MR. PRESIDENT,--A seat in this Chamber is vacant. But this is a very
inadequate expression for the present occasion. Much more than a
seat is vacant. There is a void difficult to measure, as it will be
difficult to fill. Always eminent from the beginning, Mr. Fessenden
during these latter years became so large a part of the Senate that
without him it seems to be a different body. His guiding judgment, his
ready power, his presence so conspicuous in debate, are gone, taking
away from this Chamber that identity which it received so considerably
from him.
Of all the present Senate, one only besides myself witnessed his entry
into this Chamber. I cannot forget it. He came in the midst of that
terrible debate on the Kansas and Nebraska Bill by which the country
was convulsed to its centre, and his arrival had the effect of a
reinforcement on a field of battle. Those who stood for Freedom then
were few in numbers,--not more than fourteen,--while thirty-seven
Senators in solid column voted to break the faith originally plighted
to Freedom, and to overturn a time-honored landmark, opening that vast
Mesopotamian region to the curse of Slavery. Those anxious days are
with difficulty comprehended by a Senate where Freedom rules. One
more in our small number was a sensible addition. We were no longer
fourteen, but fifteen. His reputation at the bar and his fame in the
other House gave assurance which was promptly sustained. He did not
wait, but at once entered into the debate with all those resources
which afterwards became so famous. The scene that ensued exhibited
his readiness and courage. While saying that the people of the North
were fatigued with the threat of Disunion, that they considered it as
“mere noise and nothing else,” he was interrupted by Mr. Butler, of
South Carolina, always ready to speak for Slavery, exclaiming, “If
such sentiments as yours prevail, I want a dissolution right away,”--a
characteristic intrusion doubly out of order,--to which the new-comer
rejoined, “Do not delay it on my account; do not delay it on account
of anybody at the North.” The effect was electric; but this instance
was not alone. Douglas, Cass, and Butler interrupted only to be worsted
by one who had just ridden into the lists. The feelings of the other
side were expressed by the Senator from South Carolina, who, after
one of the flashes of debate which he had provoked, exclaimed: “Very
well, go on; I have no hope for you.” All this will be found in the
“Globe,”[185] precisely as I give it; but the “Globe” could not picture
the exciting scene,--the Senator from Maine erect, firm, immovable as
a jutting promontory against which the waves of Ocean tossed and broke
in dissolving spray. There he stood. Not a Senator, loving Freedom, who
did not feel on that day that a champion had come.
This scene, so brilliant in character, illustrates Mr. Fessenden’s
long career in the Senate. All present were moved, while those at a
distance were less affected. His speech, which was argumentative,
direct, and pungent, exerted more influence on those who heard it than
on those who only read it, vindicating his place as debater rather than
orator. This place he held to the end, without a superior,--without a
peer. Nobody could match him in immediate and incisive reply. His words
were swift, and sharp as a cimeter,--or, borrowing an illustration
from an opposite quarter, he “shot flying” and with unerring aim. But
while this great talent secured for him always the first honors of
debate, it was less important with the country, which, except in rare
instances, is more impressed by ideas and by those forms in which truth
is manifest.
The Senate has changed much from its original character, when, shortly
after the formation of the National Government, a Nova Scotia paper,
in a passage copied by one of our own journals, while declaring that
“the habits of the people here are very favorable to oratory,” could
say, “There is but one assembly in the whole range of the Federal
Union in which eloquence is deemed unnecessary, and, I believe, even
absurd and obtrusive,--to wit, the Senate, or upper house of Congress.
They are merely a deliberative meeting, in which every man delivers
his concise opinion, one leg over the other, as they did in the first
Congress, where an harangue was a great rarity.”[186] Speech was
then for business and immediate effect in the Chamber. Since then
the transformation has proceeded, speech becoming constantly more
important, until now, without neglect of business, the Senate has
become a centre from which to address the country. A seat here is a
lofty pulpit with a mighty sounding-board, and the whole wide-spread
people is the congregation.
As Mr. Fessenden rarely spoke except for business, what he said was
restricted in its influence, but it was most effective in this Chamber.
Here was his empire, and his undisputed throne. Of perfect integrity
and austerest virtue, he was inaccessible to those temptations which
in various forms beset the avenues of public life. Most faithfully and
constantly did he watch the interests intrusted to him. Here he was
a model. Holding the position of Chairman of the Finance Committee,
while it yet had those double duties which are now divided between
two important committees, he became the guardian of the National
Treasury, both in its receipts and its expenditures, so that nothing
was added to it or taken from it without his knowledge; and how truly
he discharged this immense trust all will attest. Nothing could leave
the Treasury without showing a passport. This service was the more
momentous from the magnitude of the transactions involved; for it was
during the whole period of the war, when appropriations responded to
loans and taxes,--all being on a scale beyond precedent in the world’s
history. On these questions, sometimes so sensitive and difficult and
always so grave, his influence was beyond that of any other Senator and
constantly swayed the Senate. All that our best generals were in arms
he was in the financial field.
Absorbed in his great duties, and confined too much by the training of
a profession which too often makes its follower slave where he is not
master, he forgot sometimes that championship which shone so brightly
when he first entered the Senate. Ill-health came with its disturbing
influence, and, without any of the nature of Hamlet, his conduct at
times suggested those words by which Hamlet pictures the short-comings
of life. Too often, in his case, “the native hue of resolution was
sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”; and perhaps I might
follow the words of Shakespeare further, and picture “enterprises of
great pith and moment,” which, “with this regard, their currents turned
awry and lost the name of action.”
Men are tempted by the talent which they possess; and he could
not resist the impulse to employ, sometimes out of place, those
extraordinary powers which he commanded so easily. More penetrating
than grasping, he easily pierced the argument of his opponent, and,
once engaged, he yielded to the excitement of the moment and the joy
of conflict. His words warmed, as the Olympic wheel caught fire in the
swiftness of the race. If on these occasions there were sparkles which
fell where they should not have fallen, they cannot be remembered now.
Were he still among us, face to face, it were better to say, in the
words of that earliest recorded reconciliation,--
“Let us no more contend nor blame
Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
In offices of love how we may lighten
Each other’s burden in our share of woe.”[187]
Error and frailty checker the life of man. If this were not so, earth
would be heaven; for what could add to the happiness of life free
from error and frailty? The Senator we mourn was human; but the error
and frailty which belonged to him often took their color from virtue
itself. On these he needs no silence, even if the grave which is now
closing over him did not refuse its echoes except to what is good.