1876

by Gore Vidal

  “Oh, he is a shrewd, quiet, odd little man, and today”—Conkling exhaled a long breath—“he has been murdered.”

  “By Mr. Marsh?”

  Conkling nodded. “Any hope for a third term was just now butchered in that committee room.” He waved in the offending direction, like Edwin Forrest as Othello confronting Iago.

  “Were you at the hearing?”

  Conkling shook his head. “We’ve known for some days what would be said, and done.”

  “Will Mr. Belknap be impeached?”

  “I think that at least can be avoided.”

  “But is he—are they not plainly guilty? I believe that over the years Mr. Marsh paid the Belknaps something like forty thousand dollars.”

  “Yes.” But the word was not an affirmation. Simply a form of punctuation. “So much is for sale, Mr. Schuyler.”

  “Apparently. I am told that to obtain a cadetship at West Point you must give your member of Congress five thousand dollars.”

  “I believe the price is higher if he is from New York.” Conkling looked both amused and bleak. “Senate seats are also expensive. My admirers are said to have spent a quarter of a million dollars to get me this plain chair and table.” He slapped the desk in front of him.

  I was taken aback, as he no doubt intended me to be. “But surely you, of all people, did not need money to be elected.”

  “Senators are chosen by state legislatures and the legislators of New York are spoiled men—as well as spoilsmen.” He laughed at his own play on words. I laughed, too, a bit weakly, not at all sure what he was trying to tell me.

  “Is the price too high then?” I was tentative.

  “It is all money nowadays, Mr. Schuyler, and it is all too high. I do believe in my party, though.” The look of sincerity in those pale eyes was so perfectly convincing that I knew myself to be in the presence of a truly deceitful man. “I still believe in Grant, though God knows he makes it hard for us over here, with those war cronies of his…”

  “Does he know they steal?”

  Conkling again gave me his sudden charming if dingy-toothed smile. “Oh, Mr. Schuyler! I know that you’ll put whatever I say into Jamie’s Herald just to help your friend—and mine too—good old Sam Tilden, who’ll use anything to beat us at the polls. Not that he’ll succeed, mind you. Not in the end.”

  “If that is the case, Senator, and if you are his opponent, the country will be in good hands no matter what the result of the canvass.” I was every bit as dishonest as Conkling, who then proceeded to startle me.

  “Spoken like a true minister to France, Mr. Schuyler. And may I say that if I should ever become the president, I’d have more than half a mind to appoint you myself.”

  At that instant I could not think how in Heaven’s name my ambition was known to Roscoe Conkling, since only three people on this earth are aware of it and I cannot imagine Emma, Bigelow or Tilden mentioning the matter to anyone. My response was, I hope, cool; certainly not brilliant. “What little I do for the Governor is simply pro bono publico.”

  “That goes without saying, as the French say. Why, when General Grant wanted to appoint me Chief Justice two years ago, I told him, privately, more or less the same thing. How it was in the public interest that I stay on here, doing what I can to help his Administration.”

  “And then, in due course, take his place, which is certainly more splendid than that of the late Chief Justice Chase.”

  I put in the knife without remorse. Conkling had taken me for a fool. Having somehow learned my ambition, he thought that by appearing to equal Tilden’s offer I would then keep silent about his affair with the daughter of the late Chief Justice Chase. Yet I cannot imagine how I or anyone could make political use of this affair. Only the injured party, the mad little Senator Sprague, could make trouble. If he were to join forces with Blaine or Tilden in defeating his wife’s lover…I must take all this up with Bigelow.

  I shall never know how Conkling intended to respond, for just then a sergeant-at-arms came over to say that some Senate business was about to be transacted and that strangers must vanish.

  We shook hands with every appearance of warmth. “I shall hope to see you soon, and the Princess, too, of course.”

  A few minutes ago I asked Emma if she had ever mentioned to anyone my desire to be minister to France.

  “Never, Papa! Not in this country of wolves—or I suppose, since we’re in Africa, it’s jackals.”

  But when I told her what Conkling had said, she looked suddenly knowing, and somewhat abashed. “I have discussed it, Papa. I’m sorry. I told Kate Sprague.”

  “My God!”

  “It’s not that bad.” Emma was soothing; kissed my cheek (I have a slight fever this evening, and catarrh). “I mean, of course I should not have mentioned it to anyone, but Kate was in tears and had told me so much about her affairs that I thought a fair exchange no robbery.” Emma had shifted to French. “She told me that Mr. Conkling would marry her if she could ever have her husband legally put away. I don’t know what the process is, but…”

  “But there is still the very sane Mrs. Conkling, the gardener of Utica.”

  “Well, that was what I said, too, and Kate got quite confused—for her. She is always so clear and hard. She spoke of divorce and—”

  “And an end to the career of Mr. Conkling.”

  “So I thought, and I know nothing of such matters. Anyway, Kate must have told Mr. Conkling that she had been indiscreet. I’m sorry.”

  I cannot say that I like Conkling any better for his attempt to make me an ally or to disarm me but his fierce boldness is certainly most presidential—no, most imperial—and so not a proper style for this time, place.

  Our evening with John’s relatives the Day family proved to be Apgar-ish, Confederate style. In fact, though their house is of brick, it looked suspiciously brown by the time the evening was over.

  Rather like the grand New Yorkers, the Days and their fellow Antiques seldom speak of politics, ignoring as much as possible those transients, the politicians. But tonight even these authenticated—positively signed—Antiques are forced to admit that they were intrigued by the Belknap scandal. They had known the first Mrs. Belknap; thought the second Mrs. Belknap a trifle flashy; deplored corruption, naturally.

  “There is really no one in this Administration you would want to know except poor Cousin Julia, and she just seems to ignore everything unpleasant.” Poor Cousin Julia is Mrs. Hamilton Fish, whose formal dinner in our honour has yet to materialize.

  “A wretched business, politics,” declared Mr. Day, a stout man with a patch over one eye that gave him the look of a pirate. “A business for the bent.” To which a six-year-old nephew from somewhere in the South piped up, “Well, I want to be a senator!” Much laughter (this was before dinner); the boy was duly removed from the parlour, which was a perfect re-creation of any one of the New York parlours of the Worthy Nine despite the African provenance.

  Mrs. Day’s appearance might be improved by a patch over one eye or perhaps both eyes, since she suffers, poor woman, from some sort of lurid eye infection; she asked me the familiar question, “Why aren’t you at Wormley’s? It’s the only nice place, really. I always say that to stay at Willard’s is about as bad as staying in the Capitol itself for all the low types you see in the public rooms.”

  I begged expediency. Emma smiled and smiled. She looked radiant and smiled yet again when John proposed a toast in her honour (I could not see the label on the wine but think it homemade: the source of tonight’s fever?).

  “To my future wife!” John looked rather red and embarrassed as he made the toast, and I rather like him. He does indeed love Emma, and there is a lot to be said for such a strong emotion, even in marriage.

  Then the ladies left the table, and John and I were entertained by ten gentlemen of Washington, Antiques to a man and
entirely Southern in manner and accent, not to mention politics. “I would vote for a yellow dog if he was runnin’ as a Democrat,” said one, explaining not too flatteringly his support of Governor Tilden. Although politics does not much interest them, they are furious at Blaine, who recently made a speech on the necessity of denying civil rights to Jefferson Davis, the former president of the former Confederacy. As for the Republican party, they will abhor it “so long as a single Federal soldier stands with bayonet in hand before the capitol of any Southern state!” boomed one Antique.

  It is curious that after ten years the late conflict is still so much on their minds. But then the signs of war are everywhere. The city is ringed by derelict forts, and all the flimsy, ugly buildings thrown up to house troops, the wounded, and government offices still temporarily stand. Then, too, the Days and their friends are Southerners, and Washington is the paradigm of a Southern city, African to the core, and a most peculiar place from which to conduct a war against the rest of the South. It is a wonder that Mr. Lincoln escaped assassination as long as he did. Yet I find it startling that, even now, Federal troops are still on duty in states like Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina.

  “I have been invited to Newport, Rhode Island, this summer,” said John as the others discussed real estate, the one subject that enthralls the true Antique, since a good many of them live by selling or renting houses to the despised political transients.

  “The Sanfords?”

  “Yes. They—she said that you and Emma would be there in July. Is this true?”

  “I think so.” Actually, I have not made up my mind. Although Emma and I would like to stay with Denise, neither of us is happy at the thought of playing audience day after day to William Sanford’s incorrigible performances. I would prefer to stay with Mrs. Astor, and visit Denise as much as possible. Unfortunately, despite hints, there has been no invitation from Mystic Rose or from loyal chamberlain. I told John that nothing was definite.

  “My parents are very nervous.” And John laughed very nervously. “They think Newport, Rhode Island, almost as terrible a place as Long Branch, where the President goes.”

  “What standards!” I exclaimed. (I am certain it was the wine: I am now feeling sick to my stomach and in need of a purge).

  When we joined the ladies, Mr. Day gave a number of samples of Antique wit, particularly calculated to thrill and titillate mixed company.

  “Why,” Mr. Day asked Emma, “did the Devil never learn to skate?”

  “Learn to what?” Emma has not all our verbs at her command.

  “Ice-skate. You know, skate on ice.”

  “Ah, did the Devil wish to ice-skate?”

  “No, no. Well, yes, I guess he must’ve. But why did he never learn? why couldn’t he learn to ice-skate?”

  “I am baffled,” said Emma.

  “Because how in hell could he!” Mr. Day and the Antique gentlemen laughed at what, I gather, is an old, even antique story, whilst the ladies clucked disapprovingly at the sly way profanity had been legitimately used in their presence.

  Emma simply smiled. Saint-Gratien seems a world away, and entirely lost.

  2

  THE LAST FEW DAYS would have brought down any parliamentary government. As it is, the Grant Administration is in a shambles, and there is even talk that the President might resign.

  Events are moving so rapidly that I have become a sort of writing machine into which Nordhoff pours whatever information I need. He is most generous. But then he is writing every day, while I write, thank God, only once a week.

  On March 1, Babcock resigned as the President’s private secretary. Ill-advised as ever, the President has just appointed his own son to take Babcock’s place. Apparently Grant wanted to retain Babcock, but Mr. Fish said that if he did he would then have to find himself a new Secretary of State. But Babcock will not want. The President has rewarded him with the superintendency of Washington’s public buildings where he can steal himself a second fortune. Happily, Babcock is about to be indicted for the burglarization of that famous safe in St. Louis and there is still a chance of putting him in prison.

  Nordhoff is very grim these days; also, very pleased. The Augean stables of American politics may yet be cleansed once the public sees what condition they are in. Poor Tilden. He will have to play Hercules.

  On March 2, Belknap resigned as secretary of war. I was with the Belknaps earlier today, so I now have their version of what happened. It varies significantly from what Nordhoff thinks happened.

  Terrified at the thought of impeachment in the House and trial by the Senate, Belknap went to the White House on the morning of March 2. With him was Secretary of the Interior Zachariah Chandler, a Michigan politician close to the President. This sequence of events was supplied me by Nordhoff and seems plausible.

  According to General Grant’s defenders, the President had been so preoccupied with the Babcock affair that he had not been aware of the charges against Belknap…Just writing these words makes me think that if Grant did not know of this business, then he is indeed the village idiot. I realize that there are those who would consign him to that category, but I am not one of them. No fool could ever command for any length of time a great army, much less defeat a resourceful and splendid enemy. But I must set down the story as Nordhoff tells it.

  Shortly before the arrival of Belknap and Chandler, Secretary of the Treasury Bristow (rapidly becoming the President’s nemesis) interrupted General Grant at breakfast with the request that he receive at noon a certain New York congressman who would give the President full details of the Belknap scandal. General Grant agreed to meet the congressman.

  Query: Wouldn’t Bristow have mentioned why the congressman wanted to talk to the President? And if he had, then the President must have known that Belknap was on the verge of impeachment. The question is crucial.

  Bristow departs. The President orders his carriage to take him to the studio of a painter who is doing his portrait. Just as General Grant is coming downstairs from the family living quarters, a messenger tells him that the Secretaries of War and Interior wish, urgently, to see him. They are in the Red Dining Room. The President goes to them.

  Belknap says that he wants to resign immediately as secretary of war; he babbles incoherently. Chandler is direct, if not honest. He gives Grant the impression that Belknap must resign in order to protect his wife, who has been involved in something of an illegal nature. Without returning to his office, Grant sends for his son Ulysses, and orders him to write out a letter accepting Belknap’s resignation; then he tears up his son’s letter (it is too cool in tone), and himself writes the letter of acceptance, and signs it. Exeunt Belknap and Chandler.

  As the President is about to get into his carriage, enter two Republican senators who explain to him for the first(!) time the Belknap affair. The senators are shocked. The President is shocked, and, I should think, alarmed, for by allowing Belknap to resign, Grant inadvertently (the adverb used by his supporters) made it impossible for Belknap to be impeached, because in the eyes of many constitutional authorities an official may not be impeached, much less convicted of a crime committed in office, when he no longer holds that office.

  After this disheartening news, General Grant went and sat for his portrait, and the artist later reported that the President was as serene as ever. I find it curious that the ordinarily suspicious Nordhoff tends to believe that Grant knew nothing of the Belknap scandal before the arrival of the two senators. It seems to me inconceivable that he would accept so quickly the resignation of an old friend on the grounds that, out of office, Belknap might be able to protect his wife—a perfect non sequitur, since a high official is always in a better position to thwart justice than the plain citizen. I think that General Grant understood perfectly what he was doing. But I think that even the most partisan of Democrats will prefer to believe that Grant did not understand the matter, for
if he did, he is guilty of obstructing the course of justice and is as much a criminal as Belknap.

  Now for General and Puss Belknap besieged at 2022 G Street in their lovely home, as Mrs. Fayette Snead would say, crammed with French furniture; no, not besieged—kept under guard in order to prevent them from escaping to Europe. We arrived at teatime, in response to an urgent message from Puss not to “abandon” her.

  “May we go in?” I asked the policeman. I was tentative, not certain of the protocol in these matters.

  “Suit yourself,” was that genial officer’s response.

  The scene in the downstairs parlour resembled a lying-in. Heavy curtains were drawn against the daylight. Large funereal candles stationed at strategic points created a dim but attractive setting for the room’s centerpiece, a blue velvet chaise longue, on which reclined Puss, swathed attractively in lace, features pale and interesting. On a papier-mâché table at her side a glass of port stood next to smelling salts.

  The Negro servant showed us into the presence. “Bring them tea,” a tiny voice whispered from amidst the lace, “and tell the General our friends are here. Our only friends!” The servant vanished just as the tears fell. I suspect that this dialogue and those tears have been often repeated these last few days.

  Dramatically, Puss held wide her arms to receive Emma, who dutifully filled those arms, allowing the rain of Puss’s tears to fall onto her shoulder. I stood awkwardly to one side, as men must do at such times, wishing I were elsewhere.

  But then tea came. Puss poured. Respectfully we sat around the bier and heard her version of what had happened. “It is beyond me how anybody on this earth could believe a word that Mr. Marsh said, much less the word of that—that woman he is married to, that viper I once like a perfect fool befriended! Sugar? Milk?”

  We instructed her. Puss was now in full command of herself. Our tea was handed us without a tremor. “The truth is that my late sister, an angel if ever there was one loose on this terrible earth, did know the Marshes, and did have some kind of business dealin’s with them which I knew nothin’ about, bein’ unable to add two and two, much less able to do—what that awful woman got that stupid husband of hers to say I did.”