Chapter XXXIX: Contrasts of Times

TRAVELLING IN 1845 COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE PRESENT DAY.

While I was Assistant Postmaster-General, Senator Whittihorne, of Tennessee, called at the Department to see me on official business. Seated at a window overlooking the Capitol, he remarked that the chords of memory were touched as he entered the room; that when barely of age, he occupied for a time a desk as a clerk just where he was seated.

He then told me that at the time of the Presidential election in 1844 he was a law student in the office of Mr. Polk, and by his invitation came on with him to Washington. The journey of the President-elect, from Nashville to Washington, was in February, 1845, just prior to his inauguration. He was accompanied by the members of his immediate family, his law student Mr. Whittihorne, and the Hon. Cave Johnson, who was soon to hold a position in his Cabinet. The journey to Washington, as Senator Whittihorne told me, was of two weeks' duration: first, by steamboat on the Cumberland and the Ohio to Pittsburg; thence by stage coach to the national Capitol.

At the time mentioned, railroads scarcely had an existence south of the Ohio and west of the Alleghanies; and save the single wire from Washington to Baltimore, no telegraph line had been constructed.

How striking the commentary, alike upon human accomplishment, and upon opportunity under our free institutions, is here presented! The wearisome and hazardous journey of half a month by steamboat and stage coach had been succeeded by one in palace car of a day and a night of comparative ease and safety, and the clerk had risen from a humble place in the Department to that of Senator from one of the great States in the Union.