singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing. The Senate, which
is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well
adapted to the uses for which it is designed. The sittings, I need
hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are
modelled on those of the old country.
I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether
I had not been very much impressed by the HEADS of the lawmakers at
Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally
their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and
whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was
expressed: and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with
indignant consternation by answering ‘No, that I didn’t remember
being at all overcome.’ As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the
avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this
subject in as few words as possible.
In the first place – it may be from some imperfect development of
my organ of veneration – I do not remember having ever fainted
away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight
of any legislative body. I have borne the House of Commons like a
man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of
Lords. I have seen elections for borough and county, and have
never been impelled (no matter which party won) to damage my hat by
throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by
shouting forth any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the
noble purity of our independent voters, or, the unimpeachable
integrity of our independent members. Having withstood such strong
attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold
and insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters;
and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at
Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this
free confession may seem to demand.
Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound together
in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the
chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all their discussions,
as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to which their names are
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given, and their own character and the character of their
countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole world?
It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour
to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his
country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores
upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption, are
but so many grains of dust – it was but a week, since this old man
had stood for days upon his trial before this very body, charged
with having dared to assert the infamy of that traffic, which has
for its accursed merchandise men and women, and their unborn
children. Yes. And publicly exhibited in the same city all the
while; gilded, framed and glazed hung up for general admiration;
shown to strangers not with shame, but pride; its face not turned
towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned; is the
Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,
which solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal; and are
endowed by their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness!
It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and
heard a man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in their
drink reject, threaten to cut another’s throat from ear to ear.
There he sat, among them; not crushed by the general feeling of the
assembly, but as good a man as any.
There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing
his duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a Republic
the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making
known their prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong