SOME SOUTHERN SENATORS
Another most delightful Democrat, with whom it was my pleasure
to form quite intimate relations, was Senator Howell E. Jackson
of Tennessee. He had been in the Confederate service. I
think he did not approve Secession, but like most others who
dwelt in the South, thought his allegiance primarily due to
his State. He was an admirable lawyer, faithful, industrious,
clear-headed and learned in the law. He had been a Whig before
the war, and, like other Southern Whigs, favored a moderate
protective tariff. He was anxious to have the South take
her place as a great manufacturing community, for which her
natural resources of iron and coal and her great water power
gave her such advantages. He was opposed to the Republican
measures of Reconstruction and to placing the negro on a political
equality with the whites. But he also discountenanced and
condemned any lawless violence or fraud.
Senator Jackson was appointed Judge of the United States Circuit
Court by President Cleveland. He held that office when a
vacancy on the Bench of the Supreme Court came by the death
of Justice Lamar. The election of 1892 had resulted in the
choice of President Cleveland. The Democrats in the Senate
were determined that no Republican who should be nominated
by President Harrison should be confirmed, and did not mean,
if they could help it, that the place should be filled during
the December session. The only way to get such a confirmation
would be for the Republican majority to put the question ahead
of all other subjects, to go into Executive session every
day as soon as the Senate met, and remain there until the
judgeship was disposed of. The Democrats must then choose
between defeating the Appropriation Bills, and compelling
an extra session, which the in-coming Administration would
not like. In order to do that, however, the small Republican
majority must hold together firmly, and be willing to take
the risk of an extra session.
I called on President Harrison and urged upon him the appointment
of Judge Jackson. I represented that it was desirable that
there should be some Democrats upon the Bench, and that they
should be men who had the confidence of their own part of
the country and of the country at large; that Judge Jackson
was a man of admirable judicial quality; that he had the public
confidence in a high degree, and that it would be impossible
for the Democratic Party to object to his selection, while
it would strengthen the Bench. So I thought that even if
we could put one of our men there without difficulty, it would
be wise to appoint Jackson.
President Harrison was very unwilling, indeed, to take this
view. He answered me at first in his rough impulsive way,
and seemed very unwilling even to take the matter into consideration.
But after a considerable discussion he asked me to ascertain
whether the Republicans would be willing, if he sent in a
Republican name, to adopt the course above suggested, and
transact no other business until the result was secured, even
at the risk of defeating the Appropriation Bills and causing
an extra session. I went back to the Senate and consulted
a good many Senators. Nearly all of them said they would
not agree to such a struggle; that they thought it very undesirable
indeed; that the effect would be bad. So it was clear that
nothing could be accomplished in that way. I went back to
the White House and reported. I got the authority of the
gentlemen I had consulted to tell the President what they
said. The result was the appointment of Judge Jackson, to
the great satisfaction of the country. He was a very industrious
and faithful Judge. But his useful life came to an end soon
afterward, I suppose largely as the result of overwork in his
important and laborious office.
The Attorney-General said of Mr. Justice Jackson: "He was
not so much a Senator who had been appointed Judge, as a Judge
who had served for a time as a Senator."
I served with Senator Jackson on the Committee on Claims,
and on the Committee on the Judiciary. We did not meet often
in social life. He rarely came to my room. I do not remember
that I ever visited him in his home. But we formed a very
cordial and intimate friendship. I have hardly known a nature
better fitted, morally or intellectually, for great public
trusts, either judicial or political, than his. In the beginning,
I think the framers of the Constitution intended the Senate
to be a sort of political Supreme Court, in which, as a court
of final resort, the great conflicts which had stirred the
people, and stirred the Representatives of the people in the
lower House, should be decided without heat and without party
feeling. It was, I have been told, considered a breach of
propriety to allude to party divisions in early debates in
the Senate, as it would be now deemed a breach of propriety
to allude to such divisions in the Supreme Court of the United
States.
Howell E. Jackson had this ancient Senatorial temperament.
He never seemed to me to be thinking of either party or section
or popular opinion, or of the opinion of other men; but only
of public duty.
He never flinched from uttering and maintaining his opinions.
He never caressed or cajoled his political antagonists. It
is a great tribute to his personal quality that he owed his
election as Senator to his political opponents who, when his
own party was divided, joined a majority of his party to elect
him. He also, as has been said, owed his appointment as Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court to the impression which his probity
and ability had made on his political opponents. When sick
with a fatal illness he left a sick bed to take his place
upon the Bench at the call of duty when the Income Tax case
was to be decided. There is no doubt that the effort hastened
his death. I do not agree with the conclusion to which he
came on that great occasion. But the fact that he came to
that conclusion is enough to make me feel sure that there
were strong reasons for it, which might well convince the
clearest understanding, and be reconciled with the most conscientious
desire to do right.
No list of the remarkable Senators of my time would be complete
which did not contain the name of Senator Vest of Missouri.
He was not a very frequent speaker, and never spoke at great
length. But his oratoric powers are of a very high order.
On some few occasions he has made speeches, always speaking
without notes, and I suppose without previous preparation
so far as expression and style go, which have very deeply
moved the Senate, though made up of men who have been accustomed
to oratory and not easily stirred to emotion. Mr. Vest is
a brave, sincere, spirited and straightforward man. He has
a good many of the prejudices of the old Southern Secessionist.
I think those prejudices would long ago have melted away in
the sunshine of our day of returning good feeling and affection,
but for the fact that his chivalrous nature will not permit
him to abandon a cause or an opinion to which he has once
adhered, while it is unpopular. He is like some old cavalier who
supported the Stuarts, who lived down into the days of the
House of Hanover, but still toasted the King over the water.
Among the most interesting characters with whom it has been
my fortune to serve is Senator John W. Daniel of Virginia.
Our ways of life, and in many particulars our ways of thinking,
are far apart. But I have been led to form a great respect
for his intellectual qualities, and for his sincere and far-
sighted patriotism.
Mr. Daniel came into the Senate in 1887. He had been known
as a very eminent lawyer at the Virginia Bar, author of two
excellent law books. He had served a single term in the National
House of Representatives. He had won a National reputation
there by a very beautiful and brilliant speech at the completion
of the Washington Monument. There were two notable orations
at the time, one by Mr. Daniel and one by Robert C. Winthrop.
These gentlemen were selected for the purpose as best representing
two sections of the country. Mr. Winthrop was, beyond all
question, the fittest man in the North for such a task. I
have a special admiration for the spirit and eloquence with
which he performed such duties. To my mind no higher praise
could be given Mr. Daniel's address than that it is worthy
of that company.
I had occasion to look at Mr. Winthrop's address some little
time ago, and, opening the volume containing it in the middle,
I read a page or two with approval and delight thinking it
was Mr. Winthrop's. But I found, on looking back to the beginning
that it was Senator Daniel's.
Mr. Daniel speaks too rarely in the Senate. He is always
listened to with great attention. He speaks only on important
questions, to which he always makes an important contribution.
He has the old-fashioned Virginia method of speech, now nearly
passed away,--grave, deliberate, with stately periods and
sententious phrases, such, I suppose, as were used in the
Convention that adopted the Constitution, or in that which
framed or revised the Constitution of Virginia.
Mr. Daniel was a Confederate soldier. He is a Virginian
to his heart's core. He looks with great alarm on the possibility
that the ancient culture and nobility of the South, and the
lofty character of the Virginian as he existed in the time
of Washington and Marshall and Patrick Henry may be degraded
by raising what he thinks an inferior race to social or even
political equality.
But he retains no bitterness or hate or desire for revenge
by reason of the conflict of the Civil War. He delivered an
address before the President of the United States, the Supreme
Court, the representatives of foreign Governments, the two
Houses of Congress and the Governors of twenty-one States
and Territories, on the 12th of December, 1900, on the occasion
of the celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of establishing
the seat of Government at Washington. That remarkable address
was full of wise counsel to his countrymen. Coming from a
representative of Virginia, who had borne arms and been badly
wounded in the Civil War, it had a double value and significance.
Mr. Daniel declared the cheering and hopeful truth that great
races are made of a mixture of races, and that the best and
bravest blood of the world's great races is mixed in the
American. He appealed eloquently to the circumstances which
should stir the heart of the whole people to a new and loftier
love of country. He pointed out that the differences in forty-
five great Commonwealths are not greater than ought to be
expected, and indeed not greater than is healthy. He pointed
out the National strength, the power of our great Republic
stands at the dawn of a new century, with every man under
its flag a freeman and ready to defend it. He called upon
his countrymen to stand by the Monroe Doctrine, to be ready
to defend it, if need be, in arms. He then specially appealed
to the people to foster the inventive genius of the country,
and repeated Mr. Jefferson's lofty prophecy that in some future
day--
"The farthest star in the heavens will bear the name of Washington,
and the city he founded be the Capital of the universal Republic."
Isham G. Harris entered the Senate the same day I did. I
counted him always among my friends, although we had some
sharp passages. I cannot describe him better than by reprinting
here what I said of him in the Senate after his death.
"Mr. President, the great career of Senator Harris is well
known to his countrymen. He has been for more than a generation
a striking and conspicuous figure in our public life. His
colleague, his successor, the men of his own political faith,
the people of the great State which he served and honored
and loved so long, will, each in their own way, portray his
character and record their esteem and affection.
"My tribute must be that of a political opponent. So far
as I have been able to exert any influence upon the history
of my country during the long conflict now happily past, it
has been in opposition to him, to the party to which he belonged,
to the opinions which he held, I am sure, quite as zealously
and conscientiously as I hold my own.
"We entered the Senate on the same day. He was a Southerner,
a Democrat and a Confederate. I was born and bred in New
England, a Republican, and an Abolitionist. We rarely spoke
in the same debate except on different sides. Yet I have
no memory of him that is not tender and affectionate, and
there is nothing that I can honestly say of him except words
of respect and of honor.
"He was a typical Southerner. He had the virtues and the
foibles that belonged to that character in the generation
the last of whom are now passing from the stage of public
action. He was a man of very simple and very high qualities.
He was a man of absolute frankness in public behavior and
in private dealing. The thought that was in his heart corresponded
absolutely with the utterance of his lips. He had nothing
to conceal. I was about to say he was a man without the gift
of diplomacy; but he was a man with the gift of the highest
diplomacy--directness, simplicity, frankness, courage--qualities
which make always their way to their mark and to their goal
over all circumlocutions and ambiguities.
"He was a man of brief, clear and compact speech. He would
sum up in a few vigorous and ringing sentences the argument
to which other men would give hours or days. He had an instinct
for the hinge or turning point of a debate.
"He was a man of absolute integrity and steadfastness. What
he said, that he would do. Where you left him, there, so
long as he lived, you would find him when you came back.
He was a man of unflinching courage. He was not afraid of
any antagonist, whether in the hall of debate or on the field
of battle.
"He was an acknowledged master of parliamentary law, a system
upon which not only the convenient procedure of legislative
bodies largely depends, but which has close relations to Constitutional
Liberty itself. How often a few simple and clear sentences
of his have dispersed the clouds and brought order out of
confusion in this Chamber.
"His great legislative experience made him invaluable as
a servant of his own State, of the country and as a counsellor
to his younger associates.
"He was a pleasant man in private intercourse. He had great
sense of humor, a gift of portraiture, a good memory. So
he brought out of the treasure-house of his varied experience
abundant matter for the delight of young and old. There is
no man left in the Senate who was better company in hours
of recreation.
"His influence will be felt here for a long time. His striking
figure will still seem to be hovering about the Senate Chamber,
still sitting, still deliberating, still debating.
"Mr. President, it is delightful to think how, during the
lives of the men who took part in the great conflict which
preceded and followed the Civil War and the greater conflict
of the war itself, the old bitterness and estrangements are
all gone. Throughout the whole land the word 'countryman'
has at last become a title of endearment. The memory of the
leaders of that great conflict is preserved as tenderly by
the men who fought with them as by the men who followed them.
Massachusetts joins with Tennessee in laying a wreath on the
tomb of her great soldier, her great Governor, her great Senator.
He was faithful to truth as he saw it; to duty as he understood
it; to Constitutional Liberty as he conceived it.
"If, as some of us think, he erred, his error was that of a
brave man ready to give life and health and hope to the unequal
struggle.
To his loved cause he offered, free from stain,
Courage and faith; vain faith and courage vain.
"And, Mr. President, when he returned to his allegiance,
he offered to the service of his reunited country the same
zeal and devotion he had given to the Confederacy. There
was no reserved or half-hearted loyalty. We could have counted
on his care for the honor and glory of his country, on his
wise and brave counsel, in this hour of anxiety, with an unquestioning
confidence. So Massachusetts to-day presses the hand of Tennessee
and mourns with her for her great citizen who has departed."
James B. Eustis of Louisiana was of old Massachusetts stock.
His father was graduated at Harvard, and went to New Orleans,
where he acquired great distinction at the bar, and as Chief
Justice of that State. Senator Eustis's great-uncle was General
Eustis, an eminent solider of the Revolutionary War, and afterward
Governor of Massachusetts.
Senator Eustis seemed somewhat indolent, and to take very
little interest indeed in what was going on, except on some
few occasions when he bore himself in debate with remarkable
ability. I think his grave, scholarly style, and his powerful
reasoning, the propriety, dignity and moderation with which
he dealt with important subjects, made him nearly the finest
example of Senatorial behavior I have ever known. He once
made a speech in Executive session, on a topic which was suggested
suddenly and he could not have anticipated, on the character
and history of French diplomacy, which was marvellous alike
for his profound and accurate knowledge of the subject and
the beauty and grace of his discourse.
I was not intimate with him in Washington. But I met him
in Paris, while he was Ambassador there under President Cleveland's
Administration. I have delightful memories of his hospitality,
especially of one breakfast, where there was but one other
guest beside myself, in a beautiful room overlooking the Seine
and the Place de la Concorde.
If I were to select the one man of all others with whom I
have served in the Senate, who seems to me the most perfect
example of the quality and character of the American Senator,
I think it would be Edward C. Walthall of Mississippi. I
knew him personally very little. I do not now remember that
I ever saw him, except in the Capitol, or in the Capitol grounds.
I had, I dare say, some pleasant talks with him in the Senate
Chamber, or the cloak room. But I remember little of them
now. He rarely took part in debate. He was a very modest
man. He left to his associates the duty of advocating his
and their opinions, unless he was absolutely compelled by
some special reason to do it himself. When he did speak the
Senate listened to a man of great ability, eloquence and dignity.
I once heard him encounter William M. Evarts in debate. Evarts
made a prepared speech upon a measure which he had in charge.
Walthall's reply must have been unpremeditated and wholly
unexpected to him. I think Evarts was in the right and Walthall
in the wrong. But the Mississippian certainly got the better
of the encounter.
It is a remarkable truth, which impresses itself upon me more
and more the longer I live, that men who are perfectly sincere
and patriotic may differ from each other on what seem the
clearest principles of morals and duty, and yet both sides
be conscientious and patriotic. There is hardly a political
question among the great questions that have excited the American
people for the last half century on which we did not differ
from each other. The difference was not only as to the interpretation
of the Constitution, and the welfare of the people, but seemed
to go down to the very roots of the moral law.
Yet what I have just said about him is without exaggeration.
I have the right to believe that he entertained the kindliest
and most cordial feeling of regard for me. Not long before
he died, President McKinley sent for me to come to the White
House. He wished to talk with me about what he should do
in dealing with Cuba. He was then holding back the popular
feeling, and resisting a demand which manifested itself among
Republicans in both Houses of Congress for immediate and vigorous
action which would without doubt have brought on the war with
Spain without delay. He hoped then that the war might be
avoided. I had to go to the Capitol before complying with
the President's request, as it was shortly before the time
for the session. As I was leaving the Capitol to go to the
White House, I met Senator Walthall. He said, "You seem to
be going the wrong way this morning," or something like that.
I said, "Yes, I am going to see the President." Senator Walthall
said; "I wish you would be good enough to say to him from
me that he may depend upon the support of the Democrats in
the Senate, with only one or two exceptions," whom he named,
"to support him in his efforts to avoid war, and to accomplish
a peaceful solution of the difficulties in regard to Cuba."
I undertook to give the message. And just as we were parting,
Senator Walthall turned and said to me that he wished to tell
me how highly he regarded me, and how sensible he was, notwithstanding
my very strong Northern feeling, of my appreciation of the
character of the Southern people, and my desire to do them
full justice. He added that he regarded it one of the most
pleasant things that had happened to him in life that he had
had the pleasure of serving with me. I do not now remember
that I ever spoke to him again. He did not come to the Senate
Chamber very often afterward. I have thought since that this
unwonted expression of deep feeling from a gentleman not
wont to wear his heart upon his sleeve toward his political
opponent, and a man with whom he so often disagreed, was
due to a premonition, of which he was perhaps unconscious,
that the end of his life was near, and to the kindly and
gentle emotions which in a brave and affectionate heart like
his the approach of death is apt to bring.
I could hardly venture to repeat this story, to which there
is no other witness than my own, but for some letters in my
possession from Mr. Walthall's daughter and friends in which
the writers quote even stronger expressions of his regard.
I heard a great deal of him from Senator Lamar, who loved
him as a brother, and almost worshipped him as a leader. Senator
Lamar told me that he thought Walthall the ablest military
genius of the Confederacy, with the exception of Lee, and,
I think, of Stonewall Jackson. Indeed, I think he expressed
doubt whether either exception could be made. He said that
if anything had happened to Lee, Walthall would have succeeded
to the chief command of the Confederate forces. General Walthall
seemed to me the perfect type of the gentleman in character
and speech. He was modest, courteous and eager to be of service
to his friends or his country. The description of the young
Knight given us by Chaucer, the morning star of English poetry,
still abides as the best definition of the gentleman.
Curteis he was, lowly and serviceable.
His colleague, Mr. Williams of Mississippi, after Walthall's
death, described the Southern gentleman of our time in a sentence
which deserves to stand by the side of Chaucer's:
"The ideal gentleman was always honest; spoke the truth;
faced his enemy; fought him, if necessary; never quarrelled
with him nor talked about him; rode well; shot well; used
chaste and correct English; insulted no man--bore no insult
from any; was studiously kind to his inferiors, especially
to his slaves; cordial and hospitable to his equals; courteous
to his superiors, if he acknowledged any; he scorned a demagogue,
but loved his people."
I do not undertake to draw his portraiture. I suppose that
whoever does that must describe a great soldier and a great
lawyer, as well as a great Senator. I only state what I saw
of him in the Senate Chamber. It was said of him by an eminent
Republican Senator, his associate on the Committee on Military
Affairs, that in dealing with questions which affected the
right of Union soldiers, or growing out of service to the
Union during the Civil War, no stranger could have discovered
on which side of that great war he had ranged himself.