Saving Spaces: Historic Land

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Saving Spaces

Saving Spaces offers an historical overview of the struggle to conserve both

individual parcels of land and entire landscapes from destruction in the
United States. John H. Sprinkle, Jr. identifies the ways in which the iden-
tification, evaluation, and stewardship of selected buildings and landscapes
reflect contemporary American cultural values. Detailed case studies bring
the text to life, highlighting various conservation strategies and suggesting
the opportunities, challenges, and consequences of each. Balancing close
analyses with a broader introduction to some of the key issues of the field,
Saving Spaces is ideal for students and instructors of historic preservation.

John H. Sprinkle, Jr. is an historian with the National Park Service and an
Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Planning, and Preserva-
tion, University of Maryland, College Park.
Saving Spaces
Historic Land Conservation
in the United States

John H. Sprinkle, Jr.

First published 2019
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of John H. Sprinkle, Jr. to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
The views and conclusions in this book are those of the author and should
not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the National
Park Service or the United States government.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-88866-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-88867-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71324-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For my parents, who entrusted me with a legacy of open
space and agricultural heritage:

Jane Vickers Brooks (Librarian and Farmer)

John Harold Sprinkle (Architect and Archaeologist)

Contents

Acknowledgments ix
A Note on the Sources xi

Introduction: How Will They Know It Was Us? 1

1 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes 5

2 Valuing Vision 23

3 San Francisco Surplus 44

4 Open Space for Urban America 73

5 The Recreation Movement 105

6 A Crisis of Need, Time, and Money 132

7 Preservation and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment 167

Appendices
2.1 Frances Bolton’s Remarks at the White House
Conference on Natural Beauty, 1965 189
3.1 Criteria for Evaluation of Surplus Federal
Historical Properties, 1948 191
4.1 Criteria for Evaluating Historic Properties, 1961 194
4.2 Historic Preservation within Urban Renewal
Projects 1961–1965 196
4.3 Urban Renewal for Historic Areas: Some Suggestions
toward Getting Good Results, 1962 203
viii Contents
4.4 The Historic Community, 1959 204
5.1 An $11 Billion Memo, 1962 206
5.2 Bureau of Outdoor Recreation Land Classification
System, 1965 212
5.3 National Natural Landmarks Program, 1965 217
7.1 Conservation by Preservation of Our Heritage, 1964 219

Index 223
Acknowledgments

This study began at the Lloyd House, 220 North Washington Street, in Alex-
andria, Virginia. For several years it was my privilege to serve on the Alexandria
Historical Restoration and Preservation Commission. Chartered in 1962, this
nine-member group of local citizens oversees, at the behest of the local city
council, a collection of historic preservation easements in Alexandria. In the
late 1960s, far-sighted citizens secured an open space acquisition grant from
the Department of Housing and Urban Development to purchase Lloyd
House. The preservation story of Lloyd House, and the ongoing work of the
so-called Long Name Commission, sparked my interest in the interaction of
the historic preservation and land conservation movements.
Over the years, many friends and colleagues within the historic preserva-
tion community have helped in the creation of this book, including Brenda
Barrett, Eric Benson, Nancy Boone, Warren Brown, John Burns, Ethan Carr,
Priya Chhaya, David Clarke, Rebecca Conard, Dennis Connors, Al Cox,
Grant Dehart, Andrew Dolkart, Bruce Donovan, Jodey Elsner, Chris Floyd,
Ehren Foley, John Fowler, Denis Galvin, James Glass, Tom Greene, Lisa Hayes,
Destry Jarvis, Ian Johnson, Aimee Jorjani, Robert Kapsch, Tom King, Laura
Kolar, Jane Loeffler, Eleanor Mahoney, Lance Mallamo, Maria McCollester,
Janet McDonnell, Catherine Miliaras, Hugh Miller, Marla Miller, Robert
Montague, Donald Murphy, Elizabeth Novara, Mark Peckham, Jess Phelps,
Constance Ramirez, Jerry Rogers, William Rudy, Stephanie Sample, Michele
Scalise, Richard Sellars, Earle Shettleworth, Carol Shull, Wayne Strum, Charles
Trozzo, Richard Weingroff, David Weir, and Robert Utley. I am indebted
to each of these individuals, many of whom have endured my often unbri-
dled fascination with conservation easements, surplus property, open space,
and urban renewal. I would be remiss in not acknowledging the exemplary
work of the professional staff at the Department of the Interior Library in
Washington, DC; the Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland, and
the National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II, both in Col-
lege Park, Maryland; the manuscripts division of the Library of Congress;
the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center, the Wilson Library at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and the Wyoming History Cen-
ter. While the views and conclusions in this book are mine alone and should
x Acknowledgments
not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the National
Park Service of the U.S. government, over the years my understanding of
the historic preservation and land conservation movements has grown from
numerous conversation with colleagues at the National Park Service, includ-
ing Christine Arato, Michael Commisso, Jeffrey Durbin, Emily Ferguson,
James Gabbert, Anna Holloway, Lu Ann Jones, Turkiya Lowe, Paul Lusignan,
Joel Lynch, Mary McPartland, John Renaud, Travis Senter, Angie Sirna, and
Kelly Spradley-Kurowski.
For more than three decades, my wife Esther has been a continuous source
of inspiration, comfort, and copious amounts of laughter. Our two sons,
Harry and Jack, have grown to become engaging, talented, and delightful
young men during the time that I worked on this book. Together we share
in the stewardship of our own cultural landscape—a family legacy that has,
over the last decade, shaped my understanding of saving spaces.
A Note on the Sources

This work rests upon research conducted at the following collections and
archives. Abbreviations used in the notes are given in parentheses.

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)

• Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Executive Director’s Admin-
istrative Files (ACHP ED AF)

College of Southern Maryland (CSM), Southern Maryland

Studies Center
• Moyaone Collection (MC)

Library of Congress (LOC), Manuscript Division

• Papers of David E. Finley (DEF)
• Papers of Nathaniel A. Owings (NAO)

Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union (MVLA); Fred W.

Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington
• Minutes of the Council of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association held
at Mount Vernon, Virginia (Minutes)
• Superintendent’s Monthly Report (SMR)
• Operation Overview Collection (Overview)
• Papers of Charles Cecil Wall, Resident Director (CCW)
• Papers of the Regent or various Vice Regents (VR), e.g. Frances Bolton
(VR Bolton)

National Archives and Records Administration

• RG 79: National Park Service
xii A Note on the Sources
• RG 207: Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This
record group includes records produced by its predecessor, the Urban
Renewal Administration (URA).
• RG 368: Heritage, Conservation, and Recreation Service (HCRS). This
record group contains the records of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation
(BOR) and the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
• RG 421: National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP). Certain
records of the NTHP are housed at NARA, including some associated
with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP).
• RG 429: Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
• RG 515: Records of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)

National Park Service (NPS)

• Harpers Ferry Center (HFC)
• Papers of Ronald F. Lee (RFL) include files on individual properties
such as the Old San Francisco Mint (OSFM).
• National Historic Landmark (NHL) Program files related to individual
properties, both designated National Historic Landmarks and “other sites
considered” (OSC) for possible designation, theme studies and records
and meeting minutes associated with the National Park System Advisory
Board (NPSAB) and its National Historic Landmark Consulting Com-
mittee (CC) and the History Areas Committee (HAC).
• Park History Program (PHP) collection includes the working files of the
agency’s Chief Historian and Bureau Historian. Files are generally arranged
by subject, individual, or location, e.g., Old San Francisco Mint (OSFM).
• Park-specific files are arranged by a four-letter code, e.g., Appomattox
Courthouse National Historical Site (APCO).

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Wilson

Library (UNC)
• Papers of Gordon Gray (GG)

University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP)

• UMCP hosts the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP)
library and the papers of Charles Hosmer (CBH) which include a col-
lection of oral history interviews, particularly Ernest Connally (EAC).
The library also hosts the papers of Charles E. Peterson (CEP) and Wil-
liam A. Murtagh (WAM)
 A Note on the Sources xiii
University of Mary Washington (UMW)
• Remembering the Future (RTF) was a 1986 conference celebrating the
20th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act. Papers pre-
sented at this meeting are in manuscript.

Wyoming History collection

• Papers of Frederick A. Gutheim (FAG)
Introduction
How Will They Know It Was Us?

Oscar never called. Produced by the Modern Talking Picture Service in 1968
as a work of cinematic art, the 28-minute film How Will They Know It’s Us?
never received much recognition. Focusing on a collection of historic pres-
ervation success stories from across the country, the film highlighted creative
transportation design in Monterey, California; the adaptive use of a former
chocolate factory at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco; residential rehabilita-
tions and the introduction of a new school and community center in Wooster
Square, New Haven, Connecticut; and small-town business sustainability in
Galena, Illinois. A collaboration between the National Trust for Historic Pres-
ervation (NTHP) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD), the film’s title is adapted from a scene in The Grapes of Wrath, where
a group of women are deciding what possessions they can take with them as
they abandoned Oklahoma during the Great Depression: “How can we live
without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”1
While use of the Steinbeck quote invited comparisons between the eco-
nomic and social turmoil of the 1930s with the racial, social, economic, and
demographic upheavals of the 1960s, it was not meant to cast aspersions on
the operation of the newly established agency. The department was proud of
its accomplishments in urban renewal:

In cities across the country, at an ever increasing rate, buildings and even
whole areas are being rehabilitated and restored. Older houses and com-
mercial structures which are given useful new lives help us relate to our
past and assist in finding answers to the question: How will they know
it’s us?2

Like the women in The Grapes of Wrath, each generation has decided, either
through action or inaction, what parts of the past to preserve for the future.
The material presence of the past remains a finite resource linked with the
land and landscape upon which it was seated. Thus the historic preserva-
tion and land conservation movements are inherently linked because of the
underlying factor of land, and with it the fundamental role of private prop-
erty within the American system. As the long-standing Maryland politician
2 Introduction
Louis L. Goldstein was fond of saying, investing in land was a good idea
“because the Good Lord isn’t making any more of it.”3

Saving Spaces
This book approaches the wide-ranging subject of “saving spaces” from an
admittedly federal perspective—a result of the readily available primary sources
and an acknowledgement of the increasingly important role that the national
government had on landscape and historic conservation efforts from the 1950s
through the 1970s. Each chapter presents a case study, as it were, of one particu-
lar aspect of the interaction of the conservation and preservation movements.
Taken together, they examine the collaboration between these two social move-
ments, which have at their core, the premise that the identification, evaluation,
and long-term stewardship of land and landscapes provides important values to
communities across the country. In many ways it was a story of how a matur-
ing preservation movement operated at the fringes of other, more-well-funded,
governmental endeavors, especially those designed to renew urban environ-
ments, provide access to open space in cities and towns, dispose of surplus fed-
eral infrastructure, and ensure the development of recreational resources.
Chapter 1 presents a broad-brush review of the historic preservation
movement from the mid-1920s through the mid-1970s. Since its birth dur-
ing the mid-19th century, American historic preservation has been most
interested in the stewardship of individual historic buildings and sites, those
associated with notable persons or dramatic events. During this period it was
not uncommon for museum curators and other collectors acquired archi-
tectural elements from historic properties threatened with demolition in
order to provide a background for collections of furniture or works of art.
This practice illustrates the educational and inspirational branch of the social
movement prior to World War II. That particularistic view was expanded
during Cold War to include a concern for the setting and environs of his-
toric properties; the recognition of ensembles of buildings within historic
districts; and eventually, an engagement with cultural landscapes on a large
scale. It was the recognition of beauty—whether in art, architecture, scenic
views, or natural settings (and shared threats to its continuity)—that linked
preservationists, advocates within the National Park Service (NPS), and land
conservationists during the third quarter of the 20th century.
Early preservation successes, such as the preservation of George Washing-
ton’s Mount Vernon estate saw new challenges at mid-century. Flying into
Washington’s National Airport in the early 1950s, Ohio Congressperson
Frances Bolton may have observed tendrils of suburban development creep-
ing out into Prince George’s County, Maryland, across the Potomac River
from Mount Vernon. Serving as the vice regent from Ohio for the Mount
Vernon Ladies’ Association, Bolton established Operation Overview: a multi-
year effort to ensure the stabilization of the historic views from Washington’s
home. Chapter 2 describes the creation of Piscataway Park, an experiment
 Introduction 3
in creating protected areas through a mosaic of public and private steward-
ship, and the only NPS unit designed to protect the viewshed from a historic
property.4
Much of the conservation movement was experimental, as the country
sought to deal with post–World War II conditions of growth that confronted
valued natural and cultural resources. In 1970, Ernest Connally, the head of
the NPS’s Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP) learned
that the Smithsonian Institution was about to acquire fireplace mantles and
other interior woodwork salvaged prior to the proposed demolition of the
old U.S. Mint in San Francisco. The fate of the Old Mint was the subject of
an long and intense debate and, as described in Chapter 3, its story illustrated
the post–World War II concern for the future of surplus federal buildings and
the administrative conflicts that often imperiled their long-term stewardship
or survival.
Metropolitan challenges were at the core of many conservation planning
debates facing the Baby Boom generation. Chapter 4 describes the Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban Development’s open space grant program, which
helped localities set aside more than 380,000 acres of urban land in communi-
ties across the country from 1961 to the mid-1970s. In 1962, for example, the
city of Alexandria, Virginia, took advantage of this program to purchase parts
of Fort Ward, a remnant of one of the Civil War defenses of Washington, DC.
Acknowledging the role of historic properties in the revitalization of urban
communities, this program fostered the acquisition and protection of historic
sites while also pushing for the liberalization of federal criteria to recognize
historic districts as a category of official memory.
Urban open space grants provided an important precedent for operation
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) described in Chapter 5.
In 1962, NPS Director Conrad Wirth detailed a creative funding source
to help states acquire additional lands for recreational purposes. Established
in 1964, the LWCF has since provided more than $11.7 billion in funding,
preserving 2.6 million acres in perpetuity. Creation of the LWCF was the
result of a decade-long campaign to expand the recreation estate within the
United States in order to provide increased access to outdoor activities for
a growing urban and suburban population. The LWCF presented a signifi-
cant opportunity for collaboration between advocates for the preservation
of scenic beauty, open space, and historic resources where the “conservation
clock” was “ticking too fast to be turned back.”5
As described in Chapter 6, conservation easements were viewed as one of
the most important tools available to the land-use protection communities
during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus
accepted a bundle of conservation easements on Green Springs, a 7,000-acre
cultural landscape in central Virginia that was threatened by mining and insti-
tutional development. At that time it was the largest historic district in the
United States. This protection established the principle that federal conser-
vation assistance must come with some form of perpetual protection. The
4 Introduction
acquisition and administration of conservation easements was a double-edged
sword for many bureaucrats: on the one hand it appeared to reduce the ini-
tial costs of ownership, while on the other hand it presented a cluster of
managerial headaches that soured their utility in many government applica-
tions. Despite this administrative hesitancy, conservation easements remain an
important legal pathway for saving spaces.
The final chapter describes how the New Conservation of the 1960s, a
bureaucratic component of the wider environmental movement, transformed
the land conservation and historic preservation movements within the United
States and suggests that the integrated concept expressed in the phrase the “pres-
ervation and enhancement” of the natural and cultural environment established
a foundation for saving spaces in the future. As described by Hal Rothman, this
book addresses the period from the “democratization of conservation” through
the “rise of aesthetic environmentalism.”6 During the third quarter of the 20th
century, despite advancing seemingly similar goals for the identification and
protection of special places, the land conservation and historic preservation
movements were often poorly integrated, existing in a relationship that limited
the success of nationwide efforts to save valued spaces for future generations.

Notes
1. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 75th Anniversary Edition (New York: Viking,
2014), p. 92. The paragraph concludes: “No. Leave it. Burn it.”
2. HUD, “How Will They Know It’s Us? A Film Featuring HUD Programs used for
Preservation Purposes.” Tri-Fold Brochure, 1968. HFC EAC Box 5.
3. “Louis L. Goldstein,” The Washington Post, July 7, 1998.
4. See: John H. Sprinkle, Jr, “Operation Overview and the Creation of Piscataway Park,”
The Public Historian, Vol. 38, No. 4 (November 2016), pp. 79–100.
5. Department of the Interior, A Special Report to the Nation on: The Race for Inner Space
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1964), p. 69.
6. Hal Rothman, Saving the Planet: The American Response to the Environment in the Twenti-
eth Century (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), pp. 85–107, 108–130.
1 From Period Rooms to Large
Landscapes

George Washington danced here—in 1797. Each February since 1932, Gads-
by’s Tavern in Alexandria, Virginia, has hosted a celebration of George Wash-
ington’s birthday. Known as the “Birth Night Ball,” the event is held in the
22-by-38-foot rectangular ballroom of the 1792 hotel, a room that includes
a raised balcony (or “orchestra”) from which the musicians would provide
entertainment. Since 1924, however, the original ballroom woodwork has
resided at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as part of
the exhibition of American interior design portrayed in an assemblage of
“period rooms.” In 1929, American Legion Post No. 24 acquired Gadsby’s
Tavern as a memorial to Washington and to honor the veterans of World
War I. In order to foster the building’s continued use as a house museum, the
distinguished and distinctive ballroom woodwork was authentically repro-
duced in 1941 to reflect its historic appearance.1 The removal of the Gadsby’s
Tavern ballroom woodwork and its reinstallation in a museum setting illus-
trated what was a common practice within American museum culture prior
to World War II. Curators considered the creation of period rooms an ideal
way to display growing exhibits of American and European decorative arts,
and museums were encouraged to expand their collections to include entire
buildings.2 This piecemeal approach to the preservation of architectural frag-
ments was part of a maturing historic preservation movement during the
middle of the 20th century.
Traditionally defined by the preservation and presentation of places associ-
ated with heroic events or individuals, the historic preservation movement
expanded after World War II to include an increasing appreciation for beauty.
The concept of scenic beauty, and the inspirational public values embodied
by distinctive landscapes, in the western United States took shape in the east
and in urban settings as a concern for the protection of authentic historic
scenes. With this background, the conservation of American heritage grew
from the interpretation of the individual building, usually maintained as a
house museum, to the recognition of the historic community. This was first
described as area preservation, but is more commonly known as historic
districts. By the 1970s the scale and scope of the movement had grown to
include “cultural landscapes:” large areas inhabited by a mosaic of historic
6 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes

Figure 1.1 Gadsby’s Tavern Interior, Alexandria, Virginia. This image shows the ballroom
that hosted a Birth Night Ball for George Washington in 1797. The woodwork
was removed and reinstalled at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City to
serve as a backdrop for the display of furniture and other 18th-century decorative
arts. The woodwork was reproduced and installed at Gadsby’s Tavern in 1941.
Source: LOC Prints and Photographs Division, HABS VA,7-ALEX, 19–14.

resources valued by diverse communities. Parallel to this expanding vision for

heritage conservation was the creation of an administrative structure, seated
within the federal government, which implemented the often-bifurcated
mandates to both use and protect valued landscapes across the county.

Period Rooms
During the first half of the 20th builders, antique dealers, collectors, and
museum curators sometimes treated woodwork and other architectural mate-
rials purchased from the often-impoverished owners of historic buildings in
both urban and rural communities as portable culture. Room by room, the
architectural heritage of individual buildings was removed and transported,
often miles away from the original locations, or even across the Atlantic from
European settings. Curators and collectors reinstalled the decorative elements
to serve as stages upon which to display and interpret other types of material
culture. The practice was often justified and legitimized because an individual
building was in danger of neglect or demolition.3
 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes 7
Confessing in 2006 that there was “no cohesive body of writing” on the
subject, Trevor Keeble introduced a collection of essays on the modern period
room with the conclusion that the practice was a “key representational device
of social history” within the museum field, as it humanized collections of dec-
orative arts.4 In Europe, museum acquisition of rooms as backdrops appears to
have begun in the late 1860s. In the United States the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York City opened its American Wing of period rooms in
1924.5 Other museums soon followed suit, perhaps most notably, the Phila-
delphia Museum of Art (as orchestrated by the architect and curator Fiske
Kimball) and the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, which was the creation
of Henry Frances Du Pont. By the late 1920s the success of this widespread
practice led the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to urge the museum
community to abstain from the trade in old houses and their furnishings, call-
ing it a “rather shoddy and uncultured act”:6

The house thus mutilated becomes a loss to their community with a

very doubtful benefit to another. Such old work, placed in a new setting
with new materials, bears with it the element of deception and inconsis-
tency, and the historical value of these unrelated fragments is destroyed.7

The room-by-room vandalism that fed the antiquarian’s desire for period
rooms was fostered by twin concerns: first, that saving the craftsmanship
demonstrated by quality interior and exterior woodwork was one means of
ensuring the survival of beauty, as reflected in the quality of design; and sec-
ond, that such architectural elements could provide the appropriate setting
and context for other forms of decorative arts.
Private residences were not the only targets of the vandals. Soon after
establishing the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
in 1910, William Sumner Appleton reported a rumor that the Metropoli-
tan Museum was “after” the interior woodwork at the Touro Synagogue
(1759–1763) in Newport, Rhode Island. Unfamiliar with the building or
its architect, Peter Harrison, Appleton was surprised by the museum’s appar-
ent interest until he saw a picture post card of the synagogue’s interior, after
which he declared that it would be a “terrible calamity” for the woodwork
to leave Newport. Fortunately, the building had an active congregation and
an endowment overseen by prominent individuals, including Arthur Sulz-
berger, the publisher of The New York Times. The Touro Synagogue would be
among the first properties recognized as a National Historic Site under the
auspices of the Historic Sites Act of 1935, not only for its historical associa-
tions but also its architectural achievement.8
During the 1930s the recycling of older buildings extended beyond the
reuse of woodwork to other architectural materials. The owners of Eltham, a
17th-century planation located near West Point, Virginia, remarked: “those
Williamsburg people had carried off everything that remained above ground.”9
Hard times during the Great Depression meant that families throughout the
8 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes
original 13 states looked favorably upon an offer to purchase woodwork,
windows, or other pieces of their architectural heritage. Eventually though, as
recalled by National Park Service (NPS) architect Charles Peterson, it became
easier for architects to design and fabricate architectural reproductions “rather
than hustle old mantle pieces around from one place to another.”10

Figure 1.2 The Lindens, or King–Hooper House, was built in Danvers, Connecticut, in
1754. This building was disassembled and transported to Washington, DC,
where it was reconstructed in the Kalorama neighborhood. The relocated
home served as the setting for a distinctive private collection of American
furniture and decorative arts.
Source: LOC Prints and Photographs Division, HABS, MASS, 5-DAV, 2–4.
 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes 9
This concern for beauty in the form of a unique architectural assemblage
was the prompt for one of the most ambitious relocations of a historic home
during the 20th century. The Lindens (also known as the King–Hooper
House) was seated in Danvers, Connecticut, from 1754 until the early 1930s,
when the building was deconstructed, inventoried, moved to the Kalorama
neighborhood of Washington, DC, and reconstructed. During the late
1920s, the owner, antiques dealer Israel Sack, had used the building as a
showroom—and not only were the furniture, ceramics, and paintings for sale,
but also the woodwork itself. After selling the parlor features for installation
in the Nelson–Adkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, Sack sold the rest
of the house to George and Miriam Morris, who were well-regarded collec-
tors of American decorative arts.11
Removing the Lindens from its original site was quite controversial. The
supervising architect, Walter Macomber, was widely criticized within the
emerging field of historic preservation. Rarely an advocate for moving his-
toric properties, Charles Hosmer, the chronicler of the preservation move-
ment, eventually became convinced that moving the home almost intact was
far preferable to having its individual components extracted and reinstalled
at diverse new locations. Relocating the building to Washington, DC, the
Morrises felt, allowed its architectural qualities to be appreciated much more
than if it had remained in Connecticut.12
As the historic preservation movement matured, dismantling and rein-
stalling old woodwork increasingly fell out of favor—yet moving buildings
for conservation purposes still remains a viable practice. Relocating historic
properties was defined as an automatic adverse effect by the regulations that
implemented Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. How-
ever, recognizing the tradition of house moving, the National Register of
Historic Places has accommodated horizontal relocation with Criterion
Consideration B. Challenges delivered by sea-level rise and increased flood-
ing have prompted renewed consideration of both the elevation and reloca-
tion of historic properties as a preservation tool.13

House Museums to Historic Districts

Prior to World War II, the American historic preservation movement was pri-
marily driven by a particularistic concern for individual buildings, often asso-
ciated with political, cultural, or economic elite figures, or momentous events
such as famous battles. This period was characterized by a focus on the educa-
tional and inspirational benefits that historic properties deliver to the visiting
public, which reinforced dominant social and political values of the period.
In addition to the practice of preserving authentic woodwork and hardware
by installation in museum-curated period rooms, this period embraced the
house museum as the most appropriate use for historic properties, after their
original function was superseded by change—or once they were recognized
as being historic. By the 1930s, period rooms and house museums were well
known to the American public. Laurence Coleman estimated that there were
10 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes
more than 400 house museums in the country,14 which could be classified
into three categories:

There is the house which, due to a combination of circumstances and

architectural inspiration, merits the public’s attention from the date of
building. There is the house which, because of the birth, death or visit of
a distinguished individual; by being the scene of an important event, or
by housing the arts and sciences, reflects glory upon itself and is there-
fore of interest to the public. And there is the old house, whose claim
to fame rests only on its persistence in surviving when all about it falls
away. Much as the oldest inhabitant is a character, no matter how infe-
rior he may have seemed to his contemporaries, so the oldest house in a
locality, or of a type, is essentially historic and important.15

House museums saw their ultimate expression with the living history museum,
most famously illustrated by Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, a product of
seemingly unending patronage. The restoration provided four-dimensional
exhibits where history came alive through reenactment within a community
that was—like the musical village of Brigadoon—purported to be frozen in
time so that the future could learn from the past. The success of the Wil-
liamsburg restoration encouraged communities across the United States to
look beyond the individual property to include ensembles of historic prop-
erties that gave character and beauty to urban settings.16
Before World War II, a few local communities began using local zoning
laws to manage urban change brought primarily by the new automobile-
centered landscape—most commonly illustrated by the gasoline station. In
1929, for example, Alexandria, Virginia, agreed to preserve the memorial
character of Washington Street as it carried the George Washington Memo-
rial Parkway through the city; and in 1946 (following Charleston, South
Carolina’s 1931 model), the city established an Old and Historic District
where development was regulated by a Board of Architectural Review. Local
zoning districts designed to protect le tout ensemble of historic neighborhoods
expanded in the Cold War era of urban renewal, eventually prompting the
federal recognition of area conservation in 1965 (see Chapter 4).17

Large Landscapes
The overall trend in American historic preservation since World War II was
the expansion of the number, type, and size of cultural resources valued as part
of the patrimony of American heritage. At the end of the 1960s, the residents
of Green Springs, a rural community in central Virginia, faced a dilemma:
Their commonwealth government had recently proposed the construction
of a new prison that, from the local perspective, would degrade, denude, and
destroy many aspects of the unique qualities of the cultural landscape they
called home. The struggle to obtain official recognition of this Louisa County
 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes 11
community and its resources (see Chapter 6) echoed the long-running cam-
paign to preserve a large landscape that comprised the viewshed from Mount
Vernon across the Potomac River into Maryland (see Chapter 2). Prior to
World War II, the historic preservation movement might begrudgingly accept
the need to disassemble significant works of art (in the form of architec-
tural woodwork) for installation as a stage setting for the display of decorative
arts in period rooms or accommodate the necessity to move entire historic
structures. Due to the wide swaths of demolition left by urban renewal and
interstate highway construction activities during the mid-1950s through the
mid-1960s, individuals and organizations began to appreciate the impact of
inappropriate features within larger settings that contained historic properties.
Historic preservation’s progress marched quickly from the consideration of
individual components, to the care of whole buildings and their original set-
tings (expanding to recognition of neighborhoods and districts), and finally to
entire landscapes that reflected a community’s ongoing cultural impact within
a natural world. One theme that flows through this progression, and one that
was a significant component of the wider land conservation movement dur-
ing the same period, was the concern for beauty and authenticity.

Beauty worth Preserving

Beautiful buildings came to be as valued as beautiful scenery after World
War II.18 In 1948 the landscape of preservation was expanded by the federal
recognition of Hampton Mansion, located outside of Baltimore, Maryland,
as a National Historic Site. This property met neither of the two traditional
elements of historic places in that it was not associated with any nationally
significant persons or events in the past. It was, however, a dramatic example
of architectural design and craftsmanship that was thought worthy of long-
term stewardship by the federal government. At Hampton, the idea was
that beauty, expressed in architecture, was equal to the nationally significant
scenic beauty presented by the wonders of nature within the national park
system.
Scenic values and views lay at the core of the conservation agenda dur-
ing the 20th century. The intellectual foundation for perpetual protection
of natural and scenic values laid by John Muir was articulated through the
Antiquities Act of 1906, which gave the President Theodore Roosevelt (and
his successors) significant power to shape the American landscape, especially
vast areas of ineffable natural beauty in the western states, through the pro-
cess of declaring national monuments. This preservation approach contrasted
with the conservation model promoted by Gifford Pinchot at the U.S. Forest
Service (established in 1905 within the Department of Agriculture), which
saw these public lands as primarily economic resources.19
According to historian Donald Swain, during the 1920s the concept of
“aesthetic conservation” was institutionalized within the leadership of the
NPS. This set the stage for the transformation of the agency during the 1930s,
12 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes
growing from 31 units in 1933 to more than 140 in 1940, with a similar
expansion in its workforce (from 2,000 to more than 7,000 employees). Sec-
retary of the Interior Harold Ickes even went so far as to propose rebranding
his agencies within a new Department of Conservation, with an eye toward
ending the long-standing competition between the NPS and the Forest Ser-
vice. Fundamentally opposed to the more utilitarian approach to land-use
management favored by the Forest Service, the NPS, with its unique mandate
among federal agencies, “considered itself the citadel of aesthetic values” as
it embraced heritage and scenic tourism to bolster public and congressional
support for its expanding system. As civic activist Harleen James noted, the
general public did not really care which federal agency managed a particular
parcel of public land: they were simply confused by the diversity of policies
and practices.20
This bureaucratic conflict over values—utilitarian versus aesthetic—was
reflected in the use of frontier metaphors. For Westerners, the pragmatic
challenges of a frontier landscape were ongoing and federal assistance was
warranted to enhance economic activities within the region. Following
Frederick Jackson Turner’s “end of the frontier” thesis espoused in the
1890s, Easterners saw growing congestion and competition for parks and
open space in a predominately urban and suburban landscape. For those who
saw the parks as “temples for the worship of nature,” the expansion of the
NPS during the 1930s was troublesome: the additional responsibilities within
historic preservation and recreational planning somewhat lessened the cen-
tral place of natural beauty within the system of protected areas. Easterners
feared that western public lands would be managed based on local practices
and need rather than from a national perspective. This sectional division
would shape the land conservation movement during the second half of the
20th century.21
Americans have always had an uneasy relationship with beauty. Alexis
De Tocqueville thought our democracy would “habitually prefer the use-
ful to the beautiful and . . . want the beautiful to be useful.”22 Nineteenth-
century poets and pundits, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Andrew Jackson
Downing and John Muir, espoused the diverse values of natural beauty
within a rapidly changing American society. With the creation of the NPS
in 1916, visionaries like Stephen Mather became bureaucrats with a man-
date to preserve and present the natural and scenic beauty embodied by
the original national parks. During the post–World War II era of urban
renewal, some developers saw “beauty as costing too much and yield-
ing too little.”23 During the 1960s, however, there was significant federal
focus on the concept of natural beauty that in many ways coincided with
an emphasis on the value of good design within the built environment as
the Kennedy administration took steps to improve the quality of federally
sponsored architecture.24 At a 1964 conference held in Venice, Italy, the
architect Carl Feiss lamented current contradictions within the historic
preservation movement:
 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes 13
So we find in the United States a combination of active preservation in
the big cities, a scattering of preservation activities in certain well known
smaller historic areas, and in the rest a general reduction to banality and
sameness which is characterized by the least common denominator of the
automobile, the filling station, supermarket and the false colonial house.25

Despite this appraisal, Feiss was hopeful for the future: The conservation
movement was “sufficiently deep-seated and of sufficient validity to promise
the permanent protection” of areas of great beauty, architectural importance,
and historic significance.26
In many ways, the historic preservation movement bridged the gap between
a concern for the conservation and enhancement of natural beauty and the
retention and revitalization of quality designs from the past. The revitalization
of federal conservation activities embraced by the Johnson administration
resulted from ideas about the values of scenic beauty, open space, wilderness,
and trails; and the cooperative and competitive roles of government and the
private sector as advocates for landscape protection—all seated within the
historical context for landscape conservation during the middle of the 20th
century.27 At the center of this new conservation was an expanding role for
the NPS within the land conservation and historic preservation movements.

Enjoyment versus Impairment

Since 1916, the American people have entrusted the NPS with the care of
their national parks; and since the 1930s, with the incorporation of more than
50 historic properties into its stewardship portfolio, the agency has played a
significant role in the conservation of both natural and historic landscapes.
The agency’s mandate is to preserve, unimpaired, the natural, cultural, and
recreational resources and values of a system of national parks for the enjoy-
ment, education, and inspiration of current and future generations. In gen-
eral, parklands are areas set aside by a federal, tribal, state, or local government
that illustrate some distinctive natural or historical element, characteristic, or
theme that is best manifested in the unique qualities of an individual place.
Through their identification, selection, and protection, parks convey, in a
very pragmatic way, the resources and stories that a community thinks are
worthy of sharing with the future. The administrative dilemmas faced by
the NPS illustrated the transformation of the land conservation and historic
preservation movements during the third quarter of the 20th century.28
In 1955 at the invitation of Harlean James, NPS Director Conrad Wirth
spoke at a conference entitled “Parks and Open Spaces for the American Peo-
ple.” That year the equivalent of about one-third of the 165 million people in
the United States visited one of the NPS units, and planners forecasted that an
even higher percentage would take advantage of the available cultural, natural
and recreational resources by the end of the 20th century. Ever mindful of
the mandate to preserve parklands for future generations, NPS planners, and
14 From Period Rooms to Large Landscapes
those at the state and local level, considered rationing access because the car-
rying capacity of the resources had been, or were about to be, overwhelmed
by increasing visitation. Looking toward 50th anniversary of the agency in
1966, Wirth recounted that:

Our first goal is to solve, by that time, the difficult problem of protect-
ing the scenic and historic areas of the National Park System from over
use and, at the same time, of providing optimum opportunity for public
enjoyment of the parks.29

Complicating Wirth’s vision was the fact that states and local governments
were often unable to “carry their share” of the steadily increasing need for
outdoor recreational facilities and continued to rely on federal support.
Park traditionalists—those who considered natural and scenic values to be
transcendent—begrudgingly accepted the presence of nationally significant
historic properties within the system, but they were reticent in their tolerance
of units designated primarily for active outdoor recreation. The expansion of
the nation’s outdoor recreation estate during the Cold War era would prove a

Figure 1.3 NPS directors (left to right) Newton Drury, Horace Albright, George Hartzog,
and Conrad Wirth at the 1963 National Historic Landmark dedication of the
Darien, Connecticut home of the first NPS director, Stephen Mather.
Source: Box 409, Charles E. Peterson papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
duro mais do 800 rs. (L. J. Ribeiro, Critica do rel. de J. S. Carvalho,
34) Havia, pois, um exagero de dez por cento que, com vinte de
reducção no troco do papel, elevavam a quasi um terço o que
realmente o Estado devedor deixava de pagar aos seus crédores.
Ao mesmo tempo que 16 ou 20 mil contos de propriedade caíam
na posse do Estado, o Thesouro tinha de pedir emprestado o
dinheiro para fazer uma composição com os seus crédores: taes
são as consequencias naturaes das revoluções—têem de
enriquecer os seus sectarios. Os clientes do ministro enriqueciam,
com effeito, por ambos, por todos os modos: engulindo os bens
nacionaes o agiotando com a banca-rota. O decreto de julho, porém,
encarava o problema do restabelecimento da circulação
exclusivamente metalica apenas nas suas relações para com o
Thesouro, não attendendo ás relações contractuaes entre
particulares. A isso veiu occorrer a lei de 1 de setembro, cortando os
embaraços pela raiz, dispondo que todas as obrigações entre
particulares se mantivessem taes-quaes até 38, exprimindo-se d’ahi
por diante as sommas na unica moeda legal, o ouro. A natureza
d’esta disposição, tornando solidarios da banca-rota do Thesouro os
particulares que tinham pactuado n’um regime de circulação mixta—
a fórma da lei em que entrava um papel depreciado—obrigou mais
tarde a reformal-a.

Esse incontestavel serviço da restauração da circulação metalica

era pago á custa de graves sacrificios. A historia dos emprestimos
da dictadura (V. Relat. de Carvalho, 34) era um tecido de confusões
em que a maxima parte dos criticos viam trapaças vergonhosas.
Sem duvida, a emissão de emprestimos durante as epochas
desesperadas da guerra só pôde ser feita á custa de enormes agios;
mas a confusão era tal e tão pequena a confiança na limpeza de
mãos dos procuradores do Thesouro que, invertendo com espirito e
agudeza a locução ordinaria, dizia-se «haver muito quem não
duvidasse da boa fé». (Ribeiro, Critica do rel. etc.)
 Nos primeiros tempos vivera-se dos subsidios do Brazil: 654 mil
libras ou 2:943 contos, mais 437 gastos pela Junta do Porto, mais
cerca de 300 nos Açores: ao todo 3:700 contos effectivos (V. Relat.
Carvalho) com que Palmella e a primeira regencia liberal se tinham
subsidiado a si, aos emigrados e ás varias tentativas e aventuras
mallogradas. Tal fôra a confusão d’esses gastos, que se passou
uma esponja por cima das contas, prescindindo-se d’ellas,
considerando-se tudo approvado. Com D. Pedro entrou em scena
Mendizabal, e, afóra pequenos emprestimos levantados no Porto e
depois em Lisboa, os principaes recursos da guerra vieram dos
emprestimos londrinos. O de dois milhões (23 de setembro de 31)
de 5 por cento liquidou os encargos anteriores:
Devia-se a Marbeley £ 12:600 deram-se-lhe £ 105:600
bonds por
a commissão de » 52:000 titulos no » 150:000
aprestos vendeu por nominal de
negociando-se a 48 por » 837:312 o resto » 1.744:000
» »
Totaes 901:912 nominal » 2.000:000
D’esse producto só as duas primeiras verbas eram porém reaes:
uma por ser divida positiva, outra por ser dinheiro applicado á
compra de armamentos, soldo de mercenarios, etc. O resto
representa-se d’esta fórma:
Juros e outros encargos £ 253:780
atrazados
Commissões e premio da » 295:003
emissão
Dinheiro » 288:529
De sorte que o producto dos dois milhões era realmente
£353:129, a terça parte (ou £606:909 se se lhe juntarem os juros
atrazados) saíndo ao juro annual effectivo de 16 por cento. (Ribeiro,
Critica, etc.)
 O primeiro ensaio não provou feliz, mas o segundo foi ainda peior:
é verdade que as condições tambem tinham peiorado e havia já
muitas esperanças perdidas, mas a politica liberal em materia de
finanças estava conhecida. Que outra cousa podia ser, senão
agiotagem, o systema acclamado pelos bolsistas de Londres? A
emissão de £600:000 (23 de outubro de 32) produzia, liquido de
premios e commissões, £151:925, custando pois a razão de quasi
20 por cento ao anno. Já em Lisboa, depois (14 de setembro de 33),
contratam-se outros dois milhões; e por fim, destinado á conversão
do papel-moeda, um ultimo milhão. Os tres milhões produzem,
ainda captivos de commissões e premios que se encobriam,
£2.356:756, (V. Relatorio, etc.) que não dariam mais de dezoito ou
dezenove centenas de milhares de libras, custando entre 8 e 9 por
cento.
Somma total, a divida externa, que do emprestimo de 1823,
contava um milhão esterlina, subia a quasi sete (6.729:800) ou
29:400 contos da nossa moeda com o encargo annual de 1870.
(Orçamento para 35-6)

Falta-nos vêr agora, para completar o nosso estudo, o estado da

divida interna. A importancia d’ella era em principios de 28: (ap.
Bulhões, Divida port.)
Com Consolidados de 1796 a contos 13:402
juro: 1827
Padrões, a cargo do » 7:000 20:402
Thesouro
Sem Papel-moeda, orçado em » 6:000
juro: Divida fluctuante » 6:490
(atrazados)
Emprestimos diversos » 1:430
Exercicios findos » 4:778 18:698
 Total contos 39:100
Depois da conversão do papel-moeda; depois do decreto (23 de
abril de 35) que converteu em 4 por cento, como juro a metal, a
divida antiga de 6 na forma da lei; liquidada a guerra e
consummadas as bancas-rotas, podemos apreciar o estado em que
se achou o Thesouro: (V. Coll. de Contas da Junta; Ribeiro, Critica e
Bulhões, Div. port.)

Divida reconhecida
Com Emprestimos liberaes dos contos 2:520
juro: Açores, do Porto e de
Lisboa
Titulos de divida antiga » 12:375 14:895
Sem Papel-moeda, por » 3:500
juro: amortisar
Divida fluctuante » 5:689
(atrazados)
Juros por pagar » 897 10:086
Somma contos 24:981

Divida não reconhecida

Legitima: Padrões de juros reaes contos 4:800
Outros emprestimos » 1:670
anteriores
Atrazados de 23-4 » 10:543
Indemnisações » 11:000 28:013
approvadas, por pagar;
e diversos
Illegitima: Emprestimos de D. 4:443
Miguel em 28-30
 Somma contos 32:456
Total » 57:437

O Thesouro, pois, devia em contos 39:100

1828
e confessava dever
em 1835:
por titulos 29:400 »
passados a
extrangeiros
» » nacionaes 25:000 » 54:400
Excesso » 15:300
Deixando de reconhecer » 28:000
creditos legitimos por
Excesso » 43:300
A esta somma devem juntar-se ainda os titulos naturalmente
amortisados pela abolição das corporações possuidoras d’elles.
Quanto a encargos, porém, a situação do Thesouro é diversa: pois a
divida com juro era, em 1828, de 20 mil contos e agora é de 44:300.
Apesar da somma de bens confiscados, o encargo do orçamento
duplíca, embora se não paguem os juros dos padrões, ainda
representantes de um capital de cinco mil contos.

É impossivel dizer que sommas a crise custou á nação, porque se

não medem por numeros as perdas de riqueza e trabalho por todo o
paiz, e menos ainda a perda de gente e de forca, consumidas pela
guerra e pela intriga. Menos se póde contar ainda o valor perdido
das energias gastas em sustos e afflicções!
Póde talvez, porém, calcular-se o que financeiramente se perdeu,
reunindo numeros conhecidos:
 Por parte dos Liberaes
Valor da divida que contrahiram no reino e fóra 27:522
Id. dos subsidios do Brazil, recebidos 2:943
Id. dos atrazados por pagar em 34 4:000
Valor das indemnisações a solver 7:000
Id. das dividas legitimas não reconhecidas 17:013
Id. do terço do papel-moeda, na conversão 2:500
Id. dos confiscos de propriedade inimiga ?

Por parte dos Miguelistas

Valor da divida que contrahiram 4:443
Id. dos vencimentos e juros não pagos durante o seu 8:083
governo
Id. dos dons voluntarios e confiscos ?
Setenta, oitenta, cem mil contos, custou decerto á economia da
nação a guerra que terminára sem conseguir acabar ainda com a
crise, porque á lucta entre o velho e o novo Portugal iam succeder
as luctas dos partidos liberaes. Secco, devastado estava o reino
com os vomitos da cholera, as agonias da fome gemendo por todo
elle: e da mesma fórma o Thesouro, imagem viva do paiz, nú e
vasio, gemia tambem com a lepra da corrupção, da agiotagem, do
puro roubo. O anno de 33-4 dera apenas tres mil contos para uma
despeza de treze mil;[5] e o orçamento de 35-6 apresentava um
deficit de mais de quatro mil,[6] com receitas exageradas.
Começaram a pronunciar-se vivamente os clamores contra a
sociedade Mendizabal-Carvalho e suas combinações em que tantos
lucravam agios, commissões, premios, bonus. Mendizabal furava
pelo meio das bolsas de Paris e Londres, dando luvas aos
Rothschilds, aos Ricardos, aos Foulds, aos Oppenheims, para
pôrem o seu nome nos annuncios das emissões portuguezas. (A
dynastia e a revol. de set. anon.) Carvalho furava pelo meio da selva
das intrigas, como uma estrella caudata de ouro, fechando os olhos:
era dinheiro inglez! O seu processo evitava que a causa se
despopularisasse exigindo impostos, contentava o povo, pagava
tudo em dia, e dava ainda para vencer resistencias que as alfaias
dos conventos e os bens nacionaes não satisfaziam. Era uma chuva
de libras esterlinas: quem viesse depois, que se arranjasse! Não se
podia opprimir o povo, nem ser muito exigente com um
funccionalismo inventado assim, do pé para a mão, para pagar os
serviços á causa. A decima rendia apenas oitocentos contos; e até
1840 nem um dos recebedores geraes nomeados em 34 tinha
prestado contas: uns fugiam, outros escondiam-se; e depois, ainda
em vão o Diario, em 39, publicava a lista dos remissos.
O ministro, indifferente, compassivo, passa-culpas, deixava ir,
considerando que o periodo era transitorio. Afinal, chegára o
momento da desforra: não tinham sido muitos os annos de
amargura? Mas as pretenções da opposição, exigindo limpeza de
mãos ao governo, e ameaçando com essa necessaria banca-rota
onde acabam as viagens de todos os Laws, veio transtornar a
placidez dos dias felizes. Carvalho caiu (27 de maio de 35) e no seu
logar entrou o sincero Campos, mais escrupuloso, menos atilado.
Impellido para além do que a prudencia mandava, o ministro expôz,
em lagrimas, o triste sudario do Thesouro. Chorar é bom;
desacreditar o adversario póde não ser mau; mas que remedio? Diz
o povo que tristezas não pagam dividas. Campos tinha só lagrimas
e invectivas: caiu logo. (15 de julho) O Banco e a agiotagem em
peso exigiam a entrada de Rodrigo e de Silva Carvalho. Saldanha,
na presidencia, que havia de fazer? Deitou ao mar o lastro radical
do gabinete, admittiu os homens habeis em finanças. Estava
imminente a banca-rota: não havia um real, e os da opposição não
mereciam conceito aos argentarios. (Carnota, Memor. of Sald.) O
marechal, entre os dois partidos, com a sua vaidade ingenua, já se
acreditava um arbitro—quasi um rei. Não o tinham convidado para
monarcha no Rio Grande? Não escrevia elle mais tarde, já depois
de ter sido apenas o méro instrumento cabralista, «estou persuadido
que seria um bom chefe n’um Estado qualquer»? (V. carta de 69,
em Carnota, ibid.) Deitou fóra Loulé e Campos; metteu Rodrigo e
Silva Carvalho.
 Via-se que o Law portuguez, liberal em todos os sentidos e para
com todos, era indispensavel. Endividamo-nos: que tem isso? O
futuro a Deus pertence—dizem o turco e o portuguez. Nação de
morgados hypothecados, Portugal sentia-se bem empenhando o
futuro. As dividas cresciam; pagavam-se os juros com dividas
novas; e assim se iam pedindo, consolidando e pagando.—Não é o
que ainda hoje[7] succede?—Só a opposição clamava, e como a
intriga era muita, apezar do fiasco do verão, Campos voltou ao
governo no inverno. (18 de novembro)
Desorientaram-se as cousas e o rival expulso esfregava as mãos
satisfeito: bem o dizia! Utopistas os que pretendiam viver dos
recursos d’uma casa arruinada! Pois não era evidentemente melhor
aproveitar do inglez que nos dava o que lhe pediamos? Era dinheiro
que vinha para cá. Tinhamol-o? Não. Custava muito caro? Deixal-o
custar. Quando não houvesse nada para os juros, não se pagavam:
eis ahi está! Quem perdia? O paiz? não; o inglez. Carvalho, que
assim pensava, não deixava de ter rasão; mas a hypocrisia politica
impedia-lhe que o dissesse. D’ahi provinha o ser batido pelas
sonoras palavras dos adversarios.
Como os factos, porém, o vingaram! A desordem continuava a ser
a mesma, aggravada com a suspensão dos pagamentos. Os
mercenarios clamavam pelos soldos, suspirando por voltar para
casa. Já conformados com a falta das terras promettidas, pediam
apenas um dinheiro que não havia. Davam-se-lhes letras sobre
Inglaterra, e empregados do thesouro, que já tinham aprendido
muito, iam a bordo descontar-lh’as a dez por cento e mais. (Shaw,
Letters) Tudo jogava: a vida era uma sorte. Farrobo fôra cudilhado
pela lei do papel-moeda. Faziam-se e desfaziam-se as riquezas
como nuvens passageiras. Bens de sacristão, cantando vêm,
cantando vão!
O rigido Campos não era homem para tal gente, nem para tal
epocha. Levantava-se contra elle um clamor unanime dos
prestamistas sem juros, dos empregados sem vencimentos, dos
soldados sem pret.—«Em que se parece o sr. Campos com um
cometa? Em ser barbato e caudato. E em que mais? Nos resultados
influentes. O do outro dia deixou-nos o frio, e este a fome».
(Bandeira, Artilheiro, n.º 19) Maldito governo que não paga! «Isso é
falta de paciencia ... O sr. Campos, quando entrou para o thesouro,
que achou lá? Pulgas!» (Ibid.) Mas d’esses bichos, Carvalho fazia
libras, e por isso o foram chamar outra vez. (20 de abril de 36) Era
unico na sua especie.

Comtudo os tempos iam durando, e nada ha peior do que o tempo

para todos os Laws. Se as cousas não andassem! Andavam, porém,
e rapidamente: com aquella velocidade progressiva da machina
capitalista, prolifica por meio dos juros, amortisações,
capitalisações. Dois annos tinham bastado para progredir d’este
modo: (V. Coll. de Contas, 10 de setembro de 36)
1834 1836
Divida 29:400 40:398
externa
capital
» interna 14:895 20:748
»
Somma 44:295 61:146
Accrescimos 16:851
—capital
juros 313
Divida sem
juro:
Papel 3:500 3:115
moeda
Diversos 6:586 6:852
Encargos juros 2:334
totaes da
divida:
 amort. 627
Divida
mansa
(Padrões, 17:013
atrazados,
etc.)
E n’esses dois annos decorridos, estava consumido, além do
mais, o melhor dos bens nacionaes. Ardia tudo n’um fervor de
appetite que já para muitos começava a infundir receios de uma
indigestão tremenda. Dois annos de paz tinham custado quasi tanto
como seis annos de guerra: muito mais, se se contar o que o
Thesouro não pagou. A guerra fôra cara, mas a victoria era ruinosa.
No meiado do verão (14 de julho de 36) pegou fogo no thesouro. Já
tudo ardia, lá dentro d’esse palacio onde á inquisição religiosa
succedera a inquisição agiota, com as suas tenazes de papel
timbrado, os seus troncos de juros, retornos, commissões, premios;
com a sua algaravia bancaria, herdeira do historico latim das
sentenças singulares ... Qual dos desvarios dos homens valerá
mais?
Ardeu em verdadeiro lume o Thesouro em julho; mas já vinha
ardendo havia muito em lepra que o roía de torpezas, e n’um vasio
que o amargurava de contracções, como as dos estomagos
famintos. O povo dizia que o fogo fôra posto, para saldar muitas
contas; mas o ministro, Pombal da moderna finança, Law portuguez,
iniciador da nação nova nos segredos do capitalismo; o ministro,
como o velho marquez no seu terramoto, mandou pagar o semestre
no dia seguinte. Ardia o Thesouro? Agua ao fogo, e paguem!—
traducção do «enterrar dos mortos e curar dos vivos». Ardia o
Thesouro! Boas, francas labaredas, impellidas por uma ventania
fresca, subiam crepitantes, levantando no ar os farrapos da
papelada. Durou doze horas o incendio, do meio-dia á meia noite.
Muitas horas mais, muitos dias, bastantes annos, ia durar outro
incendio, acceso pelas ambições mal soffridas, pelas illusões
crentes, pelo protesto contra o systema da veniaga e da
delapidação, contra o regabofe que a uns enchia de coleras e a
muitos mais de invejas. Tambem tinham soffrido: tambem queriam
gozar!
Em julho ardeu o Thesouro; em setembro rebentou a revolução.

4.—A FAMILIA DOS POLITICOS

Mas antes de setembro e da nova face que as cousas tomam

n’essa data, falta-nos ainda estudar mais de um dos lados da nação,
no seu primeiro periodo liberal ...
Além das causas anteriores conhecidas, a propria victoria do novo
regime concorria mais ainda para que Portugal fosse uma nação de
empregados publicos. A suppressão dos conventos, o resfriamento
dos sentimentos religiosos, diminuiam a offerta e tambem a procura
de lugares na Egreja. As causas economicas anteriores já tinham,
póde dizer-se, supprimido a navegação; as tentativas industriaes
manufactureiras do marquez de Pombal não tinham vingado; e a
recente crise de oito annos, rematada por um terramoto das velhas
instituições sociaes, viera talar os campos, arruinar a agricultura.
Portugal achava-se, pois, forçado a substituir por um communismo
burocratico o extincto communismo monastico. Durante a guerra, a
nação fôra um exercito; agora, licenceadas as tropas e supprimidos
os soldos, de que viveriam os soldados? É verdade que o governo
podia ter feito como se fazia outr’ora em Roma; mas a distribuição
das terras conquistadas não podia ter lugar, porque os capitães
queriam-n’as para si, por grosso. Força era portanto optar por outra
saída: e qual, senão os empregos publicos?
Por sobre esta necessidade social appareciam as necessidades
politicas. Em que peze ás seccas affirmações doutrinarias e ás
chimeras dos philosophos, todas as nações consistem realmente na
aggregação de clientelas para as quaes um chefe é ao mesmo
tempo um instrumento, um representante e um defensor. Essa
primeira fórma da sociedade romana exprimia uma verdade natural
que os systemas encobrem mal.[8] Quando, mais tarde, se imagina
subordinar a doutrinas abstractas a existencia dos povos, observa-
se que os factos naturaes espontaneos, reagindo, tiram a realidade
ás formulas. Assim, nas velhas monarchias havia chefes e partidos,
cujo poder era maior do que o do rei; assim, nos governos
formalistas liberaes, o poder pessoal dos chefes politicos, apoiado
sobre instrumentos como as eleições, a imprensa, etc., é a força
positiva que impera sophismando uma constituição, a qual os chefes
confessam e dizem respeitar por um sentimento de conveniencia e
de pudor publico, mais ou menos consciente.
Quando a machina social se desorganisa, apparecendo o que se
chama revolução ou crise, vêem-se mais ao vivo como as cousas
são na realidade. Era isto o que succedia entre nós, nos tempos que
agora atravessamos. Constituiam-se as clientelas; e como a
sociedade era ainda quasi um acampamento assente sobre um
territorio desolado; como não havia outros meios de vida patentes a
numerosas classes desorganisadas, essas clientelas eram o que
podiam ser: burocraticas e militares.
«Para um homem ser ministro de Estado basta que um batalhão,
de mãos dadas com um periodico, o queiram». (Bandeira, Artilheiro,
n.º 25) Sociedades como a portugueza, lançadas de chofre n’uma
vida nova, sem precedentes nem raizes na historia immediata;
povos de um temperamento violento ou ardente, sem instrucção
nem riqueza: estão condemnados a um revolvêr desordenado, em
que idéas, ou falsas ou mal concebidas, se combinam com os
instinctos intimos que a anarchia traz á flôr da realidade. Entre os
debates de doutrinas extravagantes e as luctas dos bandos
armados, vae pouco a pouco effectuando-se, de um modo
naturalistamente espontaneo, a reconstituição do corpo social
desorganisado. É como quando o furacão levanta e ennovela o pó
das estradas que se agita, mistura-se, e gradualmente vae outra vez
assentando.
Nada nos deve pois admirar o que succedeu em Portugal:
outrotanto succede ainda hoje á Grecia e aos paizes do Oriente
slavo; e o mesmo que nos aconteceu a nós, foi o que se deu na
Italia e na visinha Hespanha. Os homens da Europa central,
francezes, inglezes, allemães, belgas, filhos de sociedades
differentes, não podiam comprehender, nem o nosso bandidismo,
nem o systema das nossas clientelas ou partidos, nem o nosso
communismo burocratico, nem a nossa furia politica, paixão
dominante que a occasião, o interesse, e a doutrina da anarchia
individualista concorriam para fomentar. D’esta incomprehensão do
caracter da sociedade pelos extrangeiros que mandavam n’um paço
occupado por uma rainha quasi extrangeira, veiu a principal causa
das reacções e revoluções que alagaram o paiz em sangue,
consummando a obra de uma ruina já avançada. Dir-se-ha porém
que, se tal motivo não surgisse, a vida portugueza de 34 a 51 teria
sido uma paz? Não, nunca. Haveria apenas um elemento menos de
guerra. Os diversos bandos, com seus chefes e clientes, seus
principios e interesses, seus programmas e guerrilhas, teriam
combatido da mesma fórma entre si, até que o cansaço universal
impuzesse uma paz que nenhuma clientela podia impôr com a
victoria, por falta de força bastante para a ganhar.

O motivo de uma tal fraqueza está nas condições necessarias de

uma sociedade no caso da nossa. Os debates e as luctas dão-se
entre a minoria minima dos politicos, advogados ou militares, com
discursos ou correrias, formulas ou guerrilhas.
Esta qualidade de homens é quasi a unica que se interessa
nos negocios publicos; occupando todos os cargos da
administração, constitue o que chamam opinião, domina as
eleições e toma assento nas côrtes. D’ella se compõem os
poderes executivo e legislativo, sendo ao mesmo tempo
governo e povo. O numero d’estes politicos não é
consideravel, mas é demasiado relativamente ao magro
orçamento de Portugal. (Lasterie, Portugal etc., na Revue des
deux mond. 1841)
«Cada governamental, dizia o conde da Taipa, é um artigo da
carta.» E se, com effeito, o orçamento era magro de mais para
sustentar os politicos; se o communismo burocratico era bem mais
difficil de manter do que o monastico, pois os pedintes não se
contentavam com o caldo e a brôa das portarias: é tambem facto
que os homens de alguma cousa haviam de comer. E se não havia
outra occupação para onde se voltassem?

Uma nação de empregados

É Portugal? Certamente.
Até D. Miguel do throno
De D. Maria é pretendente.

(Bandeira, Artilheiro, n. 22).

Não podia ser de outro modo, e já vimos o porquê. Mas o
orçamento era magro, magrissimo: se se pagava, honra seja á arte
do nosso Law, que achára em Mendizabal um corretor e em Londres
uma colonia excellente para a lavra das minas de libras. Comtudo
essas fortunas sempre duram pouco; e o Thesouro soffria de
intermittentes, com os ataques de escrupulo da opposição. Os
pobres empregados viam-se n’uma situação triste: «Em que se
parecem com os papa-moscas? Em que estão todos com a bocca
aberta». (Ibid. 31)
Se é verdade que quem «ataca o governo não saiu despachado»;
(Ibid. 8) não é menos verdade, comtudo, que seria injusto vêr na
constituição da familia politica o mobil exclusivo da fome ou da
cubiça. Outros motivos, não menos graves, concorriam para a
formação das gentes o para as rivalidades e luctas dos chefes e
clientes. «Nunca póde haver ministros bons; e porque? Porque os
ministros são seis e os pretendentes seis mil». (Ibid. 28) Nas velhas
sociedades patriarchaes ou feudaes, a tradição e a lei mantinham o
lugar de cada um; mas agora as fórmas de authoridade natural
surgiam do seio da anarchia positiva, e a doutrina da anarchia
individualista e da concorrencia livre de todos a tudo, consagrava a
ambição do mando com a authoridade de uma theoria.
A ambição, eis ahi, pois, o principal dos motivos pessoaes,
superior ainda á cubiça e á fome, cujo papel é mais anonymo e
collectivo, mais talvez dos clientes do que dos patrões. A franqueza
com que todas as portas se abriam a toda a gente; a segurança com
que todo o «individuo» por soberano, se achava apto para tudo; o
systema, que destruira a administração especialisada nas antigas
juntas e conselhos, e confiava a solução de todos os negocios ás
assembléas saídas do cháos da eleição; a victoria que «deitára tudo
abaixo» e enchia de orgulhos os demolidores: tudo concorria para
inchar as vaidades e aquecer as ambições. Pullulavam os homens-
novos, soletrando Volney e Mirabeau, Dupuy, Rousseau e o Citator,
cheios de affirmações, philaucia, e desprezo desdenhoso pelo
antigo saber fradesco. E ao lado dos pedantes, havia por todo o
reino os ingenuos, cheios de crenças quasi religiosas n’um
Evangelho novo. A camara de Ribaldeira escrevia assim a Passos
Manuel:
Não somos doutrinarios nem aristocratas; muito presamos
Montesquieu, mas não é só elle que fórma a nossa propria
bibliotheca; desde Hobbes até Rousseau, desde Machiavelli
até Batham (sic) algües outros temos lido; em nossas aldeas
tambem consultamos a Historia dos Washingtons, dos
Triunvirs (!) dos Neros, etc., etc. (Off. de 20 de dez. autogr. na
corr. dos Passos)
Os jornaes diziam tudo, conheciam todas as questões, resolviam
todos os problemas, porque nada ha mais atrevido do que a
ignorancia. E sentados sobre as ruinas da patria assolada, cuspiam-
lhe em cima, com desprezo, renegando-lhe a historia, com as
cabecinhas empertigadas e occas voltadas para a França,
acclamada em phrases banalmente pomposas. A emigração
educára-os, e voltavam «enfatuados de sábia», escarnecendo dos
goticos, infelizes que nunca tinham saido de Portugal.
Muitos se julgavam sabios por aprender um cumprimento
em francez, misturando de vez em quando um good night
seguido de uma pirueta; por aprender meia duzia de nomes
de autores, usar de charuto, alugar uma cara de tolo, raspar-
lhe a vergonha, namorar a torto e a direito, entrar nos
botequins, lêr por desfastio, fallar de politica e de não sei que
contracto, metter a religião a ridiculo. (Bandeira, Art. 23).
 Tudo era necessario e natural, embora seja indubitavelmente
grutesco. A pretensão de que a liberdade era a formula absoluta, o
systema a verdade revelada e a historia uma peta; a pretensão da
infallibilidade da razão individual e da soberania das vontades
humanas, tinham de forçosamente trazer os costumes a um estado
que corresponde aos outros lados da physionomia social. A anarchia
na escola era, e não podia deixar de ser, a anarchia na realidade; e
a negação systematica da authoridade collectiva e do caracter
organico da sociedade, depois de condemnar a historia,
condemnava a actualidade, valendo-se dos abundantes documentos
que ella lhe fornecia. Tudo era peta, burla, infamia:
Em que consiste o direito de votar? É o direito banal pelo
qual eu sou obrigado a conduzir um papel de que não faço
caso ...
Que são os grandes, os chefes, junto ao throno? São
canos reaes por onde se despeja toda a immundicie da alma
dos seus protectores; delegados á latere do vicio, vendem os
interesses do povo por um crachá, fazem e desfazem
ministerios com a mesma sem-ceremonia com que despejam
o regio ourinol ...
Leilões de generos avariados: Boa-fé no largo das
Necessidades; Egualdade de Direitos nas secretarias
d’Estado; Liberdade de voto, nas assembléas eleitoraes, etc.
(Bandeira, Artilheiro, n. 2 e 23).
Com effeito, os chefes não se tornavam crédores de um respeito
demasiado.
Á morte de D. Pedro, segundo vimos, Palmella apoderou-se do
governo, fundindo-se a sua clientela, ou partido, com o da regencia
n’esse momento acabada. O caracter revolucionario do governo da
dictadura terminára, e dos antigos ficavam no ministerio apenas
Freire, e Carvalho o financeiro indispensavel. Era necessario pôr
ponto no «deitar abaixo». Já Palmella, no conselho de Estado, tinha
votado com a maioria contra a extincção dos conventos, que apezar
d’isso Aguiar decretou em secreto accôrdo com D. Pedro; já pozera
depois o seu veto ao remate do plano de Mousinho, a abolição dos
morgados. Moderado sempre e aristocrata, o radicalismo dos
philosophos parecia-lhe tão mau como a demagogia: quer a vencida
demagogia miguelista, quer a demagogia ameaçadora da opposição
radical. Com os olhos invariavelmente voltados para a Inglaterra,
não concebia outro typo de nação, além do typo aristocratico, liberal
e conservador. No governo succedia-lhe agora o que sempre lhe
succedera: era antipathico e ninguem o recebia. Reconhecendo
todos a sua habilidade, parecia a todos que só a ambição pessoal o
movia. O povo, já minado pelas theorias democraticas, considerava-
o um tyranno; e a cauda dos odios pessoaes que as intrigas e os
erros da emigração lhe tinham feito, voltava-se agora e mordia-o.
Quando pela terceira vez a carta se rasgou para casar (1 de
dezembro de 34) a rainha com o primeiro dos seus dois maridos
allemães, quando a opposição pedia «um fidalgo portuguez»,
dissera-se muito que Palmella pensava em fazer da rainha sua nora.
Mas esse principe contratado para dar herdeiros á corôa
portugueza (os nossos visinhos hespanhoes chamam coburgos a
taes maridos) durou pouco; e a sua morte (28 de março de 35) foi
motivo de uma crise. Lisboa appareceu crivada do pasquins
accusando Palmella de envenenador, o attribuindo-lhe a ambição de
querer para seu filho a mão da rainha: Wellington, de lá, apoiava o
plano! O povo acreditou e saíu. Houve tumultos graves (29),
pedindo-se a cabeça do traidor. Terceira que já em 27, nas
Archotadas, carregara essa canalha desembainhou outra vez a
espada fiel e manteve a ordem.
Mas só uma ordem apparente, porque no fundo havia uma
anarchia real. Varias clientelas, com os seus chefes e os seus
programmas varios, ambicionavam o poder. Palmella era um estorvo
e contra elle se fundiam as opposições todas, congregadas para o
ataque.

Um pasteleiro queria
Fabricar um pastelão
E porque tinha de nada
 Deu-lhe o nome de fusão

Arde o forno, o pastel dentro

Principia a fermentar
Entornou-se; perde a massa:
Só ficou o alguidar.

(Bandeira, Artilh. 12 set.)

Esse alguidar era Saldanha, que nunca pareceu mais vasio, mais
de barro, que agora. O rival tinha um pensamento, elle apenas um
nome. Palmella dispunha de uma clientela firme; Saldanha, já
desacreditado perante os radicaes, embora ainda representasse o
papel de seu chefe, era um general sem exercito, condemnado a
presidir a um gabinete mixto. Esturrou-se logo o pastel, e o alguidar
appareceu transbordando de gente radical: um ministerio puro de
opposição. (Sá, Loulé, Caldeira, Campos, 25 de nov.)
Varios tempos, licções eloquentes, arrependimentos já tardios,
enchiam a cabeça de Saldanha, lembrando-se do papel que fizera
em 26-7, das cousas que authorisara com o seu nome em Paris.
Achara-se levado por um ardor de gloria nas azas da revolução, e
não tivera podido medir bem o destino d’esse vôo. Já de ha muito
que reconsiderara. O leitor lembra-se dos episodios do Cartaxo.
Mas, sem o talento do rival, que ficaria sendo, se deixasse de ser o
chefe de um radicalismo já então por elle renegado? Uma espada
apenas, prompta sempre a obedecer e incapaz de mandar, como
Terceira? Não: isso não podia admittil-o a sua vaidade. Seria descer
muito. Mas para não descer—elle provavelmente já nem queria
subir mais—era impossivel ficar immovel. O partido de que se dizia
chefe, tinha-o apenas como um rotulo, um pendão, sem dar a
minima importancia ás suas vontades ou desejos pessoaes. Seguia
o seu caminho, guiado por outros; e para que Saldanha, agora no
governo, não fosse francamente renegado, era mistér que saísse da
inacção e se declarasse o dictador que Passos foi no anno seguinte.
Já em 27 succedera o mesmo, e lembrava esse episodio: quando
faltava apenas extender o braço e sagrar-se chefe da revolução,
Saldanha, tendo-a acompanhado até ahi, parava, tremia com
escrupulos, fugindo.
Depois do Cartaxo quizera, como dissemos, remir os erros da
emigração, encostado-se ao cartismo (Hontem, hoje e amanhan, op.
anon.); mas os cartistas que lhe pagariam bem e usariam com
prazer da sua espada, como faziam á de Terceira, não lhe davam
importancia ás opiniões nem o reconheceriam chefe. Por seu lado
os radicaes, vendo a fraqueza inconsistente d’esse chefe theatral,
sem repellirem o instrumento que ainda lhes servia, já se
esforçavam por mostrar bem claro que lhe não obedeciam. Nas
eleições de 34, Saldanha acompanhara D. Pedro ao Porto. Ia n’uma
posição singular, para convencer o principe do poder do seu partido,
dando por tal fórma um grande peso á sua adhesão ao throno. D.
Pedro, por seu lado, levava por fim bater no Porto, com a presença
do marechal, a influencia do radicalismo dirigido pelos irmãos
Passos; e com Saldanha á mão, Saldanha que lhe asseguraria a
obediencia dos que ainda talvez suppozesse seus clientes,
esperava tudo da conversão do caudilho militar ás opiniões
conservadoras. (Macedo, Traços.)
Os chefes enthusiastas e fortes do futuro Setembrismo deram
uma licção ao principe e ao seu acolyto. Saldanha, candidato, foi
batido no primeiro escrutinio da eleição: onde estava o seu poder?
Mas para dizer a D. Pedro que a victoria lhe não pertencia, e para
dizer ao general que apesar do seu procedimento o não renegavam,
usando de uma magnanimidade que talvez o desviasse do tortuoso
caminho que seguia, elegeram-no no segundo escrutinio. (Macedo,
Traços) Era uma victoria mortal, uma estocada em cheio no inchado
balão das esperanças dos dois viajantes. Tornaram ambos a Lisboa
corridos.
Saldanha, apesar de tudo, ainda foi sentar-se no ultimo e mais
elevado banco da esquerda da camara. Illudir-se-hia ainda com a
boa figura que fazia de lá a sua presença nobre e pomposa? Talvez;
porque se tinha ingenuamente n’uma grande conta, e dava ouvidos
abertos á adulação. (Hontem, hoje e am.) Quando Palmella teve de
cahir, o chefe natural do governo era Saldanha: mas, como já vimos,
a sua falsa posição creou um pastel mixto pouco duradouro; (4 de
maio a 18 de nov.) e a entrada do seu partido obrigou-o a elle a
sahir, (25 de nov.) corrido, desacreditado e renegado. Pagava o
devido preço da sua politica dubia: via fugir-lhe toda a clientela; era
um homem perdido e abandonado pelos que tinham sido os seus e
o apeavam definitivamente de um throno que durara oito ou nove
annos. Retirou para Cintra a ensaiar lavouras. (Carnota, Mem.)
Não foi a queda d’esse chefe que pouco podia e já nada queria
fazer, foi a impotencia da nova clientela exaltada quem a precipitou
do governo (19 de abril de 36). Voltou a antiga gente, menos
Palmella que tambem no isolamento remia velhas culpas. Os dois
próceres rivaes, por tanto tempo inimigos poderosos, achavam-se
egualmente reduzidos a nada, agora que já se entendiam, depois de
feitas as pazes. Havia um outro duque, sem idéas politicas á
maneira do diplomata, sem fogachos de ambição e rompantes de
soldado á maneira de Saldanha; um outro duque, boa pessoa,
politicamente nulla e por isso sempre fiel, excellente individuo para
pôr á frente de um governo onde a antiga gente (Freire, Aguiar,
Carvalho) restaurada queria começar uma vida nova, pensando
soffrear com o utilitarismo e uma administração energicamente
pratica, o torvelino de confusões politicas, de ambições pessoaes.
Seria outra dictadura. Mas onde estava D. Pedro? Terceira presidiu
a esse ministerio que a revolução de setembro derrubou,
encerrando o primeiro periodo da vida liberal portugueza.
Afflicto pelos pedintes, pois da sua clientela antiga só os
mendigos restavam fieis, despeitado, ferido no seu orgulho,
prejudicado nos seus interesses, Saldanha via-se na falsa posição
de não poder ser cousa nenhuma. Para o governo, vivamente
atacado e decidido a dissolver as camaras, o general buliçoso e
ávido, era, porém, a ameaça viva de uma revolta militar. Accusaram-
n’o os seus amigos de outr’ora de se ter vendido n’esta occasião:
«desde aquella epocha, de deserções em deserções, chegou á
situação em que hoje (1854) está, desprezado por todos os partidos:
porque se algum ainda lhe faz festa não é porque o estime, é por
ser um tronco velho, sobre que ainda alguem se sustenta».
(Liberato, Mem.)