We have been going
the same rounds, in attempting to choose a Clerk, which occupied us three weeks
before we chose a Speaker. It is most irksome business, and cuts away all the
ties that bind me to office.
We have just this
minute elected a Clerk from Tennessee. He is a Southerner, but as
unobjectionable as any Southerner can be. He does not hold slaves; but he was
once a member of Congress, and voted with the slave-party through and through.
I have not voted for him at all, though he is a Whig. We had an exciting time
at the close of the voting, and before the vote was declared. The Southern
Democrats, seeing how near he was to being elected, came over to him one after
another, and at last gave him just enough. That is the way. They are always
more true to slavery than to Democracy. It is a good result; but I am rejoiced
that I did not help to bring it about. During the whole voting, the Northern
Whigs came round me, and some of our Massachusetts men too, and urged and
besought me to change my vote. At one moment, when only one more vote was
wanted, forty men turned bescechingly to my seat. I shook my head at them all;
and at that moment a Southern man on the other side of the House jumped up, and
changed his vote. This settled it.
SOURCE: Mary Tyler
Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p.
286-7
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