Stephens, then chairman of the Committee on Territories of the House,
and told him that he should work for the passage of the bill and it was
to his everlasting credit that Oregon was admitted to the Union by a
majority of eleven votes, of which fourteen had been won over by the
untiring efforts of Mr. Thayer.
He was assailed at home for his stand in this matter, as his
constituents considered that he had voted for a measure which provided
for the admission of a state whose constitution excluded the negro from
all political rights. As a direct result of his stand in this matter,
the district failed to send him as a delegate to the national convention
in 1860, which placed in nomination Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.
Together with Horace Greeley, however, he was a member of the
convention, representing Oregon, the state for whose admission he had so
earnestly worked, and whose people appreciated his services in its
behalf. He worked with Greeley for the nomination of Lincoln in a
convention which was replete with startling incidents, not the least of
which was the motion of Joshua R. Giddings, aiming at the admission of a
clause in the platform providing that all men are free and equal.
On account of this outspoken stand in several important measures, it was
apparent to Mr. Thayer that he would fail of a renomination, and in the
spring of 1860 he announced himself as an independent Republican
candidate. As the campaign developed, a candidate in opposition to Mr.
Thayer was found in the person of Goldsmith F. Bailey of Fitchburg, but
no speaker in the state could be found who was willing to meet the
arguments on important questions advanced by Mr. Thayer. Such men as
Henry Wilson and Charles Sumner refused to meet him on the stump in
joint debate, and he was obliged to fight it out alone. The result was
that he was defeated by a very small majority. So great was his
popularity throughout the country during his second term that he was
prominently spoken of as a possible senator from Massachusetts.
Bailey, who defeated him for Congress, was in advanced stages of
consumption when he was nominated and was unable to take the stump
against Mr. Thayer. The voters of Worcester at last became so vigorous
in their demands to see the candidate that to quiet them a meeting was
arranged at which he was to be presented to them from the platform. When
Bailey arrived in the city he was such a haggard and ghastly spectacle
that it was feared by the party managers that if seen by the voters as
he was, it would make votes for Thayer.
It is maintained by those who seem to know that Bailey was taken into
George R. Spear’s drug store before the meeting. There his face was
painted and touched up with cosmetics until he looked like a thing of
life instead of a specter. He sat in Congress but one day, and then
returned to his home and died.
In 1856 Mr. Thayer originated a southern colonization scheme, which had
for its object the settling of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and
the border states and driving the slaves toward the Gulf. He enlisted
the services of James Gordon Bennett of the _New York Herald_, and
William Cullen Bryant of the _New York Evening Post_ in his project. He
went South at the head of the colonists and founded the town of Ceredo
in Virginia, now a sizable place.
At the time he was charged by the Southerners with coming down into the
South to interfere with slavery, but he and his colonists disclaimed any
such purpose, saying that he neither intended to interfere nor have any
part in the slavery movement. He said further that he could support the
negro power and a steam engine for $10 a year, while it was costing the
southern slaveholders $150 a year, and that at the time he came into
Virginia land was worth but 50 cents to $1.50 an acre, but that his free
settlement had made it worth $50 an acre.
A man named Jenkins, afterwards a rebel officer, appealed to Gov. Henry
A. Wise to exterminate this colony of abolitionists, but the governor
said that they came into the state in a peaceful way and that anything
which tended to increase the wealth should be protected. Considerable
progress with the colonization scheme was made in other states,
especially in North Carolina, but the John Brown raid and the opening of
the rebellion brought the enterprise to an end. After the war Charles B.
Hoard, a member of Congress with Mr. Thayer, came into possession of the
property at Ceredo. The project caused Mr. Thayer a loss of $118,000.
Mr. Thayer was appointed a special and confidential agent of the
treasury department and served as such in 1861–’62. In 1862 he proposed
to Secretary Stanton a plan for the military colonization of Florida,
which was approved by President Lincoln, all of the members of the
president’s cabinet excepting Seward, and by nearly every Republican
member of Congress, as well as by Generals Hunter, Hooker and Garfield.
According to the plan, Mr. Thayer was to go as military governor and
General Garfield as commander of the forces.
This plan was under consideration for several months by the president’s
cabinet and was sustained by great meetings in New York City and
Brooklyn by such speakers as William Cullen Bryant and Cassius M. Clay
and others of equal note. Capitalists came forward with offers of
steamships, and other means and regiments were offered from several of
the states, but, like other notable plans which were never carried out,
this plan was prevented from being put into operation by exigencies of
the times.
He remained with the Republican party until the impeachment of President
Johnson. He was a Democratic candidate for Congress in this district in
1874, and also later, in the first instance nearly defeating Senator
George F. Hoar, reducing the Republican majority from 7,000 to 300.
He was interested in the solution of the polygamy question in Utah, and,
in connection with such men as Amos A. Lawrence, Edward Everett Hale and
other members of the old Emigrant Aid Society, was concerned with plans
for the elimination of the evil by the principle formerly put into force
in Kansas. In recent years he has written much of history, illustrating
his life work and the principles which have governed his actions in
political and philanthropic work. He kept fully abreast of the times,
with a keen interest in current events, and was always in sympathy with
genuine progress.
Mr. Thayer was engaged after leaving Congress by the Hanibal and St. Joe
Railroad Company, at a very large salary, to act as its land agent in
New York City. He was there from about 1864 until 1870. He was also an
expert in matters of invention, acting as a referee in such cases, for
which he received large sums. He studied law, but was never admitted to
the bar.
During the war time he originated a plan for the establishment of a
great port of entry on the peninsular between the York and the James
rivers in Virginia, and obtained a bond for a deed of the land. He
considered the natural advantages of that locality a rival to New York.
His plan, however, was divulged to certain heavy capitalists in New
York, and they by some means obtained possession of the property and
frustrated his scheme. He said he would have carried the thing through
had he obtained the land, but the capitalists undertook it and failed.
He had a very keen sense of humor and a sharp wit. It was most amusing
of itself to hear him tell humorous stories and preserve his grim
countenance from the suspicion of a smile.
Mr. Thayer took the initiative in developing the south end of Worcester
for manufacturing by erecting, more than fifty years ago, the building
formerly known as the Adriatic mills on Southgate Street. He was
influential in the erection of the junction shop formerly the property
of the late Col. James Estabrook, and for many years occupied by the
Knowles loom works on Jackson Street. This building, like the Oread
Institute, was constructed of the stone taken from Oread Hill. He laid
out and improved several streets and tracts of land in the vicinity of
the Oread and had under consideration at the time of his death the
opening up of a large area on the summit of Pakachoag Hill, at the rear
of Holy Cross College.
He was the last surviving member of the Emigrant Aid Society, director
of the Mutual Redemption Bank, member of the Worcester Society of
Antiquity and the American Irish Historical Society. Belonging to no
clubs, he was essentially a home man. Throughout the country he was
familiarly known as the “Father of Kansas.”
He was married in 1846 to Cardina M. Capron of Millville, Mass., and
seven children were born as a result of the union.
LATE PUBLICATIONS ON HISTORY OF INTEREST TO THE MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN
IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
BY THE SECRETARY-GENERAL.
PACIFIC BLOCKADE. By ALBERT E. HOGAN, LL. D.
This is the only treatise in English exclusively upon this subject, and
the author has discussed a minor topic of international law fully and
fairly. His views are briefly that pacific blockade (the right to
blockade the ports of another state in time of peace and without war
necessarily resulting) is too new a practice to have become entirely
regularized; that the state blockaded as well as the blockader, but not
the third powers affected, may decline to look upon a specific case of
pacific blockade as consistent with peace, and thus consider war to be a
fact; that notice, effectiveness, days of grace, etc., are to be
observed much as in ordinary blockade; that, unlike ordinary blockade,
it may be limited to a certain commodity or a certain traffic; that the
ships of third powers, attempting to run a pacific blockade, can only be
turned back or at most detained, never seized and confiscated as if war
existed; that this kind of coercion is better than war for all parties.
Doctor Hogan is an Irishman and a professor of law at the University of
Oxford in England, but his book and his views are being much discussed
and widely criticised by American historical authorities.
THE MYSTERY OF THE PINCKNEY DRAUGHT. By HON. CHARLES C. NOTT, formerly
Chief Justice of the United States Court of Claims.
This work is interesting throughout. Pinckney was not a great
constructive statesman, but in the work of the convention he rendered
valuable service in formulating many of the details embodied in the
Constitution. It was not so much a new instrument of government that
Pinckney framed in his original plan as it was a revision of the
Articles of Confederation. In the preparation of his plan, Pinckney drew
extensively upon the Articles of Confederation and the various state
constitutions, especially that of New York. On May 29th, 1787, Charles
Pinckney presented to the Federal Convention “the draft of a federal
government to be agreed upon between the free and independent states of
America”; that the records note simply its submission to the convention,
its reference on the same day to the Committee of the Whole House, and
later to the Committee of Detail; and that when John Quincy Adams in
1818 applied to Pinckney for a copy of the missing plan, he received in
reply a document so strikingly similar to the draft of a constitution
reported by the Committee of Detail on August 6th that it was evident
one document must have been taken from the other. The conclusion has
been almost universally unfavorable to Pinckney. Judge Nott in his work
takes the other side, and in an elaborate argument declares that the
original Pinckney plan is lost to the world because it was used as
“printer’s copy” by the Committee of Detail.
THE WORKS OF JAMES BUCHANAN, COMPRISING HIS SPEECHES, STATE PAPERS AND
PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. Collected and edited by PROF. JOHN BASSETT
MOORE. Volumes V and VI, 1841–1844, 1844–1846.
President Buchanan was an Irishman, and Professor Moore has undertaken a
most meritorious work in bringing forth the speeches, state papers and
private correspondence of this great American citizen. The volume now
issued is the fifth, and covers part of the period that Mr. Buchanan was
in the United States Senate, where his continued membership of the
Committee on Foreign Relations and Committee on Manufactures brought him
into close contact with many of the most pressing questions of the time.
The great issues covered by these volumes were those of the northeastern
and northwestern boundaries and the annexation of Texas. In 1844
Buchanan was a presidential possibility, and his letters, though few in
number, show him willing to take, but unwilling to seek, this high
office. An excellent review of these volumes has recently been made by
Professor William MacDonald of Brown University, Providence, R. I., a
member of the Executive Committee of the American Historical
Association.
[Illustration:
CHAUNCEY OLCOTT.
Of New York City, the Famous Actor.
A Life Member of the Society.
]
OLD TIMES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI: THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A STEAMBOAT
PILOT FROM 1854 TO 1863. BY GEORGE BYRON MERRICK.
The author’s family were whalers from Nantucket. Mr. Merrick is a good
story-teller, and his book abounds with tales of traffic on the
Mississippi River from 1854 to 1863.
The author originally came from Nantucket, and began as a pantry boy on
the Mississippi, occupying every position in the steamboat and flat-boat
business for a great many years, and his tales of war-times are
intensely interesting. The book is not well named, however, because
steamboating was a large business for over thirty years before the
narrative begins. He tells interestingly of bringing to the front in
April, 1861, Sherman’s Flying Artillery, the most famous organization in
the old army, stationed at the time at Fort Ridgely, high up the
Minnesota River. The _Fanny Harris_, the largest boat which had ever
gone up the stream, received the battery on board, its commander then
being no other than John C. Pemberton of Pennsylvania, at first a loyal
Union officer, although afterwards the Confederate lieutenant-general at
Vicksburg. His lieutenant was Romeyn B. Ayres, than whom no Federal
officer of the Civil War was braver. The river was at flood, the perils
of navigation great, but the emergency was pressing. The _Fanny Harris_
dashed on at full speed, sometimes in the tortuous channel, sometimes
crashing through narrow barriers of land into inundated bottoms and even
woods, the battery-men meantime exclaiming that the risk to life in
battle was far less than among those pouring waters. Three hundred miles
down the current was accomplished in two days. The boat was almost
stripped of smokestacks, light upper work, and nearly all of her guards,
but the battery was delivered, guns and men, at Prairie du Chien. Its
style is simple, but very interesting, and the book is beautifully
illustrated and printed.
TEXTS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCES AT THE HAGUE, 1899 AND 1907, with English
translation and appendix of related documents. Edited by JAMES BROWN
SCOTT, technical delegate of the United States to the Second Peace
Conference at The Hague.
The volume is published by Ginn & Company of Boston and New York, of
which our Librarian and Archivist, Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, is a partner.
There is a twenty-five page introduction, giving an analysis and
discussion of the work of the conferences. Most of the documents have
been published elsewhere, and some of them many times, but it is well
worth while to have them brought together in this convenient form.
Ex-Secretary Root thinks the work of the Second Conference presents the
greatest advance ever made at any single time towards the reasonable and
peaceful regulation of international conduct, unless it be the advance
made at The Hague Conference of 1899. The volume is complete and treats
of the important factors in both conferences, and publishes the very
valuable documents.
THE BIBLIOGRAPHER’S MANUAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY, containing an account of
all state, territory, town and county histories, etc., compiled by
THOMAS LINDSLEY BRADFORD, M. D.
Three volumes have thus far been issued, and each volume shows
improvement over its predecessor. It is a valuable work and a most
excellent compilation of documents of great advantage to students of
American history, and furnishes a good means of observation to the
members of the American Irish Historical Society to take in at a glance
the history of so many places in this country.
THE AMERICAN EXECUTIVE AND EXECUTIVE METHODS. By JOHN H. FINLEY,
President of the College of the City of New York, and JOHN F. SANDERSON,
member of the Pennsylvania Bar.
The joint authors of this book have maintained the high standard of
scholarship that has characterized the series of which the volume under
review is the final number. There are fourteen chapters upon the
executive department of the American state, and the other eight deal
with the federal executive, to which is added an appendix upon the
presidential electoral system. Throughout the work reference is made to
the excellent achievements of many Pennsylvania Irishmen, but Mr.
Marshall S. Brown, who prints a review of the work, finds, among other
things, that the book reflects somewhat the defects inherent in a work
of dual authorship.
WINTHROP’S JOURNAL, 1630–1649. Edited by JAMES KENDALL HOSMER. Two
volumes.
This is one of the series of “Original Narratives of Early American
History.” The old title, “History of New England,” is given in this
edition only as a sub-title, and the volumes appear to be what they
are—a journal. Nevertheless, the work is interesting throughout, and
would be a valuable addition to the Society’s library.
THE PROVINCE OF NEW JERSEY, 1664–1738. By EDWIN P. TANNER, PH. D.,
instructor in history in Syracuse University.
This is a detailed history of the political affairs and institutions of
New Jersey during two generations of its provincial life. The peculiar
land system of the proprietors in each of the two Jerseys, elements of
the population, the personnel, legal position and activities of
executive, council and assembly respectively, and their conflicts, the
judicial system, financial affairs, militia system, etc., are carefully
treated.
THE WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON. Edited by GAILLARD HUNT.
This is much on the plan and fully as extensive as “The Works of James
Buchanan” heretofore referred to, and eight volumes at present have been
issued. The notes are excellent in respect to information and judgment,
but not much of the matter set out is new, the author merely contenting
himself by copying the writings of President Madison without making any
specious comment on the same.
A CALENDAR OF CONFEDERATE PAPERS, WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOME
CONFEDERATE PUBLICATIONS.
This is a preliminary report of the Southern Historical Manuscripts
Commission, and is one of the really monumental historical enterprises
in the South. The commission is actively collecting, arranging and
publishing various kinds of material relating to the Civil War, and to
thoroughly appreciate the truly marvelous changes one should have known
the conditions in the southern capitals a quarter of a century ago.
Those directing this enterprise are so energetic, intelligent and
ambitious that we believe the best fruits are yet to be gathered,
although there is no room to doubt the value of several large
collections already made. Mr. Douglas Southall Freeman is the director,
and this calendar, orderly throughout and supplemented by careful notes,
is very complimentary to him. Much historical data can be gathered for
the Society from the southern states, where the recognition of Irishmen
and their achievements was more free than in the New England states.
THE ADOPTION OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. By HORACE EDGAR FLACK, PH. D.
Is a part of the Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and
political science. So much has been heretofore said about these studies
in the current magazines that we assume the members of the Society are
familiar with them.
COLLECTIONS AND RESEARCHES MADE BY THE MICHIGAN PIONEER AND HISTORICAL
SOCIETY.
The Society has been at work many years, and now publishes its
thirty-sixth volume. The usefulness of this work to members of our
Society in Michigan who desire to record the history and achievements of
Americans of Irish birth or descent cannot be overestimated.
COLLECTIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN.
This is the eighteenth volume of the publications, and is edited by
Doctor Thwaites, Secretary and Superintendent of the Society. The
Wisconsin History Commission, consisting of the governor of the state,
the professor of American history in the state university, the secretary
of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the secretary of the
Library Commission, and a representative of the Grand Army of the
Republic, work with the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and have
already gathered and arranged the material for a history of Wisconsin’s
part in the Civil War. A series of “Original Papers” has been
inaugurated, on the line of the papers presented at our last meeting in
Washington by Mr. Justice Dowling and Ex-Attorney-General Moloney, and
are very interesting.
LIVES OF THE GOVERNORS OF MINNESOTA.
Is Volume XIII of the publications of the Minnesota Historical Society
Collections, and is by James H. Baker, A. M., who has occupied several
political positions in his state and has been closely associated with
the men whose lives he has sketched. Mr. Baker is almost eighty years of
age, and he has personal acquaintance with the governors from Ramsey,
the first territorial governor in 1849, up to the present incumbent. Mr.
Baker’s sketches of Gorman, territorial governor from 1853 to 1857;
Sibley, first state governor from 1858 to 1860; Swift, third state
governor from 1863 to 1864; McGill, 1887 to 1889; and Clough, 1895 to
1899; men of Irish extraction, are thorough and entertaining.
[Illustration:
HON. T. ST. JOHN GAFFNEY,
Of New York.
Consul-General to Dresden, Germany.
Vice-President of the Society for Germany.
]
TRANSACTIONS OF THE KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 1907–1908:
This is Volume X of the publications of the Society, and is edited by
the Secretary, George W. Martin. Fifty-six essays by nearly as many
writers are presented. Several of the productions are composed of
separate papers, such as the collections of biographical sketches of
members of early legislatures, etc. A wealth of original material, well
worth the notice of historians outside of the state of Kansas, is
revealed, and forty-eight maps, plans, portraits and landscapes
illustrate the text.
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF VINCENNES, 1702–1901:
An important contribution to the local history of Indiana, and a well
written and authentic account of the oldest town in that state. By Henry
S. Cauthorn.
HISTORY OF WORCESTER:
A well written, authentic history of the Massachusetts town in the War
of the Rebellion. By A. P. Marvin.
WISCONSIN VOLUNTEER INFANTRY HISTORY:
An account of the regiment from 1861 to 1865. By Edwin E. Bryant.
Professor Edward Channing of Harvard University has two volumes of a
History of the United States already issued of a series of eight
volumes. The title of Volume I is “The Planting of a Nation in the New
World, 1000 to 1660”; Volume II, “A Century of Colonial History, 1660 to
1760.” The titles to Volumes III and IV, not yet issued, are “The
American Revolution, 1760–1789,” and “Federalists and Republicans,
1789–1812,” while the titles to Volumes V to VIII have not as yet been
selected.
“Dr. John McLoughlin, the Victor of Oregon,” an authoritative
biographical sketch, with abundant documents, by Frederick V. Holman.
“A Documentary Source-Book of American History,” by Professor William
MacDonald of Brown University, author of “Select Charters,” “Select
Documents,” and “Select Statutes,” etc. The work is in one volume, and
includes all the most important documents contained in Professor
MacDonald’s large works, but in some cases shortened by immaterial
omissions.
GENERAL HISTORICAL ITEMS.