Lockwood-0068_07

We

MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. . 991

of to-day are educated ; the masses of to-day think. The old political
issues of the past are dead.
In February, 1866, I sold out my school property in Owego,

-and came to Washington, for no other purpose than to see what was

being done at this ‘great political centre——this seething pot,—to learn
something of the practical workings of the machinery of government,
and to see what the great men and women of the country felt and.
thought. As I came without any great amount of money in my purse,
with no claim to being a public benefactor, with no vote on any im-
portant question, and was not a newspaper scribe, I had no pass on
the railroad, no free -board at the hotels, and hardly a passport into

aristocratic society (if such distinction is known to Washington life),

and therefore soon found that some exertion would be necessary to
sustain myself while I was making my proposed investigations. To
this end I accepted a position in a young ladies’ school with- barely
enough salary ‘for my maintenance, but with all the time after one

‘o'clock P.st. to myself. This was satisiactory, as it gave me ample

time for investigation ; and during the five months that I spent in this
school I listened to the debates in Congress and the arguments in the
United States Supreme Court, investigated the local government of the
District, visited her public buildings, studied her historic reminiscences,
her works of art, and finally the geology and geography of the sur-
rounding country.

In my college course I had studied and had become deeply interested
in the Constitution of the United States, the law of nations, politi-
cal economy, and other things that had given me an insight into po-
litical life. I had early conceived a passion for reading the biographies
of great men, and had discovered that in almost every instance law has
been the stepping-stone to greatness. Born a woman, with all of a

“woman’s feelings and intuitions, I had all of the ambitions of a man,

forgetting the gulf between the rights and privileges of the sexes. In
my efforts to discover new avenues of labor I met with some ludicrous
and some serious experiences,—many of which were known ouly to
myself. Andrew Johnson was at this time President of the republic,
and William H. Seward Secretary of State. There was a vacancy in
the consulship at Ghent. Conceiving that I could fill this position, I
had the audacity to make application for it. Preparatory to a pros-
pective appointment, I reviewed my German, read all the authors that
I could find on International Law in the United States Supreme Court

. Library, and, procuring throngh my member of Congress a copy of the
. Consular Manual, made myself. quite familiar with its contents, so that
, ; q

I fully believed that I was competent to perform the service required
of a consular officer, never once stopping to consider whether the nation -
to which I should be accredited would receive a woman.

To my disappointment and chagrin, no notice was ever taken
of my application, and I was too weak-kneed to renew it. The fact
that Andrew Johnson soon afterwards beeame involved in many com-
plications with Congress, which ended in his impeachment by that body,
may account In a measure for the lack of interest taken by him and by
the public at large in my humble aspirations.