From Washington,
[special correspondence of the dispatch.] On the Potomac River Dec. 9, 1860.
Leaving Richmond at 7 o'clock, I found myself in a nest of Congressmen, Including members from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.
All the talk was about politics, and, if I may judge from what I heard, the dissolution of the Union is inevitable.
The delegates from South Carolina tell me there is a perfect ground swell of popular opinion in favor of secession; that the politicians are behind the sentiment of the people, and that the State will certainly go out of the Union before the 25th of this month.
In North Carolina there are indications of feeling which could hardly have been expected in behalf of what we in Virginia have thought the precipitate action of the Palmetto State. The turning out of Holden, editor of the Raleigh Standard, a decided Union man, who has been Public Printer for thirty years, and the putting in his place of Spelman, a known secessionist, would go to show that the old North State is deciding the momentous question now at issue in advance of Virginia. The Georgia delegates, tell me their people are going to take immediate action, so as to be side and side with South Carolina. From the Tennessee member I gather that his constitute feel that there is very little hope of the Union, and that, sooner or later, they will have to join the Southern Confederacy.
All the Congressmen with whom I conversed seemed anxious to know what action Virginia would take. The result of the recent meeting in Petersburg was spoken of as something they had not at all expected, and they inferred that in Virginia, as in South Carolina, it might turn out that the people were ahead of the politicians.
The news from Maryland is significant. A South Carolina delegate tells me that he saw a letter addressed to Gov. Gist by the Colonel of a regiment of horse, 1300 strong, and belonging to the city of Baltimore and its vicinity, pledging the entire force in aid of South Carolina in case the Federal Government attempts coercion after the State has seceded. The matter had been submitted to the vote of the regiment and decided unanimously in favor of South Carolina. The regiment consists of volunteers, and has been raised within a few days for the express purpose of helping South Carolina. This letter certainly came to Gov. Gist, nor is there any doubt of its genuineness.
It is useless to disguise facts. The people of the South are determined to bring matters to a conclusion of one sort or another, and that speedily.
Will write you again on Monday. Zed.
Major Lee, son of the famous "Light-Horse" Harry Lee.
Washington, Dec. 3, 1860.
I have little news for you to-day.
Both Houses have organized, and the Senate has adjourned till to-morrow, the President's Message not being ready.
As I came up the white marble stairway, one of the most beautiful in the world, that leads to the Senate gallery, and looked down upon the sparsely filled seats, an unnatural gloom, presaging unknown calamities to the Republic, seemed to hang over everything.
The galleries were well filled, many ladies being present, and a large number of men who own property in the city, whose anxious faces were painful to look upon.--From remarks that fell from them, I inferred that they had not the least doubt of Carolina's going out of the Union, but felt sure she would come back again.
Do they not delude themselves?
When I saw the grey head, the firm, strong face of Crittenden, it seemed to me that there was hope so long as one such man of the patriotic olden time remained to lift his monitory voice for peace. But when I looked at Sumner, in purple frock coat, grey vest and pantaloons, laying back affectedly in his seat, and beheld Seward in close confab with his fellow Republicans, and, above all, when I saw Hale standing back of the seats, with his hands in his pockets, looking down on the Senators as one having authority — when I beheld this, my hopes fell. Hunter, and Bayard of Delaware, sat together on one of the sofas, in earnest converse. Let us hope that if we of the South are compelled to go out of the Union, that gallant little Delaware will go with us. Maryland must be with us, too.
In the House, at the time I was there, all was confusion — the galleries jammed with men, women, and children, the lobbies full of all sorts of people, buck niggers in dandy clothes visible in the approaches to the old House of Representatives, and on the floor of the new House, the members going to and fro choosing cents.
The Message will be ready to-morrow, doubtless, and then we may look for exciting times in both Houses.
In my dispatch, last night, I used the words per diem in reference to the pay of members. They are paid by the year, and what I meant was this; The rule is, for members, at the beginning of the second session of a Congress, to draw the pay for the months intervening between the time of the adjournment of the first session and the first Monday in December. Thus they are now entitled to some $1,300 each and mileage; but owing to the state of the Treasury, only $600 and no mileage will be paid them. Zed.
