At the close of this speech an excited gentleman leapt upon the platform and began to declaim at the side of Phillips. Phillips laughed, and prayed the assembly not to listen to this “incapable gentleman.” The assembly were thrown into a state of fermentation, yet in perfect good-humour; they smiled, they whistled, they shouted, they clapped, and hissed, all together. During this commotion the people began to leave the galleries with the utmost calmness and composure. Plates were sent round through the hall to receive a collection for the Mulatto-woman, after which we left the hall together with many others; and I could not but admire the quietness, the methodic manner, in which this was done. There was no crushing nor confusion; each one followed silently in his turn, and thus the assembly flowed away like a quiet river.
I was glad to have been at a popular assembly where so much license prevailed, but which was yet under the control of order and good temper.
I visited the Senate-House one day in company with Mr. Sumner. Saw the Senate sitting sleepily over a question of shoe-leather, and heard in the House of Representatives a good deal of very animated but somewhat plebeian eloquence in a debate on the question of “Plurality and Majority,” as well as voting. But of this I shall say no more. The Americans speak extempore with great ease and fluency: their speeches here were like a rushing torrent; the gestures energetic, but monotonous, and without elegance.
The President, the speaker, and several of the members of both Houses, came and shook hands with me, and bade me welcome. I mention this because it seems to me beautiful and kind thus to welcome a foreigner and a woman, without importance in political life, but who properly belongs to the quiet world of home. Does not this show that the men of the New World regard the home as the maternal life of the State?
