CHAPTER XXII.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1879--MR. CHANDLER'S LAST DAYS--DEATH AND FUNERAL.

The closing hours of the Forty-fifth Congress and the extra session

of the Forty-sixth may be said to have revealed Mr. Chandler to the

country. While he had been well known he had not been truly known. He

then became a central figure in the public attention. His utterances

were universally discussed, and with discussion came a juster

appreciation of the man. The people at last saw him as he was, the

possessor of strong common-sense, a cool and indefatigable worker, a

sagacious and fearless leader, a man who had never sacrificed principle

to policy, who had never compromised with crimes against liberty or

the nation's honor, whose most malignant enemies had not accused

him of being influenced by corrupt motives, and one gifted with the

rare capacity of saying the right thing at the right time in terse,

impromptu sentences, in epigrams which became political mottoes.

The campaign of 1879 followed closely upon the mid-summer adjournment

of Congress, and invitations to address the people came to Mr. Chandler

from a score of States. No public speaker was in more urgent demand, or

aroused a keener interest. The popular gatherings, which, during the

summer and fall, greeted his every appearance from the shores of the

Great Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard, amounted to a genuine ovation.

His first address was delivered before the Republican State Convention

of Wisconsin, at Madison, on July 23. In August he made six speeches

in Maine to immense mass meetings. In September he visited Ohio, and

spoke at Sandusky, Toledo, Warren, Cleveland, and other important

points. His audiences in that State were uniformly large, and his

Warren speech was delivered in the afternoon to an enormous crowd,

one of the greatest ever called together upon such an occasion in the

Western Reserve. He was greatly pleased by an invitation, which came to

him at about this time, from Senator G. F. Hoar, to visit Massachusetts

in October. It was unexpected, and he had believed that the Republican

leaders in the Bay State were inclined to look upon him with distrust.

He accepted it promptly, and spoke to enthusiastic audiences in Boston,

Worcester, Lynn and Lowell. Some brief remarks made at a dinner of

the Middlesex Club, in which he urged the national importance of the

pending contest, were especially useful in stimulating Republican

activity and directing it into proper channels. He next addressed

meetings in New York at Flushing, Albany, Troy, Potsdam, Lowville

and Buffalo, amid increasing public interest. On returning home from

that State in the last days of October, he revisited Wisconsin, and

spoke to great crowds at Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Janesville, returning

to Chicago, where, on the evening of October 31st, he made the last

address of his life.

The striking evidences of his hold upon the popular confidence, which

manifested themselves during the summer and fall of 1879, led to the

frequent mention of Mr. Chandler as a possible presidential candidate

in 1880. His friends in his own State were eager to formally present

his name to the National Convention, and the Republican press of

Michigan united in earnestly advocating such a course. This movement

also manifested strength in other States, and steadily increased in

importance up to the hour of his death. Although Mr. Chandler was not

insensible to this growing sentiment, little or nothing was done by

him to promote it; he favored the renomination of General Grant, and

the presidential ambition he rated as the most fatal malady to which

public men are subject.[42] To one friend, who spoke of the popular

feeling and his own desire in this matter, Mr. Chandler replied: "You

may vaccinate me with the presidency and scratch it deep, but it won't

take." To another he said: "No! no! Men recover from the small-pox,

cholera and yellow fever, but never from the presidential fever. I

hope I will never get it." The movement in that direction, which his

death so abruptly checked, was spontaneous and sincere, and that it was

growing in strength was undoubted. What limit that growth might have

reached and with what result can only be conjectured.

[Illustration: THE GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL AT CHICAGO.

[Where Mr. Chandler died on the night of October 31, 1879.]]

Repeatedly, during the arduous labors of the year, did Mr. Chandler's

physical powers manifest signs of rebellion against excessive effort.

In one of his Ohio speeches his voice suddenly failed, compelling

him to cease speaking. He suffered several times from what seemed to

be violent attacks of indigestion, and was on one or two occasions

dangerously distressed by them. At Janesville he caught a severe cold,

but when he reached Chicago, on the last day of his life, he seemed to

be in his usual robust health, and showed but slight signs of fatigue.

Those who called upon him on that day at the Grand Pacific Hotel noted

his fine spirits. His address in that city was delivered before the

Young Men's Auxiliary Republican Club in McCormick Hall, and he never

spoke with more animation, nor more effectively. The audience applauded

almost every sentence, and under that stimulus he rose to even more

than his usual fervor of speech. His ringing sentence, "The mission

of the Republican party will not end until you and I, Mr. Chairman,

can start from the Canada border, travel to the Gulf of Mexico, make

Black Republican speeches wherever we please, vote the Black Republican

ticket wherever we gain a residence, and do it with exactly the same

safety that a rebel can travel throughout the North, stop wherever

he has a mind to, and run for judge in any city he chooses," was

followed by cheer after cheer, until the entire audience was standing

and shouting. After closing his speech, Mr. Chandler returned to the

Grand Pacific Hotel; a few friends chatted with him in his rooms for

a short time, and at about midnight Representative Edwin Willits of

Michigan, who had been one of his hearers, made a short call, and

congratulated him upon the power of his closing appeal. After that, no

man saw Mr. Chandler alive. At seven o'clock on the following morning,

in accordance with orders, one of the employes of the hotel knocked

at his door. There was no answer, and a look over the transom showed

a figure lying in an unnatural attitude on the edge of the bed with

the feet almost touching the floor. In alarm the room was entered with

a pass-key, and Mr. Chandler was found in a half reclining posture,

with his coat about his shoulders, unconsciousness having apparently

seized him while he was attempting to rise and summon help. Medical aid

was promptly at hand, but life was extinct. "A Power had passed from

earth." Zachariah Chandler was dead!

[Illustration: BUST PROFILE OF ZACHARIAH CHANDLER.

[A sketch from Leonard W. Volk's plaster cast.]]

The news spread at once throughout the great city in which he had so

suddenly fallen; friends were soon by his bedside, while a large crowd

gathered about the hotel. A coroner's jury was at once impaneled,

listened to the testimony of the physicians, and returned a verdict

that death had resulted from cerebral hemorrhage. Impressions of the

features were taken by Leonard W. Volk, the eminent sculptor, and the

lifeless body was then arranged by kind, if strange, hands for the

funeral casket. Before its removal to Detroit, thousands who cherished

the memory of the man looked mournfully upon the dead face.

The telegraph bore the intelligence of this sudden death promptly

throughout the country, and the announcement was answered by unusual

demonstrations of national grief. Throughout the cities and towns of

Michigan, at Washington, and in many other places where his name was

well known, the insignia of mourning were at once displayed. Public

men sent prompt dispatches of sympathy to his family, upon whom the

blow had fallen with prostrating force. Especially significant were the

newspaper tributes to the memory of the bold, resolute, and successful

leader of men, whose star had not set, but had gone out at the zenith.

The President of the United States issued this official order:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 1879.

The sad intelligence of the death of Zachariah Chandler, late

Secretary of the Interior, and during so many years Senator from

the State of Michigan, has been communicated to the government

and to the country, and, in proper respect to his memory, I

hereby order that the several executive departments be closed to

public business, and their flags, and those of their dependencies

throughout the country, be displayed at half-mast on the day of his

funeral.

R. B. HAYES.

From the Executive Mansion also came this dispatch of personal

condolence:

WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 1, 1879.

_Mrs. Z. Chandler._

Mrs. Hayes joins me in the expression of the most heartfelt

sympathy with you in your great bereavement.

R. B. HAYES.

[Illustration: GEN. U. S. GRANT'S TRIBUTE.

[His endorsement on W. A. Gavett's official notification, as a member

of the Detroit Commandery K. T. to attend Mr. Chandler's funeral.]]

The following proclamation was published by the Governor of Michigan:

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, LANSING, Nov. 1, 1879.

_To the People of Michigan_:

An eminent citizen has suddenly been taken from us. Zachariah

Chandler was found dead in his room at the Grand Pacific Hotel in

Chicago early this morning. For nineteen years he has represented

this State in the National Senate. He held this exalted position

at the most perilous period in the history of the nation, and

unfalteringly supported every measure for the maintenance of the

Union. A member of the Cabinet under the recent administration

of President Grant, he proved himself a public officer of keen

sagacity, of incorruptible integrity and of admirable ability. A

resident of Michigan during the whole period of his manhood, he has

been active in advancing the interests of the State and promoting

its growth. By his energy he secured a competence, and by his

integrity the confidence of all. A statesman and a leader among

men, he combined in an unusual degree qualities which commanded

respect and admiration. Taken from us so unexpectedly, we cannot

but deeply feel and deplore his loss. I, therefore, as a tribute to

his memory and to his public services, hereby direct the several

State offices to be closed to public business, the flags to be

displayed at half-mast, and the other demonstrations of public

grief usual to be made, on the day of his funeral.

CHARLES M. CROSWELL.

An unofficial tribute, highly prized by Mr. Chandler's friends, was

that of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who wrote upon the reverse of a funeral

order issued by the Detroit Commandery of Knights Templar (shown him by

W. A. Gavett) these lines:

A nation, as well as the state of Michigan, mourns the loss of one

of her most brave, patriotic and truest citizens. Senator Chandler

was beloved by his associates and respected by those who disagreed

with his political views. The more closely I became connected with

him the more I appreciated his great merits.

U. S. GRANT.

GALENA, Ill., Nov. 9, 1879.

On the morning of Sunday, November 2, an escort of the militia and of

the people of Chicago accompanied the body of the dead Senator from

the Grand Pacific Hotel to the depot, and delivered it to a committee

of prominent citizens of Michigan, who had arrived to receive it. The

burial-case was wrapped in the national flag, and, when it had been

placed in the car, its lid was opened and the face exposed. The train

stopped at Niles, Kalamazoo, Marshall, Jackson, and Ann Arbor, and at

each place crowds came on board to look at the remains. When Detroit

was reached, thousands of grief-stricken people were at the depot, and

in solemn procession they joined the military escort in the march to

the Chandler mansion. There a few loving friends received and looked

upon the silent and lifeless form. To gratify the earnest desire of the

many who wished to behold again the strong, earnest face of Zachariah

Chandler before it was forever covered from mortal sight, the body was

removed on the morning of November 5 to the City Hall, where it lay

until one o'clock; a guard of honor kept watch at the head and foot of

the casket, and on either hand, for five hours, a double file of men

and women passed in steady march. Thousands of mournful glances were

given at the placid face of the dead, and many affecting incidents made

touching this parting tribute of the people. Then, from the City Hall,

the body was borne to the Fort street residence for the last time. The

day was cold and blustering; a blinding snow-storm set in. Yet the

streets were thronged by the sad multitude, while every train brought

from Michigan and from other States hundreds to increase the sorrowing

concourse; among them were men of great reputations founded on useful

and honorable public careers. After impressive funeral services at the

house, the remains of Michigan's great Senator, escorted by the militia

of Detroit and of the neighboring cities, by the United States troops,

by civic societies, by Governors, Senators, Congressmen, Legislators

of Michigan and of other States, and by hundreds of friends, passed

slowly through the streets draped in mourning, and lined with dense

crowds of people who braved the storm to pay this last honor to

Zachariah Chandler. At the gates of Elmwood Cemetery the militia and

civic societies halted, presenting arms as the hearse rolled slowly on

under its trees. Upon a high knoll, fronting on Prospect Avenue, it

halted; the coffin was drawn slowly out, poised a moment over an open

grave, lowered to its resting-place, and "I am the resurrection and the

life" rose up in solemn tones above the sobbings of family and friends.

Living green branches and flowers fell softly down upon the casket, and

a new mound grew up beside where Senator Chandler's brother already lay.

Thus was Zachariah Chandler buried. Living, he was honored. Dead, he

was mourned. Though dead, his labors and his example remain, and they

form his fittest monument.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] This letter, written to a prominent Republican of the Pacific

coast, did not reach the gentleman to whom it was addressed until after

Mr. Chandler's death, and was then given to the public:

REPUBLICAN STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, }

DETROIT, Mich., Sept. 23, 1879. }

MY DEAR SIR: Your favor of 11th inst. is at hand, and contents noted.

The prospects for the success of the Republican party in the national

election next year look much more favorable now than they did the year

preceding the election in 1876. Republicans are united, and earnestly

preparing for success as the only hope of saving the country from the

shot-gun rule of the Confederate Democracy. The Tammany bolt promises

to give us New York both this year and next.

Ohio is sure to go Republican, and there is hardly a doubt that every

Northern State having a general election this fall will score a victory

in favor of a free ballot and an honest count.

Each Territory is entitled to two delegates in the National Republican

Convention, under the rules heretofore adopted. I am under the

impression now that Grant's chances for the nomination are better than

those of any other person; but unless he is nominated without a contest

he will be out of the field, and there will be a trial of strength

between the friends and supporters of a few stalwart radicals.

No unknown man of lukewarm sentiments or obscure antecedents will be

nominated.

It is very possible that Michigan will present a name in the convention

as well as Maine, New York, Ohio, and perhaps other States; but I know

nothing special in regard to the matter, only that, if General Grant is

a candidate, no one else will be. Very truly, yours,

Z. CHANDLER.

APPENDIX.

THE LAST SPEECH

OF

ZACHARIAH CHANDLER,

DELIVERED IN MCCORMICK HALL, IN THE CITY OF CHICAGO, ON THE

NIGHT OF HIS DEATH, OCTOBER 31, 1879.

[Republished by permission of Ritchie & Williston, Stenographers,

Room 23, Howland Block, Chicago.]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: It has become the custom of late to

restrict the lines of citizenship. In the Senate of the United States

and in the halls of Congress you will hear citizenship described as

confined to States, and it is denied that there is such a thing as

national citizenship. I to-night address you, my fellow-citizens

of Chicago, in a broad sense as fellow-citizens of the United

States of America. [Applause.] A great crime has been committed,

my fellow-citizens--a crime against this nation, a crime against

republican institutions throughout the world; a crime against civil

liberty, and the criminal is yet unpunished--that is to say, he is not

punished according to his deserts. [Applause.] And I shall to-night

devote myself chiefly to the history of a crime, and shall endeavor to

hold up the criminal to your execration. [Renewed applause.]

But, first, it is proper for me to allude to certain matters of

national importance, which are at this present moment living issues.

Twelve years ago an idea was started in the neighboring State of Ohio,

called the "Ohio idea," which spread and bore fruit in different

States. That idea was to pay something with nothing. [Laughter] From

this Ohio idea sprang up a brood of other ideas. For example, the

greenback idea, an unlimited issue of irredeemable currency, and a

party was inaugurated in different States called the greenback party.

It took root in Michigan last year, had a vigorous growth, put forth

limbs, blossomed liberally, bore no fruit, and died. [Laughter and

cheers.] Therefore, I shall pay no attention to the greenback party. It

is not a living issue. [Laughter.] But the Ohio idea is still a living

issue, and even during the last session of Congress a demand was made,

and persistently made, to repeal the Resumption act that had been in

existence for years. The resumption of specie payment was virtually

accomplished when, in 1874-5, that Resumption act became a law, for

at that time we made that act so strong that there was no power on

earth that could defeat the resumption of specie payments after it had

once been inaugurated. [Applause.] We authorized the Secretary of the

Treasury to use any bonds ever issued by the government, and in any

amount that was necessary, to carry forward to success specie payments,

as soon as the time arrived for the resumption. We carefully guarded

that law. True, we are under an obligation to the man who executed

the law, but the resumption of specie payments was as much a fixed

fact when that law was signed as it is to-day, and all the powers on

earth combined could not break that resumption when it had once been

inaugurated.

But this Ohio idea, as I said, was to pay off your bonds with

greenbacks. Well, my fellow-citizens, we have paid off $160,000,000 of

your bonds in greenbacks within the last sixty or ninety days, and what

more do you want? Ah! But the Ohio idea was something different from

that. It was, as I said before, to pay something with nothing, and up

to the final adjournment of the last regular session of Congress the

attempt was still made to issue irredeemable paper and force it upon

the creditors of the nation. Now, if this paper which they propose

to issue in paying off the bonds of your government was properly and

truthfully described, it would read thus: "The government of the United

States for value received"--for it was for value received; no greenback

was ever issued except for value received; no bond of the government

was ever issued except for value received--"for value received, the

government of the United States promises to pay nothing to nobody,

never." [Applause and laughter.] That was the paper with which it was

proposed by these men, entertaining then, and now entertaining the

"Ohio idea," to redeem the bonds of your government.

Now, you have heard, I presume, here in Chicago, the denunciation of

the holders of your government bonds. The "bloated bondholder" was a

term of reproach, both on the floor of Congress and in the streets of

Chicago and all over these United States. But who were the bloated

bondholders? Why, my friends, every single man who has a dollar in the

savings bank is a bloated bondholder, for there is not a savings-bank

in the land, which ought to be entrusted with a dollar, whose funds

are not invested in the bonds of your government. [Applause.] There

is not a widow or orphan who has a fund to support the widow in her

widowhood and the orphan in its orphanage, in a trust company, who

is not a bloated bondholder; for there is not a trust company in the

land that ought to be trusted which has not a large proportion of its

funds in the bonds of your government. Every man who has his life

insured, or his house insured, or his barn, or his lumber, or who has

any insurance, is a bloated bondholder; for there is not an insurance

company, life, fire, marine, or of any other class of insurance, that

ought to be trusted, which has not its funds invested in bonds of

your government. You may go to the books of the Treasury to-morrow and

inquire and you will find ninety-nine men who own $100 and less of the

bonds of your government, directly or indirectly, where you will find

one man who owns $10,000 or more. And these men, entertaining the Ohio

idea, would ruin the ninety-nine poor men for the possible chance of

injuring the one-hundredth rich man. And yet you may destroy the bonds

of the rich man and you do him no harm, for he has but a small amount

of his vast wealth in the bonds of your government, while the poor man,

owning $100 or under as his little all, is utterly ruined. [Applause.]

You would not find a man, woman, or child in America who would touch

the kind of paper I have described, if proffered to them. You say you

would stop the interest on your bonded debt. Very well! The holder of

your bonds would say: "You do not propose to pay any interest. I hold

a bond for value received, with a given amount of interest payable on

a given day. Now I will hold your bonds until you men entertaining

the Ohio idea are buried in your political graves, and then I will

appeal to an honest people, to an honest government, to pay an honest

debt." [Applause] "But," say these men, "pay off your foreign bonds."

I see men before me who remember the days of General Jackson, and they

likewise remember that in the time of General Jackson the government

of France owed to the citizens of the United States $5,000,000, which

France did not refuse to pay, but neglected to pay. It ran along

from decade to decade, unpaid. General Jackson sent for the French

minister and said: "Unless that $5,000,000 due to the citizens of the

United States is paid, I will declare war against France." [Applause.]

General Jackson was remonstrated with. It would disturb the commercial

relations, not only of this country, but the world. Said he, "Unless

France pays that $5,000,000, by the Eternal, I will declare war against

France." [Applause.] Every man, woman and child and the King of France

knew that he would do it, and the $5,000,000 was paid to the United

States. It is not $5,000,000 that your government owes to the citizens

of the world, but it is more than fifty times five million, and it is

scattered in every nation with which we have commercial relations, or

where money is found to invest in your bonds. You say you will stop

the interest on those bonds. How long do you think it would be before

a British fleet would come sailing to your coast, followed by a French

fleet, and a German fleet, and a Russian, and an Austrian, and a

Spanish and an Italian fleet, and the British Admiral would step ashore

and say: "I have $50,000,000 of the bonds of this government belonging

to the citizens of Great Britain, which I am ordered to collect!" The

answer is: "Your account is correct, sir. The government of the United

States owes just $50,000,000 to the citizens of Great Britain, and here

is your money, sir."

[Mr. Chandler, suiting the action to the word, held out a sheet of

paper with $50,000,000 written upon it, and the audience burst out into

loud and long-continued laughter.]

The British Admiral looks at it and says: "What's that?"

"Why, money. Don't you see? Why, it is a first mortgage on all the

property of all the citizens of all the United States." [Laughter.]

"Don't you see the stamp of the government?" [Laughter.]

Says the Admiral: "Where is it payable?"

"Nowhere." [Laughter and applause.]

"To whom is it payable?"

"Nobody." [Laughter.]

"When is it made payable?"

"Never." [Renewed laughter and cheers.]

"Why," says the Admiral, "I don't know any such money. My orders are

to collect this $50,000,000 in the coin of the world, and unless it is

so paid my orders are to blockade every port of these United States,

and here are all the navies of the earth to assist me, and to burn down

every city that my guns will reach."

Honesty is the best policy with nations as well as with individuals.

[Cheers.] "Well," they say, "perhaps you are right about this bond

business. It is an open question, and we will abandon that, but the

national banks--down with the national banks! [Laughter and applause.]

Abolish national banks and save interest." What do you want to abolish

the national banks for? That is a living issue to-day--a present

proposition of the Democratic party that I propose to hold up to your

abhorrence before I get through to-night. What do you want to "down

with the national banks" for? I was in the Senate of the United States

when that national banking law was passed. I was a member of that

body and voted upon every proposition made in it. I had had a little

experience in state banks myself. [Laughter and applause.] Michigan had

a very large state bank circulation at one time [loud applause], and

we called that "money" in those days wild-cat money [laughter], and

it was very wild. [Renewed laughter and applause.] Chicago also had

a little experience in those days as well as Michigan. In those days

it was necessary for any man liable to receive a five-dollar note to

carry a counterfeit detector with him for three purposes. First, to

ascertain whether there ever was such a bank in existence. [Laughter

and applause.] Second, to ascertain whether the bill was counterfeit,

and, third, to ascertain whether the bank had failed [laughter]--and as

a rule it had failed. [Laughter and applause.] Now, we had two objects

in view in getting up that national banking law. First, we wanted to

furnish an absolutely safe circulating medium, so that no loss could

ensue to the bill-holder. Second, we wanted to furnish a market for

our bonds which had become somewhat of a drug. We might just as well

have put in state bonds as security for those bank notes. It would have

been just as legal, just as right, but we didn't know which one or how

many of those rebel States would repudiate their bonds, and therefore

we didn't put in any. [Laughter and applause.] We might just as well

have put in railroad bonds, but we didn't know how many railroads

would default in their interest. We might just as well have put in real

estate, but we didn't know whether the neighbors of the banker would

appraise the real estate at its actual cash-selling value. [Applause

and laughter.] And therefore we put in the bonds of your government at

90 cents on the dollar; so that to-day for every single 90 cents of

national bank notes afloat there is 100 cents--(worth 102½ cents)--of

the bonds of your government deposited with the Treasurer of the United

States for the redemption of the 90 cents. [Applause.] And you don't

know and you don't care whether the bank is located in Oregon, in

Texas, in South Carolina, Mississippi, New York or Illinois, because

you know there is 102½ cents to-day of the bonds of your government

deposited with the Treasurer of the United States for the redemption of

every 90 cents of national bank notes you hold. You don't know and you

don't care whether the bank whose note you have in your pocket failed

yesterday, last week, or last year, or whether it ever failed. And you

never find that out, for if trouble comes the bonds are sold and your

bank notes are redeemed the day after, or the week after, or the year

after your bank has failed, precisely the same as though it had never

failed. [Applause.]

Now you say, "Call in your bonds; abolish the national bank notes."

Very well! You pass a law to-morrow repealing the charters of all your

national banks. Call in the national bank notes! Every national bank in

America takes the exact amount of the circulation which it has, either

in silver or gold or greenbacks, to the Treasury, leaves it there

to redeem its notes, takes the bonds and distributes them among the

stockholders of that bank, and the day after you have called in every

national bank note that you have out, you pay the self-same amount of

interest on your bonds that you paid the day before, not one farthing

more nor less. You don't gain one cent, but you lose $16,500,000 of

taxes paid this year and last year and every year upon the stock of

the national banks to national, state and municipal governments.

[Applause.] You gain nothing, and you lose $16,500,000. You distress

the whole community of these United States by compelling your banks

to call in $850,000,000, now loaned and now being used in commerce,

manufactures and all the industries of the nation. You distress the

people by forcing a recall of that amount. No, my friends, in my

judgment you had better devote yourselves to something you understand,

and let the national banks alone. [Applause and laughter.]

But they say, "There is one thing that we know we are right on, and

that is the free coinage of silver." Every man who holds 85 cents worth

of silver shall go to the Treasury or the mints of the United States

and take a certificate of deposit for 100 cents, which shall pass as

money. This was the Warner bill. This the Democratic party as a party

was committed to, and is committed to, and on the very last day of the

extra session by a majority vote of one, and only one, in the Senate of

the United States we substantially laid that bill upon the table, every

Republican voting aye, and every Democrat, except four or five, voting

no. [Applause.] Now, to-day, the laboring man can take gold or silver

or paper, as he chooses, for his day's labor. I am in favor of the

dual standard. I am in favor of a silver dollar with 100 cents in it.

I am in favor of an honest dollar anywhere you can find it [cheers],

and I stand by an honest dollar. To-day the laboring man can take gold

or silver or paper, and they are all of equal value, because they are

all interchangeable into each other. The paper dollar costs nothing; a

silver dollar costs the government 85 cents--a fraction more now; it

has been a fraction less. But all three are of equal value. Now the

very moment you commence issuing those certificates of deposit freely

to every man having bullion you banish gold from your circulating

medium and make it an article of traffic and nothing else; and you have

but a single standard, and that is a depreciated standard. Now there is

paid out in these United States every day for labor alone $4,000,000.

By compelling the substitution of the silver dollar alone, you swindle

the laboring man out of $600,000 a day. The laboring man who receives

a dollar gets but 85 cents. The man who receives $10 a week gets

$8.50, and no more. The farmer who sells a horse, or the man who sells

a load of lumber, or a load of wheat, or anything else amounting

to $100, receives but $85, and no more. You have but one single

standard, and that the silver standard, which, having banished gold,

is worth precisely the metal that is in it. Who is benefited by this

substitution? Why, my friends, not a living mortal is benefited, except

the bullion-owner and the bullion-speculator. I do not charge these

men with being bribed to pass that law, because I have no proof of it;

but I do say that the bullion-owners and the bullion-speculators can

afford to pay $10,000,000 in bullion for the privilege of swindling the

laboring men of the country out of 15 per cent. of all their earnings.

[Applause.] They say, "That may all be true; we don't know how it is;

we have not been bribed"--and I never knew a man that would own up that

he was bribed in my life. [Laughter.] I don't say that they are, but I

do say that they are engaged in a mighty mean business. [Laughter and

applause.]

But there is another question which is of vital interest to every

man, woman and child in America, and that is this question of the

enormous rebel claims against your government. I hold in my hand a

list of the claims now before the two houses of Congress, and being

pressed--cotton claims, claims for the destruction of property, for

quartermaster's stores, for every conceivable thing that war could

produce. I have a list of claims right here [holding up several sheets

of paper containing names and amounts] aggregating many hundreds of

millions. And the only thing to-day--the Senate and the House both

being under the control of those Southern rebels--the only protection,

the only barrier between the Treasury of the United States and those

rebel claims is a presidential veto [cheers], and thank God for the

veto! [Long-continued applause.] But these claims are not all. There

are claims innumerable which they dare not yet present. You may go

through every State in the South, and somewhere, hidden away, you will

find a claim for every slave that ever was liberated. In the files of

the Senate and the House you will find demands for untold millions of

dollars to improve streams that do not exist--where you will have to

pump the water to get up a stream at all. [Laughter and applause.]

Demands for untold millions to build the levees of the Mississippi

river! We have already given the Southern people 32,000,000 of acres of

land which would be reclaimed by those levees, and now they propose to

bankrupt your Treasury by telling you, people of the North, to build

the levees to make the lands which you gave them valuable.

To show you that I am not over-stating this idea of Southern claims, I

will read you a petition which is now being circulated throughout the

South:

"We, the people of the United States, most respectfully petition your

honorable bodies to enact a law by which all citizens of every section

of the United States may be paid for all their property destroyed by

the governments and armies on both sides, during the late war between

the States, in bonds, bearing 3 per cent. interest per annum, maturing

within the next one hundred years."

Every soldier who served in the Northern army has been paid. Every

dollar's worth of property furnished to the Northern army has been paid

for. Every widow or orphan of a wounded soldier entitled to a pension

has been pensioned, so that there is no claim from the North; but this

means that you shall do for the South precisely what you have done for

your own soldiers.

But I have not yet reached the milk in this cocoa-nut. [Laughter.]

"And we also petition that all soldiers, or their legal

representatives, of both armies and every section, be paid in bonds

or public lands for their lost time [laughter], limbs, and lives

while engaged in the late unfortunate civil conflict." [Laughter and

applause.]

That all soldiers be paid for their lost time while fighting to

overthrow your government! That they shall be paid for their lost limbs

and their lost lives while fighting to overthrow your government!

Ah, my fellow-citizens, they are in sober, serious, downright earnest.

They have captured both houses of Congress, and the only obstacle to

the payment of these infamous claims is the presidential veto, and

there is not a man before me who has not a personal, direct interest in

seeing to it that the rebels do not capture the balance of Washington.

[Applause.] These rebel States are solid--solid for repudiating your

debt, solid for paying these rebel claims; they have repudiated their

individual debts through the bankrupt law; they have repudiated their

State debts by scaling, and then refusing to pay the interest on

what has been scaled; they have repudiated their municipal debts by

repealing the charters of their cities, towns, and villages. And do

you think they are more anxious to pay the debt contracted for their

subjugation than they are to pay their own honest debts? I tell you,

No. They mean repudiation, and do not mean that your debt shall be of

any more value than their own. When you trust them you are making a

mistake, and I do not believe you will ever do it again. [Laughter and

applause, and voices: "We won't!"]

But we have a matter under consideration to-night of vastly more

importance than all the financial questions that can be presented to

you, and that is, Is this or is it not a Nation! We had supposed for

generations that this was a Nation. Our fathers met in convention

to frame a constitution, and they found some difficulty in agreeing

upon the details of that constitution, and for a time it was a

matter of extreme doubt whether any agreement could be reached.

Acrimonious debate took place in that convention, but finally a spirit

of compromise prevailed, and the constitution was adopted by the

convention and submitted to the people of these United States. Not to

the States, but to the people of the United States, and the people

of the United States adopted the constitution that was framed by the

fathers, and for many long years the whole people of the United States

believed that we had a Government. The whisky rebellion broke out in

Pennsylvania, and was put down by the strong arm of the Government,

and we still believed that we had a Government. We continued in that

belief until the days of General Jackson, when South Carolina raised

the flag of rebellion against the Government. Armed men trod the soil

of South Carolina and threatened that unless the tariff was modified to

suit their views they would overthrow the Government. This was under

the leadership of John C. Calhoun, in carrying out his doctrine. Old

General Jackson took his pipe out of his mouth when he was told that

Calhoun was in rebellion against the Government, and said: "Let South

Carolina commit the first act of treason against this Government, and,

by the Eternal, I will hang John C. Calhoun!" and every man, woman, and

child in America, including Calhoun, knew that he would do it, and the

first act of treason was not committed against the Government, for even

the State of South Carolina, under the leadership of John C. Calhoun,

had bowed to its power.

We remained under that impression until I first took my seat in

the Senate on the 4th day of March, 1857. Then, again, treason was

threatened on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House.

They said then: "Do this or we will destroy your Government. Fail

to do that, and we will destroy your Government." One of them in

talking to brave old Ben. Wade one day repeated this threat, and

the old man straightened himself up and said: "Don't delay it on my

account." [Laughter.] Careful preparations were made to carry out

these treasons. Jefferson Davis stepped out of the Cabinet of Franklin

Pierce, as Secretary of War, into the Senate of the United States, and

became chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. There was an

innocent-looking clause in the general appropriation bill which read

that the Secretary of War might sell such arms as he deemed it for

the interest of the government to dispose of. Under that apparently

innocent clause, your arsenals were opened; your arms and implements

of war went together with your ammunition; your accoutrements followed

your arms; your navy was scattered wherever the winds blew and

sufficient water was found to float your ships, where they could not

be used to defend your government. The credit of the government, whose

6 per cent. bonds in 1857 sold for 122 cents on the dollar, was so

utterly prostrated and debased that in February, 1861--four years

afterward--bonds payable, principal and interest in gold, bearing 6

per cent., were sold for 88 cents on the dollar, with no buyers for

the whole amount. Careful preparations were made for the overthrow

of your government, and when Abraham Lincoln [cheers] took the oath

of office as President of the United States [cheers], you had no

army, no navy, no money, no credit, no arms, no ammunition, nothing

to protect the national life. Yet with all these discouragements

staring us in the face, the Republican party undertook to save your

government. [Applause.] We raised your credit, created navies, raised

armies, fought battles, carried on the war to a successful issue, and,

finally, when the rebellion surrendered at Appomattox, they surrendered

to a Government. [Applause.] They admitted that they had submitted

their heresy to the arbitrament of arms and had been defeated, and

they surrendered to the government of the United States of America.

[Applause.] They made no claims against this government, for they had

none. In the very ordinance of secession which they had signed they

had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the

overthrow of this government, and when they failed to do it, they lost

all they had pledged. [Cries of "Good."] They made no claims against

the government because they had none. They asked, and asked as a boon

from the government of the United States, that their miserable lives

might be spared to them. [Applause.] We gave them their lives. They had

forfeited all their property--we gave it back to them. We found them

naked and we clothed them. They were without the rights of citizenship,

having forfeited those rights, and we restored them. We took them to

our bosoms as brethren, believing that they had repented of their sins.

We killed for them the fatted calf, and invited them to the feast, and

they gravely informed us that they had always owned that animal, and

were not thankful for the invitation. [Great laughter and cheers.] By

the laws of war, and by the laws of nations, they were bound to pay

every dollar of the expense incurred in putting down that rebellion.

Germany compelled France to pay $1,000,000,000 in gold coin for a brief

campaign. The seceding States were bound by the laws of war and by the

laws of nations to pay every dollar of the debt contracted for their

subjugation, but we forgave them that debt, and, to-day, you are being

taxed heavily to pay the interest on the debt that they ought to have

paid. [Applause.] Such magnanimity as was exhibited by this nation to

these rebels has never been witnessed on earth [applause], and, in my

humble judgment, will never be witnessed again. [Cheers.] Mistakes we

undoubtedly made, errors we committed, and I will take my full share of

responsibility for the errors, for I was there, and voted upon every

proposition; but, in my humble judgment, the greatest mistake we made,

and the gravest error we committed was in not hanging enough of these

rebels to make treason forever odious. [Prolonged cheers.] Somebody

committed a crime. Either those men who rose in rebellion committed

the greatest crime known to human law, or our own brave soldiers, who

went out to fight to save this government, were murderers. Is there a

man on the face of the earth who dares to get up and say that our brave

soldiers, who bared their breasts to the bullets of the rebels, were

anything but patriots? [Cheers.]

And now, after twenty years--after an absence of four years from the

Senate--I go back and take my seat, and what do I find? The self same

pretensions are rung in my ears from day to-day. I might close my eyes

and leave my ears open to the discussions that are going on daily

in Congress, and believe that I had taken a Rip Van Winkle sleep of

twenty years. [Applause.] Twenty years ago they said, "Do this or we

will shoot your government to death! Fail to do that or we will shoot

your government to death!" To-day I go back and find these paroled

rebels, who have never been relieved from their parole of honor to

obey the laws, saying: "Do this! obey our will, or we will starve your

government to death! Fail to obey our will, and we will starve your

government to death!" Now, if I am to die, I would rather be shot dead

with musketry than be starved to death. [Laughter and applause.]

These rebels--for they are just as rebellious now as they were twenty

years ago--there is not a particle of difference--these rebels to-day

have thirty-six members on the floor of the House of Representatives,

without one single constituent, and in violation of law those

thirty-six members represent 4,000,000 people, lately slaves, who are

as absolutely disfranchised as if they lived in another sphere, through

shot-guns, and whips, and tissue ballots; for the law expressly says,

wherever a race or class is disfranchised they shall not be represented

upon the floor of the House. [Applause.] And these thirty-six members

thus elected constitute three times the whole of their majority upon

the floor of the House. Now, my fellow-citizens, this is not only

a violation of law, but it is an outrage upon all the loyal men of

these United States. [Applause.] It ought not to be. It must not be.

[Applause.] And it shall not be. [Tremendous cheers.]

Twelve members of the Senate--and that is more than their whole

majority--twelve members of the Senate occupy their seats upon that

floor by fraud and violence, and I am saying no more to you in Chicago

than I said to those rebel generals to their faces on the floor of the

Senate of the United States. [Enthusiastic applause.] Twelve members

of that Senate were thus elected, and with majorities thus obtained

by fraud and violence in both houses, they dare to dictate terms to

the loyal men of these United States. [Applause.] With majorities thus

obtained they dare to arraign the loyal men of this country, and say

they want honest elections. [Laughter and applause.] They are mortally

afraid of bayonets at the polls. We offered them a law forbidding any

man to come within two miles of a polling place with arms of any

description, and they promptly voted it down [laughter and applause],

for they wanted their Ku-Klux there. They were afraid, not of Ku-Klux

at the polls, but of soldiers at the polls. Now, in all the States

north of Mason and Dixon's line and east of the Rocky Mountains there

is less than one soldier to a county. [Laughter.] There is about

two-thirds of a soldier to a county. [Laughter and applause.] And, of

course, about two-thirds of a musket to a county. [Laughter.] Now,

would not this great county of Cook tremble if you saw two-thirds of a

soldier parading himself up and down in front of the city of Chicago.

[Loud and long-continued applause and laughter.] But they are afraid to

have inspectors. What are they afraid to have inspectors for? The law

creating those inspectors is imperative that one must be a Democrat and

the other a Republican. They have no power whatever except to certify

that the election is honest and fair. And yet they are afraid of those

inspectors, and then they are afraid of marshals at the polls. Now,

while the inspectors cannot arrest, the marshals under the order of

the court can arrest criminals; therefore, they said: "We will have

no marshals." What they want is not free elections, but free frauds

at elections. They have got a solid South by fraud and violence. Give

them permission to perpetrate the same kind of fraud and violence in

New York city and in Cincinnati and those two cities with a solid South

will give them the presidency of the United States; and once obtained

by fraud and violence, by fraud and violence they would hold it for

a generation. To-day eight millions of people in those rebel States

as absolutely control all the legislation of this government as they

controlled their slaves while slavery was in existence. Through caucus

dictation now I find precisely what I found twenty years ago when I

first took my seat in Congress. In a Democratic Congress, composed of

twenty-eight Southern Democrats and sixteen Northern Democrats, they

decreed that Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois should be degraded and

disgraced from the Committee on Territories, and there were but just

two Northern Democratic senators who dared even to enter a protest

against the outrage. To-day there are thirty-two Southern Democratic

senators to twelve Northern, and out of the whole twelve there is not

a man who dares protest against anything. [Applause.] I say, that

through this caucus dictation, these eight millions of Southern rebels

as absolutely control the legislation of this nation as they controlled

their slaves when slavery existed.

Now, if every man within the sound of my voice should stand up in this

audience and hold up his right hand and swear that a rebel soldier was

better than a Union soldier, I would not believe it. [Laughter and

applause.] I would hold up both of my hands and swear that I did not

believe it. [Cheers.] And yet, to-day, in South Carolina, in Alabama,

in Louisiana, in Mississippi and in several other States the vote of a

rebel soldier counts more than two of the votes of the brave soldiers

of Illinois; for they vote for the negro as well as for themselves, and

their vote weighs just double the weight of that of the brave soldier

in Illinois. It is an outrage upon freedom, an outrage upon the gallant

soldiers of Illinois and Michigan. [Applause.]

Now, my fellow-citizens, I have undertaken to show you the condition

in which the country was placed when the Republican party assumed the

reins of power. When the Republican party took the reins of power, the

country had no money, no credit, no arms, no ammunition, no navy, no

material of war. When the Republican party took the reins of power in

its hands, there was no nation poor enough to do you reverence. You

were the derision of the nations of the earth. You had but one ally

and friend on earth, and that was little Switzerland. [Applause.]

Russia sent her fleet to winter here for her own protection, but there

was not a nation on God's earth, that did not hope and pray that your

republican government might be overthrown, and there was no nation on

earth poor enough to do you reverence. We fought that battle through;

we raised the nation's dignity, and the nation's honor, the national

power and the national strength, until now, to-day, after eighteen

years of Republican rule, there is no nation on earth strong enough

not to do you reverence. [Loud and continued applause.] We took your

national credit when it was so low that your bonds were selling at 88

cents on the dollar, bearing six per cent. interest and no takers,

and we elevated your credit up, up, up, up, up until to-day your

four per cent. bonds are selling at a premium in every market of the

earth. [Applause.] So your credit stands higher than the credit of any

other nation. [Applause.] We saved the national life and we saved the

national honor, and yet, notwithstanding all this, there are those

who say that the mission of the Republican party is ended and that it

ought to die. If there ever was a political organization that existed

on the face of this globe, which, so far as a future state of rewards

and punishments is concerned, is prepared to die, it is that old

Republican party. [Cheers.] But we are not going to do it. [Laughter

and applause.] We have made other arrangements. [Renewed laughter and

cheers.]

The Republican party is the only party that ever existed, so far as

I have been able to ascertain--so far as any record can be found,

either in sacred or profane history--it is the only party that ever

existed on earth which had not one single, solitary, unfulfilled

pledge left [cheers]--not one [renewed cheers]; and I defy the worst

enemy the Republican party ever had to name one single pledge it gave

to the people who created it which is not to-day a fulfilled and an

established fact. [Cheers.] The Republican party was created with one

idea, and that was to preserve our vast territories from the blighting

curse of slavery. We gave that pledge at our birth, that we would save

those territories from the withering grasp of slavery, and we saved

them. [Voices. "Yes, we did."] It is our own work. We did it. [Cheers.]

But we did more than that; we not only saved your vast territories

from the blighting curse of slavery, but we wiped the accursed thing

from the continent of North America. [Tremendous cheering.] We pledged

ourselves to save your national life, and we saved your national

life. We pledged ourselves to save your national honor, and we saved

your national honor. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to give you a

homestead law, and we gave you a homestead law. [Applause.] We pledged

ourselves to improve your rivers and your harbors, and we improved your

rivers and your harbors. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to build

a Pacific railroad, and we built a Pacific railroad. [Applause.] We

pledged ourselves to give you a college land bill, and we gave it to

you; and, not to weary you, the last pledge ever given and the last to

be fulfilled was that the very moment we were able we would redeem the

obligations of this great government in the coin of the realm, and on

the first day of January, 1879, we fulfilled the last pledge ever given

by the Republican party. [Cheers and long-continued applause.]

Notwithstanding all this, you say: "Your mission is ended and you

ought to die." [Laughter and applause.] Well, my fellow-citizens, if

we should die to-day, or to-morrow, our children's children to the

twentieth generation would boast that their ancestors belonged to that

glorious old Republican party [applause] that wiped that accursed

thing, slavery, from the escutcheon of this great government. [Cheers.]

And they would have a right to boast throughout all generations.

Senator Ben. Hill of Georgia said, in my presence, that he was an

"ambassador" from the sovereign State of Georgia [laughter] to the

Senate of the United States. Suppose Ben. Hill should be caught in

Africa or India, or some of those Eastern nations, and should get

into a little difficulty, do you think he would raise the great flag

of Georgia over his head [laughter] and say: "That will protect me."

[Renewed laughter and applause.] My fellow-citizens, you may take the

biggest ship that sails the ocean, put on board of her the flags of all

the States that were lately in the rebellion against this government,

raise to her peak the stars and bars of the rebellion, start her with

all her bunting floating to the breeze, sail her around the world, and

you would not get a salute of one popgun from any fort on earth. [Loud

and continued laughter and applause.] Take the smallest ship that sails

the ocean, mark her "U. S. A."--United States of America--raise to her

peak the Stars and Stripes, and sail her around the world, and there

is not a fort or a ship-of-war of any nation on God's footstool that

would not receive her with a national salute. [Cheers.] And yet the

Republican party has done all this. We took your government when it was

despised among the nations, and we have raised it to this high point of

honor; and yet you tell us we ought to die. [Laughter and applause.]

Suppose there was a manufacturing concern here that failed about the

year 1837, and the citizens of Chicago thought it very important that

it be reorganized and resume business. You would buy the property for

fifty cents on the dollar and reorganize it under your general laws,

elect officers, and look about for a competent man to manage it.

Finally you find what you believe to be the very man for that business

and put him in possession. He finds that the machinery is not up to

the progress of the age, and goes and buys new. He brings order out of

confusion, he manages the business so that the stock of the concern

rises to par; dividends are paid semi-annually and they grow larger

and larger. The stock rises to two hundred, and none for sale. After

eighteen years of successful management the manager comes in with his

account-current and his check for the half-yearly dividend, and lays it

before the president and the directors. The president has had a little

conversation with his directors, and says:

"This statement is very satisfactory, but we have concluded that after

the first day of July next we shall not require your services any

longer."

"Why," says the manager, "what have I done?"

"Nothing that is not praiseworthy. We will give you a certificate

that we think you have managed this establishment with great ability

and great success. We will certify that we think you have no equal in

the city of Chicago or State of Illinois. Everything you have done

is praiseworthy, and we give you full credit for it; but eighteen

years ago one of our employes was caught stealing and sent to the

penitentiary. He has now served his time out, and we propose to put him

in your place." [Prolonged laughter and cheers.] Wouldn't you say that

the president and all of the directors should be put into a lunatic

asylum on suspicion at once? [Applause and laughter.]

Now, I tell you, Mr. Chairman, the mission of the Republican party is

not ended. [Cheers.] I tell you, furthermore, Mr. Chairman, that it has

just begun. [Cheers.] I tell you, furthermore, that it will never end

until you and I can start from the Canada border, travel to the Gulf of

Mexico, make black Republican speeches wherever we please [applause],

vote the black Republican ticket wherever we gain a residence [cheers],

and do it with exactly the same safety that a rebel can travel

throughout the North, stop wherever he has a mind to, and run for judge

in any city he chooses.

[This hit at the Democratic candidate for judge of the Cook County

Superior Court, who was a rebel soldier during the war, set the

audience wild, and they cheered and swung their hats and handkerchiefs

frantically.]

I hope after you have elected him judge he won't bring you in a bill

for loss of time. [Laughter.]

You are going to hold an election next Tuesday which is of importance

far beyond the borders of Chicago. The eyes of the whole nation

are upon you. By your verdict next Tuesday you are to send forth

greeting to the people of the United States, saying, that either

you are in favor of honest men, honest money, patriotism, and a

National Government [cheers], or that you are in favor of soft money,

repudiation, and rebel rule. [Cheers.] It is a good symptom, Mr.

Chairman, to see 600 young men like you in line, prepared to carry the

flag of the Republican party forward to victory. [Cheers.] It is a good

symptom to see 600 young men like my friend, the chairman here, in the

front ranks, ready to fight the battles of their country now, and vote

as they shot during the war. [Cheers.]

Now, I want every single man in this vast audience to consider himself

a committee of one to work from now until the polls close on Tuesday

next. [Cheers.] Find a man who might stay away, who has gone away

and might not return; secure one man besides yourself to go to the

polls and vote the Republican ticket; and if you cannot find such a

man, try to convert a sinner from the error of his way. [Applause.]

You have got too much at stake to risk it at this election. The times

are too good. Iron brings too much. Lumber is too high. Your business

is too prosperous. Your manufactories are making too much money for

you to afford to turn this great government over to the hands of

repudiating rebels. You cannot do it. Shut up your stores. Shut up your

manufactories. Go to work for your country, and spend two days, and on

the night of election, Mr. Chairman, send me a dispatch, if you please,

that Chicago has gone overwhelmingly Republican. [Loud cheers.]

THE DORIC PILLAR OF MICHIGAN.

A MEMORIAL ADDRESS,

DELIVERED IN THE FORT STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, DETROIT, MICH.,

THURSDAY MORNING, NOV. 27, 1879,

BY

THE REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D. D.

"There were giants in the earth in those days," is the simple record of

the age before the flood.

There has been no age without its giants; not, perhaps, in the narrow

sense of great physical stature, but in the broader sense of mental

might, capacity to command and control. Such men are but few, in

the most favored times, and it takes but few to give shape to human

history and destiny. Their words shake the world; their deeds move and

mold humanity; and, as Carlyle has suggested, history is but their

lengthened shadows, the indefinite prolonging of their influence even

after they are dead.

One of these giants has recently fallen, at the commanding signal

of One who is far greater than any of the sons of men, and at whose

touch kings drop their sceptre, and, like the meanest of their slaves,

crumble to dust.

This giant fell among us. We had seen him as he grew to his great

stature and rose to his throne of power. He moved in our streets; he

spoke in our halls; in our city of the living was his earthly home,

and in our city of the dead is his place of rest. He went from us

to the nation's capital, to represent our State in the Senate of

the republic; he belonged to Michigan, and Michigan gave him to the

Union; but he never forgot the home of his manhood. Here his dearest

interests clustered, and his deepest affections gathered; and here his

most loving memorial will be reared. As he belonged peculiarly to this

congregation, surely it is our privilege to weave the first wreath to

garland his memory.

The annual Day of Thanksgiving is peculiarly a national day, since

it is the only one in the year when the whole nation is called upon

by its chief magistrate to give thanks as a united people. By common

consent, it is admitted proper that, on that day, special mention be

made of matters that affect our civil and political well-being. There

is therefore an eminent fitness in a formal commemoration upon this day

of the life and labors of our departed Senator and statesman.

With diffidence I attempt the task that falls to me. The time is too

short to admit even a brief sketch of a life so long in deeds, so

eventful in all that makes material for biography; a life full, not

only of incidents, but of crises; moreover, I am neither a senator nor

a statesman, and feel incompetent to review a career which only the

keen eye of one versed in affairs of state can apprehend or appreciate

in its full significance; but, if you will indulge me, I will,

without conscious partiality or partisanship, calmly give utterance

to the unspoken verdict of the common people as to our departed

fellow-citizen; and try to hint at least a few of the lessons of a life

that suggests some of the secrets of success.

History is the most profitable of all studies, and biography is the key

of history. In the lives of men, philosophy teaches us by examples. In

the analysis of character, we detect the essential elements of success

and discern the causes of failure. Virtue and vice impress us most in

concrete forms; and hence even the best of all books enshrines as its

priceless jewel the story of the only perfect life.

To draw even the profile of Mr. Chandler's public career the proper

limits of this address do not allow. There is material, in the twenty

years of his senatorial life, which could be spread through volumes.

His advocacy of the great Northwest, whose champion he was; his

master-influence, first as a member, and then as the chairman of the

Committee of Commerce; his bold, keen dissection of the Harper's Ferry

panic; his sagacious organization of the presidential contests; his

plain declarations of loyalty to the Union as something which must be

maintained at cost both of treasure and of blood; his large practical

faculty for administration, made so conspicuous during stormy times;

his efficiency as a member of the standing Committee on the Conduct of

the War; his exposure of those who were responsible for its failures,

and his defense of those who promoted its successes, his marked

influence in changing not only the channel of public sentiment, but

the current of events; his watchful guardianship of popular interests,

political and financial; his intelligence and activity in senatorial

debates; his attentive and persistent study of the problem of

reconstruction; and his fearless resistance to all Southern aggression

and intimidation, are among the salient points of that long and

eventful public service, whose scope is too wide to allow at this hour

even a hasty survey.

But, happily, it is quite needless that in such a presence I should

trace in detail the events of his life; to us he was no stranger; and

the mark he has made upon our memory and our history is too deep not

to last. His footprints are not left upon treacherous and shifting

quicksands; and no wave of oblivion is likely soon to wash them away.

Zachariah Chandler had nearly completed his sixty-sixth year; forty-six

years he had been a resident of the City of the Straits. New Hampshire

was the State of his nativity: Michigan was, in an emphatic sense,

the State of his adoption. In our city his first success was won in

mercantile pursuits, where also was the first field for the exhibition

of his energy, ability and integrity. Here, as this century passed

its meridian hour, he passed the great turning-point in his career;

and his large capacities and energies were diverted into a political

channel. First, Mayor of the city, then nominated for Governor; when,

more than twenty years ago, a successor was sought for Lewis Cass in

the Senate, this already marked man became the first representative of

the Republican party of this State in that august body at Washington.

There, for a period of eighteen years, he sat among the mightiest men

of the nation, steadily moving toward the acknowledged leadership of

his party, and the inevitable command of public affairs. After three

terms in the Senate, his seat was occupied for a short time by another;

but, upon the resignation of Mr. Christiancy, he was, with no little

enthusiasm, re-elected, and was in the midst of a fourth term, when

suddenly he was no more numbered among the living. It may be doubled

whether, at this time, any one man, from Maine to Mexico, swayed the

popular mind and will with a more potent sceptre than did he; and many

confidently believe and affirm that, had death spared him, he would

have been lifted by the omnipotent voice and vote of the people to the

Presidency of the Republic.

Mr. Chandler took his seat in the Senate in those days of strife when

the storm was gathering, which, on the memorable 12th of April, 1861,

burst upon our heads, in the first gun fired at Fort Sumter. He entered

the Senate chamber, to take the oath of office, in company with some

whose names are now either famous or infamous for all time. On the one

hand, there was Jefferson Davis; on the other Hannibal Hamlin, Charles

Sumner, Benjamin F. Wade and Simon Cameron.

Those were days when history is made fast. Every day throbbed with

big issues. Kansas was a battle-ground of freedom; and the awful

struggle between State Sovereignty and National Unity was gathering,

like a volcano, for its terrible outbreak. The Republican Senator from

Michigan took in, at a glance, the situation of affairs. Devoted as

he was to the State, whose able advocate and zealous friend he was;

earnest and persistent as he was, in promoting the commercial and

industrial interests of the lake region; he was yet too much a patriot

to forget the whole country; and as the great conflict, which Mr.

Seward named "irrepressible," moved steadily on toward its crisis, he

armed himself for the encounter and planted his feet upon the rock of

unalterable allegiance to the Union; and from that position he never

swerved.

Mr. Chandler was a zealous party-man; in the eyes of some he was a

partisan, in the strenuous advocacy of some measures; but I believe

that when history frames her ultimate, impartial verdict, she will

accord to him a candid, conscientious adherence to what he believed

to be a fundamental principle, absolutely essential to our national

life. He saw the South breathing hot hate toward the North, planning

and threatening to rend the Union asunder. To him it was not a question

simply of liberty and slavery, of sectional prejudice, of political

animosity; but a matter of life or of death. He saw the scimitar of

secession raised in the gigantic hand of war--but what was it that it

was proposed to cleave in twain at one blow? A living, vital form!

the body of a nation, with its one grand framework, its common brain

and heart, its network of arteries and veins and nerves. It was not

dissection as of a corpse--it was vivisection as of a corpus--that

sharp blade, if it fell, would cut through a living form, and leave

two quivering, bleeding parts, instead. Divide the nation? Why, the

same mountain ranges run down our eastern and western shores; the same

great rivers, which are the arteries of our commerce, flow through both

sections. Our republic is a unit by the decree of nature, that marked

our nation's area and arena by the lines of territorial unity, a unit

by the decree of history that records one series of common experiences;

and, aside from the decree of nature and of history, it is one by the

decree of necessity, for we could not survive the separation. Those

were the decisive days, and they showed whose heart was yearning toward

the child; and God said, as he saw a unanimous North pleading with Him

to arrest the falling sword and spare the living body of a nation's

life--"Give her the child, for she is the mother thereof!"

Mr. Chandler has been charged with violent and even vindictive feeling

toward what he deemed disloyalty and treason.

You have heard the story of the Russians, chased by a hungry pack of

wolves, driving at the height of speed over the crisp snow, finding

the beasts of prey gaining fast upon them, and throwing out one living

child after another to appease the maw of wolfish hunger, while the

rest of the family hurried on toward safety.

There are sagacious statesmen that have declared, for a quarter of

a century, that State Rights represents the pack of wolves and the

Sovereignty of the Union the imperilled household. For scores of years,

the encroachments of the South became more and more imperious and

alarming.

Concession after concession was made, offering after offering flung to

the sacrifice, but only to be followed by a hungrier clamor and demand

for more; and, at last, even men of peace said, "We must stop right

here and fight these wolves;" and, when it becomes a question of life

and death, men become desperate.

I have never supposed myself to be a strong partisan. As a man, a

citizen, and a Christian, I have sought to find the true political

faith, and, finding it, to hold it, firmly and fearlessly. The question

of the unity of our nation and the sovereignty of the national

government has ever seemed to me to be of supreme moment, transcending

all mere political or party issues; and, as a patriot, I cannot be

indifferent to it.

When the long struggle between State Rights and National Sovereignty

grew hot and broke out into civil war, it was a matter of tremendous

consequence that the Union be preserved. History stood pointing, with

solemn finger, to the fate of the republics of Greece and Switzerland,

reminding us that confederation alone will not suffice to keep a nation

alive. Mexico, at our borders, was a warning against dismemberment

or the loss of the supremacy of a republican unity. And men of all

parties forgot party issues in patriotic devotion. It may be a question

whether State Sovereignty, however fatal to national life, deserved

the hideous name of treason, before the war. But, after the matter had

been referred to the arbitrament of the sword, and had been settled at

such cost of blood and treasure, it can never henceforth be anything

but treason, again to raise that issue. Hence, even men that were

temperate in their opposition to Southern aggressions before the war,

now are impatient. They set their teeth with the resolution of despair,

and say, "We make no further effort to escape this issue, and we throw

out no more offerings of concession. We shall fight these wolves; and

either State Rights or National Sovereignty shall die."

This was Mr. Chandler's position; if it was a mistaken one, it is the

unspoken verdict of millions of the best men of all parties in the

whole country; and every new concession to this great national heresy

is only making new converts to the necessity of a firm and fearless

resistance.

Some one has suggested that the old division of the church into

militant and triumphant is no longer sufficient; we must add another,

namely, the church termagant. In our country both sections were

militant, and one was triumphant; the other has been very termagant

ever since. General Grant, at his reception in Chicago, declared that

the war for the Union had put the republic on a new footing abroad. A

quarter of a century ago, by political leaders across the sea, "it was

believed we had no nation. It was merely a confederation of States,

tied together by a rope of sand, and would give way upon the slightest

friction. They have found it was a grand mistake. They know we have

now a nation, that we are a nation of strong and intelligent and brave

people, capable of judging and knowing our rights, and determined on

all occasions to maintain them against either domestic or foreign foes;

and that is the reception you, as a nation, have received through me

while I was abroad."

On the same day we have a significant voice from the South, General

Toombs, in response to a suggestion that Governors of various States

and prominent Southern men should unite in congratulations to the

ex-President on his return, telegraphs in these words: "I decline to

answer except to say, I present my personal congratulations to General

Grant on his safe return to his country. He fought for his country

honorably and won. I fought for mine and lost. I am ready to try it

over! Death to the Union!"

Here we have simply two representative utterances; one is the voice

of a solid North; the other is, we fear, the voice of a South that

is much more "solid" than we could wish. It is no marvel if, after a

war of so many years, that cost so many lives and so much money, and

left us to drag through ten years of a financial slough, loyal men are

impatient and even angry, when they discover that the question is still

an unsettled one, and that we have not even conquered a peace! Even

the interpretation now attached to this seditious utterance by General

Toombs himself, that "the result of war was death to the Union, and

that the present government is a consolidated one, not a confederacy,"

does not essentially relieve the matter.

Mr. Chandler could not brook what he regarded as sentiments rendered

doubly treasonable by the fact that a long, bitter but successful war

had burned upon them with a hot iron the brand of treason. He fought

those sentiments, and it was as under a black flag that announced "no

quarter." But this does not prove malicious or vindictive feeling

toward misguided men who hold such views. There is a difference between

fighting a principle and fighting a person. In fact the only way to

prevent fighting men is often a vigorous and timely opposition to

their measures. And if we wish to avoid another war, and that a war of

extermination, the ballot must obviate the necessity for the bullet: we

must stand together, and by our voice and vote, by tongue and pen, by

our laws and our acts, in the use of every keen weapon, exterminate the

heresy of State Rights. We need not do this in hate toward the South:

a true love even for the South demands it, for to them as to us it is

a deadly foe to all true prosperity and national existence. How can a

man who candidly looks upon the present attitude of the South as both

suicidal and nationally destructive be calm and cool? The philippics of

Demosthenes were bitter, but they were the mighty beatings of a heart

that pulsed with the patriotism that could not see liberty throttled

without sounding a loud and indignant alarm. The North owes a big debt

to every man who at this crisis will not suffer an imperilled republic

to sleep.

Mr. Chandler was not a college graduate. His early training was got in

the New England common school and academy. Yet he was in a true sense

an educated man: for education is "not a dead mass of accumulations,"

but self-development, "power to work with the brain," to use the hand

in cunning and curious industries, to use the tongue in attractive and

effective speech, to use the pen in wise, witty or weighty paragraphs.

Somehow he had learned to hold, with a master hand, the reins of his

own mind, and make his imagination and reason and memory and powers of

speech obey his behests. That is no common acquirement: it is something

beyond all mere acquirement; it is the infallible sign and seal of

culture. His addresses, even on critical occasions, were unwritten,

and, in some cases, could not have been elaborated, even in the mind;

yet in vigor of thought, logical continuity and consistency, accuracy

of diction, and even rhetorical grace, few public speakers equal them.

The power to command the popular ear is a rare power, whether it be a

gift of nature or a grace of culture. With Mr. Chandler it was held

and wielded as a native sceptre. He had the secret of rhetorical

adaptation; he could at once go down to the level of the people and

yet lift them to his level. They understood what he said and knew what

he meant. He threw himself into their modes of thought and habits of

speech; he culled his illustrations mainly from common life. If he

sacrificed anything, it was rhetorical elegance, never force; his one

aim was to compel conviction.

The simplicity of his diction was a prime element and secret of his

power. He did not speak as one who had to say something, but as one

who had something to say, and whose whole aim was to say it well; with

clearness, plainness, force and effect. If he could not have both

weight and lustre, he would have weight.

Walter Scott has exposed the absurdity of "writing down" to children,

and shown that it is really writing up, to make oneself so simple as

to be plain even to the child-mind. Simplicity is the highest art. To

have thought faintly gloom and glimmer through obscure language, like

stars through a haze or mist, may serve to impress the ignorant with a

supposed profundity in the speaker; but it is no more a sign of such

profundity than muddy water signifies depth in a stream; it may suggest

depth because you can see no bottom, but it means shallowness! It is

a lesson that all of us may learn through the life of our departed

Senator, that the first element of good speaking is thought; and the

second a form of words fitting the thought, which, like true dress,

shall not call attention to itself but to the idea or conception which

it clothes. Any man who is long to hold the ear of the people must

give them facts and thoughts worth knowing and thinking of, in words

which it will not take a walking dictionary or living encyclopædia

to interpret, or a philosopher to untangle from the skein of their

confusion.

Mr. Chandler was such a man, a man for the people. Free from all

stately airs and stilted dignities, he took hold of every political

and national question with ungloved hands. He understood and used the

language of home life, which is the "universal dialect" of power. His

speeches were packed with vigorous Saxon. He thought more of the short

sword, with its sharp edge and keen point and close thrust, than of

the scholar's labored latinity, with its longer blade, even though it

might also have a diamond-decked hilt; and in this, as in not a few

other conspicuous traits, he was master of the best secrets that gave

the great Irish agitator, O'Connell, his strange power of moving the

multitude. His last speech, even when read, and without the magnetism

of his personal presence, may well stand as the last of his utterances.

The simplicity of Mr. Chandler's style of oratory amounted to

ruggedness, in the sense in which we apply that word to the naked

naturalness of a landscape, whose features have not been too much

modified by art. There is in oratory an excessive polish, which

suggests coldness and deadness. Some speakers sharpen the blade until

there is no blade left, the mistaken carefulness of their culture

brings everything to one dead level of faultlessness; there is nothing

to offend, and nothing to rouse and move. Demosthenes said that

kinésis--not "action," but motion, or rather that which moves--is the

first, second, third requisite of true oratory. He is no true speaker

who simply pleases you: he must stir you to new thought, new choice,

new action.

We must beware of the polish that is a loss of power, and, like a

lapidary, not grind off points, but grind into points. Demosthenes was

more rugged than Cicero; but he pricked men more with the point of his

oratorical goad. Men heard the silver-tongued Roman and said, "How

pleasantly he speaks!" They heard the bold Athenian and shouted, "Let

us go and fight Philip!"

Carlyle says, "He is God's anointed king whose simple word can melt a

million wills into his!" That melting wills into his own is the test of

eloquence in the orator; and a rugged simplicity has held men in the

very fire of the orator's ardor and fervor, till they were at white

heat, and could be shaped at will; while the most scholarly display of

culture often leaves them unmoved, to gape and stare with wonder, as

before the splendors of the Aurora Borealis, and feel as little real

warmth. Emerson is right: "There is no true eloquence unless there is a

man behind the speech," and men care not what the speech is if the man

be not behind it, or, on the other hand, what the speech is, if the man

be behind it! And so it is that Richard Cobden compelled even Robert

Peel, who loved truth and candor, to become a convert to his free-trade

opinions; and so it was that John Bright, another model of a simple

utterance with a sincere man behind it, swayed such a mighty sceptre

over the people of Britain. The mere declaimer or demagogue may win a

temporary hearing; but the man who leaves a lasting impress on the mind

of the people must have in himself some real worth.

To Mr. Chandler's executive ability reference has been made. It

was never better illustrated than in his vigorous and faithful

administration as Secretary of the Interior. It was Hercules in the

Augean stables again--purging the department of incompetency and

dishonesty. He sent a flood through the Patent Office, that swept all

the clerks out of one room; and another through the Indian Bureau,

that cleaned out its abuses and exposed its frauds. It is said that

the reconstruction of that department saved millions annually to the

treasury of the nation. Mr. Schurz, in becoming his successor, paid

a very handsome tribute to the retiring Secretary, acknowledging the

great debt of the country to Mr. Chandler's energy and fidelity, and

modestly declaring that he could hope for no higher success than to

keep and leave the department where he found it.

If there be any one thing for which the Senator from Michigan stood

above most men it was in this practical business ability. He had, in

rare union, "talent" and "tact." His good sense, clear views, ready

and retentive memory, prompt decision, patience and perseverance, quick

discernment and instinctive perception of the fitness of ways to ends,

qualified him for energetic and successful administration anywhere.

Webster said, "There is always room at the top." Even the pyramid waits

for the capstone, which must be, itself, a little pyramid. And he who

has inborn or inbred fitness for the top place will find his way there;

no other will long stay there, even if some accident lifts him to the

nominal occupancy of such a position.

He had rare tact, that indefinable quality of which Ross says, that

"it is the most exquisite thing in man." Literally it means "touch,"

and is suggested by the delicacy often found in that mysterious sense.

It describes, though it cannot define, the nice, skillful, innate

discernment and discrimination which tells one what to say and do, even

on critical occasions; how to reach and "touch" men, when a blunder

would be fatal. This wisdom of instinct may be cultivated but cannot be

acquired; and it seems to be close of kin with that common sense which,

though by no means exceedingly "common," represents a sound intuitive

sense in common matters, such as would be the common sense or verdict

of wise and sagacious minds.

The Senator impressed men as one whose powers were varied and

versatile. Thomas F. Marshall, the "Kentucky orator," maintained that

fine speaking, writing and conversation depend on a different order of

gifts. "A speech cannot be reported, nor an essay spoken. Fox wrote

speeches; nobody reads them. Sir James Mackintosh spoke essays; nobody

listened. Yet England crowded to hear Fox, and reads Mackintosh. Lord

Bolingbroke excelled in all, the ablest orator, finest writer, most

elegant drawing-room gentleman in England."

Whether or not this philosophy be sound and this estimate correct, we

shall all agree that few men combine power of speech with force in

composition and grace in conversation. Our departed Senator certainly

had more than the common share of versatility. That last speech at

Chicago thrilled a vast audience when spoken, and kindled a flaming

enthusiasm; yet it reads like the compact and complete sentences of the

essayist.

Versatility, however, is not to be coveted where it implies a lack of

concentration. An anonymous writer has left us a very discriminating

comparison of two great British statesmen. He likens Canning's mind to

a convex speculum which scattered its rays of light upon all objects;

while he likens Brougham's to a concave speculum which concentrated the

rays upon one central, burning, focal point. There are some men who

possess, to a considerable degree, both the power to scatter and the

power to gather the rays. At times they exhibit varied and versatile

ability, they touch delicately and skillfully many different themes or

departments of thought and action; but when crises arise which demand

the whole man, they become in the best sense men of one idea, for one

thought fills and fires the soul; every power is concentrated in one

burning purpose.

The Senator, whose deserved garland we are weaving, was one of these

men. There were times when he seemed to turn his hand with equal

ease to a score of employments; now giving wise counsel in gravest

matters, now playfully entertaining guests at his table; now studying

the deep philosophy of political economy, now holding a Senate in

rapt attention; now reorganizing a department of state; now pushing

a new measure through Congress; now closeted with the President over

the issues of a colossal campaign, and again conducting a pleasure

excursion; to-day leading on the hosts of a great party, and to-morrow

managing the affairs of an extensive farm. But, when the destiny of

the nation hung in the balance, or history waited with uplifted pen to

record on her eternal scroll the final decision of some great question,

he gathered and condensed into absolute unity all the powers of mind

and heart and will, and flung the combined weight of his whole manhood

into the trembling scale. When he felt that a thing must be, a mountain

was no obstacle to surmount, a host of foes no occasion for dismay.

With intensity of conviction, with contagious courage and enthusiasm,

with indomitable resolution, with tireless energy of action, he

went ahead, and weaker men had to follow; his conviction persuaded

the hesitating, his courage emboldened the timid, his determination

inspired the irresolute. He was the unit that, in the leading place,

makes even the cyphers swell the sum of power.

It is no slight praise of Mr. Chandler to say that he was a man of

industry; the results he reached were won by work. There is a great

deal of blind talk about genius. That there is such a thing, apart

from the practical faculty of application, even great men have doubted

or boldly denied; but certain it is that there is such a thing as

the genius of industry, and that rules the world! Alexander Hamilton

disclaimed any other genius than the profound study of a subject. He

kept before him a theme which he meant to master, till he explored it

in all its bearings and his mind was filled with it. Then, to quote

his words, "the effort which I make the people are pleased to call the

fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."

And so for us all there is no royal road to a true success. We must

simply plod on, along the plain, hard, plebeian path of honest toil,

and climb up the hills, if we would get on and up at all. Spinoza

grandly says that that there is no foe or barrier to progress like

"self-conceit and the laziness which self-conceit begets." We venture

to add that no conceit is surer to beget laziness than the conceit

of "conscious genius." Our peril is to learn to do our work easily;

that means poor work, if indeed any work at all, shallow acquirements,

superficial attainments, and no real scholarly or heroic achievements.

Our regretted Senator did not despise honest work, and never claimed

to be a genius. He had a hearty contempt for all that aristocracy of

intellect that frowns on mental toil.

He spoke without manuscript, and without memorizing; or, as we say,

"extempore." That is another much-abused word. Extemporaneous speech

is not the utterance of words that shake the world, or any considerable

part of it, unless such speech be the fruit not of that time, but,

as Dr. Shedd says, "of all time previous." But when the orator first

becomes master of his theme and then of the occasion, and is thus

fitted to deal with the real vital issues before the people, he may,

without having put pen to paper, or having framed a single sentence

beforehand, often find himself master also of his audience. The careful

study of his subject, the habit of thinking in words, and of weighing

words when he reads and talks, scoops out a channel in the mind; and

when he rises to speak he finds his thought flowing naturally and

easily in this channel.

No man can carefully read Mr. Chandler's public utterances without

detecting a brevity and terseness, a simplicity and plainness, an

accuracy and vigor, and often a rhetorical beauty, which shew care in

preparation. These qualities are not the offspring of indolence. Years

of drill lie back of the exact and daring touches with which the artist

makes the canvas speak and the marble breathe; and the extempore speech

of the eloquent orator tells of long, hard discipline that has taught

him how to think and how to talk; it may have taken him fifty years to

learn how to hold and sway an audience at will for fifty minutes. The

ease and grace of true oratory are the signs of previous exertion; of

that systematic exercise of the intellect that has suggested for our

training schools the name, gymnasia. The laws of brain and of brawn do

not differ much in this respect. Men are not born athletes, either in

mind or muscle; and to all who have a true desire to succeed, in any

sphere of life, the one voice that, with the growing emphasis of the

successive centuries, speaks to us, is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth

to do, do it with thy might." Your sword may be short; "add a step to

it!" it may be dull; add force to the blow or the thrust. There is no

encouragement from history, more universally to be appropriated by

us, than the testimony she furnishes to the power and value of honest

endeavor. To will and to work is to win. The highest endowments assure

no achievements; all success is the crown of patient toil!

While thus speaking a word in favor of hard work, one word of caution

and of qualification may not be out of place. I think God means that

the sudden decease of public men when in life's prime, shall not be

without warning. No thoughtful man fails to feel the force of this

fact that somehow the average duration of human life, especially on

these shores and among men of mark, is shortening; and that apoplexy,

paralysis, angina pectoris, cerebral hemorrhage, and softening of the

brain are amazingly common among brain-workers. The fatality among

journalists is especially startling.

We are a fast-living and a fast-dying people. Our habits are bad. We

work hard half the time and worry the other half. We eat and sleep

irregularly; we tax our powers unduly, keeping the bow bent until

the string snaps simply from constant tension, lack of relaxation.

We turn night into day, without restoring the balance by turning day

into night. We live in an atmosphere of excitement, and push on to

the verge of death before we know our peril or realize our risk. We

are tempted to put stimulus in the place of strength, that we may do,

under unnatural pressure, what we cannot do by nature's healthy powers.

Instead of repairing the engine, we crowd fuel into the boiler and get

up more steam; and, by and by, something breaks, or bursts, and the

machinery is a wreck.

I believe it is not hard work that kills us, so much as work under

wrong conditions. To do, with the aid of even mild stimulants, like tea

and coffee, not to say tobacco, opium, quinine, etc., what we cannot

do by the natural strength, is the worst kind of overwork; and yet our

public men are subject, to such strain, that they are almost driven to

such resorts. Where they ought to stop, and sleep and rest, they "key

up" with a kind of artificial strength, and get the habit of unnatural

wakefulness; and then wonder why they are victims of insomnia.

Professor Tyndall, one of the most tireless men of brain in our day,

says to the students of University College, London: "Take care of

your health! Imagine Hercules, as oarsman in a rotten boat; what can

he do there but, by the very force of his stroke, expedite the ruin

of his craft! Take care of the timbers of your boat!" And Dr. Beard

adds: "To work hard without overworking, to work without worrying, to

do just enough without doing too much--these are the great problems

of our future. Our earlier Franklin taught us to combine industry

with economy; our 'later Franklin' taught us to combine industry with

temperance; our future Franklin--if one should arise--must teach us how

to combine industry with the art of taking it easy."

The qualities that fitted Mr. Chandler for the conduct of affairs were,

however, not purely intellectual; they belonged in part to another and

a higher order, viz.: the emotions and affections.

He had great intensity of nature. Even his political opponents could

not doubt the positiveness of his conviction and the profoundness of

his sincerity; and here, as Carlyle justly says, must be found the

base blocks in the structure of all heroic character. It is no small

thing to be able to command even from an antagonist the concession and

confession of one's sincerity. Candor atones for a host of faults.

Men will, at the last, forgive anything else in a man who tries to be

true to his own convictions and to their interests. The utterances of

impulse and even of passion, stinging sarcasm and biting ridicule,

unjust charges and assaults, all are easy to pardon in one whose

sincerity and intensity of conviction betray him into too great heat;

men would rather be scorched or singed a little in the burning flame

of a passionate earnestness than freeze in the atmosphere of a human

iceberg--beneath whose rhetorical brilliance, they feel the chill of a

cold, calculating insincerity and hypocrisy that upsets their faith in

human honesty.

He was also peculiarly independent and intrepid. The determination to

be loyal, both to his convictions and to his country, inspired him to a

bold, brave utterance and invested him with a courage and confidence

that were almost contagious. We cannot but admire the political

fidelity expressed by Burke, in his famous defense before the electors

of Bristol, when he said: "I obeyed the instructions of nature and

reason and conscience; I maintained your interests, as against your

convictions." Few men have ever dared to say and do what Mr. Chandler

has, in the face of such political risks and even such personal peril.

One brief address delivered by him in the Senate, soon after he resumed

his seat, will stand among the classics of our language, and, if I may

so say, among the "heroics" of our history.

He was also a man of great political integrity. In the long career of a

public life spanning more than a quarter of a century, no suspicion of

dishonesty or disloyalty has ever stained his character or reputation.

Michigan may safely challenge any Senatorial record of twenty years to

surpass his, either in the quantity or quality of public service.

Those who knew him best affirm that he was, politically and personally,

an incorruptible man. The position of a legislator is one of proverbial

peril. From the days of Pericles and Augustus till now, the men

who make laws and guide national affairs are peculiarly in danger

of defiling their consciences by "fear or favor." Bribery sits in

the vestibule of every law-making assembly. Greed holds out golden

opportunity for getting enormous profits from unlawful or questionable

schemes and investments. Ambition lifts her shining crown, and offers

a throne of commanding influence if you will bow down and worship,

or even make some slight concession in favor of, the devil. Only a

little elasticity of conscience, a little blunting of the moral sense;

a little falsehood, or perjury, or treachery, under polite names; a

lending of one's name to doubtful schemes; and there is a rich reward

in gains to the purse and gratifications to the pride, which more than

pay for the trifling loss of self-respect. And so not a few who go

to Congress with unsullied reputation, come back smutched with their

participation in "Credit Mobilier" and "Pacific Railroad" schemes, or

any one of the thousand forms of fraud.

So far as I know, Mr. Chandler has never been charged with complicity

as to dishonest and disgraceful measures such as have sometimes made

the very atmosphere of the Capitol a stench in the nostrils of the pure

and good. His name does not stand on the pay-roll of Satan, but with

the honored few whose eyes have never been blinded by a bribe and whose

record has never been blotted with political dishonor.

To have simply done one's duty is no mean victory. To stand--like the

anvil beneath the blows of the hammer--and firmly resist the force of

a repeated temptation is grand and heroic. To be venal is no venial

fault; no price which can be weighed in gold can pay a man for the sale

of one ounce of his manliness. Conscience is a Samson, whose locks are

easily shorn, but they never grow again; whose eyes, once put out or

seared with a hot iron, no prayer will restore. And men, as great and

wise as Bacon, have like him been compelled to confess to their own

meanness and the mercenary character of their virtue.

One of the worst signs of the times is this corruptibility of popular

leaders. One of the greatest of European journals moves like a

weather-vane, just as the day's wind blows. Much of the best talent of

Europe is for sale for or against despotism. Some of the most gifted

men in the House of Lords are of plebeian birth, bought by the bribe of

a title, as Harry Brougham himself was, when his great influence became

a terror to the aristocracy; and the Duke of Newcastle is said to have

bought one-third of the House of Commons. There is scarce a measure,

however infamous, that may not be pushed through our common councils

and legislative bodies if the lobbyists are only "influential and

numerous," and the money is only plenty enough. Let us give God thanks

for every man in the community who is not on the auction block to be

knocked down to the highest bidder. In these days of abounding fraud

and falsehood, men are beginning to feel the value of simple honesty.

We have, in our admiration of the genius of intellect, forgotten the

genius of goodness, which has power to inspire men with heroism. Better

to strengthen a few timid hearts in loyalty to principle than to have

deserved the encomium of Augustus, who "found Rome brick, and left

it marble." The Earl of Chatham refused to keep a million pounds of

government funds in the bank and pocket the proceeds; as Edmund Burke,

on becoming paymaster-general, first of all introduced a bill for the

reorganization of that department of public service, refusing to enrich

himself, through the emoluments of that lucrative office, at public

expense.

No wonder George the Second should have said of such "honesty" that it

is an "honor to human nature!" Such words were worthy of a king, but

it is only a crowned head bowing to royal natures that need no crown

to tell that they are kingly. The distinguished Hungarian exile will

never be forgiven for saying that he would praise anything and anybody

to aid Hungary. There is an instinct in the great heart of humanity

which not even wickedness kills, that no quality is so fundamental to

character as absolute loyalty to truth, it is the base-block of the

whole structure; and great has been many a "fall," where there is no

better foundation than the treacherous and shifting quicksands of what

is called "policy," and which is to many the only standard of honesty.

Mr. Chandler was known in politics as an enthusiastic and radical

advocate of his party and its measures. It was not in him to do

anything by halves, and it is difficult to see why one may not as

naturally be zealous in politics as in religion; in fact, none are

more likely to charge upon him partisanship than those who in their

attachment to the opposite party shew their own lack of moderation.

It has been well said that religion demands "a faith, a polity and a

party." The faith and the polity belong to it as necessary features;

the party is that on which it depends for organization and onward

movement. There is a philosophy, a political creed and economy, which

are to the state what religion is to the church; and no man can be a

patriot without a political faith and polity and party; though he may

stand alone, he represents all three. He may be in the largest sense a

patriot, and adopt the sublime motto of Demosthenes, "Not father, nor

mother, but dear native land!" yet his patriotism may compel him, us he

looks at the matter of his country's interest, to take a position on

the side of a political party, and to hold it in the face of ridicule

and reproach and even of a pelting hail of hate. Others may not be

wrong in their espousal of a different political creed, but he is not

wrong, but right, in his honest adherence to his. It is so in religion;

an honest, intelligent man is loyal to his own denomination, yet is

he none the less, because of that, a Christian in the breadth of his

charity.

In fact, religion is not the only sphere where self-sacrifice, for duty

and for conscience, may be pressed even to martyrdom. St. Ignatius,

facing the wild beasts in the arena, calmly said, "I am grain of God; I

must be ground between teeth of lions to make bread for God's people."

That was the grand confession of a Christian martyr. Tell me, how much

lower down in the scale of the heroic does he belong who, for the sake

of the best good of a constituency blinded by passion or prejudice,

like the great English statesman, consents to be hurled from his shrine

as the idol of the people, and calmly says, "I am under no obligation

to be popular, but I am under bonds to myself to be true!" When

Regulus refused to buy his own liberty and life, at the cost of Rome's

disgrace, and persuaded the Senate to reject the very overtures which

he was commissioned to convey, himself returning as his pledge required

him if the negotiations were unsuccessful, and surrendering himself to

the will of his enemies that Carthage might put him to death by slow

torture, it seems to me something like the martyr-spirit burned in that

bosom. And, if there be nothing akin to moral martyrdom in bravely

standing in one's place and boldly holding one's ground, advocating

what one believes to be the only true creed in politics, and the only

true policy for the country, in face of sneer and threat, daring the

blade and the bullet, the open affront and the secret assault, for the

sake of being true to one's self and to one's native land--if there

be nothing sublime and heroic in all this, the verdict of reason is

unsound.

This lamented statesman had also a genial temper, which won for him a

host of friends. Public men are prone to one of two extremes; either

the hypocritical suavity of the demagogue, or the arbitrary bluntness

and curtness of the despot. Some swing away from the fawning airs of

the puppy, but it is toward the repulsive manners of the bear. The man

who, as you tip your hat with a polite good morning, sweeps by, saying,

"I haven't time," is too often the typical man of affairs, who thinks

the quick dismission of applicants and intruders is the price of all

energetic public service. It is said of the great French statesman,

Richelieu, that he could say "No." so gracefully and winningly, that

a man once became applicant for a position, upon which he had not

the least claim, just to hear the great Cardinal refuse. If common

testimony may be trusted, Michigan's esteemed Senator seldom lost the

hearty cordiality and courtesy of his manners, even under the fretting

friction of public cares.

I am tempted to add that, though a representative Republican, Mr.

Chandler was, in the best sense, a democrat. He weighed a man according

to the worth of his manhood. He could recognize true manliness beneath

a black skin as well as a white one, and behind the rough dress of

a poor man, as behind broadcloth; and, because he was the friend of

humanity and of human rights, you will find some of his warmest friends

among the common people and in the lower ranks.

I think both justice and generosity demand that among the tributes

we weave for him, there should be distinct and emphatic mention of

this simplicity of character. He was a man among men. From the first,

he had none of those assumptions of conscious superiority that mark

the aristocrat. If anything, he was rather careless than careful of

his dignity, and would sooner shock than mock the fastidious airs

and tastes of those who prate about culture, or pride themselves on

their "nobility." Fox quaintly said, of the elder Pitt, that he "fell

up stairs" when he was elevated to the peerage. Many a man cannot

stand going up higher. He becomes haughty, proud; he affects dignity,

he lords it over God's heritage, he becomes too big with conscious

superiority. Like Jeshurun, he waxes fat and kicks. He falls up stairs,

if not down.

The warm, soft, genial side of Mr. Chandler's nature was unveiled in

social life and most of all in the domestic circle. The play of his

smile, the roar of his laughter, the delicacy and tenderness of his

sympathy, his stalwart defense of those whom he loved, the childlike

traits that drew him to children and drew children to him, none

appreciate as do those who knew him best as friend, husband and father.

The man of public affairs, he could lay one hand firmly on the helm of

state, while with the other he fondly pressed his grandchildren to his

bosom, or playfully roused them to childish glee.

This aspect of his many-sided character makes his death an irreparable

loss to his own household. Even the great grief of a nation cannot

represent by its "extensity," the intensity of the more private sorrow

that secludes itself from the public eye. He was, to those whom he

specially loved, both a tower for strength, and a lover and friend for

comfort and sympathy. Those who were "at home" with him and especially

those who were the peculiar treasures of his heart, knew him as no

others could. Happy is the minister who forgets not his parish at

home--the church that is in his own house--and happy is the public man,

whose private life is not simply the revelation of the hard, coarse and

unattractive side of his character.

That is I am sure no ordinary occurrence, which has made forever

memorable the Calends of this November. Death, however frequent and

familiar by frequency, can never, to the thoughtful, be an event

of common magnitude; the exchange of worlds cannot be other than

a most august experience. But this death has about it colossal

proportions; it stands out and apart like a mountain in a landscape.

It is recognized as a calamity not only to a household, but to the

city, the State, the Nation; and it may be doubted whether, since

the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, any single announcement has so

startled the public mind and moved the popular heart as when on the

1st day of November it was announced that Zachariah Chandler was found

sleeping his last sleep.

Ulysses S. Grant is a man of few words--and like his shot and shell

they weigh a good deal and are well aimed. Let us hear his verdict on

Mr. Chandler:

"A nation, as well as the State of Michigan, mourns the loss of one

of her most brave, patriotic and truest citizens. Senator Chandler

was beloved by his associates and respected by those who disagreed

with his political views. The more closely I became connected with

him the more I appreciated his great merits.

U. S. GRANT.

"GALENA, Ill., Nov. 9, 1879."

It is evident that it is no ordinary man who has departed from among

us. It is not "a self-evident truth that all men are created equal,"

if we mean equality of gifts and graces, capacity, opportunity or even

responsibility; and the people of these United States do not need to be

told that Mr. Chandler was no common man. It was by no accident that he

held in succession, and filled with success, posts of such importance

and trusts of such magnitude. He did not drift into prominence; he

rose by sheer force of character and by the fitness of things. Born

to be a leader, endowed with those qualities that mark a man destined

to leadership, having rare business faculty, and sagacity, tact and

talent, large capacity for organization and administration, his hand

was naturally at the helm.

Mr. Chandler's leadership reached beyond and beneath the visible

conduct of affairs. As Moses was the inspiration, of which Aaron was

the expression, he was often the power behind the throne. He who has

now left us, forever, belonged to the illustrious few who were the

special counselors of Mr. Lincoln and the instigators of many of his

wisest and best measures. There is an inner history of the war which

has never been written and never will be. The lips that alone could

disclose those secrets are fast closing in eternal silence, and the

scroll will find no man worthy to loose its seals.

Mr. Chandler could not have been wholly ignorant of the risk he ran in

his laborious and prolonged campaign-work; but when his country seemed

in peril his tongue could not keep silence. Just before starting on his

last journey westward, he said to me: "In my judgment the crisis now

upon us is more important than any since Lee surrendered, and as grave

as any since Sumter was fired on." Those who knew him best will not be

surprised that, with such an impression of the magnitude of the issues

now before the American people, he could not spare himself, but gave

himself without reserve to his country, sacrificing his life itself on

the altar of his own patriotism.

And so our stalwart statesman has fallen, and we have a new lesson on

human mortality. Anaxagoras, when told that the Athenians had condemned

him to die, calmly added, "And nature, them!" All our riches, honors,

dignities cannot stay the steps of the great destroyer. The manliest

and mightiest leaders, and the humblest and meanest followers bow alike

to the awful mandate of death. And as Massilon said at the funeral of

the Grand Monarch, "God only is great!"

Of how little consequence after all are all the things that perish.

Temporal things derive all their true value from their connection with

the invisible and eternal. How small will all appear as they recede

into the dim distance at the dying hour and the world to come confronts

us with its awful decisions of destiny! What grandeur and glory are

imparted to our humblest sphere of service, here, when touched and

transformed by the power of an endless life!

We have reason to be glad that the popular recognition of Mr.

Chandler's abilities and services has been so prompt and hearty as to

afford him not a little satisfaction. Posthumous tributes are sometimes

melancholy memorials, reminding us of the monumental sepulchres of

martyr-prophets.

Robert Burns's mother said about his monument, as she bitterly

remembered how the poet of Ayr had been left to starve, "Ah, Robbie, ye

asked them for bread and they hae ge'en ye a stane!" It can never be

said that our departed Senator had to wait for another generation to

pronounce a just or generous verdict upon his career; the trophies of

victory and of popular esteem were strewn along the whole line of his

march; and his last tour of the Northwest was a perpetual ovation.

There is to my mind no little inspiration of comfort in the fact that

not even human malice can falsify history. Men sometimes get more

than their share of praise or of blame while they live; but sooner or

later the cloud of incense or the mist of prejudice clears away and

the real character is more plainly seen. We can afford to leave the

final verdict to another generation if need be, grateful as it is to be

appreciated by the generation which we seek to serve.

But it is still more inspiring to know that God rules this world, and

reigns over the affairs of men. If He marks the flight and the fall of

the sparrow, we may be sure that no man rises to the seat of power or

sinks to the grave without His permission.

God is not dead, and cannot die. Generations pass away while He remains

the same. His hand is on the helm, whatever human hand seems to have

hold, and is still there when the most trusted helmsman relaxes his

dying grasp. If God's hand is not in our history, all its records are

misleading, and all its course a mystery. Admit the divine factor,

and, from the strange unveiling of this hidden Western world until

this day, our national life appears like one colossal crystal; it has

unity, transparency and symmetry. We can understand Plymouth Rock, the

revolution, the French and Indian wars, the war of 1812, the great

rebellion, the Kansas problem and the California problem, the Indian

question and the Chinese question, Romanism and Communism, Eastern

conservatism and Western radicalism, the freedmen and the emigrant,

state rights and national sovereignty--all are the subordinate factors

whose harmonizing, reconciling, assimilating factor is the divine

purpose and plan in our history. My friends, the republic has a divine

destiny to fulfill. The Great Pilot is steering the ship of state for

her true haven. Scylla threatens on one side, Charbydis on the other;

but He knows the channel. The stormy Euroclydon may strike her, tear

her sails to tatters and snap her ropes like burnt tow, and splinter

her masts to fragments; but He holds the winds in his fists. Let us not

fear. We have only to love, trust and obey the God of our Fathers and

He will guide us safely and surely through all darkness and danger.

The sins that reproach our people are the only foes we have to fear;

the righteousness that exalts a nation the only ally we need to covet.

If the people of Michigan would rear a grand monument to the heroic

men who have adorned our history, let us be true to the principles

which they have defended, and to the God who gave them to us as His

instruments.

The DORIC PILLAR OF MICHIGAN has fallen; but the State stands, and

God can set another pillar in its place. There is stone in the

quarry--columns are taking shape to-day in our homes and schools and

churches; and in God's time they shall be raised to their place. Let us

only be sure that in the shrine of our nation God finds a throne, and

not the idols of this world, and not even the earthquake shock shall

shatter the symmetric structure of the Republic.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical

errors.

Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

Enclosed bold font in =equals=.

End of Project Gutenberg's Zachariah Chandler, by Detroit Post and Tribune