Waite, of Ohio, who had been connected with the Alabama Claims Conference at Geneva, and who was a man of eminent legal abilities, conscientious, and of great purity of character. No objection could be offered to the confirmation of his nomination, and it was unanimously made.

Mr. Edwin M. Stanton had previously been appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court through the

"The War Sec

retary" had left the department over which he had so energetically presided, and was suffering from heart disease. He deemed himself a neglected man and rapidly sunk into a listless condition, with no action in it, but with occasional spells of energetic sickness. Mr. Wade came on from Ohio about this time, and went to see his friend. Just then there was consider

Stanton and the Supreme Bench.

303

able talk that Associate Justice Grier was about to retire from the Supreme Court. Mr. Wade deemed his friend neglected, and also thought it unintentional on the part of the President. In conversation he drew from Mr. Stanton the admission that he would like to be appointed to the Supreme Bench. Just before leaving Wade said he meant to ask Grant for the position, in the event of Grier's retirement. Mr. Stanton forbade the action, but Wade declined to be as modest as was the organizer of victorious armies and their administration. He went direct to the White House, and at the door found the President going for a drive in his phaeton. He was invited to go along, and at once. availed himself of the opportunity. During the ride. he spoke about Mr. Stanton. The President listened carefully and said he had promised to consider Mr. Strong's name, and had supposed Mr. Stanton would not take the position even if offered to him. Mr. Wade gave the conversation he had had with Mr. Stanton. There the matter ended. Mr. Wade went home. Mr. Stanton remained quietly at his house.

Finally Judge Grier resigned, and, to the surprise of most persons, Edwin M. Stanton was tendered and accepted the position. He qualified by taking the oath of office, but never sat in that high tribunal to try a cause. One cannot help wondering what might have resulted from his presence there. But he never had the opportunity of proving that the man who was so fierce and implacable as a War Minister could have been as calm and judicially impartial on the bench as Story himself. There are many at Washington who believe that Mr. Stanton committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. Caleb Cushing was positive that he did, and investigated the matter so far as

he could, but Hon. E. D. McPherson, of Pennsylvania, for years the efficient clerk of the House of Representatives, procured from the attendant physician a statement that it was not so, but that Mr. Stanton died a natural death.

The marriage of General Grant's only and much

loved daughter, Ellen Wrenshall Grant, to Algernon Charles Frederic Sartoris, at the White House, on the 21st of May, 1874, was a social event in Washington. It was no secret that General Grant had not approved of the engagement between his daughter, not then nineteen years of age, and the young Englishman,

who had enlisted her affection on the steamer while

Nellie Grant's Wedding.

305

she was returning from abroad. But when the fond father found that her heart was set on the match he yielded, although it was a hard struggle to have her leave home and go abroad among strangers. The ceremony was performed in the East Room by the Rev. Dr. O. H. Tiffany. There were eight bridesmaids, and Colonel Fred Grant was the bridegroom's best man.

The bride wore a white satin dress, trimmed with point lace, a bridal veil which completely enveloped her, with a wreath of white flowers and green leaves interspersed with orange blossoms. The eight bridesmaids wore dresses of white corded silk, alike in every particular, with overdresses of white illusion, sashes of white silk arranged in a succession of loops from the waist downward, forming graceful drapery. Mrs. Grant, who was in mourning, wore a mauve-colored silk dress, trimmed with a deeper shade of the same, with ruffles and puffs of black illusion, lavender-colored ribbon, and bunches of pansies. The banquet was served in the state dining-room, with the bride's cake in the centre of the elaborately decorated table.

M.R. Marte
Chief Justice

MORRISON REMICH WAITE was born at Lynn, Connecticut, D cember 29th, 1816; was graduated at Yale College when twenty-two years of age; studied law; went to Ohio in 1838, and was there admited to the bar in 1839; settled at Toledo; was a member of the State Legislature in 1849; was defeated as a Republican candidate for Congress in 1862; was counsel for the United States before the Geneva Award Commission in 1871, and was presiding over the State Constitutional Convention of Ohio when he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States, in January, 1874.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CORRUPTION IN OFFICIAL LIFE.

FIFTY CONGRESSIONAL DRAG-NETS AT WORK-FEMALE JEALOUSY—A NANTUCKET STORY-IMPEACHMENT OF GENERAL BELKNAP, AFTER HIS RESIGNATION—BEAUTIFUL MRS. BELKNAP-THE WHISKY RING— REVENGE OF SENATOR HENDERSON, OF MISSOURI-TRIAL OF GENERAL BABCOCK, AND HIS ACQUITTAL.

ΤΗ

HE Democrats, having secured possession of the
House of Representatives, organized upward

of fifty committees of investigation, which cast their drag-nets over every branch of the Administration, hoping to find some evidence of corruption in which the President had shared; but the most searching investigation failed to connect the name or fame of General Grant with any of this traditional "picking and stealing." Witnesses were summoned by the score, reams of paper were covered with shorthand notes of testimony, and some of the committees traveled far and wide in search of the evidence they desired. They found nothing, but they reminded Massachusetts men of old Captain Starbuck, of Nantucket, a philosophical old sea-dog, who never permitted illluck to dampen his faith or his good spirits. Returning home from a three years' whaling voyage, with an empty hold, he was boarded by the pilot, an old acquaintance, who asked: