declared 'that those who live on borrowed money ought to break.' I
do not concur in that harsh saying; yet I am clearly of the
opinion that the government, in common prudence (to say nothing of
pride and dignity), ought to reserve its credit for great
transactions and unforeseen emergencies. In common times of peace,
it ought always to have an established revenue, equal, at least,
to its current expenses. And that revenue ought to be so levied as
to foster and protect the industry of the country, employed in our
most necessary and important manufactures."
DANIEL S. DICKINSON.
Daniel Stevens Dickinson was born at Goshen, Litchfield County, Conn.,
Sept. 11, 1800.
His father, Daniel T. Dickinson, was a farmer, an intelligent, upright
man, who through life was devoted to his calling as the most honorable
and useful, and left an unsullied name.
In 1806, the family removed to what is now Guilford, Chenango County,
New York, where Daniel S. Dickinson spent his boyhood, mostly on the
farm, in the usual occupations of a farmer's boy.
His education, as far as public advantages were concerned, was limited
to the common schools of the country; but with a spirit of
self-reliance, untiring industry and an ardent desire for knowledge
and advancement, he availed himself of such private facilities as he
could command or devise, and persevering in a plan of self-education
systematically, with a fine literary taste and extensive reading and
study, he early became a thorough English scholar, well versed in the
classics and familiar with general literature.
Between 1816 and 1820, he learned, and worked as apprentice and
journeyman at, a mechanic's trade. In 1820, he commenced teaching and
was successfully engaged in it considerably up to 1825, both in the
common and in academical or select schools.
About 1820, he learned, without a teacher, the art of land surveying,
in which he became expert, and practised somewhat extensively until
1828. During a portion of the time, while teaching and surveying, he
was also engaged in the study of the law. He married, in 1822, Lydia
Knapp, daughter of the late Colby Knapp, M.D., an early settler of
Guilford, a prominent member of the medical profession, and extensively
identified with the early history of the town and county. They have had
four children, only two of whom, the youngest--daughters--are living.
In 1828, he was admitted to the practice of the law, and opened an
office at Guilford, where he remained in practice until 1831.
In December, 1831, he removed to Binghamton, the county seat of Broome
County, New York, where he has ever since resided. He immediately
entered upon an extensive legal practice, and soon took rank among the
ablest lawyers of the State. He was made the first President of
Binghamton, on its municipal organization in 1834. Was a member of the
Baltimore Convention which nominated Van Buren and Johnson, in 1835.
Was elected to the State Senate in the fall of 1836; took his seat 1st
January, 1837, and served for four years as a senator and member of
the Court for the Correction of Errors, in both of which capacities,
as a debater, legislator and jurist, he maintained a prominent rank.
His review in the Senate of the message of Governor Seward established
him at once as a leader of his party, and is still referred to among
politicians as exhibiting both the tact and power which afterward so
strongly marked his public career. His opinions delivered in the Court
of Errors are models of conciseness and force, and temper in just
proportion the technicalities of law with the deductions of sound
reason and strong common sense.
His term in the State Senate expired Dec. 31, 1840. At the election in
1840, he was a candidate for the office of Lieut. Governor, at the
time Mr. Van Buren ran the second time for President, and was
defeated, though he received 5,000 more votes than Mr. Van Buren.
In 1842, finding that his name was being used again in connection with
the office of Lieut. Governor, he declined the nomination in advance
of the meeting of the convention, but was nevertheless nominated
unanimously and by acclamation, and compelled by circumstances to
accept, and was elected by 25,000 majority. The office of Lieut.
Governor made him President of the Senate, Presiding Judge of the
Court for the Correction of Errors, member of the Canal Board, Regent
of the University, etc., etc. His term of office expired Dec. 31,
1844, and he declined a reelection. It was held during a somewhat
stormy period in the history of the State, but was so discharged as to
add to his reputation with the people and his standing with the
Democratic party. As the presiding officer of the Senate, in
particular, he showed a decision, firmness and dignity of character
which elicited the admiration and approval of opponents as well as
friends.
At the election in 1844, he opened the Presidential campaign in New
York on the annexation of Texas, which he warmly advocated against the
opinion of many leading Democrats. He spent the whole campaign upon
the stump; was one of the Democratic _State_ electors, and united in
casting the vote of the State for Polk and Dallas. About the 1st of
December, 1844, he was appointed by Governor Bouck United State
senator in place of N. P. Tallmadge, resigned, and immediately
proceeded to Washington and took his seat as such. Governor
Tallmadge's term expired on the 4th of March, 1845. On the meeting of
the Legislature in January, 1845, he was elected for the unexpired
term of Governor Tallmadge, and subsequently for the regular term of
six years, from 4th March, 1845; during which term he remained in the
Senate, closing his public service 4th March, 1851. For a number of
years he was Chairman of the Committee of Finance in the Senate, but
declined it, and all committee service, the last short session of the
term.
He was a member of the committee to bear the remains of Mr. Calhoun to
his native State, and discharged the duty with the almost filial
regard he felt for the great man who had been called away from the
field of his public labors. This is the only time he ever visited the
South; but, though necessarily a hasty trip, he received many tokens
of public and private appreciation.
In 1847, he introduced into the Senate, and advocated in an able
speech, his celebrated resolution on the acquisition and annexation of
territory, and asserting, in opposition to the doctrines of the Wilmot
Proviso, the principles of "popular sovereignty," which formed the
basis of the adjustment of 1850, and has since been so fully approved
by the people.
He opposed the Oregon Treaty, which surrendered several degrees of
American territory to Great Britain.
He opposed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which he conceived to be a
cheat, and has been a constant source of embarrassment and
misunderstanding between the two governments.
During the session of 1850, he was given a public dinner by the
Democrats of the counties of New York, Kings, Queens, Richmond and
Westchester, at the city of New York. The invitation was tendered by
the leading Democrats of the five counties. They said in it that the
occasion was sought for the purpose of "giving full utterance to the
sentiments of respect and confidence with which his distinguished
political services to our common country had inspired them," and
closed as follows: "In the trying crisis through which our country,
and we may add the cause of the world's freedom, and of Republicanism,
is now passing, the State of New York is most fortunate in being
represented in the Senate of the Union, by one whose patriotism soars
above the level of time-serving purposes, and whose eminent talents
and moral worth command respect both in the State he represents, and
in the councils of the nation."
On his visit to New York, in compliance with this invitation, besides
the splendid public _fete_, at which Charles O'Connor presided, he was
waited upon by the various Democratic committees with resolutions and
congratulatory addresses approving his course; was made the guest of
the Common Council, although it was then politically Whig, who
unanimously presented him the "freedom of the city," and passed
resolutions thanking him for his public services in behalf of the city
and State.
He was a member of the Committee of Thirteen in the Senate, of which
Mr. Clay was chairman, which perfected the compromise measures of
1850, and took a leading part in their advocacy and adoption: a policy
which, though often disturbed by demagogues of both parties since, has
signally borne the test of the public judgment. At the close of the
session at which those measures were adopted, he received from Mr.
Webster the beautiful letter reference to his course, which we append.
MR. WEBSTER TO MR. DICKINSON.
WASHINGTON, _Sept. 27, 1850_.
MY DEAR SIR: Our companionship in the Senate is dissolved. After
this long and important session, you are about to return to your
home, and I shall try to find leisure to visit mine. I hope we may
meet each other again two months hence for the discharge of our
duties in our respective stations in the government. But life is
uncertain, and I have not felt willing to take leave of you
without placing in your hands a note containing a few words which
I wish to say to you.
In the earlier part of our acquaintance, my dear sir, occurrences
took place which I remember with constantly increasing pain,
because the more I have known of you the greater has been my
respect for your talents. But it is your noble, able, manly and
patriotic conduct in support of the great measures of this session
which has entirely won my heart, and secured my highest regard. I
hope you may live long to serve your country; but I do not think
you are ever likely to see a crisis in which you may be able to do
so much either for your own distinction or for the public good.
You have stood where others have fallen; you have advanced with
firm and manly step where others have wavered, faltered and fallen
back, and, for one, I desire to thank you, and to commend your
conduct out of the fullness of an honest heart.
This letter needs no reply; it is, I am aware, of very little
value, but I have thought you might be willing to receive it, and
perhaps to leave it where it would be seen by those who may come
after you.
I pray you, when you reach your own threshold, to remember me most
kindly to your wife and daughter, and I remain, dear sir, with the
truest esteem, your friend and obedient servant,
DAN'L WEBSTER.
MR. DICKINSON TO MR. WEBSTER.
BINGHAMTON, _Oct. 5, 1850_.
MY DEAR SIR: I perused and re-perused the beautiful note which you
placed in my hands as I was about leaving Washington, with deeper
emotion than I have ever experienced, except under some domestic
vicissitude. Since I learned the noble and generous qualities of
your nature, the unfortunate occurrence in our early acquaintance,
to which you refer, has caused me many moments of painful regret,
and your confiding communication has furnished a powerful
illustration of the truth that "to err is human, to forgive
divine." Numerous and valued are the testimonials of confidence
and regard which a somewhat extended acquaintance and lengthened
public service have gathered around me, but among them all there
is none to which my heart clings so fondly as this.
I have presented it to my family and friends as the proudest
passage in the history of an eventful life, and shall transmit it
to my posterity as a sacred and cherished memento of friendship. I
thank Heaven that it has fallen to my lot to be associated with
yourself and others in resisting the mad current of disunion which
threatened to overwhelm us; and the recollection that my course
upon a question so momentous has received the approbation of the
most distinguished American statesman, has more than satisfied my
ambition. Believe me, my dear sir, that of all the patriots that
came forward in the evil day of their country, there was no voice
so potential as your own. Others could buffet the dark and angry
waves, but it was your strong arm that could roll them back from
the holy citadel.
May that beneficent Being who holds the destiny of men and
nations, long spare you to the public service, and may your vision
never rest upon the disjointed fragments of a convulsed and ruined
confederacy.
I pray you to accept and to present to Mrs. Webster the kind
remembrance of myself and family, and believe me sincerely yours,
D. S. DICKINSON.
He (Mr. Dickinson) was a member of the Baltimore Convention of 1848.
In 1852, he was again a member. The convention failed to nominate on
the first day of its sitting. The second day, on assembling in the
morning, the Virginia delegation presented his name for the
Presidency. Having been the friend and supporter of Gen. Cass for the
nomination, whose name in the balloting then stood at about 100, he
thought that in honor he could not become a candidate, and arose in
the convention and declined the use of his name in a speech which did
honor to his patriotism and self-sacrifice, and was received with the
warmest applause, though many of his friends and the sound democracy
of the country regretted his decision. Virginia subsequently brought
forward, in the same manner, the name of Gen. Pierce, and he was
nominated and elected.
In 1853, he was appointed to the valuable office of Collector of the
Port of New York, which he declined. In 1858, the honorary degree of
Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by the Faculty of Hamilton
College, New York. Since the expiration of his senatorial term, he has
been entirely devoted to professional and rural occupations, and is at
present conducting a large professional business. He has not mingled
extensively in political affairs since, but was upon the stump in the
presidential campaigns of 1852 and 1856, in his own and some of the
other States.
Mr. Dickinson possesses a strong constitution, land firm and uniform
health. His habits are those of exact regularity and active industry.
He is capable of great concentration of effort, and of endurance, and
performs every day of his life, either at the courts, in his office,
upon his grounds, or keeping up his extensive correspondence, a vast
amount of labor.
He is devoted to his family and friends, is domestic in his tastes,
and his most cherished hours are those spent in the confidence and
quietude of home.
Cheerful, genial and hospitable in his disposition and intercourse, he
is exceedingly popular in social life; his ready wit and fund of
anecdote, with his varied and more solid powers of conversation,
always make him welcome, and render him in society the centre of many
a delighted circle.
He writes with facility, and in a style pointed and vigorous.
His speeches are characterized always by plain and direct purpose,
sound argument and happy illustration, and often by sparkling repartee
and passages of stirring eloquence. Some of his most effective efforts
have been made without previous preparation. In public life his
distinguishing characteristics have been fidelity to friends and
party, and the courage and intrepidity with which, regardless of
considerations personal to himself, his opinions have been maintained.
In public or in private life, the integrity and purity of his
character have never been questioned.
To show how Mr. Dickinson is regarded by his political friends, we
quote a few paragraphs from a sketch of the man in a New York journal
friendly to him:
"Mr. Dickinson is, in the true and democratic sense of the term, a
_national_ man. And while there have been, and still are, a few,
both North and South, who have believed, and do believe, that
emergencies may arise in the affairs of our country, when it would
be better to 'let the Union slide,' his course will show that in
his belief, under no possible or conceivable circumstances, could
a greater misfortune happen to our country and the cause of
humanity itself, than a rupture or dismemberment of the American
Union. This conviction has animated and controlled all his conduct
as a man and a public servant. In the elements of his character,
there is no neutrality or non-committal; his leading peculiarities
are point and positiveness--there is nothing negative about the
man, his convictions are all absolute, and they are always
vitalized into practical efficiency. Hence no man has warmer or
more attached personal friends, and none more bitter political
opponents, than he. The Van Buren men of New York, who defeated
Gen. Cass, in 1848, by their treachery to the democratic party,
have acted as though they thought his very political existence was
a standing rebuke and shame for their treasonable desertion; and
hence they have spared no pains or efforts to vilify his character
by the grossest misrepresentations. Yet notwithstanding these
efforts of a false and disappointed faction, the people of the
country feel, that there is no man to whom its true friends are
more indebted than to him, for his fearless course in stemming the
torrent of fanaticism and disunion. When the Abolitionists raised
the '_Black Flag_' of treason in the North, and the decree went
forth from the immediate friends and abettors of the Van Burens,
that every man in the State of New York who did not join with them
in their insane attempts to tear down the constitution of the
country, and trample its sanctions and compromises in the dust, in
order to invade the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the
South, should be tabooed and turned over to the mercies of the
political guillotine, Mr. D. threw himself into the van of the
opposition and dared to beard the lion in his den; and proclaimed
in stern and patriotic tones of defiance, that for himself, 'he
knew no North, no South, no East and no West--nothing but his
country.'"
One of the editors of the "Dublin Nation," while travelling in this
country, gave the subjoined sketch of Mr. Dickinson, as he found him
in an American court:
"I learned that a court of assize was sitting just then in the
town; I was quite glad of an opportunity of seeing for myself a
sight supposed to be such a compound of the farce and the row, 'an
American court of justice in the rural districts.' I found out the
courthouse; a dilapidated old building, crowning the rising ground
at one end of the principal street. I entered the hall. On one
side a rickety door, with a half moon grating near the top, marked
the apartment (about twelve feet by fifteen), which served as the
district jail. It was strong enough, probably, to be any barrier
to the liberty of a lame ewe; yet it was large enough and strong
enough for the requirements of the locality! I ascended the
stairs, and, pushing open a door on the first landing, I found
myself in 'court.' Accuse me not, oh hilarious reader, if I herein
depart from all precedent and prefer not fun to fact; if I declare
that I saw no revolvers, no bowie knives, heard neither cursing
nor squabbling; possibly these are to be seen, and I may see them
ere I return to Ireland--but here, at least, I declare, that I saw
gravity and dignity on the bench and at the bar; order and decorum
in the audience. The latter I attribute to the circumstance that
there were no policemen to disturb the quiet of the place, by
perpetually bawling out 'silence!'--an intolerable nuisance which
_we_ have to endure. The room was about thirty feet square and
fifteen in height. At the end opposite the entrance was the bench;
in the middle of the apartment an oval shaped space was railed off
on the floor; one end reaching to the desk (immediately under the
bench), at which sat the county clerk and the sheriff. The oval
space was alloted to the professors of the law. On each side,
rising gradually to the rear, were rows of seats, or rather pews,
for the auditors. The jury sat in one of these 'pews,' immediately
on the left of the judge. Two large stoves, whose flue-pipes cut
sundry capers in the air--with the laudable intention of giving us
all the benefit possible of the heat they contained--kept the
place comfortably warm. Occasionally the high sheriff would walk
quietly down to one of the stoves, open the door, poke up the
fire, and put in a fresh log. Accustomed from childhood to
associate so largely the judicial functions with a horse-hair wig,
and a black silk gown--indeed, rather inclined to think that these
constituted the judge, and that without them there could be no law
in the land, it seemed hard to believe that the gentleman on the
bench before me, in civilian costume, could be a real genuine
judge and no mistake....
"Yet I do not know that I ever saw in the same official position
more dignified demeanor. I never saw a judge listened to with more
deference, and treated with more respect than in this instance, in
this same village court, in the 'wilds' of western New York,
though Judge Balcom wears his own hair--black as Morven's--and
came to court without the blowing of even so much as a penny
whistle.
* * * * *
"Seated within the railed space--his arms folded on his breast,
his face raised upward in attentive listening attitude--was a man
who instantly struck me as being singular among the throng around
him. He might be sixty years of age; a powerfully built frame and
expansive chest gave indication of physical strength and energy;
but it was _the face_ that impressed me. It was one of those that
Rembrandt loved to paint; the grave serenity of strength in
repose; the warm glow of life's autumn evening upon a countenance
expressive of quiet dignity and intellectual power. The spacious
dome of a massive head was covered with silvery--nay, snow-white
hair, lending a venerable, though not an aged, aspect to the man.
He was very plainly dressed; the blue cloth body-coat, with brass
buttons, was perfectly American; the large high shirt-collar
standing out from the lower part of a face entirely shaven; and a
black silk neckerchief loosely fastened around in the very
carelessness of effect or appearance, was in perfect keeping with
the simplicity of his _tout ensemble_. This was the Honorable D.
S. Dickinson, the contemporary in politics of Webster, who found
in him, in many a passage of arms, a foeman worthy of his steel.
For some years Mr. Dickinson has remained in retirement from
active public life, notwithstanding many efforts to induce him to
reenter the arena. Yet it is shrewdly suspected that his counsel
is not seldom sought and acted upon by the great ones of that
party of which he once was so active and able a leader."
We now proceed to make a few extracts from Mr. Dickinson's public
speeches. Here is an extract upon disunion:
"The spirit of sectional hate, which is now inculcated by the
votaries of a corrupt and stultified Abolitionism, by bigots,
zealots, fanatics and demagogues; in desecrated pulpits, in ribald
songs, in incendiary presses and strife stirring orators, has
already promoted a feeling of irritation which should fill the
patriotic mind with apprehension and alarm. No feud is so bitter
as that which exists between brethren--no persecution so
relentless as that which pursues an estranged friend--no war so
ruthless as one of domestic strife; and yet this evil genius,
disguised with the garb of superior sanctity--the blear-eyed
miscreant disunion--is walking up and down the earth like Satan
loosed from his bondage of a thousand years, endeavoring to array
one section of the Union against the other upon a question which
was wisely disposed of by those who laid the broad and deep
foundations of our government.