politics at the end of my term as Governor, I was so much committed to
the objects of the Convention, and so much interested in its success,
that I could not avoid giving my time to the canvass for the election
of members. It happened, however, that I gave no attention to my own
town, and the Whig candidate, John G. Park, was elected. My defeat was
due to my action upon the liquor bill, which was enacted at the session
of 1852. The Legislature passed a prohibitory law, subject to its
ratification by the people by the use of the open ballot. The question
of the secret ballot was one of the prominent questions between the
parties, and at the session of 1851 the coalition had passed an act
requiring the votes to be deposited in envelopes of uniform character
and to be furnished by the State. I vetoed the bill upon the ground
that if the bill was to be submitted to the people the secret ballot
should be used. Thereupon the Legislature passed a similar bill
without a reference to the people. The bill was passed by the help of
the Whig members from Boston, who were in fact opposed to the measure,
and with the design of placing me in an unpleasant position. Contrary
to their expectation, I signed the bill. As a temperance man, I could
not have done otherwise, although I thought it proper to submit the
question to the people by the use of the secret ballot.
Many members of the Democratic Party in Groton were users of liquor,
and they voted for my opponent in the contest for a delegate to the
Convention. Mr. Park was a Whig, but moderate in his feelings, an
upright man, and a fair representative of the Conservative feeling of
the time.
It was one of the peculiarities of the call for the Convention, that
each constituency could elect a candidate from any part of the State.
That feature added immensely to the ability of the Convention. Hon.
Henry Wilson was the candidate of the coalition in the town of Natick,
but as he was not confident of an election he was a candidate also in
the town of Berlin. He was elected in both towns. Mr. Sumner was
elected in Marshfield, the home of Mr. Webster, Mr. Burlingame was
elected for Northboro, Mr. Hallett for Wilbraham, Mr. R. H. Dana, Jr.,
for Manchester, and others, not less than ten in all, were elected by
towns in which they did not live. This circumstance gave occasion for
a turn upon words that attracted much attention at the time. It came
to be known that Mr. Burlingame had never been in Northboro. Upon some
question, the nature of which I do not recall, Mr. Burlingame made an
attack upon the rich men of Boston, and intimated that their speedy
transfer to the Mount Auburn Cemetery would not be a public misfortune.
Mr. Geo. S. Hillard, in reply, referred to Mr. Burlingame as the
"member who represented a town he had not seen, and misrepresented one
that he had seen." Unfortunately for Mr. Hillard he lost the value of
his sharp rejoinder by a statement in the same speech. Referring to
Boston, where he was a practising lawyer, he said that he "would not
strike the hand that fed him."
Upon the meeting of the Convention in May, Mr. Wilson resigned his
seat for Berlin, and I was unanimously elected in his place. It was
my fortune also to represent a town that I had not seen.
I may mention the fact that my father received a unanimous vote for
the Convention in Lunenburg, the town of his residence. There were
two other cases of the election of father and son as members of the
Convention. Marcus Morton and Marcus Morton, Jr.; Samuel French and
Rodney French.
The two great subjects of debate and of anxious thought in the
Convention were the representative system and the tenure of the
judicial office. It was my earnest purpose to preserve town
representation and in the debate I made two elaborate speeches. It was
then and upon that subject that I encountered Mr. Choate for the first
time. He was a supporter, and, of course, the leading advocate of the
district system. The Convention adhered to town representation in a
modified form. The proposition was defeated by the vote of Boston,
which gave a majority against the new Constitution of about one
thousand in excess of the negative majority of the entire State.
More serious difficulties, even, were encountered in the attempt to
change the tenure of judges. No inconsiderable portion of the
Convention favored an elective judiciary. To that project I was
opposed. By the co-operation of a number of the members of the
coalition party with the Whigs the proposition was defeated. Next,
a proposition was submitted by Mr. Knowlton of Worcester, to continue
the appointment in the Executive Department, limiting the tenure to
seven years. After an amendment had been agreed to extending the term
to ten years, the proposition was adopted. With some misgivings I
assented to the compromise. The attempt to change the tenure of the
judges was a grave mistake, and it was the efficient cause of the
defeat of the work of the Convention. Beyond this error, the defeat of
the new Constitution was made certain by the course of Bishop
Fitzpatrick of the Catholic Church. For many years the Irish
population of Boston had acted with the Democratic Party. Upon the
question of calling a Convention the adverse majority in Suffolk had
been 2,800 only, but upon the question of ratifying the work of the
Convention the adverse majority was nearly six thousand. To this
result the influence of Bishop Fitzpatrick had contributed essentially.
His reason he did not disguise. Portions of Boston were under the
control of the Irish. A division of the city would open to them seats
in the House and the Senate. The Bishop deprecated their entrance
into active, personal politics. Hence he used his influence against
the new Constitution. Such was his frank statement when the contest
was over.
About the twentieth of June, when I had been a member of the Convention
for twenty days only, General Banks said to me that it was the wish of
our friends that I should move for a committee to prepare the
Constitution for submission to the people. At that time the thought of
such a movement had not occurred to me. The committee was appointed
upon my motion, and, according to usage, I was placed at the head of
it, and from that time I had in my own hands, very largely, the
direction of the business of the Convention. As is usual, the work of
the committee fell upon a few members. In this case the working
members were Richard H. Dana, Jr., and myself. Marcus Morton, Jr., a
volunteer, was a valuable aid. After considerable experience in other
places I can say that the preparation of the new Constitution was the
most exacting labor of my life. The committee were to deal with the
Constitution of 1780, with the thirteen amendments that had been
adopted previous to 1853, and with thirty-five changes in the
Constitution that had been agreed to by the Convention. The practical
problem was this:--
(1) To eliminate from the Constitution of 1780 all that had been
annulled by the thirteen amendments.
(2) To eliminate from the Constitution of 1780, and from each of the
thirteen amendments, all the provisions that would be annulled by the
adoption of the thirty-five changes that had been agreed to by the
Convention.
(3) To furnish Constitutional language for the new features that were
to be incorporated in the Constitution.
(4) To arrange the matter of the new Constitution, and to reproduce
the instrument, divided upon topics and into chapters and articles.
All the work under the first two heads was done by myself. The
language was so much the subject of criticism and of rewriting that
the responsibility for item three cannot be put upon any one. The
same may be said of the work under item four; although that work was
unimportant comparatively. The copy of the Constitution which was
used by me in making the eliminations is still in my possession.
It is to be observed that the Convention did not furnish language in
which the amendments that had been agreed to were to be expressed in
the Constitution.
The resolutions, as adopted, were in the form following:
"Resolved, That it is expedient so to alter and amend the Constitution
as to provide for a periodical division of the Commonwealth into equal
districts on the basis of population." This form was observed in all
the results reached by the Convention. The Convention had named the
first day of August as the day of adjournment, and the serious work of
preparing the Constitution was entered upon about the 15th day of July.
The committee as a body, consisting of thirteen members, took no part
in the preparation of the Constitution. It sanctioned the work as it
had been done by Mr. Dana, Mr. Morton, and myself.
As my constant presence in the Convention was required, the work
imposed upon me as chairman of the committee was performed in the
mornings, in the evenings, and during the recesses. Thus the days from
the early morning until ten o'clock at night were given to labor and
without thought of eating or drinking. At ten o'clock I ate a hearty
supper and then retired, always getting a sound sleep, whatever might
have been the work of the day preceding.
In the last fifteen days of the session the _projet_ of the
Constitution was printed for proof-reading and for corrections twenty-
four times. The record shows that there were but few changes made by
the Convention, and those were formal and unimportant; and never in the
canvass that followed was the suggestion made that the proposed
Constitution failed to represent the mind and purpose of the Convention.
The Address to the People of the State was written by me on the last
day of the Convention, August 1, 1853, and, as I now recall the events
of that day, it was not submitted to the committee, although the
members, by individual action, authorized me to make the report. On
the same day and upon the motion of Mr. Frank W. Bird, of Walpole, the
Convention adopted the following order:--
"Ordered, That the resolves contained in Document No. 128, and the
Address to the People signed by the president and secretaries, be
printed in connection with the copies of the Revised Constitution
ordered to be printed for distribution; and that thirty-five thousand
additional copies of said Constitution, with the Resolves and Address,
be printed for distribution, in accordance with the orders already
adopted." The Convention adjourned at ten minutes before two o'clock
on the morning of August 2. The work as a whole was rejected by the
voters of the State, but the mind and purpose of the Convention have
been expressed during the forty-four years now ended, in the many
amendments that have been engrafted upon the Constitution of 1780.
My intimate acquaintance with Mr. Choate began in this Convention.
I had known him as early as 1842, when he came to Groton and made a
speech in defence of the Whig Party. He was then a member of the
Senate and in the fullness of his powers both intellectual and
physical. In 1853 his physical system was impaired, but his intellect
was as supreme as it had ever been. When I held the office of Governor
I made a visit to Mr. Choate at his house. My associate was Ellis Ames
of Canton. The circumstances were these. The contest with Rhode
Island in regard to the boundary line had reached a crisis. When I
came to office I found upon the Statute Book a resolution directing the
Governor to institute legal proceedings for the purpose of fixing the
boundary unless Rhode Island should agree to proceed by a new
commission. As Rhode Island had remained silent, I directed the
Attorney-General to execute the statute. After some time he informed
me that the preparation of the bill involved a good deal of labor and
that some assistance should be had. He suggested Ellis Ames who had
a reputation as an equity lawyer. Mr. Ames was employed. When the
bill was prepared and submitted to me, I found that a claim was made
to five towns that were originally in the Plymouth Colony, but which
by a decree of the King in Council had been set over to Rhode Island
in 1746. I objected to the presentation of this claim and said that we
should only ask that the true line should be run agreeably to that
decree. Soon after the Revolution the State of Rhode Island ran the
line _ex parte_ and encroached upon the territory of Massachusetts
one-fourth to three-fourths of a mile.
From that time both parties had asserted and exercised jurisdiction
which had resulted in a number of controversies in the local courts.
The Attorney-General lived at New Bedford near the line. The people
were constantly excited, and Mr. Clifford was unwilling to accept my
proposed amendment. After some delay he suggested an interview with
Mr. Choate, who had been counsel for the Town of Fall River in some one
or more of the controversies involving the boundary. I assented to the
suggestion, and an evening was fixed for a call upon Mr. Choate by Mr.
Ames and myself. The evening was a stormy one, but we made our way to
Mr. Choate's house. He was in his library in the second story. It
consisted of two rooms that had been connected by making an arch in the
partition. The shelves were filled, and the floor was covered with
books. Ames said:
"Why, Mr. Choate, what a quantity of books you have!"
"Yes," said Mr. Choate, "I have a good many books, more than I have
paid for, but that is the book-seller's business, not mine."
After some time had been spent in general conversation Ames introduced
the subject for which we had met, and stated the question of the claim
to the five towns, to which Choate said:
"The best way is to go for enough and get what we can."
I made no remark, and the business part of the interview ended. Before
we left Mr. Choate ordered a bottle of wine and made the remark:
"I keep a little wine in my house, but as for myself, I don't drink a
glass once in a thousand years."
One's first impressions of Mr. Choate were never disturbed by intimate
acquaintance. Many distinguished persons become insignificant upon
close inspection. With Mr. Choate those who knew him best, estimated
him most highly. He had no malice in his nature, and there was a
genial quality in his sharpest sallies of wit.
In the Convention we had end seats. Mr. Choate occupied the seat
immediately in front of me. Thus I had an opportunity for two months
to observe his ways, and to enjoy his conversation. Great as were his
speeches, they did not transcend his exhibitions of power in private
conversation. His great speech in the Convention was upon the
Judiciary System, and his description of a good judge is one of the
finest paragraphs in oratory, ancient or modern. His second, or
perhaps his first great work in art is his sketch of Demosthenes in his
lecture on the Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods. As a specimen of
essay writing it is not surpassed by any passage to be found in Macaulay.
The Convention of 1853 was the ablest body of men that ever met in
Massachusetts. The Convention of 1820 included Mr. Webster, an abler
man than any of the members of the Convention of 1853, but the
Convention as a whole was an inferior body of men. Mr. Choate was the
first man in the Convention of 1853, and he must ever remain one of
the great characters of Massachusetts.
Simon Greenleaf, the author of the work on Evidence, was a member of
the Convention, and his influence was considerable. He was a dry,
hard-headed lawyer. His influence was due to his reputation rather
than to his power as a debater. Had he come to the Convention as an
unknown person, his standing would have been in the second or third class.
Richard H. Dana, Jr., added to his reputation by his speeches in the
Convention. His style was free from exaggeration, and he addressed
himself to the question at issue and always with effect. My intimate
acquaintance with Mr. Dana began during the session of the Convention.
In 1854 and 1855 I visited him and his father, the poet, at their home
in Manchester-by-the-Sea. Mr. Dana, Sr., was a genial man, but
reserved, and not much given to conversation. My friendship with Mr.
Dana continued until General Butler became a candidate for Congress in
the Essex district, and Mr. Dana became the nominee of the dissenting
Republicans. That year I placed myself in the hands of the State
Committee for a limited number of speeches, and by direction of the
Committee, I spoke twice in the Essex district in aid of General
Butler, who was the regular nominee of the party. From that time Mr.
Dana avoided me, and when we met he addressed me with the coldest
formality. At a meeting in this canvass held in Gloucester, I combated
the charge of the Democrats that there had been many and great
defalcations under Republican rule, and among other things I said the
greatest defalcation was by a man who had been identified with the
Democratic Party. A man in the gallery said: "Name him." I answered:
--"His name is ----." "Oh," said my questioner, "I don't care anything
about that! I didn't know but it was General Butler."
When General Grant nominated Mr. Dana for the English mission, I was in
the Senate, and I endeavored to secure his confirmation. General
Butler appeared as his opponent. The case at first turned upon his
manners and his responsibility in the matter of his edition of
Wheaton's International Law. In the suit instituted by Beach Lawrence,
the Court had found that Dana had violated the copyright of Mr.
Lawrence. I made a careful study of the case, and I flattered myself
that I had satisfied the Senate that Mr. Dana's offence was merely
technical, and that it ought not to interfere with his confirmation.
At that moment there appeared a letter from Mr. Dana which contained
an attack upon General Cameron, then a member of the Senate, and Mr.
Dana's case was rendered hopeless. He secured his own defeat when his
enemies were powerless to accomplish it. He was, however, very
grateful to me for my effort in his behalf. The result was a heavy
blow to his ambition and he resolved to prepare a new work on
International Law. For that purpose he took his residence in Europe,
but death came too soon for the realization of his purpose.
Mr. Dana will be remembered by his tale of the sea, "Two Years Before
the Mast." He was a learned lawyer, an aristocrat by nature, and a man
of eminent power. He scorned the opinions of inferior men, and
therein was the cause of his failure. By a hair's breadth he failed
of success in all the public undertakings of his life, excepting only
his tale of the sea.
Mr. Burlingame was then an enthusiastic young man. He had had some
experience in public affairs, but it could not have been predicted that
he would attain the distinction which he achieved subsequently, in the
field of diplomacy. He made speeches in the Convention, but they
produced little or no effect upon the opinions of others. When, on an
occasion, he had made an elaborate speech, his father-in-law, Mr. Isaac
Livermore, said he was glad it was delivered, as Anson had trodden down
all the roses in the garden while reciting it to himself. His speeches
were committed, and delivered without notes.
Mr. Sumner was a conspicuous figure in the Convention of 1853, but his
influence upon its business was very limited. Indeed, he seemed not to
aspire to leadership. His faculties were not adapted to legislative
business. He was not only not practical, he was unpractical and
impracticable. Nor did experience in affairs give him an education in
that particular. Of his long career in the Senate only his speeches
remain. During the period of my acquaintance with him there, he
introduced a large number of bills, several of them upon matters of
finance, but none, as far as I can recall them, stood the test either
of logic or experience. From his seat in the Senate he was able to
affect and perhaps even to control the opinions of the country upon the
slavery question, and thus indirectly he helped to shape the policy of
the Republican Party. His knowledge of European diplomacy was far
greater than that of any other Senator and greater, probably than that
of any other American, excepting only Mr. Bancroft Davis. It was his
good fortune to live and act in a revolutionary period. Had he fallen
upon quiet times, when the ordinary affairs of men and states are the
only topics of thought and discussion, his career as a public man, if
such a career should have been opened to him, would have been brief and
valueless alike to himself and to the public. In all his life, he was
a victim to authority in affairs, and a slave to note- and common-place
books.
Henry Wilson, Sumner's future colleague in the Senate of the United
States, had large influence in securing the adoption of measures, but
his learning was inadequate to the preparation of specific provisions
of a constitution. Indeed, in his later years, he was unequal to the
work of composing and writing with even a fair degree of accuracy. But
his judgment of the popular feeling was unequalled, and he had capacity
for shaping public opinion, whenever it was found to be hostile or
uncertain, far superior to that of any of his contemporaries. He was
not an orator, but his style of speaking was effective, and his
speeches, as they appeared in the columns of the newspapers, would bear
the test of ordinary criticism. He was a thorough politician who aimed
to have things right, but who would not hesitate to use doubtful
methods if thereby the right could be attained. In the year 1854 he
joined the Know Nothing Party in secret, while openly he was acting
with the Free-soil Party, that had placed him in nomination for the
office of Governor. The result was the election of Henry J. Gardner,
the candidate of the Know Nothings, as Governor, and the election of
Henry Wilson to the Senate of the United States.
Of Mr. Wilson it cannot be said that he was false to friends or
unfaithful to the slave. Whatever criticisms may be made upon his
career in politics, he kept himself true to the one idea--the overthrow
of slavery. He often vacillated in opinion upon passing questions, but
at the end his votes were sound usually. As a consequence, his votes
and speeches were at times inconsistent. He had a long career in the
Senate, but his great service to the country was performed among the
people in the canvasses. It may be said of him that at the time of
his death he had spoken to more people than any one of his
contemporaries or predecessors. His influence was large, although he
did not often introduce any new view of a public question. He was
direct in speech and he comprehended the popular taste and judgment.
He was regarded as a prophet in politics. He was accustomed to make
predictions, and not infrequently his predictions were verified. At
the end it is to be said that a satisfactory analysis of his character
cannot be made. He was not learned, he was not eloquent, he was not
logical in a high sense, he was not always consistent in his political
actions, and yet he gained the confidence of the people, and he
retained it to the end of his life. His success may have been due in
part to the circumstance that he was not far removed from the mass of
the people in the particulars named, and that he acted in a period when
fidelity to the cause of freedom and activity in its promotion
satisfied the public demand.
Francis W. Bird had been an active member of the Coalition on the
Free-soil side, and an active supporter of the project for a
Constitutional Convention. It cannot be said of Mr. Bird that he did
anything so well that one might say "nobody could have done better,"
but his zeal never flagged and hence he did much to secure results.
Like Mr. Wilson, he knew every member, and he never hesitated to set
forth his views. He always had a following, and in those days it was
safe to follow him. In 1872 he became alienated from General Grant
and consequently from the Republican Party. His influence was
potential with Mr. Sumner, and it is not an over estimate of that
influence to assume that he was responsible in a large degree for the
defection of Mr. Sumner. Following that election, Mr. Bird became a
member of the Democratic Party, but upon what ground it is not easy to
conjecture. His whole life had been a protest against that party, and
much of his public career had been directed to its defeat. During the
war and the period of reconstruction, he had been its earnest and even
bitter antagonist. Mr. Bird was a public spirited man, and he was
especially liberal towards men and causes in whose fortunes or fate he
had become interested. Upon the close of the war there was a tendency
in the public mind to advance the successful military men to posts of
honor and power in civil life. Some were chosen to the Senate and the
House, some were appointed to important diplomatic places, and General
Grant was elected President. Many of the politicians were disturbed,
and chief among them was Mr. Chase, who allowed the use of his name as
a candidate for the Presidency in the Democratic Convention of 1868.
From that time many persons who had been conspicuous as anti-slavery
men before the war, separated from the Republican Party and joined the
Democracy. Mr. Bird was one of many such.
There were a small number of men who had been members of the Convention
of 1820 who were members of the Convention of 1853. Of these Mr.
Robert Rantoul, of Beverly, was conspicuous, partly on account of his
age, partly on account of his services and character, and partly as
the father of Robert Rantoul, Jr. He was a noticeable figure in the
Convention of 1853. Mr. Rantoul, Jr., had died at Washington the
preceding year. His death was a public loss, and especially so to the
anti-slavery wing of the Democratic Party to which he maintained his
allegiance up to the time of his death. He had, however, taken issue
with the party upon the Fugitive Slave Act, and for his hostility to
that measure he was excluded from the Democratic Convention of 1852,
although he had been duly elected by the Democrats of the county of
Essex. There can be no doubt that he would have acted with the
Republican Party had he lived to the period of its organization. He
was one of the three distinguished persons who were born in the county
of Essex early in the century--Cushing, Choate and Rantoul. In
masterly ability Choate was the chief, unquestionably. In the
profession, neither Cushing nor Rantoul could compare with Choate,
although in learning Cushing may have been his rival. In knowledge of
diplomacy and international law neither Choate nor Rantoul could be
compared to Cushing. In the modern languages he was their superior
also, although it is probable that in the knowledge of Latin and Greek
he was inferior to Choate. In business matters they were alike
defective. In Rantoul there was a lack of continuity of purpose. He
was guided by his feelings and opinions. He had the temperament of a
reformer. Indeed, he was a reformer. He abhorred slavery, he made
war upon intemperance, he was an advocate of reform in prison
discipline, and he championed the abolition of capital punishment. In
neither of these movements did Cushing or Choate take an interest.
They thought slavery an evil, but they had no disposition to attack it.
Alike, they feared unpleasant consequences. Choate's devotion to the
Constitution was akin to idolatry.
Cushing's support of the Constitution more nearly resembled
professional duty. Indeed, that peculiarity could be discovered in
much of his public conduct. In service to others he was liberal to a
fault. In conversation, he would make suggestions to politicians and
to lawyers in aid of their views or their causes with great freedom
and without apparent concern as to the effect upon parties or men.
Rantoul was not able to fix his attention upon any one branch of labor.
He was first of all a politician with an interest in social questions.
The profession of the law was not his mistress. His arguments were
clear and direct, but they lacked the quality that is near to genius.
This quality Choate possessed in a degree not elsewhere found in the
life or history of the American Bar. Cushing's arguments were loaded
with learning and heavy with suggestions upon the general subject
rather than upon the case. This of his law arguments. As I never saw
him before a jury I cannot speak of his quality as a _nisi prius_
advocate; but I cannot imagine that he could have had eminent success,
and certainly he could not have had success, in the later period of his
career.
Mr. Rantoul died at the age of forty-seven. Had he lived to take part
in the affairs of the war and of reconstruction, there can be no doubt
that he would have achieved great distinction. He had convictions in
which Cushing was deficient. He had courage in civil affairs, which
Mr. Choate did not possess. Of Choate it can be said, that he lived
long enough to establish his claim to the first place at the American
bar, if he be judged by what he said, and by what he did. Mr. Cushing
had a long career. As to him, there is no room for conjecture. He
had great power for acquisition. As an aid to others less well
equipped his society and counsels were invaluable. He had a vast fund
of knowledge in law, in history, in diplomacy, and in general
literature. It was his misfortune that he early lost the public
confidence, and it was a continuing misfortune that he never regained
it. While it cannot be claimed that either of these three persons is
entitled to a place in general history, it may be said with truth,
that the birth of Cushing, Choate and Rantoul in a single county and
in a single decade was an unusual circumstance in the affairs of the
world.
Mr. Robert Rantoul, Sr., as the oldest member, called the Convention to
order and presided until the election of Mr. Banks as president. His
administration of the duties of the chair commanded the approval of the
Convention, and that without regard to personal or party feeling.
The election of General Pierce to the Presidency in 1852 was fatal to
the coalition in Massachusetts. Upon his accession to the office, in
March, 1853, General Cushing became Attorney-General of the United
States, and in the summer or autumn of 1853 he wrote a letter to a
gentleman in Worcester, which was interpreted as a declaration of
hostility on the part of the administration against all Democrats
who affiliated with Free-soil politicians. The election of 1852 had
been favorable to the Whigs of Massachusetts, but the contest was
fatal to the Whig Party in a national point of view. That party
disappeared in the country, and after two elections in Massachusetts,
that of 1852 and 1853, it ceased to have power in the State. For many
years after, there were occasional attempts to revive it, but all such
attempts were vain. It was led by intelligent and well-disposed men,
but its principles were not accepted by the country, and it attempted
to secure the recognition of its principles by a policy that was
temporizing and expedient. It lacked the courage of the old Democratic
Party.
Upon the defeat of the Constitution, I turned my attention to the
profession in the office of Mr. Joel Giles, with whom I had studied.
He had been a lecturer at Cambridge, a member of the House and the
Senate, and of the Constitutional Convention. He was a bachelor,
economical in his expenditures, rigid in his opinions, just in every
thing, and a most careful student and conscientious practitioner. He
was a patent lawyer, and as lawyer and mechanic he was the superior of
any other person that I have known. As an advocate his services were
not valuable. He seemed timid, and his style was not adapted to jury
trials nor to hearings by the court. However, in patent cases he could
make himself understood by the court, and he had influence resting upon
the belief that he was free from deception which was the fact.
Mr. Giles was then attorney for Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing
machine. He had been counsel for Howe from the first, when Howe was in
extreme poverty and unable to pay fees. In the early stages of the
contest Mr. Giles conducted the case without present compensation, and
at the end, when Howe's income was enormous for the period, Mr. Giles
accepted only very moderate fees, and he was content therewith. Mr.
Howe was a peculiar character: odd in his ways, but generous with his
income:--so generous that at his death his fortune was very small. In
my long acquaintance with Mr. Giles I never knew that he made charges
for services against any one or that he ever presented a bill, although
he sometimes spoke of the indifference and neglect of his clients in
the matter of money. Some paid and others did not. Mr. Howe paid all
that Mr. Giles required, but that was very little compared with the
service rendered. The litigation over the Howe patent was severe and
the questions in a mechanical point of view were nice questions. Mr.
Giles began with the invention, and he became a master of the case.
Mr. Howe was indebted to Mr. Giles for the success of his litigation
which established his claim to the invention, secured to him as the
proceeds what might have been an enormous fortune, and placed his name
in the list of the names of great inventors. The patent-law practice
is the most exhausting branch of the legal profession, and the lawyers
and experts suffer from brain diseases in excess of the average of
sufferers in other branches of the profession.
XX
THE YEAR 1854
At the session of the Legislature, January, 1854, the town of
Fitchburg, aided by towns and citizens of the vicinity, petitioned for
a new county to be composed of towns to be taken from the counties of
Middlesex and Worcester and to be called the county of Webster. Mr.
Choate was retained for the new county, and I appeared for the county
of Middlesex. The hearing by the committee occupied two weeks or more,
for an hour or an hour and a half a day. The fees received seem now to
have been very small. It was said that Mr. Choate received the sum of
five hundred dollars, and my fee was two hundred and fifty dollars.
Mr. Choate obtained a favorable report from the committee, but the
project failed in the Legislature. It was renewed the succeeding year,
when Emory Washburn appeared for the county of Worcester. In those two
contests, covering a month of time in all, I had an opportunity to
study Mr. Choate in his characteristics as an advocate and as an
examiner of witnesses, a branch of the profession in which he had great
skill.
Various witnesses were called for the purpose of gathering facts as to
the inconveniences of which complaints were made and also for the
purpose of showing the advantage to be derived from the proposed
change. A witness of importance and altogether friendly, was Stuart
J. Park, of Groton. He was a Scotchman by birth, his father having
been employed upon the Argyle estates. The father came to America
while the son was a minor. They were by trade stone masons. Stuart
J. Park was then nearly seventy years of age. He had represented the
county in the State Senate and for many years he had been a person of
note, although his education was limited. He had, however, an
abundance of sound sense and an excess of will power, even for a
Scotchman. In his business he had had a large and successful
experience. He was the master builder of the Boston Mill Dam, of the
Charlestown Dry Dock, of the State prison buildings in Massachusetts
and New Hampshire, of the track of the Lowell railway, which was laid
originally on granite sleepers, and of many jails in New England.
Experience proved that granite sleepers were too firm and sleepers of
wood were substituted.
One of the county commissioners was John K. Going of Shirley. I had
known him from my youth. He was my senior by about ten years. In my
boyhood he called not infrequently at my father's house, driving an
old horse in a second-hand, well worn sulky. His business was trading
in horses and watches, and gambling, as was reported, for small sums of
money. To myself and my brothers he was held up by my mother as a
warning. Before he was twenty-one years of age he had induced his
father to mortgage his small homestead for four hundred dollars which
John lost in unwise or unfortunate ventures. Upon that experience he
began to recover his fortunes. He became a dealer in better horses,
then in hops, then in real estate, and to some extent he became an
operator in Boston markets. At the age of fifty he was worth,
probably, two hundred thousand dollars. With the improvement of his
fortunes, his character improved. He was always temperate and his
agreements were carefully kept. He made ample provision for his
parents, and for a sister; was a representative in the general court
and for many years he was a capable and acceptable county commissioner.
He was one of a not numerous class of persons who escape from evil
early associations and habits of life.
In 1854 the Know Nothing Party took possession of Massachusetts. Its
secrecy made it attractive to many persons. Moreover, the then
existing parties were unsatisfactory to the people. The Whigs, who had
been out of power in 1851 and '52, had regained power, but the vitality
of the party had disappeared forever. Many of the leaders had joined
the Free-soil Party, and others were indifferent to its fortunes. The
Democratic Party was dissatisfied with the national administration, and
the Free-soil Party was without hope. The coalition could not be
repeated. In the spring or summer of 1854 General Banks asked me
whether I intended to join the Know Nothings. I said No, that I had
left politics and that I intended to practice law. He said in reply,
"I am in politics and I must go on." The success of the Know Nothing
Party was without precedent. They carried every city and town in the
State, elected all the members of the Legislature, unless there may
have been an accidental exception, unseated all the members of
Congress, elected Henry J. Gardner Governor by an immense majority,
and elected Henry Wilson to the Senate of the United States.
Mr. Gardner was re-elected in 1855 by the momentum of the party,
although it had fallen into discredit which would have led to its ruin
in the face of a vigorous opposition. The Whig Party had disappeared
and the Republican Party had not reached a period when it could
command its forces. In 1856 the Know Nothing Party was yielding to
the Republican Party and Governor Gardner was accepted for a third term.
In the year 1854 I made a trip to the Adirondack woods and mountains.
The party was organized by Francis W. Bird, and it consisted of Mr.
Bird, Henry W. Pierce, D. W. Alvord, a Mr. Hoyt and myself. We left
our homes about the 20th of June and were absent about twenty days.
We entered the woods from Amsterdam, N. Y. From that place we
travelled by a wagon to Lake Pleasant, about fifty-four miles. We
remained there two or three days at a hotel kept by a man named John
C. Holmes, or rather by his wife, while Holmes retailed old stories to
the few guests. The chief topic was the large trout caught in the
lake and when and by whom. The ten largest of the season caught in
Lake Pleasant and Round Lake weighed in the aggregate 154-1/2 pounds.
A Mrs. Peters from New York was the champion; her prize having weighed
something over 16 pounds.
We started for the woods on a Thursday taking with us eight guides, a
donkey and a considerable quantity of provisions. As the protection
was insufficient, the bread, salt, pepper, etc., were soon ruined. The
salt pork was saved. At the end of three or four days we sent the
donkey and three men back to Lake Pleasant. On this trip I had my
first and indeed my only experience in sleeping on the ground. At
the small lakes we found the hunters' camps, which were made by
erecting poles and covering the scanty frame with the bark of cedar trees.
Saturday night we divided our force as the camp at the lake where we
intended to stop was too small for the accommodation of our whole
party. Consequently some of the guides went on about four miles to a
lake where there was another camp of larger size. Hoyt was the
enthusiast of the party, and it was his ambition to kill a deer,
although the inhumane act was prohibited at that season of the year.
Our leading guide was called Aaron Burr Sturgis. Thursday evening Hoyt
insisted upon going out deer hunting upon the lake. Burr took charge
of him. Hoyt had a shot, but missed the deer. Friday evening the
effort was renewed with the same result. Burr insisted that the game
was in sight at a reasonable distance, and that Hoyt was a victim of
the disease known as _buck fever._ When Saturday evening came there
was a public sentiment in favor of changing the hunter as the party
were becoming weary of salt pork and trout. Burr fixed upon me, and
warmly advocated my selection. Hoyt was warm in advocacy of his own
claim. Burr's partiality for me was due to the circumstance that at
Lake Pleasant I had sent a buck-shot fifteen rods straight to the mark.
Hoyt was finally driven from the field, his only consolation being my
promise that I would fire but once, and whether successful or not, I
would return to the camp.
The hunter's boat was a narrow, long, flat-bottomed craft, capable of
carrying two persons if they were sober and careful. I took my place
in the bow of the boat, behind and rather under the jack. I rested
upon my knees, holding my gun in such a position that I could use it
at short notice. While we were crossing the lake to the feeding
ground, Burr gave me my instructions. He said that when I saw the
deer in the light from the jack, he would look as though he were cut
out of white paper. Such proved to be the fact. The light upon the
deer gave him the appearance of being white as the background was
black. He appeared in profile only. Next Burr said I must not fire
until he gave me orders, as I could not judge of the distance.
After a time the light fell upon a deer. He raised his head and
gazed upon the light. Burr moved with the boat without making a
ripple and finally he held the boat with his oar and ordered me to
fire. This I did, and the deer ran for the shore, Burr pushed his
boat to the quag, took the jack, and followed the track. At the
distance of about fifteen rods he found the deer unable to move. Burr
applied his knife to the throat of the animal, and then dragged him to
the boat and we lifted him in. As Burr turned the boat he said, "Did
you her the deer whistle on the other side of the lake when you fired?"
I said no. Burr said they whistled and he was going over to see if we
couldn't get a shot. I referred to my promise to Hoyt, which Burr
answered with an oath of disapproval. As I saw no reason for getting
another deer I was disgusted with the new movement, and neglected to
re-load the empty barrel. When we reached the other side, we could
hear deer moving in the water among the tall grass, but we could not
see them. After a time I became interested in the undertaking, and I
raised myself upon my feet for the purpose of looking over the tall
grass. At once I was seen by a deer, and he made for the shore without
delay. In the excitement of the moment I discharged my remaining
barrel. The deer stopped suddenly, raised his tail, and whistled. I
thought that I had shot him, and that he would soon fall into the
water. I said to Burr, "How am I to get that deer?" Burr said, "I
don't know; you haven't hit him yet." The deer stood for a minute
within good range and fully exposed. Luckily I had only an empty gun,
or otherwise I might have killed a deer for which we had no use--for
which there could have been no excuse. The whistle of the animal was
a note of exultation and a notice that he was unharmed. Had he been
wounded he would have run without waiting to explain his condition.
This was the only success in deer hunting by any of the party. Hoyt
went out several times, to return a disappointed man.
I spent the larger part of a night upon Louis Lake with a Canadian
Frenchman, of whom the rumor was, as I learned afterwards, that he was
a refugee charged with the murder of a woman. While one might not
choose such a person for a guide upon a forest lake and in the night
time, yet criminals of that sort are very often safer companions than
many reckless persons not yet guilty of any great crime. Murders
committed under the influence of passion do not lead to other murders
by the same parties. On the Sunday following we arrived at a small
lake where the camp was too limited for the accommodation of the
entire party and those who had remained proceeded to join their
companions. The day was rainy and when we reached our destination, we
found that one end of the camp had been destroyed by fire and that the
part standing furnished only inadequate room for the small party
already occupying it. The building of a new and much larger camp was
the work of the entire party. For a bed we cut great quantities of
hemlock boughs and after shaking the water from them we laid them upon
the ground and in our blankets we lay down with our feet to a rousing
fire which extended along the entire front of the camp not less than
twenty feet. None of the party suffered from the experience.
At that time fishing for brook trout was not an art. On one occasion
I waded into the rapids of Racket River where the water was about two
feet deep, and as often as my hook struck the water, I would get a
bite. The fish were of uniform size and weighed about one pound each.
We had equally good fishing upon the streams which connect the
Eckford Lakes. At Racket Lake a controversy arose about the route to
be taken. Alvord and Hoyt had a plan which Bird did not approve.
Pierce and myself took no part in the debate; we had accepted Bird as
leader and we chose to follow him.
We were quartered in a log house that had been built for the use of
some railway surveyors, but it was then occupied by a man who went by
the name of Wood. It was rumored that he was a refugee from Lowell,
Mass. He had lost both legs to the knees by freezing, and he walked
upon the stumps with considerable speed. He was able to walk to the
settlement at Lake Pleasant, a distance of thirty-eight miles. He had
a wife and one daughter, who were as ignorant as barbarians. After a
warm and almost bitter debate between Hoyt and Bird, a separation was
resolved upon. Hoyt and Alvord went northward and we resolved to
return by the way of Indian and Louis Lakes to Lake Pleasant. Bird
had incurred some expenses for our outfit, and Hoyt in his excitement
resolved to pay his share at once. He had no money nor was there any
money of consequence in the party. In this condition of affairs Hoyt
exclaimed, "Who will give me the money for a check on the Greenfield
Bank?"
Bird, Pierce, and myself, with three guides, turned our faces toward
the Eckford Lakes and Mt. Emmons. From Eckford we made our way to
Indian Lake. The day was warm and rainy in showers. The guides were
ignorant of the route, having never passed over it, and the distance
was estimated at twenty miles. We started in the morning in good
spirits and confident of getting through to Forbes' Clearing on
Indian Lake. We followed a road made by the lumbermen and about noon
we crossed an upper branch of the Hudson and came upon a small dwelling
where an Irishman and a boy were grinding an ax.
They were protected from flies and mosquitoes by a dull fire of chips
and leaves called a smudge. We asked for dinner and the way to Indian
Lake. They could not give us a dinner nor say definitely how we were
to get to Indian Lake. The man said there was another house farther
along where we might get something to eat, and he would follow in a
short time and go with us to the lake. We soon reached the second
dwelling where we found a woman and children; the husband having gone
to the settlement for supplies. She gave us some ham and corn bread,
to which we added tea from our own stock. When we were approaching
the house, we saw a deer making for the thick forest. This was the
only deer that I saw after my trip on the lake with Burr. When our
meal was over, we followed the Irishman into the thick wood where
there was no path, and where our way was often blocked by fallen
trees. Many times in the course of an hour we heard the noise caused
by the fall of a tree, and once when winding our way by the steep side
of a mountain, we saved ourselves by fleeing towards the lake. The
tree was a huge yellow birch and it was so much decayed that it was
broken into thousands of pieces, trunk as well as branches.
When we began our trip, Pierce was unwell and the tramp of this day
quite overcame him. He often sat down upon fallen trees, and deplored
his folly in going into the woods. He amused us by his bids, offering
first five dollars and then from time to time advancing his offer to
anyone who would set him down at old John C.'s. When we came in sight
of the lake we raised the sum of fifty cents for our guide and
dismissed him. We then proceeded up the lake, keeping ourselves within
sight of it for the most part. At about sunset we reached an opening
where a small stream entered the lake. Pierce sat down upon the ground
and announced that he would not walk another step that night. In that
condition of affairs we sent guides forward with such luggage as they
could take, and with directions to return with a boat as soon as they
reached Forbes' Clearing. During twilight we saw a boat coming down
the lake. The boatman proved to be James Sturgis with a small boat
designed to carry two persons. We were four, and when we were seated
the water was within an inch of the top of the gunwale. I told Sturgis
to keep near the shore. In doing so he ran upon the limb of a fallen
tree. The boat careened on one side and then the other, dipping water.
At last we got off and after an hour's rowing, we reached the clearing,
where we got a supper and the privilege of sleeping on the floor of
the log house.
The next morning we obtained the use of a large flat-bottomed scow and
paddled ourselves up the river which flows into the Indian Lake from
Louis Lake. The distance was about nine miles and through an intervale
from half a mile to two miles in width. This valley was studded with
huge trees at such a distance from each other that it might well be
called a park, and when in a state of nature it must have been not only
beautiful, but magnificent. The curse of civilization was upon it,
however. For lumbering purposes a dam had then been built across the
outlet of Indian Lake, and the intervale had been overflowed until all
the trees were dead. The grass was rich and we were told that it was
a favorite feeding ground of the deer.
At Louis Lake I made an excuse to visit Burr Sturgis' mother who lived
with her husband on the opposite side of the lake from our camp. I
asked Burr to take me across that I might get from his mother some
corn cakes. We found Mrs. Sturgis to be a woman about forty-five years
of age with some of the freshness of youth in her appearance, and in
conversation quite above her surroundings. She had had a large family
of children all born in the woods. The rumor among the guides was that
she was from Connecticut. There were rumors about all the inhabitants
of the woods, but of authentic history there was but little. The
imagination might sketch the history of Mrs. Sturgis.
NOTE.--Burr Sturgis and James Sturgis were brothers.
XXI
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN MASSACHUSETTS IN 1855--AND THE
EVENTS PRECEDING THE WAR
In the month of August 1855, the Republican Party of Massachusetts was
organized, and under the head of those who signed the call, a
convention was held at Worcester, the eighteenth day of September, of
that year. In Mr. Webster's time the Whig Party had been divided into
two parts, known as Conscience Whigs and Cotton Whigs. The Conscience
Whigs had become Free-soilers, and the Cotton Whigs upheld the flag of
the party in the belief that trade would follow the flag. The death of
Mr. Webster and the election of General Pierce ended the Whig Party in
the State. In 1855 the Democratic Party was a nerveless organization,
and without hope, except as the leaders looked to the supremacy of the
party in the country as a guaranty of office-holding to the few who
were in the ascendency in the commonwealth. In one short year of power
the Know Nothing Party had destroyed its influence in the State. Thus
was the way prepared for a new and formidable organization, destined
to succeed under the declaration that slavery was not to be extended
to the territories of the Union.
The first meeting of the men who led the organization of the Republican
Party was held at the United States Hotel. By adjournment the second
meeting was held at Chapman Hall. At this meeting a committee of
twenty-seven persons was chosen, of which the Honorable Samuel Hoar was
chairman. He had been a Whig of the Federalist school, he was a
lawyer of eminence, ranking all but the few greatest leaders of the
bar, he had had a career of useful public service, and he enjoyed the
respect and the confidence of the commonwealth. His associates were
Homer Bartlett, Charles Francis Adams, George S. Boutwell, Stephen C.
Phillips, George Bliss, H. L. Dawes, John Brooks, Charles Allen, Moses
Kimball, R. H. Dana, Jr., Marcus Morton, Jr., William H. Wood, W. S.
Breckinridge, James H. Mitchell, George Grennell, D. W. Alvord,
Increase Sumner, William Clark, Charles W. Slack, Thomas D. Elliot,
Samuel Bowles, William Brigham, Ivers Phillips, George Cogswell of
Bradford, John H. Shaw. At this date, June 12, 1900, three of the
signers are living: H. L. Dawes, George Cogswell, and the writer of
this volume. A very exact account of the proceedings of the Chapman
Hall meeting may be found in the Boston _Journal_ under the dates of
August 16, 17, 22, 23, and 30.
Mr. Franklin Dexter, a son of Samuel Dexter, was named upon the
committee. Mr. Dexter declined the appointment, and in a letter which
is printed in the _Journal_ under one of the dates named, he gave his
reasons. The one controlling reason was the fear that the persons
engaged in the movement would go too far and involve the country in
troubles and evils greater than those which the nation was then
experiencing. To these considerations, Mr. Winthrop, in a private
interview, added objections of a personal nature.
A supplementary call, signed by more than a hundred citizens, including
Senator Wilson, was subjoined to the call of the committee. The
impetus which the Know Nothing Party had received in the election of
1854 was sufficient to secure the re-election of Governor Gardner over
Julius Rockwell, the first candidate of the Republican Party in the
State. In 1856 Governor Gardner was elected as the candidate of the
Republican Party. Since the year 1856 the Republican Party has given
direction to the policy of the State.
In 1858 my friends made an effort to secure my nomination for the
United States House of Representatives. I was indifferent to the
movement, although I did not decline to be considered for the
nomination. Some of my best friends urged me to remain where I was,
and my opponents were certain that no one else could perform the
duties in a manner so acceptable. At the Convention I received sixty-
three votes, and my opponent, Charles R. Train, received sixty-six
votes. Train was declared the nominee, and as such he was elected.
After the Convention was over, some person of an inquiring turn of
mind found that if every portion of the district had been represented
the total vote could not have exceeded one hundred and eighteen. This
discovery led to some crimination, each party charging the other with
fraud.
When in 1860 notices were posted in the town of Concord calling upon
the Republicans to meet in caucus, to choose delegates to the State
Convention, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson called at the office of George M.
Brooks, who was an active supporter of Mr. Train, and said:
"I see there is to be a caucus to choose delegates to the Convention,
and I have called to make an inquiry about it, as Mr. Boutwell was
cheated out of his nomination two years ago."
Mr. Brooks said in reply:
"This caucus is for delegates to the State Convention. The District
Convention has not been called. But we thought the cheating was on
the other side."
"Ah!" said Mr. Emerson. "I see that you are not for Mr. Boutwell. Do
you know of anybody in the village who is for Mr. Boutwell?"
Mr. Brooks did not give him the information, and he went away. When
the evening came for the district caucus, the leading men who managed
the caucuses usually, went to the hall, and to their surprise they
found the transcendentalists in force, surrounded by a deep fringe of
farmers from all parts of the town. The meeting was organized. Four
delegates were to be chosen. Upon the nomination of candidates the
names were placed upon a sheet of paper, and then the citizens passed
around and each one marked against four names. The friends of Train
secured the lead, in making nominations, and my friend followed with
four names. When this ceremony was over, Mr. Emerson rose and said:
"The first four names on that paper are for Mr. Train. The second four
names are for Mr. Boutwell. We are for Mr. Boutwell, and our friends
will be careful not to vote for the first four names, but to vote for
the second four names."
Mr. Emerson's policy prevailed, and as far as I know, this was his
only appearance in Concord politics. In that year I had a majority
of the delegates to the convention, but I attended, withdrew my name,
and nominated Mr. Train for election. When I was elected in 1862, Mr.
Emerson gave me his support and during my term I received many letters
from him in approval of my course, which to many others seemed extreme
and unwise. My acquaintance with Mr. Emerson was never intimate, but
it was always friendly and I rest in the belief that he so wished our
relations to continue. It began in the Forties, when he honored me
with his presence at the Concord Lyceum, where, for a period, I had an
opportunity to speak. It was my better fortune to hear Mr. Emerson
speak on many occasions. He was not an orator in a popular sense, but
he had the capacity to make his auditors anxious to hear what he would
say in his next sentence, which, not infrequently, was far removed from
the preceding sentence.
In April, 1859, I presided at a dinner in honor of Jefferson. In the
speech that I then made, I predicted the Rebellion, although at that
time there were but few who expected an event more serious than a
political struggle. I then said:
"The great issue with slavery is upon us. We cannot escape it. The
policy of men may have precipitated the contest; but, from the first,
it was inevitable. The result is not doubtful. The labor, the
business, the wealth, the learning, the civilization, of the whole
country, South as well as North, will ultimately be found on the side
of freedom. The power of the North is not in injustice. We are bound
to be just; we can afford to be generous. Concede to our brethren of
the South every constitutional right without murmuring and without
complaint. Under the Constitution and in the Union every difficulty
will disappear, every obstacle will be overcome. But, rendering
justice to others, let us secure justice for ourselves; and we of the
North, not they of the South, shall be held responsible, if the slave-
trade upon the high seas is openly pursued or covertly permitted, if
new territory is consigned to slavery, or if the gigantic powers of
this government are longer perverted to the support of an institution
dangerous to the welfare of the people and hostile to the perpetuity of
the Union."
A letter from Abraham Lincoln was read at the Jefferson dinner. As Mr.
Lincoln's letter has more value, manifestly, in the year 1901, than it
appeared to have in the year 1859, I reprint the important parts of
that communication:
"Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political
parties were first formed in this country--that Jefferson was the head
of one of them, and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both
curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from
the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday,
in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political
descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.
But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of
Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with
great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler
propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail,
utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.
"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free
society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of
success. One dashingly calls them 'evident lies.' And others
insidiously argue that they apply only to 'superior races.'
"These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and
effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and
restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would
delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people.
They are the vanguard--the sappers and miners of returning despotism.
We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of
compensation; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no
slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for
themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. All honor to
Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for
national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast
and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an
abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm
it there, that to-day and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and
a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and
oppression."
In the canvass of 1860 I made a speech at Cambridge in reply to a
speech made in Faneuil Hall by Mr. Yancey. I again gave my opinion
that war was impending. I then saw that the preliminary incidental
conspiracy was in the Democratic Party, by which the party was to be
divided, and by which the Republican Party was assured of success. Had
the government been continued in the hands of the Democrats there could
have been no pretext for rebellion. The first necessary step in the
movement was the destruction of the Democratic Party. That step was
taken, and thus the way was opened for the election of Mr. Lincoln.
The secession of the States, beginning with South Carolina, was a
recognition of the legitimacy of the Government, of which Mr. Lincoln
became the head. This recognition was consummated beyond question,
when Vice-President Breckinridge announced the election of Mr. Lincoln,
in February, 1861.
The interests of the seceding States would have been promoted as the
measures of the incoming administration would have been retarded, if
the members from those States could have retained their seats in
Congress. It is probably that in the excitement of the time, the
States gave no thought to the question whether it would be wise to
allow their members to remain in the old Congress, and there thwart the
administration in its efforts to raise men and money. However that may
have been, when the Southern members left their seats they surrendered
to the Republican Party that absolute power by which in the end the
Rebellion was suppressed. Upon the theory of many Democrats and of
some Republicans, that the seceding States were never out of the Union,
they might have kept a representation in Congress while the States
themselves were carrying on a war for the destruction of the old
Government. Happily for the country the logic of events was mightier
than the logic of the schools. The larger number of men who went out
haughtily in 1860 and 1861 never returned.
In 1861 I was invited to deliver an address at Charlestown, Mass., on
the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. I said nothing of that
battle, for my thoughts were directed too exclusively to the prospect
of war in the near future, to allow me to deal with the past except for
the purpose of warning or encouragement. That address gave great
offence to Democrats generally, and it led many Republicans to denounce
me as unwise, and to declare that my counsels were dangerous. Governor
Andrew, who had just taken his seat as Governor, accepted the view that
I expressed, as did his privy counsellor, Frank W. Bird, although they
had disagreed with me in the National Convention, of June, 1860. They
were the earnest supporters of Mr. Seward, I was opposed to his
nomination, and as I would not pledge myself to his support, I barely
escaped defeat at the State Convention, which elected the delegates at
large to the Chicago Convention.
In my address at Charlestown, I made these remarks, which gave no
inconsiderable offence:
"In this juncture of affairs, we anxiously ask, what more remains to be
done? I infer, from what I see and hear, that most of my countrymen
believe that the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency is to
be declared in the customary way, and that he is to be inaugurated at
Washington on the 4th of March next. The intentions of men are hidden
from our view; but the necessities of the seceders we can appreciate,
and the logic of events we can comprehend. It is a necessity of the
South to prevent the inauguration of Lincoln. If he is inaugurated at
Washington on the 4th of March, the cause of the secessionists is lost
for ever. In all their proceedings, they have been wise and logical,
thus far; and I assume that resistance to the inauguration of Lincoln
is a part of their well-laid scheme. No man can now tell whether this
scheme will be abandoned, whether it will be tried and fail, or
whether it will be tried with success. I believe it will be tried.
"True, the administration has put itself on the side of order; the city
is alarmed for its existence, knowing full well that if it is given
up to the military or the mob, and the representatives of eighteen free
States are, for a single hour only, fugitives from the capital of the
country, its re-occupation will be upon terms less agreeable to the
inhabitants of the District and the neighboring States. The possession
of Washington does, in a considerable degree, control the future of
this country. Believing, as I do, in the stern purpose of these men;
knowing, also, that Maryland and Virginia command on the instant the
presence of large bodies of volunteers,--I deem it only an act of
common prudence, for the free States, without menaces, without threats,
with solemn and official declarations even that no offensive movement
will be undertaken, to organize, and put upon a war footing, a force
of one hundred thousand men, who may be moved at any moment when
desired by the authorities of the country.
"What, then, will be our position? The way ought to be open for the
inauguration of Mr. Lincoln; but there are those who demand a
compromise as a step necessary and preliminary to that event. I do
not now speak of the demand made upon States, in their sovereign
capacity, to repeal certain laws, concerning personal liberty, alleged
to be unconstitutional. . . .
"The compromises of which I speak are the various propositions, which
proceed upon the idea that the election by the people of a President
of the Republic, in constitutional ways and by constitutional means
only, shall not be consummated by his peaceful inauguration, unless the
character of the government is fundamentally changed previously, or
pledges given that such changes shall be permitted. I see no great
evidence that these demands are to be acceded to; but I see that the
demands themselves attack the fundamental principles of republican
liberty. If disappointed men, be they few or many, be they
conspirators and traitors, or misguided zealots merely, can interpret
their will, and arrest or divert or contravene the public judgment,
constitutionally expressed, then our government is no longer one of
laws, but a government of men."
XXII
AS SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION
In the early autumn of 1855 the Board of Education elected me to the
office of secretary of the board. The position was offered to Mr.
George B. Emerson, who declined to accept it for the reason that he
was unwilling to perform the necessary labor. My predecessor was
Barnas Sears, who resigned to accept the presidency of Brown
University. I made no effort to secure the appointment; indeed, I was
doubtful as to the wisdom of accepting it. I had been a member of the
board for several years, and I had had a limited acquaintance with Mr.
Mann during his term of office. Mr. Mann had had a brilliant career.
He entered upon his duties at a time when the public schools of
Massachusetts were in a low condition, and under his administration
there had been a revival of interest, whose force is felt, I imagine,
to this day. He attacked the customs and ridiculed the prejudices of
the people, made war upon the practice of corporal punishment, engaged
in a controversy with the Boston schoolmasters, and in the end he
either achieved a victory whenever a stand was made against him, or
he laid the foundation of ultimate success.
Dr. Sears was a man of peace. He was a carefully educated scholar and
progressive in his ideas, but he relied upon quiet labor and carefully
prepared arguments. He was at the head of the school system for the
long period of thirteen years, and in that time great progress was
made. He supplemented Mr. Mann by a steady and sturdy effort to
establish permanently the reforms which Mr. Mann had inaugurated. One
obnoxious relic of the ancient ways remained--the district system. In
1840 Governor Morton had called the school districts of the State,
"Little Democracies." They were in fact little nurseries of
selfishness and intrigue. In the selection of teachers, in the
erection and repairs of school houses, and even in the business of
furnishing the firewood, there were little intrigues and arrangements
by which interested parties secured the appointment of a son or
daughter to the place of teacher, or a contract for wood or work. The
election of the committee not infrequently turned upon the interest
of some influential citizens.
The great evil was the inefficiency of the teachers. Even in cases
where the committeeman was left free to act, he was usually incapable
of forming a safe opinion as to the quality of teachers. To be sure
the examination and approval of candidates were left to the
superintending committee, but most frequently the examination was
deferred to a time only one or two days prior to the day when the
school was to be commenced and the committee would too often yield to
the temptation to keep the candidate even though the qualifications
were unsatisfactory. The contest with the district system fell upon
me, and during my administration the system was abolished. The end
was not accomplished without vigorous opposition.
The citizens of the town of Mansfield took the field and under a
memorial to the Legislature they appeared before the Committee on
Education. The hearings were public in the hall of the House of
Representatives. They made personal attacks upon me--among other
things alleging that my traveling expenses were greater than the law
allowed. This charge was met successfully by an opinion that had
been given by Attorney-General Clifford. I changed the defence to an
attack upon the promoters of the movement, and they retreated after a
contest of several days; one of the party admitting that they were
wrong in their views and wrong in their actions. For the most part,
they were well intentioned persons, but not informed, or rather they
were misinformed upon the subject of education. They were unimportant
in numbers, but for a time they strewed the State with handbills,
placards and newspaper articles. They illustrated one half of the
fable of the frog and the ox.
In my five years of service I made more than three hundred addresses
upon educational topics. In that service I visited most of the cities
and towns, met the citizens individually and in masses, visited the
factories and shops, and thus I became well acquainted with the habits
of the people, their industries and modes of life. In each year I
held twelve teachers' institutes and each institute continued five days
in session. A portion of each day was given to criticisms, during
which time the teachers of the institute and the lecturers were freely
criticised by cards sent to the chair without the names of the critics.
Hence there was the greatest freedom, and no one on the platform was
allowed to escape. It is an unusual thing to find a speaker, even of
the highest culture, who can speak an hour without violating the rules
of pronunciation, or showing himself negligent in some important
particular. The teachers of the teachers gained daily by these
critical exercises.
Among the lecturers and teachers were some men of admitted eminence.
Agassiz was with me about two years as lecturer in Natural History.
His skill in drawing upon the blackboard while he went on with his oral
explanation was a constant marvel. He was not a miser in matter of
knowledge more than in money. Of his vast stores of knowledge he gave
freely to all. Any member of a class could get from him all that he
knew upon any topic in his department. When he was ignorant he never
hesitated to say: "I don't know." He was very chary of conjectures in
science. Indeed, I cannot recall an instance of that sort. He chose
to investigate and to wait. In all his ways he was artless. He was a
well built man with a massive head and an intelligent face. His
presence inspired confidence.
Associated with him by nativity and ties of friendship, was Professor
Guyot. Professor Guyot taught physical geography, and previous to 1855
he had wrought a change in public opinion in regard to the method of
introducing the science to children. All the then recent text-books
omitted physical geography, or reserved it for a brief chapter at the
close of the work. Guyot changed the course of study. His motto was
this: "We must first consider this earth as one grand individual."
On this foundation he built his system. Morse, the father of the
inventor of the system of telegraphic communication, was the author of
a geography published in the eighteenth century, and he commenced with
physical geography. His successors, Cummings, Worcester, and others
abandoned that scientific arrangement and introduced the learners to
political and descriptive geography. Moreover, their teaching of
physical geography was devoted to definitions to be learned by rote.
Many of the text-books in use in the schools were framed upon similar
erroneous ideas. The first sentence in Murray's Grammar was a
definition of the science, and was in fact, the conclusion deduced
from a full knowledge of the subject.
George B. Emerson, who was one of our teachers, gave a great impetus to
the art of teaching grammar. He discarded books, and beginning with an
object, as a bell or an orange, he would give a child at the age of
twelve years a very good knowledge of the science in six lessons of an
hour each. Dr. Lowell Mason was a teacher in the institutes during my
entire period of service, although he offered to retire on account of
age. He was an excellent teacher, and in the art practically, perhaps,
the best of all. Professor William Russell was the teacher of
elocution. His recitations were good, as were his criticisms on
language, but as a teacher, he had not a high rank. After the
retirement of Professor Agassiz, I employed Sanborn Tenney, a young man
of great industry and enthusiasm. He had in him the promise of a
great career in natural science, but he died prematurely in the State
of Michigan while upon a lecturing tour. From first to last I had
the benefit of a good corps of teachers with a single exception. In
drawing I inherited from Dr. Sears a young man of English parentage.
His statements were so extraordinary often, that I lost confidence in
him. One day he wandered from his subject and indulged himself in
denunciations of the English aristocracy. He closed with this remark:
"Although I belong to the haristocracy, I 'ate 'em!" At the end of
the autumn term, I dismissed him.
During my service as Secretary, I made the acquaintance of several
persons whom I should not otherwise have known. Among them were
President Hopkins of Williams College, President Hitchcock of Amherst
College, and President Felton of Harvard College. Hopkins might
properly be termed a wise man. He resembled President Walker who for
several years presided over Harvard. Felton was a genial man, of
sufficient learning for his office, and exceedingly popular with the
students and with the public. It was during his administration that
I was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, through his influence, and the influence of the professors
at the College.
I resigned the office of Secretary, January 1, 1861, with the purpose
of resuming the practice of law. During my term of office, I prepared
five annual reports, the last of which, the twenty-fourth in the
Series, was devoted to an analysis of the school laws with a history of
the educational and reformatory institutions of the State. I also
published a volume of educational papers, which had a considerable
sale, especially in the State of Ohio, where a copy was ordered for
each school library.
XXIII
PHI BETA KAPPA ADDRESS AT CAMBRIDGE
About ten days before the 18th of June, 1861, Judge Hoar called at my
office and invited me to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at
Cambridge on the 18th of the month. Although I had but little time for
preparation, I accepted the invitation upon the understanding, or
rather upon his request, that I was to deal with the questions then
agitating the country. Among my hearers was the venerable Josiah
Quincy, formerly President of the College. My address was so radical
that the timid condemned it, and even Republican papers deprecated the
violence of my language--they then living in the delusion that
concessions, mild words and attitudes of humility could save the Union.
Mr. Quincy was not of those. He gave to my address unqualified
support, and I had no doubt that the majority of my audience
sympathized with my views. There were, however, copperheads, and
peace-men at any price, and gradually there appeared a more troublesome
class of men who professed to be for the prosecution of the war, but
criticized and condemned all the means employed. They were the
hypocrites in politics--a class of men who affect virtue, and who
tolerate and protect vice in government.
My address was called "The Conspiracy--Its Purpose and Power," and as
far as I know, it was the first time that emancipation was demanded
publicly, as a means of ending the war and saving the nation. The
demand was made in a qualified form, but I renewed it in the December
following in an address that I delivered before the Emancipation
League. This address gave rise to similar or even to severer
criticisms from the same classes. They were never a majority in
Massachusetts, but they had sufficient power to impair the strength of
the state, and in 1862 under the style of the People's Party, they
endangered the election of Governor Andrew.
These criticisms made no impression upon me, for my confidence was
unbounded that emancipation was inevitable and I was willing to wait
for an improved public opinion.
I quote a portion of my remarks at Cambridge, which gave rise to
criticism in some quarters, and provoked hostility among those whose
sympathies were with the South:
"The settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth did not merely found towns or
counties or colonies, or States even; they also founded a great nation,
and upon the idea of its unity.
"Their colonial charters extended from sea to sea. Their origin, their
language, their laws, their civilization, their ideas, and now their
history, constitute us one nation. In the geological structure of this
continent, Nature seems to have prepared it for the occupation of a
single people. I cannot doubt, then, that continental unity is the
great, the supreme law of our public life.
"A division such as is sought and demanded by those who carry on this
war would do violence to our traditions, to our history, to those ideas
that our people South and North have entertained for more than two
centuries, and to the laws of Nature herself. An agreement such as is
desired by the discontented would only intensify our alienations,
embitter the strife, and protract the war upon subordinate and
insignificant issues. Separation does not settle one difficulty at
present existing in the country; while it furnishes occasion, and
necessity even, for other controversies and wars, as long as the line
of division remains.
"Nor can we doubt, that when, by division, you abandon the Union,
acknowledge the Constitution to be a failure, the contest would be
carried on regardless of State sovereignty, and finally end in the
subjugation of all to one idea, and one system in government. Whatever
may stand or fall, whatever may survive or perish, the region between
the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, between the great lakes and the
Gulf of Mexico, is destined to be and to continue under one form of
government. . . ."
I advanced a step further in December, as will be seen from the
extracts from my speech on Emancipation:
"I say, then, it is a necessity that this war be closed speedily. By
blockade it cannot be; by battle it may be; but we risk the result upon
the uncertainty whether the great general of this continent is with
them or with us. I come, then, to emancipation. Not first,--although
I shall not hesitate to say, before I close, that as a matter of
justice to the slave, there should be emancipation,--but not first do I
ask my countrymen to proclaim emancipation to the slaves in justice to
them, but as a matter of necessity to ourselves; for, unless it be by
accident, we are not to come out of this contest as one nation, except
by emancipation. And first, emancipation in South Carolina. Not
confiscation of the property of rebels; that is inadequate longer to
meet the emergency. It might have done in March or April or May, or
possibly in July; but, in December, or January of the coming year,
confiscation of the property of the rebels is inadequate to meet the
exigency in which the country is placed. You must, if you do anything,
proclaim at the head of the armies of the republic, on the soil of
South Carolina, FREEDOM,--and then enforce the proclamation as far and
fast as you have an opportunity; and you will have opportunity more
speedily then than you will if you attempt to invade South Carolina
without emancipating her slaves. Unsettle the foundations of society
in South Carolina; do you hear the rumbling? Not we, not we, are
responsible for what happens in South Carolina between the slaves and
their masters. Our business is to save the Union; to re-establish the
authority of the Union over the rebels in South Carolina; and, if
between the masters and their slaves collisions arise, the
responsibility is upon those masters who, forgetting their allegiance
to the Government, lent themselves to this foul conspiracy, and thus
have been involved in ruin. As a warning, let South Carolina be the
first of the States of the Republic in which emancipation to the
enslaved is proclaimed."
I left home for Washington on the Monday following the Sunday when the
first battle of Bull Run was fought. When near New Haven, the
conductor brought me a copy of a press despatch which gave an account
of the engagement and indicated or stated that the rebels had been
successful. On the seat behind me were two men who expressed their
gratification to each other, when they read the despatch over my
shoulder. When I had a fair view of them, I formed the opinion that
they were Southern men returning South to take part in the conflict.
It is difficult to comprehend the control which the States' Rights
doctrine had over the Southern mind. In my conversations with General
Scott the influence which the course pursued by Virginia exercised
over him was apparent. Those conversations left upon me the impression
that he had debated with himself as to the course he ought to pursue.
Attachment to Virginia was the sole excuse which Lee offered in his
letter to his sister which contained a declaration that there was no
just cause for secession.
In July, 1861, Washington was comparatively defenceless. Mr. Lincoln
was calm, but I met others who were quite hopeless of the result.
My speech upon Emancipation in December, 1861, led to a request from
the publishers of the _Continental Magazine_ for an article upon the
subject. It appeared in February, 1862, and in that article I set
forth the necessity of immediate emancipation as a war measure, and
by virtue of the war power, under the title, "Our Danger, and Its
Cause." Rapid changes were then taking place in public opinion, and
in Massachusetts the tide was strong in favor of vigorous action. It
was arrested temporarily in the summer of 1862, by the untoward events
of the war, and the "People's Party" became formidable for a brief
season.
One of the peculiar circumstance of the contest was the acceptance by
General Devens of the post of candidate for Governor by the People's
Party. General Devens was then in the army, and with considerable
experience he had shown the qualities of a good soldier. But he was
not a Republican. In other days he had been a Webster Whig, and as
marshal of the district of Massachusetts he had charge officially of
the return of the negro Sims to slavery.
This act had brought down upon him criticisms, quite like maledictions,
from the Anti-Slavery Party. By these criticisms he had been
embittered, and although he was hearty in support of the war, he had
not then reached a point in his experience when he could realize that
the only efficient way of supporting the war was to support the
Republican Party.
At a later period he identified himself with the Republican Party, and
as a Republican he filled with honor a place upon the bench of the
Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and upon the election of President
Hayes, he was made Attorney-General of the United States. That office
he filled with tact, urbanity, and reasonable ability. He belonged to
a class of orators of which Massachusetts has furnished a considerable
number--Mr. Everett was the chief. His disciples or followers
included Hillard, Burlingame, Bullock, Devens, Long, and some others
of lesser note. The style of these men was attractive, sometimes
ornate, but lacking in the force which leaves an indelible impression
upon the hearer.
XXIV
THE PEACE CONVENTION OF 1861
In the month of January, 1861, the State of Virginia invited the States
to send delegates to a congress or convention to be held in the city of
Washington. The call implied that the Union was a confederation of
States as distinguished from an independent and supreme and sovereign
government, set up and maintained by the people of the whole country,
except as the States were made the servants of the nation for certain
specified purposes. There was hesitation on the part of Massachusetts,
and some of the States of the North declined to respond to the call.
After delay, Governor Andrew appointed John Z. Goodrich, Charles Allen,
George S. Boutwell, T. P. Chandler, F. B. Crowninshield, J. M. Forbes,
and Richard P. Waters as commissioners to the convention.
The meeting was held on the 6th of February in Willard's Hall, in the
city of Washington. The door upon the street was closed, and the
delegates were admitted from Willard's Hotel through a side door, cut
for the purpose. The entrance was guarded by a messenger, and only
members were admitted. There were no reporters, but Mr. Chittenden, of
Vermont, made notes from which he prepared a volume that was published,
but not until several years after the congress had ceased to exist. A
few of the members furnished him with reports of their speeches, but
not always in the language used at the time of delivery. My memory of
what was said by Mr. Chase and Mr. Frelinghuysen did not correspond
with the Chittenden Report. As the Convention had been in session
several days when the Massachusetts delegation appeared, we were
assigned to seats that were remote from the chair.
The convention was composed of three classes of men. Secessionists,
led by John Tyler, the president of the convention, Seddon of Virginia,
and Davis and Ruffin of North Carolina; border State men from Virginia,
Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Kentucky, who had faith in
differing degrees that the Union might be saved, and war averted; and
radical men who had no faith that anything could be done by which the
Union could be saved, except through war. Soon after my arrival in
Washington, I called on a Sunday upon Mr. Seddon. We had a free
conversation. He said:
"It is of no use for us to attempt to deceive each other. You have one
form of civilization, and we have another. You think yours is the best
for you, and we think that ours is the best for us. But our culture is
exhausting, and we must have new lands. One part of your people say
that Congress shall exclude slavery from the territories, and another
set of men say that it will be excluded by natural laws. Under either
theory, somebody must go, and if we can't go with our slaves, we must
go without them and our country will be given up to the negroes."
With the system of slavery, and in the absence of knowledge of the
value of manufactured fertilizers, this was not an unreasonable view.
Looking forward a hundred years and assuming the continued existence
of slavery, there was no conclusive solution of the problem presented
by Mr. Seddon. But he did not seem to consider that he was warring
against nature as well as against the Union in his attempt to extend
the area of slavery. His efforts, had they been successful, could
only have postponed the crisis for a period not definite, but surely
not of long duration. When the Confederacy was formed, Mr. Seddon
became Secretary of War, and when the war was over, I recognized his
friendship by securing the removal of his disabilities under the
Fourteenth Amendment. Of the Secessionists, Mr. Seddon was the
leading man upon the floor of the convention. It was manifest that he
did not wish to secure the return of the seceded States. On one
point he was anxious, and he did not attempt to disguise his purpose.
He sought to secure from the convention, or if not from the convention,
from the delegates from the Republican States, an assurance that in no
event should there be war. One of the errors, indeed, the greatest
error, was the failure of the Northern delegates to assert that in no
event should the Union be dissolved except through the success of the
South in arms. As far as I remember, this was not asserted by any one
except myself.
Many expressed their fear of war and urged the convention to agree to
some plan of settlement as the only means of averting war. Mr.
Stockton, of New Jersey, went so far as to assert that in case of war
the North would raise a regiment to aid the South as often as one was
raised to assail it. Mr. Chase's remarks on the floor of the
convention indicated a disposition to allow the South to go without
resistance on our part, and in a conversation that I had with him as
we walked one evening on Pennsylvania Avenue, toward Georgetown, he
said:
"The thing to be done is to let the South go."
The interest of the convention centred upon the Committee of Thirteen,
of which Mr. Guthrie was chairman. While the Committee of Thirteen was
considering what should be done, Mr. John Z. Goodrich said that he had
called upon Mr. Seward, and that Mr. Seward expressed a wish to see me.
I had not the personal acquaintance of Mr. Seward, and Mr. Goodrich
offered to take me to Mr. Seward's house. We called in the evening.
His conversation and bearing were different from the conversation and
bearing of most of the public men of the time. He spoke as though the
subject of conversation was the chance of a client and the means of
bringing him safely out of his perils. He spoke of the speech he had
made in the Senate and said:
"My speech occupies the mind of the South for the present: then the
proceedings of the Peace Congress will attract attention, and by and
by we shall have the President's inaugural which will probably have
a good influence."
He did not assume the probability of war. Before we left he asked me
whether I had seen a certain number of the _Richmond Enquirer._ I said
that I had not. He sent for it, and gave it to me with the request
that I should return it after reading the leading editorial. The
editorial was upon Mr. Seward, and it was written upon the theory that
he was engaged in a scheme for delaying definite action in Virginia
and the other States of the South, until the inauguration of Mr.
Lincoln, when he would use both whip and spur. From the conversation
and the editorial I inferred that he intended to have me understand
that such was his purpose. It is possible he may have thought that war
could be averted by dilatory proceedings.
When the report of the Committee of Thirteen was made, the border State
men had high hopes that the country, both North and South, would accept
its recommendations. In truth, there was no ground for believing that
the Secessionists or the anti-slavery Republicans, would accept the
propositions. The recommendations were more offensive to the North
than the original constitution, with all the compromise legislation,
considered together.
I think that there were five speeches made in support of the
resolutions before a speech was made in opposition, and it fell to me
to make that speech. One morning there was a conference between the
Massachusetts delegation, which was composed of radical men only, and
the radical members of the New York delegation, at which it was
agreed that a speech should be made in opposition, and that
Massachusetts should lead. The duty was put upon me, accompanied with
the suggestion that I should speak that day. I had not made any
preparation, but during the time that I had occupied a seat in the
convention, my conviction had been strengthened that it was impossible
to adopt a plan that would be acceptable to the contending parties,
and consequently that any scheme of compromise that could be framed
would result in a renewal of the controversy, under circumstances less
favorable to the North. At that moment the government was in the
hands of men who were incapable of decisive action. While we could not
count upon active measures against secession on the part of Mr.
Buchanan, on the other hand, the country had ample assurance that he
would do nothing in aid of the unlawful proceeding. That he had
declared in his message of December, 1860. Beyond that, we had a right
to assume that Mr. Lincoln would maintain the Union by force. Hence, I
resolved to say that no scheme would be accepted by us which did not
contain an abandonment of the doctrine of secession, an acknowledgment
of the legality of Mr. Lincoln's election, and a declaration that it
was the duty of the whole body of citizens to render obedience to the
Government. I very well knew that these terms would be rejected with
scorn, as I well knew that any other terms would be rejected.
Conspirators are never disposed to make terms with the party or person
against whom their conspiracy is aimed, until the conspiracy has
failed. Hence it was that those who humbled themselves in the dust
were treated with contumely, even more offensive than the invectives
which the conspirators showered upon the heads of those who neither
proffered nor accepted terms of compromise.
Mr. Chittenden's report is accurate in respect to the views that I
presented, but it is incomplete, as I spoke about an hour. When I
began to speak, I advanced slowly up the aisle until I could look into
the faces of the Virginia delegation, who occupied the settee next to
the president's desk. Mr. William C. Rives was one of the Virginia
delegation, a Union man, who sympathized with the border State men, and
hoped by some concession to avert war. When I said that if the South
persisted in secession, "the South would march its armies to the Great
Lakes, or we should march ours to the Gulf of Mexico," the tears came
into his eyes. My remark that the North abhorred the institution of
slavery, wounded the Southern men sorely. They were not indignant, but
grieved rather. At any rate, such was their aspect, and for many days
the remark was repeated or referred to with the hope, apparently, of
inducing me to retract or qualify it. I allowed it to stand as a
truth which they might well accept.
When the day came for the final vote upon the first resolution relating
to slavery as reported by the Committee of Thirteen, a meeting of the
New York delegation was called in consequence of the engagement of
David Dudley Field to argue a case in the Supreme Court. Mr. Field was
one of the six Republican members, and associated with them were five
Democrats and Conservatives.
As each State had one vote, his absence would set New York out of the
contest unless the Democrats would agree that Mr. Field's vote should
be counted in his absence. This proposition the Democrats refused to
accept, and they gave notice that the vote of New York would be lost
unless Mr. Field remained and voted. Mr. Field left, and the vote of
the State was lost. There were twenty-one States represented,
including Kansas, which was in a territorial condition when the
convention assembled, and the Territorial Governor had sent a
Conservative, Mr. Thomas Ewing, Jr. His father was a member from Ohio.
When the State government of Kansas was organized, the Governor
delegated a Republican. Both were allowed seats, although manifestly,
Mr. Ewing should have retired.
When the vote was declared, it appeared that eight States had voted in
the affirmative, and eleven States in the negative. The border State
men were sorely disappointed, and some of them wept like children. The
result they must have anticipated, but they had been wrought to a high
condition of nervous excitement, due in part to the circumstance that
they were unable to discuss the business of the convention in public.
The disagreeable silence which followed the announcement of the vote,
was broken by Mr. Francis Granger, who counseled calmness and
deliberation, and finally, he appealed to the States of the majority
to move a reconsideration. This was done by the State of Illinois,
through Mr. Turner, who made the motion. The next day the resolution
was adopted by a vote of nine to eight. Upon this question the
Missouri delegation refused to vote, under the lead, it was said, of
General Doniphan, who denounced the resolutions as not satisfactory to
either side. Doniphan was a large, muscular man, who acquired some
fame in the Mexican war as the leader of a cavalry expedition to
California, of which nothing was heard for about six months.
The reconsideration was attributed to the interference of Mr. Lincoln
or of his recognized friends.
When the convention was about to adjourn, President Tyler made a speech
in which he thrice invoked the blessing of Heaven upon the doings of
the convention, and from that act he went to Richmond, and in less than
three days he was an avowed and recognized leader in secession.
Indeed, it was understood in the convention that Mr. Seddon was his
representative on the floor. The doings of the Congress were endorsed
by Maryland, but in the National Congress, and in the States North and
South they were neglected utterly. The result which Mr. Seward
anticipated was not realized by the country.
After the arrival of Mr. Lincoln the Massachusetts delegation called
upon him to recommend the selection of Mr. Chase for the Treasury
Department in preference to General Cameron, and to say that the
capitalists of the East would have more confidence in the former than
in the latter. Mr. Lincoln did not say what his purposes were, but
he made this remark:
"From what I hear, I think Mr. Chase is about one hundred and fifty to
any other man's hundred."
On the Saturday next but one, preceding the 4th of March, we called
upon Mr. Buchanan at about eleven o'clock in the morning. He said that
he should prefer to see us in the evening. In the evening we found him
alone. He at once commenced conversation, which he continued with but
slight interruptions on our part. His chief thought seemed to be to
avert bloodshed during his administration. Next, he thought he had
been wronged by both sections. Said he:
"When I rebuked the North for their personal-liberty bills, the South
applauded; but when I condemned the secession movement, then they
turned against me."
He referred to the _Charleston Mercury_ as having been very unjust, and
then putting his feet together, and with his head on one shoulder, he
said:
"I am like a man on a narrow isthmus, without a friend on either side."
Within a few days of this interview, we called upon General Cass, who
was then living in a house that is now annexed to the Arlington Hotel.
He had retired from the Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan, and he had regained
something of his standing in the North, but he had been so long the
advocate of compromises and the servant of the slave power, that he was
unable to place himself in line with the movement that was destined to
destroy slavery. The slave power had more vitality than slavery
itself; and after a third of a century its poison still disturbs the
politics of the country. The call was made in the forenoon. General
Cass sat at a small, plain table, engaged in writing. He was in a
large room, from which the furniture, including the carpets, had been
removed. He said that he had been kept in Washington by the illness of
his daughter, and that upon her improvement he should leave for
Michigan. He was dressed in a much worn suit of black--his shirt had
seen more than one day's service--he had not been shaved recently, and
his russet-colored wig was on awry. The room had an aspect of
desolation, and General Cass appeared like a man to whom life had
nothing of interest. As soon as the ceremony of introduction was over,
he commenced walking and talking, while the tears ran down his wan and
worn cheeks. He gave us an account of his early life, of his residence
in Virginia, and then he said:
"I crossed the Ohio with only a dollar in my pocket. I went to
Michigan. I was four times Governor of the Territory, and on more than
one occasion I was confirmed by the Senate without a single dissenting
vote. I have been a Senator, and Minister to France; and I am going
home to Michigan to die. If I wanted the office of constable, there
isn't a town in the State that would elect me."
He reminded me of Cardinal Wolsey, rather than of the Senator, Minister
to France, and Secretary of the Department of State that he had been.
He spoke of his course in politics, the substance of which was that he
had always opposed secession and nullification, although he had
maintained the right of the States to hold slaves if they chose to
tolerate the institution.
General Cass was the last of the statesmen of the middle period of our
history whom it was my fortune to meet. As a whole, and as individuals
their fortunes were unenviable. They struggled against the order of
things. They accomplished nothing, unless it may be said of them, that
they kept the ship afloat. Their memories deserve commiseration,
possibly gratitude. No effort of theirs could have secured the
abolition of slavery. Any vigorous movement in that direction would
have ended in the destruction of the government. From John Adams to
Lincoln, only three important measures remain: The acquisition of
Louisiana, the acquisition of California, and the Independent Treasury
Bill. The war of 1812 was unwise, and in conduct it was weak. The
policy of that middle period in regard to paper money, to internal
improvements, in regard to the protection of domestic industry, and in
regard to slavery has been set aside or overthrown by the better
judgment of recent years. Yet so much are statesmen and parties the
servants or victims of events, that our opinions should be tolerant of
the men who kept the system in motion. Slavery was an inheritance, and
time was required for its destruction.