John Albion Andrew, the twenty-first Governor of Massachusetts, was
born, May 31, 1818, at Windham, a small town near Portland, Maine. His
father was Jonathan Andrew, who had established himself in Windham as a
small trader; his mother was Nancy Green Pierce, of New Hampshire, who
was a teacher in the celebrated academy at Fryeburg, where Daniel
Webster was once employed in the same capacity.
Jonathan is described as having been "a quiet, reticent man, of much
intelligence and a keen perception of the ludicrous," while his wife was
"well educated, with great sweetness of temper, and altogether highly
prepossessing in appearance." There never was a more united and happy
family. The father possessed ample means for their education, and left
his household to the good management of his wife, who was admirable in
her domestic arrangements, judicious, sensible, energetic, and a rigid
disciplinarian of her children. There was a rare union of gentleness and
force in this woman, which made her generally attractive, and especially
endeared her to all who came under the influence of her character.
Mrs. Andrew died on the 7th of March, 1832. Shortly afterwards the
husband sold out his property in Windham and removed to a farm in
Boxford, in the county where he was born. He died in September, 1849.
John Albion, the oldest son, entered Bowdoin College in 1833, where he
pursued a course in no way remarkable. He was a studious youth, applied
himself closely to his books, and appeared to take no lively interest in
athletic sports. Notwithstanding his studiousness, he was ranked among
the lowest of his class, and was allotted no part at Commencement. Among
his fellows he was, however, exceedingly popular, and his happy
temperament, his genial nature, won him friendship which after years
only made stronger and more enduring.
After his graduation the young man came to Boston and entered the office
of the late Henry H. Fuller, as a student of law. The attraction between
him and young Andrew was mutual, and they became almost like brothers.
It was while serving his novitiate under Mr. Fuller that Andrew became
interested in many of the reform movements of the day, and was as firm
and peculiar in one direction as his friend was in another.
Andrew rose slowly at the bar. To his clients he simply did his duty,
and that was all. He was not a learned lawyer, nor was he in any sense a
great lawyer, and yet he expended great care and industry in looking up
his cases, and probably never lost a client who had once employed him.
We are told by one of his biographers that, "during all these years he
was not what was called a student, but was never idle." He entered
largely into the moral questions of that day; was greatly interested in
the preaching of James Freeman Clarke; a constant attendant at meeting
and the Bible-classes. Occasional lay-preaching being the custom of that
church, young Andrew sometimes occupied the pulpit and conducted the
services to the general acceptance of the people.
Andrew did not become actively interested in politics until his
admission to the bar, and then he joined the Whig party, and became
thoroughly in earnest in advocating the Anti-Slavery movement. In 1859
he was chosen to the lower branch of the Legislature and at once took a
prominent position. In 1860 he was nominated for Governor of the
Commonwealth, by a general popular impulse which overwhelmed the old
political managers, who regarded him as an intruder upon the arena, and
had laid other plans. He was called to the position of chief magistrate
of Massachusetts at a most momentous time, but he was found equal to the
emergency, and early acquired, by general consent, the title of "The
Great War-Governor."
It was just on the eve of the Rebellion, and the whole North was excited
by the events which had already transpired. In his inaugural address in
January, '61, Governor Andrew advised that a portion of the militia
should be placed on a footing of activity, in order that, "in the
possible contingencies of the future the State might be ready without
inconvenient delay to contribute her share of force in any exigency of
public danger," and immediately despatched a confidential messenger to
the Governors of Maine and New Hampshire to inform them of his
determination to prepare for instant service the militia of
Massachusetts, and to invite their coöperation.
This is not the place nor the time to give even a _résumé_ of
Governor Andrew's administration. He retired from office at the close of
1865, after a service of unexampled interest and importance in the
history of the Commonwealth. He retired with honor to himself and to the
regret of all who had known him best. We have already alluded to
Governor Andrew's interest in the question of Anti-Slavery, and it
should be stated that in regard to the emancipation of the slaves he was
among the first, as he was the most persistent advocate of a measure
which he considered the greatest blow that could be struck at the enemy,
fully justified as a measure of war and demanded by every consideration
of justice and humanity.
Apropos of his impatience on this subject the following incident related
by one of the Governor's friends is worth recalling:--
"It was the summer of 1862, when emancipation was being talked a great
deal. We had not had any great successes, and everybody had a notion
that emancipation ought to come. One day the Governor sent for me to
come up to the State-House. I went up to his room, and I never shall
forget how I met him. He was signing some kind of bonds, standing at
a tall desk in the Council Chamber, in his shirt-sleeves, his fingers
all covered with ink. He said, 'How do you do? I want you to go to
Washington.'--'Why, Governor,' said I, 'I can't go to Washington
on any such notice as this; I am busy, and it is impossible for me
to go.'--'All my folks are serving their country,' said he; and he
mentioned the various services the members of his staff were engaged
in, and said with emphasis, 'Somebody must go to Washington.'--'Well,
Governor, I don't see how I can.' Said he, 'I command you to
go!'--'Well,' said I, 'Governor, put it in that way and I shall go,
of course.'--'There is something going on,' he remarked. 'This is a
momentous time.' He turned suddenly towards me and said, 'You believe in
prayer, don't you?' I said, 'Why, of course.'--'Then let us pray;' and
he knelt right down at the chair that was placed there; we both kneeled
down, and I never heard such a prayer in all my life. I never was so
near the throne of God, except when my mother died, as I was then. I
said to the Governor, 'I am profoundly impressed; and I will start this
afternoon for Washington.' I soon found out that emancipation was in
everybody's mouth, and when I got to Washington and called upon Sumner,
he began to talk emancipation. He asked me to go and see the President,
and tell him how the people of Boston and New England regarded it. I
went to the White House that evening and met the President. We first
talked about everything but emancipation, and finally he asked me what I
thought about emancipation. I told him what I thought about it, and said
that Governor Andrew was so far interested in it that I had no doubt
he had sent me on there to post the President in regard to what the
class of people I met in Boston and New York thought of it, and then
I repeated to him, as I had previously to Sumner, this prayer of the
Governor's, as well as I could remember it. The President said, 'When we
have the Governor of Massachusetts to send us troops in the way he has,
and when we have him to utter such prayers for us, I have no doubt that
we shall succeed.' In September the Governor sent for me. He had a
despatch that emancipation would be proclaimed, and it was done the next
day. You remember the President made proclamation in September to take
effect in January. Well, he and I were together alone again in the
Council Chamber. Said he, 'You remember when I wanted you to go on to
Washington?' I said, 'Yes, I remember it very well.'--'Well,' said he,
'I didn't know exactly what I wanted you to go for then. Now I will tell
you what let's do; you sing "Coronation," and I'll join with you.' So we
sang together the old tune, and also "Praise God from whom all blessings
flow." Then I sang "Old John Brown," he marching around the room and
joining in the chorus after each verse."
After the war had begun, Governor Andrew insisted on every measure to
defeat the Confederate armies that was consistent with the laws of war.
He was especially strenuous in demanding the emancipation of the slaves,
as the following quotation from a sketch by Mr. Albert G. Browne, Jr.,
the Governor's military secretary, will show:--
"Over the bodies of our soldiers who were killed at Baltimore he had
recorded a prayer that he might live to see the end of the war, and a
vow that, so long as he should govern Massachusetts, and so far as
Massachusetts could control the issue, it should not end without freeing
every slave in America. He believed, at the first, in the policy of
emancipation as a war measure. Finding that timid counsels controlled
the government at Washington, and the then commander of the Army of the
Potomac, so that there was no light in that quarter, he hailed the
action of Fremont in Missouri in proclaiming freedom to the Western
slaves. Through all the reverses which afterwards befell that officer he
never varied from this friendship; and when at last Fremont retired from
the Army of Virginia, the Governor offered him the command of a
Massachusetts regiment, and vainly urged him to take the field again
under our State flag. Just so, afterwards, he welcomed the similar
action of Hunter in South Carolina, and wrote in his defence the famous
letter in which he urged 'to fire at the enemy's magazine.' He was
deeply disappointed when the administration disavowed Hunter's act, for
he had hoped much from the personal friendship which was known to exist
between the General and the President. Soon followed the great reverses
of McClellan before Richmond.
"The feelings of the Governor at this time, on the subject of
emancipation, are well expressed in a speech which he made on Aug. 10,
1862, at the Methodist camp-meeting on Martha's Vineyard. It was the
same speech in which occurs his remark since so often quoted:--
"'I know not what record of sin awaits me in the other world, but this I
know, that I was never mean enough to despise any man because he was
black.'
"Referring to slavery, he said:--
"'I have never believed it to be possible that this controversy should
end and peace resume her sway until that dreadful iniquity has been
trodden beneath our feet. I believe it cannot, and I have noticed, my
friends (although I am not superstitious, I believe), that, from the day
our government turned its back on the proclamation of General Hunter,
the blessing of God has been withdrawn from our arms. We were marching
on conquering and to conquer; post after post had fallen before our
victorious arms; but since that day I have seen no such victories. But I
have seen no discouragement. I bate not one jot of hope. I believe that
God rules above, and that he will rule in the hearts of men, and that,
either with our aid or against it, he has determined to let the people
go. But the confidence I have in my own mind that the appointed hour has
nearly come makes me feel all the more confidence in the certain and
final triumph of our Union arms, because I do not believe that this
great investment of Providence is to be wasted.'"
[Illustration: GOV. ANDREW'S BIRTHPLACE]
Governor Andrew retired from office January 5, 1866, and, returning to
private life, he again entered upon a large practice at the bar, which
was lucrative as well.
On the 30th of October, 1867, he died suddenly of apoplexy, after tea,
at his own home on Charles street, Boston. The body was laid in Mount
Auburn Cemetery, but was afterwards removed to the old burial-place in
Hingham, where a fine statue has since been erected over his grave.
Governor Andrew was married Christmas evening, December, 1848,
to Miss Eliza Jane, daughter of Charles Hersey, of Hingham. They had
four children living at the time of his death,--John Forrester, born Nov.
26, 1850; Elizabeth Loring, born July 29, 1852; Edith, born April 5,
1854; Henry Hersey, born April 28, 1858.
Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, who was first chosen as the most competent person
to write the biography of Governor Andrew, after examining the
Governor's private and official correspondence, affirmed that he could
discover nothing in his most private notes which was not honorable.
[Illustration: BURIAL-PLACE AND MONUMENT, HINGHAM, MASS.]
Says Mr. Peleg W. Chandler, in his "Memoir and Reminiscences of Governor
Andrew,"[1] a most charming volume, from which largely this sketch has
been prepared:--
"He passed more than twenty years in an arduous profession, and never
earned more than enough for the decent and comfortable support of his
family. He devoted his best years to the country, and lost his life in
her service. His highest ambition was to do his duty in simple faith and
honest endeavor, of such a character the well-known lines of Sir Henry
Watton are eminently applicable:--
"This man was free from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet had all."
[Footnote 1: Published by Roberts Brothers, Boston.]
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