Mr. Giddings: “No, sir; I stand upon the record. I have the record

before me, and the gentleman must contradict that before he contradicts

me. I read from the Congressional Globe. ‘The House had now’ says the

record, ‘reached the contingency contemplated in the proposition of

Mr. Stanton. It had exhausted the three votings therein provided for,

without a result, and had arrived at that point where, in fulfillment

of an agreement entered into between the two parties, a Speaker was

to be elected by a plurality vote.’ Here, sir, stands the record. Now

we stand precisely where we then stood. I do not know the number of

times that we, on this side of the House, have endeavored to follow

this established precedent that was then adopted. It was adopted by

gentlemen on the other side of the House, and under it the gentleman

from Georgia (Mr. Cobb) himself was exalted to that chair. The

Republican party stands ready to carry out that precedent now. The

Republicans stand upon the great principle which was avowed by both of

the great parties, Whigs and Democrats.”

Mr. Cobb: “I corrected the gentleman in a statement of fact. I rise

now for the purpose of putting that statement correctly before the

country in connection with his remarks. He stated that the Democratic

party had in 1849 adopted the plurality resolution in caucus. The truth

is simply this: the plurality rule was adopted in caucus by the Whig

party. When it was reported by the Committee of Conference of the two

parties to the Democratic caucus, it was rejected there by a decided

majority. And, if he desires to stand by the record, there was no man

on the floor more violent or more denunciatory of the operation of the

plurality rule than the gentleman from Ohio. My recollection is that

he offered a substitute for it, which declared that it was wrong in

principle, dangerous in its tendency, and ought not to be adopted.”

Mr. Giddings: “I only repeat what was said by a leading member of the

Democratic party, the Hon. Mr. Stanton, of Tennessee, on this floor,

and in the presence of the gentleman from Georgia, and his party in

this House. That gentleman sat silently in his seat when Mr. Stanton

declared the plurality rule to have been agreed to by the Committee,

and he did not deny it; no member of his party denied the fact. I

call the attention of the country to the fact that in their caucus

the Democratic party, as a party, agreed with the Whig party, as a

party, that this should be the rule. I do not involve gentlemen; I only

involve the Democratic party. I mean to pin it on that party.”

Mr. Edmundson: “Anybody who asserts that the Democratic party agreed to

adopt the plurality rule, asserts what is not true.”

Mr. Orr: “I was present on the occasion to which I suppose reference is

made; and I state distinctly that no such resolution as that referred

to by the gentleman from Ohio was adopted by the Democratic caucus,

either directly or indirectly.”

Mr. Millson, and other members who had attended the Democratic caucus

of 1849, made similar denials.

Mr. Cobb: “Fortunately the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Stanton),

although not a member of this House, is here, and I assert, without one

word of conference with him, that he never intended to say before this

House, nor did a single member of the House at that time so construe

his language—that the Democratic party had adopted the plurality rule

in caucus.”

At this point Mr. Jones, of Tennessee, referred to the _Globe_ of 1849,

and showed that the words put in Mr. Stanton’s mouth by Mr. Giddings

had not been used by him at all, but were words of the reporter

distinctly employed in another connection. This revelation, so damaging

to Mr. Giddings’s character for fair dealing, was clinched by Mr.

Letcher, who quoted from a speech made in the House by Mr. Giddings

himself, in 1849, five days after the adoption of the plurality rule,

in which he declared the Whig party had forced the rule upon the House.

Having quoted the passage from Mr. Giddings’s speech contradictory of

himself, Mr. Letcher remarked: “Now, Sir, I submit that whatever may

have been the opinion of other people, it does not become the gentleman

from Ohio to rise here in his place, and undertake to charge that

the Democratic party adopted that rule, after he has sent out to the

country and published a speech, revised and printed in pamphlet form,

in which he purports to give the facts as they occurred in 1849.”

Mr. Giddings: “I repeat what I said when I first rose, that the

Democratic party in its caucus, speaking through its committee, did

agree to the resolution.”

Mr. Edmundson: “I want to let the gentleman from Ohio know that he is

asserting what is not true. I am stating facts within my own knowledge.

The Democratic caucus voted down the resolution, and refused to adopt

it. Now, any statement made in conflict with that, I say this from my

own personal knowledge, is a statement which is not true, and he who

makes it knows, at the time he is making it, that it is not true.”

Mr. Giddings:

“‘Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,

And make your bondmen tremble,’

but do not come here to make any imputations upon me.”

Mr. Edmundson (advancing towards Mr. Giddings, who had sprung

Shakespeare on him unexpectedly): “I want to hear what the gentleman

from Ohio is saving.”

Mr. Giddings: “Let gentlemen keep cool.”

Mr. Edmundson: “I will keep cool, if you will state the facts.”

At this point there were loud cries of “Order, order,” and much

confusion and excitement in the hall.

Mr. Cobb: “When the gentlemen from Ohio stated that the Democratic

party had adopted as a party the plurality rule, I unhesitatingly

denied that statement. When he said that the resolution was introduced

by Mr. Stanton, he read the language of Mr. Stanton to show that he

made the statement to the House, and to the country, to that effect.

I stated then that it was a misconstruction of the language of Mr.

Stanton, and that it must have been so from the facts as they were.

Now, Mr. Clerk, I ask this House, and I put it to the candor of every

man on this floor, if, at the time this declaration was made, it was

not its understanding that the language quoted was the language of Mr.

Stanton?”

Several members: “He so stated, expressly.”

Mr. Cobb: “I put it to the memory and candor of gentlemen here, if the

gentleman from Ohio did not so intend it, then he made a charge against

the party without any particle of ground to stand on. If he did intend

it, it was an effort to falsify the record on which he was standing.

This language was the language of the reporter, giving an account of

the proceedings of the day, and does not occur in connection with Mr.

Stanton’s name at all. There is a vote intervening between the time

when Mr. Stanton addressed the House, and the remarks here made by

the reporter, which had no earthly connection with them whatever.

Where, then, is the point of the gentleman’s remarks when he charges me

with sitting by and allowing Mr. Stanton to state that the plurality

proposition was the result of an agreement between the two parties,

unless it be because he had put in Mr. Stanton’s mouth the language of

the reporter? I submit the facts to the House; I shall not characterize

them.”

Mr. Orr: “Since the debate commenced, Mr. Stanton has come within the

limits of this hall. I have had an interview with him, and he has

authorized me to state, that when the proposition to elect by plurality

was presented to the Democratic caucus, it was almost unanimously

rejected by them, and that when he offered the plurality resolution he

did it upon his own individual responsibility.”

These crushing refutations of the charges of Mr. Giddings raise a

strong doubt of his honesty in this matter. He was a sharp politician,

and sought without regard to the means to elect Mr. Banks Speaker of

the House.

The Know-Nothings, recruited as were the Republicans from the

same parent stem of John Adams Federalism, were the allies of the

Sectionalists led by Mr. Giddings in 1856. The folly of the Southern

Know-Nothings in the great conflict over the Speakership in the

Thirty-fourth Congress was remarkable.

Some of them, like Zollicoffer and Humphrey Marshall, were afterwards

such violent Secessionists that they became Generals in the Confederate

army. Even Henry Winter Davis was so much opposed to the Republican

party at this time, and for several years after, that he denounced it

as a miserable, useless faction, and sneeringly asked, “Why cumbers

it the ground?” Mr. Zollicoffer, a Southern man, of no mean powers,

with surprising inconsistency refused to vote for a Democratic

candidate for Speaker when none other had the remotest chance to

beat Banks, and at the same time inveighed against Mr. Campbell, a

Pennsylvania Know-Nothing, for voting for Banks, and thereby aiding the

Sectionalists in opening the door for disunion and civil war. These

men and their congeners in bigotry, like the blood-stained fanatic

Lord George Gordon before them, strove to excite a religious war, and

preached proscription of foreigners, and persecution of Catholics in

the American Congress. No union with slaveholders, was the platform of

Joshua R. Giddings; no-Popery, and no citizenship for foreigners, the

platform of Henry Winter Davis.

“I go against the Catholics,” said Mr. Cullen of Delaware, during the

same Speakership contest. “I never will support them. They are not fit

to be supported by Americans. The people of the State from which I come

look upon them with abhorrence. A Catholic priest, a short time ago,

came among us. He was a stranger. He taught the doctrine of purgatory.

After he had proclaimed that doctrine, an honorable gentleman of the

State of Delaware, and who at the last election ran for Governor on the

same ticket with myself, declared that he ought to be egged! I vote

against the Catholics!”

Mr. Dowdell, of Alabama: “I am exceedingly pained at the spectacle

which has been presented to-night. When Rome was burning Nero was

fiddling and dancing. Now, sir, we are standing upon a slumbering

volcano. Upon our borders in the common territory of this country,

our people are marshalling their forces to try the great question

whether they are able to govern themselves, it may be with rifles in

their hands. I have been reminded by the ludicrous scenes witnessed

here of a parallel to be found in a book entitled, ‘Georgia Scenes.’

Ned Brace, the hero of the story, happened to be in a city during the

prevalence of a great fire, the flames in red volumes were rising

higher and higher each moment, the people were running to and fro in

great consternation, women and children were screaming through the

streets, and the midnight fire-bells were sending out their rapid and

startling sounds, when Ned quietly took his position on the sidewalk.

About this time a large old man, nearly out of breath, came running by

in great haste, whose home was threatened with destruction perhaps,

and was abruptly stopped by Ned with the interrogatory: ‘Sir, can you

tell me where I can find Peleg Q. C. Stone?’ ‘Damn Peleg Q. C. Stone,

my house is on fire;’ was the impatient reply. Now, sir, while the fire

of civil war is threatening to be kindled upon our borders, questions

are propounded here quite as impertinent at this time of danger, and

calculated to provoke similar impatience, if not a similar reply.

I have no fear that any party in this country opposed to religious

liberty will ever be strong enough to control its legislation.”

Mr. Paine, of North Carolina: “I ask whether any gentleman in this

House is willing to see the Government of the United States, and the

Congress of the United States, in the hands of the Roman Catholics of

this country? This is a matter which enters into the private feelings,

however unwilling members may be to expose it. These very gentlemen

themselves would not trust the government of the country and Congress

in the hands of Roman Catholics.”

Mr. Valk, of New York: “The honorable gentleman from Alabama (Mr.

Dowdell) took occasion to draw the attention of the House to the once

living embodiment of that portrait on my right—that of La Fayette. I

frankly and freely do honor to his memory. But the gentleman forgets

one remark which fell from the lips of that man when living. He said:

‘If ever the liberties of this country are destroyed it will be by

Catholic priests.’”

Mr. Bowie of Maryland: “Sparks says that is a lie.”

At this point Mr. Kelly tried to get the floor to repel the furious

assaults of the Know-Nothings upon his church, of which the preceding

extracts are but a few specimens.

Mr. Kelly: “I should like to explain my vote.”

The Clerk: “The clerk would remind the gentleman from New York that it

is too late. He can proceed, however, if no objection is made.” There

were loud cries of “object!”

Mr. Kelly: “Does the Clerk decide that I am not in order?”

The Clerk: “The Clerk makes no decision.”

Mr. Pennington: “I move that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Kelly)

have leave to explain his vote, and I do so because the gentleman is a

Catholic, and the only one I believe of that faith upon this floor. I

think that under the circumstances it would be only common courtesy to

hear him.” Loud cries of “Hear him.”

Mr. Bowie: “Hear him; he is the only Catholic here.”

Mr. Washburn: “I will yield to the gentleman for ten minutes.” Mr.

Kelly, without previous preparation, now proceeded to make his second

speech in the House, January 9, 1856, his first having been delivered

December 19, 1855, in reply to Mr. Whitney, a New York Know-Nothing.

Mr. Kelly: “I am aware, Mr. Clerk, that it is very improper to bring

religious matters into legislative business at all but when I hear such

remarks as have fallen from the intelligent gentleman who has just

spoken, I feel that it becomes me, as a member of the religious body

which the gentleman has been assailing, to say something, at least, in

its defense.

“The accusation is made here that the Catholic religion is dangerous

to the institutions of this Republic. Sir, no man possessed of any

intelligence would give any weight to a charge of that sort. When

have the Catholic clergy urged their flocks to support particular

individuals for office? When have they from their pulpits urged their

congregations to support particular measures, or to vote for particular

men? There is not in the history of this country an instance in which

the Catholic clergy have so acted. But can the same be said of other

religious denominations in this country? In the Eastern portion of the

Union you will frequently find ministers from their pulpits invoking

their flocks to vote for measures which interest them, and the section

of the Union to which they belong. Now, Mr. Clerk, I am a Catholic,

and I love this Union. I defy any man in this Congress to say that he

is a better citizen, or more devoted to the true interests of this

Union than I am. This is not only my sentiment, but it is the sentiment

of the religious body to which I belong. It is the sentiment of our

priesthood.

“I let the accusation that the Catholic religion is dangerous to our

beloved country, go for what it is worth; for I am satisfied that

no sane man would make such an assertion. But this charge has been

frequently made since we first met here. When my colleague, Mr. Valk,

made several charges against the Catholic religion, I had not an

opportunity to say one word in reply but, sir, I am surprised that the

gentleman from Long Island, a man of intelligence and a Christian,

as I take him to be, should rise upon this floor, and denounce his

fellow Christians because he differs with them in opinion upon

religious questions.” Mr. Valk, who had indulged in such denunciation,

nevertheless, made a denial at this point.

Mr. Kelly: “The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Paine, asks, would

you like to see this Government in the hands of the Catholic people?

Suppose that it was in the hands of the Catholic people, have the

Catholic people of this Union ever been false to its true interests?

Why, sir, look at the early history of our country, and look to that

State which borders upon this District. A Catholic community existed

there, which extended a liberality to all other religions that could

not be found in other colonies at that time. While Calvert, Lord

Baltimore, was founding a free colony there, religious persecution was

going on in other colonies; and when people were persecuted in other

colonies, where did they go that they might worship God according

to the dictates of their own consciences? They came to the Catholic

colony of Maryland. These are the Catholic people to whom the honorable

gentleman from Alabama has referred. Such, sir, is the history of the

Catholics in this country, and such has it ever been. These people when

they leave their homes in Germany, in Ireland, or in whatever country

they may be found, and come here, it is to make this country their

home. They imbibe the spirit of true patriotism before they leave the

Old World. They come here with their parents, brethren, and friends,

because here they can enjoy their liberty. And tell me, sir, is not

the assertion, that they are inimical to your liberties unfounded? Are

not the people who make it blinded by prejudice and bigotry? Why, sir,

foreigners have always composed a large portion of the army of the

country. They have fought side by side with our native-born citizens

in every battle that has been fought from the earliest period of

our existence as a nation, down to the present time. They have been

working in a common cause to promote common objects—the blessings and

prosperity of this Union. Let me say to this House, if they come not

here with wealth, they come with willing hands to work and earn their

bread upon your public works, from their very commencement to their

completion. How could your great public works have been constructed

without these men?”

The Know-Nothings, not liking Kelly’s argument, at this point made a

determined effort to cut him off.

Mr. Russell Sage, of New York: “I move that this House do now proceed

to vote for Speaker, and upon that motion I demand the previous

question.”

Mr. Smith, of Alabama: “I hope the gentleman from New York, Mr. Kelly,

will be allowed to proceed with his explanation.”

Mr. Eustis, of Louisiana: “I hope Mr. Kelly will be allowed to proceed

by unanimous consent.”

Several members objected.

Mr. Leiter, of Ohio: “I appeal to the House to withdraw all objection,

and allow the gentleman from New York to go on with his speech.”

Objection was again made.

Mr. Kelly: “I do not care about proceeding further. I wished to deny

the charges made by the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Paine, and

by the gentleman from New York, Mr. Valk, and having done that I am

satisfied to let the matter rest for the present.”[26]

Mr. Kelly, had he not been cut off by objections, intended to read

the letter of La Fayette, written from Paris in 1829 to a Protestant

citizen of New York, whose guest the old patriot had been during his

last visit to this country. This letter Mr. Valk had grossly perverted.

At the earliest opportunity during that session Mr. Kelly replied to

Mr. Valk and Mr. Smith, and read the La Fayette letter. The sentences

in it which Mr. Valk had so garbled were in reality as follows:—“But I

must be permitted to assure you that the fears which in your patriotic

zeal you seem to entertain, that if ever the liberty of the United

States is destroyed it will be by Romish priests, are certainly without

any shadow of foundation whatever. An intimate acquaintance of more

than half a century with the prominent and influential priests and

members of that Church, both in England and America, warrant me in

assuring you that you need entertain no apprehension of danger to your

republican institutions from that quarter.”

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Captain Rynders died suddenly about the middle of January, 1885,

having enjoyed his usual good health up to within a few hours of his

demise.

[23] Life of A. H. Stephens, by Johnston & Browne, p. 306.

[24] Ibid, p. 306.

[25] Congressional Globe, 1st Session, 34th Congress, p. 44, _et seq._

[26] Cong. Globe, 1855-56, Thirty-first Congress, 1st Session, pp. 191,

_et seq._

CHAPTER VI.

KNOW-NOTHINGS JOIN REPUBLICANS TO ELECT BANKS—SEWARD BECOMES

LEADER—SKETCH OF HIM—DEFEAT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY—CAUSES OF

IT—FREQUENT FIST-FIGHTS BETWEEN MEMBERS—DRUNKENNESS AND ROWDYISM IN

CONGRESS—ANGRY DISPUTE BETWEEN KELLY AND MARSHALL—KELLY’S POPULARITY

IN THE HOUSE—HIS RELATIONS WITH ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

In the last chapter the strange spectacle was presented of Southern

Know-Nothings, while declaring their opposition to the Abolitionists,

actually aiding them to elect a Speaker, and offering as an excuse for

their conduct the dread that the Catholic Church might obtain control

of the Government! The Democratic caucus had adopted a resolution

denouncing the enemies of civil and religious liberty. Humphrey

Marshall and the Southern Know-Nothings declared this was an insult to

them, and not only Marshall, but Cox of Kentucky, and Zollicoffer and

Etheridge assigned the same cause as presenting an insuperable obstacle

to their voting for any Democrat for Speaker. The Know-Nothings and

Abolitionists, having nothing in common, united to overthrow the party

of the Constitution, the former to prevent the Catholics from seizing

the Government, the latter to get rid of slavery. This ridiculous

pretext of the Know-Nothings concerning the political ambition of the

Catholic Church was most effectively answered by the fact that out of

the whole 234 members of the House, and 7 Territorial Delegates, John

Kelly was the only Catholic in the Thirty-fourth Congress. Mr. Kelly

declared truly that no sane man would offer such an insult to the

intelligence of the country, as a justification for his conduct, but

Davis of Maryland, Cullen of Delaware, Whitney of New York, and other

proscriptionists were wedded to their idols, and in order to strike

down an imaginary enemy, they became the tools of a real one.

For nine weeks the stubborn contest continued. The country, from one

end to another, was roused to feverish excitement. It was the first

time the Republican party had shown front in a National contest. Ever

since the Seward-Fillmore quarrel had led to the overthrow of the Whig

party in 1853, the Freesoilers had been a heterogeneous mass of the

Northern population, unorganized, and with no common object in view.

Mr. Seward keenly felt that success in the present struggle for the

Speakership was vital to the perpetuity of the Republican party. He

summoned to Washington his ablest friends, Thurlow Weed, Horace Greeley

and James Watson Webb. These four famous leaders soon organized their

followers in the House into a compact body. Mr. Zollicoffer, who

subsequently became a Secessionist, and fell in battle as a Confederate

General, characterized them by name on the floor of the House as the

chiefs of the lobby. In the course of a speech on the 20th of December,

in which he declared, with a short-sightedness unworthy of so clever a

man, that he would not vote for a Democrat against Banks, Zollicoffer

said: “I see here a great organization, numbering from one hundred and

four to one hundred and six members, who are steadily voting for Mr.

Banks. Whilst I have reason to believe that the great lobby spirits

who control that organization are Greeley and Seward, and Weed and

Webb, men of intellect and power at the North, who are as bitterly

opposed to the American party as they are to the Democratic party, I

do, upon my conscience, believe that there are gentlemen voting for

Mr. Banks, from day to day, who do not belong to the Abolition, or,

as they style themselves, the Republican organization. For example, I

cite the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Campbell), at whose position,

as he announced it here the other day, I was surprised. He says he is

an American, and he spurned the idea that the American party at the

North were identified with the Freesoilers of the North and yet he

casts his vote steadily against a conservative National American of

his own State, and gives it to Mr. Banks, a Free Soil Democrat, who

has affiliated, as his record clearly shows, with the most ultra and

violent Free-soil and Abolition factions.”

The Capitol was alive with intrigues and with intriguers from every

part of the country. The leaders retired to the Committee rooms day by

day, and night by night, and runners kept them constantly informed of

the movements of their adversaries. Counter-movements followed, and

new plans succeeded each other on every side without avail. It was an

interesting moment for the historian; the events of the hour were big

with the fate of the country. Federalism and Democracy were once more,

as in the year 1801, locked in a death struggle. Then, as now, it was

the party of the Constitution against the party of Centralization. The

Know-Nothings held the balance of power, and of course the followers

of the man who wrote his own epitaph in these words, “Author of the

Declaration of Independence, and of the Statutes of Virginia for

Religious Freedom,” had nothing to expect from that pestilent band of

bigots. Sprung from the same parent stem of John Adams Federalism,

Joshua R. Giddings and his Abolitionists, and Henry Winter Davis

and his Know-Nothings, were natural allies against the disciples of

Jefferson.

Seward, Weed and Greeley, to their credit be it recorded, having led

the anti-Know-Nothing branch of the Whig party in New York, were

not personally influential with members of the American party in

Congress. But the Republican leaders were men of varied resources,

and Thurlow Weed, the Whig Warwick, was equal to any emergency. The

fierce philippics of Henry A. Wise against the Know-Nothings in the

memorable Virginia campaign just closed, and the tremendous blows

which Alexander H. Stephens had dealt the party of dark lanterns in

his then recent Georgia campaign, were artfully spread abroad among

the proscriptionists in Congress, and the bitterness of their defeat

in both those States added to the chagrin which the unanswerable

arraignments of Wise and Stephens excited among them. The resolutions

of the Democratic caucus, especially the one denouncing the enemies

of civil and religious liberty, and the alleged contradictory

constructions placed upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill by Northern and

Southern Democrats, were also used by the Seward men as electioneering

appeals for Mr. Banks. In one or two Democratic quarters the Republican

leaders were strongly suspected of employing corrupt appliances.

The great anti-Know-Nothing speech of Alexander H. Stephens at

Augusta, largely quoted from in a former chapter of this book, was

now being used by the Republicans to increase Know-Nothing enmity to

the Democrats. On his part Mr. Stephens was a tower of strength to

the Administration men in the House. He appreciated the magnitude of

the struggle, and was indefatigable in his attempts to defeat the

Republican and Know-Nothing alliance. He rejoiced at the prominence

which the Republican leaders were giving to the victory over

Know-Nothingism in his own State. “I think,” he said in a letter to his

brother, “the Georgia election is more talked of than that of any other

State in the Union.”[27]

Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, C. C. Clay, R. M. T. Hunter, Judah P.

Benjamin, and other Democratic Senators, were in frequent consultation

with Alexander H. Stephens, John Kelly, Howell Cobb, James L. Orr,

William A. Richardson, and other Democratic members of the House. The

relative strength of the two leading parties in the House, seventy-four

Democrats and one hundred and four Republicans, was the subject of

anxious thought, and all at length saw that Mr. Richardson, the caucus

nominee of the Democrats, could not be elected. He was, therefore,

dropped, and James L. Orr substituted as the Democratic candidate. As

week after week elapsed, it became evident that the dead-lock could

only be broken by the abandonment of a straight party man by the

Democrats. Even then no election was likely to take place unless the

plurality rule should be adopted. About ten days before the end of

the contest, as alluded to already, a private consultation took place

between Mr. Stephens, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Orr, and Mr. Cobb, at which the

nomination of William Aiken of South Carolina was decided upon as

that of the only available candidate against Banks. But in order to

render this movement effective, the utmost secrecy was necessary until

the time should have come to bring out the new candidate. This plan

originated with Mr. Stephens. Mr. Kelly entered heartily into it. To

him was assigned the important duty as a Northern Democrat of putting

Mr. Aiken in nomination. He was only to do this, when Banks’s election

should appear imminent, or after the plurality rule had been adopted,

with Orr still running against Banks. The nomination was not to be

enforced by any set speech on the part of the mover, which might show

design and premeditation, but was to be made as if on the impulse of

the moment, and as the sudden act of an individual who had given up all

hope for Orr, and now named Aiken as a sort of dernier resort to beat

Banks.

It showed that the Democratic leaders reposed extraordinary confidence

in Kelly’s coolness, tact and good judgment, that he should have been

selected to initiate this most delicate parliamentary move. Mr. Orr

had agreed to withdraw at the proper moment in Aiken’s favor. In the

meantime Mr. Stephens was to manage the preliminary strategy necessary

to put the train of affairs in motion. He sounded various members in

casual conversation, and found men of the most opposite views quite

favorable to Aiken, as a compromise candidate against Banks. At length,

February first, when it seemed probable that Banks would be elected,

and at the right moment, with admirable brevity and effect, John

Kelly rose and nominated Aiken. But before Orr could get the floor

to withdraw in favor of Mr. Kelly’s nominee, Williamson R. W. Cobb,

of Alabama, who had found members who were in the secret predicting

that Aiken would win, now sprang up and in a cut-and-dried-speech,

and with a great parade of theatrical language, declared that the

time had arrived to name the winning man, that he had the pleasure of

offering an olive-branch to all those who opposed the Republicans, and

after giving everybody to know that he was about to announce a grand

parliamentary stroke on the part of the Democrats, he nominated William

Aiken of South Carolina. The effect of that supremely ill-timed speech

was to drive off votes which Mr. Aiken would have otherwise won, for as

soon as it dawned upon the Whigs and Know-Nothings, who had not gone

over to Banks, that the latest move was a Democratic “olive-branch,”

a sufficient number of them reconsidered their intention to vote for

Aiken, and Banks was elected Speaker the next day, under the operation

of that extra-constitutional device—the plurality rule.

The votes of John Hickman and David Barclay, two Democrats from

Pennsylvania, were not given on the final ballot to the candidate

supported by the Democratic side of the House. They were much censured

for their course.

The Congressional Globe contains the following:

“House of Representatives, Friday, February 1, 1856.

Mr. Ball. I offer the following resolutions, and upon it I demand the

previous question:

Resolved, That Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, be, and he is

hereby declared Speaker of this House for the Thirty-fourth Congress.

Mr. Kelly. I desire to offer a substitute for that resolution.

The Clerk. It is not in order to do so now, as the previous question

has been demanded.

Mr. Kelly. Then I give notice, that if the pending resolution is voted

down, I shall hereafter offer the following:

Resolved, That William Aiken, of South Carolina, be, and he is hereby

elected Speaker of this House, for the Thirty-fourth Congress.”

The resolution declaring Banks the Speaker was lost by 102 ayes to 115

noes. Then, before Mr. Kelly could obtain the floor to name Mr. Aiken,

Williamson R. W. Cobb made his fatal olive-branch speech in favor of

Aiken, and Mr. Washburne of Illinois moved to lay “that olive branch

on the table.” The House by a vote of 98 to 117 refused to table the

resolution. The main question of declaring Aiken Speaker was then put

and lost, ayes 103, noes 110. It will be observed that the vote for

Aiken was larger than that for Banks. Banks 102 to 115; Aiken 103 to

110. Mr. Kelly would have had the honor of naming the Speaker but for

the precipitancy of Mr. W. R. W. Cobb. The plurality rule, a device

of doubtful constitutionality, was adopted the next day, February 2d,

and Banks was elected. The following was the vote: Banks 103; Aiken

100; Fuller 6; Campbell 4; Wells 1. If Henry Winter Davis and the

other five Know-Nothings who voted for Fuller, or even three of them,

had supported Mr. Aiken, his election would have taken place. Or if

only two of those Know-Nothings, and the two Democratic back-sliders,

Hickman and Barclay, had voted for Aiken, the defeat of Banks, and

election of the Democratic candidate, in this momentous national

contest would have resulted.

“After a prolonged struggle,” says Mr. Blaine in his _Twenty Years

of Congress_, “Nathaniel P. Banks was chosen Speaker over William

Aiken. It was a significant circumstance, noted at the time, that the

successful candidate came from Massachusetts, and the defeated one

from South Carolina. It was a still more ominous fact that Banks was

chosen by votes wholly from the free States, and that every vote from

the slave States was given to Mr. Aiken, except that of Mr. Cullen of

Delaware, and that of Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, who declined to

vote for either candidate. It was the first instance in the history of

the Government in which a candidate for Speaker had been chosen without

support from both sections. It was a distinctive victory of the free

States over the consolidated power of the slave States. It marked an

epoch.”[28] If William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed were here to explain

this “distinctive victory,” as Mr. Blaine calls it, they might, if they

were in a confessing mood, call the thing by another name.

It is certain that votes were thrown away on nominal candidates, and

some even were given for Mr. Banks which belonged rightfully to Mr.

Aiken. The members who cast those votes not only failed to reflect the

sentiments of their constituencies, but in some cases openly defied

and misrepresented the will of the voters to whom they owed their

seats. Why these men betrayed the Democratic party in the memorable

parliamentary battle which, as Mr. Blaine says “marked an epoch,”

will perhaps forever remain one of the mysteries of the lobby of that

eventful Thirty-fourth Congress.

John Kelly, Howard Cobb and others strongly suspected that corrupt

appliances were at work.

Mr. Stephens, in a letter to his brother Linton Stephens, February 1st,

1856, said: “But for a _faux pas_ on the part of that fool C——, I think

we should have made Aiken Speaker to-day. I had set the programme

for it about ten days ago. My plan was this: after the plurality rule

should have been adopted (which I had all along believed after a while

would be), and two ballots should have been had under it, if the

Southern Know-Nothings should not indicate a purpose to go over to Orr

to prevent Banks’s election (which I did not much expect them to do),

then Aiken was to be put in nomination on the floor, Orr to decline,

and let the last vote be between Aiken and Banks. From my knowledge

of the House, its present tone and temper, knowledge of Aiken and the

estimation he was held in by several of the scatterers, I believed he

would beat Banks. This I communicated to a few, and a few only. I gave

Cobb, of Georgia, my idea; he was struck with it, and communicated

it to a few others. It took finely. I sounded some of the Western

Know-Nothings,—Marshall and others,—and found that they could be

brought into it. I said nothing of my plan, but simply asked carelessly

how Aiken would do. I found that he would do for them. But after his

name began to be talked of, he got so popular in the minds of many that

C——, a fool, plugged the melon before it was ripe. If we had then been

under the pressure of the plurality rule, and the choice between him

and Banks, he would have been elected, sure as fate, in my opinion.”[29]

In conversations with the writer of this memoir, and in letters to

him on the subject, Mr. Stephens often spoke of Mr. Kelly’s conduct

during this first great struggle between the Democratic and Republican

parties in the House of Representatives, as truly admirable and

patriotic. “Mr. Kelly,” said he, “never hounded on anybody against the

South, but was one of the few Northern Democrats who then stood firmly

by us, in defense of our Constitutional rights against the assaults

of Republicans and Know-Nothings, who had formed an unholy alliance

against us.” The present writer has sometimes read, with surprise,

attacks on Mr. Kelly in Southern newspapers of respectability and

standing, such as the Baltimore _Sun_ and Atlanta _Constitution_,

which only could be ascribed to insufficient information on the part

of the writers, or perhaps they unintentionally erred in accepting the

scurrilous caricatures of _Puck_, and other Gerrymanders, for the real

John Kelly.

Mr. Banks appointed the standing Committees of the House in the

interest of the ultra wing of the Republican party, of which William H.

Seward and Joshua R. Giddings were the leaders. M. Seward was at length

at the head of a great organization, with the immense power of the

popular branch of Congress at his back, and no other man in American

politics ever made more of his opportunities. Five years before he

had been rudely jostled from his dream of ambition by the death of

President Taylor, to whose friendship for him he was indebted for

his elevation to leadership in the Whig party in 1849. That event had

been rendered possible in consequence of the disastrous feuds in the

Democratic party of New York in 1848. While Hunkers and Barnburners

fought, the Whigs captured the Legislature of New York, by which a

Senator in Congress was to be chosen. Mr. Seward was elected Senator.

His political sagacity soon enabled him to grasp the situation. Deeming

it certain that whoever might control the Administration patronage,

whether Senator or not, would control the politics of New York, he went

to Washington, and paid assiduous court to that dashing Virginian,

William Ballard Preston, Secretary of the Navy, to whom President

Taylor was more attached than to any other member of his Cabinet. As a

charmer Mr. Seward had few equals. He was addicted to aphorisms, and

studied _bon mots_ with the diligence of Sheridan. His affectation

of philosophy was set off by good manners and easy address. He had

been a school-master in Georgia, and had at his command a fund of

South-of-Potomac reminiscences, saws, and anecdotes. In the company

of William Ballard Preston he was never so happy as when expatiating

over the types, and modes, and fascinations of Southern society. The

Tazewells, Randolphs, Gastons, Lowndes, Calhouns, Crawfords, Forsyths,

Lumpkins, and other famous Cavaliers, were all names familiar on

Mr. Seward’s lips as household words. It did not take him long

to win Preston, and that gentleman soon addressed himself to the

task of winning over the President to the side of Mr. Seward. But

Vice-President Fillmore was Seward’s bitterest enemy, and Taylor’s

confidence was of slower growth than Preston’s. Fierce sectional

passions upon the subject of slavery were already raging between the

North and South, and the old hero of Buena Vista desired to allay

those passions, and render his Administration the era of pacification.

Pledges were finally exacted and given, James Watson Webb representing

Mr. Seward, and Secretary Preston representing the President, and the

patronage of the Administration in New York was placed at Mr. Seward’s

disposal; in consideration of which that wily diplomat entered into

engagements to take no part in the Senate of the United States in

the Abolition agitation, but to pursue a policy of conciliation and

compromise at Washington. He had been elected Senator to succeed a

Democrat. Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John J. Crittenden, and the

other leading Whigs in the Senate and House, were friends of Mr.

Fillmore, and unalterably opposed to Seward’s recognition by Taylor,

upon any terms, as leader of the Administration party in New York.

Angry controversies took place in Administration circles. A breach

occurred between the President and Vice-President, and their social

relations were broken off. Preston had acquired complete personal

ascendency over Taylor, and the old soldier became a violent partisan

of Mr. Seward. The Senator from New York was now recognized as the real

leader of the Whig party, and wielded the Administration lash with

exasperating indifference to the powerful men arrayed on the side of

Mr. Fillmore. Alienations took place between life-long friends, and

many of the great Whig statesmen were not even on speaking terms. The

Whig party was rent in twain.

Mr. Blaine has recently discussed some of the political events of

this period of American history, in his valuable work “Twenty Years

of Congress,” but in assigning causes for the destruction of the Whig

party, he has strangely overlooked this portentous quarrel, provoked

by Seward, which was the underlying cause,—the _causa causans_,—of the

dissolution and utter extinction of that celebrated party.

On the 11th of March, 1850, Mr. Seward, unmindful of his pledges to

William Ballard Preston, made a violent Abolition speech in the Senate.

The Georgia school-master has outwitted the Secretary of the Navy.

Charles Francis Adams, in his memorial address at Albany on Mr. Seward,

stated that he was aware of the “agreement,” as he called it, between

the Auburn statesman and Taylor’s Administration, but he must have been

ignorant of its real terms, for a descendant of two Presidents would

scarcely have regarded the violation of voluntary pledges as a fit

topic for glowing eulogy.

And now in that month of March, 1850, William H. Seward was at the

height of power. In all human probability he would be next President

of the United States. Short-lived triumph. The summer of his glory was

soon overcast with stormy portents. Within four little months Zachary

Taylor lay dead in the White House, and Fillmore, Seward’s dearest

foe, was President. The downfall of the Whig party soon followed, and

Mr. Seward and Winfield Scott sat amid its ruins. It was about this

time that Daniel Webster said to his friend Peter Harvey of Boston:

“One of the convictions of my mind, and it is very strong, is that the

people of the United States will never entrust their destinies, and the

administration of their government, to the hands of William H. Seward

and his associates.”[30]

But Mr. Webster, perhaps, underestimated the character of Mr. Seward.

In 1856, upon the election of Nathaniel P. Banks as Speaker of the

House of Representatives, the distinguished New York Senator became

titular primate of a new and more powerful organization than the

Whig party ever had been in its palmiest days. England is governed

by Cabinet Ministers with seats in Parliament; the United States by

standing Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, by

whom legislation is initiated, secretly formulated, and then carried

through both Houses by aid of caucus management, and under the whip and

spur of imperious majorities. This vast energy Mr. Seward now commanded

through Speaker Banks in the House of Representatives. He had admirable

lieutenants. Banks was a fair Speaker in his rulings, and not a sticker

over non-essentials, but in everything that seriously affected the

welfare of the Republican party, he was an aggressive and tenacious

partisan. The astute Thurlow Weed was even a shrewder politician

than Mr. Seward himself; and Horace Greeley, adopting the maxim of

Daniel O’Connell—that agitation is the life of every cause—employed

his unrivaled editorial pen in the anti-slavery crusade, now fairly

inaugurated throughout the Northern States. Yet with all his great

advantages and skill as an organizer, Mr. Seward could not have carried

the Republican party to victory, had not some of the leaders of the

Democratic party, during the last five years of their ascendency at

Washington, wilfully neglected their opportunities, and given to their

more vigilant opponents the vantage ground in the collision of forces

on the floor of Congress.

During the latter days of the Pierce administration, and the whole

of that of Buchanan, measures of great national importance were

defeated through the culpable negligence of a few Southern Democrats.

Northern Representatives who stood by the South in defense of its

constitutional rights, bitterly complained of this neglect on the part

of those who were so deeply interested. These Northern men, like Mr.

Kelly and Horace F. Clark, had to brave a false but growing public

opinion at the North, on account of their heroic devotion to what they

deemed the line of duty, especially on the great Territorial questions,

over which the Union was being shaken to its foundations. They had,

therefore, the right to expect corresponding earnestness on the part

of all their fellow Democrats of the South. To hold to Jeffersonian,

strict construction opinions was then becoming extremely unpopular at

the North, and involved sacrifices that threatened to blight their

political prospects. To maintain similar opinions at the South was a

wholly different matter. Everybody there believed in the State-rights

doctrine, and public men were carried smoothly on with the current in

defending measures of administration.

Mr. Kelly observed some things which he could not but regard with

pain during the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses, for they

were pregnant with ill-omens for the country, and to a man of his

perspicacious brain they must have foreboded those disasters to the

Democratic party which ere long overtook it. There was an incapacity

for affairs on the part of a few Southern Representatives, and a

proneness to intemperance among quite a number of otherwise excellent

men from the same section. It was a bad symptom of the distempered

state of the Democratic party to find many of its Representatives

frequently, and inexcusably, absent from their seats when test votes

were about to be taken, fraught with vital interest to the South, and

decisive of great national policies. The fault was more grievous, when

the absentees, as was often the case, would have been able to change

the result by being present and voting. This was attributable in some

measure to inexperience, and want of training for public life. Some

there were who were addicted to pleasure parties, frequently went home

to their families, and entertained fanciful ideas respecting the duties

devolving on gentlemen in society. That they were honorable men who

would not stoop to disreputable conduct, no one who knew them can for

a moment doubt. Indeed their integrity bore refreshing contrast to

the looser morality so often to be encountered in a later political

generation. The trouble simply was that these men were impracticables,

and out of place in the Halls of Congress during the stormy days of

1855-60. They talked politics in the parlor and bar-room, and neglected

their duties in the House and Senate. John Randolph, in his Hudibrastic

vein, scores a similar class that flourished in Virginia in 1831: “We

hug our lousy cloaks around us, take another _chaw of tubbacker_,

float the room with nastiness, or ruin the grate and fire-irons, where

they happen not to be rusty, and try conclusions upon constitutional

points.”[31]

But a still greater evil was intemperance. The Hole-in-the-Wall, in the

House of Representatives, was the downward path to irretrievable ruin,

where many a noble fellow of genius and promise drowned his faculties

in rum, when his country most needed his services. While the Democrats

and Republicans were in a deadly struggle on the floor of the House

over questions involving the destinies of the Union, and the lives and

fortunes of millions of human beings, the tipplers were in the bar-room

drinking, or on the sofas of the lobby dozing in their cups. A vote

is wanting to carry an imperiled measure to victory,—the inebriate is

lifted into a sitting posture, dragged to the floor, and bid to vote

aye, or no, provided he is there to mumble out the word. Too often

he is absent, having been carried off to his lodgings in a state of

drunken imbecility. John Quincy Adams[32], in his Memoirs, inveighs

savagely against this melancholy vice, as the besetting sin of an

earlier day; and Alexander H. Stephens, in his private letters to his

brother, Judge Linton Stephens, pours out indignant lamentations over

the same disgraceful spectacle at the period under review.

“One vote against us,” writes Mr. Stephens to his brother, August 23,

1856, on the loss of an important bill. “Seven more Southern men absent

than Northern. If our men had stayed, we should have been triumphant

to-day. On several votes we lost two to three Southern men who were

too drunk to be brought in.”[33] Again, February 5, 1858, he says: “I

have been more provoked at the course of Southern men on this Kansas

question from the beginning than upon any other subject in my public

career. I mean their culpable negligence.”[34] He informs his brother

that thirteen Southern Democrats were absent March 11, 1858, when an

important vote was taken, and the Republicans prevailed. “Had the

thirteen been present we should have saved the question. How shamefully

the South is represented! Some of the Southern men were too drunk to

be got into the House. * * Have we any future but miserable petty

squabbles, parties, factions, and fragments of organizations, led on by

contemptible drunken demagogues?”[35]

The next day he writes again: “As usual we lost the question by the

absence of two Southern votes. Luck seems to be against us. We had all

our other men there to-day except those paired. Some were so drunk they

had to be kept out until they were wanted to say ‘aye,’ or ‘no,’ as the

case might be.”[36] Two years later, after the celebrated Charleston

Democratic National Convention had broken up in a row, and the Douglas

wing had adjourned to meet in Baltimore, and the Breckenridge wing in

Richmond, Mr. Stephens seems to hint that drunkenness had something to

do with that most fatal step the Democrats ever took. “I am sorry,”

he says in a letter to Professor Johnston, “things are as they are;

sorry as I should be to see the paroxyms of a dear friend in a fit of

delirium tremens.”[37] Mr. Kelly, who was a delegate to the Charleston

Convention, returned home mortified and sad. “The drunkenness down

there,” said he to the author of this memoir, “was shameful. Men whose

minds are inflamed with whiskey are not able to govern themselves, much

less the country. Alas! for the poor Democratic party. The disruption

means defeat, and unless the Douglas men and Anti-Douglas men come

together and nominate a single ticket, the Republicans will carry the

election.”

Mr. Kelly, during his two terms in Congress, witnessed the demoralizing

scenes to which Mr. Stephens refers in his letters. Kelly was often

amused in spite of himself when he went out to the lobby to shake up

some poor inebriated gentleman, and lead him to the floor to give an

important vote. The grotesqueness and difficulties of the task, and the

absurd figure cut by the tipsy Solon, always excited his risibilities,

although he tried to keep a straight face during the trip to and fro.

His account of some of these scenes, never mentioned except among

intimate friends, was rich in comic touches and facial contortions. His

mimicry of the scenes was irresistible. But he, too, equally with Mr.

Stephens, saw what it would all lead to, and felt that the Democratic

party was in a bad way.

Another element of Democratic weakness was the over-readiness of those

called Fire-eaters to appeal to the code duello, or other forms of

personal rencontre. This was made by an unfriendly press to bear the

appearance of a species of terrorism, and was to some extent a revival

of the bullying and domineering so common among the Federalists in

Congress in their treatment of Democrats during the Administration

of John Adams. Writing in 1809 of “the brow-beatings and insults,”

to which the Federalists subjected the Democrats in the days of the

elder Adams, Mr. Jefferson says: “No person who was not a witness of

the scenes of that gloomy period can form any idea of the afflicting

persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our

country, however.”[38] The inexcusable assault of Preston S. Brooks on

Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber, May 22, 1856, had had its exact

counterpart on the floor of the House of Representatives, February 15,

1798, when Roger Griswold, a member of Congress from Connecticut, with

a stout hickory club, made a furious assault during the sitting of the

House upon the celebrated Matthew Lyon, one of the Representatives from

Vermont. Griswold was a Federalist, and Lyon a Democrat. But in the

latter case the assault was made by Brooks, a Democrat, upon Sumner,

a Republican. The Federalists condoned the offense of Griswold, and by

the decisive majority of 73 to 21 refused to expel him from Congress.

Even a resolution to censure him was lost.[39] The Republicans of 1856,

political legatees of the Federalists of 1798, did not show the same

forbearance in the case of Brooks. A resolution of expulsions received

121 affirmative, and 94 negative votes in the House, not enough to

expel a member under the two-thirds rule required by the Constitution,

but more than enough, remembering the palliation of Griswold’s offense,

to prove that all such votes reflect the partisan prejudices rather

than the impartial judgment of members.

In 1856 a scuffle took place upon the floor of Congress between

Mr. John Sherman of Ohio, and Mr. Wright of Tennessee. Mr. Sherman

attempted to throw a handful of wafers in Mr. Wright’s face, and the

latter returned the compliment by aiming a blow at Sherman with his

fist. The latter put his hand in his pistol-pocket, but before he could

draw members rushed between the combatants, and separated them.[40]

Intense excitement prevailed during this bear-garden performance.

A still more disgraceful scene occurred in the House, February 5, 1858.

Mr. Grow of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Keitt of South Carolina became

engaged in a regular fist fight, which spread to others until the

flourishing conflict boasted not less than thirty active participants.

The fight took place directly in front of the Clerk’s desk. In the

midst of the melee Mr. Barksdale, who afterwards fell in the battle

of Gettysburgh, rushed at Mr. Covode of Pennsylvania, who had lifted

up a heavy spittoon and was about to hurl it at the head of the

Mississippian, but at that instant some one seized Barksdale by the

head, and off came his wig, leaving his shining pate glittering in

the gas light, perfectly bald. At this ludicrous vision the enraged

combatants and all the spectators were moved to laughter, and finally

Mr. Speaker was able, by aid of the Sergeant-at-Arms, who bore his mace

on high and led his posse through the throng, to recall the House, if

not to order, at least from pandemonium.

“Last night,” says Mr. Stephens, in a letter, February 5, 1858, “we

had a battle royal in the House. Thirty men at least were engaged in

the fisticuff. Fortunately, no weapons were used. It was the first

sectional fight ever had on the floor, I think; and if any weapons had

been on hand it would probably have been a bloody one. All things here

are tending to bring my mind to the conclusion that the Union cannot,

or will not last long.”[41]

Mr. Kelly in the midst of these belligerent and disgraceful scenes

kept cool and calm. Once, however, Mr. Humphrey Marshall, the Kentucky

Know-Nothing, provoked him into momentary indignation by an insulting

allusion to Mr. Kelly’s religion, and by charging Catholics with abject

servitude in all civil and religious matters to the will of a foreign

prince, the Pope of Rome. Kelly rose and corrected Marshall without

discourtesy or bad feeling, but the huge form of the Kentuckian dilated

with rage, and he repeated the offensive charge in still stronger

language. Then Kelly rose with fire in his eye, and hurled back the

charge in such manner as to satisfy the whole House, and Marshall

in particular, that the barbaric passion for war, however held in

subjection at other times, now glowed in the bosom of the New York

member with irresistible fierceness. The two gentleman sat near each

other, and the scene as described to the author of this memoir by a

member who occupied an intervening seat, Judge Augustus R. Wright of

Georgia, must have produced intense excitement throughout the House.

Judge Wright, a distinguished Southern lawyer, said that after the

colloquy between Mr. Kelly and Mr. Marshall, which is imperfectly

reported in the Globe, and after Mr. Marshall had concluded his speech,

the latter walked over to Mr. Kelly’s seat, and demanded to know what

he meant by declaring the statement he had made was false. Marshall was

known to be a believer in the code duello, and was a man of immense

size. Mr. Kelly kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Marshall as he approached,

and Mr. Wright said that his physiognomy would have been a study for

Lavater. It was rigid and intent, but the eyes kindled with peculiar

light, and he gave Marshall such a glance that he, Wright, never could

forget it as long as he lived, and he supposed Marshall never would

either. To the question Kelly replied: “I meant exactly what I said;

your statement was not true, Sir.” Mr. Kelly was on his feet facing Mr.

Marshall, and Judge Wright anticipated an immediate collision between

them. It was avoided, however, and Marshall, with returning good humor,

made some allusion to the plain modes of speech in vogue among New York

members, and went back to his place.—The colloquy as published in the

Globe, toned down considerably in asperity, is as follows:

Mr. Marshall. “I feel quite sure there should have been a distinction

drawn between the Papist and the Catholic. I understand that a portion

of the Catholics hold the doctrine that the Pope,—whether it springs

from his spiritual power or his temporal power, or both combined, is

in the last resort the ultimate judge, not only of moral right, but

under the moral law, of political right; and, therefore, possesses the

power in some way, to absolve the citizen from obedience to the law of

the land or country to which he belongs, of which his Holiness may

disapprove as an infraction of the Divine law.”

Mr. Kelly. “I desire to ask the gentleman a question.”

Mr. Marshall. “The gentleman can take an hour to reply to my speech.”

Mr. Kelly. “The gentleman asserts what is not a fact, and I desire”—

Mr. Marshall. “I have found a great contrariety of opinions among

Catholics upon this particular branch of my subject, and I do not

expect that my friend from New York and I shall agree upon what are the

facts in regard to it.”

Mr. Kelly. “I deny that they hold any such doctrine, and the gentleman

states what is not true.”

Mr. Marshall. “Well, I must say that the gentleman puts his remarks in

a very blunt form.”

Mr. Kelly. “I say that the statement is not true.”

Mr. Marshall. “Why surely one branch of the Church holds that doctrine.”

Mr. Kelly. “I say there is no branch in this country that holds that

doctrine; and the gentleman has never seen one that advocates that

doctrine.”[42]

Mr. Marshall reiterated the statement, and Mr. Kelly in still more

positive language denounced it as untrue, and challenged the

Kentuckian to produce any evidence to sustain his allegation. The scene

was becoming very animated, and as the two herculean Representatives

glared at each other with angry mien and menacing front, Mr. Wright was

reminded, as he afterwards said, of Milton’s picture:—

“Such a frown

Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds

With heaven’s artillery fraught, come rattling on

Over the Caspian, then stand front to front

Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow

To join their dark encounter in mid-air

So frowned the mighty combatants.”

But this dispute with Marshall was a very exceptional thing to happen

to Mr. Kelly. He was a universal favorite in both Houses of Congress,

and his popularity continued to grow the longer he remained at the

Federal Capital. Some rare men there are in this world in whom there

is such unity of character, whose talents however high are equalled by

the qualities of their hearts; whose virtues however great are equalled

by the warmth of their affections and the sweetness of their temper;

they carry a passport to the common heart written, as it were, upon

their fronts by the finger of God. “The world is a looking-glass,” says

Thackeray in Vanity Fair, “and gives back to every man the reflection

of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon

you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion.” Sir

Thomas More was one of those rare characters who won the general heart

by the sunshine that played about him. He met Erasmus at a dinner table

in London without an introduction, but Erasmus knew him at once. “Aut

Morus aut Nullus,” said he. “Aut Erasmus aut Diabolus,” was the waggish

reply. In America occasionally some noble spirit appears who finds his

way to all hearts without an effort. Such a man was Nathaniel Macon of

North Carolina, simple, plain, unostentatious, the political idol of

John Randolph, “the last of the Romans” as Jefferson called him; “a

speaker,” says Benton, “of no pretension and great performance, who

spoke more good sense while he was getting up out of his chair and

getting back into it, than many others did in long discourses.”[43]

Mr. Stephens frequently said to the present writer that John Kelly

reminded him more of Nathaniel Macon than did any other man in public

life. Kelly’s rugged sense of right, his blunt honesty, sagaciousness,

modesty, and good humor, conspired to make friends for him on all sides

of the House. If he was asked to do a favor for any one, he generally

did more than was asked, and never said anything about it afterwards.

Kindness and service to mankind were virtues of which he was the

cheerful exemplar.

Stephens and Kelly were strikingly alike in this respect, both seemed

never to tire in well-doing and deeds of benevolence. The number of

poor boys who have owed their education and success in life to these

two men has been very large. There are hundreds of happy homes in

this country to-day where poverty has been turned into comfort, and

pinching want into comparative prosperity, by Alexander H. Stephens and

John Kelly. The two gentlemen were deeply attached friends, and each

regarded the other as the type of an honest statesman. Twenty years

after the close of their Congressional relations, Mr. Stephens, in a

letter to the present writer, desired to be remembered to Mr. Kelly in

the kindest manner. The following is the letter, personal matters of no

interest to the general reader being omitted:

LIBERTY HALL,

Crawfordsville, Georgia,

28th October, 1878.

MY DEAR SIR:

Your letter was duly received. Two days afterwards the parcel came. *

* *

I am now just about leaving home for an absence of several days. I

want you to read Johnston and Browne’s recent book. I have ordered

several copies, but none has yet reached here, or I would send you

one. Give John Kelly my kindest regards when you see him. I regard him

as one of the ablest and truest men in this country. * * *

With best wishes to you and all yours, I remain,

Very truly,

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

Mr. Kelly’s esteem for Mr. Stephens while living, and his respect for

the great Commoner’s memory when dead, are shown by the subjoined

extract from an article which appeared in the New York Utica Observer,

November 22, 1884:

“William M. Evarts, Republican, and John Kelly, Democrat, have each

contributed fifty dollars to the Alexander H. Stephens Memorial Fund.

John Kelly wrote as follows to the Committee: ‘I had the honor of

sitting in Congress with this gentleman thirty years ago, and always

entertained for him the highest regard. He was a noble example of a

statesman; in fact, I never met a man who was so pure in his intentions

in public life.’ Commenting upon this circumstance, the Atlanta

_Constitution_ says: ‘It is a good sign of the proper feeling between

the South and North to see such men as W.M. Evarts and John Kelly

joining in doing honor to the memory of the ex-Vice-President of the

Confederacy.’”

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Life of A. H. Stephens. Johnston and Browne, p. 299.

[28] Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i, p. 122.

[29] Life of A. H. Stephens. Johnston and Browne, p. 306.

[30] _Reminiscences of Daniel Webster_, by Peter Harvey, p. 200.

[31] Garland’s Life of John Randolph, vol. II., p. 345.

[32] Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. X., 361.

[33] Life of A. H. Stephens. Johnston and Browne, p. 315.

[34] Ibid, p. 329.

[35] Ibid, p. 331.

[36] Ibid, p. 331.

[37] Ibid, p. 355.

[38] Jefferson’s Works, vol. ix., p. 508.

[39] Annals of Congress, 1798.

[40] Gobright’s Recollection of Men and Things at Washington, p. 164.

[41] Life of A. H. Stephens. Johnston & Browne, p. 330.

[42] Congressional Globe, part 3. 1st Session, 35th Congress, p. 2366.

[43] Thirty Years’ View, vol. I. p. 117.

CHAPTER VII.

MR. KELLY IN VARIOUS DEBATES—FAMINE IN THE CAPE DE VERDE

ISLANDS—“IRISH WAITERS”—MAYNARD’S SNEER AND KELLY’S

REBUKE—KNOW-NOTHING RIOT IN WASHINGTON—KELLY WITNESSES THE SCENE—HIS

GREAT HOMESTEAD SPEECH—OTHER SPEECHES BY HIM—WASHINGTON SOCIETY IN THE

OLDEN DAY.

As a comprehensive portrayal, rather than biography in detail, is the

design of this volume, a general survey of Mr. Kelly’s Congressional

career is all that can be attempted in these pages, with concise

mention of some of its leading events and incidents. His speeches alone

would fill a book of equal size to this.

In the course of a debate in the Committee of the whole on the State

of the Union, May 26, 1856, Mr. Kelly delivered a strong speech upon

New York politics, in which he gave an interesting review of the

divisions that had prevailed in the Democratic party of that State.

Tracing back those divisions to 1848, he gave a lucid insight into

the history of the Hunkers and Barnburners, and of the later factions

known as Hard Shells and Soft Shells. He evinced thorough acquaintance

with the complexional differences between those factions, and with

the political history of the Empire State, a knowledge which was

to prove so useful to him in after years. He charged that many of

the Hards were Know-Nothings, but attributed patriotic motives to

other members of that wing of the party. He might have made the same

charge of Know-Nothingism with equal justice against many of the

Softs. Subsequent history probably has led Mr. Kelly to modify some

of the opinions he expressed in that speech. There were good National

Democrats in both wings of the party, the disturbing question of

slavery being the chief cause of dissension. The anti-slavery agitation

at the North, and consequent dissemination at the South of the old

New England doctrine of secession, were the two growing ideas, the

monomania of that age of American history. The Republican party was

more largely recruited from the ranks of the Soft Shells than from

those of the Hard Shells, and the resolutions and speeches in the

Syracuse Soft Convention of 1855, of which Mr. Kelly was a member, and

which were discussed at large in a former chapter, clearly indicated

that such would be the case.

As sound a Democrat as President Pierce was, he made the mistake of

placing the chief control of his Administration in the hands of those

Democrats, both at the North and South, who had opposed the compromise

of 1850, such as John A. Dix and John Van Buren on the one hand, and

Jefferson Davis on the other.

“Notwithstanding,” said Mr. Kelly, “the outcry raised by our enemies,

who desire to destroy the influence of New York, let me assure you,

Mr. Chairman, that there now exists no division among the Democratic

masses there. They now happily constitute a united party, bound

together by a common creed and a common interest. This union of the

Hunker and Barnburner sections of the party was accomplished in 1849,

the year after the unfortunate defeat of General Cass, and it has gone

on strengthening ever since, in spite of the transient fanaticisms of

Republicanism and Know-Nothingism, from one or the other of which the

party in every section of the country has suffered temporary damage,

our late reverses in New York forming no exception to the general rule.

If the Democrats of Louisiana, or Tennessee, or of any other Southern

States, have been prostrated when opposed to only one of these evils,

is it a peculiar disgrace—is it any special evidence of impotency, that

we have had to yield once or twice before the combined forces of both?”

During the year 1855 the crops in Europe and other parts of the world

suffered greatly from unseasonable and excessive rains. In some

places, particularly in the Cape de Verde Islands, the wet weather was

succeeded by a protracted drought. For two years prior to that year the

Cape de Verdes had suffered from a scarcity of food owing to similar

causes, and a third visitation now reduced the inhabitants in many

places to a state of starvation. The Bishop of those islands on the

12th of March, 1856, wrote an earnest appeal for succor to Archbishop

Hughes, of New York. “Having exhausted all our own means,” said he, “it

only remains for us to appeal to the charity of the public. If these

people are not promptly succored more than twenty thousand persons

will perish, victims of famine.” A movement was organized in New

York to send food to the famine-stricken islanders, and a resolution

was introduced in Congress by Mr. Wheeler, of New York, in which the

President was requested to instruct the Secretary of the Navy to detail

twenty-five seamen to man the vessel in which the cargo of food was

to be shipped to the sufferers. Archbishop Hughes had confided Bishop

Patricio’s appeal to Mr. Kelly, and requested him to lay it before

Congress, and use his best offices with his fellow-members to secure

favorable action upon it. On the 19th of May, Mr. Kelly asked and

obtained the unanimous consent of the House, after the introduction of

Mr. Wheeler’s resolution, to have the letter to Archbishop Hughes read.

The picture which the Bishop of the Cape de Verde Islands had drawn of

the dreadful scourge deeply impressed members. In the course of the

debate some objections were made to the passage of the resolution, to

which Mr. Kelly replied as follows:

“This resolution, Mr. Speaker, merely proposes to relieve the poor

people in those islands, who are now in a state of starvation on

account of the blight to their vine crop; and it is astonishing to me

that any member of this House should object to a resolution of this

kind. It asks no appropriation of money; it does not ask Congress

to appropriate a single dollar towards relieving them. The generous

citizens of New York have come forward and held a meeting at the

Exchange in that city, and agreed to load a vessel with provisions for

the use of these destitute people of the Cape de Verdes, who are now

living on the bark of trees, the stalks of bananas, and anything else

they can pick up to save themselves from utter starvation. Therefore,

I trust that there will be no objection from any gentleman in this

House to the resolution presented by my colleague. It merely asks that

a crew of United States seamen may be given to navigate the vessel, in

order that relief may reach those poor people in time to save them from

impending destruction. It is not much that is asked, and we ought, I

think, cheerfully to grant it.”

This simple, strong appeal proved effective, and the resolution was

passed by the large vote of 123 ayes to 24 noes.

Mr. Kelly was again nominated for Congress in 1856, and at the election

on November 4th of that year was returned to the Thirty-fifth Congress

by an overwhelming majority. Of the 11,599 votes cast in the Fourth

Congressional District of New York, John Kelly received 8,319, L. W.

Ryckman, 1,497; W. F. Gould, 1,735, and 48 were scattering. Kelly’s

majority over all was 5,039.

During Mr. Kelly’s second term in Congress a savage riot occurred in

Washington at the District election in June, 1857. For some time the

city was at the mercy of a gang of professional desperadoes, composed

of Washington Know-Nothings, and Plug Uglies of the same party from

Baltimore, the latter being the pets and followers of the malignant

Henry Winter Davis. The Mayor was powerless to preserve the peace with

the insufficient police force at his command, and President Buchanan,

on the Mayor’s requisition, called out the Marines at the Navy Yard

under Major Tyler to disperse the rioters. The military proceeded

to the Northern Liberties, where they were attacked by the mob,

and several innocent citizens were killed. Major Tyler was finally

compelled to return the fire of the infuriated mob, and for some time

that portion of the city was the scene of a fierce battle. It was not

until the fire of the soldiers was directed in a few cases with fatal

effect that the miscreants were driven off and dispersed.

After the disturbance, the Mayor of the city and the Chief of the

Washington police, feeling themselves unable to cope with the lawless

bands in their midst, appealed to Congress for relief. A bill to

establish an Auxiliary Guard for the protection of public and private

property in the city of Washington was accordingly introduced in the

Senate, and after an extended debate the excellent measure passed

that body, and was sent to the House of Representatives for action

there. The remedies applied in the city of Baltimore, where still

more atrocious scenes of bloodshed annually had occurred under Mayor

Swan’s Know-Nothing administration, with Henry Winter Davis firing

the hearts of his Plug Uglies to a war of extermination against

foreigners, presented an example to Washington of the effective way

of redeeming the latter city from the scoundrels who infested it.

The Legislature of Maryland took the control of the police force of

Baltimore from the Mayor, and lodged it in the hands of an independent

officer known as Marshal of Police. In the bill creating the office

the celebrated George P. Kane was designated as Marshal, and no

better man ever lived for a position of that kind. Col. Kane was a

gentleman by instinct and education; the purity of his character was

universally recognized, and the intrepidity of his nature was perfectly

understood by the law-breakers of Baltimore. A man of gigantic stature,

he possessed wonderful symmetry and comeliness of person, enormous

physical strength, and a courage that would have carried him to the

stake to be flayed alive in vindication of an idea or principle he

believed to be right. This man did more to redeem Baltimore from the

assassins and ruffians who had controlled it than all other men and

agencies combined. Under Marshal Kane’s magnificent administration the

Monumental City became one of the most peaceable, as it long had been

one of the most beautiful of American cities. In after years the people

rewarded this destroyer of Know-Nothingism in their midst, first with

the office of High Sheriff, and next with that of Mayor of Baltimore.

The bill to establish an Auxiliary Guard in Washington, whose features

resembled those of the Maryland Act creating a Marshal of Police in the

city of Baltimore, received Mr. Kelly’s decided approval and support

when it reached the House. In the course of the debate on this bill,

April 15, 1858, Mr. Kelly said:

“The proposition before the Committee is that the police laws of this

city are of such a character that the citizens of Washington have to

ask Congress to alter them in order to protect them from the murderer

and assassin. The bill proposes to give to the President of the United

States the power to appoint the Chief of Police, and that that Chief

of Police, with the consent of the Secretary of the Interior, shall

have the power to appoint his subordinate officers. The people here

are willing to throw up their charter, given to them by Congress, for

the reason, as they say, that they are not able to protect themselves

against the criminals that infest the city. The amendment proposed

by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Dodd) providing for the selection

of Commissioners by the people is, in my opinion, objectionable.

Men elected as Americans will, of course, appoint Americans or

Know-Nothings to office, and _vice versa_, Democrats will do the same

thing. The only way to give this city an efficient police is by passing

the bill reported by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode), placing

the power in the hands of the President of the United States to appoint

the Chief of Police. Mr. Chairman, in the various arguments that have

been made on this bill, all kinds of logic have been brought to bear

in favor of gentlemen’s different prejudices. The gentleman from

Tennessee (Mr. Maynard), in discussing this bill yesterday, referred to

a transaction which took place during a former Congress.[44] He spoke

of men who earn their living by the sweat of their brow as a ‘parcel

of Irish waiters.’ Now, sir, I do not think that that expression

was called for. These men, whether Irish or German, or belonging to

any other country, have the same rights under the Constitution as

American-born citizens. It is not to be said that because these men

were waiters, they had not their independent rights and privileges as

much as the Representatives of the people on this floor. I tell the

gentleman from Tennessee, and other members of this House, that the

humble Irishman has his rights under the Constitution, naturalized as

he is by your laws, equally with the native-born, and until he commits

some act in derogation of the true principles of manhood, it does

not become any gentleman to stigmatize him or speak of him in such a

contemptuous style.

“The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stanton), in speaking on this Bill,

attributes the defeat in 1844 of that great and honored statesman, Mr.

Clay, who has long since gone to his grave, to the Empire Club in the

city of New York, and to the manner in which the election was conducted

in that city. Let me tell the gentleman that I was conversant with

all those facts, and knew of the transactions which took place in New

York in 1844. There was another Club there at that time, and it was a

very objectionable one, because all the pugilists, all the fighters,

and all the rowdies you could find, were brought together by pay,

by solicitations of whatever nature, and were formed into a Club in

opposition to the Empire Club at that time. Now, I ask the gentleman if

he knows who was president of that Club?”

Mr. Stanton: “I know nothing in regard to that Club. Who was the man?”

Mr. Kelly: “Bill Poole. I am sorry to say he got into a personal

difficulty in New York and was killed. Let me say to the gentleman

that when both of those Clubs were organized at that particular time,

though there were violent men in both, neither one of these Clubs used

violence against citizens in going to the polls to exercise the right

of suffrage. That cannot be said in this city, for I am reminded of the

transactions which took place at the election here last June.”

“The gentleman from Mississippi, (Mr. Quitman,) said, in his speech,

that there was no violence in this city; that he had travelled around

on frequent occasions, in order to see if some one of the rowdies here

would not attack him. Now I know that the gentleman has displayed

courage upon the battle-field, and rendered essential service to his

country. No man doubts his integrity, his honesty and his bravery; but

had he been here last June, he would have met in the streets of this

city that which no man desires to meet. I saw a body of young men from

eighteen to twenty years of age, driving men of thirty and forty years

of age before them like sheep from the field, and firing their pistols

among them indiscriminately. Yet there did not appear to be, so far as

I could see, courage enough in the citizens of this city to resent the

outrage which was perpetrated upon them at that time.

“Crime, Mr. Chairman, in all cities, whether it be here, or in New

York, or elsewhere, unless checked by the physical power of man, will

continually manifest itself. Some gentlemen here have argued that you

cannot check it by physical force; that moral force must be resorted

to. That is all humbug, for such a check amounts to nothing at all.

Violence of all description will be committed, unless you have proper

officers to prevent it. Then you ought in the present case to organize

a police force to meet this exigency, and to arrest the individuals

who are in the habit of committing crimes in your city. Now this bill

organizes an efficient police, under the jurisdiction of officers of

this Government who have the full control of it,—a force which will be

the means of protecting individuals who come here to transact business,

as well as yourselves, for many of you admit that it is dangerous to

leave your rooms at night,—that you are afraid of encountering these

marauders who infest the city. The main objection on the other side

of the House is that the Chief of Police, who may be appointed by

the President, will be partial in his appointments, selecting only

partisans, or those who favor his political principles, just as it

is supposed the President himself will appoint a man who is of his

politics. That argument, in my opinion, cannot hold good. I do not

think such a course will be carried out, and I know if I had anything

to do with it, I would not be partial at all. I would select men for

their character alone. If I saw they were efficient, physically able

to do the duties of policemen, and of good moral character, I would

appoint them upon such grounds alone, without regard to politics. But,

gentlemen on the other side say they are afraid to trust the President.

Well, we are afraid to trust them in the city of New York. The case

of this city and that of New York, between which some analogies have

been made, are not parallel cases at all. This city is under the

jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The President and the Congress

of the United States are here; Ministers from foreign Governments are

here; and the courts here are under the jurisdiction of the Federal

Government. The only difference between the appointment of a Chief of

Police by the President and by the Mayor is this: in the former case

the Chief of Police is responsible to the Federal Government, and if he

does not carry out the laws, can easily be reached; while on the other

hand if the Mayor does not appoint satisfactorily, the people cannot

reach his appointee, in the same manner.”[45]

The Republicans and Know-Nothings were strong enough, with the aid of

a few Democrats, who had fine-spun constitutional objections to it,

to prevent the passage of this excellent bill by the House, but Mr.

Kelly’s argument was not successfully answered by any of the opponents

of the measure.

An interesting debate took place in the House, May 3, 1858, in relation

to the Bureau of Statistics of the State Department, in which Mr. Kelly

took a prominent part. This Bureau was established by Congress upon

the recommendation of Mr. Marcy during the last Administration. The

urgent necessity for such a Bureau was originally pointed out by Mr.

Webster in 1842, when he was at the head of the Department. Several

volumes upon the Commercial Relations of the United States with all

other countries were issued during 1856 and 1857, prepared ostensibly

by Edmund Flagg, Superintendent of the Bureau, but in reality Flagg

had very little to do with the work. Hugh C. McLaughlin of Virginia,

Mr. Flagg’s assistant, and who was soon after appointed his successor

as Superintendent, was the real compiler, translator and editor of

the valuable materials contained in those volumes. But Flagg was

Superintendent, and he not only contrived to get his name printed on

the title page as such, but to monopolise the whole credit to himself

for the work. The volumes were received with remarkable favor by the

leading commercial authorities in this country and Europe. Hunt’s

Merchants Magazine spoke highly of them. In a notice of the fourth

volume, the London Athenæum of February 20, 1858, said: “The highest

praise is due to the House of Representatives for publishing this

comprehensive and really national report, which brings into one view

the commercial status of the United States with the entire world.”[46]

The celebrated M. Rouher, then Minister of Agriculture and Commerce

in France, who subsequently figured so conspicuously under the Empire

of Napoleon the Third, expressed unqualified praise of this work of

the State Department at Washington. To a friend who sent him one of

the volumes, M. Rouher wrote: “This document is executed under the

direction of the Secretary of State, by Mr. Edmund Flagg, an officer

of the State Department. The Minister of France at Washington had

already communicated to the Imperial Government the remarkable Report

of Mr. Flagg to Mr. Marcy. It contains abundant and useful information;

and I am happy to recognize in it marked improvement over works of

the same character previously published by the American Government. A

further improvement will be accomplished when, in accordance with the

wish of Mr. Flagg, Congress shall prescribe a continuous, periodical

and practically useful publication, like that which my Department has

constantly issued for many years.”[47]

If M. Rouher was in the habit of following the proceedings of the

American Congress, his surprise must have been great to find this

same Mr. Flagg, who but a few months before had expressed so earnest

a desire for the continued and regular publication of the Commercial

Relations by the State Department, now haunting the lobbies of

Congress, and supplying specious arguments to the opposition or

Republican members against the further publication of the work, and in

favor of the abolition of the Bureau itself. That which he proclaimed

a work of national importance yesterday, he declared to be a useless

encumbrance to-day. Flagg’s sudden change of mind was easily explained.

Certain irregularities in his accounts had been discovered, and

Secretary Cass had compelled him to send in his resignation. _Hinc

illae lachrymæ._ The opposition members were always ready to attack

the Administration, and Mr. Flagg plied them with frivolous arguments

against the Bureau from which he had been discharged. Mr. Nichols

of Ohio, and Mr. Washburne of Illinois, two Republican Congressmen,

perhaps unaware that Flagg was a man with a grievance, espoused his

cause, and while the Appropriation Bill for the legislative, executive

and judicial branches of the Government was under consideration, May

3, 1858, they declared that it would be a waste of money to make any

appropriation for the Bureau of Statistics in the State Department,

and Mr. Nichols made this a pretext to denounce the extravagance of

the Administration. After he had made his attack, and elicited no

reply, Mr. Nichols was emboldened to go farther, and indiscreetly

began to cross-question the members of the Committee of Ways and

Means, of which Mr. Kelly was one, and by which the Appropriation Bill

had been brought in, and to extol Flagg as a disinterested patriot,

who had resigned his office, because he could not conscientiously

draw a salary for work that was wholly useless. This was a fatal line

of attack for Nichols to pursue, as he soon discovered to his cost.

Senator Clay of Alabama, Chairman of the Committee on Commerce in the

Senate, had investigated Flagg’s case in the State Department, and Mr.

Kelly afterwards had become acquainted with the doings of the latter

individual. Challenged to defend the appropriation, Mr. J. Glancy

Jones, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and Mr. Kelly, a

member of the same Committee, completely turned the tables upon Mr.

Nichols and Mr. Washburne and after Kelly’s crushing rejoinder, Mr.

Nichols, the would-be-champion of Flagg, dropped him as he would have

run away from the contagion, and made a most ludicrous retreat from the

field of his own selection.

To quote Mr. J. Glancy Jones, in his able defense of this item of the

Appropriation Bill brought in by his Committee, would occupy too much

space here; but the spicy debate between Messrs. Nichols, Kelly, and

Washburne cannot be entirely omitted in a memoir of Mr. Kelly’s life.

Mr. Nichols: “I cannot take my seat without paying a just tribute to

the late Mr. Marcy, and Mr. Flagg, who had charge of the preparation of

the volume known as the ‘Commercial Relations.’ I would enquire of the

gentleman (Mr. J. Glancy Jones) whether the former Superintendent did

not resign his office under the express declaration that a discharge

of the duties of the office was no longer necessary; and whether after

that, and during this year, a successor was appointed?”

Mr. J. Glancy Jones: “I do not know what induced the gentleman alluded

to to resign the office.”

Mr. Kelly: “I have made some enquiry on this subject, and from the best

information I could get, I learned that Mr. Flagg was compelled to

resign because there were charges made against him, to the effect that

he had employed women ostensibly at four dollars a day, and only paid

them at two dollars a day, requiring their receipts for four dollars

a day. This fact was ascertained by the gentleman who represents the

Committee on Commerce of the Senate. When he found that such was the

case, he went to the State Department and said, that if Mr. Flagg

was not turned out of that office, he would expose the matter to the

country. This was the reason that Mr. Flagg was compelled to resign.

So far as the Bureau itself is concerned, every gentleman knows that

there is no Bureau in the Government that has been so effective in

giving the country valuable statistical information. But Mr. Flagg

being compelled to resign, now comes to Congress, and makes the effort

to abolish a Bureau which has been of so much benefit to the country.”

Mr. Nichols: “I beg leave to say that so far as my action here is

concerned, Mr. Flagg has nothing to do with it whatever. He has been

connected with that Bureau, but I have spoken to him hardly half a

dozen times.”

Mr. Nichols, but a few minutes before, had been extolling Flagg, and

coupled his name with that of Secretary Marcy in what he called a “just

tribute.” Now he wriggles out of the debate in the following amusing

style:

Mr. Nichols: “I desire to conclude what I have to say. I wish the

gentleman from New York to understand that, in reference to anything he

may say about troubles in the Democratic camp which may have led to the

removal of any of its children, I desire to enter into no discussion.

I have nothing to do with it, then, or the difficulties of this happy

family.”

Mr. Kelly: “I think the gentleman from Ohio is entirely in error.

The duty of the statisticians in the State Department is to collate

and compile all the reports made by consuls at foreign ports upon

commercial matters, and everything which pertains to the welfare and

benefit of this Government. It is done not only for the benefit of

commercial men, but for the benefit of the community generally, and I

think the abolition of that particular branch of the Government would

be entirely wrong. The whole expense of keeping it up amounts to very

little. I say again that the whole of this matter originated—though

I do not attribute it to the gentleman from Ohio—on the part of

disappointed gentlemen who had been turned out of office, and in

nothing else.”

Mr. Washburne, of Illinois: “My object in asking my friend to yield

me the floor is to say a word here in reference to Mr. Flagg. I have

had some acquaintance with that gentleman from my connection with this

matter during the last Congress, and I am astonished at the charges the

gentleman from New York has made here to-day; and I think it is due to

Mr. Flagg that the gentleman from New York should state his authority.

Those charges go to the country, and reflect severely upon Mr. Flagg.”

Mr. Kelly: “I have made no charge, and shall make no charge against the

gentleman.”

Mr. Washburne “Will the gentleman state his authority for what he has

said?”

Mr. Kelly: “The State Department itself. If the gentleman desires to

have this matter investigated, let him introduce a resolution for that

purpose. If information on the subject be desired for the House and the

country, let a resolution be introduced and passed calling on the State

Department to furnish it.”

Mr. Maynard: “I should like to know who is the present head of the

Bureau?”

Mr. Nichols: “These interruptions have entirely broken the thread of

my remarks. With the discussion of family differences and difficulties

which have led to the removal of one man and the substitution of

another, I have nothing to do, and I desire to have nothing to do with

them. I do not know who fills this office. It is nothing to me who

does. I find I have occupied about enough of the time of the Committee

with this question.”[48]

The Bureau of Statistics flourished on, and was no longer disturbed

by Edmund Flagg. Mr. Kelly had overwhelmingly refuted the charges of

Messrs. Nichols and Washburne against the management of the State

Department under General Cass.

There was a warm controversy between the Senate and House of

Representatives over the appropriations for the naval service for the

year ending June 30, 1859. Committees of Conference on the disagreeing

votes of the two Houses were appointed, and held frequent meetings. The

managers on the part of the Senate were Stephen R. Mallory, Solomon

Foot, and Judah P. Benjamin; those on the part of the House were Thomas

S. Bocock, John Kelly and F. H. Morse. The conferees finally agreed

upon their report. Mr. Bocock submitted the report to the House, June

11, 1858. Of the few amendments in controversy, the House Committee

receded from their disagreement to the second and third amendments,

relating to an appropriation of fifty thousand six hundred dollars for

a new purchase in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Messrs. Morgan, Grow, Clemens

and others energetically opposed this appropriation. Mr. Bocock and Mr.

Kelly of the Conference Committee as strongly advocated it. The members

of the Conference Committees of both Houses had unanimously approved

the report, and each of the managers had signed it. Mr. Kelly answered

the objections to this appropriation.

Mr. Kelly: “I will say a word on this matter with the permission of the

gentleman from Virginia. The Government owns the land between the Navy

Yard and the Marine Hospital. It is now all, or nearly all, a swamp. A

part has been filled in, and filled in, I believe, for the very small

price of sixteen cents a yard. As the property now stands, it cannot be

of any use to the Government. Even if the Government desires to sell,

it would be a sound economy and prudent foresight to first fill it in.

It would then command a large price. It extends for a considerable

way along what is called the Wallabout, and it shows a complete

water-front. If the Government filled it in at the rate contracted for

before, they might sell lots there for large sums, which are now of

no earthly use to anybody. Until it is filled in the Marine Barracks

ordered by Congress cannot be built; and the Marines at that Yard are

now quartered in sheds. They are small, and not at all suitable for the

purpose for which they have been temporarily put up. I hope, therefore,

that this appropriation will be concurred in. I am convinced that it is

needed and needed now.”[49]

The objectors, however, were unyielding, and the report of the

Committee of Conference was disagreed to by a vote of 74 noes to 67

ayes.

The interests of Brooklyn always have had a warm advocate in Mr. Kelly,

and although in more recent days he has found there some of his most

active political opponents, it may be doubted whether those gentlemen

have proved themselves truer friends of the general interests of that

great city than John Kelly.

In a former chapter of this book allusion has been made to the many

gross misrepresentations of Mr. Kelly’s motives and actions to which

the press has given circulation. A glaring instance of this bearing

of false witness against the neighbor is to be found in a volume

entitled _The American Irish_, by “Philip H. Bagenal, B. A., Oxon.”

This Mr. Bagenal seems to be, not an American Irishman, but an English

Irishman of the London Tory variety, whose booklet smacks of the facile

courtier of some Cabinet Minister, not far off from Downing Street or

Pall Mall. It is a libel on Ireland and Irishmen at home and abroad,

now on Mr. Parnell in Wicklow, and again on Mr. Kelly in New York.

Bagenal writes not so well, but after the fashion of Dr. Russell,

another English Irishman, familiarly known as “Bull Run Russell.” The

latter’s vulgar caricatures of President Lincoln, in his letters to

the London _Times_, caused his expulsion from the military lines of

the Federal army during the war. Peripatetic book-makers from abroad,

who take hasty journeys through this country, generally contrive to

pick up a budget of miscellaneous misinformation, which they cram

into misbegotten books, and offer for sale in the London market.

Mr. Bagenal’s mission appears to have been to contribute an English

tract on Irish life in the United States, for English partisan use in

Ireland. To say that the alleged facts in this book are frequently

untrue, is to characterize the performance very mildly. Mr. Parnell

and his followers, according to Bagenal, are enemies of Ireland,

and architects of ruin and anarchy only less reprehensible than the

dynamiters.

“In New York,” says this scribe of the London _Times_, “we find the

Irish dying faster than any others, less given to marriage than any

others, and more given to hard work and fasting than any others. * *

I visited the tenement houses in New York where the Irish population

dwell. * * Everywhere the moral atmosphere is one of degradation and

human demoralization. Gross sensuality prevails. The sense of shame,

if ever known, is early stifled. * * Thus live the descendants of

the great Irish exodus of 1845-48. * * They sought such occupation

as offered; they underbid labor, adapted themselves manfully to

the conditions of industry, or joined the rabble that trooped as

‘ballot-stuffers’ and ‘shoulder-hitters’ in the train of the Tweeds,

the Morrisseys, and the Kellys of the day; and so became the scourge of

American politics. In those bygone days when the Irish-American nation

began to grow on Yankee soil, had Government directed and assisted

the tide of emigration, hundreds of thousands would have been carried

out West; where, accustomed to agricultural pursuits, they would have

become quiet and prosperous citizens, instead of fire-brands and

perpetuators of the animosity between England and Ireland.”[50]

This slanderous picture of the Irish population in New York is followed

by an account of Bishop Ireland’s noble efforts to build up an Irish

colony in Minnesota, and the great West. Mr. Bagenal holds up Mr. Kelly

as an enemy of this great movement. What a pity he did not ask Bishop

Ireland, with whom, he says, he became acquainted at St. Paul, who were

the leading co-workers with that pious churchman in opening up a home

for Irish settlers in the new States of the West? Bagenal would have

learned from Bishop Ireland, had he sought to know the truth, that

John Kelly had aided this philanthropic work by giving to the Bishop

one thousand dollars, afterwards increased to nearly two thousand, as

a contribution to the St. Paul Catholic Colonization Bureau. Knowledge

of this circumstance probably would not have deterred Bagenal, the

vilifier of Mr. Parnell, from describing Mr. Kelly as the enemy to

Irish colonization in the West. The typical London snob abroad is

revealed in the mendacious sentence concerning “the rabble that trooped

as ‘ballot-stuffers’ and ‘shoulder-hitters’ in the train of the Tweeds,

the Morrisseys and the Kellys of the day,” and sufficiently proves the

Downing Street inspiration of this Tory romancer, who, it appears from

his preface, is a writer for the London _Times_.

John Kelly, throughout his whole career, has been an earnest advocate

for the settlement on the fertile prairies of the West of the poor

emigrants who crowd into the Eastern cities, too often to starve for

the want of employment. Twenty-seven years ago he introduced one of

the first Homestead bills brought forward in Congress, which was a

statesmanlike effort to relieve the overcrowded population of the great

cities, and to build up the prosperity and happiness of the struggling

masses of his fellow-citizens. He supported this bill in a speech of

great vigor, in which he pointed out the advantages of homes in the

West to the poor, and sought to place the acquisition of such homes

within the reach of every citizen of the United States, who wished to

become an actual settler upon the teeming millions of land that then

belonged to the Government. Had his bill been passed, the gigantic

railroad monopolies of to-day might not be in possession of the mighty

landed empire which they, in so many cases, acquired by fraud, and hold

by corruption, against the rights of the people of the United States.

On the 18th of January, 1858, Mr. Kelly introduced a bill in Congress

to secure homesteads to actual settlers upon the public domain. The

bill was read a first and second time, and referred to the Committee on

Agriculture. This great measure which Mr. Kelly then brought forward,

one of the most beneficent that ever claimed attention in the American

Congress, was originally introduced by Andrew Johnson, March 27, 1846,

then a Representative in Congress from Tennessee. More than six years

elapsed before the House acted on this bill, but the indomitable Andrew

Johnson, future President of the United States, persevered in his

statesmanlike advocacy of the measure, and the House of Representatives

finally passed it May 12, 1852, by a majority of two thirds. The bill,

unfortunately, failed in the Senate. The same bill, in substance,

was again introduced in the House in 1853 by John L. Dawson of

Pennsylvania, where it was passed a second time by an overwhelming

majority. As it had done before, the Senate again rejected the bill,

under the mistaken notion that it would weaken some of the old States

to allow a flood-tide of population to pour into the new ones.

The next attempt to carry through the measure in Congress, and to

bestow happy homesteads on homeless millions of American citizens, was

that of Mr. Kelly of January 18th, 1858. About the same time Andrew

Johnson, then a Senator, introduced a similar bill in the Senate,

and became, as before, its powerful champion. The House, being in

the Committee of the Whole, May 25, Mr. Kelly made one of the ablest

speeches of his life on the Homestead Bill. The length of the speech,

and the scope of this volume, preclude its reproduction here. A few

extracts are all that can be given:

“Mr. Chairman,” said he, “I regret that the bill which I had referred

to the Committee on Agriculture, in the early part of this Session,

has not as yet been reported on, as I would have much preferred

addressing my remarks on the homestead question to the bill itself. I

will take occasion to observe, in passing, that the Committees of this

House have been prompt in making their reports even on matters that

sink into insignificance when compared with the question of giving an

humble homestead to actual settlers on the lands of the Government. If

the Committee should think proper to delay their report much longer,

I shall feel it to be my duty, at an early day, to move for their

discharge from the further consideration of the subject, and ask leave

to bring the bill directly before the House. If the Senate bill does

not reach us in the meantime, I may fail even in this way to secure a

vote on the question; but I will have the consolation to know that I

have done my duty to those of our fellow-citizens who are either too

modest or too poor to command much influence in this Hall.”