Isaac Newton Arnold was born at Hartwick, near Cooperstown, Otsego Co.,
New York, Nov. 30, 1813. His father George Washington Arnold was a
physician of honorable standing, and the family in America dates back
to the earliest settlement of New England, some of its members being
associates of Roger Williams and other sterling men, who established
in Rhode Island the first real Republic that ever gladdened the hearts
of men with its assertion and protection of liberty and independent,
sovereign manhood. The natural surroundings of his youth—the romantic
scenery of Otsego County, with its beautiful lakes and extensive forests,
so delightfully picturesque—were well calculated to develop a strong and
noble manhood. Amidst this beauty of nature and comparative solitude,
the man who was to make such a success of life drank in inspiration
and learned to love the pure and the beautiful. Early thrown upon his
own resources, self-made and self-reliant, he reached a position of
greatness, through a career of usefulness, honor and integrity. His early
education was obtained in the country schools and the village academy.
From seventeen to twenty years of age he employed his time in teaching
half the year and in attending school the other half, his revenue from
teaching enabling him to support himself in his pursuit of an education.
Ultimately he began to prepare himself for the profession in which he
afterwards achieved such a notable success. Reading law in the offices
of Richard Cooper and Judge Morehouse of Cooperstown, Mr. Arnold was
admitted to the bar in 1835, and after practicing for a brief time as
a partner of Judge Morehouse, he came to Chicago in 1836, and at once
began that illustrious professional career which placed him among the
foremost jurists not only of Illinois, but of the nation. It is scarcely
possible to have a more graphic and faithful picture of a life than
was drawn by Hon. E. B. Washburne in his eloquent eulogy of Mr. Arnold
before the Chicago Historical Society. He said: “During all the active
years of a long and well-spent life, Mr. Arnold has been a citizen of
Chicago, contributing by his indefatigable industry, his unimpeachable
integrity, his patriotism, his public spirit, his rare abilities,
his great acquirements, his spotless moral character, his high social
qualifications and instincts as a thorough gentleman to give lustre to
the city of his residence and to the generation to which he belonged;
a successful lawyer that stood in the front ranks of his profession; a
cautious, far-seeing and wise legislator, distinguishing himself in the
halls of legislation, national as well as state; a successful public
speaker and a writer of great power and wide-spread popularity, he has
left to the generations that succeed him the legacy of a noble example
and a noble name.”
Mr. Arnold was enrolled at the bar of the Supreme Court in Illinois
Dec. 9, 1841, and in that same year he became counsel in a case which
established his ability as a lawyer and brought him prominently before
the profession. It was a time of great business depression, and a
recreant legislature had passed an act of repudiation of public debts
and providing that unless the property of a judgment debtor should bring
two-thirds of its appraised value, it should not be sold under execution.
Mr. Arnold was a determined opponent, of such legislation, and being
employed by a New York judgment creditor to enforce his claim against a
debtor, he attacked the constitutionality of the act, carried the case
to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the case came on in
January, 1843. Mr. Arnold presented an irrefutable written argument and
Chief Justice Taney in one of the ablest and most elaborate opinions
ever delivered in the court, sustained the position of the counsel for
the appellant. Mr. Arnold was a powerful advocate whether before court
or jury. He was exceedingly pains-taking in the preparation of his
cases—which is half the battle with the lawyer—and before a jury he had
no superior. As one of his associates at the bar has put it: “He was a
learned lawyer, a jurist in the same sense of the term, and for more than
thirty years stood at the head of the Chicago bar.”
In 1842 he was elected to the Lower House of the Illinois General
Assembly. There were in that body at this time many men of distinction
and marked ability, but none that were superior to the subject of this
sketch. In 1844 Mr. Arnold was again elected to the House. At the close
of this session of the legislature in 1846, Mr. Arnold retired from
public life, and did not re-enter it until 1856. In politics he had been
a Democrat, and in 1844 was a presidential elector on the Polk ticket.
But becoming indignant at the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he
became what was known as an anti-Nebraska Democrat and in 1856, at the
urgent solicitation of the anti-Nebraska Democrats and Republicans of
Cook County, he again consented to become a candidate for the House of
Representatives in the State Legislature. This was at the time that
Bissel was elected Governor and his right to take the seat was challenged
by the Democrats on the ground that he once accepted a challenge to
fight a duel. Mr. Arnold championed the Governor’s cause, and his speech
in his defense not only really settled the question, but gave him a high
reputation over the whole State, marking him as one of the ablest public
men of the time.
In the historical election at which Abraham Lincoln was first elected
President of the United States, Mr. Arnold was elected a representative
in the Thirty-seventh Congress from the Chicago district. That Congress
met in extra session, July 4, 1861, and has passed into history as one
of the most notable and momentous events in the life of the Republic.
The Administration at the time was confronted by an open rebellion
against the National authority, and it was for this session of Congress
to determine just what should be done in the premises. Mr. Arnold had
long known Mr. Lincoln, and between the two men there was a warm feeling
of regard, and perhaps no man took his seat in this memorable session
upon whom the President placed greater reliance than he did upon Mr.
Arnold. The respect that was generally entertained for his abilities was
evidenced by the fact that he was selected to pronounce the eulogy on
the occasion of the death of Stephen A. Douglass. The regular session
of the Thirty-seventh Congress met on the second day of December,
1861, at a time when the country was fully plunged into the midst of
civil war. Mr. Arnold took his seat in the House, and at once entered
actively into all the important proceedings of the body. His labors as
a representative were very great and of the highest usefulness. Among
his official acts that will live forever as a memento to his manhood
and his statesmanship was his vote to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia and his introduction of a bill, which against a determined
opposition he persistently pushed to enactment, to prohibit slavery in
every place subject to the National jurisdiction. One who knew him well,
expressed the opinion however, that the ablest and most notable speech
which he made in Congress, was the one delivered May 2, 1862, in the
support of the bill to confiscate rebel property. This speech, because of
its value as an exponent of constitutional law, challenged the attention
of the lawyer members. He was ceaseless in administering blows against
the institution of slavery. He acted in this regard steadily upon his
own declaration: “Whenever we can give slavery a constitutional blow,
let us do it.” On February 15, 1863, he introduced a resolution, which
was passed, declaring that the constitution should be so amended as to
abolish slavery in the United States; and this was the first step ever
taken in Congress in favor of the abolition and prevention of slavery in
the country.
In his speech advocating this resolution, he uttered the following
vigorous language and eloquent sentiment: “In view of the long catalogue
of wrongs that slavery has inflicted upon the country, I demand to-day
in the Congress of the United States the death of slavery. We can have
no permanent peace while slavery lives. It now reels and staggers in the
last death struggle. Let us strike the monster this last decisive blow.
Pass this joint resolution and the Thirty-eighth Congress will live in
history as that which consummated the great work of freeing a continent
from the curse of human bondage. The great spectacle of this vote which
knocks off the fetters of a whole race will make this scene immortal.”
Further on he said: “I mean to fight this cause of the war—this cause
of the expenditure of all the blood and treasure from which my country
is now suffering; this institution which has filled our whole land with
sorrow, desolation and anguish—I mean to fight it until neither on
the statute-book nor in the constitution shall there be left a single
sentence or word which can be construed to sustain the stupendous wrong.
Let us now in the name of Liberty, Justice and of God consummate this
grand resolution. Let us now make our country the home of the free.”
Mr. Arnold’s congressional career ended with the Thirty-eighth Congress
March 3, 1865. He had served his country so well, had given the
Administration such loyal, able and efficient support and won such a
splendid fame that it was generally regretted that he would not consent
to be returned. After President Lincoln’s assassination, he accepted the
appointment from President Johnson of Auditor of the Treasury for the
Port Office department, as a residence in Washington afforded him a more
ready access to documents that were necessary to enable him to complete
his work entitled the “History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of
Slavery in the United States,” the preparation of which he had commenced
before the assassination. He finally resigned the position however, and
returned to Chicago in 1867. He then completed his work referred to,
which is one of surprising interest and of exceptional historic value.
In 1872, he resumed his bar practice in Chicago and continued actively
in his profession for two or three years, when failing health compelled
him to abandon it. From that time until his death, he lived a retired
life in his pleasant home among his books and papers, where surrounded
by his family and congenial friends he dispensed an elegant and gracious
hospitality. He now had leisure to devote himself to favorite literary
pursuits. He devoted himself to historic themes as he had a love for
historical research, and a power of analysis which enabled him to do
valuable work in historical and biographical writing. In 1880, he
brought out a work entitled “Life of Benedict Arnold—His Patriotism and
His Treason.” It is generally acknowledged to be a work of ability and
fairness. Certainly it showed the independence and courage of the author
for it required something of courage to meet the popular prejudice with
which the name of Benedict Arnold is regarded. But the author said that
he wished to “make known the patriotic service of Benedict Arnold; the
sufferings, heroism and the wrongs which drove him to a desperate action
and induced one of the most heroic men of an heroic age to perpetrate an
unpardonable crime.” The book is really one of great historic value. Mr.
Arnold was never quite satisfied with his work on Mr. Lincoln and the
overthrow of slavery. About two years before his death, therefore, he
began to write the “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” and it is upon this work,
says one of his ardent admirers, that his reputation as a biographer and
historian must rest.
He was the author of a great number of sketches. “To whatever he
undertook,” says one, “Mr. Arnold brought the qualities of a ripe
intelligence, great vigor and a sound judgment.” At an age when most
men rest, he was pursuing to its legitimate honors and rewards the
career of a man of letters and of a historian. With an intellectual
and finely chiseled face, of an erect and well-formed person, of quiet
and gentlemanly manners and courteous carriage and bearing, Mr. Arnold
was a man who always attracted attention. He was a communicant of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, and for many years a vestryman of St.
James’ Church in Chicago. The successes of life and the usual hardening
influences of public life had no effect upon his manly Christian
character. The better side of his nature was at all times in the
ascendancy. His earnest, paramount desire was to be useful in the world,
and he freely understood that to gratify that desire man must be alive
to the claims of his fellow man upon him. On his seventieth birthday he
wrote: “Three score and ten; Death must be at no great distance. I wish
to live only so long as I may be to some extent useful, and not when I
shall be a burden. May my remaining days be useful and innocent.” He
was possessed of many noble traits of character, not likely to be known
outside of his immediate circle of friends. He was a great lover of
children, and devotedly tender in his own home.
Mr. Arnold was twice married. His first marriage was with Catherine E.
Dorrance of Pittsfield, Mass., who died October 1839. His second marriage
was with Harriet Augusta Dorrance, a sister of his former wife, August
4, 1841. Nine children were born of this marriage. Mr. Arnold died at
his residence in Chicago, April 24, 1884, mourned by the great city in
which he lived and a multitude of others who appreciate the worth of true
manhood. No citizen of Chicago ever had more numerous or more eloquent
eulogies pronounced upon his death; the memory of no citizen was ever
honored by such a gathering of distinguished people as assembled to pay
the last sad tribute to Mr. Arnold’s memory.