SCHUYLER COLFAX.
General William Colfax, Washington's Friend--Mr. Colfax his
Grandson--Mr. Colfax's Birth and Boyhood--Removes to Indiana
--Becomes Deputy County Auditor--Begins to Deal with Politics
--Becomes an Editor--The Period of Maximum Debt--Mr. Colfax's
First Year--He is Burnt Out--His Subsequent Success as an
Editor--His Political Career as a Whig--Joins the Republican
Party--Popularity in his own District--The Nebraska Bill--Mr.
Colfax goes into Congress--The Famous Contest for Speakership--
Mr. Colfax Saves his Party from Defeat--Banks Chosen Speaker--
Mr. Colfax's Great Speech on the Bogus Laws of Kansas--The Ball
and Chain for Free Speech--Mr. Colfax Shows the Ball, and A. H.
Stephens Holds it for him--Mr. Colfax Renominated Unanimously--
His Remarkable Success in his own District--Useful Labors in Post
Office Committee--Early for Lincoln for President--Mr. Colfax
urged for Post Master General--His Usefulness as Speaker--The
Qualifications for that Post--Mr. Colfax's Public Virtues.
General William Colfax, the grandfather of Hon. Schuyler Colfax,
was a citizen of New Jersey, and was the commanding officer of Gen.
Washington's life guards throughout the Revolutionary War. His holding
that very confidential and responsible post is sufficient evidence
of his steadiness, sense, courage and discretion. It is a further
testimonial to the same effect, that Gen. Colfax latterly became one
of the most intimate personal friends of the great revolutionary
chieftain. Gen. Colfax's wife was Hester Schuyler, a cousin of Gen.
Philip Schuyler.
General Colfax's son, Schuyler Colfax, the father of the Speaker, was
an officer of one of the New York city banks, and died four months
before his son was born.
Schuyler Colfax was born in New York city, March 23, 1823, and was the
only son of his widowed mother. He was taught in the common schools
of the city--finished his education at the high school then standing
in Crosby St., and at ten years had received all the school training
he ever had. He now became a clerk in a store, and after three years
removed to Indiana with his mother and her second husband, a Mr.
Matthews. They settled in St. Joseph County. Here the youth for four
years again served as clerk in the village of New Carlisle. When 17
years old he was appointed deputy county auditor, and for the better
fulfilment of his official duties, he now removed to the county town,
South Bend, where he has lived ever since.
Like almost every western citizen of any activity of body and mind,
young Colfax took practical hold of political matters about as soon
as he could vote. He talked and thought, and began to print his views
from time to time in the local newspaper of the place. His peculiar
faculty of dealing fairly and at the same time pleasantly, with men of
all sorts, his natural sobriety and sensibleness of opinion, and his
power of stating things plainly and correctly, made him what may be
called a natural newspaper man. He was employed during several sessions
to report the proceedings of the State Senate for the Indianapolis
Journal, and in this position made many friends, and gained a good
reputation for political information and ability as a writer.
In 1845, he became proprietor and editor of the "St. Joseph Valley
Register," the local paper of his town, South Bend. This was the
beginning of his independent career, and if hope had been absent, the
prospect would have looked meagre enough. He was a youth of just over
twenty-one, and he had two hundred and fifty subscribers. But the
youthful editor had hope, and what was far more important, remarkable
tact and capacity for his laborious profession. By good fortune and
perseverance, he was able to tide over the first dangerous crisis for
a poor man who undertakes a large literary enterprise--the period of
maximum debt, so fatal to new periodicals. This is a point like the
darkest hour just before day, when the newspaper or magazine is very
likely steadily gaining in reputation and even in circulation, but when
the circulation has not quite reached the paying point, and the paper
bills have been postponed to the latest possible moment, while the
constant outgoes for paying the journeymen, and for the other weekly
office expenses, have kept up their monotonous drain. With Mr. Colfax
this period was at the end of the first year of his paper, when he owed
$1,375. The concern gradually became productive, however. A few years
afterwards the office was burned down, and the uninsured editor was
left to begin his business over again. He did so, and has earned a very
comfortable living by it, though he is by no means a rich man.
Besides paying well, the "Register," as conducted by Mr. Colfax, is
entitled to the much higher praise of having been a useful, interesting
and a morally pure paper, always on the side of what is good and right
in morals and in society. It has been, for instance, constantly in
favor of temperance reform; and it has always avoided the masses of
vile detail which so many papers of respectable position manage to
distribute in families under pretence that they must give full news of
police reports and criminal trials.
Mr. Colfax was a Whig as long as there was a Whig party, and at its
death, like all its members of clear heads, progressive tendencies,
and decided character, he joined the Republican party. Before the
rise of this great new organization, however, he had already risen
to considerable influence in the Whig party, and had held several
positions of political trust. In 1848 he was a delegate to the
convention which nominated Gen. Taylor, and was one of its secretaries.
In 1849 he was a member of the convention which revised the
constitution of the State of Indiana, having been chosen in a manner
especially honorable to him personally, as his district was politically
opposed to him. Mr. Colfax, in this convention, was considered a
judicious legislator, a ready debater and a fine speaker. A little
after this time he declined a nomination to the Indiana Senate, for the
sufficient reason that he could not afford at that time to be absent
from his business.
Mr. Colfax's first nomination for Congress was in 1851, and he was
beaten, though only by 200 majority, in a district strongly opposed
to him in politics. His competitor was that Dr. Graham N. Fitch who
was afterwards the congenial yokefellow of Mr. Bright in the U. S.
Senate, on the side of the South, during Mr. Buchanan's presidency. Mr.
Colfax's friends were of opinion, however, that the fatal 200 against
him were illegal votes, imported by means of a certain railroad then
constructing in those parts, and from among the laborers employed
upon it. In 1852 he was a delegate to the Whig National Convention
that nominated Gen. Scott, and as at the convention of 1848, was a
secretary. He declined a second congressional nomination, and his
district, which he had lost by only 200, was now lost by 1,000.
The Thirty-Third Congress, whose legal existence covered the period
from Dec. 5, 1853, to March 3, 1855, Franklin Pierce being President,
passed the Nebraska Bill. Upon this, the North, driven at last to the
wall, turned short about in its career of surrender, and set itself to
put a limit to the spread of slavery. The old established professional
politicians of those days did not understand this crisis, and very many
of them did not know anything about the change of public opinion--or
rather of public intention--that was going on, until to their immense
surprise and disgust, an anti-slavery-extension constituency that they
knew not of, suddenly voted them out of their offices. Such a bat-eyed
politician was Mr. Colfax's own representative in Congress at this
time. Even after having been elected as a Free Soil Democrat, and after
undergoing a special season of argument and entreaty by his friends and
neighbors during a visit home while the Nebraska Bill was pending, the
short-sighted legislator went back and voted for it. He very quickly
reaped his reward, however. Had he known enough to take the opportunity
of doing right, he would have found out that for once it was the way
to temporal success, for unquestionably he would have been re-elected,
and assuredly Mr. Colfax would have done his best to re-elect him. As
it was, the energetic editor was at once selected by the anti-Nebraska
men of that region to take the lead in punishing the delinquent. He
was unanimously chosen candidate for Congress, and after the candid
and jolly western fashion, the two nominees went round the district,
yoked together for combat, like those duellists who are tied together
by their left wrists and wield their knives with their right hands.
The result was, Mr. Colfax's election by 2,000 majority, the previous
majority of his competitor having been 1,000 the other way.
When the Thirty-Fourth Congress met, Dec. 3d, 1855, there was a
majority opposed to the administration, but this opposition was of
materials inharmonious among themselves. The anti-Nebraska members,
properly so called, numbered about 108, the administration men, or
Democrats, about 75, the third party, or "Know Nothing" men about
40; and there were a few who could not be classified. Now, the
anti-Nebraska men alone had twenty less than the necessary majority
(128) out of the 234 members of the House; and if the Know Nothings
and Democrats should effect a complete union, they could choose a
Speaker. Whether they would do so was the principal question of the
famous contest for the Speakership which now ensued, which lasted from
Dec. 3, 1855, to Feb. 2, 1856, two full months, and which resulted in
the election of Mr. Banks--the first formal national triumph of the
national anti-slavery sentiment. Its importance might be overlooked,
but it was great, and lay in this: that the Speaker has power to
constitute the committees of the House--who prepare and in very great
measure decide, all its business--just as he pleases. Accordingly, if
he were a pro-slavery man, past experience gave full guarantee that
those committees would be so formed as to effectually silence the
voice of the anti-slavery sentiment of the House, and to bejuggle the
whole of its legislation into an apparent and deceitful endorsement of
the administration. To resist this dangerous and humiliating result,
required, under the circumstances, a good deal of courage, both moral
and physical, and powers of endurance almost equal to the extremities
of a siege; but the resolute phalanx of the anti-slavery men, cheered
daily by their consciences within, and the earnest and increasing
applause of every friend of man without, fought the battle bravely
through.
During the contest, Mr. Colfax, who was a steady and unflinching
soldier on the right side, served his cause at one very critical
moment. It was the end of the first month of the struggle. There had
been sixty or seventy ballots, and for the last thirty or forty of
them the votes had been just about the same; for Banks, anti-Nebraska,
103 to 106; Richardson, Democratic, 74 or 75; Fuller, Know Nothing,
37 to 41; and Pennington, a second anti-Nebraska candidate, 5 to 8.
Various experiments had been tried to relieve the dead-lock. It had
been suggested that the lowest candidate should be dropped at each
vote, until one of the last two must be chosen; that after three
ballots, the candidate having most votes should be elected; and
other plans were submitted, but all to no effect. About the end of
December, Mr. Campbell, of Ohio, elected as an anti-Nebraska man, but
of a sufficiently singular sort, either very unwise or very unsound,
offered a resolution that Mr. Orr of South Carolina, "be invited to
preside temporarily until a Speaker be elected." This extremely sly
contrivance came within a hair-breadth of succeeding; for it looked
like a mere amicable expedient to facilitate business, while it was
in fact almost certain that once in, the subtle and energetic Orr,
aided by the whole South, the Democrats, most of the Know Nothings,
and perhaps some weak brethren of the anti-slavery opposition, would
stay in. A motion to lay Campbell's resolution on the table failed by
a majority of twenty; it looked as if Orr would be really Speaker in
five minutes. Mr. Colfax now rose in the very nick of time, and made a
motion which irresistibly reminds us of the device with which Hushai
confounded the wisdom of Ahithophel. It was an amendment proposing
to put the three contending parties on a fair equality during the
contest, by allowing each to elect a temporary chairman, and these
three to preside alternately in the order they might themselves agree
upon. On this motion debate arose; there was a recess before any vote
was reached; and the dangerous plan for making Orr Speaker was staved
off. By next morning, Campbell's friends succeeded in inducing him to
withdraw his resolution, and the contest settled back to its monotonous
course of roll-calls and adjournments, until the final adoption of
a plurality rule by the administration men, who, when they did it,
thought it would help them, and the consequent election of Banks, at
the 134th ballot, February 2d, 1856, by 103 to 100 for Aiken. The Know
Nothings nearly all went to the Democratic side when the real pinch
came.
It was during this session--June 21, 1856,--that Mr. Colfax delivered
his well known and powerful speech on the bogus "Laws" of Kansas,
imposed on that State by the fraud and violence of the pro-slavery
ruffians of those days. This speech, a word-for-word quotation of
clause after clause of this infamous code, accompanied with a plain,
sober and calmly toned explanation of the same, produced a very great
effect, and was considered so able a summary of the case involved,
that during the Presidential campaign of that year, a half million of
copies of it were distributed among the voters of the United States.
By way of driving quite home the truths of the case, Mr. Colfax, where
he quoted the clause which inflicted imprisonment at hard labor _with
ball and chain_, upon any one who should ever _say_ "that persons
have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory," lifted from his
desk and showed to the House an iron ball of the statutory dimensions
(viz., 6 inches diameter, weighing about 30 lbs.), apologizing for not
also exhibiting the six-foot chain prescribed along with it. Alexander
H. Stephens, afterwards Vice President of the Rebels, who sat close
by, asked to take this specimen of pro-slavery jewelry for freemen,
and having tested its weight, would have returned it. But Mr. Colfax
smilingly asked him to hold it for him until he was through speaking,
and while the pro-slavery leader dandled the decoration proposed by his
friends for men guilty of free speech, Mr. Colfax, in a few telling
sentences, showed that Washington and Jefferson and Webster and Clay
had said the words which would have harnessed them, a quaternion of
convicts, into the chain-gang of the border ruffians.
The close of this weighty speech is here quoted, not merely for the
noble tone of its assertion of lofty principles, but also for the sake
of showing the opportune manner in which, by citing one of the departed
great men of our land, he at once added to his argument the strength
of a mighty name, did justice to a man much spoken against but of
many noble traits, and also illustrated a striking peculiarity of Mr.
Colfax himself--the warmth, strength and unending persistency of his
friendship. He closed as follows:
"As I look, sir, to the smiling valleys and fertile plains of Kansas,
and witness there the sorrowful scenes of civil war, in which, when
forbearance at last ceased to be a virtue, the Free State men of the
Territory felt it necessary, deserted as they were by their Government,
to defend their lives, their families, their property, and their
hearthstones, the language of one of the noblest statesmen of the
age, uttered six years ago at the other end of this Capitol, rises
before my mind. I allude to the great statesman of Kentucky, Henry
Clay. And while the party which, while he lived, lit the torch of
slander at every avenue of his private life, and libelled him before
the American people by every epithet that renders man infamous, as a
gambler, debauchee, traitor, and enemy of his country, are now engaged
in shedding fictitious tears over his grave, and appealing to his old
supporters to aid by their votes in shielding them from the indignation
of an uprisen people, I ask them to read this language of his, which
comes to us as from his tomb to-day. With the change of but a single
geographical word in the place of "Mexico," how prophetically does
it apply to the very scenes and issues of this year! And who can
doubt with what party he would stand in the coming campaign, if he
were restored to us from the damps of the grave, when they read the
following, which fell from his lips in 1850, and with which, thanking
the House for its attention, I conclude my remarks.
"But if, unhappily, we should be involved in war, in civil war, between
the two parties of this Confederacy, in which the effort upon the one
side should be to restrain the introduction of slavery into the new
Territories, and upon the other side to force its introduction there,
what a spectacle should we present to the astonishment of mankind,
in an effort not to propagate rights, but--I must say it, though
I trust it will be understood to be said with no design to excite
feeling--a war to propagate wrongs in the Territories thus acquired
from Mexico! It would be a war in which we should have no sympathies,
no good wishes--in which all mankind would be against us; for, from
the commencement of the Revolution down to the present time, we have
constantly reproached our British ancestors for the introduction of
slavery into this country."
Mr. Colfax's constituents, extremely satisfied with his course and
abilities, renominated him by acclamation while he was in Washington
this year, and he was re-elected after the usual joint canvass,
although the presidential election of that fall went against his party.
That such would be the result, Mr. Colfax had confidently predicted,
as a consequence of the third-party nomination of Mr. Fillmore. But he
worked with none the less zeal for his principles and his party. He
had breadth and soundness and clearness of view enough to sight along
the rising plane of the successive anti-slavery votes of 1844, 1848,
1852, and 1856, and to see that the Party of Freedom and Right was the
Party of the Future; and while doubtless he would have been just as
steadfast in doing right if he had no hope of a right-doing government,
yet the very best of men works with a more cheery strength when, to
use the words of the story, he can "see the chips fly." It was with
sentiments of lofty resolution that he wrote, some months before the
Republican nomination was made, and just after that of Mr. Fillmore;
"Whether the Republican ticket shall be successful or defeated this
year, the duty to support it, to proclaim and defend its principles,
to arm the conscience of the nation, is none the less incumbent. The
Republican movement is based on Justice and Right, consecrated to
Freedom, commended by the teachings of our Revolutionary Fathers, and
demanded by the extraordinary events of our recent history, and though
its triumphs may be delayed, nothing is more certain."
In 1858 Mr. Colfax was again nominated by acclamation, and re-elected
by a triumphant majority, and so he has been in every election since,
carrying his district against untiring and desperate and enormous
efforts directed against him specially as a representative man, not
merely by his local opponents, but by the whole forces of every kind
which the party opposed to his could concentrate within his district.
Such a series of political successes shows not only the power of the
public speaker, and the discretion of the politician, but shows also a
hearty and vigorous unity of noble thoughts between the constituency
and the representative, and also a magnetic personal attractiveness
which holds fast forever any friend once made. Mr. Colfax hath friends,
because he hath showed himself friendly.
During the 36th Congress, (December, 1859, to March, 1861,) Mr. Colfax
was chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and
did much and useful work in keeping alive and healthy the somewhat
unwieldy machinery of that important institution. He was in particular,
successful in promoting the extension of mail facilities among the new
mining communities in the Rocky Mountain gold fields, and in procuring
the passage of the very important bills for the Daily Overland Mail,
and for the Overland Telegraph to San Francisco, by way of Pike's Peak
and Utah.
It was a matter of course that Mr. Colfax should go with all his heart
into the great struggle of 1860. He felt and understood with unusual
earnestness and clearness the importance of the principles involved,
and the hazards of the political campaign. Into a paragraph or two
written some time before the Chicago nomination, he condensed a whole
code of political wisdom, and can now be seen to have pointed out
Abraham Lincoln as the best candidate, by describing the political
availability and ethical soundness of the position Mr. Lincoln then
occupied. He wrote:
"We differ somewhat from those ardent cotemporaries who demand the
nomination of their favorite representative man, whether popular
or unpopular, and who insist that this must be done, even if we are
defeated. We do agree with them in declaring that we shall go for no
man who does not prefer free labor and its extension, to slave labor
and its extension,--who though mindful of the impartiality which should
characterize the Executive of the whole Union, will not fail to rebuke
all new plots for making the government the propagandist of slavery,
and compel promptly and efficiently the suppression of that horrible
slave-trade which the whole civilized world has banned as infamous,
piratical and accursed. But in a Republican National Convention, if
any man could be found, North, South, East or West, whose integrity,
whose life, and whose avowals rendered him unquestionably safe on
these questions, and yet who could yet poll one, two or three hundred
thousand votes more than any one else, we believe it would be both
wisdom and duty, patriotism and policy, to nominate him by acclamation
and thus render the contest an assured success from its very opening.
We hope to see 1866 realize the famed motto of Augustine--"In
essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."
That is very broad and sound sense. It was in exact accordance with
this doctrine and with these intimations as to who was the right man,
that Mr. Lincoln was nominated, according to the desire of Mr. Colfax's
heart; and in the coming campaign in his own very important state of
Indiana, he did most valuable service in assuring the victory.
Upon Mr. Lincoln's election, a very powerful influence, made
up of public sentiment, the efforts of newspapers, the urgent
recommendations of governors and legislatures, and in particular of the
Republican presidential electors, members of legislature, congressmen,
and whole body of voters of Indiana, united to press upon the new
President the appointment of Mr. Colfax to the office of Post Master
General. Mr. Lincoln however had resolved to make Hon. C. B. Smith, of
Indiana, Secretary of the Interior, and could give no other Cabinet
place to that State. But as long as he lived, he loved and respected
and trusted Mr. Colfax; and it is on record that "he rarely took
any steps affecting the interests of the nation without making his
intentions known to Mr. Colfax, in whose judgment he placed the utmost
confidence."
Continuing in Congress, Mr. Colfax served with efficient and patriotic
fervor in his place, and in December, 1863, was chosen, and has
since remained speaker. In this extremely responsible, important and
laborious place, his official career has been openly visible to all
men, while only those among whom he presides can competently appreciate
the rare personal and acquired qualifications which he has so ably
exercised--the even good temper, the exhaustless patience, the calm
prompt presence of mind, the immense range of honest questions and sly
quirks of parliamentary law which he must have at his tongue's end;
even the vigorous health and enduring physical frame which enable him
to sit through session after session, day after day, without losing his
readiness or decisiveness of thought and action.
He has, however, maintained and even increased his reputation as a
wise and just legislator, a most useful public servant, a shrewd and
kindly chairman, and a skillful parliamentarian. His duties have not
been in their nature so brilliant as the deeds of our great commanders
by land or by sea; nor so prominent even as the labors of some civilian
officials; but they have been such as to require the greatest and most
solid and useful of the civic virtues, courage, integrity, forethought,
justice, and steady inexhaustible industry.
[Illustration: Edwin M. Stanton]