to look down upon and listen to them. They have no gentlemen with the lightning pen to telegraph them to distant points. They are not called upon to face and to fear their constituency. Bound together by a solemn covenant not to reveal what transpires, they do exactly what pleases them most. I must say, with my frequent opportunities of observation, I have seen few who ever overpassed the courtesies and the proprieties of the place. All are easier and more familiar than when under the universal eye of a suspicious People. Those who smoke, smoke; those who like to be comfortable, take off their coats—but there is no such thing as dissipation, at least inside the chamber. Debate is made free because there is nobody to take it down, and the altercations, common in the open Senate, are not uncommon between those walls; and yet the perfect familiarity of the Senators, and the absence of all restraint, contribute to the adjustment of every dispute, however violent.

Talking about these executive sessions reminds me of the difficulty of keeping an official secret. The Senators are all oath-bound not to disclose executive business, and they rarely do so, unless as regards nominations and confirmations for political offices; but as these involve nothing of important political concern, there is a common courtesy that when a man is rejected or confirmed the circumstance may be freely spoken of; and it deserves to be said of the Senators generally that they keep what is intrusted to them with unusual fidelity. To exercise ordinary discretion and care requires extraordinary The doors of the Senate are scarcely opened after executive session, when the whole newspaper tribe besiege the Senators with inquiries, and he must be a rare man who can refuse to drop a word to an editorial or reportorial friend.

tact.

D

Cabinet Ministers have many secrets confided to them, and great ingenuity is required to rescue them from dangerous revelations. The safest depositary of an official secret I ever knew was James Buchanan. This may have resulted from his cold and unimpassioned nature. Certain it is, he never betrayed what took place either in the Senate or in the Cabinet. The manner in which he preserved and kept from public view the fact of his nomination as Secretary of State under President Polk, twenty-nine years ago, is a good illustration. He was regarded as the probable successor of Daniel Webster, who held that great portfolio under most of the administration of John Tyler, but there were many doubters. I remember being present at a dinner given at the National Hotel by Commodore Stockton, of New Jersey, a few days before the inauguration of President Polk, in February of 1845. Among the guests were General William O. Butler, of Kentucky; George Bancroft, of New York; Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi; and John R. Thompson, of New Jersey-all since dead, except Bancroft, now at Berlin. Commodore Stockton was exceedingly anxious to discover the material of the incoming Cabinet, and he offered a wager that he could name a majority of the men who were to compose it. That wager was taken by Mr. Buchanan, without an allusion to his contingent connection with the new Administration. He was so careful and cautious that, up to the time of his nomination by President Polk, no friend-not even the one nearest to him—could positively assert that he would be associated with it in any way.

I observe that the Lancaster Examiner, without absolutely contradicting my statement that General Jackson recommended James Buchanan to James K. Polk for Secretary of State, questions it upon the theory that General Jackson had never previously trusted "Pennsylvania's favorite son." All I have to say in reply, is that I have no doubt this letter of General Jackson in favor of Mr. Buchanan will be found among the

private papers of the latter, and that his biographer will establish the fact as I have stated it. That General Jackson was never a special friend of James Buchanan is most true, but that he recommended Buchanan to James K. Polk as the first man in his Cabinet is my sincere belief.

[April 30, 1871.]

XVII.

THE winter before the war, shortly after having been again elected Clerk of the House of Representatives of the United States, I rented two large chambers on the lower floor of what is known on Capitol Hill as "The Mills House," and occupied them, with brief intervals, until March of 1871-sometimes including the two upper parlors, and occasionally taking possession of the whole house, which was very large and commodious; but this only happened when I called my friends around me, about once every three months. I began these assemblies shortly after the outbreak of the rebellion, for the purpose of creating and cementing a patriotic public opinion. My guests were always numerous enough to fill every room in the house, including the basement. They were men of all ideas, professions, and callings. We had no test but devotion to our country. We met like a band of brothers-the lawyer, the clergyman, the editor, the reporter, the poet, the painter, the inventor, the politician, the stranger, the old citizen, the Southerner and the Northerner, the soldier and the statesman, the clerk and the Cabinet Minister, and last, not least, President Lincoln himself. Nothing was spared to add to the interest of these symposia. We had speeches and recitations, vocal and instrumental music, all adding to the main objective point-the awakening of an enthusiasm for the assailed Republic. If a