"
During two months there were strange scenes in the House, while
the clerk acted as temporary speaker and furious diatribes were
thundered back and forth across the aisle that separated
Republicans from Democrats, with a passage of fisticuffs or even
a drawn pistol to add variety to the scene. The end of it all
was a deal. Pennington, of the "People's Party" of New Jersey,
who had supported Sherman but had not endorsed Helper, was given
the Republican support; a Know-Nothing was made sergeant-at-arms;
and Know-Nothing votes added to the Republican votes made
Pennington speaker. In many Northern cities the news of his
election was greeted with the great salute of a hundred guns, but
at Richmond the papers came out in mourning type.
Two great figures now advanced to the center of the Congressional
stage--Jefferson Davis, Senator from Mississippi, a lean eagle of
a man with piercing blue eyes, and Judah P. Benjamin, Senator
from Louisiana, whose perpetual smile cloaked an intellect that
was nimble, keen, and ruthless. Both men were destined to play
leading roles in the lofty drama of revolution; each was to
experience a tragic ending of his political hope, one in exile,
the other in a solitary proscription amid the ruins of the
society for which he had sacrified his all.
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