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Title: Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

Author: George Frisbie Hoar

Release date: October 15, 2006 [eBook #19548]
                Most recently updated: May 30, 2007

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Ed Ferris


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS, VOL. 1-2 ***




Produced by Ed Ferris




[Frontispiece:  v1.jpg]
SENATOR GEORGE F. HOAR
  From a photograph taken in 1897
  _Copyright, 1897, by H. Schervee, Worcester, Mass._

[Title page]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF SEVENTY YEARS

BY
GEORGE F. HOAR

WITH PORTRAITS

VOLUME I.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1903

[Dedication]
TO
MY WIFE AND CHILDREN
THIS RECORD OF A LIFE WHICH
THEY HAVE MADE HAPPY
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

[Table of Contents]
CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER II
ROGER SHERMAN AND HIS FAMILY

CHAPTER III
SAMUEL HOAR

CHAPTER IV
BOYHOOD IN CONCORD

CHAPTER V
FAMOUS CONCORD MEN

CHAPTER VI
FARM AND SCHOOL

CHAPTER VII
HARVARD SIXTY YEARS AGO

CHAPTER VIII
1849 TO 1850--FOUNDATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY--
DANIEL WEBSTER

CHAPTER IX
LIFE IN WORCESTER

CHAPTER X
POLITICAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM 1848 TO 1869

CHAPTER XI
THE KNOW NOTHING PARTY AND ITS OVERTHROW

CHAPTER XII
ELECTION TO CONGRESS

CHAPTER XIII
SUMNER AND WILSON

CHAPTER XIV
PERSONALITIES IN DEBATE

CHAPTER XV
THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 1869

CHAPTER XVI
POLITICAL CONDITION IN 1869

CHAPTER XVII
RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER XVIII
COMMITTEE SERVICE IN THE HOUSE

CHAPTER XIX
SALMON P. CHASE

CHAPTER XX
ADIN THAYER

CHAPTER XXI
POLITICAL CORRUPTION

CHAPTER XXII
CREDIT MOBILIER

CHAPTER XXIII
THE SANBORN CONTRACTS

CHAPTER XXIV
BENJAMIN F. BUTLER

CHAPTER XXV
BELKNAP IMPEACHMENT

CHAPTER XXVI
ELECTORAL COMMISSION

CHAPTER XXVII
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1876

CHAPTER XXVIII
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1880

CHAPTER XXIX
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1884

CHAPTER XXX
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1888

CHAPTER XXXI
SATURDAY CLUB

CHAPTER XXXII
THE WORCESTER FIRE SOCIETY

APPENDIX I.

APPENDIX II.

[Text]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

Everybody who reads this book through will wonder that a man
who ought to be able to tell so much has really told so little.

I have known personally and quite intimately, or have known
intelligent and trustworthy persons who have known personally
and quite intimately, many men who have had a great share
in the history of this country and in its literature for a
hundred and thirty years.

In my younger days there were among my kindred and near friends
persons who knew the great actors of the Revolutionary time
and the time which followed till I came to manhood myself.
But I did not know enough to ask questions.  If I had, and
had recorded the answers, I could write a very large part
of the political and literary history of the United States.
I never kept a diary, except for a few and brief periods.
So for what I have to say, I must trust to my memory.  I have
no doubt that after these volumes are published, there will
come up in my mind matter enough to make a dozen better ones.

I invoke for this book that kindly judgment of my countrymen
which has attended everything I have done in my life so far.
I have tried to guard against the dangers and the besetting
infirmities of men who write their own biography.  An autobiography,
as the word implies, will be egotistical.  An old man's autobiography
is pretty certain to be garrulous.  If the writer set forth
therein his own ideals, he is likely to be judged by them,
even when he may fall far short of them.  Men are likely to
think that he claims or pretends to have lived up to them,
however painfully conscious he may be that they are only dreams
which even if he have done his best have had little reality
for him.

There is another danger for a man who tells the story of
great transactions, in which he has taken part, whether legislative,
executive, military, or political, or any other, in which
the combined action of many persons was required for the result.
He is apt to claim, consciously or unconsciously, that he
himself brought the whole thing about.

"Papa," said the little boy to the veteran of the Civil War,
"Did anybody help you to put down the Rebellion?"

This peril specially besets narrators in their old age.  I
am afraid I can hardly escape it.

I once heard General George H. Thomas relate to a brilliant
company at a supper party, among whom were Chief Justice Chase,
General Eaton, Commissary General in two wars, Senator Trumbull,
William M. Evarts, Joseph Henry, John Sherman, his brother
the General, and several other gentlemen of equal distinction,
the story of the battles of Nashville and Franklin.  The story
was full of dramatic interest.  Yet no one who heard it would
have known that the speaker himself had taken part in the
great achievement, until, just at the end, he said of the
Battle of Nashville that he thought of sending a detachment
to cut off Hood's army at a ford by which he escaped after
they were defeated, but he concluded that it was not safe
to spare that force from immediate use in the battle.  "If
I had done it," he added, with great simplicity, "I should
have captured his whole army.  There is where I made my mistake."

The recollections of the actors in important political transactions
are doubtless of great historic value.  But I ought to say
frankly that my experience has taught me that the memory of
men, even of good and true men, as to matters in which they
have been personal actors, is frequently most dangerous and
misleading.  I could recount many curious stories which have
been told me by friends who have been writers of history and
biography, of the contradictory statements they have received
from the best men in regard to scenes in which they have been
present.

If any critic think this book lacking in dignity, or wisdom,
or modesty, it is hoped that it may, by way of offset, make
up for it in sincerity.  I have so far lived in the world
without secrets.  If my countrymen, or the people of Massachusetts,
have trusted me, they have fully known what they were doing.
"They had eyes and chose me."

I have never lifted any finger or spoken a word to any man
to secure or to promote my own election to any office.  I
do not mean to criticise other men who advance their honorable
ambition for public service or exert themselves to get office
for which they think themselves fit.  It was the "high Roman
fashion."  It has been the fashion in England always.  English
gentlemen do not disdain a personal solicitation for political
support, and think no harm in it, to which no American gentleman
would for a moment stoop.

It has been the custom in other parts of the country almost
from the beginning of the Government.  But what I think a
better custom has prevailed in Massachusetts.  I arrogate
to myself no virtue in this respect.  I only say that it has
been my supreme good fortune to be the son of a Commonwealth
among whose noble and high-minded people a better and more
fastidious habit has prevailed.

The lesson which I have learned in life, which is impressed
on me daily, and more deeply as I grow old, is the lesson
of Good Will and Good Hope.  I believe that to-day is better
than yesterday, and that to-morrow will be better than to-
day.  I believe that in spite of so many errors and wrongs
and even crimes, my countrymen of all classes desire what
is good, and not what is evil.  I repeat what I said to the
State Convention of Massachusetts after the death of President
McKinley:

"When I first came to manhood and began to take part in public
affairs, that greatest of crimes, human slavery, was entrenched
everywhere in power in this Republic.  Congress and Supreme
Court, Commerce and Trade and Social Life alike submitted
to its imperious and arrogant sway.  Mr. Webster declared
that there was no North, and that the South went clear up
to the Canada line.  The hope of many wise and conservative
and, as I now believe, patriotic men, of saving this country
from being rent into fragments was in leaving to slavery forever
the great territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific,
in the Fugitive Slave Law, a law under which freemen were
taken from the soil of Massachusetts to be delivered into
perpetual bondage, and in the judgment of the Supreme Court
which declared it as the lesson of our history that the Negro
had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.

"Last week at Dartmouth, at the great celebration in honor
of Daniel Webster, that famous college gave the highest honor
in its power to a Negro, amid the applause of the brilliant
assembly.  And there was no applause more earnest or hearty
than that of the successor of Taney, the Democratic Chief
Justice of the United States.  I know that the people of that
race are still the victims of outrages which all good men
deplore.  But I also believe that the rising sense of justice
and of manhood in the South is already finding expression
in indignant remonstrance from the lips of governors and preachers,
and that the justice and manhood of the South will surely
make their way.

"Ah, Fellow Citizens, amid the sorrow and the mourning and
the tears, amid the horror and the disappointment and the
baffled hope, there comes to us from the open grave of William
McKinley a voice of good omen!  What pride and love must we
feel for the republic that calls such men to her high places?
What hope and confidence in the future of a people, where
all men and all women of all parties and sections, of all
faiths and creeds, of all classes and conditions, are ready
to respond as ours have responded to the emotion of a mighty
love.

"You and I are Republicans.  You and I are men of the North.
Most of us are Protestants in religion.  We are men of native
birth.  Yet if every Republican were to-day to fall in his
place, as William McKinley has fallen, I believe our countrymen
of the other party, in spite of what we deem their errors,
would take the Republic and bear on the flag to liberty and
glory.  I believe if every Protestant were to be stricken
down by a lightning-stroke, that our brethren of the Catholic
faith would still carry on the Republic in the spirit of a
true and liberal freedom.  I believe if every man of native
birth within our borders were to die this day, the men of
foreign birth, who have come here to seek homes and liberty
under the shadow of the Republic, would carry it on in God's
appointed way.  I believe if every man of the North were to
die, the new and chastened South, with the virtues it has
cherished from the beginning, with its courage and its constancy,
would take the country and bear it on to the achievement of
its lofty destiny.  The Anarchist must slay 75,000,000 Americans
before he can slay the Republic.

"Of course there would be mistakes.  Of course there would
be disappointments and grievous errors.  Of course there would
be many things for which the lovers of liberty would mourn.
But America would survive them all, and the nation our fathers
planted would endure in perennial life.

"William McKinley has fallen in high place.  The spirit of
Anarchy, always the servant of the spirit of Despotism, aimed
its shaft at him, and his life for this world is over.  But
there comes from his fresh grave a voice of lofty triumph:
'Be of good cheer.  It is God's way.'"

I account it my supreme good fortune that my public life
has been spent in the service of Massachusetts.  No man can
know better than I do how unworthy I have been of a place
in the great line of public men who have adorned her history
for nearly three hundred years.  What a succession it has
been.  What royal house, what empire or monarchy, can show
a catalogue like that of the men whom in every generation
she has called to high places--Bradford, and Winthrop, and
Sir Henry Vane, Leverett, and Sam Adams and John Adams and
his illustrious son, and Cabot and Dexter, Webster and Everett
and Sumner and Andrew.  Nothing better can be said in praise
of either than that they have been worthy of her, and she
has been worthy of them.  They have given her always brave
and honest service, brave and honest counsel.  She has never
asked of them obsequiousness, or flattery, or even obedience
to her will, unless it had the approval of their own judgment
and conscience.  That relation has been alike most honorable
and most advantageous to both sides.  They have never been
afraid to trust the people and they have never been afraid
to withstand the people.  They knew well the great secret
of all statesmanship, that he that withstands the people on
fit occasions is commonly the man who trusts them most and
always in the end the man they trust most.


CHAPTER II
ROGER SHERMAN AND HIS FAMILY

My mother, who died in 1866, at the age of eighty-three,
was the daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecticut.  Her father
died when she was ten years old.  She lived in her mother's
house, opposite the College in New Haven, until her marriage
in 1812.  New Haven was one of the capital cities of New England.
Its society had the special attraction which belonged to the
seat of a famous college.  Her mother's house was visited
by the survivors of the great period of the Revolution and
the framing of the Constitution, whom her father had known
during an eminent public service of nearly forty years.

My mother was the most perfect democrat, in the best sense
of the word, that I ever knew.  It was a democracy which was
the logical result of the doctrines of the Old Testament and
of the New.  It recognized the dignity of the individual soul,
without regard to the accident of birth or wealth or power
or color of the skin.  If she were in the company of a Queen,
it would never have occurred to her that they did not meet
as equals.  And if the Queen were a woman of sense, and knew
her, it would never occur to the Queen.  The poorest people
in the town, the paupers in the poorhouse, thought of her
as a personal friend to whom they could turn for sympathy
and help.  No long before her death, an old black woman died
in the poorhouse.  She died in the night.  An old man who
had been a town pauper a good part of his life sat up with
her and ministered to her wants as well as he could.  Just
before she died, the old woman thanked him for his kindness.
She told him she should like to give him something to show
her gratitude, but that she had nothing in the world; but
she thought that if he would go to Mrs. Hoar and ask her
to give him a dollar, as a favor to her she would do it.  The
draft on the bank of kindness was duly honored.  And I think
the legacy was valued as highly by her who paid it as if it
had been a costly gem or a work of art from an emperor's gallery.

Mr. Calhoun was very intimate in my grandmother's household
when he was in college, and always inquired with great interest
after the young ladies of the family when he met anybody who
knew them.  He had a special liking for my mother, who was
about his own age, and always inquired for her.

William M. Evarts visited Washington in his youth and called
upon Mr. Calhoun, who received him with great consideration,
went with him in person to see the President and what was
worth seeing in Washington.  Mr. Calhoun spoke in the highest
terms of Roger Sherman to Mr. Evarts, said that he regarded
him as one of the greatest of our statesmen, and that he had
seen the true interests of the South when Southern statesmen
were blind to them.  This Mr. Calhoun afterward said in a
speech in the Senate, including, however, Mr. Paterson of
New Jersey and Oliver Ellsworth in his eulogy.

The story of Roger Sherman's life has never been told at length.
There is an excellent memoir of him in Sanderson's "Lives
of the Signers," written by Jeremiah Evarts, with the assistance
of the late Governor and Senator Roger S. Baldwin of Connecticut.
But when that was written the correspondence of the great
actors of his time, and indeed the journals of the Continental
Congress and the Constitutional Convention and the Madison
Papers, were none of them accessible to the public.

An excellent though brief memoir of Mr. Sherman was published
a few years ago by L. H. Boutell, Esq., of Chicago.  Mr. Sherman
was a man who seemed to care nothing for fame.  He was content
to cause great things to be done for his country, and cared
nothing for the pride and glory of having done them.  The
personal pronoun I is seldom found in any speech or writing
of his.  He had a large share in the public events that led
to the Revolution, in the conduct of the War, in the proceedings
of the Continental Congress, in the framing of the Constitution,
in securing its adoption by Connecticut, and in the action
of the House and Senate in Washington's first Administration.
He was also for many years Judge of the highest court of his
State.  He was a man of indefatigable industry.  An accomplished
lady employed to make investigations in the public archives
of the Department of State, reported that she did not see
how he could ever have gone to bed.

He had a most affectionate and tender heart.  He was very
fond of his family and friends.  Although reserved and silent
in ordinary company, he was very agreeable in conversation,
and had a delightful wit.  Some of the very greatest men of
his time have left on record their estimate of his greatness.

Thomas Jefferson said of him:  "There is old Roger Sherman,
who never said a foolish thing in his life."

Theodore Sedgwick said:  "He was a man of the selectest wisdom.
His influence was such that no measure, or part of a measure
which he advocated, ever failed to pass."

Fisher Ames said that if he were absent through a debate
and came in before the vote was taken he always voted with
Roger Sherman, as he always voted right.

Patrick Henry said that the first men in the Continental
Congress were Washington, Richard Henry Lee, and Roger Sherman,
and, later in life, that Roger Sherman and George Mason were
the greatest statesmen he ever knew.  This statement, published
in the life of Mason, was carefully verified for me by my
friend, the late William Wirt Henry, grandson and biographer
of Patrick Henry, as appears by a letter from him in my possession.*

[Footnote]
*I attach a passage from Mr. William Wirt Henry's letter, dated
December 28, 1892.

"I am glad to be able to say that you may rely on the correctness
of the passage at page 221 of Howe's Historical Collections of Va.
giving Patrick Henry's estimate of Roger Sherman.  It was furnished
the author by my father and though a youth I well remember Mr. Howe's
visit to Red Hill, my father's residence.  My father, John Henry,
was about three years of age when his father died, but his mother
long survived Patrick Henry, as did several of his older children.
From his mother, brothers and sisters my father learned many
personal reminiscences of his father and his exceptionally
retentive memory enabled him to relate them accurately.  I have
often heard him relate the reminiscences given on that page by
Mr. Howe."
[End of Footnote]

John Adams, in a letter to his wife, speaks of Sherman as
"That old Puritan, as honest as an angel, and as firm in
the cause of Independence as Mt. Atlas."

But perhaps the most remarkable testimony to his character,
one almost unexampled in the history of public men, is that
paid to him by Oliver Ellsworth, himself one of the greatest
men of his time,--Chief Justice of the United States, Envoy
to France, leader in the Senate for the first twelve years
of the Constitution, and author of the Judiciary Act.  He
had been on the Bench of the Superior Court of Connecticut,
with Mr. Sherman, for many years.  They served together in
the Continental Congress, and in the Senate of the United
States.  They were together members of the Convention that
framed the Constitution, and of the State Convention in Connecticut
that adopted it.  Chief Justice Ellsworth told John Adams
that he had made Mr. Sherman his model in his youth.  Mr.
Adams adds:  "Indeed I never knew two men more alike, except
that the Chief Justice had the advantage of a liberal education,
and somewhat more extensive reading.  Mr. Sherman was born
in the State of Massachusetts, and was one of the strongest
and soundest pillars of the Revolution."  It would be hard
to find another case of life-long and intimate companionship
between two public men where such a declaration by either
of the other would not seem ludicrous.

He was the only person who signed all four of the great State
Papers, to which the signatures of the delegates of the different
Colonies were attached:

  The Association of 1774;
  The Articles of Confederation;
  The Declaration of Independence, and
  The Constitution of the United States.

Robert Morris signed three of them.

His tenacity, the independence of his judgment, and his influence
over the great men with whom he was associated, is shown by
four striking instances among many others where he succeeded
in impressing his opinion on his associates.

_First:_  It is well known that the dispute between the large
States, who desired to have their votes in the National Legislature
counted in proportion to numbers, and the small States, who
desired to vote by States as equals, a dispute which nearly
wrecked the attempt to frame a Constitution of the United
States, arose in the Continental Congress, and gave rise to
great controversy there when the Articles of Confederation
were framed.  Mr. Sherman was one of the Committee that framed
those Articles, as he was afterward one of the Committee who
reported the Declaration of Independence.

John Adams writes in his diary, that Mr. Sherman, in Committee
of the Whole, moved August 1, 1776, that the vote be taken
both ways, once according to numbers, and a second time, when
the States should vote as equals.

This was, in substance, so far as the arrangement of political
power was concerned, the plan of the Constitution.  In the
Constitutional Convention, Mr. Sherman first moved this plan,
known as the Connecticut Compromise, and made the first argument
in its support, to which his colleague, Oliver Ellsworth,
afterward gave the weight of his powerful influence.  The
Convention afterward, almost in despair of any settlement
of this vexed question, referred the matter to a grand committee,
on which Mr. Ellsworth was originally named.  But he withdrew
from the committee, and Mr. Sherman took his place.  Mr.
Sherman had the parliamentary charge of the matter from the
beginning, and at the close of the Convention, moved the provision
that no State should be deprived of its equal vote without
its consent.

When Mr. Sherman's known tenacity, and his influence over
the great men with whom he was associated, testified to by
so many of them, is borne in mind, it seems there can be no
doubt that he is entitled to the chief credit of carrying
out the scheme which he himself devised, and which, years
before the Convention met, he himself first moved in the
Continental Congress for which he made the first argument,
and which was reported from the committee of which he was
a member, representing the State which gave the name to the
Compromise.  His motion, which was adopted, that no State
should be deprived of its equal vote in the Senate without
its consent, made the equality secure.*

[Footnote]
* See Boutell's "Life of Roger Sherman," Lodge's "Flying Frigate,
--Address on Ellsworth," Proceedings Am. Ant. Soc., October, 1902.
[End of Footnote]

_Second:_  In 1774, when Mr. Adams was on his way to the
Continental Congress in Philadelphia, he records in his diary
that he met Roger Sherman at New Haven, who, he says, "is
a solid and sensible man."  Mr. Sherman said to him that he
thought the Massachusetts patriots, especially Mr. Otis,
in his argument for the Writs of Assistance, had given up
the whole case when they admitted that Parliament had the
power to legislate for the Colonies under any circumstances
whatever.  He lived to join in the report from the committee,
and to sign the Declaration of Independence, which put the
case on his ground.  The Declaration of Independence does
not recognize Parliament at all, except indirectly, when it
says the King "has combined with others" to do the wrongs
which are complained of.

_Third:_  In 1752 the whole country was overrun with paper
money.  Mr. Sherman published in that year a little pamphlet,
entitled, "A Caveat Against Injustice, or An Inquiry Into
the Evil Consequences of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange."
He stated with great clearness and force the arguments which,
unhappily, we have been compelled to repeat more than once
in later generations.  He denounced paper money as "a cheat,
vexation, and snare, a medium whereby we are continually cheating
and wronging one another in our dealings and commerce." He
adds, "So long as we import so much more foreign goods than
are necessary, and keep so many merchants and traders employed
to procure and deal them out to us: a great part of which
we might as well make among ourselves; and another great part
of which we had much better be without, especially the spiritous
liquors, of which vast quantities are consumed in the colony
every year, unnecessarily, to the great destruction of estates,
morals, healths and even the lives of many of the inhabitants,--
I say, so long as these things are so, we shall spend a great
part of our labor and substance for that which will not profit
us.  Whereas, if these things were reformed, the provisions
and other commodities which we might have to export yearly,
and which other governments are dependent upon us for, would
procure us gold and silver abundantly sufficient for a medium
of trade.  And we might be as independent, flourishing and
happy a colony as any in the British Dominions."

He lived to move in the Convention, and to procure its insertion
in the Constitution, the clause that no State should make
anything but gold and silver legal tender.

_Fourth:_  Mr. Sherman took his seat in the Federal Convention
May 30, 1787.  Mr. Randolph's resolution, submitted on the
29th day of May, being before the Convention the next day,
included the proposition that the National Legislature ought
to be empowered to enjoy the legislative rights vested in
Congress by the confederation, "and moreover to legislate
in all cases in which the separate States are incompetent,"
--the question being whether the clause authorizing Congress
to legislate in all cases in which the separate States are
incompetent should be retained, every State in the Convention
voted Aye, except Connecticut.  Connecticut was divided.  Ellsworth
voted Aye, and Sherman, No.

Mr. Sherman lived, not only to sign a Constitution of limited
powers, but himself to support the Tenth Article of Amendment
thereto, which is as follows:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people."  The words "or to the people"
were moved by Mr. Sherman after the original article was reported.
So he saw clearly in the beginning, what no other member saw,
the two great American principles, first that the National
Government should be a Government of limited and delegated
powers, and next, that there is a domain of legislation which
the people have not delegated either to the National Government
or to the States, and upon which no legislative power may
rightfully enter.

I surely am not mistaken in thinking that even without the
other services of a life devoted to the public, these four
contributions to the Constitutional history of the country
entitle Mr. Sherman to an honorable place in the grateful
memory of his countrymen, and vindicate the tributes which
I have cited from his illustrious contemporaries.

My grandmother, the daughter of Benjamin Prescott of Salem,
was a woman of great intelligence and a great beauty in her
time.  She was once taken out to dinner by General Washington
when he was President.  Madam Hancock, whose husband had been
President of the Continental Congress and Governor of Massachusetts,
complained to General Washington's Secretary, Mr. Lear, that
that honor belonged to her.  The Secretary told General Washington,
the next day, what she said.  The General answered that it
was his privilege to give his arm to the handsomest woman
in the room.  Whether the reply was communicated to Mrs. Hancock,
or whether she was comforted by it, does not appear.  General
Washington had been a guest at my grandfather's house in my
mother's childhood, and she had sat on his knee.  She was
then six years old.  But she always remembered the occasion
very vividly.

My grandfather was a friend of Lafayette, who mentions him
in one of his letters, the original of which is in my possession.
One of my mother's brothers, Lt. Colonel Isaac Sherman, led
the advance at Princeton, and was himself intimate with Washington
and Lafayette.  He was a very brave officer and commanded
a Connecticut regiment at the storming of Stony Point.  He
is honorably mentioned in Gen. Wayne's report of the action.
Washington alludes to him in one of his letters to Lafayette,
as one of his friends whom Lafayette will be glad to see if
he will visit this country once more.  There is, in the State
Department, an amusing correspondence between Col. Sherman
and Gen. Wayne, in which he complains that Mad Anthony does
great injustice in his report to the soldiers from other States
than Pennsylvania.  Mad Anthony was mad at the letter.  But
after a rather significant request from Gen. Washington,
he repaired the wrong.

Another of her brothers who died at the age of eighty-eight,
when I was thirty years old, and at whose house I was often
a visitor, spent three weeks as Washington's guest at Mount
Vernon.  Old Deacon Beers of New Haven, whom I knew in his
old age, was one of the guard who had Andre in custody.  During
his captivity, Andre made a pen-and-ink likeness of himself,
which he gave to Deacon Beers.  It is now in the possession
of Yale College.

I had from my mother the story of General Washington taking
Chief Justice Ellsworth's twin children, one on each knee,
and reciting to them the ballad of the Derbyshire Ram.  This
tradition has remained in the Ellsworth family.  I have confirmed
it by inquiry of the Rev. Mr. Wood, a grandson of Oliver Ellsworth,
who died in Washington a few years ago.

Besides the uncle to whom I allude, who died in 1856, Judge
Simeon Baldwin, who married two of my aunts, died in 1851,
aged ninety.  He was a Member of Congress in 1803-5, and was
an intimate friend of Chancellor Kent, who was his classmate
and chum in Yale, and was intimate with the Federalist leaders
of the Hamilton party.  I several times made visits in his
household before his death.  President Jeremiah Day, another
uncle by marriage, was at the head of Yale for thirty years.
He died in 1867, at the age of 94.

My mother's sister, Mrs. Jeremiah Evarts, was born January
28, 1774, and died in 1851, at the age of seventy-seven.  She
knew intimately many famous men and women of the Revolutionary
period.  Her husband was an intimate friend of John Jay.  She
had a great deal of the sprightly wit for which her son, William,
was so famous.  She was at home at the time of Washington's
visit, then a child eleven years old, and opened the door
for him when he took his leave.  The General, who was very
fond of children, put his hand on her head and said, "My little
lady, I wish you a better office." She dropped a courtesy
and answered, quick as lightning, "Yes, sir; to let you in."

Mrs. Evarts was a woman not only of sprightly wit, but of
great beauty.  She liked to tell in her old age of a dinner
which John Hancock gave for her father and her, in Boston,
when she was a girl.  She described her dress with great
minuteness, and added naively, "Didn't I look pretty?"

My mother, who was married in 1812, knew very intimately many
of her father's and mother's old friends who had been distinguished
in the public service in the Revolutionary period and the
Administration of Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
She knew very well the family of John Jay.  He and his wife
were visitors at my grandmother's after their return from
Spain.  My mother was intimate in the household of Oliver
Ellsworth as in a second home.  His children were her playmates.
She was also very intimate indeed with the family of Senator
Hillhouse, whose daughter Mary was one of her dearest friends.

Senator Hillhouse held a very high place in the public life
of Connecticut in his day.  He was one of the friends of Hamilton,
and one of the group of Federal statesmen of whom Hamilton
was the leader.  He was United States Senator for Connecticut
from 1796 to 1810.

After she became a young lady, my mother, with Fanny Ellsworth,
afterward Mrs. Wood, and Mary Hillhouse, daughter of the Senator,
established a school to teach young colored children to read
and sew.  The colored people in New Haven were in a sad condition
in those days.  The law of the State made it a penal offence
to teach a colored child to read.  These girls violated the
law.  The public authorities interfered and threatened them
with prosecution.  But the young women were resolute.  They
insisted that they were performing a religious duty, and declared
that they should disobey the law and take the consequences.
A good deal of sympathy was aroused in their behalf.  The
New Haven authorities had to face the question whether they
would imprison the daughter of a Signer of the Declaration
of Independence, who had affixed his signature to the great
affirmation that all men are created equal, the daughters of
two Framers of the Constitution, and the daughter of James
Hillhouse, then the foremost citizen of Connecticut, for
teaching little children to read the Bible.  They gave up the
attempt.  The school kept on and flourished.  President Dwight
raised a considerable fund for it by a course of lectures,
and it continued down to within my own recollection.  What
became of the fund which was raised for its support I cannot
tell.

Jeremiah Evarts was born February 13, 1781.  He died May 10,
1831.  He was the founder and Secretary of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.  He was one of the
thirteen men who met in Samuel Dexter's office in 1812, to
inaugurate the Temperance Reformation.  The habit of excessive
drinking was then almost universal in this country.  Liquors
and wines were freely used on social occasions, at weddings
and at funerals.  The clergyman staggered home from his round
of pastoral calls, and the bearers partook of brandy or gin
or rum in the room adjoining that where the coffin was placed
ready for the funeral.  A gentleman present said it was utterly
impracticable to try and wean the American people from the habit of
drinking.  Jeremiah Evarts answered, "It is right, therefore
practicable."

He was a Puritan of the old school.  He made a vigorous but
ineffectual attempt in Connecticut to enforce the Sunday
laws.  His death was caused by his exertions in resisting
the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, a removal
accomplished in violation of the Constitution and of public
faith.  The Supreme Court of the United States declared the
law of Georgia unconstitutional.  But Georgia defied the mandate
of the Court, and it was never executed.  The missionary agent
was imprisoned and died of his confinement.  Mr. Evarts said,
"There is a court that has power to execute its judgments."

I told this story to Horace Maynard, an eminent member of
Congress and a member of the Cabinet.  Mr. Maynard said, "There
was never a prophecy more terribly accomplished.  The territory
from which those Indians were unlawfully removed was the scene
of the Battle of Missionary Ridge, which is not far from the
grave of Worcester, the missionary who died in prison.  That
land was fairly drenched with blood and honeycombed with graves."

Mr. Evarts edited the _Panoplist,_ a very able magazine which
powerfully defended the old theology against the Unitarian
movement, then at its height.

A well-known writer, Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, published a short
time ago a sketch entitled, "The Greater Evarts," in which
he contrasted the career of Jeremiah Evarts with that of his
brilliant and delightful son.  Whether that judgment shall
stand we may know when the question is settled, which is to
be answered in every generation, whether martyrdom be a failure.

Among the inmates of my grandfather's household in my mother's
childhood and youth was Roger Minott Sherman.  He was the
son of the Reverend Josiah Sherman, my grandfather's brother,
a clergyman of Woburn, Massachusetts, where Roger Minott was
born.  His father died in 1789.  My grandfather took the boy
into his household and educated him and treated him as a son,
and just before his death gave him his watch, which is now
in the possession of a son of General Sherman.

Roger Minott Sherman was unquestionably the ablest lawyer
in New England who never obtained distinction in political
life, and, with the exception of Daniel Webster and Jeremiah
Mason and Rufus Choate, the ablest New England ever produced.*

[Footnote]
* See Appendix.
[End of Footnote]

Roger Minott Sherman's father died in 1789.  The widow wrote
to some of her friends to see what assistance could be obtained
to enable her son to continue his studies at Yale.  It was
apparently in response to this appeal that Mr. Sherman wrote
the following letter to his nephew.

NEW YORK, April 28, 1790.

_Dear Nephew,_--I would have you continue your studies and
remain at my house as you have done hitherto.  I hope you
will be provided for so as to complete your education at College,
and lay a foundation for future usefulness.  When I return
home I shall take such further order respecting it as may
be proper.  I shall afford you as much assistance as under
my circumstances may be prudent.

  I am your affectionate uncle,
  ROGER SHERMAN.

Mr. Sherman died a year after his nephew graduated; but before
he died he doubtless saw the promise of that distinguished
career which added new lustre to the Sherman name.

It is a rather remarkable fact that my mother had such close
relations to so many eminent lawyers.  Her father, though
his public duties prevented him from practising law very long,
was a very great lawyer and judge.  Her brother-in-law, Judge
Baldwin, was an eminent Judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
Her cousin, Roger Minott Sherman, as has just been said, was
an inmate of her father's household in her childhood, and
was to her as a brother.  She had, after his mother's death,
the care of Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin, her nephew, who
was for many years at the head of the Connecticut Bar.  To
her nephew, William M. Evarts, my father's house was as another
home in his boyhood.  He was the leading advocate of his time.
Her son, E. R. Hoar, was Attorney General of the United
States.  And her husband was in his day one of the foremost
advocates of Massachusetts.  So, with a little alteration,
the Greek epitaph of the woman who was the daughter, wife,
sister and mother of princes, might apply to her, if, as I like
to think, a first-rate American lawyer is entitled to as much
respect as a petty Greek prince.


CHAPTER III
SAMUEL HOAR

I was born in Concord August 29, 1826.  My grandfather, two
great-grandfathers, and three of my father's uncles were at
Concord Bridge in the Lincoln Company, of which my grandfather,
Samuel Hoar, whom I well remember, was lieutenant, on the
19th of April, 1775.  The deposition of my great-grandfather,
John Hoar, with a few others, relating to the events of that
day, was taken by the patriots and sent to England by a fast-
sailing ship, which reached London before the official news
of the battle at Concord came from the British commander.
John had previously been a soldier in the old French War and
was a prisoner among the Indians for three months.  His life
was not a very conspicuous one.  He had been a Selectman of
Lexington, dwelling in the part of the town afterward incorporated
with Lincoln.  There is in existence a document manumitting
his slave, which, I am happy to say, is the only existing
evidence that any ancestor of mine ever owned one.

My father's grandfather, on the mother's side, was Colonel
Abijah Peirce, of Lincoln.  He was prominent in Middlesex
County from a time preceding the Revolutionary War down to
his death.  He was one of the Committee of the Town who had
charge of corresponding with other towns and with the Committee
of Safety in Boston.  The day before the battle at Concord
Bridge, he had been chosen Colonel of a regiment of Minute
Men.  But he had not got his commission, taken the oath, or
got his equipments.  So he went into the battle as a private
in the company in which his son-in-law was lieutenant, armed
with nothing but a cane.  After the first volley was exchanged
he crossed the bridge and took the cartridge-box and musket
of one of the two British soldiers who were killed, which
he used during the day.  The gun was preserved for a long
time in his family, and came to my grandfather, after his
death.  It was the first trophy of the Revolutionary War taken
in battle.  Such things, however, were not prized in those
days as they are now.  One of my uncles lent the musket to
one of his neighbors for the celebration of the taking of
Cornwallis, and it never was brought back.  We would give
its weight in gold to get it back.

I will put on record two stories about Colonel Peirce, which
have something of a superstitious quality in them.  I have
no doubt of their truth, as they come from persons absolutely
truthful and not superstitious or credulous themselves.

When Colonel Peirce was seventy years old, he told his wife
and my aunt, her granddaughter, from whom I heard the story,
who was then a grown-up young woman, that he was going out
to the barn and going up to the high beams.  In those days
the farmers' barns had the hay in bays on each side, and over
the floor in the middle rails were laid across from one side
to the other, on which corn-stalks, for bedding the cattle,
and other light things were put.  They urged him not to go,
and said an old man like him should not take such risks; to
which he replied by dancing a hornpipe in the room in their
presence, showing something of that exhilaration of spirit
which the Scotch called being "fey" and which they regard
as a presage of approaching misfortune.  He went out, and
within a few minutes fell from the high beams down to the
floor and was instantly killed.

The other story is that a little while before this happened
he said that he thought he saw the dim and misty figure of
a ship pass slowly from one side of the barn to the other,
under the roof.

A like story is told of Abraham Lincoln; that he used to
see a vision of a ship before any great event, and that it
came to him the night before he died.

I asked Mr. Secretary Hay about the Lincoln anecdote and give
his reply.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, April 18, 1903.

_Dear Senator Hoar:_

You will find on page 281 of Volume 10 of "The Life of Lincoln,"
by Nicolay and Hay, all I know about the story.

General Grant, in an interview with the President, on the
14th of April--the day he was shot--expressed some anxiety
as to the news from Sherman.  "The President answered him
in that singular vein of poetic mysticism, which, though constantly
held in check by his strong common sense, formed a remarkable
element in his character.  He assured Grant that the news
would come soon and come favorable, for he had last night
had his usual dream which preceded great events.  He seemed
to be, he said, in a singular and indescribable vessel, but
always the same, moving with great rapidity towards a dark
and indefinite shore.  He had had this dream before Antietam,
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg and Vicksburg."

The story is also found in George Eliot's Life (Vol. 3, 113),
as related by Charles Dickens on the authority of Stanton,
with characteristic amplifications.

  Yours faithfully,
  JOHN HAY.
  The Honorable
  George F. Hoar
  United States Senate

My father, Samuel Hoar of Concord, was born in 1778 and died
in 1856.  He was one of the most eminent lawyers at the Massachusetts
Bar.  To this statement I can give better testimony than my
own, in the following letter from the Honorable Eben F. Stone,
late member of Congress from the Essex District.

WASHINGTON 9 March, '84.

_My dear Mr. Hoar:_

When I was a law student, I dined at Ipswich in our county,
with the Judges of the Supreme Court and the members of the
Essex Bar, who then had a room and a table by themselves.
The conversation took a professional turn, and a good deal
was said about Mr. Choate's great skill and success as an
advocate.  Judge Shaw then remarked that, sitting at nisi
prius in different parts of the State, he had had an opportunity
to compare the different lawyers who were distinguished for
their success with juries, and that there was no man in the
State, in his opinion, who had so much influence with a jury
as Sam Hoar of Concord.  This he ascribed not simply to his
legal ability, but largely to the confidence the people had
in his integrity and moral character.

  Yours truly,
  E. F. STONE.

Mr. Hoar was associated with Mr. Webster in the defence of
Judge Prescott when he was impeached before the Senate of
Massachusetts.  He encountered Webster, and Choate, and Jeremiah
Mason, and John Davis, and the elder Marcus Morton, and other
giants of the Bar, in many a hard battle.  Mr. Webster makes
affectionate reference to him in a letter to my brother, now
in existence.  He was a member of the Harrisburg Convention
which nominated General Harrison for the Presidency in 1839.
He represented Concord in the Massachusetts Convention to
Revise the Constitution, in 1820, in which convention his
father, Samuel Hoar, represented Lincoln.  When he first rose
to speak in that body, John Adams said, "That young man reminds
me of my old friend, Roger Sherman." He was a Federalist,
afterward a Whig, and in the last years of his life a Republican.

Mr. Hoar succeeded Edward Everett as Representative in Congress
from the Middlesex District in 1835.  He served there but
a single term.  He made one speech, a Constitutional argument
in support of the power of Congress to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia.  He also took rather a prominent
part in a discussion in which the Whig members complained
of one of the rulings of the Democratic speaker.

His service was not long enough to gain for him any considerable
national distinction.  But that he made a good impression
on the House appears from an extract of a letter I lately
received from my classmate, Rev. Walter Mitchell, the author
of the spirited and famous poem, "Tacking Ship off Fire Island."
He says:  "I heard your uncle, Mr. Eliot, say that when your
father went to Congress the Southern members said, 'Where
has this man been all his life, and why have we never heard
of him?  With us a man of his ability would be known all over
the South.'"

My father retired from active practice at the Bar shortly
after his return from Congress in 1837.  In 1844 an event
occurred which contributed largely to the bitter feeling
between the two sections of the country, which brought on the
Civil War.

As is well known, under the laws of South Carolina, colored
seamen on ships that went into the port of Charleston were
imprisoned during the stay of the ship, and sold to pay their
jail fees if the ship went off and left them, or if the fees
were not paid.

The Legislature of Massachusetts directed the Governor to
employ counsel to test the constitutionality of these laws.
No Southern lawyer of sufficient ability and distinction could
be found who would undertake the duty.  The Governor found
it difficult to procure counsel who were in active practice.
Mr. Hoar was led by a strong sense of duty to leave his retirement
in his old age and undertake the delicate and dangerous mission.
When he arrived in South Carolina and made known his errand,
the people of the State, especially of the city of Charleston,
were deeply excited.  The Legislature passed angry resolutions,
directing the Governor to expel from the State, "the Northern
emissary" whose presence was deemed an insult.  The mob of
Charleston threatened to destroy the hotel where Mr. Hoar
was staying.  He was urged to leave the city, which he firmly
and steadfastly refused to do.  The mob were quieted by the
assurances of leading gentlemen that Mr. Hoar would be removed.
A deputation of seventy principal citizens waited upon him
at his hotel and requested him to consent to depart.  He
had already declined the urgent request of Dr. Whittredge,
an eminent physician, to withdraw and take refuge at his
plantation, saying he was too old to run and could not go
back to Massachusetts if he had returned without an attempt
to discharge his duty.  The committee told him that they
had assured the people that he should be removed, and that
he must choose between stepping voluntarily into a carriage
and being taken to the boat, or being dragged by force.  He
then, and not until then, said he would go.  He was taken by
the committee to the boat, which sailed for Wilmington.

It has generally been said that Mr. Hoar was driven from
Charleston by a mob.  This I suppose to be technically true.
But it is not true in the popular sense of the words.  The
committee of seventy, although they had no purpose of personal
violence, other than to place one old gentleman in a carriage
and take him to a boat, were, of course, in every legal sense
a mob.  But when that committee waited upon him the personal
danger was over.

A solitary negative vote against the resolve of the Legislature
directing Mr. Hoar to be expelled was cast by C. S. Memmenger,
afterward Secretary of the Treasury of the Southern Confederacy.
He is said to have been a Union man in 1832.

I was told by General Hurlburt of Illinois, a distinguished
officer in the Civil War, and member of the national House
of Representatives, that at the time of my father's mission
to South Carolina, he was a law student in the office of
James L. Petigru.  Mr. Petigru, as is well known, was a Union
man during the Civil War.  Such, however, was the respect
for his great ability and character that he was permitted
to live in Charleston throughout the War.  It is said that
on one occasion while this strife was going on, a stranger
in Charleston met Mr. Petigru in the street and asked him
the way to the Insane Hospital.  To this the old man answered
by pointing north, south, east and west, and said, "You will
find the Insane Hospital in every direction here."

According to General Hurlburt, Mr. Petigru had quietly organized
a company of young men whom he could trust, who were ready,
under his lead, to rescue Mr. Hoar and insure his personal
safety if he were attacked by the mob.

John Quincy Adams says in his diary, speaking of the transaction:
"I approved the whole of his conduct." Governor Briggs, in
communicating the facts to the Legislature, says in a special
message:  "The conduct of Mr. Hoar under the circumstances
seems to have been marked by that prudence, firmness and wisdom
which have distinguished his character through his life."
Mr. Emerson says, in a letter dated December 17, 1844:

"Mr. Hoar has just come home from Carolina, and gave me this
morning a narrative of his visit.  He had behaved admirably
well, I judge, and there were fine heroic points in his story.
One expression struck me, which, he said, he regretted a little
afterward, as it might sound a little vapouring.  A gentleman
who was very much his friend called him into a private room
to say that the danger from the populace had increased to
such a degree that he must now insist on Mr. Hoar's leaving
the city at once, and he showed him where he might procure
a carriage and where he might safely stop on the way to his
plantation, which he would reach the next morning.  Mr. Hoar
thanked him but told him again that he could not and would
not go, and that he had rather his broken skull should be
carried to Massachusetts by somebody else, than to carry it
home safe himself whilst his duty required him to remain.
The newspapers say, following the Charleston papers, that
he consented to depart: this he did not, but in every instance
refused,--to the Sheriff, and acting Mayor, to his friends, and
to the committee of the S. C. Association, and only went
when they came in crowds with carriages to conduct him to
the boat, and go he must,--then he got into the coach himself,
not thinking it proper to be dragged."

I add this letter from Dr. Edward Everett Hale.

39 HIGHLAND ST., ROXBURY, MASS., Mar. 13, 1884.

_Dear Hoar:_

Thank you very much for your memoir of your father.  I was
in Washington the day he and your sister came home from Charleston.
I remember that Grinnell told me the news--and my first real
feeling _in life_ that there must be a war, was when Grinnell
said on the Avenue:  "I do not know but we may as well head
the thing off now--and fight it out." The first public intelligence
the North had of the matter was in my letter to the _Daily
Advertiser,_ which was reprinted in New York, their own correspondents
not knowing of the expulsion.

  Always yours,
  EDW. E. HALE.

I have Dr. Vedder's permission to publish the accompanying
correspondence, which so happily turns into a means of delightful
reconciliation what has been so long, but can be no longer,
a painful memory.  I was received in Charleston with the delightful
hospitality of which no other people in the world so fully
understand the secret.

CHARLESTON, S. C., Oct. 20, 1898.
  THE HONORABLE GEORGE F. HOAR.

_Dear Sir:_

We have a New England Society in Charleston which is now seventy-
six years old.  It has had a notable history, Daniel Webster
having been among its annual orators.  Its Forefathers' Anniversary
is the social and literary event of our year.  I write to
extend the warm greeting of the Society to yourself, and the
earnest request that you will be our guest at the banquet
on Forefathers' Day Dec. 22, and speak to the sentiment--
"The Day we Celebrate," or any other that you would prefer.
Of course, it will be our privilege to make your coming wholly
without cost to yourself.  May I venture to urge that your
presence with us will have a beautiful significance in its
relation to the good feeling which so happily obtains in all
our land, and a past event which associates your honored Father's
name so memorably and sadly with our City?  Charleston would
fain give the honored Son a welcome which shall obliterate
the past.

  Hoping for a favorable and early reply, I remain,
  Yours with great respect,
  CHARLES S. VEDDER, _President._


WORCESTER, MASS., October 26, 1898.

_My Dear Sir:_

I am sure you will not doubt that I feel myself highly honored
by your invitation in behalf of the New England Society of
Charleston, as I am deeply touched and gratified by what you
say in the letter which conveys it.  I thank God that I have
lived to behold this day, and that my eyes have been spared
to see the people of the whole country united again in affection
as in the early time.

I hope and expect to be able to attend your banquet next
Forefathers' Day.  I will do so if the condition of the public
business shall permit.  I have the charge of the business of
the Committee on the Judiciary, two of whose important members
are now absent in Paris, and it is of course possible that
some of the great questions which are before us may require
constant attendance in their places of all the Senators during
the next session without the possibility of interruption for
a Christmas holiday.  Subject to that possibility, I will
accept your invitation, and am, with high regard,

  Faithfully yours,
  GEO. F. HOAR.

In 1850, after he had withdrawn from professional and public
life, being then seventy-two years old, Mr. Hoar was sent
to the House of Representatives, by the town of Concord, to
oppose the removal of the courts from Concord.  He was successful
in the opposition.  He had, during the winter, an opportunity
to render a very important service to Harvard College.  There
was a vigorous and dangerous attempt to abolish the existing
Corporation, and transfer the property and control of the
College to a board of fifteen persons, to be chosen by the
Legislature by joint ballot, one third to go out of office
every second year.  This measure was recommended in an elaborate
report by Mr. Boutwell, an influential member of the House,
chosen Governor at the next election, and advocated by Henry
Wilson, afterward Senator and Vice-President, and by other
gentlemen of great influence.  All the members of the Corporation
were Whigs in politics and Unitarians, a sect containing a
very small proportion of the people of the State.  The project
to take the College from their control was very popular.  The
House listened willingly to the able arguments with which
the measure was introduced, and before Mr. Hoar spoke its
opinion was unmistakable for the bill.  He argued that the
measure was in conflict with the Constitution of the United
States, and defended the College with great earnestness from
the charge that it had "failed to answer the just expectations
of the public."  The Boston _Daily Atlas,_ edited by General
Schouler, then a member of the House, said the next day of
this speech:  "The argument of Mr. Hoar was of transcendent
excellence, and had a most overpowering effect upon the House.
We regret that no report was made of it.  It is a pity that
so much learning, argument and eloquence should be lost."

This speech caused a revolution in the opinion of the body.
The measure was referred to the next General Court.  Mr. Hoar
was employed by the Corporation as counsel to appear before
the Legislature the next winter in its behalf.  But the measure
was never heard of afterward.  Dr. Walker said of this occurrence,
after his sententious fashion:  "Other men have served the
College; Samuel Hoar saved it."

The Board of Overseers, who have visitorial powers over the
College, and whose concurrence is necessary to the election
or appointment of officers, Professors and members of the
Corporation, and who included for a long time the Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor, and members of the Senate, had always
been held to be the representative of the Commonwealth, although
the members of the body who were not members _ex-officio_
were elected by the Board itself.

A bill passed in 1851, to which no objection was made, vested
the election of this body in the Legislature.  But after a
few years' trial, that was abandoned, and the members of the
Overseers are now chosen by the Alumni of the College.

I shall speak in a later chapter of the foundation of the
Free Soil Party.  The call for the Convention held at Worcester
on the 28th of June, 1848, addressed to all persons opposed
to the election of Cass and Taylor, written by his son, E.
R. Hoar, was headed by Mr. Hoar.  He presided over the meeting,
and delegates were elected to a National Convention to be
held at Buffalo, which nominated Van Buren and Adams for President
and Vice-President.  This was the origin of the Republican
party.

After 1848, Mr. Hoar did not relax his efforts to bring about
a union of all parties in the North, in opposition to further
encroachments of the slave power.  In accomplishing this end,
his age, the regard in which he was held by all classes of
people, his known disinterestedness and independence, fitted
him to exert a large influence.  The Free Soil movement had
led to the formation of a party in Massachusetts, small in
numbers, but zealous, active, in earnest, containing many
able leaders, eloquent orators, and vigorous writers.  They
had sent Charles Allen to the lower House of Congress, and
Sumner and Rantoul to the Senate.  But they had apparently
made little impression on the national strength of either
of the old parties.

In 1854, the passage of the measure known as the Kansas-
Nebraska Bill afforded a new opportunity.  A meeting of citizens
of Concord appointed a committee, of which Mr. Hoar was Chairman,
and A. G. Fay, Secretary, who called a meeting of prominent
persons from different parts of the State to meet at the American
House in Boston, to take measures for forming a new party
and calling a State Convention.  This Convention was held
at Worcester on the 7th of September, and formed a party under
the name of Republican, and nominated candidates for State
offices.  Its meeting has been claimed to be the foundation
of the Republican party of Massachusetts, and its twenty-
fifth anniversary was celebrated accordingly in 1879.  But
it effected little more than to change the name of the Free
Soil party.  Few Whigs or Democrats united to the movement.
A secret organization called Americans, or Know-Nothings,
swept the Commonwealth like a wave, electing all the State
officers, and, with scarcely an exception, the entire Legislature.

The candidate for Governor nominated by the Republicans at
Worcester, himself joined the Know-Nothings, and labored to
defeat his own election.

The next year the attempt was more successful.  On the 10th
of August, 1855, a meeting without distinction of party was
held at Chapman Hall, in Boston, which was addressed by Mr.
Hoar, George Bliss, Franklin Dexter, William Brigham, Lyman
Beecher, Richard H. Dana, Jr., Charles F. Adams, Henry Wilson,
Stephen C. Phillips, and others.  On the 30th of the same
month, a meeting of conference committees was held, representing
the American or Know-Nothing party, the Know-Somethings, an
antislavery organization which had held a National Convention
at Cleveland in June, and the Chapman Hall Convention.  This
conference appointed a committee of twenty-six to call a State
Convention, at the head of which they placed Mr. Hoar.  This
State Convention was held at Worcester, nominated Julius
Rockwell for Governor, and the organization which it created
has constituted the Republican party of Massachusetts to the
present day.

The part taken in calling this Convention, and in promoting
the union which gave it birth, was Mr. Hoar's last important
public service.  His failing health prevented his taking an
active share in the Presidential campaign of 1856.

I prefer, in putting on record this brief estimate of a character
which has been to me the principal object of reverence and
honor in my life, to use the language of others, and not
my own.  From many tributes to my father's character, from
persons more impartial than I can be, I have selected two
or three.

I cannot quote at length Ralph Waldo Emerson's sketches of
Mr. Hoar, who was his near neighbor and intimate personal
friend for many years.  They are noble and faithful as portraits
of Van Dyke or Titian.  One of them is a speech made in Concord
town-meeting on the third day of November, 1856, the day after
Mr. Hoar's death.  The other was contributed to the _Unitarian
Monthly Religious Magazine,_ then edited by Rev. Dr. Huntington,
afterward Bishop of New York.  Mr. Emerson says in one of
them:  "His head, with singular grace in its lines, had a
resemblance to the bust of Dante.  He retained to the last
the erectness of his tall but slender form, and not less the
full strength of his mind.  Such was, in old age, the beauty
of his person and carriage, as if his mind radiated, and made
the same impression of probity on all beholders."

He ends with this quatrain:

  With beams December planets dart,
  His cold eye truth and conduct scanned;
  July was in his sunny heart,
  October in his liberal hand.

The following is from a letter of Sherman Day, a man whose
reputation for wisdom and integrity is among the treasures
of California:

"BERKELEY, 23d May, 1884.
  HON. GEO. FRISBIE HOAR,
  U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

_My Dear Sir:_

"I was very much gratified to receive, some weeks since,
a copy of your biographical sketch of your venerable father.
It was the more precious to me because it awakened memories
of my own early life; while it recalls the tall, the gentle
and dignified figure and courteous demeanor of your father
in his prime of life.  I can remember being at your father's
wedding at my grandmother's house when I was about 6-1/2
years old.  Several years before you were born, I was at
the Phillips Academy at Andover, and used occasionally to
spend a vacation with my beloved aunt, who was a sort of
mother to me in my earliest childhood.  It was at her home
that I first read Washington Irving's Sketch Book, then just
appearing in separate numbers.  I believe the book belonged
to a law student of your father's, as your father had not
yet taken to the reading of romances.

"My memory extends back to the organization of the Constitutional
Convention of 1820.  I well remember the venerable figure
of John Adams, as he took the seat of honor at the right hand
of the president, and I remember the sonorous voice of Josiah
Quincy, the Secretary.  I was staying at the house of Mr.
Evarts, and remember your father's dining there, and discussing
the deportment and characteristics of several of the more
prominent members.  Among them was the tall member from Worcester,
Levi Lincoln, conspicuous by his drab overcoat, by his frequent
speaking, and by his constantly moving about among the members.
The member who made the most lasting impression on my memory
was Daniel Webster.  He was not yet forty years old, stalwart,
black haired and black eyed, with a somewhat swarthy complexion;
his manly beauty and his eloquence being alike objects of
admiration.  He had not attained that stoutness which his
form assumed in later years.  I could illustrate his appearance
better to your brother, Edward, by asking him to recall Don
Pablo de la Guerra of Santa Barbara, whom I deemed a very
good type, _in appearance,_ of Webster in the Convention of
1820."

George William Curtis came to know Mr. Hoar very well during
his own life in Concord.  He and his brother, Burrill, were
almost daily visitors at our house:

WEST NEW BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND, N. Y.,
  March 19, 1884.

_My dear Mr. Hoar:_

I thank you very much for a copy of your sketch of your father
which vividly recalls him to me as I remember him in my Concord
days long ago.  I recollect that when I saw in Paris Couture's
famous picture of the Decadence of the Romans, it was your
father that I thought of as I saw the figures of the older
Romans gazing reproachfully upon the revels.  So he may have
felt of his country as he died.

  With great regard, very truly yours,
  GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

The following is from J. Evarts Greene, formerly editor of
the Worcester _Spy,_ and one of the ablest members of his
profession in New England:

WORCESTER, Mar. 10, 1884.

_My dear Mr. Hoar:_

I want to thank you especially for the copy of the Memoir
of your father, which I received to-day.  I am exceedingly
glad to have it on your account and his.  He is the most venerable
figure in my memory.  He was always spoken of in our family
with the highest respect, and few things have ever gratified
me so much as his kindness to me on the occasion of my last
visit to Concord during his lifetime.  It was in 1850, I think,
while I was in college and about fifteen years old.  I had
always held him in awe as the greatest and wisest man within
my knowledge, and should have no more have thought of familiar
conversation with him than with the Pope.  But his grave and
kindly courtesy, as he sat down with me after supper, though
it did not quite put me at my ease, gave me courage to talk
more freely than I had ever thought possible; and while my
veneration for him was not diminished, I felt that there was
no one now on earth that I need be afraid of.

  Faithfully yours,
  J. EVARTS GREENE.
  The Hon. Geo. F. Hoar.

The following letter is from Professor Thatcher, the eminent
Latin Professor of Yale:

NEW HAVEN, 14th March, 1884.
  HONORABLE GEORGE F. HOAR.

_My dear Senator:_

I write simply but cordially to thank you for the copy of
your venerated Father's Memoir which you have been so kind
as to send to your cousin, Elizabeth.  I have read it with
the delight which must be common to all who read it.  A life
so qualified with the selectest traits of a great and gentle
soul, so substantial with continual but full and unembarrassed
labor, and so constantly influential for elevated and beneficent
ends, with nothing discoverable in it to check its great drift
and power,--such a life is an almost unequalled gift of God
to such a community as his.  There is a rare charm in the
narrative, and one cannot help rejoicing that you have been
able to gather together the recorded judgments of so many
men whose judgments are worthy to be recorded,

  I am, ever,
  Very truly yours,
  THOMAS A. THATCHER.

SENATE, WASHINGTON, March 9, 1884.

_My dear Mr. Hoar:_

I thank you very much for a copy of the Memoir of your father.
It is a tribute to his worth and fame worthy of him and of
yourself.  I hardly know which most to admire, the character
it portrays, or the filial piety it evinces.

It brings back very vividly the venerable form and the lovely
character I met and revered in the Massachusetts Legislature
when I was a young man, and have ever since held among the
safest and best of the land.  Permit me to count it my own
best fortune that I can subscribe myself the colleague and
friend of the son and biographer of Samuel Hoar.

  Truly yours,
  H. L. DAWES.
  The Honorable Geo. F. Hoar,
  Senate.

HONORABLE GEO. F. HOAR

_Dear Sir_

Thanks for the "Memoir of Samuel Hoar, by his Son, George
F. Hoar."

For years the character of this true man, as a noble, courageous,
self-sacrificing and independent American citizen has commanded
my profound admiration and respect, and I am greatly pleased
to become more familiar with his life.  Fortunately the facts
of it need no ornamentation or partial painting by the Son,
for the modesty of the latter would never have responded to
any such necessity.

  I am,
  Very truly,
  Yours, etc.
  WM. P. FRYE.

LEICESTER, March 13/84.

_Dear Mr. Hoar:_

I cannot too much thank you for sending me the memoir--tho'
so brief and exceedingly temperate--of your father.

He was one of the few men who kept Massachusetts and New England
from rushing down the steep place and perishing in the waters,
as the herd of swine was doing,--a son worthy of the Fathers
of New England.  I think of him as a kind of tall pillar,
on a foundation of such granite solidity as to quiet all fears
of possible moving therefrom.  He was an example--and became
by his S. Carolina mission a conspicuous one; by his attitude
and demeanor, opposing the whole moral power of the North
to the despotic and insolent assumptions of Slavery.

  Yours very truly,
  SAML MAY.

My father, in everything that related to his own conduct,
was controlled by a more than Puritan austerity.  He seemed
to live for nothing but duty.  Yet he was a man of strong
affections, unlike what is generally deemed to be the character
of the Puritan.  He was gentle, tolerant, kindly and affectionate.
He had all his life a large professional income.  But he never
seemed to care for money.  In that respect he was like one
who dwelt by the side of a pond, ready to dip up and to give
its waters to any man who might thirst.  He never wasted money,
or spent it for any self-indulgence.  But he was ready to
share it with any deserving object.  Starr King said of him
that "he lived all the beatitudes daily."

Mr. Hoar was, I suppose, beyond all question, the highest
authority in New England, indeed in the whole country, on
the difficult and abstruse questions belonging to the law of
water privileges and running streams.  He was declared to
be such by the late Judge Benjamin R. Curtis.  The great Locks
and Canals Company was organized and all the arrangements
for the ownership, management and control of the water-power
of Lowell were made under his advice and direction.  The same
methods have been followed in substance at Lawrence and Woonsocket
and other manufacturing places.

He preserved his vigor of body until he entered his seventy-
seventh year, taking walks of five or six miles without fatigue.
About that time he took a severe cold at a neighbor's funeral.
An illness followed which seriously impaired his strength.
He died, November 2, 1856, two days before the Presidential
election.

He was six feet three inches in height, erect, with fine
gray hair, blue eyes, of graceful and dignified deportment,
and of great courtesy, especially to women and children.

He held a few simple beliefs with undoubting faith. He submitted
himself to the rule of life which followed from these, and
rigorously exacted obedience to it from all for whom he was
responsible.  He accepted the exposition of Christian doctrine
given by Dr. Channing.  The Massachusetts Constitution of
1780 seemed to him a nearly perfect system of government.
He earnestly resisted, in the Convention of 1820, the abolition
of the property qualification for voters, and of the obligation
of all citizens to be taxed for the support of religious worship.
He took early and deep interest in the temperance reform,
and gave much time, labor, and money to promote it.  "The
strength and beauty of the man," says Mr. Emerson, "lay in
the natural goodness and justice of his mind, which in manhood
and in old age, after dealing all his life with weighty private
and public interests, left an infantile innocence of which
we have no second or third example,--the strength of a chief
united to the modesty of a child.  He returned from the courts
and Congresses to sit down with unaltered humility, in the
church, or in the town-house, on the plain wooden bench,
where Honor came and sat down beside him.  He was a man in
whom so rare a spirit of justice visibly dwelt, that, if one
had met him in a cabin or in a court, he must still seem a
public man answering as a sovereign state to sovereign state;
and might easily suggest Milton's picture of John Bradshaw,
--'that he was a consul from whom the fasces did not depart
with the year, but in private seemed ever sitting in judgment
on kings.'"

But he would have liked better than anything else what was
said of him in his official report by the President of the
College he loved with that deep affection which her children
felt for her in his time.  President Walker closes his annual
report of December 31, 1856, as follows:  "The undersigned
could not conclude his report without allusion to the recent
lamented death of the Honorable Samuel Hoar, a distinguished
and justly influential member of this board,--venerable alike
for his age and his virtues,--a devoted friend of the College
which he has been able to serve in a thousand ways by the
wisdom of his counsels and the weight of his character."

Mr. Hoar was naturally conservative, as would be expected
as an old Federalist who was educated at Harvard in the beginning
of the nineteenth century.  His rules of public and private
conduct were strict and austere.  He applied them more strictly
to himself than to others.  His classmates in college used
to call him Cato.  He favored the suppression of the sale
and use of intoxicating liquors, and desired that the whole
force of the State should be brought to bear to accomplish
that end.  He was the inveterate foe of oppression, and in
his later years, opposed every compromise with slavery.  But
he had no sympathy with reforms which seemed to him to be
devised merely as political instruments to advance the fortunes
of persons or parties.

He had a huge respect for John Quincy Adams, a respect which
I have good reason to know was reciprocated.  But he was by
no means Mr. Adams's blind follower. The ex-President, I think
about the year 1832, published a pamphlet in which he savagely
attacked the Masonic Order.  He met Mr. Hoar in Boston and
asked him what he thought of it.  Mr. Hoar answered: "It
seems to me, Mr. Adams, there is but one thing in the world
sillier than Masonry.  That is Anti-Masonry."

Mr. Hoar used to relate with some amusement a dialogue he
had with a shrewd and witty old lawyer named Josiah Adams,
who shared the old Federalist dislike of his namesake, John
Quincy Adams.  My father was talking quite earnestly in a
gathering of Middlesex lawyers and said: "I believe John Quincy
Adams means to be a Christian." "When?" inquired Josiah.

But I cannot draw the portraiture of this noble and stately
figure.  George Herbert did it perfectly, long ago, in his
poem, "Constancy."

Old Dr. Lyman Beecher, the foremost champion in his day of
the old Orthodoxy, spent his life in combating what he deemed
the pestilent Unitarian heresy.  He was the most famous preacher
in the country.  Mr. Hoar was a pillar of Unitarianism.  Yet
the Doctor came to know and honor his old antagonist.  He
read in the Boston papers, late Saturday evening, that Mr.
Hoar was dying at Concord.  Early Sunday morning before daybreak
he started, with his son-in-law, Professor Stowe, and drove
twenty miles to Concord.  He got there just after Mr. Hoar's
death.  He asked to go into the chamber where his old friend
lay.  My sister said:  "Father would have been glad to see
you, if he were alive."  The Doctor gazed a moment, and then
said:  "He's passed safe over, I haven't a doubt of it.  He
was an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile."


CHAPTER IV
BOYHOOD IN CONCORD

I have never got over being a boy.  It does not seem likely
that I ever shall.  I have to-day, at the age of three score
and sixteen, less sense of my own dignity than I had when
at sixteen I walked for the first time into the College Chapel
at Harvard, clad as the statute required, in a "black or black-
mixed coat, with buttons of the same color," and the admiring
world, with its eyes on the venerable freshman, seemed to
me to be saying to itself, "Ecce caudam!" Behold the tail!

Most men are apt to exaggerate the merits of their birthplace.
But I think everybody who knew the town will agree with me
that there never was in the world a better example of a pure
and beautiful democracy, in the highest sense of the term,
than the town of Concord from 1826 to the close of the war.
If there were any aristocracy, it was an aristocracy of personal
worth.  There was little wealth and little poverty.  There
were no costly dwellings and no hovels.  There was no pride
of wealth or of family.  The richest man in town took an interest
in the affairs of the poorest as in those of a kinsman.  It
never occurred to the poorest that he must, for that reason,
doff his hat to any man.

The population was permanent, I suppose, as could have been
found in any spot in Europe.  Ninety-three of the inhabitants
of the town, in 1654, signed a paper pledging their persons
and estates to support the General Court in the contest with
King Charles II. for the preservation of the Charter.  Fourteen
of their descendants, bearing the same names, were present
at the Centennial Celebration in 1885, dwelling on the land
which their ancestors occupied nearly 230 years before.  There
were 23 others whose descendants of the same name were dwelling
at the time of the Centennial within the original limits of
the town.  A good many others were represented by female descendants.
So that at least 50 of the 93 signers of the paper were represented
in the assembly.  A list of the names of the principal inhabitants
of the town to-day would contain the names of a large number
of the principal inhabitants of any generation since its
foundation.

They were of good English stock.  Many of them were of gentle
blood and entitled to bear coat armor at home.  It is interesting
to observe how little the character of the gentleman and gentlewoman
in our New England people is affected by the pursuit, for
generations, of humble occupations, which in other countries
are deemed degrading.  Our ancestors, during nearly two centuries
of poverty which followed the first settlement, turned their
hands to the humblest ways of getting a livelihood, became
shoemakers, or blacksmiths or tailors, or did the hardest
and most menial and rudest work of the farm, shoveled gravel
or chopped wood, without any of the effect on their character
which would be likely to be felt from the permanent pursuit
of such an occupation in England or Germany.  It was like
a fishing party or a hunting party in the woods.  When the
necessity was over, and the man or the boy in any generation
got a college education, or was called to take part in public
affairs, he rose at once and easily to the demands of an exalted
station.  What is true of New England people in this respect
is, I suppose, true of the whole country.

I wrote, a few years ago, an account of so much of my boyhood
as elapsed before I went to college.  Through the kindness
of the proprietors of _The Youth's Companion,_ I am permitted
to print it here.  I think, on the whole, that is better than
to undertake to tell the story in other phraseology adapted
to maturer readers.  Indeed, I am not sure that the best examples
of good English are not to be found in books written for children.
When we have to tell a story to a small boy or girl, we avoid
little pomposities, and seek for the plainest, clearest and
most direct phrase.

I believe that boys nowadays are more manly and mature than
they were in my time.  Perhaps this is partly because the
boys show more gravity in my presence, now I am an old man,
than they did when I was a boy myself.  But in giving an account
of the life of a boy sixty years ago, I must describe it as
I saw it, even if it appear altogether childish and undignified.

The life and character of a country are determined in a large
degree by the sports of its boys.  The Duke of Wellington
used to say that the victory at Waterloo was won on the playing-
fields at Eton.  That is the best people where the boys are
manly and where the men have a good deal of the boy in them.

Perhaps all my younger readers do not know how much that makes
up, not only the luxury, but the comfort of life, has first
come in within the memory of persons now living.  The household
life of my childhood was not much better in those respects
than that of a well-to-do Roman or Greek.  It had not improved
a great deal for two thousand years.  There were no house-
warming furnaces, and stoves were almost unknown.  There were
no double windows, and the houses were warmed by open fires.
There were no matches.

There were no water-pipes in the houses, and no provision
was made for discharging sewage.  There were no railroads,
telegraphs or telephones.  Letter postage to New York from
Boston was twenty-five cents.  None of the modern agricultural
machinery then existed, not even good modern plows.  Crops
were planted by hand and cultivated with the hoe and spade.
Vegetables were dug with the hoe, and hay and grain cut with
the sickle or scythe.  There were no ice-houses.  The use
of ice for keeping provisions or cooling water was unknown.

My father was well-to-do, and his household lived certainly
as well as any family in the town of Concord, where I was
born.  I have no doubt a Roman boy two hundred years before
Christ, or an Athenian boy four hundred years before Christ,
lived quite as well as I did, if not better.

The boy got up in the morning and dressed himself in a room
into which the cold air came through the cracks in the window.
If the temperature were twenty degrees below zero outside,
it was very little higher inside.  If he were big enough to
make the fires, he made his way down-stairs in the dark of
a winter morning and found, if the fire had been properly raked
up the night before, a few coals in the ashes in the kitchen
fireplace.  The last person who went to bed the night before
had done exactly what Homer describes as the practice in Ulysses's
time, when he tells us that Ulysses covered himself with leaves
after he was washed ashore in Phaiakia:

"He lay down in the midst, heaping the fallen leaves above,
as a man hides a brand in a dark bed of ashes, at some outlying
farm where neighbors are not near, hoarding a seed of fire
to save his seeking elsewhere."

But first he must get a light.  Matches are not yet invented.
So he takes from the shelf over the mantelpiece an old tin
or brass candlestick with a piece of tallow candle in it,
and with the tongs takes a coal from the ashes, and holds
the candle wick against the coal and gives a few puffs with
his breath.  If he have good luck, he lights the wick, probably
after many failures.

My mother had a very entertaining story connected with the
old-fashioned way of getting a light.  Old Jeremiah Mason,
who was probably the greatest lawyer we ever had in New England,
unless we except Daniel Webster, studied law in my uncle's
office and shared a room in his house with another law student.
One April Fool's day the two young gentlemen went out late
in the afternoon, and my aunt, a young unmarried girl who
lived with her sister, and another girl, went into the room
and took the old half-burnt candle out of the candlestick,
cut a piece of turnip to resemble it, cut out a little piece
like a wick at the end, blackened it with ink, and put it
in the candlestick.

When Mr. Mason came in in the dark, he took a coal up with
the tongs and put it against the wick, and puffed and puffed,
until after a long and vexatious trial he discovered what
was the matter.  He said nothing but waited for his chum to
come in, who went through the same trial.  When they discovered
the hoax they framed an elaborate complaint in legal jargon
against the two roguish girls, and brought them to trial before
a young lawyer of their acquaintance.  The young ladies were
found guilty and sentenced to pay as a fine a bowl of eggnog.

After getting his candle lighted, the boy takes dry kindling,
which has been gathered the night before, and starts a fire.
The next thing is to get some water.  He is lucky if the water
in the old cast-iron kettle which hangs on the crane in the
fireplace be not frozen.  As soon as the fire is started he
goes outdoors to thaw out the pump, if they have a wooden
pump.  But that is all frozen up, and he has to get some hot
water from this kettle to pour down over the piston till he
can thaw it out.  Sometimes he would have an old-fashioned
well, sunk too low in the ground for the frost to reach it,
and could get water with the old oaken bucket.

He brings in from out-of-doors a pail or two of water.  If
there has been a snow-storm the night before he has to shovel
a path to the wood-shed, where he can get the day's supply
of wood from outside, and then from the doors of the house
out to the street.  Meantime the woman whose duty it is to
get breakfast makes her appearance.

The wooden pump, which took the place of the old well in many
dooryards, was considered a great invention.  We all looked
with huge respect upon Sanford Adams of Concord, who invented
it, and was known all over the country.

He was quite original in his way.  The story used to be told
of him that he called at my father's house one day to get
some advice as to a matter of law.  Father was at dinner
and went to the door himself.  Mr. Adams stated his case in
a word or two as he stood on the door-step, to which father
gave him his answer, the whole conversation not lasting more
than two minutes.

He asked Mr. Hoar what he should pay, and father said, "Five
dollars."  Mr. Adams paid it at once, and father said, "By
the way, there is a little trouble with my pump.  It does
not draw.  Will you just look at it?"  So Mr. Adams went
around the corner of the shed, moved the handle of the pump,
and put his hand down and fixed a little spigot which was
in the side, which had got loose, and the pump worked perfectly.
Father said, "Thank you, sir." To which Adams replied: "It
will be five dollars, Mr. Hoar," and father gave him back
the same bill he had just taken.

I am afraid the sympathy of the people who told the story
was with the pump-maker and not with the lawyer.

The great kitchen fireplace presented a very cheerful appearance
compared with the black range or stove of to-day.  It was
from six to eight or ten feet wide, with a great chimney.
In many houses you could stand on the hearth and look up the
chimney and see the stars on a winter night.  Across the fireplace
hung an iron crane, which swung on a hinge or pivot, from
which hung a large number of what were called pothooks and
trammels.  From these were suspended the great kettles and
little kettles and the griddles and pots and boilers for the
cooking processes.

The roasting was done in a big "tin kitchen," which stood
before the fire, in which meats or poultry were held by a
large iron spit, which pierced them and which could be revolved
to present one side after the other to the blaze.  Sometimes
there was a little clockwork which turned the spit automatically,
but usually it was turned round from time to time by the cook.
As you know, they used to have in England little dogs called
turnspits, trained to turn a wheel for this purpose.  A little
door in the rear of this tin kitchen gave access for basting
the meat.  In the large trough at the bottom the gravy was
caught.

No boy of that day will think there is any flavor like that
of roast turkey and chicken or of the doughnuts and pancakes
or griddle-cakes which were cooked by these open fires.

By the side of the fireplace, with a flue entering the chimney,
was a great brick oven, big enough to bake all the bread
needed by a large family for a week or ten days.  The oven
was heated by a brisk fire made of birch or maple or some
very rapidly burning wood.  When the coals were taken out,
the bread was put in, and the oven was shut with two iron
doors.  The baking-day was commonly Saturday.

When the bread was taken out Saturday afternoon it was usual
to put in a large pot of beans for the Sunday dinner.  They
were left there all night and the oven was opened in the morning
and enough came out for breakfast, when there was put into
the oven a pot of Indian pudding, which was left with the
rest of the beans for the Sunday dinner.

The parlor fire was a very beautiful sight, with the big
logs and the sparkling walnut or oak wood blazing up.  Some
of the housekeepers of that time had a good deal of skill
in arranging the wood in a fireplace so as to make of it
a beautiful piece of architecture.  Lowell describes these
old fires very well in his ballad, "The Courtin'":

  A fireplace filled the room's one side
  With half a cord o'wood in--
  There warn't no stoves (till comfort died)
  To bake ye to a puddin'.

  The wannut logs shot sparkles out
  Towards the pootiest, bless her!
  An' leetle flames danced all about
  The chiny on the dresser.

  Agin' the chimbley crooknecks hung,
  An' in amongst 'em rusted
  The old queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young
  Fetched back from Concord busted.

We did not have fireplaces quite as large as this in my father's
house, although they were common in the farmers' houses round
about.

In the coldest weather the heat did not come out a great
way from the hearth, and the whole family gathered close
about the fire to keep warm.  It was regarded as a great
breach of good manners to go between any person and the fire.
The fireplace was the centre of the household, and was regarded
as the type and symbol of the home.  The boys all understood
the force of the line:

  Strike for your altars and your fires!

I wonder if any of my readers nowadays would be stirred by
an appeal to strike for his furnace or his air-tight stove.

Sunday was kept with Jewish strictness.  The boys were not
allowed to go out-of-doors except to church.  They could
not play at any game or talk about matters not pertaining
to religion.  They were not permitted to read any books except
such as were "good for Sunday."  There were very few religious
story-books in those days, and what we had were of a dreary
kind; so the boy's time hung heavy on his hands.

"Pilgrim's Progress," with its rude prints, was, however,
a great resource.  We conned it over and over again, and knew
it by heart.  An elder brother of mine who was very precocious
was extremely fond of it, especially of the picture of the
fight between Apollyon and Christian, where the fiend with
his head covered with stiff, sharp bristles "straddled clear
across the road," to stop Christian in his way.  Old Dr. Lyman
Beecher, who had his stiff gray hair cropped short all over
his head, made a call at our house one afternoon.  While he
was waiting for my mother to come down, the little fellow
came into the room and took a look up at the doctor, and then
trotted round to the other side and looked up at him again.
He said, "I think, sir, you look like Apollyon."

The doctor was infinitely amused at being compared to the
personage of whom, in his own opinion and that of a good many
other good people, he was then the most distinguished living
antagonist.

The church was an old-fashioned wooden building, painted yellow,
of Dutch architecture, with galleries on three sides, and
on the fourth a pulpit with a great sounding-board over it,
into which the minister got by quite a high flight of stairs.
Just below the pulpit was the deacons' seat, where the four
deacons sat in a row.  The pews were old-fashioned square,
high pews, reaching up almost to the top of the head of a
boy ten years old when he was standing up.

The seats were without cushions and with hinges.  When the
people stood up for prayer the seats were turned up for greater
convenience of standing, and when the prayer ended they came
down all over the church with a slam, like a small cannonade.

One Sunday, in the middle of the sermon, the old minister,
Doctor Ripley, stood up in the pulpit and said in a loud
voice, "Simeon, come here.  Take your hat and come here."
Simeon was a small boy who lived in the doctor's family and
sat in the gallery.  We boys all supposed that Simeon had
been playing in church, or had committed some terrible offence
for which he was to be punished in sight of the whole congregation.

Simeon came down trembling and abashed, and the doctor told
him to go home as fast as he could and get the Thanksgiving
Proclamation.  The doctor filled up the time as well he could
with an enormously long prayer, until the boy got back.  Simeon
confessed to some of the boys that he had been engaged in
some mischief just before he was called, and he was terribly
afraid the doctor had caught him.

This old church with its tower, yellow spire, old clock and
weathercock, seems to me as I look back on it to have been
a very attractive piece of architecture.  It was that church
which suggested to Emerson the leading thought in one of
his most famous poems, "The Problem."

In those days, when people were to be married the law required
notice to be given of their intention by proclaiming it aloud
in the church three Sundays in succession.  So just before
the service began, the old town clerk would get up and proclaim:
"There is a marriage intended between Mr. John Brown of this
town and Miss Sarah Smith of Sudbury," and there was great
curiosity in the congregation to hear the announcement.  The
town clerk in my boyhood had been a wealthy old bachelor for
whom the young ladies had set their caps in vain for two generations.
One day he astonished the congregation by proclaiming: "There
is a marriage intended between Dr. Abiel Keywood"--which
was his own name--"and Miss Lucy P. Fay, both of Concord."
That was before I can remember, as his boys were about my
age.

Doctor Ripley, the minister in Concord, was an old man who
had been settled there during the Revolutionary War and was
over the parish sixty-two years.  He was an excellent preacher
and scholar, and his kindly despotism was submitted to by
the whole town.  His way of pronouncing would sound very queer
now, though it was common then.  I well remember his reading
the lines of the hymn--

  Let every critter jine
  To praise the eternal God.

Scattered about the church were the good gray heads of many
survivors of the Revolution--the men who had been at the bridge
on the 19th of April, and who made the first armed resistance
to the British power.  They were very striking and venerable
figures, with their queues and knee-breeches and shoes with
shining buckles.  Men were more particular about their apparel
in those days than we are now.  They had great stateliness
of behavior, and admitted of little familiarity.

They had heard John Buttrick's order to fire, which marked
the moment when our country was born.  The order was given
to British subjects.  It was obeyed by American citizens.
Among them was old Master Blood, who saw a ball strike the
water when the British fired their first volley.  I heard
many of the old men tell their stories of the Battle of Concord,
and of the capture of Burgoyne.

I lay down on the grass one summer afternoon, when old Amos
Baker of Lincoln, who was in the Lincoln Company on the 19th
of April, told me the whole story.  He was very indignant
at the claim that the Acton men marched first to attack the
British because the others hesitated.  He said, "It was because
they had bagnets [bayonets].  The rest of us hadn't no bagnets."

One day a few years later, when I was in college, I walked
up from Cambridge to Concord, through Lexington, and had a
chat with old Jonathan Harrington by the roadside.  He told
me he was on the Common when the British Regulars fired upon
the Lexington men.  He did not tell me then the story which
he told afterward at the great celebration at Concord in 1850.
He and Amos Baker were the only survivors who were there that
day.  He said he was a boy about fifteen years old on April
19, 1775.  He was a fifer in the company.  He had been up
the greater part of the night helping get the stores out of
the way of the British, who were expected, and went to bed
about three o'clock, very tired and sleepy.  His mother came
and pounded with her fist on the door of his chamber, and
said, "Git up, Jonathan! The Reg'lars are comin' and somethin'
must be done!"

Governor Briggs repeated this anecdote in the old man's presence
at the Concord celebration in 1850.  Charles Storey, a noted
wit, father of the eminent lawyer, Moorfield Storey, sent
up to the chair this toast:  "When Jonathan Harrington got
up in the morning on April 19, 1775, a near relative and namesake
of his got up about the same time: Brother Jonathan.  But
his mother didn't call him."

A very curious and amusing incident is said, and I have no
doubt truly, to have happened at this celebration.  It shows
how carefully the great orator, Edward Everett, looked out
for the striking effects in his speech.  He turned in the
midst of his speech to the seat where Amos Baker and Jonathan
Harrington sat, and addressed them.  At once they both stood
up, and Mr. Everett said, with fine dramatic effect, "Sit,
venerable friends.  It is for us to stand in your presence."

After the proceedings were over, old Amos Baker was heard
to say to somebody, "What do you suppose Squire Everett meant?
He came to us before his speech and told us to stand up when
he spoke to us, and when we stood up he told us to sit down."

So you will understand how few lives separate you from the
time when our country was born, and the time when all our
people were British subjects.

But to come back to our old meeting-house.  The windows rattled
in the winter, and the cold wind came in through the cracks.
There was a stove which was rather a modern innovation; but
it did little to temper the coldness of a day in midwinter.
We used to carry to church a little foot-stove with a little
tin pan in it, which we filled with coal from the stove in
the meeting-house, and the ladies of the family would pass
it round to each other to keep their toes from freezing; but
the boys did not get much benefit from it.

They had good schools in Concord, and the boys generally
were good scholars and read good books.  So whenever they
thought fit they could use as good language as anybody; but
their speech with one another was in the racy, pithy Yankee
dialect, which Lowell has made immortal in the "Biglow Papers."
It was not always grammatical, but as well adapted for conveying
wit and humor and shrewd sense as the Scotch of Burns.

The boys knew very well how to take the conceit or vanity
out of their comrades.  In the summer days all the boys of
the village used to gather at a place on the river, known as
Thayer's swimming-place, about half a mile from the town
pump, which was the centre from which all distances were
measured in those days.  There was a little gravel beach
where you could wade out a rod or two, and then for a rod
or two the water was over the boy's head.  It then became
shallow again near the opposite bank.  So it was a capital
place to learn to swim.

After they came out, the boys would sit down on the bank
and have a sort of boys' exchange, in which all matters of
interest were talked over, and a great deal of good-natured
chaff was exchanged.  Any newcomer had to pass through an
ordeal of this character, in which his temper and quality
were thoroughly tried.  I remember now an occasion which
must have happened when I was not more than eight or ten
years old, when a rather awkward-looking greenhorn had come
down from New Hampshire and made his appearance at the swimming-
place.  The boys, one after another, tried him by putting
mocking questions or attempting to humbug him with some large
story.  He received it all with patience and good nature until
one remark seemed to sting him from his propriety.  He turned
with great dignity upon the offender, and said, "Was that
you that spoke, or was it a punkin busted?"  We all thought
that it was well said, and took him into high favor.

I suppose the outdoor winter sports have not changed much
since my childhood.  The sluggish Concord River used to overflow
its banks and cover the broad meadows for miles, where we
found excellent skating, and where the water would be only
a foot or two in depth.  The boys could skate for ten miles
to Billerica and ten miles back, hardly going over deep water,
except at the bridges, the whole way.

Sleigh-riding was not then what it is now.  There were a
few large sleighs owned in the town which would hold thirty
or forty persons, and once or twice in the winter the boys
and girls would take a ride to some neighboring town when
the sleighing was good.

The indoor games were marbles, checkers, backgammon, dominoes,
hunt-the-slipper, blind-man's-buff, and in some houses, where
they were not too strict, they played cards.  High-low-jack,
sometimes called all-fours or seven-up, everlasting and old
maid were the chief games of cards.  Most of these games have
come down from a very early antiquity.

The summer outdoor games were mumble-the-peg, high-spy, snap-
the-whip, a rather dangerous performance, in which a long
row of boys, with the biggest boy at one end, and tapering
down to the smallest at the other end, would run over a field
or open space until suddenly the big boy would stop, turn
half around, and stand still and hold fast with all his might.
The result was that the boy next to him had to move a very
little distance, but the little fellow at the end was compelled
to describe a half-circle with great rapidity, and was sometimes
hurled across the field, and brought up with a heavy fall.
There were thread-the-needle, hunt-the-red-lion and football,
played very much as it is now, except with less system and
discipline, and various games of ball.  These games of ball
were much less scientific and difficult than the modern games.
Chief were four-old-cat, three-old-cat, two-old-cat and base.

We had fewer studies at our school than now.  The boy who
did not go to college learned to read and write, perhaps
an elementary history of the United States, and arithmetic,
and occasionally made some little progress in algebra.  On
Saturdays we used to "speak pieces."  Our favorites were
some spirited lyric, like "Scots Wha Hae" or Pierpont's "Stand,
the ground's your own, my braves," "The boy stood on the burning
deck," and "Bernardo del Carpio."  Sometimes, though not often,
some comic piece was chosen, like Jack Downing's "Tax on Old
Bachelors."

Those who fitted for college added Latin and Greek to these
studies.  The children were sent to school earlier than is
the present fashion, and had long school hours and few vacations.
There were four vacations in the year, of a week each, and
three days at Thanksgiving time.  Little account was made
of Christmas.  The fashion of Christmas presents was almost
wholly unknown.  The boys used to be allowed to go out of
school to study in the warm summer days, and would find some
place in a field, and sometimes up in the belfry of the little
schoolhouse.  I remember studying Caesar there with George
Brooks, afterward judge, and reading with him an account of
some battle where Caesar barely escaped being killed, on which
Brooks's comment was "I wish to thunder he had been!"

I am afraid the boys did not respect the property of the
owners of the neighboring apple orchards, as undoubtedly
the better-trained boys of modern times do now.  We understood
the law to be that all apples that grew on the branches extending
over the highway were public property, and I am afraid that
when the owner was not about we were not very particular as
to the boundary line.  This seems to have been a trait of
boy nature for generations.  You know Sidney Smith's account
of the habit of boys at his school to rob a neighboring orchard,
until the farmer bought a large, savage bulldog for his protection.
Some of the big boys told Sidney that if a boy would get down
on his hands and knees and go backward toward the dog the
dog would be frightened, and he could get the apples.  He
tried the experiment unsuccessfully, and with the result that
concluded, as he says, that "it makes no difference to a bulldog
which end of a boy he gets hold of, if he only gets a good
hold."

The discipline of the schoolmaster in those days was pretty
severe.  For slight offences the boys were deprived of their
recess or compelled to study for an hour after the school
was dismissed.  The chief weapon of torture was the ferule,
to the efficacy of which I can testify from much personal
knowledge.  The master had in his desk, however, a cowhide
for gross cases.  I do not remember knowing how that felt
from personal experience, but I remember very well seeing
it applied occasionally to the big boys.

In the infant schools, which were kept by women, of course
the discipline was not expected to be so severe.  The schoolmistress
in those days wore what was called a busk--a flat piece of
lancewood, hornbeam, or some other like tough and elastic
wood, thrust into a sort of pocket or sheath in her dress,
which came up almost to the chin and came down below the waist.
This was intended to preserve the straightness and grace of
her figure.  When the small boy misbehaved, the schoolma'am
would unsheath this weapon, and for some time thereafter the
culprit found sitting down exceedingly uncomfortable.

Sometimes the sole of the schoolmistress's slipper answered
the same purpose, and sometimes a stick from some neighboring
birch-tree.  It all came to pretty much the same thing in
the end.  The schoolmistress knew well how to accomplish her
purpose.  There was a diversity of gifts but the same spirit.

We were put to school much earlier than children are now
and were more advanced in our studies on the whole.  I began
to study Latin on my sixth birthday.  When I was nine years
old I was studying Greek, and had read several books of Virgil.
We were not very thorough Latin scholars, even when we entered
college, but could translate Virgil and Cicero and Caesar
and easy Greek like Xenophon.

The boys occasionally formed military companies and played
soldier, but these did not, so far as I remember, last very
long.  There was also a company of Indians, who dressed in
long white shirts, with pieces of red flannel sewn on them.
They had wooden spears.  That was more successful, and lasted
some time.

They were exceedingly fond of seeing the real soldiers.  There
were two full companies in Concord, the artillery and the
light infantry.  The artillery had two cannon captured from
the British, which had been presented to the company by the
legislature in honor of April 19, 1775.  When these two companies
paraded, they were followed by an admiring train of small
boys all day long, if the boys could get out of school.  I
remember on one occasion there was a great rivalry between
the companies, and one of them got the famous Brigade Band
from Boston, and the other an equally famous band, called
the Boston Brass Band, in which Edward Kendall, the great
musician, was the player on the bugle.  A very great day indeed
was the muster-day, when sometimes an entire brigade would
be called out for drill.  These muster-days happened three
or four times in my boyhood in Concord.

But the great day of all was what was called "Cornwallis,"
which was the anniversary of the capture of Cornwallis at
Yorktown.  There were organized companies in uniform representing
the British army and an equally large number of volunteers,
generally in old-fashioned dress, and with such muskets and
other accoutrements as they could pick up, who represented
the American army.  There was a parade and a sham fight which
ended as all such fights, whether sham or real, should end,
in a victory for the Americans, and Cornwallis and his troops
were paraded, captive and ignominious.  I quite agree with
Hosea Biglow when he says, "There is a fun to a Cornwallis,
though; I aint agoin' to deny it."

The boys cared little for politics, though they used to profess
the faith of their fathers; but every boy sometimes imagined
himself a soldier, and his highest conception of glory was
to "lick the British."  I remember walking home from school
with a squad of little fellows at the time Andrew Jackson
issued his famous message, when he threatened war if the French
did not pay us our debt.  We discussed the situation with
great gravity, and concluded that if the French beat us, we
should have a king to rule over us.

Besides the two military companies, there was another called
the "Old Shad."  The law required every able-bodied man of
military age to turn out for military training and inspection
on the last Wednesday in May; they turned out just to save
the penalty of the law, and used to dress in old clothes,
and their awkward evolutions were the object of great scorn
to the small boy of the time.

The streets of Concord were made lively by the stage-coaches
and numerous teams.  There were four taverns in the town,
all well patronized, with numerous sleeping-rooms.  Two of
them had large halls for dancing.  A great many balls were
given, to which persons came from the neighboring towns.

There was an excellent fiddler named John Wesson, who continued
to give the benefit of his talent to all parties, public and
private, down to the time of the war, when he said he would
not play a dancing tune till the boys came home.  He died
soon after, and I do not know whether his music was ever heard
again.  These taverns were crowded with guests.  One principal
route for stages and teams to New Hampshire, Vermont and Canada
passed through Concord.

There were several lines of stages, one from Lowell to Framingham,
and two at least from Boston.  The number of passengers, which
now are all carried by rail, was so large that extras were
frequently necessary.  The teams were very often more than
the barns of the taverns in the town could accommodate, and
on summer nights the wagons would extend for long distances
along the village street with horses tied behind them.

The sound of the toddy stick was hardly interrupted in the
barroom inside from morning till night.  The temperance reform
had not made great headway in my youthful days.  It was not
uncommon to see farmers, bearing names highly respected in
the town, lying drunk by the roadside on a summer afternoon,
or staggering along the streets.  The unpainted farmhouses
and barns had their broken windows stuffed with old hats or
garments.  I have heard Nathan Brooks, who delivered the first
temperance lecture in the town, at the request of the selectmen,
say that after it was over he and the selectmen and some of
the principal citizens went over to the tavern, and each took
a mug of flip.

There were great quantities of huckleberries in the pastures
about Concord, and the sweet high blackberries abounded by
the roadside.  There were plenty of chestnuts in the woods,
and the walnut, or pig-nut, also abounded; so that berrying
and nutting were favorite pastimes.

When I was a small boy a party of us went down to Walden woods,
afterward so famous as the residence of Henry Thoreau.  There
was an old fellow named Tommy Wyman, who lived in a hut near
the pond, who did not like the idea of having the huckleberry-
fields near him invaded by the boys.  He told us it was not
safe for us to go there.  He said there was an Indian doctor
in the woods who caught small boys and cut out their livers
to make medicine.  We were terribly frightened, and all went
home in a hurry.

When we got near the town, we met old John Thoreau, with his
son Henry, and I remember his amusement when I told him the
story.  He said, "If I meet him, I will run this key down
his throat," producing a key from his pocket.  We reported
the occurrence at the village store, but were unable to excite
any interest in the subject.

Thanksgiving was then, as it is and ought to be now, the
great day of the year.  All the children were at home.  The
ambition of the head of the house was to get the largest
turkey that money could buy.  No Thanksgiving dinner was
quite complete unless there were a baby on hand belonging
to some branch of the family, no bigger than the turkey.
The preparation for Thanksgiving was very interesting to
the small boy mind.  A boiled or roasted turkey, a pair of
chickens, chicken pie, wonderful cranberry sauce, a plum
pudding, and all manner of apple pies, mince pies, squash
pies, pumpkin pies, and nuts, raisins, figs and noble apples
made part of the feast.  I suppose Thanksgiving customs have
changed less than most others, except in one particular.
I do not believe there is a small boy's stomach in this generation
that can hold a tenth part of what used to go into mine, not
only on Thanksgiving day, but on the days before and after.
The raisins were to be picked over, the nuts and citron got
ready, when Thanksgiving was coming on, of all which we took
abundant tolls.  The cold and warmed-over dishes lasted through
the rest of the week.  I do not know what the Jewish festival
or the old Roman banquets might have been, but they could
not have equalled a New England Thanksgiving week in a house
in the country.

The doctor in those days was a terror to the small boy.  The
horrible and nasty castor oil, ipecac and calomel, and the
salts and senna, sulphur and molasses taken three mornings
in succession and then missed three mornings, were worse than
any sickness.  Of the last I speak only from hearsay, not
from personal knowledge.  Then the cupping and bleeding were
fearful things to go through or look upon.  We had none of
the sweet patent medicines that the children now cry for,
and none of the smooth capsules or the pleasant comfits that
turn medicine into confectionery nowadays.

The boys were not allowed in most families to read novels,
even on week-days.  My father had a great dislike of fiction
of all sorts, and for a good while would not tolerate any
novels in the house; but one winter day he went to Pepperell,
in the northern part of the county, to try a case before a
sheriff's jury.  About the time the case got through there
came up a sudden and violent snowstorm, which blocked up the
road with deep drifts so that he could not get home for two
or three days.  He had to stay at a small country tavern,
and the time hung very heavily on his hands.

He asked the landlord if he had any books.  The only one
he could find was a first volume of Scott's "Redgauntlet,"
which was just then being published in Boston by a bookseller
named Parker, in what was called Parker's revised edition.
Father read it with infinite delight.  His eyes were opened
to the excellence of Scott.  He got home the next day at
about noon, and immediately sent one of the children down
to the circulating library to get the second volume.  He
subscribed to Parker's edition, and was a great lover of Scott
ever after.

We were permitted, however, to read the "Tales of a Grandfather."
I hope if any boy reads this book he will read the "Tales
of a Grandfather," especially the parts which give the history
of Scotland.  It is a most interesting and noble story.  I
can remember now how the tears ran down my cheeks as I read
Scott's description of finding the bones of Robert Bruce in
the old abbey at Dunfermline:

"As the church would not hold half the numbers, the people
were allowed to pass through it one after another, that each
one, the poorest as well as the richest, might see all that
remained of the great king, Robert Bruce.  Many people shed
tears; for there was the wasted skull which once was the head,
that thought so wisely and boldly for his country's deliverance;
and there was the dry bone which had once been the sturdy
arm that killed Sir Henry de Bohun, between the two armies,
at a single blow on the evening before the Battle of Bannockburn."

I account it one of the chief blessings of my life that my
boyhood was spent in the pure, noble and simple society of
the people of Concord.  I am afraid I did not do it much
credit then.  Old Dr. Bartlett, one of the worthiest and
kindliest of men, but who always uttered what was in his
heart, said after my two oldest brothers and I had grown
up, that Samuel Hoar's boys used to be the three biggest
rascals in Concord, but they all seemed to have turned out
pretty well.  I have so far kept this statement strictly from
the knowledge of the Democratic papers.  But I suppose it
is too late to do any harm now.


CHAPTER V
FAMOUS CONCORD MEN

There were in Concord in my boyhood three writers who afterward
became very famous indeed--Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau.
Mr. Lowell said that these three names shine among all others
in American literature as the three blazing stars in the belt
of Orion shine in the sky.

The town is represented in the beautiful building of the
Congressional Library at Washington by busts of Emerson and
Hawthorne on the outside front of the building; by Emerson's
name on the mosaic ceiling in the entrance pavilion, and by
three sentences from his writings inscribed on the walls.
There are two out of eight such busts.  It is also represented
by two figures, a symbolic Statue of History, and a bronze
Statue of Herodotus, both by Daniel Chester French, the sculptor,
a Concord man.

Emerson came to live in Concord in the summer of 1835.  Although
he was born in Boston and went to school there, he belonged
to the town by virtue of his descent from a race of Concord
ministers who held the pulpit, with very brief intervals,
from 1635 to 1841.  But I do not think his influence upon
the town was very great for the first fifteen or twenty years
of his life there.  Indeed, I think he would have said that
the town had more influence upon him than he had upon it.
The Concord people, like the general public, were slow in
coming to know his great genius.  He was highly respected
always.  But the people were at first puzzled by him.  His
life was somewhat secluded.  He spent his days in study and
in solitary walks.  Until Mrs. Ripley came to the old manse,
about 1846, Emerson had, I think, no intimate friend outside
of his own household, except my sister Elizabeth, who had
been betrothed to his brother Charles, and was as a sister
to Emerson until her death in 1878.  A good many allusions
to her will be found in his life and in his letters to Carlyle.
After she died and shortly before his own death he appeared
at my brother's house one day with a manuscript which he had
handed to the Judge.  He had gone over his diary for a great
many years and extracted and copied everything in it which
related to her.

He used to read lectures to the Lyceum, and in reading his
books now I find a great many passages which I remember to
have heard him read in my youthful days.  In one of his lectures
upon Plato, he said that he turned everything to the use of
his philosophy, that "wife, children and friends were all
ground into paint"--alluding to Washington Allston's story
of the Paint King who married a lovely maiden that he might
make paint of the beautiful color of her cheeks.

A worthy farmer's wife in the audience took this literally,
and left the room in high dudgeon.  She said she thought
Waldo Emerson might be in better business than holding up
to the people of Concord the example of a wicked man who ground
his wife and children into paint.

In Emerson's later days he was undoubtedly a powerful educational
influence in the town.  He was a man of much public spirit.
In his philosophy his "soul was like a star and dwelt apart."

But he had a heart full of human affections.  He loved the
town.  He loved his country.  He loved his family.  He loved
his neighbors and friends.  He could be stirred deeply on
fit occasions by righteous indignation.  Some of the men
who frequented the tavern, posted in the barroom a scurrilous
libel upon old Dr. Bartlett, the venerable physician, who
had incurred their hostility by his zeal in enforcing the
prohibitory laws.  Emerson heard of it and repaired to the
spot and tore down the offensive paper with his own hand.
After Wendell Phillips made an equally scurrilous attack
on Judge Hoar, Emerson refused to take his hand.

In his lament for his beautiful boy he uttered the voice of
parental sorrow in immortal accents.  In the poems, "In Memoriam,"
and in "The Dirge," he records how lonely the lovely Concord
Valley is to him since his brothers are gone as he wanders
there in the long sunny afternoon:

  Harken to you pine warbler,
  Singing aloft in the tree!
  Hearest thou, O, traveller,
  What he singeth to me?

  Not unless God made sharp thine ear
  With sorrow such as mine,
  Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
  Its heavy tale divine.

But I think that the life of his younger brother Charles,
though he died so early, was felt as an even greater force in
Concord than that of Waldo.

I hope I may be pardoned if I put on record here a slight
and imperfect tribute to the memory of Charles Emerson, who
was betrothed to my eldest sister.  It is nearly seventy
years ago.  Yet the sweet and tender romance is still fresh
in my heart.  He was a descendant of a race of Concord clergymen,
including Peter Bulkeley, the founder of the town.  He was
born in Boston, but spent much of his youth in Concord in
the household of Dr. Ripley, who was the second husband of
the grandmother of the Emersons.  He studied law partly at
Cambridge Law School, partly in Daniel Webster's office in
Boston, and afterward with my father in Concord.  When my
father took his seat in Congress, in 1835, Emerson succeeded
to his office, and if he had lived would have succeeded to
his practice.  Waldo Emerson had left it on record that he
was led to choose Concord as a dwelling-place to be near his
brother.  Waldo's house had been enlarged to make room for
Charles and his bride under the same roof.  The house was
ready and the wedding near at hand when, in riding from Boston
to Concord on top of the stage, Charles took a violent cold,
which was followed by pleurisy and death.  He was of a very
sociable nature, knew all the town people, lectured before
the Lyceum, had a class in the Sunday-school and used to speak
in the Lyceum debates.  He had a very pleasant wit.  He was
on the committee for the celebration of the settlement of
the town in 1835, at the end of two hundred years, and about
the same time was on a committee to attend the celebration
at Acton, where the people claimed for themselves all the
glory of the Concord Fight.  He had thought it likely the
Acton people would ask him to speak.  But they did not.  As
he was riding back in the chaise, he said if they had asked
him to speak, he had it in mind to give as a toast, "The blessed
Memory of the Pilgrim Fathers, who first landed at Acton."

He was especially fond of boys, and they of him.  When he
died, every schoolboy thought he had lost a friend.  One
had a knife and another a book or a picture which he prized,
and another a pair of skates which Charles Emerson had given
him.  It may be a fond exaggeration, but I think he was the
most brilliant intellect ever born in Massachusetts.

Mr. Webster, who was consulted as to where Emerson should
settle, said, "Settle!  Let him settle anywhere.  Let him
settle in the midst of the back woods of Maine, the clients
will throng after him."  Mr. Everett delivered an eloquent
eulogy after his death, at the Phi Beta Kappa dinner at Harvard.

Dr. Holmes' exquisite tribute in his Phi Beta poems is well
known:

  Thou calm, chaste scholar!  I can see thee now,
  The first young laurels on they pallid brow,
  O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down
  In graceful folds the academic gown,
  On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught
  How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought,
  And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye,
  Too bright to live,--but Oh! too fair to die.

Dr. Holmes also says in his last tribute to Waldo:

"Of Charles Chauncey, the youngest brother, I knew something
in my college days.  A beautiful, high-souled, pure, exquisitely
delicate nature in a slight but finely wrought mortal frame,
he was for me the very ideal of an embodied celestial intelligence.
I may venture to mention a trivial circumstance, because it
points to the character of his favorite reading, which was
likely to be guided by the same tastes as his brother's, and
may have been specially directed by him.  Coming into my room
one day, he took up a copy of Hazlitt's British Poets.  He
opened it to the poem of Andrew Marvell's, entitled, 'The
Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn,' which he read
to me with delight irradiating his expressive features.  The
lines remained with me, or many of them, from that hour,--

  Had it lived long, it would have been
  Lilies without, roses within.

"I felt as many have felt after being with his brother, Ralph
Waldo, that I had entertained an angel visitant.  The fawn
of Marvell's imagination survives in my memory as the fitting
image to recall this beautiful youth; a soul glowing like
the rose of morning with enthusiasm, a character white as
the lilies in its purity."

The late Samuel May, who was in the class after Emerson's
at Harvard, told me that the impression his character and
person made upon the students of his time was so great that
when he passed through the college yard, everybody turned
to look after him, as in later days men looked after Webster
when he passed down State Street.

The Rev. Joseph H. Cross, now (1903) still living, the oldest
graduate of Harvard, was his classmate.  I received this letter
from him a few years ago:

66 BRADFORD ST., LAWRENCE,
  January 8, 1897.
  HON. G. F. HOAR,

_Dear Sir:_

Yours of 5th inst. is before me; and I am glad to remember
my classmate Emerson and answer your inquiries.  I knew that
he studied law in your Honored Father's office, and was betrothed
to your eldest sister.

Your first inquiry is "as to his looks."  He was above medium
height, well proportioned and straight as an arrow, brown
hair and clear blue eyes, with fair complexion and handsome
features.  "His scholarship and talents," both of the highest
order.  The class regarded him as the first and best scholar,
dignified and refined in manners, courteous and amiable in
spirit.  He had great influence in his own class, and was
much esteemed and beloved by all.  I think the impression
he made upon all who knew him was that of a classical scholar
and a perfect gentleman.


Dr. Channing said when he died that all New England mourned
his loss.

Although Charles was seven years the younger, his brother
Waldo speaks of him as his own master and teacher.  The following
letter was written by Waldo to his aunt Mary just after Charles's
death.  A part of it is printed in Cabot's Biography.  Waldo
and my sister, Elizabeth, heard of the extremity of his danger,
and were on their way to see him, but arrived too late to
find him alive.

"12 May.

"You have already heard that E. and I arrived too late to
see Charles.  He died on Monday afternoon, immediately after
returning from a ride with Mother.  He got out of the coach
alone, walked up the steps and into the house without assistance,
then sat down upon the stairs, fainted and never recovered.
Yesterday afternoon we attended his funeral, and that is the
end on this side Heaven, of his extraordinary promise, the
union of such shining gifts,--grace and genius, and sense
and virtue.  What a loss is this to us all--to Elizabeth and
Mother and you and me.  In him I have lost all my society.
I sought no other and formed my habits to live with him.  I
deferred to him on so many questions and trusted him more
than myself, that I feel as if I had lost the best part of
myself.  In him were the foundations of so solid a confidence
and friendship that all the years of life leaned upon him.
His genius too was a fountain inexhaustible of thoughts and
kept me ever curious and expectant.  Nothing was too great,
nothing too beautiful for his grasp or his expression, and
as brilliant as his power of illustration was, he stuck like
a mathematician to his truth and never added a syllable for
display.  I cannot tell you how much I have valued his conversation
for these last two or three years, and he has never stopped
growing, but has ripened from month to month.  Indeed, the
weight of his thoughts and the fresh and various forms in
which he constantly clothed them has made Shakespeare more
conceivable to me, as Shakespeare was almost the only genius
whom he wholly loved.  His taste was unerring.  What he called
good was good, but so severe was it that very few works and
very few men could satisfy him, and this because his standard
was a pure ideal beauty and he never forgot himself so far
as to accept any lower actual one in lieu of it.  But I must
not begin yet to enumerate his perfections.  I shall not know
where to stop, and what would be bare truth to me would sound
on paper like the fondest exaggeration.

"I mourn for the Commonwealth, which has lost before it yet
had learned his name the promise of his eloquence and rare
public gifts.  He blessed himself that he had been bred from
infancy as it were in the public eye, and he looked forward
to the debates in the Senate on great political questions
as to his fit and native element.  And with reason, for in
extempore debate his speech was music, and the precision,
the flow and the elegance of his discourse equally excellent.
Familiar as I was with his powers, when a year ago I first
heard him take part in a debate, he surprised me with his
success.  He spoke so well that he was impatient of writing
as not being a fit medium for him.  I never shall hear such
speaking as his, for his memory was a garden of immortal
flowers, and all his reading came up to him as he talked, to
clear, elevate and decorate the subject of his present thought.
But I shall never have done describing, as I see well I shall
never cease grieving as long as I am on the earth that he
has left it.  It seems no longer worth living in, if whatever
delights us in it departs.  He has quitted forever the apparent,
the partial.  He has gone to make acquaintance with the real,
the good, the divine, and to find mates and co-operators such
as we could not offer him."

Charles Emerson entered with zeal and sympathy into the daily
life of the people of Concord.  He delivered a few lectures,
which were quite celebrated.  Some of his manuscripts are
in existence, and there is a boyish essay or two in the _Harvard
Magazine,_ one on Conversation and one on Friendship, which
show a singular charm and simplicity of style.  He wrote the
epitaph on the tomb of Professor Ashmun at Mount Auburn, and
a tribute to his friend, James Jackson, Jr., which is preserved
in Jackson's memoir by his father.

Miss Martineau, in a chapter of her autobiography written
in 1836, describes the feeling in Boston in regard to the
opposition to slavery, which seems now incredible even to
those who remember it.  She says:

"The Emersons, for the adored Charles Emerson was living then,
were not men to join an association for any object . . . . But
at the time of the hubbub against me in Boston, Charles Emerson
stood alone of a large company in defence of free thought
and speech, and declared that he had rather see Boston in
ashes than that I or anybody should be debarred in any way
from perfectly free speech."

Robert C. Winthrop, who was Charles Emerson's intimate friend
in boyhood, wrote for the _Advertizer_ a beautiful obituary
notice.  He says:  "Emerson was eminently a man of genius.
We know not that in his riper years he ever wrote a line of
poetry, but no one could have listened to him, either in private
or public without feeling that he had a poet's power; while
his prose composition was of so pure and finished a style
as to show plainly that close perusal of the English Classics
in which he so much delighted . . . . One opinion which Mr.
Emerson had early formed, and which had he been spared to
mature life might have contributed much to his eminence may,
in the sad event which has occurred, have contracted the circle
of his fame . . . . He had formed in his own mind a standard
of education far beyond that which can be completed, even
by the most faithful application, within the ordinary rounds
of school and college--an education in which every man must
be mainly his own master.  In the work of this enlarged self-
education he was engaged, and, until it was finished, he shrunk
from the appearance of attempting to instruct others.  He
had in him all the elements which would have insured the success
of early efforts at display--a fluent speech, a fine elocution,
quick conception, a brilliant fancy.  But his ambition, . . .
while it aspired to a lofty eminence, was content to see that
eminence still in the distance."  Mr. Winthrop adds, "Principle,
unyielding and uncompromising principle, was the very breath
of his soul, and pervaded and animated his whole intellectual
system . . . . He openly professed what he believed, and he acted
up to his professions.  He not only held conscience the guide
of his life, but he took care to school and discipline that
conscience so that its dictates should always conform to truth,
to duty, to the laws of God.  He was an honorable, high-minded,
virtuous man--a sincere and devout Christian . . . . He has
fallen at the very gate of an honorable and eminent career,
and a thousand hopes are buried in his grave."

A few years before Mr. Winthrop died I met him in Cambridge,
at the Peabody Museum, of which we were both trustees.  The
trustees were gathered in their room waiting for the meeting
to be called to order.  Mr. Winthrop was talking about his
college days.  I asked him how it happened that there were
so many distinguished persons, in various departments of excellence,
who were graduated from Harvard about his time, in his class
and in the few classes following and preceding.  I said that
sometimes there would be several orators, or eminent men of
science, or eminent classical scholars, or eminent teachers,
graduated about the same time, and their excellence would
be attributed to some one instructor; but that in his time
there seemed to be a crop of great men in all departments
of life--in natural history, in the pulpit, the bar, in oratory,
in literature, and in public life.  Mr. Winthrop rose to
his feet from this chair and brought his hand down with great
emphasis on the table as he answered: "It was the influence
of Charles Emerson, Sir."

Charles Emerson delivered just before his death a very beautiful
and impressive lecture on Socrates.  It was long remembered
by the people of Concord.  It is said that they who heard
it never forgot his beautiful figure and glowing countenance
as he ended a passage of great eloquence at the close of the
lecture with the words,

  "God for thee has done His part.  Do thine."


Mr. Hawthorne had published some short stories which had already
made his name quite celebrated, but his great fame was still
to be gained.  He was poor and had a good deal of difficulty
in gaining a decent living for himself and his young wife.
I will not undertake to repeat the story of his life which
Hawthorne has told so beautifully in his "Mosses from an Old
Manse."  I knew Mrs. Hawthorne very well indeed.  She was
a great friend of my oldest sister and used to visit my father's
house when I was a boy, before she was married.  It was owing
to that circumstance that the Hawthornes came to live in Concord.
She was quite fond of me.  I used to get strawberries and
wild flowers for her, and she did me great honor to draw my
portrait, which now, fortunately or unfortunately, is lost.
I went up to the house while they were absent on their wedding
journey when I was a boy of fourteen or fifteen to help put
things in order for the reception of the young couple.

The furniture was very cheap; a good deal of it was made
of common maple.  But Mrs. Hawthorne, who was an artist,
had decorated it by drawings and paintings on the backs of
the chairs and on the bureaus and bedsteads.  On the headboard
of her bed was a beautiful copy, painted by herself, of Guido's
Aurora, with its exquisite light figures and horses and youths
and maidens flying through the air.

I never knew Hawthorne except as a stately figure, whom I
saw sometimes in Concord streets and sometimes in his own
home.  He rarely, if ever, opened his lips in my hearing.
He was always very silent, hardly spoke in the presence of
any visitor with whom he was not very intimate.  So far as
I know he never visited at the houses of his neighbors and
never went to town-meeting.  The latter was a deadly sin in
the eyes of his democratic neighbors.  Mr. Emerson induced
him, one evening, to be one of a small company at his house.
But Hawthorne kept silent and at last went to the window and
looked out at the stars.  One of the ladies said to the person
next her:  "How well he rides his horses of the night."  He
was very fond of long walks, and of rowing on the river with
Thoreau and Ellery Channing.

The Old Manse was built in 1759 by the Rev. Daniel Bliss
for his daughter Phoebe on her marriage to the Rev. William
Emerson.  She was grandmother of Waldo Emerson.  Her second
husband was the Rev. Dr. Ripley.

I knew Henry Thoreau very intimately.  I went to school with
him when I was a little boy and he was a big one.  Afterward
I was a scholar in his school.

He was very fond of small boys, and used to take them out
with him in his boat, and make bows and arrows for them, and
take part in their games.  He liked also to get a number of
the little chaps of a Saturday afternoon and take them out
in his boat, or for a long walk in the woods.

He knew the best places to find huckleberries and blackberries
and chestnuts and lilies and cardinal and other rare flowers.
We used to call him Trainer Thoreau, because the boys called
the soldiers the "trainers," and he had a long, measured stride
and an erect carriage which made him seem something like a
soldier, although he was short and rather ungainly in figure.
He had a curved nose which reminded one a little of the beak
of a parrot.

His real name was David Henry Thoreau, although he changed
the order of his first two names afterward.  He was a great
finder of Indian arrow-heads, spear-heads, pestles, and other
stone implements which the Indians had left behind them, of
which there was great abundance in the Concord fields and
meadows.

He knew the rare forest birds and all the ways of birds and
wild animals.  Naturalists commonly know birds and beasts
and wild flowers as a surgeon who has dissected the human
body, or perhaps sometimes a painter who has made pictures
of them knows men and women.  But he knew birds and beasts
as one boy knows another--all their delightful little habits
and fashions.  He had the most wonderful good fortune.  We
used to say that if anything happened in the deep woods which
only came about once in a hundred years, Henry Thoreau would
be sure to be on the spot at the time and know the whole story.

  It seemed that Nature could not raise
  A plant in any secret place,
  In quaking bog or snowy hill,
  Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
  Under the snow, between the rocks,
  In damp fields known to bird and fox,
  But he would come in the very hour
  It opened in its virgin bower,
  As if a sunbeam showed the place,
  And tell its long-descended race.
  It seemed as if the breezes brought him;
  It seemed as if the sparrows taught him;
  As if by secret sight he knew
  Where, in the far fields, the orchis grew.
  Many haps fall in the field
  Seldom seen by wishful eyes,
  But all her shows did Nature yield,
  To please and win this pilgrim wise.
  He saw the partridge drum in the woods;
  He heard the woodcock's evening hymn;
  He found the tawny thrushes' broods;
  And the shy hawk did wait for him;
  What others did at distance hear,
  And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
  Was shown to this philosopher,
  And at his bidding seemed to come.

These lines fit Henry Thoreau exactly.  Most people think
Emerson had him in mind when he wrote them.  But as a matter
of fact, they were written before he knew Henry Thoreau.

I wonder how many know the woodcock's evening hymn.  I have
known many sportsmen and naturalists who never heard it or
heard of it.  When the female is on her nest the male woodcock
flies straight up into the sky, folds his wings and falls
down through the air, coming down within a foot or two of
the nest from which he ascended, pouring out a beautiful song,
which he never sings at any other time.  He is said to be
one of the best and sweetest of our song birds.

It is a singular fact that Emerson did not know Henry Thoreau
until after Thoreau had been some years out of college.  Henry
walked to Boston, eighteen miles, to hear one of Emerson's
lectures, and walked home again in the night after the lecture
was over.  Emerson heard of it, and invited him to come to
his house and hear the lectures read there, which he did.
People used to say that Thoreau imitated Emerson, and Lowell
has made this charge in his satire, "A Fable for Critics";

  There comes ----, for instance; to see him's rare sport,
  Tread in Emerson's tracks with legs painfully short.

I think there is nothing in it.  Thoreau's style is certainly
fresh and original.  His tastes and thoughts are his own.
His peculiarities of bearing and behavior came to him naturally
from his ancestors of the isle of Guernsey.

I retained his friendship to his death.  I have taken many
a long walk with him.  I used to go down to see him in the
winter days in my vacations in his hut near Walden.  He was
capital company.  He was a capital guide in the wood.  He
liked to take out the boys in his boat.  He was fond of discoursing.
I do not think he was vain.  But he liked to do his thinking
out loud, and expected that you should be an auditor rather
than a companion.

I have heard Thoreau say in private a good many things which
afterward appeared in his writings.  One day when we were
walking, he leaned his back against a rail fence and discoursed
of the shortness of the time since the date fixed for the
creation, measured by human lives.  "Why," he said, "sixty
old women like Nabby Kettle" (a very old woman in Concord),
"taking hold of hands, would span the whole of it."  He repeats
this in one of his books, adding, "They would be but a small
tea-party, but their gossip would make universal history."

Another man who was famous as a writer went to school and
afterward tended store in Concord in my childhood.  This was
George H. Derby, better known as John Phoenix.  He was also
very fond of small boys.  I remember his making me what I
thought a wonderful and beautiful work of art, by taking a
sheet of stiff paper of what was called elephant foolscap,
and folding it into a very small square, and then with a penknife
cutting out small figures of birds and beasts.  When the sheet
was opened again these were repeated all over the sheet, and
made it appear like a piece of handsome lace.

He did not get along very well with his employer, who was
a snug and avaricious person.  He would go to Boston once
a week to make his purchases, leaving Derby in charge of the
store.  Derby would lie down at full length on the counter,
get a novel, and was then very unwilling to be disturbed to
wait on customers.  If a little girl came in with a tin kettle
to get some molasses, he would say the molasses was all out,
and they would have some more next week.  So the employer
found that some of his customers were a good deal annoyed.

Another rather famous writer who lived in Concord in my time
was Mr. A. Bronson Alcott.  He used to talk to the children
in the Sunday-school, and occasionally would gather them together
in the evening for a long discourse.  I am ashamed to say
that we thought Mr. Alcott rather stupid.  He did not make
any converts to his theories among the boys.

He once told us that it was wicked to eat animal food; that
the animal had the same right to his life that we had to ours,
and we had no right to destroy the lives of any of God's
creatures for our own purposes.  He lived only on vegetable
food, as he told us.  But he had on at the time a very comfortable
pair of calfskin boots, and the boys could not reconcile his
notion that it was wicked to kill animals to eat, with killing
animals that he might wear their hides.  When such inconsistencies
were pointed out to him he gave a look of mild rebuke at the
audacious offender, and went on with his discourse as if nothing
had happened.

The people who do not think very much of Alcott ought to
speak with a god deal of modesty when they remember how highly
Emerson valued him, and how sure was Emerson's judgment; but
certainly nobody will attribute to Alcott much of the logical
faculty.  Emerson told me once:

"I got together some people a little while ago to meet Alcott
and hear him converse.  I wanted them to know what a rare
fellow he was.  But we did not get along very well.  Poor
Alcott had a hard time.  Theodore Parker came all stuck full
of knives.  He wound himself round Alcott like an anaconda;
you could hear poor Alcott's bones crunch."

Margaret Fuller used to visit Concord a good deal, and at
one time boarded in the village for several months.

She was very peculiar in her ways, and made people whom she
did not like feel very uncomfortable in her presence.  She
was not generally popular, although the persons who knew her
best valued her genius highly.  But old Doctor Bartlett, a
very excellent and kind old doctor, though rather gruff in
manner, could not abide her.

About midnight one very dark, stormy night the doctor was
called out of bed by a sharp knocking at the door.  He got
up and put his head out of the window, and said, "Who's there?
What do you want?"  He was answered by a voice in the darkness
below, "Doctor, how much camphire can anybody take by mistake
without its killing them?"  To which the reply was, "Who's
taken it?"  And the answer was "Margaret Fuller."  The doctor
answered in great wrath, as he slammed down the window, and
returned to bed:  "A peck."

William Ellery Channing, the poet, was a constant visitor
of my sister, and later of my brother Edward.  He was a moody
and solitary person, except in the company of a few close
friends who testified to the charming and delightful quality
of his companionship.  I suppose his poems will outlast a
great many greater reputations.  But they will always find
very few readers in any generation.

Channing visited my elder sister almost every day or evening
for a good while, but rarely remained more than two or three
minutes if he found anybody else in the room.

George William Curtis, afterward the famous orator, and his
brother, Burrill, occupied for a year or two a small farmhouse
or hut, with one or two rooms in it, in Concord, on the Lincoln
road.  They had been at Brook Farm and came to Concord, I
suppose attracted by Emerson.  They came to my father's house
during their stay there every afternoon, and their call was
as much a regular incident of the day as any stated meal.
Each of them was a boy of a very pleasant and delightful nature.
I think if George Curtis had dwelt almost anywhere but in
New York city, he would have been a very powerful influence
in the public life of his generation.  But he did not find
any congenial associates in the men in New York who had any
capacity to effect much good.  His pure and lofty counsel
fell unheeded upon the ears of his near neighbors, and the
people of Massachusetts did not listen very patiently to lectures
on political purity or reform in civil service from New York
city.

I never maintained any considerable intimacy with Curtis,
although I have a few letters from him, expressing his regard
for some of my kindred or his interest and sympathy in something
I had said or done.  These I value exceedingly.  One of the
very last articles he wrote for _Harper's Weekly,_ written
just before his death, contains a far too kind estimate of
my public service.

The Concord quality has come down with its people from the
first settlement.  The town was founded by Peter Bulkeley.
He was a clergyman at Odell in Bedfordshire, where the church
over which he was settled is still standing.  He was a gentleman
of good family and of a considerable estate which he spent
for the benefit of the people whom he led into the wilderness.
He encountered the hostility of Laud and, to use the phrase
of that time, was "silenced for non-conformity." With Major
Simon Willard, he made a bargain with the Indians, just to
both parties, and with which both parties were perfectly satisfied,
which rendered the name of Concord so appropriate, although
in fact the name was given to the settlement before the company
left Boston.  That pulpit was occupied by Bulkeley and his
descendants either by blood or marriage, from 1635 to 1696;
from 1738 to 1841; and from 1882 to 1893.

I was able some forty years ago to settle in Concord a matter
which had puzzled English historians, as to the legitimacy
of the famous statesman and Chief Justice, Oliver St. John.
Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Chief Justices," says:
"It is a curious circumstance that there should be a dispute
about the parentage of such a distinguished individual, who
flourished so recently.  Lord Clarendon, who knew him intimately
from his youth, who practised with him in the Court of King's
Bench, who sat in the House of Commons with him, and who was
both associated with him and opposed to him in party strife,
repeatedly represents him as illegitimate; and states that
he was 'a natural son of the house of Bolingbroke.'  Lord Bacon's
account of his origin is equivocal--calling him 'a gentleman
as it seems of an ancient house and name.'  By genealogists
and heralds a legitimate pedigree is assigned to him, deducing
his descent in the right male line from William St. John,
who came in with the Conqueror; but some of them describe
him as the son of Sir John St. John, of Lydiard Tregose in
Wiltshire, and others as the son of Oliver St. John of Cagshoe
in Bedfordshire, and they differ equally respecting his mother.
Lord Clarendon could hardly be mistaken on such a point,
and I cannot help suspecting that the contrary assertions
proceed from a desire to remove the bar sinister from the
shield of a Chief Justice."

Lord Campbell has had diligent search made in the archives
of Oxford and Lincoln's Inn, but does not find anything to
change his opinion.

Fortunately we are able to settle the question about which
Lord Campbell and Lord Bacon and Lord Clarendon were misled,
in Old Concord.  Peter Bulkeley was the uncle of Oliver St.
John.  He speaks of him in his will, and leaves him his Bible.
Bulkeley's Gospel-Covenant, a book the substance of which
was originally preached to his congregation, is dedicated
to Oliver St. John.  In the Epistle Dedicatory, he speaks
of the pious and godly lives of St. John's parents, and alludes
to the dying words of St. John's father as something which
he and St. John had heard, but which was not known to other
men.  "I speak a mystery to others but not unto your Lordship."

So it is quite clear that St. John could not have been born
out of wedlock, and the son of a man who had seduced the
sister of this eminent and pious clergyman.

In Noble's "Memoirs of the Cromwell Family," published about
seventy-five years after the death of St. John, he is said
to be the son of Oliver St. John of Cagshoe in Bedfordshire.

When the "Lives of the Chief Justices" was first published,
I wrote to Lord Campbell, telling him these facts, and received
the following letter in reply:

LONDON, July 9th, 1861.

_Sir_

I thank you very sincerely for your interesting letter of
December 13th, respecting Lord Chief Justice St. John.  I
think you establish his legitimacy quite satisfactorily and
in any future edition of my Lives of the Chief Justices I
shall certainly avail myself of your researches.

  I have the honor to be
  Sir
  Your obliged and obedient Servant
  CAMPBELL.

  The Honorable
  Geo. F. Hoar.

Something of Bulkeley's character may be gathered from this
extract from the Gospel-Covenant, which Mr. Emerson, who was
his descendant, loved to quote.  Think of these words, uttered
to his little congregation in the wilderness; the only company
of white men in the Western Hemisphere who dwelt away from
tide-water:

"And for ourselves, the people of New England, wee should
in a speciall manner, labour to shine forth in holinesse
above other people; we have that plenty and abundance of
ordinances and meanes of grace as few people enjoy the like;
wee are as a City set upon a hill, in the open view of all
the earth, the eyes of the world are upon us, because wee
professe ourselves to be a people in Covenant with God, and
therefore not only the Lord our God, with whom we have made
Covenant, but heaven and earth, Angels and men, that are witnesses
of our profession, will cry shame upon us, if we walk contrary
to the Covenant which we have professed to walk in; if we
open the mouthes of men against our profession, by reason
of the scandalousnesse of our lives, wee (of all men) shall
have the greater sinne.

"To conclude, let us study so to walk, that this may be our
excellency and dignity among the Nations of the world, among
which we live; That they may be constrained to say of us,
onely this people is wise, an holy and blessed people: that
all that see us, may see and know that the name of the Lord
is called upon us:  and that we are the seed which the Lord
hath blessed.  Deut. 28. 10 Esay. 61. 9.  There is no people
but will strive to excell in something:  what can we excell
in if not in holinesse?  If we look to number, we are the
fewest; If to strength, we are the weakest; If to wealth
and riches, we are the poorest of all the people of God throughout
the whole world, we cannot excell (nor so much as equall)
other people in these things; and if we come short in grace
and holiness too, we are the most despicable people under
heaven; our worldy dignitie is gone, if we lose the glory
of grace too, then is the glory wholly departed from our Israel,
and we are become vile; strive we therefore herein to excell,
and suffer not this crown to be taken away from us:  Be we
a holy people, so shall we be honorable before God and precious
in the eyes of his Saints."

To these eminent Concord authors should be added the name
of William S. Robinson.  He was one of the brightest and wittiest
men of his time.  He very seldom had praise for anybody, although
for a few of his old Anti-Slavery friends he had a huge liking.
When I was a little boy he was in a newspaper office in Concord,
where he got most of his education.  Afterward he was associated
with William Schouler in editing the Lowell _Courier,_ a Whig
paper.  When Schouler became editor of the _Atlas,_ Robinson
succeeded to the paper.  But when the Free Soil movement
came in, he would not flinch or abate a jot in his radical
Anti-Slavery principles, which were not very agreeable to
the proprietors of the cotton mills in Lowell, who depended
both for their material and their market largely upon the
South.  Sumner described their alliance with their Southern
customers as an alliance between the Lords of the Loom and
the Lords of the Lash.  So Robinson was compelled to give
up his paper, in doing which he voluntarily embraced poverty
instead of a certain and lucrative employment.  He started
an Anti-Slavery weekly paper in Lowell known as the Lowell
_American._  That afforded him a bare and difficult living
for a few years.  After the Anti-Slavery people got into power
he was made Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Then he began to write his famous letters to the Springfield
_Republican,_ which he signed Warrington.  They were full
of wit and wisdom and displayed great knowledge of the best
English literature.  He made many enemies and finally, by
a concert among them, was turned out of office.  He lost his
health not long after, and died prematurely.

He was quite unsparing in his attacks on anybody who offended
him, or against whom he took a dislike; and he seemed to dislike
everybody whom he did not know.  It was said of him that,
like the rain of Heaven, he "fell alike on the just and on
the unjust."  He attacked some of the most venerable and worthy
citizens of the Commonwealth without any apparent reason.
He used to call Chief Justice Chapman, one of the worthiest
and kindest of men, Chief Justice Wheelgrease.  He had a controversy
in his paper of long standing with a man named Piper, a pompous
and self-important little personage, who edited the Fitchburg
_Reveille._  That was a Whig paper which circulated in the
country towns where Robinson's paper was chiefly taken.  He
made poor Piper's life unhappy.  One of the issues of his
paper contained a life of Piper.  It begun by saying that
Piper began life as the driver of a fish-cart in Marblehead,
and that he was discharged by his employer on account of the
diffuseness of his style.  He quoted with great effect on
Otis P. Lord the toast given by the Court Jester of Archbishop
Laud's time:  "Great Laud be to God, and Little Lord to the
Devil."

When he was clerk of the House of Representatives there was
a story in the newspapers that he was preparing a treatise
on Parliamentary law.  He published a letter denying the statement.
But he added, that if he did write such a treatise, he should
sum it up in one sentence:  "Never have an ass in the chair."

I was associated with him one day on the Committee on Resolutions
of the Republican State Convention, held in Worcester.  The
Committee went over to my office to consult.  While we were
talking together Robinson broke out with his accustomed objurgations
levelled at several very worthy and excellent men.  I said:
"William, it is fortunate that you did not live in the Revolutionary
time.  How you would have hated General Washington."  He replied,
with a smile that indicated the gratification he would have
had if he could have got at him: "He was an old humbug, wasn't
he?"

But Robinson was always on the righteous side of any question
involving righteousness.  He was kind, generous, absolutely
disinterested, and a great and beneficent power in the Commonwealth.


CHAPTER VI
FARM AND SCHOOL

I spent my life in Concord until I entered college except
one year when I lived on a farm in Lincoln.  There I had
an opportunity to see at its best the character of the New
England farmer, a character which has impressed itself so
strongly and so beneficently on our history.  Deacon James
Farrar, for whom I worked, was, I believe, the fifth in descent
from George Farrar, one of the founders of the town of Lincoln.
All these generations dwelt on the same farm and under the
same roof.  An ancient forest came to a point not far from
the house.  That, with a large river meadow and some fertile
upland fields, made up the farm.  In every generation one
or more of the family had gone to college and had become eminent
in professional life, while one of them had stayed at home
and carried on the farm.  An uncle of the Deacon with whom
I lived was Timothy Farrar of New Ipswich, an eminent judge
who died considerably more than a hundred years old, and who
was the oldest graduate of Harvard.  Deacon James's own brother
was Professor John Farrar of Harvard, a famous mathematician
in his day, thought by his pupils to be the most eloquent
man of his time, although Webster and Everett and Channing
were his cotemporaries.  It was a healthy and simple life
of plain living and high thinking.  But I think I got more
good out of it in learning how the best intelligence of the
State of Massachusetts was likely to judge of the questions
of morals and duty than I got afterward from my four years
in college.  Two of the Deacon's sons succeeded him on the
farm.  One was his successor in his office in the church.
Another son, George Farrar, graduated at Amherst where he
was cotemporary with Dr. Storrs and Henry Ward Beecher.  He
died a few years after his admission to the Bar.  But he had
already given proof that he would, if he had lived, have taken
rank among the foremost at the Bar in Massachusetts.

Before entering college I was for about six months a pupil
of Mrs. Sarah Ripley of Waltham.  She removed to Concord with
her husband afterward.  She was one of the most wonderful
scholars of her time, or indeed of any time.  President Everett
said she could fill any professor's chair at Harvard.  She
was an admirable mathematician.  She read the "Mecanique Celeste"
of Laplace in the original without the aid of Dr. Bowditch's
translation.  She was a fine German and Italian scholar.  She
had a great fondness for Greek literature, especially for
Plato and AEschylus.  She was an accomplished naturalist.
She was simple as a child, an admirable wife and mother, performing
perfectly all the commonest duties of the household.  The
authorities of Harvard used to send boys to her who were rusticated
for some offence.  She would keep them along in all their
studies, in most cases better instructed than they would have
been if they had stayed in Cambridge.  I remember her now
with the strongest feeling of reverence, affection and gratitude.
In that I say what every other pupil of hers would say.  I
do not think she ever knew how much her boys loved her.

In 1876 the Directors of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia
took steps to have the lives of three or four of the foremost
women of the century that had just passed written as the best
examples of American womanhood for our first century.  Mrs.
Schuyler was selected from New York, Mrs. Livermore from
New Hampshire, and Mrs. Randolph from Virginia.  Mrs. Ripley
was chosen as the representative of Massachusetts.  If anybody
doubt the capacity of the intellect of woman to rival that
of man in any calling requiring the highest intellectual capacity,
without in the least forfeiting any quality of a delicate
womanhood, let him read the "Life of Sarah Ripley."

After her death Mr. Emerson wrote the following notice of
her.  It is not found in his collected works.

"Died in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 26th of July, 1867,
Mrs. Sarah Alden Ripley, aged seventy-four years.  The death
of this lady, widely known and beloved, will be sincerely
deplored by many persons scattered in distant parts of the
country, who have known her rare accomplishments and the singular
loveliness of her character.  A lineal descendant of the first
governor of Plymouth Colony, she was happily born and bred.
Her father, Gamaliel Bradford, was a sea-captain of marked
ability, with heroic traits which old men will still remember,
and though a man of action yet adding a taste for letters.
Her brothers, younger than herself, were scholars, but her
own taste for study was even more decided.  At a time when
perhaps no other young woman read Greek, she acquired the
language with ease and read Plato,--adding soon the advantage
of German commentators.

"After her marriage, when her husband, the well-known clergyman
of Waltham, received boys in his house to be fitted for college,
she assumed the advanced instruction in Greek and Latin, and
did not fail to turn it to account by extending her studies
in both languages.  It soon happened that students from Cambridge
were put under her private instruction and oversight.  If
the young men shared her delight in the book, she was interested
at once to lead them to higher steps and more difficult but
not less engaging authors, and they soon learned to prize
the new world of thought and history thus opened.  Her best
pupils became her lasting friends.  She became one of the
best Greek scholars in the country, and continued, in her
latest years, the habit of reading Homer, the tragedians,
and Plato.  But her studies took a wide range in mathematics,
in natural philosophy, in psychology, in theology, as well
as in ancient and modern literature.  She had always a keen
ear open to whatever new facts astronomy, chemistry, of the
theories of light and heat had to furnish.  Any knowledge,
all knowledge was welcome.  Her stores increased day by day.
She was absolutely without pedantry.  Nobody ever heard of
her learning until a necessity came for its use, and then
nothing could be more simple than her solution of the problem
proposed to her.  The most intellectual gladly conversed with
one whose knowledge, however rich and varied, was always with
her only the means of new acquisition.  Meantime her mind
was purely receptive.  She had no ambition to propound a theory,
or to write her own name on any book, or plant, or opinion.
Her delight in books was not tainted by any wish to shine,
or any appetite for praise or influence.  She seldom and unwillingly
used a pen, and only for necessity or affection.

"But this wide and successful study was, during all the hours
of middle life, only the work of hours stolen from sleep,
or was combined with some household task which occupied the
hands and left the eyes free.  She was faithful to all the
duties of wife and mother in a well-ordered and eminently
hospitable household, wherein she was dearly loved, and where

  'her heart
  Life's lowliest duties on itself did lay.'

"She was not only the most amiable, but the tenderest of
women, wholly sincere, thoughtful for others, and, though
careless of appearances, submitting with docility to the
better arrangements with which her children or friends insisted
on supplementing her own negligence of dress; for her own
part indulging her children in the greatest freedom, assured
that their own reflection, as it opened, would supply all
needed checks.  She was absolutely without appetite for luxury,
or display, or praise, or influence, with entire indifference
to trifles.  Not long before her marriage, one of her intimate
friends in the city, whose family were removing, proposed
to her to go with her to the new house, and, taking some articles
in her own hand, by way of trial artfully put into her hand
a broom, whilst she kept her in free conversation on some
speculative points, and this she faithfully carried across
Boston Common, from Summer Street to Hancock Street, without
hesitation or remark.

"Though entirely domestic in her habit and inclination, she
was everywhere a welcome visitor, and a favorite of society,
when she rarely entered it.  The elegance of her tastes recommended
her to the elegant, who were swift to distinguish her as they
found her simple manners faultless.  With her singular simplicity
and purity, such as society could not spoil, nor much affect,
she was only entertained by it, and really went into it as
children into a theatre,--to be diverted,--while her ready
sympathy enjoyed whatever beauty of person, manners, or ornament
it had to show.  If there was conversation, if there were
thought or learning, her interest was commanded, and she gave
herself up to the happiness of the hour.

"As she advanced in life, her personal beauty, not remarked
in her youth, drew the notice of all, and age brought no fault
but the brief decay and eclipse of her intellectual powers."

In 1833, three years before Emerson wrote "Nature," Mrs. Ripley
said of him:  "We regard him still, more than ever, as the
apostle of the Eternal Reason.  We do not like to hear the
crows, as Pindar says, caw at the bird of Jove."*

[Footnote]
* On the stone which marks Mrs. Ripley's grave in the beautiful
cemetery at Concord, her children placed an inscription containing
a part of the passage with which Tacitus ends his Life of Agricola.
"It was a passage which was specially dear to her," says her
biographer; "many of her friends will recall the fine glow of
feeling with which she read or quoted it; and to these it will
always be associated with her memory.  I cannot better close this
imperfect sketch of her life than by giving the whole of it:  of
no one was it ever more worthily spoken than of her.  The words
enclosed in brackets are those which are on her gravestone."

"Si quis piorum manibus locus; si, ut sapientibus placet, non
cum corpore exstinguunter magnae animae; (placide quescas, nosque,
domum tuam, ab tuarum voces, quas neque lugeri neque plangi fas
est:  admiratione te potius, temporalibus laudibus, et, si natura
suppedit, similitudine decoremus.)  Is verus honos, ea conjunctissimi
cujusque pietas.  Id filiae quoque uxorique praeceperim, sic
patris, sic mariti memoriam venerari, ut omnia facta dictaque
ejus secum revlvant; famamque ac figuram animi magis quam
corporis complectantur:  non quia intercedendum putem imaginibus,
quae marmore aut aere finguntur, sed ut vultus hominum, ita simulacra
vultus imbecilla ne mortalia sunt, forma mentis aeterna, quam
tenere et exprimere non per alienam materiam et artem, sed tuis
ipse moribus posis.  Quidquid ex Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati
sumus, manet mansurumque est in animis hominum, in aeternitate
temporum, fama rerum.  Nam multos veterum, velut inglorios et
ignobiles oblivio obruet:  Agricola posteritati narratus et
superstes erit."
[End of Footnote]


CHAPTER VII
HARVARD SIXTY YEARS AGO

I do not think Harvard College had changed very much when
I entered it on my sixteenth birthday in the year 1842 either
in manners, character of students or teachers, or the course
of instruction, for nearly a century.  There were some elementary
lectures and recitations in astronomy and mechanics.  There
was a short course of lectures on chemistry, accompanied by
exhibiting a few experiments.  But the students had no opportunity
for laboratory work.  There was a delightful course of instruction
from Dr. Walker in ethics and metaphysics.  The college had
rejected the old Calvinistic creed of New England and substituted
in its stead the strict Unitarianism of Dr. Ware and Andrews
Norton,--a creed in its substance hardly more tolerant or
liberal than that which it had supplanted.  There was also
some instruction in modern languages,--German, French and
Italian,--all of very slight value.  But the substance of
the instruction consisted in learning to translate rather
easy Latin and Greek, writing Latin, and courses in algebra
and geometry not very far advanced.

The conditions of admission were quite easy.  They were such
as a boy of fourteen of good capacity, who could read and
write the English language and had gone through some simple
book of arithmetic, could easily master in two years.  There
were three or four schools were the boys were pretty well
fitted, so that they could translate Cicero and Virgil, Nepos
and Sallust and Caesar and Xenophon and Homer.  The Boston
Latin School, the Roxbury Latin School, Phillips Academy at
Exeter and Phillips Academy at Andover and Mrs. Ripley's
school at Waltham were the best schools for this purpose.
The boys from the Boston Latin School generally took their
places at the head of the class when they entered.  Next came
the best scholars from the other schools I have named.  But
the bulk of the pupils were very poorly fitted.

There was, as it seems to me in looking back, little instruction
of much value.  The good scholars and the bad went to the
recitation together.  The good ones lost the hour, and the
poor scholars got the benefit of hearing the good ones recite.
Their mistakes were corrected by the professor.  They handed
in written exercises in Latin and Greek which were examined
by the instructor and the faults corrected, and returned.
There were, during the last three years, declamations once
a month, where the boy recited some piece of prose or poetry
in the presence of the class, but got very little instruction
or criticism from the professor.  Then, in the last three
years, English themes were required.  The subjects were given
out by Professor Channing, himself a most accomplished and
admirable scholar in his line.  He seemed to choose his subjects
with a view of taxing the ingenuity of the boy to find anything
to say about them instead of taking something which the boy
knew about and devoting himself to improve his English style
in expressing his thought.  Channing was a good critic.  His
published lectures on rhetoric and oratory, now almost wholly
forgotten, remind one of Matthew Arnold in their delicate
and discriminating touch.  He had a face and figure something
like that of Punch in the frontispiece of that magazine.  His
method was to take the themes which the boys handed in one
week, look them over himself, then, a week after, meet the
class, call the boys in succession to sit down in a chair
by the side of his table, read out passages from the theme,
and ridicule them before the others.  It was a terrible ordeal
for a bashful or awkward boy.  Those of a more robust nature,
or whose performance had nothing ridiculous in it, profited
by the discipline.  But it certainly took all the starch and
courage out of me.  I never sat down to write my theme without
fancying that grinning and scornful countenance looking at
my work.  So I used to write as few sentences as I thought
would answer so that I should not be punished for failure
to bring in any theme at all, and never attempted to do my
best.

But the Faculty themselves were certainly an assemblage of
very able men.  Making all the allowance for the point of
view, and that I was then a youth looking at my elders who
had become famous, and that I am now looking as an old man
at young men, I still think there can be no comparison between
the college administrators of fifty years ago and those of
to-day.  It was then the policy of the college to call into
its service great men who had achieved eminent distinction
in the world without.  It is now its policy to select for
its service promising youth, in the hope that they will become
great.  Perhaps the last method is the best where it succeeds.
But the effect of failure is most mischievous.  Presidents
Quincy, Everett, Walker and Sparks administered in succession
the office of President during my connection with the Academic
Department and the Law School, although Dr. Walker's inauguration
was not until later.  Each of them in his own way was among
the first men of his time.  Quincy had been an eminent statesman,
a famous orator, and a most successful mayor of Boston.  Edward
Everett had been in his early youth one of the most famous
pulpit orators of the country, afterward a distinguished
Member of Congress, Governor of the Commonwealth, Minister
to England, and Senator of the United States.  He was a consummate
orator, on whose lips thousands and thousands of his countrymen
had hung entranced.  He was, what is less generally remembered
now, perhaps the ablest and most accomplished diplomatist
ever in the public service of the United States.  Jared Sparks
was a profound student of history, somewhat dull as a narrator,
but of unerring historic judgment.  I suppose he would be
placed by all our writers of history with great unanimity
at the head of American historic investigators.  James Walker
was a great preacher and a profound thinker.  In the judgment
of his hearers, young and old, he was probably deemed nearly
or quite the foremost of American preachers.

That I may not be supposed to imply any disparagement of the
present accomplished head of Harvard, let me say that while
each of the men I have named had done a great work in life
and achieved a great fame before he came to the Presidency,
President Eliot has, in my opinion, achieved an equal fame
and performed an equal work since he came to it.

A like policy prevailed in those days in the choice of instructors
in the Law School.  Judge Story, the senior professor, died
just before I graduated from the College.  His fame as a jurist
was known throughout Europe.  He was undoubtedly the most
learned judge in the United States.  Chief Justice Marshall
and Chief Justice Shaw of Massachusetts doubtless excelled
him in intellectual vigor.  Chancellor Kent rivalled him as
a writer upon law.  But he had no other rival among judges
or commentators in this country,--few anywhere.  He was unquestionably,
at the time of his death, the most famous teacher of law in
the civilized world.  His associate professor, Greenleaf,
was an admirable lawyer, who, before he went to Harvard, had
had a great practice in Maine, and made some good arguments
in the Supreme Court of the United States.  Judge Story was
succeeded by Chief Justice Joel Parker of New Hampshire, a
very eminent jurist, who was saturated with the old learning
of special pleading and real property.  He would have been
a fit associate for Coke or Saunders, and would have held
his own anywhere with either.

There was nothing in the teaching of Latin or Greek to inspire
the student with any love of Greek or Latin literature.  The
professor never pointed out its beauties or illustrated the
text in any way.  The students, in succession, were called
upon to construe a few lines, reading one or two Greek words
and then giving their English equivalents.  The time of the
good scholar was taken up in hearing the recitation of the
poor scholar and so very largely wasted.  I had four or five
persons in my class who became afterward eminent classical
scholars.  I do not believe that when we graduated there were
more than four men in the class who could write a decent Latin
sentence without the laborious use of grammar and dictionary.
I doubt whether there was more than one, certainly there were
not more than three, who could do the same thing in Greek.
I do not suppose there was a man in the class who could have
spoken either language with ease.

Yet, somehow, the graduates of Harvard got a good intellectual
training from the University.  The rough country boy, if he
had it in him, came out at his graduation a gentleman in behavior
and in character.  He was able to take hold of life with great
vigor.  The average age of graduation I suppose was twenty.
Not more than three years were spent in studying a profession.
In some few cases, the graduate got a little money by teaching
for a year.  But the graduates of Harvard College and Harvard
Law School were apt to take quite rapidly the high places
of the profession.  That was true then much more than it is
now.

There were many persons who graduated before my time or shortly
afterward whose high place in the public life of the Commonwealth
and of the country was assured before they were thirty years
old.  Edward Everett was called to the pulpit of Brattle Street
Church at the age of nineteen.  He succeeded in that pulpit
Joseph Stevens Buckminster, who was himself settled over that
important parish at the age of twenty-one and was a wonderful
pulpit orator.  Edward Everett preached a sermon when he was
twenty-four years old before a large audience in the Representatives
Chamber at Washington which was heard with breathless silence.
Rufus King said it was the best sermon he ever heard, and
Harrison Gray Otis was affected to tears.  Benjamin R. Curtis
was admitted to the bar in Boston when he was twenty-two years
old and shortly after was retained in a very important case.
It is said that an old deputy sheriff, who had just heard
Curtis's opening argument, was met in the street and asked
if anything was going on in court.  "Going on?" was the reply.
"There's a young chap named Curtis up there has just opened
a case so that all Hell can't close it."  I suppose Edward
Everett Hale and James Freeman Clarke were almost as famous
in the pulpit when they were twenty-five or twenty-six years
old as they ever were afterward.  I might extend the catalogue
indefinitely.  Where is there to be found to-day at the New
England bar or in the New England pulpit a man under thirty
of whom it can be said that his place among the great men
of his profession is assured? It will not do to say in answer
to this that it takes a greater man in this generation to
fill such a place than it took in other days.  That is not
true.  The men of those generations have left their work behind
them.  It does not suffer in comparison with that of their
successors.  There was something in the college training of
that day, imperfect as were its instruments, and slender as
were its resources, from which more intellectual strength
in the pupil was begotten than there is in the college training
of the present generation.  I will not undertake to account
for it.  But I think it was due in large part to the personality
of the instructors.  A youth who contemplated with a near
and intimate knowledge the large manhood of Josiah Quincy;
who listened to the eloquence of James Walker, or heard his
expositions of the principal systems of ethics or metaphysics;
or who sat at the feet of Judge Story, as he poured forth
the lessons of jurisprudence in a clear and inexhaustible
stream, caught an inspiration which transfigured the very
soul of the pupil.

Josiah Quincy, "old Quin" as we loved to call him, was a very
simple and a very high character.  He was born in Boston,
February 4, 1772, just before the Revolutionary War.  It was
said, I have no doubt truly, that the nurse who attended his
mother at his birth went from that house to the wife of Copley,
the painter, when her son, Lord Lyndhurst, was born.  Copley
was a Tory, though a patriot and an ardent lover of his country.
His departure from Boston made Lord Lyndhurst an Englishman.
Quincy entered early into politics.  He was a candidate for
Congress in the last century before he was twenty-five years
old.  I heard him say once that the Democrats called for a
cradle to rock the Federal candidate.  He was a good type
of the old Massachusetts Federalist,--brave, manly, sincere,
of a broad and courageous statesmanship, but distrustful of
the people and not understanding their temper.  He made some
very powerful speeches in the House of Representatives, attacking
the greed and office-seeking of that time.  His eloquence
was something of the style of the famous Irish orators.  One
of his passages describing the office-seekers tumbling over
each other like pigs to a trough will be long remembered.
He hated Jefferson and moved his impeachment in the House
of Representatives,--a motion for which he got no vote but
his own.  He retired disgusted from National public life,
became Mayor of Boston, an office which he filled with much
distinction, and then was called to the Presidency of Harvard,
mainly because of his business capacity.  The finances of
the University were then in a sad condition.  He put them
on an excellent footing.  He was very fond of the boys and
they of him, although he was rough and hasty in his manners.
While I was in college (although I happened to be at home
that day and did not see the affair) some of the boys had
got into some serious rows in Boston one Saturday.  They had
undertaken to wear the Oxford cap and gown.  They were ridiculed
by the populace in Boston, and a good many fights were the
consequence.  They were driven from the streets, and in the
afternoon a lot of roughs took hold of a long rope, as if
they belonged to an engine company, ran out to Cambridge across
the bridge, and proposed to attack the college buildings.
Old Quin gathered the students together at the gate and told
the boys to keep within the yard and not to attack anybody
unless they were attacked, but to permit none of those men
to come within the gate.  The old fellow was ready to head
the students and a fight was expected.  But the police gathered,
and finally the Boston roughs were persuaded to depart in
peace.

The old gentleman's heart always warmed to the son of an old
Federalist.  I had to visit his study a good many times, I
regret to say, to receive some well-deserved admonitions.
But the interview always ended in an inquiry after my father
and some jolly, or at least kindly utterance about myself.
One of my classmates gave an account in rhyme of one of these
interviews which I wish I could repeat.  I can only remember
two lines:

  Quin deigned a grin, perforce,
  And Hoar a roar, of course.

He died in 1864 at the age of ninety-two, preserving to the
last his mental vigor and his ardent interest in public affairs.
During the darkest period of the War he never lost his hope
or faith.  He fell on the ice and broke his hip a little while
before his death.  He was treated by the somewhat savage
method of the surgery of the time.  Dr. George E. Ellis,
from whom I had the story, went to see him one day at his
house on Park Street and found the old man lying on his bed
with a weight hanging from his foot, which projected over
the bed, to keep the bones in their place and the muscles
from contracting.  He said to Mr. Quincy's daughter:  "You
have been shut up here a long time.  Now go and take a walk
round the Common and let me stay with your father." Miss Quincy
went out and the old man kept Dr. Ellis so full of interest
by his cheerful and lively talk that he never once thought
to ask him how he was getting along.  When Miss Quincy returned,
he took his leave and had got downstairs when the omission
occurred to him.  He went back to the chamber and said to
Mr. Quincy:  "I forgot to ask you how your leg is."  The old
fellow brought his hand down with a slap upon the limb and
said:  "Damn the leg.  I want to see this business settled."

When Felton was inaugurated as President, Gov. Banks in performing
his part of the ceremony of presenting the charter and the
keys to the new officer alluded in his somewhat grandiloquent
way to four of Felton's predecessors, Everett, Sparks, Walker
and Quincy, who were upon the stage.  Speaking of Quincy he
said:  "He would be reckoned among honorable men, though their
number were reduced to that of the mouths of the Nile or the
gates of Thebes."

Felton, the Greek professor, was the heartiest and jolliest
of men.  He was certainly one of the best examples of a fully
rounded scholarship which this country or perhaps any country
ever produced.  He gave before the Lowell Institute a course
of lectures on Greece Ancient and Modern, into which is compressed
learning enough to fill a large encyclopaedia.  He also edited
two or three Greek plays and an edition of Homer, which was
extensively used as a text-book.

Professor Felton was a very impulsive man, though of great
dignity and propriety in his general bearing.  He had some
theories of his own as to the matter of pure and correct
English and was very much disgusted if anybody transgressed
them.  His brother, John Felton, of the class of 1847, afterward
the foremost lawyer on the Pacific Coast, was altogether the
best and most brilliant scholar in his class.  He was reported
to the Faculty just before his graduation for the offence
of swearing in the College Yard, an offence which was punished
by what was called a public admonition which involved a considerable
loss of rank and a letter to the parent or guardian of the
offender.  The Faculty, in consideration of John Felton's
excellent scholarship, instead of the ordinary punishment
directed that Professor Felton should admonish his brother
of his fault in private.  The professor was some eighteen
or twenty years the elder and respected by his brother rather
as a father than as a brother.  He sent for John to his study
and told him the nature of the complaint, and proceeded: "I
cannot tell you how mortified I am that my brother, in whose
character and scholarship I had taken so much pride, who stood
so high in his class, should have been reported to the Faculty
for this vulgar and wicked offence."  John said, with great
contrition:  "I am exceedingly sorry.  It was under circumstances
of great provocation.  I have never been guilty of such a
thing before.  I never in my life have been addicted to profanity."
"Damnation, John," interposed the professor, "how often have
I told you the word is profaneness and not profanity?"  It
is needless to say that the sermon ended at that point.

But the most interesting single figure in the Harvard Faculty
in my day was James Walker.  He was a man of quiet dignity,
and of modest bearing.  He appeared rather awkward when he
walked, as if there were some want of strength in the feet
or ankles.  He heard the classes in my time in Jouffroy and
Cousin and in Butler's "Analogy."  His method was to require
the boy to get into his mind some account of a system or special
course of reasoning of the author and to state it at considerable
length in his own language.  I think all that I got out of
college that was of much use to me came from this training
in James Walker's recitation-room, except that I think I got
some capacity for cross-examining witnesses which was very
useful to me afterward from reading Plato's dialogues and
getting familiar with Socrates's method of reducing a sophist
ad absurdum.  But Dr. Walker's throne was the pulpit of the
College Chapel.  He used to preach four Sundays in each of
the two terms.  He had a beautiful head, a deep but clear
voice, a deliberate manner and a power of emphasizing his
weighty thoughts which I have never seen surpassed by any
orator.  He had a small and beautiful hand of which it is
said, though such a thing is hard to believe of him, he was
somewhat vain.  But his only gesture was to bring very infrequently
the back of his hand down upon the cushion of the pulpit before
him.  The ticking of the clock in the College Chapel was inaudible
when the chapel was empty.  But it ticked out clear and loud
upon the strained ears of the auditors who were waiting in
the pauses of his sentences.  I can remember his sermons now.
They are admirable to read, although, like other eloquence,
their life and sprit is lost without the effect of speech.
There was one on the text, "Thou shalt say no," which no hearer,
I venture to say, ever forgot to the day of his death.  There
was another, on the control of the thoughts, from the text,
"Leading into captivity every thought."  This made a deep impression
on the students.  I seem to hear the tones of his voice now.
The Doctor described with a terrific effect the thinking over
in imagination scenes of vice by the youth who seemed to
the world outside to fall suddenly from virtue.  He said
there was no such thing as a sudden fall from virtue.  The
scene had been enacted in thought and the man had become
rotten before the time of the outward act.

"Sometimes the novice in crime thinks himself ready to act
when he is not; as appears from his hesitancy and reluctance
when the moment for action arrives.  If, however, this unexpected
recoil of his nature does not induce him to change his purpose
altogether, he knows but too well how to supply the defect
in training for sin.  If we could look into his heart, we
should find him at his accursed rehearsals again.  A few more
lessons, and the blush and the shudder will pass away, never
to return."

This is tame enough in the recital.  But I dare say there
are old men who will read these pages to whom it will bring
back the never-forgotten scenes of more than fifty years ago.
The Doctor had a great gift of sententious speech, not only
in his written discourses, but in his ordinary conversation or
his instruction from the professor's chair.  He was speaking
one day of Combe and of something disrespectful he had said
about the English metaphysicians.  "What does Mr. Combe mean?"
said the Doctor.  "I make no apology for the English metaphysicians.
They have made their mistakes.  They have their shortcomings.
But they are surely entitled to the common privilege of Englishmen
--to be judged by their peers."  He was speaking one day of
some rulers who had tried to check the rising tide of some
reform by persecuting its leaders.  "Fools!" said the Doctor.
"They thought if they could but wring the neck of the crowing
cock it would never be day."

One of the delightful characters and humorists connected
with Harvard was Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles, tutor
in Greek.  He was a native of Thessaly, born near Mount Pelion
and educated in the convent of the Greek Church on Mount Sinai.
It is said, although such instances are rare, that he was
of the purest Greek blood.  At any rate, his face and head
were of the Greek type.  He was a man of wonderful learning,
--I dare say the best Greek scholar of his generation, whether
in Europe or America.  He was a very simple-hearted person
in dealing with ordinary affairs.  But his conversation and
his instruction in the class-room were full of wit and sense.
He used to tell a story, whether of his father or his grandfather
I am not sure, that one night very late he was sitting in
his warehouse alone when two men entered and told him they
were come to kill him.  He asked them why they wished to kill
him, and they told him that they had been hired by an enemy
of his.  "Well," said the old man, "what are you to be paid?"
They told him the sum.  He said:  "I will give you twice as
much to kill him."  Accordingly they accepted the offer and
went away, leaving the old fellow alive, kept their bargain
with him and killed his enemy.

Sophocles had a great love of little children and a curious
love of chickens which he treated as pets and liked to tame
and to play with, squatting down on the ground among them
as if he were a rooster himself.  It is said that during his
last sickness the doctor directed that he should have chicken
broth.  He indignantly rejected it, and declared he would
not eat a creature that he loved.

In what I have said about Professor Channing I am describing
him and his method in instruction faithfully as it seemed
to me at the time.  It is quite possible I may be wrong.  I
am sure that the better scholars and the youths who were much
better in every way than I was at that time of my life who
were his pupils will dissent from my opinion and be shocked
at what I say.  So it is quite likely that I am in fault and
not he.  I have read again lately his book on Rhetoric and
Oratory since what I said a little while ago was dedicated,
and I wish to reaffirm my high opinion of the book.  For fresh,
racy and correct style, for clear perception and exquisite
literary taste, it is one of the best books on the subject,
as it one of the best books on any subject ever written by
an American.  His mistake was, in large measure, the prevalent
mistake of the College in his time,--the use of ridicule and
severity instead of sympathy as a means of correcting the
faults incident to youth.  It was the fault of the College,
both of instructors and of the students.  Dr. Walker in one
of his public addresses speaks with commendation of "the storm
of merciless ridicule" which overwhelms young men who are
addicted to certain errors which he is criticising.

The Latin professor was Charles Beck, Ph.D.  He was a native
of Heidelberg.  He had been compelled to leave Prussia because
of his love of liberty.  He had studied theology, and had
published a treatise on gymnastics, in which he was accomplished.
We read with him Terence and Plautus, the Medea of Seneca,
Horace, and probably some Latin prose, which I have forgotten.
He was a very learned Latin scholar.  I do not know whether
he cared anything about poetry or eloquence or the philosophy
of the Roman authors or no.  Certainly he did nothing to indicate
to us that he had any such interest or to stimulate any such
interest in his pupils.  He was strict to harshness in dealing
with his class.  The only evidence of enthusiasm I ever witnessed
in Dr. Beck was this:  He brought into the classroom one day
an old fat German with very dirty hands and a dirty shirt.
He had a low forehead and a large head with coarse curling
hair which looked as if it had not seen a comb or brush for
a quarter of a century.  We looked with amazement at this
figure.  He went out before the recitation was over.  But
Dr. Beck said to us:  "This is Dr. ----, gentlemen.  He is
a most admiwable scholar."  (This was the Doctor's pronunciation
of the r.)  "He has wead Cicewo through every year for nearly
fifty years for the sake of settling some important questions.
He has discovered that while necesse est may be used indifferently
either with the accusative and infinitive, or with ut with
the subjunctive, necesse ewat can only be used before ut with
the subjunctive.  I should think it well worth living for
to have made that discovery."

I suppose we all thought when we graduated that Dr. Beck
was a man of harsh and cold nature.  But I got acquainted
with him later in life and found him one of the most genial
and kind-hearted of men.  He was a member of the Legislature.
He was a Free Soiler and an Abolitionist, liberally contributing
to the Sanitary Commission, and to all agencies for the benefit
of the soldiers and the successful prosecution of the war.

He came vigorously to the support of Horace Mann in his famous
controversy with Mr. Webster.  Mann had vigorously attacked
Webster, and Webster in return had spoken of Mann as one of
that class of persons known among the Romans as Captatores
Verborum, which he supposed to mean one of those nice persons
who catch up other person's words for the sake of small criticism
and fault-finding.  Mr. Mann replied that Webster was wrong
in his Latin, and the words Captatores Verborum meant toad-
eaters, or men who hang on the words of great men to praise
and flatter them, of which he found some conspicuous modern
examples among Webster's supporters.  Professor Felton, the
Greek professor, who was a staunch friend of Webster, attacked
Mann and charged him with ignorance of Latin.  But Dr. Beck
came to the rescue, and his authority as a Latin scholar
was generally conceded to outweigh that of Webster and Felton
put together.

One of the most brilliant men among the Faculty was Professor
Benjamin Peirce.  Undoubtedly he was the foremost American
mathematician of his time.  He dwelt without a companion in
the lofty domain of the higher mathematics.

  A privacy of glorious light is thine.

He was afterward the head of the Coast Survey.  He had little
respect for pupils who had not a genius for mathematics,
and paid little attention to them.  He got out an edition
of Peirce's Algebra while I was in college.  He distributed
the sheets among the students and would accept, instead of
a successful recitation, the discovery of a misprint on its
pages.  The boys generally sadly neglected his department,
which was made elective, I think, after the sophomore year.
At the examinations, which were held by committees appointed
by the Board of Overseers, he always gave to the pupil the
same problem that had been given to him in the last preceding
recitation.  So the boys were prepared to make a decent appearance.
He used to dress in a very peculiar fashion, wearing a queer
little sack and striped trousers which made him look sometimes
as if he were a salesman in a Jew clothing-store.  He had
a remarkably clear and piercing black eye.  One night one
of the students got into the belfry and attached a slender
thread to the tongue of the bell, contrived to lock the door
which led to the tower and carry off the key, then went to
his room in the fourth story of Massachusetts Hall and began
to toll the bell.  The students and the Faculty and proctors
gathered, but nobody could explain the mysterious ringing
of the bell until Peirce came upon the scene.  His sharp eye
perceived the slender line and it was traced to the room where
the roguish fellow who was doing the mischief thought himself
secure.  He was detected and punished.

Peirce gained great fame in the scientific world by his controversy
with Leverrier.  Leverrier, as is well known, discovered some
perturbations in the movement of the planet Herschel, now
more commonly called Uranus, which were not accounted for
by known conditions.  From that he reasoned that there must
be another planet in the neighborhood and, on turning his
glass to the point where his calculations told him the disturbing
body must be, he discovered the planet sometimes called by
his name and sometimes called Neptune.  This discovery created
a great sensation and a burst of admiration for the fortunate
discoverer.  Peirce maintained the astounding proposition
that there was an error in Leverrier's calculations, and that
the discovery was a fortunate accident.  I believe that astronomers
finally came to his conclusion.  I remember once going into
Boston in the omnibus when Peirce got in with a letter in
his hand that he had just got from abroad and saying with
great exultation to Professor Felton, who happened to be there,
"Gauss says I am right."

I got well acquainted with Professor Peirce after I left
College.  He used to come to Washington after I came into
public life.  I found him one of the most delightful of men.
His treatise "Ideality in the Physical Sciences," and one
or two treatises of a religious character which he published,
are full of a lofty and glowing eloquence.  He gave a few
lectures in mathematics to the class which, I believe, were
totally incomprehensible to every one of his listeners with
the possible exception of Child.  He would take the chalk
in his hand and begin in his shrill voice, "If we take," then
he would write an equation in algebraic characters, "thus
we have," following it by another equation or formula.  By
the time he had got his blackboard half covered, he would
get into an enthusiasm of delight.  He would rub the legs
of his pantaloons with his chalky hands and proceed on his
lofty pathway, apparently unconscious of his auditors.  What
has become of all those wonderful results of genius I do not
know.  He was invited to a banquet by the Harvard Alumni in
New York where he was the guest of honor.  Mr. Choate expressed
a grave doubt whether the professor could dine comfortably
without a blackboard.

John W. Webster gave lectures to the boys on chemistry and
geology which they were compelled to attend.  I think the
latter the most tedious human compositions to which I ever
listened.  The doctor seemed a kind-hearted, fussy person.
He was known to the students by the sobriquet of Sky-rocket
Jack, owing to his great interest in having some fireworks
at the illumination when President Everett was inaugurated.
There was no person among the Faculty at Cambridge who seemed
less likely to commit such a bloody and cruel crime as that
for which he was executed.  The only thing that I know which
indicated insensibility was that when he was lecturing one
day in chemistry he told us that in performing the experiment
which he was then showing us a year or two before with some
highly explosive gas a copper vessel had burst and a part
of it had been thrown with great violence into the back of
the bench where a row of students were sitting, but fortunately
the student who sat in that place was absent that day and
nobody was hurt.  He added drily: "The President sent for
me and told me I must be more careful.  He said I should feel
very badly indeed if I had killed one of the students.  And
I should."

There was nothing in my time equivalent to what used to be
called a rebellion in the older days, and I believe no such
event has occurred for the last fifty years.  The nearest
to it was a case which arose in the senior class when I was
a freshman.  One of the seniors, who was a rather dull-witted
but well-meaning youth, concluded that it was his duty to
inform the Faculty of offences committed by his classmates,
a proceeding it is needless to say contrary to all the boys'
sentiments as to honorable conduct.  Some windows had been
broken, including his.  He informed the Faculty of the person
who had broken them, who was rusticated for a short time as
punishment.  The next day being Saturday, this informer, dressed
up in his best, was starting for Boston, when he was seized
by six of his classmates and held under the College pump until
he received a sound ducking.  He seized the finger of one
of them with his teeth and bit it severely, though it was protected
somewhat by a ring.  He complained of five of the six, who
were forthwith suspended until the next Commencement, losing,
of course, their rank in the class and their chances for taking
part in the Commencement exercises.  One of them, of whom
he omitted to tell, was much disturbed by the omission and
demanded of the informer why he left him out.  He said that
he had rather a pity for him, as he had already been suspended
once and he supposed the new offence would lead to his being
expelled.  Whereupon he said, "I will give you some reason
to tell of me," and proceeded to administer a sound caning.
That was at once reported to the Faculty.  The offender was
expelled, and criminal proceedings had which resulted in a
fine.

We had some delightful lectures from Longfellow on the literature
of the Middle Ages.  He read us some of his own original poems
and some beautiful translations.  All the substance of these
lectures I think is to be found in his book entitled "The
Poets and Poetry of the Middle Ages."  I do not see that we
gained anything of solid instruction by having them read to
us that we could not have got as well by reading them.  We
had also a course of lectures from Jared Sparks on American
history.  They were generally dull and heavy, but occasionally
made intensely interesting when he described some stirring
event of the Revolutionary War.  We hung breathless on his
account of the treason of Arnold and its detection and the
class burst out into applause when he ended,--a thing the
like of which never happened in any time in College.  There
was a little smattering of instruction in modern languages,
but it was not of much value.  We had a French professor named
Viau whom the boys tormented unmercifully.  He spoke English
very imperfectly, and his ludicrous mistakes destroyed all
his dignity and rendered it impossible to maintain any discipline
in the class.  He would break out occasionally in despair,
"Young zhentlemen, you do not respect me and I have not given
you any reason to."  A usual punishment for misconduct in those
days was to deduct a certain number of the marks which determined
rank from the scale of the offending student.  M. Viau used
to hold over us this threat, which, I believe, he never executed,
"Young zhentlemen, I shall be obliged to deduce from you."

He was followed by the Comte de la Porte, a gentleman in bearing
and of a good deal of dignity.  The Count was asked one day
by Nat Perry, a member of the class from New Hampshire who
was very proud of his native State and always boasting of
the exploits in war and peace of the people of New Hampshire,
what sort of a French scholar M. Viau, his predecessor, was.
The Count replied:  "He was not a fit teacher for young gentlemen.
He was an ignorant person from the Provinces.  He did not
have the Parisian accent.  He did not know the French language
in its purity.  It would be as if somebody were to undertake
to teach English who came from New Hampshire or some such
place."  The Count said this in entire innocence.  It was
received with a roar of laughter by the class, and the indignation
and wrath of Perry may well be imagined.

Another instructor in modern languages was Dr. Bachi.  He
was a very accomplished gentleman.  His translations of Italian
poetry, especially of Dante and Tasso, were exquisite.  It
was like hearing a sweet and soft music to hear him read his
beloved poets, and he had a singular gift of getting hold
of the most sweet and mellifluous English words for his rendering.
"And he did open his mouth, and from it there did come out
words sweeter than honey."  He once translated to us a passage
in the Inferno where the damned are suspended, head downwards,
with the burning flames resting upon the soles of their feet.
"Ah," exclaimed Bachi, "they do curl up their toes."

My class is not one of the very famous classes of the College.
Certainly it does not equal the class of 1802 or the class
of 1829.  But I think it was, on the whole, very considerably
above the average.  In it were several persons who became
eminent scholars and teachers, and some who have been eminent
in other walks of life.  I think, on the whole, its two most
distinguished members, entitled to hold a greater place than
any others in the memory of future generations, were Dr. Calvin
Ellis, Dean of the Medical Faculty of Harvard, who died in
1883, and Judge Nathan Webb, of the United States District
Court of Maine, who died in 1902.  Neither of these had very
high rank in the class.  The first half of the class used
to have parts assigned at Commencement in those days.  Ellis's
part was very nearly the lowest of the first half.  Webb's
was higher.  Webb entered college very young.  He was quite
small in his stature and was known all though college as "little
Webb."  He grew to a stature of about six feet after he left
college.  He did, I believe, some very hard work indeed in
his senior year.  Although universally liked and respected
by his classmates, he was not regarded as among the eminent
scholars.  Ellis performed all his duties in College very fairly
but did not seem to care much for rank or for scholarship
until, in the senior year, some lectures on anatomy were delivered
by old Dr. John C. Warren.  Ellis was filled with enthusiasm,
as were some of the other members of the class.  He and I
got a skull somewhere and studied bones, processes, and sutures,
both meaning to be physicians.  My zeal lasted but a few weeks.
Ellis's never abated until his death.  He was at the head
of his profession in the country in his own department, became
Dean of the Harvard Medical School, and was loved and revered
by his numerous pupils as by the members of his profession.
He was one of the most simple-hearted, affectionate, spotless
and lovable of men.  He died of a lingering and painful disease,
never losing his courage and patience, or his devoted interest
in science.  Webb was exceedingly fond of his home, not being
very ambitious of higher office, but content to discharge
ably and faithfully and to the universal satisfaction of the
profession and the public, the duty of the important place
he held.  I have seen a good many public men from Maine of
both parties.  They all unite in this estimate of Judge Webb.
There is no doubt that if he had been willing he would long
ago have been made Judge of the Circuit Court, and then if
the seat on the Supreme Court of the United States held by
Mr. Justice Gray of the New England Circuit had become vacant,
I suppose he would have been called from the Circuit Bench to
that Court by almost universal consent.

Three persons, Child, Lane and Short, all very distinguished
scholars in after life, took their place at the head of the
class in the beginning.  Two of them held the same place when
they graduated.  Short was outstripped by Edwin Moses Bigelow,
who is now living, a lawyer, in Boston.  He entered college
from the country not so well fitted when he entered as most
of the class.  But he made his way by an indefatigable diligence
until he graduated with great distinction, the third scholar,
going a little above Short.

Child was a man of great genius.  He seems to me now, as I
look back upon him, to have been as great a man at seventeen
when he entered college, as he was when he died.  He was the
best writer, the best speaker and the best mathematician,
the most accomplished person in his knowledge of general literature
in the class,--indeed, I suppose, in college,--in his day.
He was probably equalled, and I dare say more lately excelled,
by Lane as a Latin scholar, and by Short as a Greek scholar.
He was a great favorite with the class.  He spent his life
in the service of the College.  He was tutor for a short time
and soon succeeded Channing as Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory.
He became one of the most eminent scholars in the country
in early English literature and language.  He edited a collection
of ballads, Little & Brown's edition of the British Poets,
and was a thorough student of Shakespeare and Chaucer.  To
the elucidation of the text of Chaucer he made some admirable
contributions.  He was shy and diffident, full of kindness
toward persons whom he knew and to children, and of sympathy
with persons who were in sorrow, but whimsical, grotesque,
and apt to take strong prejudices against persons whom he
did not know.  I suppose some of the best of our American
men of letters of late years would have submitted their productions
to the criticism of Child as to a master.

Next to him stood Lane, the learned Latin scholar.  I do
not believe that anybody ever went through Harvard College
who performed four years of such constant and strenuous labor.
What he did in his vacations I do not know, but there was
no minute lost in the term time.  It is said that he never
missed attendance on morning and evening prayers but once.
The class were determined that Lane should not go through
college without missing prayers once.  So one night a cord
was fastened to the handle of his door and attached to the
rail of the staircase.  But Lane succeeded in wrenching open
the door and got to morning prayers in time.  He was the monitor,
whose duty it was to mark the students who were absent from
prayers and who were punished for absence by a deduction
from their rank and, if the absences were frequent enough,
by a more severe penalty.  The next time the measures were
more effective.  Lane's chum, Ellis, was in the conspiracy.
The students bored holes carefully into the door and into
the jamb by the side and took a quantity of hinges and screwed
them carefully on to the door and the jamb.  When Lane got
ready to start for prayers in the morning, he found it impossible
to open the door.  As soon as he discovered what was the trouble,
he seized his hatchet and undertook to cut his way out.  His
chum, Ellis, who had remained quietly in bed, sprang out
of bed and placed his back against the door and declared
that the door of his room should not be hewn down in that
manner.  Lane was obliged to desist.  He however took his
monitor's book, marked himself and his chum absent, and submitted.
There were a good many such pranks played by the boys in those
days, in the spirit of a harmless and good-natured mischief.
I do not know whether the College has improved in the particular
or no.  I do not think anybody in my day would have defaced
the statue of John Harvard.

Whether Lane will go farther down on the path to immortality
as the author of the admirable Latin Grammar to which he gave
so much of his life or as author of the song, "The Lone Fish
Ball," posterity alone will determine.

Charles Short, the third of the three whom I named as standing
at the head of the class, became President of Kenyon College
and afterward Professor of Latin in Columbia College.  He
was one of the committee to prepare the revised version of
the Scriptures, and contributed largely to the Harpers' excellent
Latin Dictionary.

Another of our famous scholars was Fitzedward Hall, who died
lately in England.  He was a very respectable scholar in the
ordinary college studies, but he attained no special distinction
in them as compared with the others whom I have mentioned.
He became, however, quite early, interested in Arabic and
other Oriental languages, a study which he pursued, I think,
without the help of an instructor.  He had a very remarkable
career.  After graduating, he sailed for the East Indies with
a view to pursue there the study of the Oriental languages
and literature.  He took with him letters of introduction
to influential persons in Calcutta, and, of course, a sufficient
supply of funds.  But the vessel on which he was a passenger
was wrecked as it approached the shore.  He got ashore with
difficulty, drenched with sea-water, having lost his letters
of introduction and of credit, and with no resources but a
few coins which happened to be in his pockets.  He knew nobody
in Calcutta.  He disliked very much to present himself to
the persons to whom he had been commended by his friends in
America in that sorry plight with the possibility that he
might be suspected of being an impostor.  Accordingly, he
determined that he would take care of himself.  He walked
about the street to see what he could find to do.  As he went
along he saw the sign of the _Oriental Quarterly Review._
He went in and inquired for the editor and asked him if he
would accept an article.  The editor said that he would consider
it if it were brought in.  Hall then went out and found a
bookstore.  Going in he spied a copy of Griswold's "Poets
and Poetry of America." With a pencil and some sheets of paper,
he wrote an article on American literature, filled up with
pretty copious extracts.  He took it to the editor of the
_Review_ who paid him for it, I think five pounds, and told
him that he should be happy to have him make other contributions.
Hall supported himself by writing for that review and some
other periodicals published by the same concern until he could
send home, get new letters of introduction and credit and
support himself as a gentleman.  He spent three years in Calcutta
studying Hindostanee and Persian, and afterward, Bengalee
and Sanscrit.  Later he removed to Benares, where he was appointed
to a tutorship in the Government College.  Then he became
professor and afterward Inspector of Schools for Ajmere and
Mairwara.  He was in a besieged fort for seven months during
the Indian Mutiny.  He received the degree of D.C.L. from
Oxford in 1860.  He went to London afterward to promote the
election of Max Mueller as professor at Oxford.  While there
he was himself made professor of Sanscrit and of Indian jurisprudence
in London University.  I saw him in England, I think in 1871,
when he was librarian of the great library of the East India
Company, having in charge not only a vast library, but the
archives of the East India Company going back beyond the time
of Cromwell.  He showed me many interesting letters and documents
in manuscript of Cromwell, Nelson and other famous persons.
Professor Edward B. Whitney once told me that with the exception
of Max Mueller he considered Hall the foremost Oriental scholar
in the world.  I suppose Hall would have said the same of
Professor Whitney.

Hall maintained his sturdy Americanism throughout his long
life in England.  He was ready at all times to do battle,
in public or in private, when his countrymen were attacked.
I think, in many cases, if he had been at home, he would have
attacked the same things with which the Englishmen found fault.
He could not bear Ruskin.  He thought he, himself, as an American
had to endure much contempt and injury from Englishmen because
of Ruskin's bitter and contemptuous speech.  But when we consider
that he was an American we must admit that England treated
him very well.  He had, I suppose, the most welcome admission
to all their scientific journals.  In his time he was employed
on the very best and most important work done in England
in his line.  He was professor of Hindostanee and of Hindoo
law and Indian jurisprudence in King's College in London,
also of the Sanscrit language and literature, and Indian
history and geography.  In April, 1865, he was made Librarian
of the India Office, having in his charge the best collection
of Oriental manuscripts in the world, twenty thousand in
number.

While the catalogues of the libraries show a large number
of books published under his name, he said that the greater
part of his work had been anonymous.

In 1893 he wrote to a London magazine:  "Although I have lived
away from America upwards of forty-six years, I feel to this
hour, that in writing English I am writing a foreign language."

Next in rank to Child, Lane, Bigelow and Short was Judge Soule.
Next to him came George Cheyne Shattuck Choate, one of the
well-known family of brothers of that name, sons of a Salem
physician.  Choate became a physician himself.  He was at
the head of the Massachusetts Institution for the Insane at
Trenton.  He afterward had an establishment of his own near
New York, where Horace Greeley was under his care.  I saw
little of him after we graduated.  But he was nearly or quite
at the head of his department in the country.  It is said
that his testimony in court involving questions of medical
jurisprudence was wonderful for its beauty, its precision
and its profound analysis.

But I am inclined to think that the one member of our class
whose fame will last to remote posterity, a fame which he
will owe to a single poem, is Walter Mitchell.  He was a
very bright and accomplished person in college and a great
favorite with his friends.  He studied law, but afterward
determined to become a clergyman and took orders in the Episcopal
Church.  I have never heard him preach, but I have no doubt
from his distinction as a writer and scholar in college that
he is an excellent preacher.  But his poem of the sea entitled
"Tacking the Ship off Fire Island" is one of the most spirited
and perfect of its kind in literature.  You can hear the wind
blow and feel the salt in your hair as you read it.  I once
heard it read by Richard Dana to the Phi Beta Kappa Society
at Harvard, and again by that most accomplished elocutionist,
E. Harlow Russell.  I never read it or hear it without a renewed
admiration.

But the brightest, raciest, wittiest, liveliest, spunkiest of
all the youths was Daniel Sargent Curtis, one of the race
of that name so well known in Boston for excellence in various
departments.  Curtis was the son, I believe, of Thomas B.
Curtis, the merchant, a nephew of Charles P. Curtis, the
eminent lawyer, and a cousin of Judge Benjamin R. Curtis.
I do not know what he would not have made of himself if he
had cultivated his great literary capacity.  Certainly if
he had performed the promise of his boyhood he would have
been one of the foremost men in American literature.  He
studied law but pretty soon became a banker.  Soon after
he took up his residence in Italy, where I suppose he is
living now.  He produced some serious poetry which he read
to some college societies.  I hope for the credit of the class
and for the country and his name he may have done something
in later years which will be given to the world.  It is said,
I know not how truly, that he was for many years a near neighbor
and intimate friend of Browning.  When he was in college and
in the Law School the boys used to enliven all social gatherings
by repeating his good jests as, in later years, the lawyers
did those of Rufus Choate, or the people in public life in
Washington still later, those of Evarts.  Such things lose
nine-tenths of their flavor in the repetition and nine parts
of the other tenth when they are put in writing.  Curtis was
quite small in stature but he was plucky as a gamecock, and
a little dandyish in his dress.  It is said that when he was
a freshman, the boys at the Cambridge High School, a good
many of whom were much bigger than he was, undertook to throw
snowballs at him one day as he went by.  Whereupon Curtis
marched up to the biggest boy and told him if another snowball
were thrown at him he would thrash him and he might pass it
over to the boy who did it.  The result was that Curtis was
not troubled again.

You could not attack or rally him without some bright reply.
Horace Gray, afterward the judge, went shooting one day and
met Curtis as he was coming back with his gun over West Boston
Bridge.  Curtis asked him if he had shot anything.  Gray said,
"No, nothing but a hawk in Watertown.  I stopped at the Museum
as I came by, and gave it to Agassiz." "I suppose Agassiz
said 'Accipter,'" said Curtis.

When Professor Greenleaf resigned his place at the Dane Law
School, much to the regret of the students, it was proposed
to secure a likeness of him for the lecture room.  There was
some discussion whether it should be a bust or a picture,
and if a bust what should be the material.  Curtis said: "Better
make it Verd Antique.  That means Old Green."

Dr. Beck once required his class each to bring a Latin epigram.
Dan Curtis, who was not very fond of work unless it was in
the line of his own tastes, sent in the following:

  Fugiunt.  Qui fugiunt?  Galli; tunc moriar contentus.

"What is that, Curtis?" said the Doctor.  "Dying words of
Wolfe, sir," replied Curtis.  "Ah," said the Doctor with
great satisfaction.  He thought it was Wolf the famous Greek
scholar, and thought the epigram highly to Curtis's credit.

I have still in my memory a very bright poem of his.  I do
not think I ever saw or read it written or in print.  But
I remember hearing it read in one of the college clubs more
than fifty years ago.  He has Longfellow's style very happily,
including the dropping from a bright and sometimes a sublime
line to one which is flat and commonplace, as for instance
in the ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington.

  Meantime without the surly cannon waited,
  The sky gleamed overhead.
  Nothing in Nature's aspect indicated
  That a great man was dead.

This is Curtis's poem:

  Wrapped in musing dim and misty,
  Sit I by the fitful flame;
  And my thoughts steal down the vista
  Of old time, as in a dream.

  Here the hero held his quarters,
  Whom America holds dear;
  He beloved of all her daughters,
  Formerly resided here.

  Here you often might have seen him,
  Silvery white his reverend scalp,
  Frowned above a mighty chapeau
  Like a storm-cap o'er the Alp.

  Up and down these rooms the hero
  Oftentimes would thoughtful stray,
  Walking now toward the window,
  Stalking then again away.

  By the fireside, quaintly moulded
  Oft his humid boots would lie;
  And his queer surtout was folded
  On some strange old chair to dry.

  In the yard where now before me
  Underclothes, wind-wafted hang
  Waved the banners of an army;
  Warriors strode with martial clang.

  These things now are all departed,
  With us on the earth no more,
  But the chieftain, noble-hearted,
  Comes to visit me once more.

  In he comes without permission,
  Sits him down before mine eyes,
  Then I tremble and demnition
  Curious thoughts within me rise.

  Slow he speaks in accents solemn,
  Life is all an empty hum,
  Man, by adulation only
  Can'st thou ever great become.

I ought perhaps to mention a young man of most brilliant
promise, an excellent scholar and a great favorite, who died
before the class graduated, on a voyage to the East Indies
which he undertook in the hope of restoring his health,--
Augustus Enoch Daniels.  He left behind him one _bon mot_
which is worth recording.  We were translating one day one
of the choruses in AEschylus, I think in the Agamemnon, where
the phrase occurs [Greek omitted], meaning "couches unvisited
by the wind," which he most felicitously rendered "windlass
bedsteads."  Such is the vanity of human life that it is not
uncommon that some hardworking, faithful and bright scholar
is remembered only for one single saying, as Hamilton in the
House of Commons was remembered for his single speech.  Another
instance of this is that worthy and excellent teacher of Latin
and Professor of History, Henry W. Torrey.  He was an instructor
in college in our time, afterward left the college to teach
a young ladies' school and came back again later as a Professor.
I presume if any member of the class of 1846 were asked about
Torrey he would say: "Oh, yes.  He was an excellent Latin
scholar, an excellent teacher in elocution and in history.
But all I remember of him is that on one occasion a man who
professed to be learned in Egyptian antiquities advertised a
course of lectures, one of which was to be illustrated by
unrolling from a mummy the bandages which had been untouched
since its interment, many centuries before Christ.  The savant
claimed to be able to read the inscription on the cloth in
which the mummy was wrapped and declared that it was the corpse
of an Egyptian princess, whose name and history he related.
Having given this narrative and excited the expectation of
his auditors, the wrappers were taken off and, alas, it turned
out to be the body of a man.  The poor professor was, of course,
much disconcerted and his lectures, I believe, came to a sudden
ending.  Mr. Torrey said that 'it was undoubtedly the corpse
of Spurius Mummius.'"

But no account of my class ought to omit the name of Henry
Whitney.  He was a universal favorite.  In all the disputes
which arose in all the divisions of sets or sections, Whitney
maintained the regard and affection of the whole class.

After graduating he was a very successful and influential
business man in Boston and was President of the Boston &
Providence Railroad, which under his masterly administration,
attained a very high degree of prosperity.  I think he corresponded
with every member of the class, and did more to preserve and
create a kindly class feeling than any other member.  It seemed
when he died as if half the college had died.  He was a man
of great refinement and scholarship, and was fond of collecting
rare books.  He had a great many editions of Milton which
he liked to exhibit to his friends.  He had a most delightful
wit, and was the author of some very good songs and other
humorous poetry.

I do not of course undertake to give sketches of all my classmates,
either the living or the dead, or those who have attained
distinction as useful and honorable members of society.  So
far as I know their career since they left college, there
is none of them of whom the class or the college need be ashamed.

The different classes had not much intercourse with each
other unless it happened in the case of boys who came from
the same town, or who came from the same school, until late
in the college course, when the members of the Hasty Pudding
Club and the Porcellian, the two principal secret societies,
formed intimacies beyond their own class in the meetings
of those clubs.  There were some persons in the classes near
mine, both below and above me, with whom I had an acquaintance
in college which grew into a cordial friendship in the Law
School or in later life.  Perhaps, taking him all together,
the most brilliant man in Harvard in my time was John Felton.
He went to California and became afterward unquestionably
the greatest lawyer they have ever had on the Pacific Coast.
He was in the class after mine.  I knew him slightly in our
undergraduate days.  But when I went to the Law School in
September, 1847, we boarded together in the same house.  We
speedily became intimate and used to take long walks together
of three or four hours every day.  We rambled about Watertown
and Brighton and Somerville and West Cambridge and had long
discussions about law and politics and poetry and metaphysics
and literature and our own ambitions and desires.  We were
constantly in each other's rooms, and often sat up together,
sometimes until the constellations set, with the wasteful,
time-consuming habits of boyhood.

  Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights,
  How oft, unwearied, have we spent the nights
  In search of deep philosophy,
  Wit, eloquence and poetry,--
  Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

John came of a distinguished family.  His brother Cornelius
was a famous Greek professor, one of the most striking figures
about Cambridge.  Another brother was Samuel M. Felton, the
most distinguished civil engineer in the country of his time;
builder of the Fitchburg railroad, afterward builder and President
of the Pennsylvania Railroad; the man who conceived the plan
of getting the New England troops into Washington by the way
of Annapolis when Baltimore was in the power of the Rebels.
Another brother was quite distinguished in college in the
class of 1851.  John after he graduated went to California
and never came back from the Pacific Coast or kept up his
communication with his old friends, although he received them
with great hospitality, I am told, when they went out there.
I think he had a fancy that he would keep to himself until
he could come back in some great place, like that of Senator
or Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States.  He was
a candidate for the Senate at one time, but was defeated by
a much inferior man.  He was fond of argument; never was
contented without challenging somebody and was a very tough
customer to encounter, whatever side of a question he chose
to take.  He liked, however, nothing better than a sturdy
resistance.  To yield to him was never the way to win his
good will.  The first day when we went to live at the same
boarding-house, I got into a hot dispute with him at dinner
over the Wilmot Proviso, and the constitutional power of Congress
to legislate against slavery in the territories, which was
then a burning question.  John took the Southern side of that
question, although I dare say he would have taken the other
if a Southerner had introduced it, and we got pretty zealous
on both sides and walked home together continuing the argument
as we walked.  As we separated, Felton said: "We will continue
this discussion to-morrow.  Meantime, won't you look up the
history of the matter a little?"  "Yes," said I, "and won't
you study up a little on Whately's Logic?"  The answer seemed
to delight Felton, and he took me into high favor.  I never
knew a man of such ready wit, although I have known a good
many famous wits in my day.  But all these things evaporate
with time.  Or, if you remember them, they are vapid and tasteless
in the telling, like champagne which has been uncorked for
a week.  We were one day discussing some question of law at
the table, and John, who had not yet begun to study law himself,
put in his oar as usual, when Charles Allen, afterward Judge
of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, turned on him with some
indignation.  "What do you know about it, Johnny? You don't
know what a quantum meruit is." "If you had it, 't would kill
you," said Felton.  He was invited to the dinner given by
the people of Nevada in honor of their admission as a State,
and there was some discussion about a device for a State
seal.  Felton suggested that the Irish emblem would be the
most appropriate, the "Lyre and shamrock."  Once after deciding
a case in his favor, Mr. Justice Field said to him: "Felton,
I have made great use of your brief in my opinion." "Always
do that, Judge," said Felton.  He possessed considerable capacity
for poetry, although I do not know that he cultivated it much
after he left college.  He delivered a very successful poem
at Commencement, and gave the Phi Beta Kappa poem the next
year and read some very witty verses at the Society's dinner
the same day.  He was much distressed over choosing a subject,
and put off and put off writing his poem till within a few
days of the time when it was to be delivered.  And he finally
resolved, in a fit of desperation, that he would go into his
room, shut his eyes, turn round three times and take for his
subject the first object on which they rested when he opened
them.  That happened to be a horseshoe which he had picked
up in the street and hung over his fireplace for luck.  He
made a charming poem from this subject, on Superstition.  The
opening lines are:

  Just over the way, with its front to the street,
  Up one flight of stairs, is a room snug and neat,
  With a prospect Mark Tapley right jolly would call;--
  Two churches, one graveyard, one bulging brick wall,
  Where, raven-like, Science gloats over its wealth,
  And the skeleton grins at the lectures on health.
  The tree by the window has twice hailed the Spring
  Since we circled its trunk our last chorus to sing.
  Maidens laughed at our shouts, they knew better than we;
  And the world clanked its chains as we cried, "We are free."
  On the wall hangs a Horseshoe I found in the street;
  'Tis the shoe that to-day sets in motion my feet
  'Tis a comfort, while Europe to freedom awoke
  Is peeping like chickens just free from their yolk
  To think Pope and Monarch their kingdoms may lose;
  Yet I hang my subject wherever I choose.

He goes on in a more serious strain to sketch the history
of superstition and ends with an eloquent aspiration for a
day of universal peace:

  As now my thoughts like clustering bees have clung
  To thee, my Horseshoe, o'er the lintel hung,
  The future bard, with song more richly fraught,--
  Some reverenced wrong the nucleus of his thought,
  Some relic crown or virtuoso's gun,
  Some nation's banner when all earth is one,--
  Back through the past in mournful strain shall wind
  Where demon fancies vex the darkling mind,
  Where light but faintly streaks the dappled sky,
  Nor Morn has shot his glittering shafts on high;
  Trembling with grief and hope, his lyre shall thrill
  To twilight times of blending good and ill,
  Where whizz of bullets, and the clanking chain,
  Jar on the praise of Peace and Freedom's reign.
  In louder strains shall burst the exulting close,
  That sounds the triumph o'er the struggling foes,--
  The slave unbound, War's iron tongues all dumb,--
  His glorious Present, our all hail To Come,
  All hail To Come, when East and West shall be--
  While rolls between the undividing sea--
  Two, like the brain, whose halves ne'er think apart,
  But beat and tremble to one throbbing heart!

He took what was then an unusual method of making himself
a good lawyer.  That was to begin to deal with a legal principle
in historic order, going back to the first case where it was
announced and tracing it down through the reports, making
no use of text-books.  That was the way the old lawyers before
Blackstone got their training.  I have been told, though that
happened after I left Cambridge, that he and Professor Langdell,
the eminent teacher at Harvard who had introduced that method
with so much success, studied together.  Whether it was Felton's
plan or Langdell's I do not know.

John Felton died suddenly in May, 1877.  Everybody who comes
to Washington from California who is old enough speaks with
pleasure of his knowledge of Felton and is full of stories
of his brilliant wit.  He had probably the largest fees ever
received by an American lawyer.  He is said by his biographer
to have received a fee of a million dollars in one case.  His
death was received with universal sorrow.  All the places
of business and amusement were closed and the flags displayed
at half mast on the day of his funeral.

Another rather interesting figure among the men of the classes
above me was Thomas Hill, afterward President of the College.
He was a good mathematician and a good preacher.  But he was
not as successful in the Presidency as his friends hoped.
The only thing I remember about him of any importance is highly
to his credit.  One winter's day a little gaunt-looking and
unhappy pig that had strayed away from a drove wandered into
the College Yard just as the boys were coming out of evening
prayers.  The whole surface of the yard was covered with a
sheet of thin and very slippery ice.  It was rather hard to
stand up on it.  The boys came across the pig, which was frightened
and attempted to run.  After running a little, he would slip
on the ice and slide and tumble over, and then gather himself
up again and try once more.  There was a general shout and
a general chase.  Poor piggy strove to elude his pursuers.
His own tail was a little slippery, so that if a boy caught
it he did not hold it long.  The whole college, pretty much,
engaged in the pursuit, which certainly seemed to be great
fun.  But, on a sudden, there was a loud, angry shout from
a stentorian voice as Tom Hill jumped in among the pursuers,
who were just on the point of conquering the bewildered animal.
"For shame.  Take one of your size." The boys saw the point,
were filled with mortification, desisted, and allowed the
poor creature to go in peace.

The boys generally boarded in the College Commons, where they
could board for $2.25 a week on one side, and on the other
called "starvation commons" for $1.75 a week.  In the latter
they had meat only every other day.  A few of the sons of
the wealthier families boarded in private houses where the
rate of board varied from $3 to $3.50 a week.  The rooms were
furnished very simply, almost always without carpets, though
in rare instances the floors would be covered with a cheap
carpet which did not last very well under the wear and tear
of boyish occupation.  The students generally made their own
fires and blacked their own boots and drew their own water.
But there was a family of negroes named Lewis who performed
those services for such boys as desired, at a compensation
of $5 or $6 a term.  The patriarch of this race was a very
interesting old character.  He was said to be one hundred
years old.  He was undoubtedly very near it.  One morning,
just as we were coming out of the morning prayers, shortly
after six o'clock, old Mr. Lewis drove by with a horse which
he was said to have bought for $5, and a wagon of about the
same value.  He had a load of all sorts of vegetables which
he had raised in his little garden near where the Arsenal
stood and was carrying into Boston to market.  One of his
old wheels broke and the wagon came down, spilling the old
fellow himself and his load of vegetables.  He lay there flat
on his back, unable to get up, surrounded by turnips and
squashes and onions and potatoes, etc.  As he lay with his
black face and his white, grizzled poll, he was a most ludicrous
spectacle.  One of us asked him:  "Why, Mr. Lewis, what is
the matter?"  "Well," he said with a mournful tone, "I laid
eaout to go into Boston."

I suppose there was more turbulence and what would be called
rowdyism in my day than now.  At any rate I do not hear of
such things very often nowadays.  But it was usually of a
harmless character.  There were very few instances indeed
of what would be called dissipation, still fewer of actual
vice.  The only game which was much in vogue was foot-ball.
There was a little attempt to start the English game of cricket
and occasionally, in the spring, an old-fashioned, simple
game which we called base was played.  But the chief game
was foot-ball, which was played from the beginning of the
September term until the cold weather set in, and sometimes,
I believe, in the spring.  It was very unlike the game as at
present carried on.  After evening prayers, which were over
about five or ten minutes after six, the boys repaired to
the foot-ball ground and ranged themselves on sides nearly
equal in number.  If one side thought they were not fairly
matched they would shout, "More, more," until enough went
over to them from the other side to make it about equal.  Then
one of the best kickers gave the ball a kick toward the other
side of the field, and there was a rush and an attempt to
get it past the goal.  Nobody was allowed to pick up the foot-
ball, or to run with it in his hand.  A fast runner and good
kicker who could get the ball a little outside of the line
of his antagonists could often make great progress with it
across the field before he was intercepted.  It was allowable
to trip up one of the other side by thrusting the foot before
him.  But touching an opponent with the hand would have been
resented as an assault and insult.  The best foot-ball players
were not the strongest men but the swiftest runners, as a
rule.

The practice of hazing freshmen during a few weeks after
their entering was carried on sometimes under circumstances
of a good deal of cruelty.  One boy in my class was visited
by a party of sophomores, treated with a good deal of indignity,
and his feelings extremely outraged.  He was attacked by a
fever shortly afterward of which he died.  During his last
hours, in his delirium, he was repeating the scenes of this
visit to his room.  His father thought that the indignity
caused his death.  Another was taken out from his room in
his night clothes, tied into a chair and left on the public
commons in the cold.  It was a long time before he was discovered
and rescued.  A heavy cold and a fit of sickness were the consequence.

There was an entertaining custom of giving out what were called
mock parts when the real parts for the exhibitions or Commencement
were announced.  They were read out from a second-story window
to an assemblage of students in the yard, and after the real
parts had been given some mock parts were read.  Usually some
peculiarity of the person to whom they were assigned was made
the object of good-natured ridicule in the selection of the
subject.  For example, one boy, who was rather famous for
smoking other fellows' cigars and never having any of his
own, had assigned to him as a subject, "The Friendships of
this Life all Smoke."

When the parts were assigned for the Commencement, which
were given usually to the first half of the class, there was a
procession of what was called the Navy Club and an assignment
of honors which were in the reverse order of excellence to
that observed in the regular parts.  The Lord High Admiral
was supposed to be the worst scholar in the class,--if possible,
one who had been rusticated twice during the college course.
The laziest man in the class was Rear Admiral.  Then there
was a Powder Monkey and a Coxswain, and other naval officers,
who were generally famous for what used to be called demerits.
The members of the class to whom parts were assigned were
called "digs" and marched in the procession, each with a spade
on his shoulder, the first scholar, who in our class was Child,
as the "dig of digs," having a spade of huge dimensions.
I believe James Russell Lowell was the Lord High Admiral in
his class.  The Rear Admiral in mine was borne about on a
couch or litter, supported by four men, having another one
marching by his side to carry his pipe, which he was supposed
to be too lazy to put into his mouth or take out of his mouth
himself.  The procession had banners bearing various devices
and went around to take leave of the President and the different
professors, giving them cheers at their houses.  President
Everett, who was a serious-minded person, was much offended
by the whole proceeding.  He sent for some members of the
class and remonstrated; told them he had been obliged to apologize
to his English servant-girl for such an exhibition.  I believe
our class was the last one which performed this harmless and
highly entertaining ceremony.

One of my classmates, afterward a worthy physician, was a
tall man, older considerably than the rest of the class.  He
used to wear an old-fashioned blue, straight-bodied coat
with brass buttons, a buff vest, and nankeen pantaloons which
were said to have come down as an heirloom in his family from
a remote generation.  He was addicted to rather a pompous
style of speech.  He was very fond of playing the bass-viol,
of which he was by no means a very skilful master.  He had,
as a subject for his mock part, "The Base Violation of all
Rules of Harmony."  One Sunday evening he had a few friends
with him who were singing psalm tunes to the accompaniment
of his bass-viol.  They made a prodigious noise, not at all
to the liking of the proctor who had the care of the discipline
of that entry, which was in Holworthy.  He went to the room
from which the noise issued.  It was locked and he had some
difficulty in getting in.  The persons assembled, instead
of maintaining their place, betook themselves to hiding places
in the inner rooms.  My classmate, however, stood his ground
like a Roman and told the officer that his room was his castle
and that he had no right to come in.  The matter was reported
to the Faculty and the musician sent for.  Instead of submitting
himself, however, he maintained very sturdily that the visit
of the official to his room was an outrage which he ought
not be asked to endure.  He made quite an oration to the Faculty.
Thereupon he was sentenced, more for his contumacy than for
the original offence, to suspension from the college for two
or three months.  The class were very indignant and determined
to manifest their indignation in a way that should be understood.
They got a chariot with six white horses which drove up to
his door in Holworthy at midday.  Nearly the whole college
assembled to see him off.  He came out and took his seat in
solitary state in the chariot.  Some eight or ten of the class
on horseback accompanied him as outriders.  They drove into
Boston to the front door of the Tremont House in great state.
It was just at the time the Governor-General of Canada, I
think Lord Elgin, was expected in Boston on a great occasion
in the history of the city.  The waiters and landlord at the
Tremont House thought the English nobleman had arrived and
hurried down the steps to open the door and meet him.  But
he got out of his carriage with his carpet-bag in his hand
and disappeared in a humble fashion round the corner.  The
Faculty were very indignant and thought of disciplining severely
the members of the class who had got up the burlesque, especially
the outriders.  Edward Everett then had under consideration
the question whether he would accept the Presidency of the
College.  It was thought that if a rebellion occurred then
he would decide against undertaking the responsibility.  So
they let the whole matter pass.

The principal figure in this scene used to be a thorn in
the flesh of Professor Channing.  He used to insert very
pompous and magniloquent sentences in his themes, much to
Channing's disgust.  One day Channing took up a theme and
held it up and called out, X.  X. came to the chair by the
Professor's side, and the Professor read, in his shrill voice:
"'The sable sons of Afric's burning coast.'  You mean negroes,
I suppose."  He admitted that he did.  The Professor took
his pen and drew a line over the sentence he had read and
substituted the word "negroes" above the line, much to X.'s
mortification.

I was guilty of one practical joke of which I have repented
all my days, but for which the poetical justice of Providence
administered to me, many years afterward, a punishment in
kind.  There was a classmate who sat next to me in the recitation
in the sophomore year, whom everybody knew and liked, but
who was not very much interested in study.  He got along as
he best could by his native wits and such little application
as he found absolutely necessary.  One day we were reciting
in Lowth's Grammar.  The Bishop says that in English the substantive
singular is made plural for the most part by adding s.  Professor
Channing called up this classmate of mine, who stated this
as follows:  "The author says that the distinction between
nouns in the singular and plural is that the latter end in
s."  "Is that a good distinction?" asked the Professor.  My
neighbor answered with great confidence, "No, sir," as he
was well warranted in doing from the form of the question.
"Can't you give us some instance of words in the singular
number that end in s?" said the Professor.  My friend, who
was considerable embarrassed, stammered, was staggered, and
hesitated a moment.  I whispered in his ear, "Hoss," on which
he, without any reflection, blurted out, "Hoss."  There was
a roar of laughter from the class, and the poor fellow sat
down, much distressed at his blunder.  Channing dismissed
the class, and the next day gave us a lecture.  He said our
uproarious laughter had disturbed Dr. Walker's recitation
in the neighboring room, "especially you, Curtis, with your
pit laugh."  I ought to have risen up instantly and avowed
myself the guilty cause of my classmate's innocent blunder.
But, much to my own shame and disgrace, I did not do it.  But
some forty years afterward, I was engaged in an earnest discussion
in the Senate Chamber with Butler of South Carolina, at the
time of the passage of the first Civil Service law.  Butler
favored the law and his whole bearing in the discussion was
exceedingly proper and creditable.  We were talking of some
prohibition, of some clause forbidding the imposing assessments
upon office-holders for political purposes, and it was proposed
to except from the prohibition voluntary contributions for
proper election purposes.  Butler asked me what I should consider
improper election purposes.  I hesitated a moment when Miller
of California, who was a man of a good deal of fun, whispered
in my ear, "Buying shotguns to shoot negroes with," which
I, without reflecting and indeed hardly conscious of what
I was saying, repeated aloud.  Butler, who was a man of high
spirit, and quick temper, was furious.  He came down upon
me with a burst of wrath.  I tried to interrupt him.  But
he was so angry that it was impossible to interrupt him and
said something which made it seem to me impossible either
to explain or apologize.  But I regretted the transaction
exceedingly, and have always considered that I was well punished
for my joke at the expense of my unhappy classmate.

An anecdote came down from a class before my time which I
think ought not to be lost.  One of the boys when the cold
weather came on in the first term of his freshman year took
out from the college library a book which was nearly the largest
and thickest volume it contained.  It was the works of Bishop
Williams, who I think was one of the seven bishops persecuted
by James II.  The book contained an exceedingly dull treatise
on theology.  The youth had no special literary tastes, of
which anybody knew, and that was the only book he was ever
known to take out.  He kept it out the six weeks which were
allowed, and then renewed it, not taking it back to the library
until the hot weather of the following summer.  He repeated
this in his sophomore and junior and senior years.  Dr. Harris,
the librarian, was very much puzzled and asked some of the
boys if they could tell him why this young man kept Bishop
Williams's works so constantly.  None of the boys knew.  They
used to see it lying on his table, but never saw any signs
of his reading it.  At last one winter night late in the senior
year something happened which caused a good deal of excitement.
Several of the boys who were down in the yard rushed up in
great haste to this classmate's room.  It happened to be unlocked.
They got in without knocking and found him undressed with
nothing on but his nightgown.  His bed happened to be near
the fire, and standing up on the edge in front of the fire
was Bishop Williams's works.  It turned out that he was in
the habit of thoroughly warming the book and then of putting
it in the bed before he got in himself, so that it would serve
the function of a warming-pan.  The young gentleman turned
out in after life to be a very distinguished Bishop himself,
an eminent champion of the doctrines of the Episcopal Church,
which he had doubtless acquired by absorption.

The boys were always ready for mischief and always kind and
easily moved to sympathy.  One day just before prayers there
was found on the square in front of Willard's Hotel a large
load of straw.  The owner had stopped and unhitched his horses
to feed them at Willard's stable.  Some mischievous boy set
fire to the load and it burned with a blaze which illuminated
the whole neighborhood.  Pretty soon the owner appeared in
a state of great distress; said he was a very poor man; that
he was moving his household furniture and that his beds, chairs,
and all the goods he had in the world were in the cart covered
up with the straw.  The boys immediately took up a subscription
and sent the fellow off well satisfied with his sale.  It
was said he got about twice as much as the value he set on
all his goods, and that about a week after he appeared with
another load of straw which he left exposed in the same place
at the same time in the afternoon.  I believe that was not
molested.

The people of Cambridge in those days were a quiet folk.
The students did not go much into the society of the town
unless they happened to have some kindred there.  There were
a great many old houses, some of which are standing now, built
before the Revolutionary War.  Some had been occupied by old
Tories.  Among them was the Craigie House still standing,
having been Washington's headquarters, and now more famous
still as the residence of Longfellow.  There were a few old
gentlemen wandering about the streets who were survivors of
the generation which just followed the Revolutionary War,
among them Dr. Jennison, the old physician, and Dr. Popkin,
the old Greek professor, of whom a delightful life was written
by President Felton.  Mr. Sales, an old Spaniard, had given
lessons in Spanish from time immemorial.  He was a queer looking
old gentleman, who had his gray hair carefully dressed every
day by a barber, wearing an ancient style of dress, covered
with snuff, but otherwise scrupulously neat.  He had a curious
bend and walk, which made him seem a little like a dog walking
on his hind legs.  He was very fond of the boys and they
of him.  He made full allowance for the exuberance of youth.
Two careless students who were driving in a sleigh ran against
him in the street and knocked him over and injured him severely.
But the old fellow would not betray their names and had nothing
to say when somebody talked severely of their carelessness
but "Oh, oh, young blood, young blood."  I never saw him in
the least disturbed or angry with anything the boys said or
did except on one occasion.  Henry Whitney said, in reciting
in Don Quixote, in the course of some discussion, "By Jingo,
Mr. Sales."  Sales was struck with horror.  He said it was
the most horrible phrase that ever came from the lips of mortal
man, and he should think the walls of the building where they
were would fall down on Whitney's head and overwhelm him.
What awful and mysterious meaning the words "by Jingo" had
for the old Spanish gentleman we never could discover.  He
declined to give any explanation and treated the subject
as one to be avoided with horror ever after.  I commend the
question to the consideration of philologists.

The treatment of the students in general by the authorities
and the college was stern, austere and distant.  The students
had little social intercourse with the families or the professors,
except such of them as had relatives in Cambridge, which allowed
intercourse with the families of the professors.  The professors
did nothing to encourage familiarity, or even to encourage
any request for help in the difficulties of study.  Indeed
a boy who did that fell into disfavor with his companions,
and was called a fish.

President Eliot in some speech, I think before the graduates
of the Latin School, speaking of his life as a boy, said
he had a great respect for his little self.  I cannot say that
of my young self at Harvard.  My time was largely wasted
in novel reading or reading books which had not much to do
with the college studies, and lounging about in my own room
or that of other students.  I am not sure that the period of
growth from sixteen to twenty is one when it is good for a
youth to study hard.  So far as my observation extends the
poor scholars who have graduated at Harvard become as useful
and eminent men in after life as the good scholars.  I do
not now think of any person, who has graduated first scholar
since Edward Everett, who became in after life a very great
man, although some of them have been very respectable.  Judge
Thomas Russell, who was first in the class before mine, was
a very successful and brilliant man, performing admirably
everything that he undertook.  He was a good judge of the
Superior Court, a good minister to Venezuela, a good advocate,
and an excellent political speaker.  But he never attained
a place in the world equal to that of his classmate Gray,
who, if I remember right, did not have a part at Commencement.
Professor Child gained great distinction in his chosen field,
but, I incline to think, would have gained the same distinction
if he had devoted himself to the same pursuits and had never
entered college at all.  The first scholar in the class of
1843, the first class that graduated after I entered, was
Horace Binney Sargent, a brave soldier, and the author of
some beautiful and spirited war lyrics.  But there were several
of his classmates, including Thomas Hill, John Lowell and
Octavius B. Frothingham, who attained much greater distinction.
In the class of 1844 the first scholar was Shattuck Hartwell,
a highly respectable and worthy gentleman, many years an officer
in the Boston Custom House, who spent a large part of his
life fitting pupils for college, while Francis Parkman, the
historian, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, the mathematician, and
Dr. John Call Dalton, the eminent physician, neither of whom
had a very high record, became distinguished in after life.
Among my own classmates, as I have already said, Judge Webb,
Fitzedward Hall and Calvin Ellis attained very great distinction,
although no one of them stood very high in rank.  In the next
class John Felton, Judge Endicott, Judge Charles Allen, and
Tuckermann, the naturalist, were the persons who have been
most famous in after life.  I believe no one of them, except
Felton who graduated the second scholar, ranked very high
in college.  I myself graduated with a fairly decent rank.
I believe I was the nineteenth scholar in a class of sixty-
six.  When I graduated I looked back on my wasted four years
with a good deal of chagrin and remorse.  I set myself resolutely
to make up for lost time.  I think I can fairly say that I
have had few idle moments since.  I have probably put as much
hard work into life as most men on this continent.  Certainly
I have put into it all the work that my physical powers, especially
my eyes, would permit.  I studied law in Concord the first
year after graduation.  I used to get up at six o'clock in
the morning, go to the office, make a fire and read law until
breakfast time, which was at seven in the summer and half-
past in the winter.  Then I went home to breakfast and got
back in about three-quarters of an hour and spent the forenoon
until one diligently reading law.  After dinner, at two o'clock,
I read history until four.  I spent the next two hours in
walking alone in the woods and roads of Concord and the neighboring
towns, went back to the office at seven, read a little geometry
and algebra, reviewing the slender mathematics which I had
studied in college, and then spent two hours in reading Greek.
I read through Thucydides, Homer and Xenophon's Hellenica
and some other Greek books in that year.  Sundays I went to
church twice, but shut myself up in a room at home the rest
of the day and read a great quantity of English literature,
including Milton, Spencer, Chaucer, George Herbert, South's
Sermons and other English classics, reading over again Butler's
Analogy and Jouffroy.  It has been said that if a man wish
to acquire a pure English style he should give his days and
nights to Addison.  I say that if a law student wish to acquire
a vigorous and manly English style, the fit vehicle for conveying
weighty thoughts to courts or juries or popular assemblages,
let him give his days and nights to Robert South.

I spent two years at the Law School after graduating from
the College.  I cannot state too strongly my great debt to
it, and to Franklin Dexter, Simon Greenleaf, Joel Parker,
and Theophilus Parsons.  I have no remorse for wasted hours
during those two years.  The time in a Law School is never
likely to be wasted if the youth have in him any spark of
generous ambition.  He sees the practical relation of what
he is learning with what he has to do in life.  The Dane Law
School was then, and I suppose it is even more true of it
now, a most admirable place for learning the science of law
and preparing for its practice.  The youth breathed a legal
atmosphere from morning till night all the year round.  He
had the advantage of most admirable instruction, and the resources
of a complete library.  He listened to the lectures, he studied
the text-books, he was drilled in the recitations, he had
practice in the moot courts and in the law clubs.  He discussed
points of law in the boarding-house and on his walks with
his companions.  He came to know thoroughly the great men
who were his instructors, and to understand their mental processes,
and the methods by which they had gained their success.  The
title of old Nathan Dane to a high place on the roll of his
country's benefactors, and to the gratitude of the profession of
the law, and of all lovers of jurisprudence throughout the
country cannot be disputed.


CHAPTER VIII
1846 TO 1850.  FOUNDATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
DANIEL WEBSTER.

The foundation of the Republican party, and my personal memories
of Daniel Webster, belong to the same period.  I will not
try to separate them.

The story I am to tell may seem trivial enough to my readers.
But it is to me a very tender and sacred memory.  The time
was ripe for the great movement that abolished slavery.  If
no one of the eminent men of that day had ever lived other
men would have been found in abundance for the work.  If Massachusetts
had failed in her duty some other State would have taken her
place.  But in the Providence of God it was given to Massachusetts
to lead in this great battle and it was given to these men
whom I have to name to be leaders in Massachusetts.  I thank
God that it was given to my eyes to behold it.  The American
people have had many great affairs to deal with since that
day.  They have had great trials and great triumphs.  They
have won renown among the nations.  They have grown in wealth
and in power.  They have subdued a mighty rebellion.  They
have carried their flag in triumph to the ends of the earth.
They have wrested the last vestige of power in this hemisphere
from an old and proud nation who once occupied the place that
England has since occupied and which it seems likely we are
to occupy hereafter.  They have resisted many strong temptations
and acquired much glory.  I am afraid they have of late yielded
for a time to one strong temptation and missed an opportunity
for still greater glory, that never will come back.  But there
was something in that struggle with slavery which exalted
the hearts of those who had a part in it, however humble,
as no other political battle in history.

  Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive.

And, surely, to be young was far nearer Heaven than Wordsworth
found France in the opening of the French Revolution.

I became of age at just about the time when the Free Soil
Party, which was the Republican party in another form, was
born.  In a very humble capacity I stood by its cradle.  It
awakened in my heart in early youth all the enthusiasm of
which my nature was capable, an enthusiasm which from that
day to this has never grown cold.  No political party in history
was ever formed for objects so great and noble.  And no political
party in history was ever so great in the accomplishment for
liberty, progress and law.

I breathed a pure and bracing atmosphere in those days.  It
was a time of plain living and high thinking.  It was a pretty
good education, better than that of any university, to be
a young Free Soiler in Massachusetts.  I had pretty good company,
not in the least due to any merit or standing of my own, but
only because the men who were enlisted for the war in the
great political battle against slavery were bound to each
other by a tie to which no freemasonry could be compared.
Samuel G. Howe used, when his duties brought him to Worcester
on his monthly visit, to spend an hour or two of an afternoon
in my office.  I was always welcome to an hour's converse
with Charles Allen, the man who gave the signal at Philadelphia
for breaking away from the Whig Party.  Erastus Hopkins occasionally
spent a Sunday with me at my boarding house.  When I went
to Boston I often spent an hour in Richard Dana's office,
and was sure of a kindly greeting if I chanced to encounter
Sumner.  The restless and ubiquitous Henry Wilson, who, as
he gathered and inspired the sentiment of the people, seemed
often to be in ten places at once, used to think it worth
his while to visit me to find out what the boys were thinking
of.  In 1851 I was made Chairman of the Free Soil County Committee
of Worcester County.  I do not think there was ever so good
a political organization in the country before, or that there
ever has been a better one since.  The Free Soilers carried
all but six, I think, of the fifty-two towns in that county.
I was in correspondence with the leading men in every one
of them, and could at any time summon them to Worcester, if
there were need.

We acquired by the Mexican War nearly six hundred thousand
square miles of territory.  When the treaty was signed, the
struggle began between freedom and slavery for the control
of this imperial domain.  No reader of the history of Massachusetts
will doubt her interest in such a struggle.  Three things
stood in the way of lovers of liberty in the Commonwealth.

  First, the old attachment to the Whig party;
  Second, her manufacturing interests; and
  Third, her devotion to Daniel Webster.

Massachusetts was a Whig State.  There were many things which
tended to give that great political organization a permanent
hold on her people.  Its standard of personal character was
of the highest.  Its leading men--Saltonstall, Reed, Lawrence,
Lincoln, Briggs, Allen, Ashmun, Choate, Winthrop, Davis, Everett,
and their associates--were men whose private and public honor
was without a stain.  Its political managers were not its
holders of office or its seekers of office.  It contained
a large body of able and influential men who wielded the power
of absolute disinterestedness.  They were satisfied if they
could contribute, by counsel or labor, to the well-being of
the State by the advancement of their cherished political
principles.  They asked no other reward.  The Whigs were in
favor of using wisely, but courageously, the forces of the
Nation and State to accomplish public objects for which private
powers or municipal powers were inadequate.  The Whigs desired
to develop manufacture by national protection; to foster internal
improvements and commerce by liberal grants for rivers and
harbors; to endow railroads and canals for public ways by
grants of public lands and from the treasury; to maintain
a sound currency; and to establish a uniform system for the
collection of debts, and for relieving debtors by a National
bankruptcy law.

The Whig policy had made Massachusetts known the world over
as the model Commonwealth.  It had lent the State's credit
to railroads.  It had established asylums for the blind and
insane and deaf and dumb, and had made liberal gifts to schools.
The Massachusetts courts were unsurpassed in the world.  Her
poor laws were humane.  All her administrative policies were
wise, sound, and economical.

They asked from the National Government only a system of protection
that should foster home manufacture, and that they might pursue
their commercial and manufacturing occupation in peace.

Daniel Webster was the idol of the people.  He was at the
fulness of his great intellectual power.  The series of speeches
and professional and political achievements which began with
the oration at Plymouth in 1820 was still in progress.  The
Whigs of Massachusetts disliked slavery; but they loved the
Union.  Their political gospel was found in Webster's reply
to Hayne and his great debates with Calhoun.  It was the one
heart's desire of the youth of Massachusetts that their beloved
idol and leader should be crowned with the great office of
the Presidency.

Mr. Webster tried to avert the conflict by voting against
the treaty with Mexico, by which we acquired our great territory
in the far West; but in vain.  The Whigs feared the overthrow
of the Whig Party.  The manufacturer and the merchant dreaded
an estrangement that would cause the loss of their southern
trade, and with it all hope of a law that would protect their
manufactures.

It was in this condition of things that I cast my first vote
in November, 1847, shortly after I became of age.  It was
for the Whig Governor.  The Whig Party was already divided
into two sections, one known as "Cotton Whigs," and the other
as "Conscience Whigs."  These names had been suggested in
a debate in the State Senate in which Mr. Thomas G. Carey,
an eminent Boston merchant, had deprecated some proposed anti-
slavery resolutions by saying that they were likely to make
an unfavorable impression in the South, and to be an injury
to business interests; to which Mr. E. R. Hoar of Middlesex
answered, that "he thought it quite as desirable that the
Legislature should represent the conscience as the cotton
of the Commonwealth."

Both parties struggled for the possession of the Whig organization,
and both parties hoped for the powerful support of Mr. Webster.
The leader of the manufacturing interest was Mr. Abbott Lawrence,
a successful, wealthy manufacturer of great business capacity,
large generosity, and princely fortune.  He had for some years
chafed under Mr. Webster's imperious and arrogant bearing.
He was on terms of personal intimacy with Henry Clay, and
was understood to have inspired the resolutions of the Whig
State Convention, a few years before, which by implication
condemned Mr. Webster for remaining in President Tyler's
Cabinet when his Whig colleagues resigned.  But the people
of Massachusetts stood by Webster.  After the ratification
of the Ashburton Treaty, he came home to reassert his old
title to leadership and to receive an ovation in Faneuil Hall.
In his speech he declared with a significant glance at Mr.
Lawrence, then sitting upon the platform:  "I am a Whig,
a Massachusetts Whig, a Boston Whig, a Faneuil Hall Whig.
If any man wishes to read me out of the pale of that communion,
let him begin, here, now, on the spot, and we will see who
goes out first."

The first time I remember seeing Daniel Webster was June 17,
1843, at Bunker Hill.  The students of Harvard, where I was
a freshman, had a place in the procession.  We marched from
Cambridge to Boston, three miles and a half, and stood in
our places for hours, and then marched over to Charlestown.
We were tired out when the oration began.  There was a little
wind which carried the sound of Mr. Webster's voice away
from the place where we stood; so it was hard to hear him
during the first part of his speech.  He spoke slowly and
with great deliberation.  There was little in the greater
part of that weighty discourse to excite a youthful auditor;
but the great thing was to look at the great orator.  Waldo
Emerson, who was there, said of him:

"His countenance, his figure, and his manners were all in
so grand a style that he was, without effort, as superior to
his most eminent rivals as they were to the humblest.  He
alone of men did not disappoint the eye and the ear, but
was a fit figure in the landscape.  There was the Monument,
and there was Webster.  He knew well that a little more or
less of rhetoric signified nothing; he was only to say plain
and equal things--grand things, if he had them; and if he
had them not, only to abstain from saying unfit things--and
the whole occasion was answered by his presence."

He went almost through his weighty discourse without much
effect upon his auditors other than that which Emerson so
well described.  But the wind changed before he finished,
and blew toward the other quarter where the boys stood; and
he almost lifted them from their feet as his great organ tones
rolled out his closing sentences:

"And when both we and our children shall have been consigned
to the house appointed for all living, may love of country
and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to
whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then,
when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base
of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered
around it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its
objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and
glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise
from every youthful breast the ejaculation, 'Thank God, I
also--AM AN AMERICAN!'"

Mr. Webster came to Concord in the summer of 1843 as counsel
for William Wyman, President of the Phoenix Bank of Charlestown,
who was indicted for embezzling the funds of the bank.  This
was one of the _causes celebres_ of the day.  Wyman had been
a business man of high standing.  Such offences were rare
in those days, and the case would have attracted great attention
whoever had been for the defence.  But the defendant's counsel
were Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Franklin Dexter, and my
brother, E. R. Hoar, a young man lately admitted to the bar.
Mr. Webster, notwithstanding his great fame as a statesman,
is said never to have lost his eager interest in causes in
which he was retained.  When he found himself hard pressed,
he put forth all his strength.  He was extremely impatient
of contradiction.  The adulation to which he had been so long
accustomed tended to increase a natural, and perhaps not
wholly unjustifiable, haughtiness of manner.

The Government was represented by Asahel R. Huntington, of
Salem, District Attorney for the district which included Essex
and Middlesex.  He was a man of great intellectual vigor,
unquestioned honesty and courage, possessed of a high sense
of the dignity and importance of his office, very plain spoken,
and not at all likely to be overawed by any opposing counsel,
whatever his fame or dignity.  Yet he had a huge reverence
for Daniel Webster, whom, like the other Massachusetts Whigs
of that day, he probably thought as another described him--

  The foremost living man of all the world!

The case was tried three times:  The first time at Concord,
the second time at Lowell, and the third time at Concord.
Mr. Webster had several quite angry encounters with the court
and with the prosecuting attorney.  He was once extremely
disrespectful to Judge Washburn, who replied with great mildness
that he was sure the eminent counsel's respect for his own
character would be enough to prevent him from any disrespect
to the court.  Mr. Webster was disarmed by the quiet courtesy
of the judge, and gave him no further cause for complaint.
At Lowell, where Wyman was convicted, Webster saw the case
going against him, and interrupted the charge of the judge
several times.  At last Judge Allen, who was presiding, said:
"Mr. Webster, I cannot suffer myself to be interrupted." Mr.
Webster replied: "I cannot suffer my client to be misrepresented,"
To which the judge answered:  "Sit down, sir."  Mr. Webster
resumed his seat.  When the jury went out, Judge Allen turned
to the Bar where Mr. Webster was sitting and said: "Mr. Webster."
Mr. Webster rose with the unsurpassed courtesy and grace of
manner of which he was master, and said: "Will the court pardon
me a moment?"  He then proceeded to express his regret for
the zeal which had impelled him to a seeming disrespect to
His Honor, and expressed his sorrow for what had occurred;
and the incident was at an end.

At the first trial at Concord, Mr. Webster had frequent altercations
with District Attorney Huntington.  In his closing argument,
which is said to have been one of great power, and which he
began by an eloquent reference to the battle of Concord Bridge,
which, he said, was fought by Concord farmers that their children
might enjoy the blessings of an impartial administration of
justice under the law, he said that it was unlikely that Wyman
could have abstracted large sums from the bank and no trace
of the money be found in his possession.  He was a man of
small property, living simply and plainly, without extravagant
habits or anything which would have been likely to tempt him
to such crime.  When Huntington came to reply he said, very
roughly:  "They want to know what's become of the money.
I can tell you what's become of the money.  Five thousand
dollars to one counsel, three thousand dollars to another,
two thousand to another," waving his hand in succession toward
Webster and Choate and Dexter.  Such fees, though common enough
now, seemed enormous in those days.  Choate smiled in his
peculiar fashion, and said nothing; Franklin Dexter looked
up from a newspaper he was reading, and exclaimed: "This is
beneath our notice"; but Mr. Webster rose to his feet and
said with great indignation: "Am I to sit here to hear myself
charged with sharing the spoils with a thief?" The presiding
judge said:  "The counsel for the Government will confine
himself to the evidence." That was all.  But Mr. Webster
was deeply incensed.  The jury disagreed.  Mr. Webster came
to the next trial prepared with an attack on Huntington, in
writing, covering many pages, denouncing his method and conduct.
This he read to my brother.  But Huntington who, as I have
said, adored Webster, was unwilling to have another encounter--
not in the least from any dread of his antagonist, but solely
from his dislike to have a quarrel with the man on earth he
most reverenced.  Accordingly, Mr. Wells, the District Attorney
of Greenfield, was called in, who conducted the trial at Lowell
and succeeded in getting a conviction.  My brother, who was
very fond of Huntington, took an occasion some time afterward
to tell Mr. Webster how much Huntington regretted the transaction,
and how great was his feeling of reverence and attachment
for him.  Mr. Webster was placated, and afterward, when an
edition of his speeches was published, sent a copy to Huntington
with an inscription testifying to his respect.

The general reader may not care for the legal history of
the trial, but it may have a certain interest for lawyers.  Mr.
Wyman was indicted for embezzlement of the funds of the bank
under the Revised Statutes of Massachusetts, which provided
that "if any cashier or other officer, agent or servant of
any incorporated bank shall embezzle or fraudulently convert
to his own use the property of the bank, he shall be punished,"
etc.  It was earnestly contended that a president of a bank
was not an officer within the meaning of the statute; but
this contention was overruled by the presiding judge, who
was sustained in that view by the Supreme Court on exception.
There was, however, no such offence as embezzlement known
to the common law.  So a person who fraudulently converted
to his own use the property of another could only be convicted
of larceny; and the offence of larceny could not be committed
where the offender had been entrusted with the possession
of the property converted, the essence of larceny being the
felonious taking of the property from the possession of the
owner.  Further, nobody could be convicted of larceny except
on an indictment or complaint which set forth the time and
place of each single conversion.  So, if a servant or agent
appropriated the fund of his principal, the embezzlement extending
over a long period of time, and it was not possible to set
forth or to prove the time, place, and circumstances of any
particular taking, the offender could not be convicted.  The
statute to which I have just referred was intended to cure
both these difficulties; first, by making persons liable to
punishment who fraudulently appropriated the property of others,
notwithstanding they had come rightfully into possession; and
next, the necessity of setting forth the particular transaction
was obviated by an enactment that it should be enough to
prove the embezzlement of any sum of money within six months
of the time specified in the indictment.

After the conviction of Wyman, the case was carried to the
Supreme Court, which held that the statute making bank officers
liable included bank presidents.  But the court held that
the other part of the statute, providing for the mode of
setting forth the offence in the indictment, did not apply to
bank officers; and that they could only be held on an indictment
which described the particular transaction, with time and
place.  So the verdict of guilty against Wyman was set aside,
and a new trial ordered.

Before the new trial came on at Concord, a statute was passed
by the Legislature for the purpose of meeting this very case,
extending the provisions of the Revised Statutes as to the
mode of pleading in such cases to officers of banks.  It was
claimed and argued by Mr. Choate, with great zeal, eloquence,
and learning, that this was an _ex post facto_ law, which
could not, under the Constitution, be made applicable to transactions
which happened before its passage.  Mr. Choate argued this
question for several hours.  The court took time for consideration,
and overruled his contention.  There seemed nothing for it
but to go to trial again on the facts, upon which one verdict
of guilty had already been had.  As they were going into the
court-house in the morning, Mr. Choate said to Mr. Hoar,
whose chief part in the trial, so far, had been finding law
books, hunting up authorities, and taking notes of the evidence:
"You made a suggestion to me at the last trial which I did
not attend to much at the time; but I remember thinking afterward
there was something in it." Mr. Hoar replied: "It seems to
me that Wyman cannot be convicted of embezzlement unless the
funds of the bank were entrusted to him.  They must either
have been in his actual possession or under his control.
There is nothing in the office of president which involves
such an authority.  It cannot exist unless by the express
action of the directors, or as the result of a course of
business of the bank."  The facts alleged against Wyman were
that he had authorized the discount of the notes of some
friends of his who were irresponsible, and that he had, in
some way, shared the proceeds.  Mr. Choate seized upon the
suggestion.  The Government witnesses, who were chiefly the
directors of the bank, were asked in cross-examination whether
they had not consented that Mr. Wyman should have the right
to dispose of the funds of the bank, or to give him power
or authority to dispose of them.  They supposed the question
was put with the intent of making them morally, if not legally,
accomplices in his guilt, or of charging them with want of
fidelity or gross carelessness in their office.  Accordingly,
each of them indignantly denied the imputation, and testified
that Wyman had no power or authority to authorize the discount
or to meddle with the funds.  When the Government case closed,
the counsel asked the court to rule that as the funds were
never entrusted to the possession of Wyman he could not be
convicted of embezzlement.  The court so held and directed an
acquittal.  This is another instance, not unusual in trials
in court, of the truth of the old rhyme, with which the readers
of "Quentin Durward" are familiar;

  The page slew the boar,
  The peer had the gloire.

Mr. Webster always had a strong and kindly regard for my brother.
When Mr. Hoar visited Washington in 1836, Webster received
him with great kindness, showed him about the Capitol, and
took him to the Supreme Court, where he argued a case.  Mr.
Webster began by alluding very impressively to the great changes
which had taken place in that Tribunal since he first appeared
as counsel before them.  He said: "No one of the judges who
were here then, remains.  It has been my duty to pass upon
the question of the confirmation of every member of the Bench;
and I may say that I treated your honors with entire impartiality,
for I voted against every one of you." After the argument
was over Mr. Webster gave Mr. Hoar a very interesting sketch
of the character of each of the judges, and told him the reasons
which caused him to vote against confirmation in each case.

The next time I saw Daniel Webster was on July 4, 1844.  He
made a call at my father's house in Concord.  I was near one
of the front windows, and heard a shout from a little crowd
that had gathered in the street, and looked out just as Mr.
Webster was coming up the front steps.  He turned, put his
hand into his bosom under his waistcoat and made a stately
salutation, and then turned and knocked on the door and was
admitted.  He was physically the most splendid specimen of
noble manhood my eyes ever beheld.  It is said, I suppose
truly, that he was but a trifle over five feet nine inches
high, and weighed one hundred and fifty-four pounds.  But
then, as on all other occasions that I saw him, I should have
been prepared to affirm that he was over six feet high and
weighed, at least, two hundred.  The same glamour is said
to have attended Louis XIV., whose majesty of bearing was
such that it never was discovered that he was a man of short
stature until he was measured for his coffin.

Mr. Webster was then in the very vigor of his magnificent
manhood.  He stood perfectly erect.  His head was finely
poised upon his shoulders.  His beautiful black eyes shone
out through the caverns of his deep brows like lustrous jewels.
His teeth were white and regular, and his smile when he was
in gracious mood, especially when talking to women, had an
irresistible charm.  I remember very little that he said.
One thing was, when the backwardness or forwardness of the
season was spoken of, that there was a day--I think it was
June 15--when, in every year vegetation was at about the same
condition of forwardness, whether the spring were early or
late.  A gentleman who was in the room said: "You have the
cool breezes of the sea at Marshfield?" "There, as at other
sea places," replied Mr. Webster.  When he rose to go, he
said:  "I have the honor to be a member of the Young Men's
Whig Club of Boston.  I must be in my place in the ranks."

I heard him also in Faneuil Hall, in the autumn of 1844,
after the elections in Maine and Pennsylvania and in the
South had made certain the defeat of Mr. Clay.  I remember
little that he said, except from reading the speech since.
What chiefly impressed the audience was the quotation from
Milton, so well known now:

  What though the field be lost?
  All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
  And study of revenge, immortal hate,
  And courage never to submit or yield,
  And what is else not be overcome.

I also saw Mr. Webster at the inauguration of Edward Everett
as President of Harvard, April 30, 1846.  It was perhaps the
proudest period of Webster's life.  It was also, perhaps,
the greatest day of the life of Edward Everett.  Webster had
been Everett's great over-shadower.  Gov. Everett would have
been, but for him, the chief public man and the orator of
Massachusetts at that time.  He had returned from the Court
of St. James crowned with new laurels, and had been called
to succeed Josiah Quincy as the head of the University.  By
a simple but impressive inaugural ceremony the Governor had
just invested Mr. Everett with his office, and delivered to
him the keys and the charter.  Everett was stepping forward
to deliver his inaugural address when Webster, who had come
out from Boston a little late, came in upon the stage by a
side door.  President and orator and occasion were all forgotten.
The whole assembly rose to greet him.  It seemed as if the
cheering and the clapping of hands and the waving of handkerchiefs
would never leave off.  The tears gushed down the cheeks of
women and young men and old.  Everything was forgotten but
the one magnificent personality.  When the din had subsided
somewhat, Mr. Everett, with his never-failing readiness and
grace, said:  "I would I might anticipate a little the function
of my office, and saying--_Expectatur oratio in vernacula_--
call upon my illustrious friend who has just entered upon
the stage to speak for me.  But I suppose that the proprieties
of the occasion require that I speak for myself."

It is to the credit of Mr. Everett and of that other Massachusetts
orator, Rufus Choate, that no tinge of jealousy or of envy
ever embittered in the smallest degree their hearty love and
support of their friend.  They were his pupils, his companions,
his supporters, his lovers, while he lived, and were his best
eulogists when he died.

I heard another speech of his, which I think was never reported.
He appeared before a Committee of the Legislature as counsel
for the remonstrants against the scheme to fill up the Back
Bay lands.

I do not think the employment of a Senator of the United
States as counsel before the Legislature would be approved
by public opinion now.

I do not know what year it was, but probably 1849 or 1850.
He had grown old.  But I learned more of the fashion of his
mental operations than could be learned from his speeches
on great occasions, especially after they had been revised
for publication.  He spoke with much contempt of a petition
signed by many of the foremost merchants and business men
of Boston.  He described with great sarcasm the process of
carrying about such petitions, and the relief of the person
to whom they were presented on finding he was not asked to
give any money.  "Oh, yes, I'll sign--I'll sign."  He then
read out one after another the names of men well known and
honored in the city.  He threw down the petition with contempt,
and the long sheet fell and unrolled upon the floor.

He had a singular habit, which made it wearisome to listen
to his ordinary speech, of groping after the most suitable
word, and trying one synonym after another till he got that
which suited him best.  "Why is it, Mr. Chairman, that there
has gathered, congregated, this great number of inhabitants,
dwellers, here; that these roads, avenues, routes of travel,
highways, converge, meet, come together, here?  Is it not
because we have here a sufficient, ample, safe, secure, convenient,
commodious, port, harbor, haven?"  Of course when the speech
came to be printed all the synonyms but the best one would
be left out.

Mr. Webster seemed rather feeble at that time, and called
upon his friend Mr. William Dehon to read for him the evidence
and extracts from reports with which he had to deal.  His
tome was the tone of ordinary conversation, and his speech,
while it would not be called hesitating, was exceedingly
slow and deliberate.  I have been told by persons who heard
him in the Supreme Court in his later years that the same
characteristic marked his arguments there, and that some of
his passages made very little impression upon the auditors,
although they seemed eloquent and powerful when they came
to be read afterward.

His is frequently spoken of as a nervous Saxon style.  That
is a great mistake, except as to a few passages where he rose
to a white heat.  If any person will open a volume of his
speeches at random, it will be found that the characteristic
of his sentences is a somewhat ponderous Latinity.

A considerable number of Democrats joined the Free Soil movement
in 1848.  Conspicuous among them was Marcus Morton, who had
been Governor and one of our ablest Supreme Court judges,
and his son, afterward Chief Justice, then just rising into
distinction as a lawyer.  The members of the Liberty Party
also, who had cast votes for Birney in 1844, were ready for
the new movement.  But the Free Soil Party derived its chief
strength, both of numbers and influence, from the Whigs.  The
Anti-Slavery Whigs clung to Webster almost to the last.  He
had disappointed them by opposing the resolution they offered
at the Whig State Convention, pledging the party to support
no candidate not known by his acts or declared opinions to
be opposed to the extension of slavery.  But he had coupled
his opposition with a declaration of his own unalterable opposition
to that extension, and had said, speaking of those who were
in favor of the declaration:  "It is not their thunder."

He declared in the Senate, as late as 1848:  "My opposition
to the increase of slavery in the country, or to the increase
of slave representation in Congress, is general and universal.
It has no reference to lines of latitude or points of the
compass.  I shall oppose all such extension, and all such
increase, at all times, under all circumstances, even against
all inducements, against all combinations, against all compromises."

So the Anti-Slavery Whigs eagerly supported him as their
candidate for the Whig nomination in 1848.

If Mr. Webster had been nominated for the Presidency in 1848,
the Free Soil Party would not have come into existence that
year.  There would have been probably some increase in the
numbers of the Liberty Party; yet the Anti-Slavery Whigs of
Massachusetts would have trusted him.  But the nomination
of General Taylor, a Southerner, one of the largest slaveholders
in the country, whose laurels had been gained in the odious
Mexican War, upon a platform silent upon the engrossing subject
of the extension of slavery, could not be borne.  The temper
of the Whig National Convention was exhibited in a way to
irritate the lovers of freedom in Massachusetts.  When some
allusion was made to her expressed opinions, it was received
with groans and cries of "Curse Massachusetts." But, on the
whole, the Massachusetts Whigs shared the exultant anticipation
of triumph, and of regaining the power from which they had
been excluded since the time of John Quincy Adams, except
for the month of Harrison's short official life.  But as the
convention was about to adjourn, intoxicated with hope and
triumph, Charles Allen, a delegate from Massachusetts, a man
of slender figure, rose, and with a quiet voice declared the
Whig Party dissolved.  Never was a prediction received with
more derision; never was prediction more surely fulfilled.
He was reinforced by Henry Wilson, afterward Vice-President
of the United States.

Immediately on their return from Philadelphia, a call was
circulated for a convention to be held at Worcester of all
persons opposed to the nomination of Cass and Taylor.  The
call was written by E. R. Hoar.  My father, Samuel Hoar, was
its first signer.

This is the call.  It should be preserved in a form more
enduring than the leaflet, of which I possess, perhaps, the
only copy in existence.

"TO THE PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

"The Whig National Convention have nominated General Taylor
for President of the United States.  In so doing they have
exceeded their just authority, and have proposed a candidate
whom no Northern Whig is bound to support.

"HE IS NOT A WHIG, when tried by the standard of our party
organization.  He has never voted for a Whig candidate, has
declared that the party must not look to him as an exponent
of its principles, that he would accept the nomination of
the Democratic Party, and that he would not submit his claims
to the decision of the Whigs, acting through their regularly
constituted Convention.

"HE IS NOT A WHIG, if judged by the opinions he entertains
upon questions of public policy. Upon the great questions
of currency and Finance, of Internal Improvements, of Protection
to American Industry, so far from agreeing with the Whigs,
he has distinctly avowed that he has formed no opinion at
all.

"HE IS NOT A WHIG, if measured by the higher standard of principle,
to which the Whigs of Massachusetts and of the North have
pledged themselves solemnly, deliberately, and often.  He
is not opposed to the extension of Slavery over new territories,
acquired, and to be acquired, by the United States.  He is
a Slave-holder, and has been selected because he could command
votes which no Whig from the free States could receive.

"To make room for him, the trusted and faithful Champions
of our cause have all been set aside.

"The Whigs of Massachusetts, by their Legislature, and in
their popular assemblies, have resolved, that opposition
to the extension of Slavery is a fundamental article in their
political faith.  They have spoken with scorn and upbraiding
of those Northern Democrats who would sacrifice the rights
and interests of the Free States upon the altar of party subserviency.

"The Whigs of the Legislature have recently declared to the
country, 'that if success can attend the party, only by the
sacrifice of Whig principles, or some of them,' they did
not mean to be thus successful; that they are determined
'to support a candidate who will not suffer us to be over-
balanced by annexations of foreign territory, nor by the
further extension of the institution of Slavery, which is
equally repugnant to the feelings, and incompatible with the
political rights of the Free States'; and that they 'believe
it to be the resolute purpose of the Whig people of Massachusetts,
to support these sentiments, and carry into effect the design
which they manifest.'

"Believing that the support of General Taylor's nomination
is required by no obligations of party fidelity, and that
to acquiesce in it would be the abandonment of principles
which we hold most dear, treachery to the cause of Freedom,
and the utter prostration of the interests of Free Labor and
the Rights of Freemen:

"The undersigned, Whigs of Massachusetts, call upon their
fellow-citizens throughout the Commonwealth, who are opposed
to the nomination of CASS and TAYLOR, to meet in Convention
at Worcester, on _Wednesday,_ the 28th day of June current,
to take such steps as the occasion shall demand, in support
of the PRINCIPLES to which they are pledged, and to co-operate
with the other Free States in a Convention for this purpose."

My first political service was folding and directing these
circulars.  The Convention was held, and Samuel Hoar presided.
It was addressed by men most of whom afterward became eminent
in the public service.  Among them were Charles Sumner, Charles
Francis Adams, Henry Wilson, E. R. Hoar, Edward L. Keyes,
Charles Allen, Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, and Abraham Payne,
of Rhode Island.  Richard H. Dana was present, but I think
he did not speak.  William Lloyd Garrison and Francis Jackson
were present, but took no part whatever.  I rode to Boston
in a freight car after the convention was over, late at night.
Garrison and Jackson were sitting together and talking to
a group of friends.  Garrison seemed much delighted with the
day's work, but said he heard too much talk about the likelihood
that some of the resolutions would be popular and bring large
numbers of votes to the party.  He said:  "All you should
ask is, what is the rightful position? and then take it."
Among the resolutions was this:

"That Massachusetts looks to Daniel Webster to declare to
the Senate and to uphold before the country the policy of
the Free States; that she is relieved to know that he has not
endorsed the nomination of General Taylor; and that she invokes
him at this crisis to turn a deaf ear to 'optimists' and 'quietists',
and to speak and act as his heart and his great mind shall
lead him."

Daniel Webster's son Fletcher was present, and heartily in
accord with the meeting; and this resolution was passed with
his full approval.  It met great opposition from the men who
had come into the movement from the Liberty Party and from
the Democratic Party.  The shouts of "No, no; too late" were
nearly, if not quite, equal to the expressions of approval.
But the president declared that it was passed.

Mr. Webster sulked in his tent during the summer, and at last,
September 1, 1848, made a speech at Marshfield, in which he
declared the nomination of Taylor not fit to be made, but
gave it a half-hearted support.  My brother, Judge E. R.
Hoar, had been an enthusiastic admirer of Webster, who had
treated him with great personal kindness; and, as I have said,
he had been associated with Mr. Webster in the famous Wyman
trial.  Mr. Webster made a speech in the Senate in August,
declaring his renewed opposition to the extension of slavery.
Mr. Hoar wrote a letter expressing his satisfaction with that
speech, and urging him to take his proper place at the head
of the Northern Free Soil movement.  This is Mr. Webster's
reply.  It is interesting as the last anti-slavery utterance
of Daniel Webster.

MARSHFIELD, August 23, 1848.

_My Dear Sir:_

I am greatly obliged to you, for your kind and friendly letter.
You overrate, I am sure, the value of my speech, it was quite
unpremeditated and its merit, if any, consists I presume in
its directness and brevity.  It mortified me to see that some
of the newspaper writers speak of it as the "taking of a position";
as if it contained something new for me to say.  You are not
one of them, my dear sir, but there are those who will not
believe that I am an anti-slavery man unless I repeat the
declaration once a week.  I expect they will soon require
a periodical affidavit.  You know, that as early as 1830 in
my speech on Foote's resolution, I drew upon me the anger
of enemies, and a regret of friends by what I said against
slavery, and I hope that from that day to this my conduct
has been consistent.  But nobody seems to be esteemed to be
worthy of confidence who is not a new convert.  And if the
new convert be as yet but half converted, so much the better.
This I confess a little tries one's patience.  But I can assure
you in my own case, it will not either change my principles
or my conduct.

It is utterly impossible for me to support the Buffalo nomination.
I have no confidence in Mr. Van Buren, not the slightest.
I would much rather trust General Taylor than Mr. Van Buren
even on this very question of slavery, for I believe that
General Taylor is an honest man and I am sure he is not so
much committed on the wrong side, as I know Mr. Van Buren
to have been for fifteen years.  I cannot concur even with
my best friends in giving the lead in a great question to
a notorious opponent to the cause.  Besides; there are other
great interests of the country in which you and I hold Mr.
Van Buren to be essentially wrong, and it seems to me that
in consenting to form a party under him Whigs must consent
to bottom their party on one idea only, and also to adopt
as the representative of that idea a head chosen on a strange
emergency from among its steadiest opposers.  It gives me
pain to differ from Whig friends whom I know to be as much
attached to universal liberty as I am, and they cannot be
more so.  I am grieved particularly to be obliged to differ
in anything from yourself and your excellent father, for both
of whom I have cherished such long and affectionate regards.
But I cannot see it to be my duty to join in a secession from
the Whig Party for the purpose of putting Mr. Van Buren at
the head of the Government.  I pray you to assure yourself,
my dear Sir, of my continued esteem and attachment, and remember
me kindly and cordially to your father.

  Yours, etc.,
  DANIEL WEBSTER

  Honorable E. Rockwood Hoar.

Mr. Hoar had before had a somewhat interesting interview
with Mr. Webster to the same effect.  Late in the winter,
before the convention at Philadelphia, some young Whigs had
a dinner at the Tremont House, to concert measures to support
his candidacy.  There were forty or fifty present.  Mr. Webster
was expected to speak to them, but his daughter Julia was
very ill.  He sent them a message that he would see them at
the house in Summer Street where he was staying.  So when
the dinner was half over, the party walked in procession to
Mr. Paige's house.  As Judge Hoar described the interview,
he seemed very glum.  He shook hands with the young men as
they passed by him, but said very little.  There was an awkward
silence, and they were about to take leave, when the absurdity
of the position struck Mr. Hoar, who was the youngest of
the party, rather forcibly.  Just then he heard Mr. Webster
say to somebody near him: "The day for eminent public men
seems to have gone by."  Whereupon Hoar stepped forward and
made him a brief speech, which he began by saying that the
object of their coming together was to show that, in their
opinion, the day for eminent public men had not gone by, and
some more to the same effect.  Webster waked up and his eyes
flashed and sparkled.  He made a speech full of vigor and
fire.  He spoke of his name being brought before the Whig
convention at Philadelphia, and of his fidelity to the party.
He said that whether his own name should be in the judgment
of the convention suitable or the best to present to the country
the convention would determine, and added: "If the convention
shall select anyone of our conspicuous leaders, trained and
experienced in civil affairs, of national reputation as a
statesman, he will receive my hearty support.  But if I am
asked whether I will advise the convention at Philadelphia
to nominate, or if nominated I will recommend the people to
support for the office of President of the United States,
a swearing, fighting, frontier colonel, I only say that I
shall not do it."

Many people think that if Mr. Webster would have supported
General Taylor's policy of dealing with the questions relating
to slavery it would have prevailed, and that the country would
have been pacified and the Civil War avoided.  I do not think
so.  The forces on both sides who were bringing on that conflict
were too powerful to be subdued by the influence of any individual
statesman.  The irrepressible conflict had to be fought out.
But Mr. Webster's attitude not only estranged him from the
supporters of General Taylor in his own party, but, of course,
made an irreparable breach between him and the anti-slavery
men who had founded the Free Soil Party.  He was the chief
target for all anti-slavery arrows from March 7, 1850, to his
death.

When I was in the Harvard Law School, Mr. Webster was counsel
in a very interesting divorce case where Choate was upon the
other side.  The parties were in high social position and
very well known.  Mr. Choate's client, who was the wife, was
charged with adultery.  I did not hear the closing argument,
but my classmates who did reported that Mr. Webster spoke
of the woman with great severity and argued the case with
a scriptural plainness of speech.  He likened the case of
the husband bound to an adulterous wife to the old Hebrew
punishment of fastening a living man to a corpse.  "Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" But Judge Fletcher,
who held the court, decided in favor of the wife.

The meeting which gathered at Worcester in pursuance of the
above call, inaugurated for the first time a party for the
sole object of resisting the extension of slavery.  The Liberty
Party, which had cast a few votes in the presidential election
of 1840, and which, in 1844, had turned the scale in New York
and so in the nation against Mr. Clay, was willing to support
the candidates of other parties who were personally unobjectionable
to them in this respect.  But the Free Soil Party, of which
the present Republican party is but the continuation under
a change of name, determined that no person should receive
its support for any national office, who himself continued
his association with either of the old political organizations.

The Free Soil Party of Massachusetts cast in the presidential
election of 1848 only about 37,000 votes, but it included
among its supporters almost every man in the Commonwealth
old enough to take part in politics who has since acquired
any considerable national reputation.  Charles Sumner who
had become known to the public as an orator and scholar by
three or four great orations, was just at the threshold of
his brilliant career.  Charles Francis Adams, who had served
respectably but without great distinction, in each branch
of the Legislature, brought to the cause his inflexible courage,
his calm judgment, and the inspiration of his historic name.
John A. Andrew, then a young lawyer in Boston, afterward to
become illustrious as the greatest war Governor in the Union,
devoted to the cause an eloquence stimulant and inspiring
as a sermon of Paul.  John G. Palfrey, then a Whig member
of Congress from the Middlesex District, discussed the great
issue in speeches singularly adapted to reach the understanding
and gratify the taste of the people of Massachusetts, and
in a series of essays whose vigor and compactness Junius might
have envied, and with a moral power which Junius could never
have reached.  Anson Burlingame, afterward Minister to China,
captivated large crowds with his inspiring eloquence.*  Samuel
G. Howe, famous in both hemispheres by his knightly service
in the cause of Greek independence, famous also by his philanthropic
work in behalf of the insane and blind, brought his great
influence to the party.  Henry Wilson, a mechanic, whose early
training had been that of the shoemaker's shop, but who understood
the path by which to reach the conscience and understanding
of the workingmen of Massachusetts better than any other man,
had been also a delegate to the Convention at Philadelphia,
and had united with Judge Allen in denunciation of its surrender
of liberty.  Stephen C. Phillips, a highly respected merchant
of Salem, and formerly Whig Representative from the Essex
District, gave the weight of his influence in the same direction.
Samuel Hoar, who had been driven from South Carolina when
he attempted to argue the case for the imprisoned colored
seamen of Massachusetts before the courts of the United States,
one of the most distinguished lawyers of the Massachusetts
bar, came from this retirement in his old age to give his
service in the same cause; of which his son, E. R. Hoar,
was also a constant, untiring, and enthusiastic champion.
Richard H. Dana, master of an exquisite English style, the
only Massachusetts advocate who ever encountered Rufus Choate
on equal terms, threw himself into the cause with all the
ardor of his soul.  On the Connecticut River, George Ashmun,
the most powerful of the Whig champions in western Massachusetts,
found more than his match in Erastus Hopkins.  William Claflin,
afterward Speaker, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor of Massachusetts,
member of the National House of Representatives, and Chairman
of the Republican National Committee, was then in his early
youth.  But he had already gained a competent fortune by his
business sagacity.  He brought to the cause his sound judgment,
his warm and affectionate heart, and his liberal hand.  He
was then, as he has ever since been, identified with every
good and generous cause.  His stanch friendship was then,
as it has been ever since, the delight and comfort of the
champions of freedom in strife and obloquy.

[Footnote]
* Shortly after Burlingame came into active life, he made a journey
to Europe.  The American Minister obtained for him a ticket of
admission to the House of Commons.  He was shown into a very
comfortable seat in the gallery.  In a few minutes an official
came and told him he must leave that seat; that the gallery
where he was was reserved for Peers.  They are very particular
about such things there.  Burlingame got up to go out when an
old Peer who happened to be sitting by and had heard what was
said, interposed.  "Let him stay, let him stay.  He is a Peer
in his own country."  "I am a Sovereign in my own country, Sir,"
replied Burlingame, "and shall lose caste if I associate
with Peers."  And he went out.
[End of Footnote]

Each of these men would have been amply fitted in all respects
for the leader of a great party in State or Nation.  Each
of them could have defended any cause in which he was a believer,
by whatever champion assailed.  They had also their allies
and associates among the representatives of the press.  Among
these were Joseph T. Buckingham, of the Boston _Courier,_
then the head of the editorial fraternity in Massachusetts;
John Milton Earle, the veteran editor of the Worcester _Spy;_
William S. Robinson, afterward so widely known as Warrington,
whose wit and keen logic will cause his name to be long preserved
among the classics of American literature.

I have spoken of some of these men more at length elsewhere.
I knew them, all but two, very intimately.  I only knew Joseph
T. Buckingham by sight.  He edited the Boston _Courier_ with
great ability.  He was a member of both Houses of the Massachusetts
Legislature.  He was a member of the State Senate in 1850
and 1851.  He left the _Courier_ in June, 1848, about the
time the Free Soil movement begun, and was not active in politics
afterward.

I had no personal acquaintance with Charles Francis Adams.
I have known his son, Charles Francis Adams, President of
the Massachusetts Historical Society, pretty well.  He inherits
a great deal of the ability and independence which belongs
to his race.  He would undoubtedly have taken a very high
place in the public and official life of his generation if
he had found himself in accord with either of the great political
parties.

I do not think anybody, except the very intimate friends
of Charles Francis Adams, was aware of his great abilities
until he manifested them amid the difficulties of the English
Mission.  They were known, however, to a few men who were
intimate with him.  I was quite astonished one day when I
called on Dr. Palfrey, at his house in Cambridge in 1852,
and he told me Mr. Adams was entirely competent for the office
of President of the United States.

Mr. Adams was rather dull as a public speaker.  He was apt
to announce commonplaces slowly and deliberately, as if they
were something he thought his audience was listening to for
the first time.  But the influence of his historic name was
very great.  His marvellous resemblance to his father and
grandfather made a great impression.  When he said at Worcester
on the 28th of June, 1848:  "I say, in words to which I have
a hereditary right, 'Sink or Swim, Live or Die, Survive or
Perish, I give my hand and my heart to this movement,'" it
seemed to the audience as if old John Adams had stepped down
from Trumbull's picture of the Signing of the Declaration
of Independence to give his benediction.*

[Footnote]
* I like very much the epitaph which his sons placed over him in
the burial place at Quincy.  Every word of it is true.

THIS STONE
MARKS THE GRAVE OF
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
SON OF JOHN QUINCY
AND LOUISA CATHERINE (JOHNSON)
ADAMS
BORN 18 AUGUST 1807
  Trained from his youth in politics and letters
  His manhood strengthened by the convictions
  Which had inspired his fathers
  He was among the first to serve
  And among the most steadfast to support
  That new revolution
  Which restored the principles of liberty
  To public law
  And secured to his country
  The freedom of its soil
  During seven troubled and anxious years
  Minister of the United States in England
  afterward arbitrator at the tribunal of Geneva
  He failed in no task which his Government imposed
  Yet won the respect and confidence
  of two great nations
  Dying 21 November 1886
  He left the example
  of high powers nobly used
  and the remembrance
  of a spotless name.
[End of Footnote]

Besides these more conspicuous leaders, there was to be found,
in almost every town and village in Massachusetts, some man
eminent among his neighbors for purity of life, for philanthropy,
and for large intelligence who was ready to join the new party.
The glowing hopes and dreams and aspirations of youth were
inspirited by the muse of Whittier and Longfellow and Lowell
and Bryant.  The cause of free labor appealed to the strongest
sympathies of the mechanics of Essex and the skilled laborers
of Worcester.

Four years afterward Daniel Webster, as he lay dying at Marshfield,
said to the friend who was by his side:  "The Whig candidate
will obtain but one or two States, and it is well; as a national
party, the Whigs are ended."

The Whig Party retained its organization in Massachusetts
until 1856; but its intellect and its moral power were gone.
Mr. Winthrop, as appears from the excellent "Life" published
by his son, had no sympathy with Mr. Webster's position.  Mr.
Webster died, a disappointed man, in the autumn of 1852.  He
took no part in political affairs in Massachusetts after 1850.
Mr. Choate, who was to follow his great leader to the grave
within a few years, transferred his allegiance to the Democrats.
Mr. Everett, after a brief service in the Senate, a service
most uncongenial to his own taste, resigned his seat in the
midst of the angry conflict on the Nebraska bill, and devoted
himself to literary pursuits until, when the war broke out,
he threw himself with all his zeal, power, and eloquence into
the cause of his country.


CHAPTER IX
LIFE IN WORCESTER

After leaving college I studied for a year in my brother's
office in Concord, then for two years at the Harvard Law
School, and afterward for four months in the office of Judge
Benjamin F. Thomas in Worcester.  I was led to choose Worcester
as a place to live in chiefly for the reason that that city
and county were the stronghold of the new Anti-Slavery Party,
to which cause I was devoted with all my heart and soul.  I
have never regretted the choice, and have spent my life there,
except when in Washington, for considerably more than half
a century.  In that time Worcester has grown from a city of
fifteen thousand to a city of one hundred and thirty thousand
people.  I can conceive of no life more delightful for a man
of public spirit than to belong to a community like that which
combines the youth and vigor and ambition of a western city
with the refinement and conveniences, and the pride in a noble
history, of an old American community.  It is a delight to
see it grow and a greater delight to help it grow,--to help
improve its schools, and found its Public Library, and help
lay the foundations of great institutions of learning.  Worcester
had an admirable Bar, admirable clergymen, and physicians
of great skill and eminence.  Among her clergymen was Edward
Everett Hale, then in early youth, but already famous as a
preacher throughout the country.  There was no Unitarian pulpit
where he was not gladly welcomed.  So his congregation here,
by way of exchange, heard the most famous pulpit orators of
the country.

Among the physicians was Dr. Joseph Sargent, a man then without
a superior in his profession in Massachusetts.  The friendship
I formed with him in 1849 lasted till his death, more than
forty years afterward.

The mechanics of Worcester were unsurpassed for their ingenuity
anywhere on the face of the earth.  Worcester was the centre
and home of invention.  Within a circle of twelve miles radius
was the home of Blanchard, the inventor of the machine for
turning irregular forms; of Elias Howe, the inventor of the
sewing machine; of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton
gin, which doubled the value of every acre of cotton-producing
land in the country; of Erastus B. Bigelow, the inventor
of the carpet machine; of Hawes, the inventor of the envelope
machine; of Crompton and Knowles, the creators and perfectors
of the modern loom; of Ruggles, Nourse and Mason, in whose
establishment the modern plow was brought to perfection, and
a great variety of other agricultural implements invented
and improved.  There were many other men whose inventive genius
and public usefulness were entitled to rank with these.  The
first house-warming furnace was introduced here, and the second
cupola furnace was set up near by.

These inventors and mechanics were all men of great public
spirit, proud of Worcester, of its great achievements, and
its great hope.  They got rich rapidly.  They and their households
made social life most delightful.  There was little pride
of family or wealth.  Men and women were welcomed everywhere
on their merits.

The City of Worcester was the heart of one of the foremost
agricultural counties in the country.  The county stood fourth
among American counties in the value of its agricultural products,
and the proportion of the value of the product to the value
of the lands.  It was the spot on the face of the earth where
labor got the largest proportion of the joint product of labor
and capital.  The farmers made an excellent living.  They
made excellent legislators, excellent town officers, excellent
jurors, and excellent clients.  I have been at some time or
other in my life counsel for every one of the fifty-two towns
in Worcester County.  I had a large clientage among the farmers.
In the intimacy of that relation I got a knowledge of the
inmost soul and heart of a class of men who I think constituted
what was best in American citizenship, a knowledge which has
been a great educational advantage to me and valuable in a
thousand ways in my public and professional life.

From the first of December, 1849, until the fourth of March,
1869, I was diligently employed in my profession, save for
a single year's service in each house of the Massachusetts
Legislature.  But during all that time I kept a very zealous
interest in political affairs.  I was Chairman of the County
Committee for several years, made political speeches occasionally,
presided at political meetings, always attended the caucus
and was in full sympathy and constant communication with the
Free Soil and Republican leaders.

The Worcester Bar in my time afforded a delightful companionship.
It was like a college class in the old days.  My best and
most cordial friends were the men whom I was constantly encountering
in the courts.  The leaders of the Bar when I was admitted
to it,--Charles Allen, Emory Washburn, Pliny Merrick, Benjamin
F. Thomas, Peter C. Bacon,--would have been great leaders
at any Bar in the United States, or on any circuit in England.
Study at a law school is invaluable to the youth if he is
to rise in his profession; but there is no law school like
a court-house when such men are conducting trials.  The difficult
art of cross-examination, the more difficult art of refraining
from cross-examination, can only be learned by watching men
who are skilled in the active conduct of trials.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts at that day with Chief
Justice Shaw at its head was without an equal in the country
and not surpassed by the Supreme Court of the United States
itself.  I can conceive of no life more delightful than that
of a lawyer in good health, and with good capacity, and with
a sufficient clientage, spent in that manly emulation and
honorable companionship.

The habit of giving dissenting opinions which has become
so common both in the Supreme Court of the United States
and of late in the Massachusetts Supreme Court did not then
exist.  If there were a division on an important question
of law the statement of the result was usually "a majority
of the Court is of opinion."  That was all.  I do not believe
any court can long retain public confidence and respect when
nearly all its opinions in important matters are accompanied
by a powerful attack on the soundness of the opinion and the
correctness of the judgment from the Bench itself.  The Reporter
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is, I believe, authorized
to report the decisions of the court more or less at length
at his discretion.  If he would exercise that discretion by
an absolute refusal to print dissenting opinions, except in
a few very great and exceptional cases, he would have the
thanks of the profession.  It may be harder to put a stop
to the practice in the Supreme Court of the United States.
That will have to be done, if at all, by the good sense of
the Judges.  The recent opinions of the Court in what are
known as the Insular Cases have shocked the country and greatly
diminished the weight and authority of the tribunal.  This
was not because of public disapproval of the opinion of the
Court.  It was because upon one of the greatest questions
of Constitutional law and Constitutional liberty that ever
went to judgment, there could be found no single reason for
the decision of the Court strong enough to convince any two
judges.

The fact that I have been for nearly thirty-five years in
public life, and likely to be, if I live, in public life a few
years longer, is an instance of how--

  The best laid schemes o' mice and men
  Gang aft a-gley.

Down to the time I was admitted to the Bar, and indeed for
a year later, my dream and highest ambition were to spend
my life as what is called an office lawyer, making deeds and
giving advice in small transactions.  I supposed I was absolutely
without capacity for public speaking.  I expected never to
be married; perhaps to earn twelve or fifteen hundred dollars
a year, which would enable me to have a room of my own in
some quiet house, and to earn enough to collect rare books
that could be had without much cost.  I can honestly say with
George Herbert:  "I protest and I vow I even study thrift,
and yet I am scarce able, with much ado, to make one half
year's allowance shake hands with the other.  And yet if a
book of four or five shillings come in my way, I buy it, though
I fast for it; yea, sometimes of ten shillings."

But I happened one night in the autumn of 1850 to be at a
great mass meeting in the City Hall, at Worcester, which
Charles Allen was expected to address.  It was the year of
the Compromise Measures, including the Fugitive Slave Law,
and of Daniel Webster's 7th of March speech.  Judge Allen,
as he was somewhat apt to do, came in late.  A vast audience
had gathered and were waiting.  Nobody seemed ready to speak.
Somebody started the cry, "Hoar!  Hoar!"  My father and brother
were known as leaders in the Free Soil Party, and that I suppose
made somebody call on me.  I got up in my place in the middle
of the hall in great confusion.  There were shouts of "platform,"
"platform." I made my way to the platform, hoping only to
make my excuses and get off without being detected.  But the
people were disposed to be good-natured, and liked what I
said.  Dr. Stone, the famous stenographic reporter, was present
and took it down.  It was printed in the Free Soil papers,
and from that time I was in considerable demand as a public
speaker.  The coalition between the Free Soilers and Democrats
carried the State of Massachusetts that year and elected Sumner
Senator and Boutwell Governor.  The next year Worcester failed
to elect her representatives to the Legislature, which were
voted for all on one ticket and required a majority, and there
was to be a second election on the fourth Monday of November.
There was a delegate convention to nominate representatives,
of which I was a member.  When the vote was announced, to
my surprise and consternation, I was one of the persons nominated.
Nobody had said a word to me about it beforehand.  That was
Friday night.  I told the Convention I could not accept such
a nomination without my father's approval.  I was then twenty-
five years old.  It was proposed that the Convention adjourn
until the next evening, and that meantime I should go down
to Concord and see if I could get my father's leave.  Accordingly
the Convention adjourned to see if the infant candidate could
get permission to accept.  My father told me he thought that
to go to the Legislature once would be useful to me in my
profession; I should learn how laws were made, and get acquainted
with prominent men from different parts of the State.  So
he advised me to accept, if I would make up my mind that I
would go only for one year, and would after that stick to
the law, and would never look to politics as a profession
or vocation.  I accepted the nomination, was elected, and
was made Chairman of one of the Law Committees in the House.

I declined a reelection and devoted myself to my profession,
except that I served in the Massachusetts Senate one year,
1857, being nominated unexpectedly and under circumstances
somewhat like those which attended my former nomination.  I
was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee that year.  I devoted
all my time, day and even far into the night, to my legislative
duties.  I was never absent a single day from my seat in the
House in 1852, and was absent only one day from my seat in
the Senate, in 1857, when I had to attend to an important
law suit.  It so happened that there was a severe snow storm
that day, which blocked up the railroads, so that there was
no quorum in the Senate.  I could not myself have got to the
State House, if I had tried.  I suppose I may say without
arrogance that I was the leader of the Free Soil Party in
each House when I was a member of it.  In 1852 I prepared,
with the help of Horace Gray, afterward Judge, who was not
a member of the Legislature, the Practice Act of 1852, which
abolished the common law system of pleading, and has been
in principle that on which the Massachusetts courts have acted
in civil cases ever since.  I studied the English Factory
legislation, and read Macaulay's speeches on the subject.
I became an earnest advocate for shortening the hours of labor
by legislation.  That was then called the ten-hour system.
Later it has been called the eight-hour system.  I made, in
1852, a speech in favor of reducing the time of labor in factories
to ten hours a day which, so far as I know, was the first
speech in any legislative body in this country on that subject.
My speech was received with great derision.  The House, usually
very courteous and orderly, seemed unwilling to hear me through.
One worthy old farmer got up in his seat and said: "Isn't
the young man for Worcester going to let me get up in the
morning and milk my caouws."

When a member of the Senate in 1857, I was Chairman of the
Judiciary Committee.  I made a very earnest and carefully
prepared speech against the asserted right of the jury to
judge of the law in criminal cases.  It is a popular and specious
doctrine.  But it never seemed to me to be sound.  Among others,
there are two reasons against it, which seem to me conclusive,
and to which I have never seen a plausible answer.  One is
that if the jury is to judge of the law, you will have as
many different laws as you have juries.  There is no revision
of their conclusion.  They are not obliged to tell, and there
is no way in which the court can know, what their opinion
was.  So a man tried on one side of the court-house may be
held guilty, and another man tried on the other side of the
court-house may be held innocent for precisely the same act.

The other reason is that the court must always decide what
evidence shall be admitted.  So if the jury are to be the
judges of the law, one authority must determine what evidence
they shall consider, and another determine what law shall
be applied to it.  For instance, suppose a defendant charged
with homicide offers to prove certain facts which as he claims
justify the killing.  The Judge says these facts do not, under
the law, justify the killing and excludes the evidence.  That
may be the real point in the case, and the jury may believe
that those facts fully justify the homicide; still they cannot
be permitted to hear them.  It is preposterous to suppose
that so logical and reasonable a system as the Common Law
could ever have tolerated such an absurdity.  My friend, Mr.
Justice Gray of the United States Supreme Court, an admirable
judge and one of the great judges of the world, in his dissenting
opinion in _Sparf et al. v. U. S., 156, U. S. Reports,
page 51, etc.,_ has little to say on this point, except that
of course there must be some authority to regulate the conduct
of trials.

I declined a reelection to the Senate.  I was twice nominated
for Mayor by the Republicans of Worcester, when the election
of their candidate was sure; once by a Citizens' Convention,
and once by a Committee authorized to nominate a candidate,
and another year urged by prominent and influential citizens
to accept such a nomination.  But I preferred my profession.
I never had any desire or taste for executive office, and
I doubt if I had much capacity for it.

When Charles Allen declined reelection to Congress, in 1852,
I have no doubt I could have succeeded him if I had been willing,
although I was but twenty-six years old, only a year past
the Constitutional age.

As I found myself getting a respectable place in the profession
my early ambitions were so far changed and expanded that I
hoped I might some day be appointed to the Supreme Court of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  It seemed to me then,
as it seems to me now, that there could be no more delightful
life for a man competent to the service than one spent in
discussing with the admirable lawyers, who have always adorned
that Bench, the great questions of jurisprudence, involving
the rights of citizens, and the welfare of the Commonwealth,
and helping to settle them by authority.  This ambition was
also disappointed.  I have twice received the offer of a seat
on that Bench, under circumstances which rendered it out of
the question that I should accept it, although on both occasions
I longed exceedingly to do so.

Shortly after I was admitted to the Bar, good fortune brought
me at once into the largest practice in the great County of
Worcester, although that Bar had always been, before and since,
one of the ablest in the country.  Judge Emory Washburn, afterward
Governor and Professor of Law at Harvard, and writer on jurisprudence,
had the largest practice in the Commonwealth, west of Boston,
and I suppose with one exception, the largest in the Commonwealth
outside of Boston.  He asked me to become his partner in June,
1852.  I had then got a considerable clientage of my own.
Early in 1853 he sailed for Europe, intending to return in
the fall.  I was left in charge of his business during his
six months' absence, talking with the clients about cases
in which he was already retained, and receiving their statements
as to cases in which they desired to retain him on his return.
Before he reached home he was nominated for Governor by the
Whig Convention, to which office he was elected by the Legislature
in the following January.  So he had but a few weeks to attend
to his law business before entering upon the office of Governor.
I kept on with it, I believe without losing a single client.
That winter I had extraordinarily good fortune, due I think
very largely to the kindly feeling of the juries toward so
young a man attempting to undertake such great responsibilities.

My professional life from January 1, 1850, until the 4th
of March, 1869, was a life of great and incessant labor.
When the court was in session I was constantly engaged in
jury trials.  Day after day, and week after week, I had to
pass from one side of the court-house to the other, being
engaged in a very large part of the important actions that
were tried in those days.  The Court had long sessions.  The
judges who came from abroad were anxious to get their work
done and go back to their homes.  So the Courts sat from half
past eight or nine o'clock in the morning until six in the
afternoon with an intermission of an hour, or an hour and
a quarter, for dinner.  The parties to the suits came from
all over Worcester County.  Frequently it was impossible to
see the witnesses until the trial came on, or just before.
So the lawyer had to spend his evenings and often far into
the night in seeing witnesses and making other preparations
for the next day.  General Devens and I had at one term of
the Supreme Court held by Chief Justice Bigelow twenty trial
actions.  The term resulted in a serious injury to my eyes
and in my being broken down with overwork.  So I was compelled
to go to Europe the following year for a vacation.

But I found time somehow, as I have said, to keep up a constant
and active interest in politics.  I was also able to contribute
something to other things which were going on for the benefit
of our growing city.  I got up the first contribution for
the Free Public Library, of which I was made President.  I
took a great interest in the founding of the famous Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, and I was the first person named in
its Act of Incorporation.  The first meeting of its Trustees
was held in my office, and I am now the only surviving member
of that Board, in which I have retained a warm interest ever
since.  In 1869 I made before the Massachusetts Legislature,
on a petition which was successful for a legislative grant
to that school, what I believe is the first public address
ever made in behalf of Technical Education in this country.
I was for some time President of the Board of Trustees of
the City Library and while President planned the excellent
reading room connected with the Library, for which I obtained
a handsome endowment by personal solicitation.

I was also Trustee of Leicester Academy.

The Worcester Lyceum, which furnished the principal course
of lectures in the city in those days, was in the hands of
some very worthy and conservative old Whigs.  They would not
permit any politics or religion, or what was called Radicalism,
either in religious or social matters, to be discussed on
their platform.  So we had to listen to very respectable and
worthy, but rather dull and tame conservative gentlemen, or
stay away, as we preferred.  A few of the young men, of whom
I was one, conspired to get possession of the Lyceum.  They
turned out in force for the election of officers, chose me
President, and we got Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker
and Ralph Waldo Emerson and other shining lights of a newer
philosophy, much to the indignation of the old Whig magnates.
But the lectures were very successful, and at the end of my
Presidency, which lasted two or three years, we had an ample
balance in our treasury.

If I were to give an account of my professional life for
twenty years, I must make another book.  It was full of interest
and romance.  The client in those days used to lay bare his
soul to his lawyer.  Many of the cases were full of romantic
interest.  The lawyer followed them as he followed the plot
of an exciting novel, from the time the plaintiff first opened
his door and told his story till the time when he heard the
sweetest of all sounds to a lawyer, the voice of the foreman
saying:  "The jury find for the plaintiff." Next to the "yes,"
of a woman, that is the sweetest sound, I think, that can
fall on human ears.

I used to have eighteen or twenty law cases at the fall term
each year.  The judges gave their opinions orally in open
Court, and the old judges like Shaw and Metcalf, used to enliven
an opinion with anecdotes or quaint phrases, which lent great
interest to the scene.  If Walter Scott could have known and
told the story of the life of an old Massachusetts lawyer
from the close of the Revolution down to the beginning of
the Rebellion, there is nothing in the great Scotch novels
which would have surpassed it for romance and for humor.

I think I may fairly claim that I had a good deal to do with
developing the equity system in the courts of Massachusetts,
and with developing the admirable Insolvency system of Massachusetts,
which is substantially an equity system, from which the United
States Bankruptcy statutes have been so largely copied.

The great mass of the people of Massachusetts, Whigs and Democrats
as well as Republicans, were loyal and patriotic and full
of zeal when the war broke out.  A very few of the old Whigs
and Democrats, who were called "Hunkers" or "Copperheads,"
sympathized with the Rebellion, or if they did not, were so
possessed with hatred for the men who were putting it down
that they could find nothing to approve, but only cause for
complaint and faultfinding.  Andrew, the Governor, Sumner
and Wilson, the Senators, most of the members of Congress,
most of the leaders in the Legislature and in the military
and political activities, were of the old Free Soil Party.
There was a feeling, not wholly unreasonable, that the old
Whigs had been somewhat neglected, and that their cooperation
and help were received rather coldly.  This feeling led to
the movement, called the People's Party, which begun at a
large public meeting in Cambridge, where my dear old friend
and partner, ex-Governor Washburn, was one of the speakers.
That party called a State Convention and nominated Charles
Devens for Governor.  Devens had been an old Whig.  He had
become a Republican in 1856, and had been one of the earliest
to enlist in the War, in which he became afterward the most
famous Massachusetts soldier.  He was a man of spirit, very
affectionate and generous, always ready to stand by his friends,
especially if he suspected that anybody had treated them unjustly.
The People's Party sent a Committee to the seat of war in
September, 1862.  The Committee found Devens in his tent,
repeated to him the plans of his old Whig friends, and induced
him to accept the nomination of the People's Party for Governor.

I was called to the battlefield of Antietam, where a near
kinsman of mine had been mortally wounded, just about the
same time.  I entered Devens's tent just as this Committee
was leaving it with his written acceptance in their hands.
I told him the other side of the story, told him how the
whole people were alive with enthusiasm, and that Governor
Andrew was doing the very best possible, and that these petty
jealousies, while there was some little reason for them,
ought not to affect the public action of the people.  Devens
regretted very much what he had done.  He told me that if
he could recall the letter, he would do it.  But it was too
late.

Governor Andrew was triumphantly reelected, and Devens was
ever after an earnest and loyal Republican.


CHAPTER X
POLITICAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM
1848 TO 1869

In 1848, the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts nominated candidates
for State officers.  It was made up of Whigs, Democrats and
members of the Liberty Party.  It had made no distinct issue
with the Whig Party upon matters of State administration.
Governor Briggs, the Whig Governor, was a wise and honest
Chief Magistrate, highly respected by all the people.  But
the Free Soil leaders wisely determined that if they were
to have a political party, they must have candidates for State
officers as well as National.  It is impossible to organize
a political party with success whose members are acting together
in their support of one candidate and striving with all their
might against each other when another is concerned.  My father
was urged to be the Free Soil candidate for Governor.  Charles
Francis Adams and Edmund Jackson visited him at Concord to
press it upon him as a duty.  Charles Allen wrote him an earnest
letter to the same effect.  But he was an old friend of Governor
Briggs and disliked very much to become his antagonist.  He
looked to the Whig Party for large accessions to the Free
Soil ranks.  A large plurality of the people of the community
were still devoted to that party.  He doubted very much the
wisdom of widening the breach between them by a conflict on
other questions than that of slavery.  So he refused his consent.
Stephen C. Phillips, an eminent Salem merchant, and a former
Member of Congress, was nominated.  The result was there was
no choice of State officers by the people, and the election
of the Whig candidates was made by the Legislature.

The next year it occurred to the leaders of the Free Soil
and Democratic Parties that they had only to unite their
forces to overthrow the Whigs.  The Free Soil leaders thought
the effect of this would be the eventual destruction of the
Whig Party at the North,--as afterward proved to be the case,--
and the building up in its place of a party founded on the
principle of opposition to the extension of slavery.  So in
1849 there was a coalition between the Free Soil and the Democratic
Parties in some counties and towns, each supporting the candidates
of the other not specially obnoxious to them, neither party
committing itself to the principles of the other party or
waiving its own.  In the fall of the next year, 1850, this
policy was pursued throughout the State and resulted in the
election by the Legislature of a Democratic Governor, Mr.
Boutwell, and of Charles Sumner as the successor of Daniel
Webster in the Senate.  The experiment was repeated with like
success in the fall of 1851.

These two parties had little in common.  They could not well
act together in State matters without some principle or purpose
on which they were agreed other than mere desire for office
and opposition to the Whig Party.  They found a common ground
in the support of a law providing for secrecy in the ballot.
There had been great complaint that the manufacturers, especially
in Lowell, who were in general zealous Whig partisans, used
an undue influence over their workmen.  It was said that a
man known to be a Democrat, or a Free Soiler, was pretty likely
to get his discharge from the employ of any great manufacturing
corporation that had occasion to reduce its force, and that
he would have no chance to get an increase of wages.  I do
not now believe there was much foundation for this accusation.
But it was believed by many people at the time.  So a law
requiring secrecy in the ballot was framed and enacted in
spite of great resistance from the Whigs.  This has undoubtedly
proved a good policy, and has prevailed in Massachusetts ever
since, and now prevails largely throughout the country.

But this one measure was not enough to hold together elements
otherwise so discordant.  So the Democratic and Free Soil
leaders agreed to call a convention to revise the Constitution
of the Commonwealth, which had remained unchanged save in
a few particulars since 1780.  There had been a Convention
for that purpose in 1820, made necessary by the separation
of Maine.  But the old Constitution had been little altered.
The concentration of the population in large towns and cities
had caused a demand for a new distribution of political power.
Many people desired an elective judiciary.  Others desired
that the judges should hold office for brief terms instead
of the old tenure for life.  There was a great demand for
the popular election of Sheriffs and District Attorneys, who
under the existing system were appointed by the Governor.
Others desired the choice of Senators, who had before been
chosen by the several counties on a joint ticket, by single
districts.  A proposition for a Convention was submitted to
the people by the Legislature of 1851.  But the people were
attached to the old Constitution.  There was a special dread
of any change in the independent tenure of the judiciary.
So although the coalition had a majority in the State the
proposition for a Constitutional Convention was defeated.

The scheme was renewed the next year in the Legislature of
1852, of which I was a member.  Several of the Free Soilers,
among which I was included, were unwilling to have the matter
tried again without a distinct assurance that there should
be no meddling with the judiciary.  This assurance was given
in the report of a joint committee of the Legislature to whom
the matter was committed, consisting of the leaders of the
Democratic and Republican parties, who reported that there
was no purpose to change the judicial tenure with which the
people were well satisfied.  Accordingly I voted for it.  The
measure got a bare majority in the House which it would never
would have had without that stipulation.  The plan was submitted
to the people again with a proposition that the choice of
delegates to the Constitutional Convention should be by secret
ballot.  The people approved the plan by a substantial majority.

I have no doubt that the pledge above mentioned was made in
good faith and that the men who made it meant to keep it.
But before the Convention met two things happened which changed
the conditions.  The coalition was wrecked.  There were two
causes for its overthrow.  One of them was the appointment
by Governor Boutwell of Caleb Cushing to a seat on the Supreme
Bench of Massachusetts.  General Cushing was a man of great
accomplishment, though never a great lawyer.  He could collect
with wonderful industry all the facts bearing on any historic
question and everything that had been said on either side
of any question of law.  But he never had a gift of cogent
argument that would convince any judge or jury.  He owed
his success in life largely to the personal favor of men who
knew him and were charmed by his agreeable quality.  He was
regarded by the people of Massachusetts as a man without moral
convictions and as utterly subservient to the slave power.
So his appointment was a great shock to the Anti-Slavery men
and made them believe that it was not safe to put political
power in Democratic hands.  General Cushing vindicated this
opinion afterward by the letter written when he was Attorney-
General in the Cabinet of President Pierce declaring that
the Anti-Slavery movement in the North "must be crushed out,"
and also by a letter written to Jefferson Davis after the
beginning of the Rebellion recommending some person to him
for some service to the Confederacy.  The discovery of this
letter compelled President Grant who had been induced to nominate
him for Chief Justice to withdraw the nomination.  The other
cause was the passage of the bill for the prohibition of the
manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, known as the Maine
law.  This measure had passed the Legislature, containing
a provision for its submission to the people.  It was vetoed
by Governor Boutwell.  The reason assigned by him was his
objection to the provision for its submission to the people,
without the secret ballot.  The referendum, a scheme by which
men charged with political duties avoid responsibility by
submitting to the people measures which they fear may be unpopular,
--has never found much favor in Massachusetts.  After many
changes of sentiment, and after passing, modifying, and repealing
many laws, the people of the Commonwealth seem to have settled
down on a policy which permits each town or city to decide
by vote whether the sale of liquor shall be permitted within
their limits.  The bill was then passed, without the reference
to the people.  But the measure sealed the fate of the coalition.
Some of its provisions, especially that for seizing and destroying
stocks of liquor kept for sale in violation of law, were very
severe, and were held unconstitutional by the Court.  The
liquor sellers, almost all of them, were Democrats.  They
would not readily submit to a law which made their calling
criminal.

So the Whigs were restored to power by the fall election
in 1852.  Their heads were turned by their success.  They
did not quite dare to repeal the law providing for a Constitutional
Convention, but they undertook to repeal so much of it as
required that the choice of delegates should be by secret
ballot.  The minority resisted this repeal with all their
might.  They alleged with great reason that it was not decent
for the Legislature to repeal a provision which the people
has expressly approved.  But their resistance was in vain,
and after a long and angry struggle which stirred the people
of the Commonwealth profoundly the provision for the secret
ballot was abrogated.  But the result of the contest was that
the Whigs were routed at the special election for delegates
to the Convention.  That body was controlled by the Coalition
by a very large majority.  Their triumph made them also lose
their heads.

So when the Convention assembled in 1853, they disregarded
the pledges which had enabled them to get the assent of the
people to calling the convention, and provided that the tenure
of office of the Judges of the Supreme Court should be for
ten years only, and that the Judges of Probate should be elected
by the people of the several counties once in three years.
It is said, and, as I have good reason to know, very truly,
that this action of the Convention was taken in consequence
of a quarrel in Court between the late Judge Merrick and General
Butler and Mr. Josiah G. Abbott, two eminent leaders of
the Democrats, members of the Convention.  They had neither
of them agreed to the proposition to change the judicial tenure.
They were absent from the convention for several days in
the trial of an important cause before Merrick, and returned
angry with the Judge and determined to do something to curb
the independent power of the Judges.  The proposition was
adopted.

These schemes were a distinct violation of the pledge which
had been given when the Legislature submitted to the people
the proposition for calling the Convention.  Of course it
was a fair answer to this complaint to say that the members
of the committee who made that report could in such a matter
bind nobody but themselves.  That was true.  But I think if
the men who signed that report, and the men who joined them
in giving the assurance to the people, had been earnest and
zealous in the matter it is quite likely they could have prevented
the action of the Convention.

The scheme for a new constitution passed the Convention by
a large majority and was submitted to the people.  The Whig
leaders, who seemed to have had all their wisdom and energy
taken out of them when the Free Soilers left them, were much
alarmed by the strength of the discontent with the existing
order of things manifested by the coalition victory in the
election of the Constitutional Convention.  Many of them concluded
that it would be unwise to resist the popular feeling.  One
Saturday afternoon during that summer I was in the office
of Francis Wayland, a great friend of mine, long Dean of the
New Haven Law School, when Henry S. Washburn, a member of
the Whig State Central Committee, came into Wayland's office
and told me he had just attended a meeting of the Committee
that day and that it determined to make no contest against
the new Constitution.  The Springfield _Republican,_ then
a Whig journal, had an article that day, or the following
Monday, to the same effect.  I was very much disturbed.  I
hurried to Concord by the first train Monday morning, and
saw my brother, who was then a Judge of the Court of Common
Pleas.  He agreed with me in thinking that the proposed scheme
of government a very bad one.  He went at once to Cambridge
and saw John G. Palfrey, a very able and influential leader
of the Free Soilers.  Mr. Palfrey agreed that the Constitution
ought to be defeated, if possible.  Judge Hoar and he sat
down together and prepared a pamphlet, the Judge furnishing
all the legal argument and Mr. Palfrey the rest, clothing
it all in his inimitable style.  It was published under Dr.
Palfrey's name.  Judge Hoar, being then upon the bench, did
not think it becoming to take any more public action in the
matter, although he made his opinion known to all persons
who cared to know it.  Charles Francis Adams and Marcus Morton
also made powerful arguments on the same side.  My father,
Samuel Hoar, also made several speeches against the Constitution.
At this defection of so many Free Soilers the Whig leaders
took heart and made a vigorous and successful resistance.

The result was that the people voted down the whole constitution.
Several of the most eminent leaders of the Free Soilers and
Democrats separated themselves from their party and joined
the Whigs in defeating it.  Among them were Marcus Morton,
formerly Governor and Judge of the Supreme Court; John G.
Palfrey, who had been the Free Soil candidate for Governor;
Charles Francis Adams, afterward member of Congress and Minister
to England, and Samuel Hoar.

I was myself, at this time, an enthusiastic Free Soiler,
and was, as I have said, Chairman of the Republican County
Committee, but I joined the rebels against the dominant feeling
of my party.

The defeat of the Constitution was aided, however, undoubtedly
by a very just and righteous proposal which was submitted
to a separate vote of the people, but which had its effect
on the feeling in regard to the whole scheme, to prohibit
the use of any money raised by taxation for sectarian schools.
To this the Catholic clergy were opposed, and the Catholic
vote, not however then very important in Massachusetts, was
cast against the whole scheme.

But the Whigs did not entirely get over the feeling that
something must be done to propitiate the desire for change.
Accordingly they, through the Legislature, submitted to the
people propositions for the election by the people of the
counties of Sheriffs and District Attorneys who before that
time had been appointed by the Governor.  These proposals
were ratified by the people and became part of the Constitution.
I have always thought the change a bad one.  I think the Governor
likely to make quite as good if not a better choice of Sheriffs
and District Attorneys than the people.  But the objection
to the new system is this.  So long as the State makes the
laws, the State, whether acting by a popular vote or through
its executive, should have the power to enforce them and select
the instrumentalities for that purpose.  Now if the particular
law which the State enacts be unpopular in a particular county,
and the people be determined to defeat it, no Sheriff or District
Attorney can be elected who will enforce it.  That has been
shown in the case of the legislation to prohibit or regulate
the sale of intoxicating liquors in Suffolk County.  Those
laws have been always unpopular and since the change in the
mode of appointment of District Attorneys and Sheriffs have
not been enforced until they were modified to meet the popular
objections.  This difficulty applies also to the enforcing
of laws for the employment of children in factories.  The
Legislature undertook to meet this difficulty by creating
officials, called State Constables, to be appointed by the
Governor and to enforce the liquor laws and the laws regulating
child labor.  But that did not wholly cure the evil.  The
officials appointed solely to enforce a law against which
there are strong objections in any quarter are always themselves
unpopular.  The Sheriffs have been from the beginning officials
of great dignity, commanding popular respect and confidence.
So if it were difficult to enforce the law the character of
the Sheriff was a great force on its side.  But in the case
of these particular laws persons of less dignity and authority,
often quite obscure when they are appointed, whose whole duty
is odious to the persons to be affected by it, instead of
giving dignity to the law tend to make it unpopular by their
attempts to enforce it.  Indeed in my opinion the Massachusetts
Constitution of 1780 was as nearly a perfect system of government
as was ever devised.  Some changes in it were made necessary
by the separation of Maine.  I suppose the abrogation of the
provision that every man should pay a tax for the support
of public worship somewhere was demanded by a public sentiment
it would have been impossible to resist, and undoubtedly the
aggregation of population in the large cities and towns required
a change in the system of representation.  But I think the
old method of electing Senators, where it was necessary that
a man should have a reputation through an entire county to
be chosen, to be better than the system of electing them by
small single districts, and I think the slight property qualification
was highly useful as a stimulant to saving and economy.

It is, however, a great pity that the labors of this Constitutional
Convention were wasted.  It was a very able body of men.  With
the exception of the Convention that framed the Constitution
in the beginning, and the Convention which revised it in 1820,
after the separation from Maine, I doubt whether so able a
body of men ever assembled in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
or, with very few exceptions indeed, in the entire country.
The debates, which are preserved in three thick and almost
forgotten volumes, are full of instructive and admirable essays
on the theory of constitutional government.  Among the members
were Rufus Choate, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, George N.
Briggs, Marcus Morton, Marcus Morton, Jr., Henry L. Dawes,
Charles Allen, George S. Hillard, Richard H. Dana, George
S. Boutwell, Otis P. Lord, Peleg Sprague, Simon Greenleaf,
and Sidney Bartlett.

There were a good many interesting incidents not, I believe,
recorded in the report of the debates, which are worth preserving.

One was a spirited reply made by George S. Hillard to Benjamin
F. Butler, who had bitterly attacked Chief Justice Shaw, then
an object of profound reverence to nearly the whole people
of the Commonwealth.  Butler spoke of his harsh and rough
manner of dealing with counsel.  To which Hillard replied,
pointing at Butler:  "While we have jackals and hyenas at
the bar, we want the old lion upon the bench, with one blow
of his huge paw to bring their scalps over their eyes."

Hillard was an accomplished and eloquent man, "of whom," Mr.
Webster said in the Senate of the United States, "the best
hopes are to be entertained."  But he lacked vigor and courage
to assert his own opinions against the social influences of
Boston, which were brought to bear with great severity on
the anti-slavery leaders.

Hillard was not so fortunate in another encounter.  He undertook
to attack Richard H. Dana, and to reproach him for voting
for a scheme of representation which somewhat diminished the
enormous political power of Boston. She elected all her representatives
on one ballot, and had a power altogether disproportionate
to that of the country.  He said, speaking of Dana: "He should
remember that the bread he and I both eat comes from the business
men of Boston.  He ought not, like an ungrateful child, to
strike at the hand that feeds him." Dana replied with great
indignation, ending with the sentence:  "The hand that feeds
me--the hand that feeds me, sir?  No hand feeds me that has
a right to control my opinions!"

A _bon mot_ of Henry Wilson is also worth putting on record.
Somebody, who was speaking of the importance of the Massachusetts
town meeting, said that it was not merely a place for town
government alone, but that it was a place where the people
of the town met from scattered and sometimes secluded dwelling-
places to cultivate each other's acquaintance, to talk over
the news of the day and all matters of public interest; and
that it was a sort of farmers' exchange, where they could
compare notes on the state of agriculture, and even sometimes
swap oxen.  Governor Briggs, who had been beaten as a candidate
for reelection by the Coalition, replied to this speech and
said, referring to the Coalition, "that the gentlemen on the
other side seemed to have carried their trading and swapping
of oxen into politics, and into the high offices of the state."
To which Henry Wilson answered, referring to Briggs's own
loss of his office, "that so long as the people were satisfied
with the trade, it did not become the oxen to complain."

Undoubtedly the ablest member of the Convention was Charles
Allen.  He spoke seldom and briefly, but always with great
authority and power.  Late in the proceedings of the Convention
a rule was established limiting the speakers to thirty minutes
each.  Hillard, who was one of the delegates from Boston, made
a very carefully prepared speech on some pending question.
Allen closed the debate, making no reference whatever to Hillard's
elaborate and most eloquent argument, until he was about to
sit down, when he said: "Mr. President, I believe my time
is up?" The President answered: "The gentleman from Worcester
has two minutes more."  "Two minutes!" exclaimed Allen.  "Time
enough to answer the gentleman from Boston." And he proceeded
in that brief period to deal a few strokes with his keen scimitar,
which effectually demolished Hillard's elaborate structure.

There is nothing in the political excitements of recent years
which approaches in intensity that of the period from 1848
until the breaking out of the War.  The people of Massachusetts
felt the most profound interest in the great conflict between
slavery and freedom for the possession of the vast territory
between the Mississippi and the Pacific.  But almost every
man in Massachusetts felt the Fugitive Slave Law as a personal
dishonor.  I think no great public calamity, not the death
of Webster, not the death of Sumner, not the loss of great
battles during the War, brought such a sense of gloom over
the whole State as the surrender of Anthony Burns and of Sims.
Worcester, where I dwelt, was the centre and stronghold of
the anti-slavery feeling in Massachusetts.  This odious statute
was, perhaps, the greatest single cause of the union of the
people of the North in opposition to the further encroachments
of slavery.  Yet but two slaves were taken back into slavery
from Massachusetts by reason of its provisions.  I will not
undertake to tell the story of those years which will form
an important chapter in the history of the country.  But I
had a special knowledge of two occurrences which are alluded
to by Colonel Higginson in his charming essay entitled, "Cheerful
Yesterdays," in regard to which that most delightful writer
and admirable gentleman has fallen into some slight errors
of recollection.

The first person seized under the Fugitive Slave Law was a
slave named Shadrach.  He was brought to trial before George
T. Curtis, United States Commissioner.  One of the chief complaints
against the Fugitive Slave Law was that it did not give the
man claimed as a slave, where his liberty and that of his
posterity were at stake, the right to a jury trial which the
Constitution secured in all cases of property involving more
than twenty dollars, or in all cases where he was charged
with the slightest crime or offence.  Further, the Commissioner
was to receive twice as much if the man were surrendered into
slavery as if he were discharged.  Horace Mann, in one of
his speeches, commented on this feature of the law with terrible
severity.  He also pointed out that the Commissioner was not
a judicial officer with an independent tenure, but only the
creature of the courts and removable at any time.  He also
dwelt upon what he conceived to be the unfair dealing of the
Commissioners who had presided at the trial of the three
slaves who had been tried in Massachusetts, and added: "Pilate,
fellow-citizens, was at least a Judge, though he acted like
a Commissioner."

Elizur Wright, a well-known Abolitionist, editor of the _Chronotype,_
was indicted in the United States Court for aiding in the
rescue of Shadrach.  While the hearing before Geo. T. Curtis
on the proceedings for the rendition of Shadrach was going
on, a large number of men, chiefly negroes, made their way
into the court-room by one door, swept through, taking the
fugitive along with them, and out at the other, leaving the
indignant Commissioner to telegraph to Mr. Webster in Washington
that he thought it was a case of levying war.  I went into
the court-room during the trial of Mr. Wright, and saw seated
in the front row of the jury, wearing a face of intense gravity,
my old friend Francis Bigelow, always spoken of in Concord
as "Mr. Bigelow, the blacksmith."  He was a Free Soiler and
his wife a Garrison Abolitionist.  His house was a station
on the underground railroad where fugitive slaves were harbored
on their way to Canada.  Shadrach had been put into a buggy
and driven out as far as Concord, and kept over night by Bigelow
at his house, and sent on his way toward the North Star the
next morning.  Richard H. Dana, who was counsel for Elizur
Wright, asked Judge Hoar what sort of man Bigelow was.  To
which the Judge replied: "He is a thoroughly honest man, and
will decide the case according to the law and the evidence
as he believes them to be.  But I think it will take a good
deal of evidence to convince him that one man owns another."

It is not, perhaps, pertinent to my personal recollections
but it may be worth while to tell my readers that Theodore
Parker, Wendell Phillips, and some others were indicted afterward
for participation in an intended rescue of Anthony Burns,
another fugitive slave.  The indictment was quashed by Judge
Curtis, who had probably got pretty sick of the whole thing.
But Parker, while in jail awaiting trial, prepared a defence,
which is printed, and which is one of the most marvellous
examples of scathing and burning denunciation to be found
in all literature.  I commend it to young men as worth their
study.

Some time after the Shadrach case, Asa O. Butman, a United
States Deputy Marshal, who had been quite active and odious
in the arrest and extradition of Burns, came to Worcester
one Saturday afternoon, and stopped at the American Temperance
House.  This was October 30, 1854.  It was believed that he
was in search of information about some fugitive negroes who
were supposed to be in Worcester, and I suppose that to be
the fact, although it was claimed that his errand was to summon
witnesses against persons concerned in the riot which took
place when Burns was captured.  The fact of his presence became
known in the course of the day on Sunday, and a pretty angry
crowd began to gather in the streets in the neighborhood of
the American House.  Butman learned his danger, and took refuge
in the City Marshal's office in the City Hall, where the police
force of the city were gathered for his protection.  No attack
was made during the night, but it was not deemed prudent to
have Butman leave his shelter.  I had been to Concord to spend
Sunday with my kindred there.  I got to Worcester at nine
o'clock Monday morning, and was told at the station of the
condition of things.  I went immediately to the City Hall,
made my way through the crowd to the building, and was admitted
to the police office by the City Marshal, who was my client,
and apt to depend on me for legal advice.  I found Butman
in a state of great terror.  It was evident that the crowd
was too large for any police force which the little city had
in its service.  Unless it should be pacified, something was
likely to happen which we should all have much regretted.
I accordingly went out and addressed the crowd from the steps
of the City Hall.  They listened to me respectfully enough.
I was pretty well known through the city as an earnest Free
Soiler, and as sharing the public feeling of indignation
against the delivering up of fugitives.  I reminded the crowd
that my father and sister had been expelled from Charleston,
S. C., where he had gone at the risk of his life to defend
Massachusetts colored sailors who were imprisoned there, and
appealed to them not to give the people of South Carolina
the right to excuse their own conduct by citing the example
of Massachusetts.  There were shouts from the crowd: "Will
he promise to leave Worcester and never come back?" Butman,
who was inside, terribly frightened, said he would promise
never to come to Worcester again as long as he lived.  I did
not, however, repeat Butman's promise to the crowd.  I thought
he ought to go without conditions.  The time approached for
the train to pass through Worcester for Boston.  It went from
a little wooden station near the site of the present Union
Depot, about half a mile from the City Hall.  It was determined,
on consultation, to take advantage of an apparently pacific
mood of the crowd, and to start Butman at once for the station
in time to catch the train.  I took one arm and I am quite
sure Colonel Higginson took the other; a few policemen went
ahead and a few behind; and we started from the back door
of the City Hall.  The mob soon found what we were after and
thronged around us.  It has been estimated that a crowd of
two thousand people at least surrounded Butman and his convoy.
I suppose he had no friend or defender among the number.  Most
of them wanted to frighten him; some of them to injure him,
though not to kill him.  There were a few angry negroes, I
suppose, excited and maddened by their not unnatural or unjustifiable
resentment against the fellow who had been the ready and notorious
tool of the slave-catchers, who would have killed him if
they could.  He was kicked several times by persons who succeeded
in the swaying and surging of the crowd, in getting through
his guard, and once knocked onto his knees by a heavy blow
in the back of the neck which came from a powerful negro,
who had a stone in his hand which increased the force of the
blow.  I believe he was hit also by some missiles.  He reached
the depot almost lifeless with terror.  The train was standing
there, and started just after we arrived.  It was impossible
to get him into it.  It was then endeavored to put him into
a buggy which was standing outside of the depot, but the owner,
a young business man of Worcester, seized the bridle of his
horse and stoutly refused to allow the horse to start.  Butman
was then thrust into a hack, into which one or two other persons
also got, and the hack was driven rapidly through the crowd
with no damage but the breaking of the windows.  Mr. Higginson
thought Butman was left at Westboro'; but my recollection,
which is very distinct, and with which I think he now agrees,
is that Lovell Baker, the City Marshal, followed with his
own horse and buggy, and took Butman from the hack after he
got a short distance out of Worcester.  Butman implored him
not to leave him at the way-station, fearing that the crowd
would come down in an accommodation train, which went also
about that time, and waylay him there.  So Baker drove him
the whole distance to Boston, forty miles.  When Butman got
to the city, he was afraid that the news of the Worcester
riot might have reached Boston, and have excited the people
there; and, by his earnest solicitation, Baker took Butman
by unfrequented streets across the city to a place where he
thought he could be concealed until the excitement abated.
Baker, who died a short time ago in Worcester, aged over ninety,
told me the whole story immediately on his return.

The proceeding undoubtedly was not to be justified; but it
was a satisfaction to know that no slave-hunter came to Worcester
after that occurrence.  Five or six people--including, if
I am not mistaken, Mr. Higginson himself, certainly including
Joseph A. Howland, a well-known Abolitionist and non-resistant,
and also including Martin Stowell, who was afterward indicted
for killing Batchelder, a Marshal who took part in the rendition
of Burns--were complained of before the police court, and
bound over to await the action of the grand jury.  The grand
jury returned no indictment, except against one colored man.
Mr. District Attorney Aldrich was quite disgusted at this,
and promptly _nol prossed_ that indictment.  And so ended
the famous Butman riot.

The Whigs were in a minority in Massachusetts after the year
1848.  But the constitution required a majority of all the
votes to elect a Governor; and, in the case of no choice, the
Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Executive Council,
and the Senators from counties where there had been no election
were chosen on joint ballot by the members elected to the
two Houses.  The Whigs were able to carry the Legislature,
and in that way chose their Governor and Lieutenant Governor,
elected Councillors, and filled vacancies in the Senate.  But
the Free Soil and Democratic leaders were not content to leave
the power in the hands of the Whig minority.  In 1849 a few
Representatives and Senators were chosen to the Legislature
by a union of the Free Soil and Democratic Parties.  In the
autumn of 1850 this arrangement was extended through the State.
The Whigs were in a minority in the Legislature, and the coalition
proceeded to elect a Democratic Governor and Lieutenant Governor
and an Executive Council.  In consideration of giving these
offices to the Democrats, it was agreed that Mr. Sumner should
be chosen Senator.  A few of the Democrats, who desired to
keep their party relations with the South, refused to agree
to this arrangement.  Mr. Winthrop was the Whig candidate.
The Senate, on its part, promptly elected Mr. Sumner, but
there was a long contest in the House of Representatives,
extending through three months.  Twenty-six ballots were cast,
of which no candidate had a majority until the last.  Mr.
Sumner several times came within two or three votes of an
election.  At last it was apparent that some member had cast
more than one vote; and an order was offered by Sidney Bartlett,
an eminent Whig member from Boston, requiring the members
to bring in their votes in sealed envelopes.  This resulted
in the choice of Sumner.

Another contribution to Mr. Sumner's election ought not to
be forgotten.  The town of Fall River was represented by Whigs;
but it was a community where there was a strong anti-slavery
feeling.  A town-meeting was called by the friends of Mr.
Sumner, and a motion made to instruct their representatives,
according to the right of the people declared in the constitution
of Massachusetts, to vote for Sumner.  An earnest and eloquent
speech in favor of the resolution was made by Robert T. Davis,
a young Quaker, since a distinguished member of Congress.
The resolution was carried, which Mr. Borden, one of the
Representatives from Fall River, obeyed.  The result was Sumner's
election by a single vote.

As stated in the preceding chapter, I was a member in 1852
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, then consisting
of about four hundred and twenty members.  It was, I think,
as admirable a body of men for the training of a public speaker
as I ever knew.  The members were honest.  The large majority
was made up of sensible, strong-headed country farmers, rather
slow in making up their minds, but making them up always on
considerations of what was best for the Commonwealth.  There
was a time, when the opinion of the House seemed to be precipitating
or crystallizing, not too early in the debate and not too
late, when a vigorous and effective speech had great influence.
I was made Chairman of the Committee of Probate and Chancery,
the second law committee in the House; and I suppose it is
not presumptuous to say that I did as much of the hard work
of the body and had as much influence in leading its action
and shaping its legislation as anybody.

In the year 1856 I was, with Eli Thayer, sent from Worcester
as a delegate to a Convention held at Buffalo to concert measures
to help the settlers from the Free States in their contest
with slave owners led by Atchison and Stringfellow, of Missouri,
for the possession of Kansas.  Atchison had been President
pro tempore of the Senate of the United States.  The slave
holders had organized a formidable body of men to drive out
the Free State settlers from the Territories, which had just
been opened after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  We
met at Buffalo some gentlemen, among whom was Zachariah Chandler,
of Michigan, then in the vigor of early manhood.  We made
arrangements for getting large contributions of money and
arms with which the Northern emigrants were equipped, and
which undoubtedly enabled them to maintain successfully their
resistance and establish their free State.


CHAPTER XI
THE KNOW NOTHING PARTY AND ITS OVERTHROW

The political history of Massachusetts from 1846 to 1865
is, in general, the history of the share of the Commonwealth
in the great National contest with Slavery; the beginning
and growth of the Free Soil or Republican Party and the putting
down of the Rebellion.  The rise and dominion for three years,
and the final overthrow of the Know Nothing Party is an episode
which should not be wholly omitted, although it is an episode
which might be omitted without injury to the sense.

There have been, ever since the Irish immigration which begun
somewhere about 1840 down to to-day, a great many worthy people
who have been afraid of the Pope and the influence of Catholicism
in this country, and have been exceedingly jealous of the
influence of foreigners, especially of those of the Roman
Catholic Church.  Self-seeking political adventurers and demagogues
have not been slow to take advantage of this feeling for their
own purposes.  They have, for some reason, always preferred
to make their political movement in secret societies.  The
Catholic vote had generally been cast for the Democrats, and
was supposed to be largely influenced by the Catholic clergy.
It was thought that this influence had a good deal to do with
defeating Mr. Clay in 1844.  A movement of this kind swept
over the country after the Presidential election of 1852.
It had nearly spent its force by 1856.  It made little headway
at the South, except in two or three States.  There was a
struggle with it in Virginia, where it was defeated by the
superhuman energy of Henry A. Wise.  The party organized for
the purpose of excluding men of foreign birth from any share
in the Government, sometimes called the American Party, was
generally called the Know-Nothing Party, a name which came
from the answer each member was expected to make to any inquiry
from an outsider, "I know nothing about it."

This party swept Massachusetts in the autumn of 1854.  It
elected in that year Governor, Lieutenant Governor, all the
officers of the State Government, every member of both Houses
of the Legislature, except two from the town of Northampton,
and every member of Congress.  Its candidate for Governor
was Henry J. Gardner, a very skilful political organizer.
He had a book in which he had the names of men in every town
in the Commonwealth whom he attached to his personal fortunes
by promises, or flattery, or because in some cases of their
sincere belief in the doctrine.  He understood better than
any other man I ever knew the value of getting the united
support of men who were without special influence, even the
man who were odious or ridiculous among their own neighbors,
but who united might be a very formidable force.  He organized
with great skill and success the knave-power and the donkey-
power of the Commonwealth.

But a good many Anti-Slavery men who thought the party feeling
of the Whigs and Democrats was a great obstacle to their cause,
joined the movement simply in order that they might get rid
of the old parties, and prepare the State as with a subsoil
plow for a new one.  They had no belief in the proscriptive
doctrines, and were willing that men of foreign birth and
Catholics should have their just rights, and expected to destroy
the Know Nothing Party in its turn when it had destroyed Whiggery
and Democracy.  Of these was Henry Wilson, who owed his first
election to the Senate to the Know Nothing Legislature; and
Eli Thayer, who had been the organizer of the Emigrant Aid
Society, and the movement for the deliverance of Kansas and
Nebraska.  Both these gentlemen abandoned the Know Nothing
Party the year after its formation.  Mr. Thayer was elected
as a Republican to Congress in 1856, and reelected in 1858.
But he separated from his political associates and espoused
the squatter sovereignty doctrines of Stephen A. Douglas.
He, I have no doubt, was a sincere Anti-Slavery man.  But
he liked to do things in peculiar and original ways of his
own, and was impatient of slow and old-fashioned methods.
So he got estranged from his Republican brethren, was defeated
as a candidate for Congress in 1860, took no part in public
activities during the time of the war, became somewhat soured,
and landed in the Democratic Party.  I always had a great
liking for him, and deem him entitled to great public gratitude
for his services in the rescue of Kansas from what was known
as Border Ruffianism.

Neither Charles Sumner nor Charles Allen ever tolerated the
Know Nothing movement or made any terms with it.  Its proscriptiveness
and its secrecy were alike repugnant to their honest, brave
and liberty-loving souls.  Sumner was advised, as the question
of his reelection was coming on in January, 1857, to keep
silent about Know Nothingism.  He was told that the Slavery
question was enough for one man to deal with, and that if
he would only hold his peace all the parties would unite in
his reelection.  He answered the advice with his brave challenge.
He went about the Commonwealth, denouncing the intolerant
and proscriptive doctrine of the Know Nothings.  He told them:
"You have no real principle on which you can stand.  You are
nothing but a party of Gardnerites."

Charles Allen addressed a little company, of which I was
one, in the City Hall at Worcester in the autumn of 1854,
when Know Nothingism was in the height of its strength.  He
said:

"Perhaps I am speaking too boldly, but I learned to speak
boldly a long time ago.  I will speak my sentiments in the
face of any organization; or, if it does not show its face,
though its secret mines are beneath my feet, and unseen hands
ready to apply the match, I will declare those sentiments
that a freeman is bound to utter."

The people of Massachusetts elected Gardner Governor in 1854,
1855 and 1856.  But in the autumn of 1857 he was beaten under
the leadership of General Banks.  The party lingered until
1856 when there was an attempt to keep it alive in the Presidential
campaign of that year when Millard Fillmore was its candidate
for the Presidency.

But it was destroyed in the consuming fire kindled by the
Civil War, and has not since been heard of by its old name.

The proscriptive and intolerant opposition to Catholicism,
especially against men of foreign birth, has shown its head
occasionally.  It appeared in its most formidable shape in
a secret organization known as the A. P. A., of which I shall
speak later.  It is utterly uncongenial to the spirit of true
Americanism, and will never have any considerable permanent
strength.


CHAPTER XII
ELECTION TO CONGRESS

In the year 1868 one chapter of my life ended and a very
different one began.  In the beginning of that year I had
no doubt that what remained of my life would be devoted to
my profession, and to discharging as well as I could the
duties of good citizenship in the community to which I was
so strongly attached.  But it was ordered otherwise.  My
life in Worcester came to an end, and I shall if I live to
complete my present term in the Senate have spent thirty-
eight years in the National service.

This came from no ambition of mine.  In May, 1868, I sailed
for Europe, broken down in health by hard work.  During my
absence, some of the leading Republicans of the District issued
an appeal recommending me as a candidate for Congress.  There
were five or six other candidates.  They were all of them
men of great popularity, with hosts of friends and supporters.
Among them was John D. Baldwin, then holding the seat, a veteran
in the Anti-Slavery Service, editor of the Worcester _Spy,_
one of the most influential papers in New England.  It had
been the almost unvarying custom of the people of Massachusetts
to reelect an old member who had served as faithfully as Mr.
Baldwin.  Another candidate was Francis W. Bird, one of the
founders of the Anti-Slavery Party, and a man who had been
a powerful supporter by speech and pen and wise counsel and
large influence of the Republican Party since its foundation.
He was supported by the powerful influence of Charles Sumner,
then at the height of his popularity, and by Adin Thayer,
the ablest political organizer in Massachusetts.  Another
candidate was Amasa Walker, the eminent writer on political
economy, whose name has since been rendered still more illustrious
by the brilliant public service of his son.  Another was Mr.
Mayhew, a successful manufacturer, of large wealth, and a
deserved favorite in Milford, the second town in the District,
where he resided.  Another still was Lucius W. Pond, a generous
and warm-hearted man, although he afterward fell from his
high place.  He was a Methodist.  That denomination had always
been strong and influential in the Worcester District, and
its members have always stood stanchly by the men of their
own household when candidates for political office.  Mr. Pond
was also a member of the Masonic Order and of other secret
associations.  I ought however to say, in justice to the Masonic
Fraternity, that I have never been able to see that there
was any truth whatever in the charge that the members of that
Order deemed it their duty to support each other in politics,
or when on juries.  Many a client has told me with great alarm
that his opponent was a Mason, and that one or more leading
Masons were on the jury that were to try the case.  I always
refused to challenge a juryman on that account, and I never
found that the man's being a Mason had the least effect in
preventing him from rendering a just verdict.  I have many
intimate friends both political and personal in that Order,
although I never belonged to it and never sympathized with
or approved of secret societies in a Republic.

My strength was due to the fact that I had in general the
good will of my competitors.  So if any one failed to get
a majority it was easy to transfer his strength to me.  Perhaps
also there was a feeling, growing out of the fact that I had
had great experience in public speaking at the Bar and in
political meetings, that I might be able to take a prominent
part in the debates in the House, a faculty which all my competitors
lacked, except Mr. Bird.  But chiefly I had the advantage
of the good will of my associates in my own profession, a
body whose influence is always justly very powerful and who
were all, with scarcely an exception, my close and strong
friends.  I had, beside all that, a great many clients in
every town in the District who had been in the habit of trusting
me with their most intimate and secret concerns, and with
whom I had formed the attachment which in those days used
to exist between counsel and client.

I had said before I went to Europe that if nominated I would
accept the office.  I thought it doubtful whether my strength
would permit me to continue my professional work without interruption.
I had no thought of remaining in Congress, if I were elected,
more than one term, or perhaps two.  Indeed I did not contemplate
the probability of a nomination as a very serious one.

But almost before I got out of the sight of land the burden
lifted and my health came back.  When I got home I was utterly
sick of the whole business.  But my friends had been committed
to my support.  They claimed that I could not withdraw honorably
after the assurance I had given them before I went away.  So,
rather to my disgust, I was nominated on the first formal
ballot.  I had not expected the result.  I had gone to take
a ride while the Convention was in session.  So they were
obliged to wait for me.  I was found with some difficulty
and went in and made a brief speech which I ended by saying:
"If I shall fail to satisfy you, the trust you have so freely
conferred you can as freely recall.  If I shall fail to satisfy
myself, I shall at least have the comfort of reflecting that
it is by your free choice that this nomination has been conferred.
It has not been begged for, or bargained for, or intrigued
for, or crawled into.  If elected I shall at the close of
the term lay down the honors of the office with the same cheerfulness
with which I now accept the nomination."

I expected to go back to my home and my profession at the
end of one term.  My law practice was rapidly increasing.
Professional charges in those days were exceedingly moderate
as compared with the scale of prices now, and I had inherited
the habit of charging low fees from my partner and friend,
Emory Washburn.  If I had the same class of clients now that
I had then, I could at the present scale of charges for professional
service easily be earning more than fifty thousand dollars
a year, and I could earn it without going to my office in
the evening, and also take a good vacation every summer.

My life from that time has been devoted altogether to the
public service.  I have, what is commonly expected of men
who represent Massachusetts in the Senate, delivered a good
many literary and historical addresses, and have taken part
in political campaigns, and have occasionally eked out a scanty
salary by some professional work in the vacations.  But I
think I may fairly claim that I have done my share of the
work of the Senate and of the House to the best of my ability.
Senator Edmunds when he left the Senate was kind enough to
compliment me by saying that the whole work of the Senate
was done by six men, of whom I was one.  I do not suppose
Mr. Edmunds meant the number six to be taken literally.  But
he is a gentleman certainly never given to flattery or empty
compliment.  So I think I might call him as a witness that,
in his time, so far as hard work is concerned I did my best.
I am not quite so confident that he would testify to the wisdom
of my course on all occasions.

I did not, as I have said, expect when I entered to remain
in public life more than one term.  But I became interested
in the bill known as the National Education Bill, and accepted
another election with a view to doing what I could to carry
that through.  At the end of the next term I announced my
purpose to withdraw.  But there was a very earnest letter
to me signed by the principal men in the district, including
several gentlemen, any one of whom might very naturally have
expected to be my successor, saying it was not for the interest
of the people of the district to make a change.

Two years after I made a formal and peremptory refusal to
be a candidate again, which was encountered by a like appeal.
It was the year of what was called the Tidal Wave which swept
the Republicans from power in the House of Representatives.
It was very doubtful whether they could carry the Worcester
District.  The Democrats elected a majority of the Massachusetts
delegation in the National House of Representatives.  I was
elected by a few hundred only, although I was elected by several
thousand on former occasions.  I could not very well refuse
to accept the nomination at a time of great political peril.
So I continued once more.  At the end of that time I wrote
another peremptory refusal, and my successor was nominated
and elected.

I have been often charged with a blind and zealous attachment
to party.  The charge is sometimes made by persons who consider
that I desire to do right, but think that my understanding
and intellectual faculties are guided and blinded by that
emotion.  Others are not so charitable.  One very self-satisfied
critic, Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, sometimes in prose and
sometimes,

  A screechin' out prosaic verse
  An' like to bust,

says that I differ from my honorable colleague, Mr. Lodge,
in that Mr. Lodge has no conscience, while I have a conscience
but never obey it.  If any man be disposed to accept these
estimates, it is not likely that I can convince him to the
contrary by my own certificate.  But I will say two things:

1.  I have never in my life cast a vote or done an act in
legislation that I did not at the time believe to be right, and
that I am not now willing to avow and to defend and debate
with any champion, of sufficient importance, who desires to
attack it at any time and in any presence.

2.  Whether I am right or wrong in my opinion as to the duty
of acting with and adherence to party, it is the result not
of emotion or attachment or excitement, but of as cool, calculating,
sober and deliberate reflection as I am able to give to any
question of conduct or duty.  Many of the things I have done
in this world which have been approved by other men, or have
tended to give me any place in the respect of my countrymen,
have been done in opposition, at the time, to the party to
which I belonged.  But I have made that opposition without
leaving the party.  In every single instance, unless the question
of the Philippine Islands shall prove an exception, and that
is not a settled question yet, the party has come round, in
the end, to my way of thinking.  I have been able by adhering
to the Republican Party to accomplish, in my humble judgment,
ten-fold the good that has been accomplished by men who have
ten times more ability and capacity for such service, who
have left the party.

When Governor Boutwell, the President of the Anti-Imperialist
League, wrote me that he thought I could do more good for
that cause by staying in the Republican Party than by leaving
it, and when he declared in a public interview in Boston that
of course Mr. Hoar would remain in the Republican Party, he
was right.  If he had taken the same course himself, he would
have been a powerful help in saving his country from what
has happened.  If the gentlemen who acted with him in that
way had remained Republicans, and the gentlemen who agreed
with him, who have remained Republicans, who abandoned public
life, had kept in it, they would have saved the country from
what they and I deemed a grievous mistake and calamity.  There
was but one vote lacking for the defeat of the Spanish Treaty.
There was but one vote lacking for the passage of the Teller
resolution.  If Mr. Speaker Reed, the most powerful Republican
in the country, next to President McKinley, had stayed in
the House; if Mr. Harrison, as I earnestly desired, had come
back to the Senate; if Governor Boutwell and Mr. Adams had
uttered their counsel as Republicans, the Republicans would
have done with the Philippine Islands what we did with Cuba
and Japan.  I could cite a hundred illustrations, were they
needed, to prove what I say to be true.  There was undoubtedly
great corruption and mal-administration in the country in
the time of President Grant.  Selfish men and ambitious men
got the ear of that simple and confiding President.  They
studied Grant, some of them, as the shoemaker measures the
foot of his customer.  Mr. Sumner and Mr. Schurz and Mr.
Trumbull and Mr. Greeley and the New York _Tribune,_ and
the Springfield _Republican,_ and the Chicago _Tribune,_ and
the St. Louis _Republican,_ and scores of other men and other
papers left the party.  They were, so long as they maintained
that attitude, absolutely without political influence from
that moment.  When the great reforms which were attempted
were accomplished, they were not there.  The reforms were
accomplished.  But their names were wanting from the honorable
roll of the men who accomplished them.  President Grant himself
and President Hayes and Judge Hoar and Mr. Cox and General
Garfield, and others, if there are other names honorable enough
to be mentioned along with these, stayed in the Republican
Party.  They purified the administration.  They accomplished
civil service reform.  They helped to achieve the independence
of American manufacture.  They kept the faith.  They paid
the debt.  They resumed specie payment.  They maintained a
sound currency, amid great temptation and against great odds.
To this result our friends who were independent of party contributed
no jot or tittle.

Our system differs from that which prevails in England in
that it is hard to change the political power from one party
to another and hard to restore it when it is once lost.  We
elect our President for four years.  We elect our Senators
for six years.  Therefore in determining whether it is your
duty to forsake a party which is wrong on some single question
you are to decide, first, whether that question is important
enough to warrant sacrificing every other measure in which
you agree with your party, and having every measure espoused
by the other which you think bad enacted if it get control.
Second, you have not only in such cases to sacrifice every
other thing you think desirable to prevent the one thing you
think undesirable, but you must decide whether, in regard
to that particular matter, the party you are asked to substitute
in power for your own will accomplish what you desire if it
get power.  For example, there are some worthy Republicans
who are free-traders.  But they agree with the Republican
Party in everything else.  If you ask them to put a Democratic
President and Congress into power in order to get free trade
they must consider whether if they get power they will give
them free trade.  Otherwise they sacrifice everything else
for that chance and get no benefit in that respect.  The Republican
free-trader who voted for Mr. Cleveland in 1892 did not get
free trade.  He got only what Mr. Cleveland denounced as
a measure of infamy.  In the third place you have under our
Constitutional system to determine whether the chance to accomplish
what you want in regard to one measure warrants placing the
political power in hands you deem unfit, so that the party,
in your judgment right on one thing, but wrong in every other,
will have the fate of the country in its hands for a four
years' term, and deal with every new and unexpected question
as it shall think fit.  I was bitterly reproached for supporting
Mr. McKinley, and refusing to support Mr. Bryan, when I differed
from Mr. McKinley on the great predominant question how we
should deal with the people of the Philippine Islands.  But
the men who criticised me most bitterly were some of them
the men who applauded my purpose to do so when it was first
declared.  One of them, the President of the Anti-Imperialist
League, wrote me a letter saying that I could be more useful
to that cause by remaining a Republican than in any other
way, and declared in a public interview that of course Mr.
Hoar would remain a Republican.  The Secretary of the same
organization, after I had made a speech in which I had declared
my purpose to continue to support Mr. McKinley, in spite
of his grievous error in this respect, wrote me a letter
crowded with the most fulsome adulation, and declared that
my position was as lofty as that of Chatham or Burke.  I
could cite many other instances to the same effect.  But
what other men think, however respectable they may be, is
of course of no importance.  Every man must settle for himself
the question of his individual duty.  I could not find that
the chance that Mr. Bryan, who had urged the adoption of the
Spanish Treaty and had committed himself to the opinion that
it was right to do everything we promised to do in that Treaty,
would act wisely or righteously if he were trusted with power,
or that he could get his party to support him if he were disposed
to do so, warranted my running the risk of the mischief he
was pledged to accomplish; still less running the risk of
giving the government of this country to his supporters for
the next four years.  There are many good men in the Democratic
Party.  But the strength of that organization in 1900, as
it is to-day, was in Tammany Hall, in the old Southern leaders
committed to a policy of violence and fraud in dealing with ten
million of our American citizens at home, aided by a few
impracticable dreamers who were even less fitted than the
Democratic leaders to be trusted with political power.

The Republican Party, whatever its faults, since it came
into power in 1860 has been composed in general of what is
best in our national life.  States like Massachusetts and
Vermont, the men of the rural districts in New York, the
survivors and children of the men who put down the Rebellion
and abolished slavery, saved the Union, and paid the debt
and kept the faith, and achieved the manufacturing independence
of the country, and passed the homestead laws, are on that
side, and in general they give and will hereafter give direction
to its counsels.  On the other hand their antagonist has been,
is, and for an indefinite time to come will be, controlled
by the foreign population and the criminal classes of our
great cities, by Tammany Hall, and by the leaders of the solid
South.

I entered the House of Representatives of the United States
at the spring session which began March 4, 1869, at the beginning
of Grant's Administration.  It then contained a very interesting
and important group of men, the most brilliant and conspicuous
of whom was, undoubtedly, Mr. James G. Blaine.  The public,
friends and foes, judged of him by a few striking and picturesque
qualities.  There has probably never been a man in our history
upon whom so few people looked with indifference.  He was
born to be loved or hated.  Nobody occupied a middle ground
as to him.  In addition to the striking qualities which caught
the public eye, he was a man of profound knowledge of our
political history, of a sure literary taste, and of great
capacity as an orator.  He studied and worked out for himself
very abstruse questions, on which he formed his own opinions,
usually with great sagacity.  How far he was affected in his
position by the desire for public favor I will not undertake
to say.  I think the constitution of his mind was such that
matters were apt to strike him in much the same way as they
were apt to strike the majority of the people of the North,
especially of the Northwest, where he was always exceedingly
popular.  He maintained very friendly personal relations with
some of the more intelligent Southerners, especially with
Lamar.  One incident in his relations with Butler was intensely
amusing.  They were never on very friendly terms, though each
of them found it wise not to break with the other.  When Blaine
was a candidate for Speaker, to which office he was chosen
in the spring session of 1869, his principal competitor was
Henry L. Dawes.  Dawes's chances were considered excellent
until Butler, who had great influence with the Southern Republican
members of the House, declared himself for Blaine.  Butler
was exceedingly anxious to be Chairman of the Committee of
Appropriations.  This would have been an offence in the nostrils
of a large portion of the Republican Party.  Mr. Dawes, learning
Butler's proposed defection, was beforehand with him by rising
in the caucus and himself nominating Mr. Blaine.  This secured
Blaine's unanimous nomination.  Butler, however, still pressed
eagerly his own claim for the Chairmanship of the Appropriations.
Blaine was altogether too shrewd to yield to that.  The committees
were not appointed until the following December.  Butler suspected
somehow that there was doubt about his getting the coveted
prize.  He accordingly went to the door of the Speaker's room,
which was then opposite the door of the House of Representatives,
by the side of the Speaker's chair.  He found Blaine's messenger
keeping the door, who told him that Mr. Blaine was engaged
and could not see anybody.  "Very well," said General Butler,
"I will wait."  Accordingly, he took a chair and seated himself
at the door, so that he might intercept Blaine as he came
out.  Blaine, learning that Butler was there, went out the
window, round by the portico, and entered the House by another
entrance.  Somebody came along and, seeing Butler seated in
the corridor, said: "What are you about here, General?"  "Waiting
for Blaine," was the reply.  "Blaine is in the chair in the
House," was the answer.  "It isn't possible," said Butler.
"Yes, he is just announcing the committees."  Butler rushed
into the House in time to hear Mr. Dawes's name read by the
Clerk as the Chairman of Appropriations.  He was very angry,
and bided his time.  They had an altercation over the bill
to protect the rights of the freedmen in the South, the story
of which I tell in speaking of Grant.  But as the end of the
Congress approached, Butler endeavored to get up an alliance
between the Democrats and what were called the "Revenue Reformers."
There was a large number of Northwestern Republicans who were
disposed to break away from the party because of its policy
of high protection.  This included representatives of a good
many States that afterward were the most loyal supporters
of the tariff policy.  Butler showed me one day a call he
had prepared, saying: "How do you think something like this
would answer?"  It was a call for a caucus of all persons
who desired a reform in the tariff to meet to nominate a
candidate for Speaker.  I was never in Butler's confidence,
and I suppose he showed me the paper with the expectation
that I should tell Blaine.  Blaine circumvented the movement
by giving assurances to the friends of revenue reform that
he would make up a Committee of Ways and Means with a majority
of persons of their way of thinking.  This ended Butler's
movement.  Blaine kept his word.  Mr. Dawes, a high protectionist,
was made Chairman, and Mr. Kelly, also a high protectionist,
was second on the Committee of Ways and Means; but a majority
were revenue reformers.  The committee reported a bill which
would have been exceedingly injurious to the protected industries
of New England.  That bill was pressed and reported to the
House from the Committee of the Whole; but the member of the
committee who had it in charge, by some strange oversight,
forgot to demand the previous question.  Mr. Dawes, quick
as lightning, took from his desk a bill which he had previously
prepared, but which had been voted down by his committee,
added to it a clause putting tea and coffee on the free list,
and, I believe containing also one or two other items which
were specially popular in some parts of the country, and moved
that as an amendment to the committee's bill, and himself
demanded the previous question.  The cry of a free breakfast-
table was then specially popular.  There were enough members
who did not dare to vote against putting tea and coffee on
the free list to turn the scale.  Dawes's amendment was adopted,
the bill passed, the New England industries saved, and the
tariff reformers beaten.  The persons who saw only the quiet
and modest bearing with which Mr. Dawes conducted himself
in the Senate do not know with how much vigor, quickness of
wit, readiness and skill in debate, he conducted himself amid
the stormy sessions of the House of Representatives during
Grant's first Administration.  There has never been, within
my experience, a greater power than his on the floor of the
House.  He had mighty antagonists.  There were not only very
able Democrats, like Randall and Kerr and Holman, but there
were mighty leaders among the Republicans.  There was little
party discipline.  Each of them seemed bent on having his
own way and taking care of himself, and ready to trip up or
overthrow any of his rivals without mercy or remorse.  Among
them were Butler and Farnsworth and Garfield and Logan and
Schenck and Kelly and Banks and Bingham and Sargent and Blaine
and Poland.

I was not in the habit of going often to the White House
when Grant was President.  When I did, he received me always
with great kindness.  He always seemed to be very fond of
my brother; and I suppose that led him to receive me in a
more intimate and cordial fashion than he would otherwise
have done.  I was first introduced to him in the cloak-room
of the House of Representatives the Saturday evening before
his inauguration.  He came, I think, to see Mr. Boutwell,
then a member of the House, afterward his Secretary of the
Treasury.  He came to Worcester in the summer of that year,
and I went with him in a special car to Groton in the afternoon.
He was not very talkative, though interested in all he saw.
He expressed special delight in the appearance of the boys
of the Worcester Military School, who turned out to escort
him.  One of his sons, a well-grown lad, was upon the train.
The general had not seen him for some time, and he sat with
one arm around him, as one might with a little girl.

It used to be thought that Grant was a man without much literary
capacity.  Since the publication of his "Memoirs," this notion
has been discarded.  I can testify to his great readiness
as a writer.  I saw him write two messages to Congress, both
of a good deal of importance, without pause or correction,
and as rapidly as his pen could fly over the paper.  The first
was the message he sent in on the adoption of the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution.  I was much interested in a
bill in aid of national education.  I called on the President
when the last State needed had ratified the Fifteenth Amendment,
and suggested to him that it might be well to send a special
message to Congress congratulating them on the result, and
urging the policy of promoting education for the new citizens.
I told him of General Washington's interest in a national
university, and what he had said about the importance of
education in his writings.  I said I supposed he had them
in his library.  He said he believed he had, but he wished
I would get the books and bring them to him.  I accordingly
got the books, carried them up to the White House, showed
him the passages, and Grant sat down and wrote in a few minutes,
and quite rapidly, the message that was sent to Congress the
next day.  The other occasion was when he sent in the message
at the time of the controversy between the House and the Senate
in regard to the policy to be pursued in dealing with the
outrages in the South.  The Senate had passed a bill giving
a discretion to the President to take some firm measures to
suppress these disorders, and to protect the colored people
and the Republicans of the South, and if in his judgment he
thought it necessary, to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus._
This measure, which had a considerable majority in the Senate,
was voted down in the House under the influence of Speaker
Blaine, Mr. Dawes, General Farnsworth, and other prominent
Republicans.  During the controversy Mr. Blaine left the
chair and engaged in the debate, being provoked by some thrust
of Butler's.  There was a lively passage at arms, in which
Blaine said he was obliged to leave the chair, as his predecessor
Mr. Colfax had been compelled to do, "to chastise the insolence
of the gentleman from Massachusetts."  Butler replied by some
charge against Blaine, to which Blaine, as he was walking
back to take the gavel again, shouted out:  "It's a calumny."
My sympathies in the matter, so far as the measure of legislation
was concerned, were with Butler, though I had, as is well
known, little sympathy with him in general.

The House undertook to adjourn the session, but the Senate
refused to do so without action on the bill for the protection
of human rights at the South.  While things were in this condition,
I was summoned one morning into the President's room at the
Capitol, where I found President Grant, his Cabinet, several
of the leading Senators, including Mr. Conkling, I think
Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, and I believe General
Wilson, Judge Shellabarger of Ohio, and one or two other members
of the House.  All the persons who were there were favorable
to the proposed legislation, I believe.  President Grant said
that he had been asked to send in a message urging Congress
to pass a law giving him larger powers for the suppression
of violence at the South; but he had sent for us to explain
the reason why he was unwilling to do it.  He thought that
the country would look with great disapprobation upon a request
to enlarge the powers of the President, and especially to
suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ in time of peace, and that he
felt especially unwilling to subject himself to that criticism
as he had not come to that office from civil life, but had been
a soldier, and it might be supposed he favored military methods
of government.  Several of the gentlemen present expressed
rather guardedly their dissent from this view, but Grant seemed
to remain firm.  I kept silent, as became a person young in
public life, until Mr. Howe and Judge Shellabarger whispered
together, and then came to me and said: "Mr. Hoar, you may
perhaps, be able to have some influence on him.  Won't you
say something?"  I then made a little speech to the President,
in which I said that there was no question of the existence
of these disorders and crimes; that they would be likely to
be increased, and not diminished, especially as the elections
in the Southern States approached.  He could not allow them
to continue.  He would be compelled, in my judgment, to interpose
and go to the verge of his authority, or to leave to their
fate those people whom we were bound by every consideration
of honor to protect.  I asked him if he did not think it
would be better, instead of exercising a doubtful authority
of his own, acquired without legislative sanction, to obtain
the necessary authority from Congress in advance.  I thought
it much less likely to be imputed to him that he was acting
in the manner of a soldier and not of a statesman if he were
careful to ask in advance the direction of the law-making
power, and the people understood he was unwilling, even if
he had the authority, to act without the sanction of Congress.
This view produced an instant change of mind.  Grant took
a pen, wrote a brief message with great rapidity, read it
aloud to the persons who were assembled, and sent it in that
very day without the change of a word.  It is a clear and
excellent statement.  The result was that the Republican opposition
to the measure in the House was withdrawn, the two Houses
came to an agreement, and adjourned without day soon afterward.

One of the most important acts of President Grant's Administration
was his veto of the Inflation Bill, which provided for a considerable
increase of the large volume of legal tender paper money,
which at that time was not redeemed by the government.  This
veto is regarded by most persons as the turning of the corner
by the American people, and setting the face of the Government
toward specie payment and honest money.  It was during the
hard times that followed the crisis of 1873.  It is said that
President Grant had made up his mind to sign the bill, and
sat down to write out his reasons, but that he found them
so unsatisfactory that he changed his mind and sent in his
veto message.  I had not been disposed to believe this until
I was told, a little while ago, by Secretary Boutwell that
he had the statement that that was the fact from the lips
of Grant himself.  If that be true, the President must have
changed his mind twice.  When the bill was pending in the
House of Representatives, my wife's father, a very simple-
hearted and excellent merchant of Worcester, who spent seventy
years of life in business on the same spot, visited us in
Washington.  I took him up to see Grant.  The General was
alone and, contrary to his usual custom, in a very talkative
mood.  He seemed to like Mr. Miller, who had a huge respect
for him, and evidently saw that we were not there for any
office-seeking or other personal end.  He talked with great
freedom about himself and his visit to Worcester.  He expressed
his wonder that the town had grown and prospered so without
any advantage of river or harbor or water power, or the neighborhood
of rich mines or rich wheat-fields.  He then asked me how
the bill for an increased issue of green-backs was coming
on in the House.  I told him it seemed likely to pass.  He
then went on to express very earnestly his objection to the
measure and to the whole policy, and his dislike of irredeemable
paper.  He said that it was an immense injury to all classes
of the people, but that it bore heavily upon poor and ignorant
men.  He said that speculators and bankers and brokers could
foresee the changes which came about from the fluctuations
of paper money and protect themselves from them, but the workingmen
and poor men had no such advantages--that they were the greatest
sufferers.  He added a suggestion I never heard before, that
there was in many parts of the country great loss from the
counterfeiting of paper money--a loss which fell almost wholly
upon poor and ignorant men.  I never in my life heard Grant
talk so freely on any occasion.  I never in my life, but once,
saw him apparently so deeply moved.  I said: "Mr. President,
you know the story of old Judge Grier and the Pennsylvania
jury."  "No," said he.  "Well," said I, "there was once a
jury in Pennsylvania, when Grier was holding court, who brought
in a very unjust verdict.  The judge said: 'Mr. Clerk, record
that verdict and enter under it, "Set aside." I will have
you to know, Gentlemen of the Jury, that it takes thirteen
men in this court to steal a man's farm.' It takes three powers,
Mr. President, under our government to pass a law." Grant
laughed and said:  "Well, if you send it up to me, make it
just as bad as you can."  There can be no possible question
that he then desired and meant to veto the bill.  His desire
that it might be as bad as possible was that it might be more
easy to defend his action.

I had another exceedingly interesting conversation with the
President on my return from New Orleans.  In the winter of
1875 I went to New Orleans, as Chairman of a Committee of
the House of Representatives, to investigate and to ascertain
which of the rival State governments had the true title.  Louisiana
was in a terrible condition.  Sheridan was in command of the
United States troops there, and it was only their presence
that prevented an armed and bloody revolution.  The old rebel
element, as it was, had committed crimes against the freedmen
and the white Republicans which make one of the foulest and
bloodiest chapters in all history.  Sheridan had much offended
the white people there by his vigorous enforcement of laws,
and especially by a letter in which he had spoken of them
as banditti.  I stopped, during my stay in New Orleans, at
the St. Charles Hotel, where Sheridan also was a guest.  When
he came into the crowded breakfast-room every morning, there
were loud hisses and groans from nearly the whole assembled
company.  The morning papers teemed with abusive articles.
The guests would take these papers, underscore some specially
savage attack, and tell the waiter to take it to General Sheridan
as he sat at table at his breakfast.  The General would glance
at it with an unruffled face, and bow and smile toward the
sender of the article.  The whole thing made little impression
on him.  No violence toward him personally was ventured upon.
The night before I started on my return to Washington, General
Sheridan called to take leave.  I was much amused by the simplicity
and _naivete_ with which he discussed the situation.  He
said, among other things:  "What you want to do, Mr. Hoar,
when you get back to Washington, is to suspend the what-
do-you-call-it."  He meant, of course, the _habeas corpus._
He knew there was some very uncomfortable thing which stood
in his way of promptly suppressing the crimes in Louisiana,
where he said more men had been murdered for their political
opinions than were slain in the Mexican War.  When I got back
to Washington, the President sent for me and Mr. Frye of
Maine, a member of the committee, to come to the President's
room in the Capitol to report to him the result of our observations.
During the conversation, Grant expressed what he had often
expressed on other occasions, his great admiration for Sheridan.
He said:  "I believe General Sheridan has no superior as a
general, either living or dead, and perhaps not an equal.
People think he is only capable of leading an army in battle,
or to do a particular thing he is told to do.  But I mean,
all the qualities of a commander which enable him to direct
over as large a territory as any two nations can cover in
war.  He has judgment, prudence, foresight, and power to deal
with the dispositions needed in a great war.  I entertained
this opinion of him before he became generally known in the
late war." I was so impressed with this generous tribute of
one great soldier to another that, as soon as the interview
was over, I wrote it down and asked Mr. Frye to join with
me in certifying to its correctness.  It is now before me,
and has the following certificate: "The foregoing is a correct
statement of what General Grant said to me and Mr. Frye in
a conversation this morning in the President's room.  February
15, 1875.  George F. Hoar."  "I heard the above conversation,
and certify to the correctness of the above statement of it.
William P. Frye."

I heard General Grant express a like opinion of Sheridan
under circumstances perhaps even more impressive.  I was a
guest at a brilliant dinner-party given by Mr. Robeson, Secretary
of the Navy, where Grant, General Sherman, General Sheridan,
Commodore Alden, Admiral Porter, Chief Justice Chase, Attorney-
General E. R. Hoar, Lyman Trumbull, Mr. Blaine, and some
other men of great distinction were present.  There were about
twenty guests.  Mr. James Russell Lowell was of the company.
I believe no one of that brilliant circle is now living.  Commodore
Alden remarked, half in jest, to a gentleman who sat near
him, that there was nothing he disliked more than a subordinate
who always obeyed orders.  "What is that you are saying, Commodore?"
said President Grant, across the table.  The Commodore repeated
what he had said.  "There is a good deal of truth in what
you say," said General Grant.  "One of the virtues of General
Sheridan was that he knew when to act without orders.  Just
before the surrender of Lee, General Sheridan captured some
despatches from which he learned that Lee had ordered his
supplies to a certain place.  I was on the other side of the
river, where he could get no communication from me until the
next morning.  General Sheridan pushed on at once without
orders, got to the place fifteen minutes before the rebels,
and captured the supplies.  After the surrender was concluded,
the first thing General Lee asked me for was rations for his
men.  I issued to them the same provisions which Sheridan
had captured.  Now if Sheridan, as most men would have done,
had waited for orders from me, Lee would have got off." I
listened with wonder at the generous modesty which, before
that brilliant company, could remove one of the brightest
laurels from his own brow and place it on the brow of Sheridan.

I had another memorable conversation with Grant, not so pleasant.
It revealed a capacity of intense passion which I do not know
that he ever manifested on any other occasion.  He had sent
into the Senate the nomination of William A. Simmons for
the important office of Collector of Boston.  This was due
to the influence of General Butler.  Mr. Sumner, whose controversy
with the President is well known, was then the senior Senator
from Massachusetts.  The nomination had been made, of course,
without consulting him, with whom Grant was not on friendly
terms, and without consulting any of the members of the House
of Representatives except Butler.  There was a very earnest
opposition to this nomination.  I went up to the White House
to endeavor to induce President Grant to withdraw it, but
he had gone out.  I repeated my visit once or twice, but failed
to find the President.  The third or fourth time that I went
up, as I was coming away I saw President Grant on the other
side of Pennsylvania Avenue, walking alone on the sidewalk
adjoining Lafayette Square.  I suppose it was not in accordance
with etiquette to join the President when he was walking alone
in the street; but I overtook him, and said: "Mr. President,
I have been to the White House several times, and been unable
to find you in.  The business of the House is very urgent
just now, and it is difficult for me to get away again.  Perhaps,
therefore, you will kindly allow me to say what I have to
say here."  The President very courteously assented.  I walked
along with him, turned the corner, and walked along the sidewalk
adjoining the east side of Lafayette Square, until we came
to the corner opposite the house then occupied by Sumner,
which is now part of the Arlington Hotel.  I told the President
that I thought the Republicans of Massachusetts would be much
dissatisfied with the nomination of Simmons, and hoped it
might be withdrawn.  The President replied that he thought
it would be an injustice to the young man to do so, and that
the opposition to him seemed to be chiefly because he was
a friend of General Butler.  I combated the argument as well
as I could.  The whole conversation was exceedingly quiet
and friendly on both sides until we turned the corner by Mr.
Sumner's house, when the President, with great emphasis, and
shaking his closed fist toward Sumner's house, said: "I shall
not withdraw the nomination.  That man who lives up there
has abused me in a way which I never suffered from any other
man living."  I did not, of course, press the President further.
But I told him I regretted very much the misunderstanding
between him and Mr. Sumner, and took my leave.  It was evident
that in some way the President connected this nomination with
the controversy between himself and Sumner.

I have always lamented, in common with all the friends and
lovers of both these great men, that they should have so misunderstood
each other; yet it was not unnatural.  They were both honest,
fearless, patriotic, and brave.  Yet never were two honest,
fearless, patriotic, and brave men more unlike each other.
The training, the mental characteristics, the field of service,
the capacities, the virtues, the foibles of each tended to
make him underestimate and misunderstand the other.  The man
of war, and the man of peace; the man whose duty it was to
win battles and conduct campaigns, and the man who trusted
to the prevalence of ideas in a remote future; the man who
wielded executive power, and the man who in a fierce contest
with executive power had sought to extend the privileges,
power, and authority of the Senate; the man who adhered tenaciously
to his friends though good and evil report, and the man whose
friendships were such that evil report of personal dishonor
never dared assail them; the man of little taste for letters,
and the man of vast and varied learning; the man of blunt,
plain ways, and the man of courtly manners; the man of few
words, and the man who ever deemed himself sitting in a lofty
pulpit with a mighty sounding board, with a whole widespread
people for a congregation--how could they understand each
other?  Grant cared little for speech-making.  It sometimes
seemed as if Sumner thought the Rebellion itself was put down
by speeches in the Senate, and that the war was an unfortunate
and most annoying, though trifling disturbance, as if a fire-
engine had passed by.  Sumner did injustice to Grant; Grant
did injustice to Sumner.  The judgment of each was warped
and clouded, until each looked with a blood-shotten eye at
the conduct of the other.  But I believe they know and honor
each other now.


CHAPTER XIII
SUMNER AND WILSON

When I took my seat on the 4th of March, 1869, the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts had a position of power in both Houses of
Congress never held by any other State before or since, unless
we except that held for a short time in early days by Virginia.
Charles Sumner was beyond all question the foremost figure
on the National stage, save Grant alone.  He had seen the
triumph of the doctrines for which he had contended all his
life.  He had more than any other man contributed to fetter
the hands of Andrew Johnson and drive him from power.  Henry
Wilson was the most skilful political organizer in the country.
Sumner was at the head of the Committee on Foreign Relations,
and Wilson of that of Military Affairs.  In the House Henry
L. Dawes was at the head of the Committee on Appropriations,
Benjamin F. Butler of the Committee on Reconstruction, William
B. Washburn of the Committee on Claims, Nathaniel P. Banks
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.  These Committees with
the Committee on the Judiciary of which General Butler was
a member, and the Committee on Ways and Means, controlled
the policy of the House on all the great questions then interesting
the country.  Samuel Hooper had the third place on the Committee
on Coinage, Weights and Measures.  But he was its dominant
member and in a later Congress introduced the Bill for Reforming
the Currency, a wise and salutary measure.  It is known,
however, among ignorant people in some parts of the country
as "The Crime of '73."

Sumner and Wilson are so well known to the American people
that it would be superfluous for me to attempt to describe
either elaborately.  I have spoken of each at some length
elsewhere.

Charles Sumner held a place in the public life of the country
which no other man ever shared with him.  He held a place
in the public life of the world shared by very few indeed.
He was an idealist.  He subjected every measure to the inexorable
test of the moral law.  Yet, at the same time, he was a powerful
political leader, and in a time when the fate of the Republic
was decided accomplished vast practical results.  Where duty
seemed to him to utter its high commands he could see no obstacle
in hostile majorities, and no restraint in the limitations
of a written Constitution.  It is right, therefore Constitutional,
was the logical formula with which he dealt with every question
of State.  We should be deaf and blind to all the lessons
of history, if we were to declare it to be safe that men
trusted with Executive or even with Legislative power should
act on that principle.  Unfortunately, humanity is so constituted
that the benevolent despot is likely to work more mischief
even than a malevolent despot.  His example of absolute disregard
of constitutional restraints will be followed by men of very
different motives.  Yet the influence of one such man pressing
and urging his companions forward in a Legislative body like
the Senate of the United States, keeping ever before the people
the highest ideals, inspired by the love of liberty, and ever
speaking and working in the fear of God, is inestimable.

Charles Sumner lacked that quality which enables the practical
statesman to adjust the mechanism of complicated statutes.
He had no genius for detail.  It would not have been safe
to trust him with Appropriation Bills, or Bills for raising
revenue.  But he was competent to deal with questions of the
greatest moment to the State.  He knew what are its governing
forces.  He retained his hold on those forces.  He directed
them.  He caused sound principles of action to take effect
in the Government of the State in great emergencies.  He converted
the people to his opinion.  He inspired the people with lofty
desires.  He accomplished wise public ends by wise means.
He maintained his hold on power in an important time.  He
took a prominent part in great debates and was the acknowledged
leader of one side of the question.  He believed that the
conscience of the people was a better guide than individual
ambitions.  He always did the thing he could best do.  He
did the thing that most needed to be done, the thing most
effective at the time, the thing that no other man did or
could do.  He left to others to do what hundreds of others
could do well enough.  He contributed largely to the Government
of his country, in the most trying period of our history,
its motive and its direction.  That is a pretty practical
contribution to the voyage which furnishes to the steamship
its engine and its compass.  His figure will abide in history
like that of St. Michael in art, an emblem of celestial purity,
of celestial zeal, of celestial courage.  It will go down
to immortality with its foot upon the dragon of Slavery, and
with the sword of the spirit in its hand, but with a tender
light in its eye, and a human love in its smile.  Guido and
Raphael conceived their "inviolable saint,"

  Invulnerable, impenetrably armed:
  Such high advantages his innocence
  Gave him above his foe; not to have sinned,
  Not to have disobeyed.  In fight he stood
  Unwearied, unobnoxious to be pained
  By wounds.

The Michael of the painters, as a critic of genius akin to
their own has pointed out, rests upon his prostrate foe light
as a morning cloud, no muscle strained, with unhacked sword
and unruffled wings, his bright tunic and shining armor without
a rent or stain.  Not so with our human champion.  He had
to bear the bitterness and agony of a long and doubtful struggle,
with common weapons and against terrible odds.  He came out
of it with soiled garments and with a mortal wound, but without
a regret and without a memory of hate.

It was fortunate for Sumner and fortunate for the Commonwealth
and the country that he had Henry Wilson for his colleague.
Wilson supplied almost everything that Sumner lacked.  I cannot
undertake to tell the story of his useful life in the space
at my command here.  If I were to try I should do great injustice
to him and to myself.

He was a very impressive and interesting character, of many
virtues, of many faults.  His faults he would have been the
first to acknowledge himself.  Indeed, I do not know of any
fault he had that he would not have acknowledged and lamented
in a talk with his near friend, or that he would have sought
to hide from the people.

The motives which controlled his life from the time when
he snatched such moments as he could from this day's work
on a shoemaker's bench and studied far into the night to
fit himself for citizenship, down to the time when he died
in the Vice-President's chamber--the second officer in the
Government--and if his life and health had been spared, he
very likely would have been called to the highest place in
the Government--were public and patriotic, not personal.
He was not without ambitions for himself.  But they were
always subordinate in him to the love of liberty and the
love of country.  He espoused the unpopular side when he
started in life, and he stuck to it through all its unpopularity.

He was a skilful, adroit, practised and constant political
manager.  He knew the value of party organization, and did
not disdain the arts and diplomacies of a partisan.  He carried
them sometimes farther, in my judgment, than a scrupulous
sense of honor would warrant, or than was consistent with
the noble, frank, lofty behavior which Massachusetts and the
American people expect of their statesmen.  The most conspicuous
instance of this was his joining the Know Nothing Party, in
whose intolerance he had no belief.

But it was done as an instrument for destroying the existing
political parties, which were an obstacle to freedom, and
clearing the field for a new one.  This object was successfully
accomplished, and in its accomplishment Wilson had a large
share.  But it was, in my judgment, doing evil that good may
come.  Wilson freely admitted this before he died, and said--
I have no doubt with absolute sincerity--that he would give
ten years of his life if he could blot out that one transaction.

He was a very valuable legislator.  He was the author of many
important measures in the war, during which he was chairman
of the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, and showed
much ability in the way of practical and constructive statesmanship.
I do not believe any man in the Senate in his time, not even
Sumner, had more influence over his colleagues than he.

There was not a drop of bigotry, intolerance, or personal
hatred in him.  As you would expect from a man who raised
himself from the humblest to the loftiest place in the republic,
he was a believer in pure manhood, without respect of persons
or conditions.

He was a powerful stump orator.  He never made speeches that
were quoted as models of eloquence or wisdom.  But he knew
what the farmer and the mechanic and the workman at his bench
were thinking of, and addressed himself always to their best
and highest thought.  He was a great vote-making speaker.
When Mechanics Hall, in Worcester, or the City Hall was filled
to hear Henry Wilson in a close campaign, many men who entered
the hall undecided or against him, went away to take earnest
part on his side.

He had a good many angry political strifes.  But he never
bore malice or seemed to keep angry over night.  General Butler
once wrote him a letter pouring out on his head the invective
of which he was so conspicuous a master.  Wilson brought the
letter into the office of a dear friend of mine in Boston
when I happened to be there, handed it to us to read, and
observed:  "That is a cussed mean letter." I do not think
he ever spoke of it or scarcely thought of it again.

But his chief gift and faculty is one which I can hardly
think of words to describe fitly.  The few of his old friends
who are left will understand what I mean.  But I can hardly
make those who did not know him, or live in his time, comprehend
it.  That was his rare and unequalled gift of gathering and
uttering the sentiment of the people.  When new and doubtful
matters of pith and moment were to be dealt with, and after
a long apparent hesitation, and backing and filling, and what
people who did not know him thought trembling in the balance,
he would at last make up his mind, determine on his action,
and strike a blow which had in it not only the vigor of his
own arm, but the whole vigor and strength of the public sentiment
which he had gathered and which he represented.  He was an
ubiquitous person.  He would travel all over the State, spending
the day, perhaps, in visiting forty shops and factories in
the neighborhood of Boston; then take a nine or ten o'clock
train at night and go up to Springfield, get in there at two
or three o'clock in the morning, call up out of bed some active
politician and tell him he had come to sleep with him; spend
the night in talking over the matter about which he was anxious
until six or seven o'clock in the morning (I do not believe
he ever slept much, either with anybody or alone), and then,
perhaps, up to Northampton or Greenfield to see some person
whom he called Tom, Dick, or Harry, but who knew the local
feeling there; and after a week or two spent in that way,
never giving his own opinion, talking as if he were all things
to all men, seeming to hesitate and hesitate and falter and
be frightened, so if you had met him and talked with him you
would have said, if you did not know him well, that there
was no more thought, nor more steadiness of purpose, or backbone
in him than in an easterly cloud; but at length, when the
time came, and he had got ready, the easterly cloud seemed
suddenly to have been charged with an electric fire and a
swift and resistless bolt flashed out, and the righteous
judgment of Massachusetts came from his lips.

With all his faults, Peace be to the ashes of Henry Wilson.
He was a leader and a tribune of the people.  We do not seem
to have such leaders now-a-days.  I liked Charles Sumner better.
But it was a great thing for Massachusetts, a great thing for
human liberty, and a great thing for Charles Sumner himself
that he had Henry Wilson as a friend and ally, a disciple
and a co-worker.

If Wilson had lived, in my opinion, it is quite likely that
he would have been the Republican candidate for the Presidency
in 1876, and would have been triumphantly elected.  There
was a very powerful movement going on all over the country
to bring that about.  Wilson's hold upon the affection of
the people everywhere was very strong indeed.

Wilson became Vice-President of the United States, March 4,
1873.  He died two years afterward.  I was asked to write
the inscription for a tablet placed in the Vice-President's
Room in the Capitol by order of the Senate in 1902.  It follows
here.

IN THIS ROOM
HENRY WILSON
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
DIED NOVEMBER 22 1875.
THE SON OF A FARM LABORER, NEVER AT
SCHOOL MORE THAN TWELVE MONTHS, IN
YOUTH A JOURNEYMAN SHOEMAKER, HE
RAISED HIMSELF TO THE HIGH PLACES OF
FAME, HONOR AND POWER, AND BY UNWEARIED
STUDY MADE HIMSELF AN AUTHORITY IN THE
HISTORY OF HIS COUNTRY AND OF LIBERTY,
AND AN ELOQUENT PUBLIC SPEAKER TO
WHOM SENATE AND PEOPLE EAGERLY
LISTENED.  HE DEALT WITH AND CONTROLLED
VAST PUBLIC EXPENDITURE DURING A GREAT
CIVIL WAR, YET LIVED AND DIED POOR, AND
LEFT TO HIS GRATEFUL COUNTRYMEN THE
MEMORY OF AN HONORABLE PUBLIC SERVICE,
AND A GOOD NAME FAR BETTER THAN RICHES.


CHAPTER XIV
PERSONALITIES IN DEBATE

I have been, in general, enabled to avoid angry conflicts
in debate or the exchange of rough personalities.  My few
experiences of that kind came from attacks on Massachusetts,
which I could not well avoid resenting.  The only two I now
think of happened in my first term.  In one case, Mr. S.
S. Cox of New York, who was one of the principal champions
on the Democratic side of the House, a man noted for his wit,
undertook to make an attack on the Massachusetts Puritans,
and to revive the old slander that they had burned witches.
I made some slight correction of what Mr. Cox had said but
he renewed the attack.  I was then comparatively unknown in
the House.  Mr. Cox treated me with considerable contempt,
and pointing to Mr. Dawes, who had charge of the bill then
under discussion, but who had not given any reply to Cox's
attack, said, with a contemptuous look at me: "Massachusetts
does not send her Hector to the field," to which I answered
that it was not necessary to send Hector to the field when
the attack was led by Thersites.  The retort seemed to strike
the House favorably, and was printed in the papers throughout
the country, and Cox let me and Massachusetts alone thereafter.

I had a like encounter with Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana,
who was a more formidable competitor.  Mr. Voorhees made the
same charge against the people of Massachusetts of having
burned witches at the stake in the old Puritan time.  It was
in a debate under the five-minute rule.  After reiterating
the old familiar slander that the State of Massachusetts in
her early history had burned witches at the stake, Mr. Voorhees
added that in 1854 or 1855 the Know Nothings broke up convents,
burned Catholic churches, and would have burned Catholics
and Sisters of Charity themselves at the stake within her
borders, if they had dared to do so.

I declared both of these charges to be utterly false, and
said that no human being was ever burned at the stake in
Massachusetts for the crime of witchcraft, and though at a
time when the whole civilized world believed in witchcraft
on the authority of certain passages in the Old Testament,
the courts of Massachusetts did execute some nineteen or
twenty persons of both sexes for the alleged crime of witchcraft,
it was also true that the people of Massachusetts were the
first among men to see the error and wickedness of this course;
that although late in the following century, many people were
condemned for witchcraft in England and on the Continent,
the love of justice and the intelligence of Massachusetts
first exposed that error and wickedness.

I explained that a convent was burned in Massachusetts, not
in 1854 or 1855 by the Know Nothings, but in 1836, by a mob
excited by a rumor that some terrible cruelty had been inflicted
upon some young women who had been placed in a convent at
Charlestown; that the criminals were arrested, tried and sentenced,
and that their crime left no more stain upon the State than
any criminal act committed within the limits of any civilized
country.  In conclusion, I said it did not become the political
friends of the men who had burned our soldiers alive at Fort
Pillow, or who burned orphan asylums in New York, and hung
negroes on lamp posts, to talk of cruelties in a past age.

This retort angered Voorhees beyond endurance, and before
I could finish my sentence, he sprang to his feet and cried
out in great anger:  "Every word the gentleman says is false
and he knows it."  There was a demand that my words be taken
down and that the words of Mr. Voorhees be taken down.  That
was done.  The chairman of the committee, Mr. Ingersoll,
brother of the famous Robert G. Ingersoll, declared that
the words of Mr. Voorhees were unparliamentary, and ruled
that my language was "rather pungent but not unparliamentary."
Whereupon the committee arose amid great laughter, and the
transaction ended.


CHAPTER XV
THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 1869

The House, when I entered it, contained many very able men.
Some of them remained long enough in public life to fill a
large and prominent place in the history of the country.  Others
retired early.  I will mention only a few.

I do not think his countrymen have estimated Nathaniel P.
Banks at his true value.  When he left office at the ripe
age of seventy-five a public service ended surpassed in variety
and usefulness by that of few citizens of Massachusetts since
the days of John Adams.  He bore a great part in a great history.
Men who saw him in his later life, a feeble, kindly old man,
with only the remains of his stately courtesy, had little
conception of the figure of manly strength and dignity which
he presented when he presided over the Constitutional Convention
in 1853, or took the oath of office as Governor in 1858.  He
raised himself from a humble place, unaided, under the stimulant
of a native and eager desire for excellence.  He was always
regarded by the working people of Massachusetts as the type
of what was best in themselves and as the example and representative
of the great opportunity which the Republic holds out to its
poorest citizens and their children.  He was a natural gentleman,
always kindly and true.  From this trait and not because of
a want of fidelity to his own convictions he found as warm
friends among his political opponents as among his political
associates.

Gen. Banks was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations
in 1869.  He was then beginning to lose somewhat his oratorical
power and the splendid qualities which made him so important
a force in the history of Massachusetts and of the country.
But still on fit occasions he showed all his old vigor and
brilliancy.  When the delegation gave a dinner to William
B. Washburn on his election as Governor Banks presided.  He
kept up a running stream of eloquence and wit as he introduced
the different speakers and punctuated their remarks with interjections
of his own, which I have never known equalled, though I have
attended many like occasions.  Banks was a man of humble origin.
He used to be known as the Waltham Bobbin Boy.  He worked
in his boyhood and youth in a factory in Waltham.  He had
very early a passion for reading.  When Felton was inaugurated
President of Harvard, Banks was Governor.  As is the custom,
he represented the Commonwealth and inducted the new President
into office.  There were famous speakers at the Dinner,--
Daniel Webster, old Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett, Dr. Walker,
Winthrop, and Felton himself.  But the Governor's speech was
the best of the whole.  He described the time of his poverty
in his youth when he used to work in a mill five days in a
week, and on Saturday walk ten miles to Boston to spend the
day in the Athenaeum Library and ten miles back at night.
He told how he used to peer in through the gate as he passed
Harvard College with an infinite longing for the treasures
of learning that were inside.  That refined and fastidious
audience was stirred by an unwonted emotion.

The older public men of Massachusetts did not take very kindly
to Banks.  He was a man of the people.  He was sometimes charged,
though unjustly, with being a demagogue.  He sometimes erred
in his judgment.  But he was a man of large and comprehensive
vision, of independence, and exerted his vast influence with
the people for high ends.  He might justly be called, like
the negro Toussaint, L'Ouverture,--The Opener.  His election
as Governor extracted the people from the mire of Know Nothingism.
His election as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
was part of the first victory over the Whig Dynasty which
had kept the State, contrary to its best traditions, in alliance
with slavery.  His election as Speaker of the United States
House of Representatives was the first National Republican
victory.  His taking a little slave girl on a cannon during
the War in his march through the Shenandoah Valley was hailed
throughout the country as an omen that the War would not end
until slavery was abolished.  He rendered a special service
to the Commonwealth and to the cause of good learning which
I think never would have been accomplished without his personal
influence.  When Agassiz had been in this country but a few
years he seriously contemplated going back to Europe.  It
was understood that he would stay if a sufficient fund could
be raised to enable him to prosecute his researches here and
to establish a museum where his collections could be cared
for and made useful to science.  There was a meeting in Boston
to see about raising the fund.  The Governor was invited to
attend.  The gentlemen present spoke rather doubtfully of
the prospect of success.  Governor Banks was asked what he
thought the Commonwealth would do.  He replied: "The Commonwealth
will give a hundred thousand dollars." The Legislature had
been of late years economical, not to say niggardly, in such
matters.  Governor Banks's declaration was received with entire
incredulity.  One gentleman present said that he was very
much discouraged by what His Excellency had said.  If he
had said some moderate sum there might have been hope that
it would be given, but it was utterly hopeless to expect
that any such extravagant sum as that would be contributed
by the State.  The gentleman seemed to be well warranted
in what he said.  The three colleges, Harvard, Amherst and
Williams, had united in an application for one hundred thousand
dollars shortly before.  It was supported by the eloquence
of Edward Everett and the authority of Mark Hopkins and President
Hitchcock.  Harvard was then so poor that they had not money
to spare when they wanted to move the pulpit from the end
to the side of the Chapel.  But the application was denied.
Banks relied in his somewhat sonorous fashion: "You need not
trouble yourself, Sir.  The Commonwealth will give a hundred
thousand dollars." And she did.  This was followed by the
grant, under Banks's influence, for the endowment of the Boston
Institute of Technology, large grants to the colleges and
grants to some of the endowed schools.

General Banks's statue should stand by the State House as
one of the foremost benefactors of the great educational
institutions of the Commonwealth, and as an example of what
a generous ambition can accomplish for the humblest child
in the Republic.


Governor Boutwell, who is still living, became a member of
President Grant's Cabinet in March, 1869, and remained in
the House only a day or two of the spring session which lasted
about ten days.  He was succeeded in the following December
by George M. Brooks, who had been my friend from early boyhood.
He would in my judgment have had an eminent political career
if he had remained in public life, but for his great modesty.
He never seemed to value highly anything he accomplished himself.
But his sympathy and praise were always called out by anything
done by a friend.  I think Brooks took much more pleasure
in anything well done or well said by one of his colleagues
than in anything of his own.  He was a man of an exceedingly
sweet, gracious and affectionate nature, loving as a  child,
yet as men of such natures often are, thoroughly manly.  He
was incapable of any meanness or conscious wrong-doing.  He
had a very pleasant and ready wit.  The people of Middlesex
County, especially of Concord, were very fond of him, and
would have kept him in public life as long as he desired.
But his heath was not good in Washington.  The climate of
the place and the bad air of the House were unfavorable.  He
did not fancy very much the strife and noise of that turbulent
assembly.  So he gladly accepted an appointment to the office
of Judge of Probate of Middlesex County which was absolutely
suited to him.  He administered that important office to the
entire satisfaction of the people until his death.  I think
George Brooks's smile would be enough to console any widow
in an ordinary affliction.


William Barrett Washburn, afterward Governor and Senator,
was Chairman of the Committee on Claims.

He is one of the best recent examples of a character whose
external manifestations change somewhat with changing manners
and fashions, but the substance of whose quality abides and
I believe will abide through many succeeding generations.
He was a New England Puritan.  He brought to the service of
the people a purity of heart, a perfect integrity, an austerity
of virtue which not so much rendered him superior to all temptation
as made it impossible to conceive that any of the objects
of personal desire which lead public men astray could ever
to him even be a temptation.

There were few stronger or clearer intellects in the public
service.  His mind moved rapidly by a very simple and direct
path to a sound and correct result in the most difficult
and complicated cases.  The Chairmanship of the Committee
on Claims was then with two or three exceptions the most
important position in the House.  He spoke very seldom and
then to the point, stating very perfectly the judgment of
a clear-headed and sound business man.  But his opinion carried
great weight.  He was universally respected.  Every man felt
safe in following his recommendation in any matter which he
had carefully investigated.

Congress was beset by claims to the amount of hundreds and
hundreds of millions, where fraud seemed sometimes to exhaust
its resources, where, in the conflict of testimony, it was
almost impossible to determine the fact, and where the facts
when determined often presented the most novel and difficult
questions of public law and public policy.  Mr. Washburn's
dealing with these cases was the very sublimity of common
sense.  He very soon acquired the confidence of the House
so completely that his judgment became its law in matters
within the jurisdiction of his committee.  I became acquainted
with him, an acquaintance which soon ripened into cordial
friendship, when I entered the House in the spring of 1869.
I think I may fairly claim that it was the result of what
I said and did that he was agreed upon by the opponents of
General Butler as their candidate for Governor, and was Butler's
successful antagonist.

Beneath his plain courtesy was a firmness which Cato never
surpassed.  Upon a question of morality, or freedom or righteousness
there was never a drop of compromise in his blood.  He could
not be otherwise than the constant foe of slavery, and the
constant friend of everything which went to emancipate and
elevate the slave.  It was his good fortune to record his
vote in favor of all the three great amendments to the constitution,
and to be the supporter, friend and trusted counsellor of
Abraham Lincoln.

After his election to fill Sumner's unexpired term I had a
letter from Adin Thayer in which he said:  "Washburn hates
Butler with an Evangelical hatred which you know is more intense
than a Liberal Christian can attain to."


James Buffington was a shrewd and amusing character.  He understood
the temper of the House very well and had great influence
in accomplishing anything he undertook.  He prided himself
on the fact that he never missed answering to his name at
roll call during his whole term of service.  He understood
very well the art of pleasing his constituents.  He made it
a rule, he told me, to send at least one document under his
own frank every year to every voter in his District.  On one
occasion in a hotly contested election he had four votes more
in a town on Cape Cod than any other candidate.  He was curious
and inquired what it meant.  The Chairman of the Selectmen
told him that there were four men who lived in an out-of-
the-way place, who never came to town meetings and nobody
seemed to know much about them.  They were a father and his
three sons, living together on the same farm.  But at that
election they appeared at the town meeting.  All four voted
for Buffington and for no other candidate and disappeared
at once.  The Selectman asked him why he voted for Buffington.
"If he knew him?" "No!" said the old fellow.  "He knows me.
He sends me and each of my sons a document every winter."

Buffington was very anxious about the matter of patronage
and of getting offices for all his constituents.  A great
many men applied for his support; frequently there were many
applications for the same office.  He did not like to refuse
them.  So he made it a rule to give all of them a letter of
recommendation to the Departments.  But he had an understanding
with the appointing clerks that if he wrote his name Buffington
with the g he desired that man should be appointed, but if
he wrote it Buffinton without the g he did not wish to be
taken seriously.


Beyond all question the leader of the Massachusetts delegation,
and of the House, was Henry L. Dawes.  He had had a successful
career at the bar and in public life before his election to
Congress.  In Congress he made his way to the front very rapidly.
No member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts
and few from any part of the Union had an influence which
could be at all compared with his.  He became in succession
Chairman of the two foremost Committees, that of Appropriations
and that of Ways and Means.  He was a prominent candidate
for the office of Speaker when Mr. Blaine was elected and
was defeated, as I have said elsewhere, only by the adroit
management of Butler.

Mr. Dawes represented the Berkshire District in the House
for eighteen years when he declined further service there.
He was then elected to the Senate where he remained eighteen
years longer, when he declined further service there.  During
the last part of his last term he was troubled with a growing
deafness which I suppose had much to do with his declining
to enter upon the contest for another reelection.  He was
regarded by the manufacturers of Massachusetts as their faithful
and powerful representative.  He had several contests for
his seat in the Senate when his opponents thought they were
sure of success; but they found themselves left in the minority
when the vote came to be taken.  They never fully comprehended
what defeated them.  They would get the support of men who
were active in caucuses and nominating conventions and supposed
with excellent reason that they were safe.  But there was
in every factory village in Massachusetts some man of influence
and ability and wealth, frequently a large employer of labor,
who had been in the habit of depending on Mr. Dawes for the
security of his most important interests, so far as they could
be affected by legislation.  They knew him and they knew that
he knew them, and their power when they chose to exert it
could not be resisted.

Persons who saw Mr. Dawes in his later years only, when he
sat quietly in his seat in the Senate, taking little part save
in a few special subjects, could not realize what a power he
had been when he was the leading and strongest champion in
that great body which contained Blaine and Bingham and Butler
and Schenck and Farnsworth and Allison and Eugene Hale and
Garfield.

When Mr. Dawes left the Senate in 1893, his associates gave
a banquet in his honor, at which I made the following remarks.
They were, I believe, approved by the entire company.  I record
them here as my deliberate judgment:

"If there be any admirer of other forms of government who
think unfavorably of our republican fashion of selecting
our rulers, I would invite him to examine the list of men
whom Massachusetts for a hundred years has chosen as her
Senators of the first class.  I do not claim for her any
superiority over other Commonwealths in this respect--but
certainly she has given you of her best.  She has sent men who
were worthy to be peers of the men who have represented her
sister States, and if that be true, they surely have been
worthy to be peers in any Senate that was ever gathered upon
earth.  The line begins with Tristram Dalton, save Washington
the stateliest gentleman of his time, rich in every mental
accomplishment, whose presence graced and ennobled every assembly
that he entered.  Next to him comes George Cabot, the wise
statesman and accomplished merchant, beloved friend of Hamilton,
trusted counsellor of Washington, whose name and lineage are
represented at this table to-night, who shared with this successor,
Benjamin Goodhue, the honor of being the first authority in
finance in their generation, save Hamilton alone.

"Then comes John Quincy Adams, who left the Senate, after
years of illustrious public service, in 1808, but to begin
another public service of forty years, still more illustrious.
He served his country in every department of public occupation.
He was Minister in five great Powers in succession.  He was
present as Secretary when the treaty of peace was signed in
1783.  He negotiated and signed the Treaty of Ghent, the Commercial
Treaty of 1815, the French Treaty of 1822, the Prussian Treaty,
and the treaty which acquired Florida from Spain.  He was
Senator, Representative, Foreign Minister, Secretary of State,
and President.  He breasted the stormy waves of the House
of Representatives at the age of eighty, and when he died
in the Capitol, he left no purer or loftier fame behind him.

"Next came James Lloyd, the modest gentleman, the eloquent
orator and the accomplished man of business.  Then came Gore
and Ashmun and Mellen and Mills, each great among the great
lawyers of a great generation.  Next in the procession comes
the majestic presence of Daniel Webster, whose matchless logic
and splendid eloquence gave to the Constitution of the country
an authority in the reason and in the hearts of his countrymen
equal to anything in judicial decision and equal to that of
any victory of arms.  With his reply to Hayne, it has been
said that every Union cannon in the late war was shotted.
His power in debate was only equalled by his wisdom in council.
It was said of him by one whose fame as a great public teacher
equals his own: 'His weight was like the falling of a planet,
his discretion the return of its due and perfect curve.'

"Then comes Rufus Choate, next to Webster himself the foremost
forensic orator of modern times, against whose imperial eloquence
no human understanding, either on the Bench or in the jury
box, seemed to be proof.  Following them is he who still lives
in his honored age, with his intellectual powers unshattered,
the foremost citizen of his native Commonwealth, the accomplished
and eloquent Winthrop.  Next comes Rantoul, who died when
his foot had scarcely crossed the threshold of the Senate
Chamber, whose great hope was equal to the greatest of memories.
Next is the figure of the apostle of liberty, Charles Sumner,
the echo of whose voice still seems to linger in the arches
of the Capitol.  To those of us who remember him, he seems,
as Disraeli said of Richard Cobden, 'still sitting, still
debating, still legislating' in the Senate Chamber.

"No two of these men were alike in the quality they brought
to the public service.  Their mental portraiture is as different
and as individual as the faces painted by Titian or Van Dyke
or Holbein.  But each brought to the service of the State
what she most needed in each generation.  The constructive
statesman, the framer of the Constitution and statutes, the
financier, the debater, the lawyer, the man of business, the
diplomatist, the reformer, the orator, are all there, and
all are there at their best.

"It is enough, and not too much, to say of my colleague that,
as he lays down his office, the State that has been proud
of them is proud of him.  The State that has been satisfied
with them is satisfied with him.  In all this illustrious
line, there is none other who has more faithfully and more
successfully discharged every duty of Senatorial service,
and who has more constantly represented the interests and
character of the dear old Commonwealth, who has maintained
a higher or firmer place in her confidence and respect than
he whom we greet and with whom we part to-night.  Mr. Dawes
was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives
in 1847.  Every year since, with one exception, he has held
some honorable public station from the gift of his native
State.  Everywhere, at the Bar, in the State Legislature,
in the Representative Chamber, in the Senate Chamber, he has
been a leader.  Some great department of public service has
depended upon him for a successful administration.  He has
always been appointed to some special service or duty or difficulty
which he has discharged to the entire satisfaction of his
constituents and his political associates.  His work has been
as remarkable for its variety as for its dignity and importance,
or the length of time for which it has continued.  He has
proved himself fit for every conspicuous position in our
Republican army except that of trumpeter.  When the duty
was done, he has not sought for personal credit or popular
applause.  His qualities have not been those for which the
people manifested their regard by shouting or clapping of
hands, or stamping of feet in public meetings; he has had
no following of ambitious politicians whom he has sought to
repay for their political services at the public expense.

"But he has had a place second to that of no other man in
the solid and enduring esteem of the people of the Commonwealth.
He has been content to do a service, and has left the other
men who sought for it the credit of doing it.  His official
action has tended to make or unmake great industries.  Great
fortunes have depended upon it.  He has affected values of
millions upon millions, and yet he retires from office with
unstained hands, without fortune, and without a spot upon
his integrity.  He has no children pensioned at the public
charge.  He will leave behind him no wealth gained directly
or indirectly from his public opportunities.  He will go back
to a humble and simple dwelling not exceeding in costliness
that of many a Massachusetts merchant or farmer.  But honor,
good fame, the affection of his fellow citizens, the friendship
of his fellow Senators will enter its portals with him, and
there they will dwell with him until he leaves it for his
last home."

Mr. Dawes was a very powerful and logical reasoner.  He was
a very successful advocate when at the Bar and he was always
a strong antagonist in debate and very effective as a campaign
speaker.  He stuck closely to his subject.  He had a gift
of sarcasm with which he could make an adversary feel exceedingly
uncomfortable, although he rarely indulged in it.  He almost
never attempted eloquence, except so far as it is found in
his grave and effective statement of his case.  One sentence
of his which I myself heard deserves to be remembered among
the best things in American eloquence.  Speaking to thirty
or forty people at a club in Boston of the power and greatness
of the Republic, he said: "If we cannot say of our country,
as Mr. Webster said of England, 'that her morning drum-beat
circles the earth with an unbroken strain of her martial airs,'
we can at least say that before the sun sets upon Alaska he
has risen upon Maine."


In my first Congress the leadership was shared between my
colleague, Mr. Dawes, and Robert C. Schenck of Ohio.  General
Schenck was an old Whig.  He had served with distinction in
the time of Webster and Clay and Calhoun and Corwin.  He had
the gift of vigorous, simple Saxon English.  He was a very
powerful debater, a man of wisdom and of industry.  He was
Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and carried through
to success, against odds and difficulties, an important tariff
bill.  At one time he found the measure, which he had introduced,
overloaded and destroyed by amendments.  He abandoned it in
disgust, declaring that it had been "nibbled to death by
pismires."  But he afterward introduced the measure in another
form, and came off successful and triumphant in the end.

He was afterward sent abroad by General Grant to succeed Mr.
Motley.  He got into trouble there by giving a letter of recommendation
which was unwisely used to promote an enterprise known as
the Emma Mine.  He gave the recommendation, I have no doubt,
in entire good faith.  The stock of that mine went down.  The
investors lost their money, and great complaint was made that
he had used his official position to promote a fraudulent
scheme.  He was compelled to withdraw from the Mission.  He
was not recalled, but came home on leave of absence, and resigned
here.  So he was not obliged to take formal leave.  But the
stock of the mine afterward became exceedingly valuable,
and the public regretted the unjust judgment they had formed
about General Schenck.  I had and have a great regard for
him.  There was not a dishonest hair on the old fellow's head.
His health failed soon after, so he had no opportunity to
render further service, which would undoubtedly have caused
that unpleasant affair to be forgotten.


Judge Luke P. Poland of Vermont was another very interesting
character.  He was well known throughout the country.  He
had a tall and erect and very dignified figure, and a fine
head covered with a beautiful growth of gray hair.  He was
dressed in the old-fashioned style that Mr. Webster used,
with blue coat, brass buttons and a buff-colored vest.  His
coat and buttons were well known all over the country.  One
day when William Lloyd Garrison was inveighing against some
conduct of the Southern whites, and said: "They say the South
is quiet now.  Order reigns in Warsaw.  But where is Poland?"
An irreverent newspaper man said: "He is up in Vermont polishing
brass buttons."

The Judge was a very able lawyer, and a man of very great
industry.  He and Judge Hoar went over together the revision
of the United States statutes of 1874, completing a labor
which had been neglected by Caleb Cushing.  Judge Poland had
a good deal of fun in him, and had a stock of anecdotes which
he liked to tell to any listener.  It was said, I do not know
how truly, that he could bear any amount of whiskey without
in the slightest degree affecting his intellect.  There was
a story that two well-known Senators laid a plot to get the
Judge tipsy.  They invited him to a room at Willards, and
privately instructed the waiter, when they ordered whiskey
to put twice as much of the liquid into Poland's glass as
into the others.  The order was repeated several times.  The
heads of the two hosts had begun to swim, but Poland was not
moved.  At last they saw him take the waiter aside and heard
him tell him in a loud whisper: "The next time, make mine
a little stronger, if you please." They concluded on the whole
that Vermont brain would hold its own with Michigan and Illinois.

One of the most amusing scenes I ever witnessed was a call
of the House in the old days, when there was no quorum.  The
doors were shut.  The Speaker sent officers for the absentees.
They were brought to the bar of the House one after another.
Judge Poland happened to be one of the absentees.  My colleague,
Mr. Dawes, was in the chair.  Poland was brought to the bar.
Mr. Dawes addressed him with solemnity: "Mr. Poland, of Vermont,
you have been absent from the session of the House without
its leave.  What excuse have you to offer?" The Judge paused
a moment and then replied in a tone of great gravity and emotion:
"I went with my wife to call on my minister, and I stayed
a little too long."  The House accepted the excuse, and I
suppose the religious people of the Judge's district would
have maintained him in office for a thousand years by virtue
of that answer, if they had had their way.  A man who had
been so long exposed to the wickedness and temptations of Washington,
and had committed only the sin of staying a little too long
when he called on his minister might safely be trusted anywhere.


Judge Peters, of Maine, did not speak very frequently and
did not attract much public attention.  But he had a strong
influence with the members of the House.  He was on the Judiciary
Committee.  He made brief, pithy speeches which generally
convinced the House.  He declined to continue in the National
service, where the people of Maine would have been willing
to keep him until his dying day.  He afterward became Chief
Justice of Maine, and sustained the high character which the
Bench of that State has had from the beginning.

There is one anecdote of him, which does not come within
the sphere of my recollections, but which I think perhaps
my readers will prefer to anything that does.  A few years
ago a young man who kept a grocery store was tried before
Judge Peters for larceny.  He was a very respectable young
tradesman.  The Salvation Army had engaged quarters next to
his store, where they disturbed him and his customers a good
deal by playing on the drum and other similar religious services.
But that was not all.  They used to come out on the sidewalk
and beat a large drum and sing and kneel in prayer just before
his door, much to the disturbance of his customers and the
aggravation of the young grocer.  One day he purloined and
hid the large drum.  He was detected and indicted for larceny.
The Attorney-General, for the Government, maintained that
everything that went to constitute the crime of larceny existed
there.  He had taken secretly another man's property from his
possession, for purposes of his own.  Whether he meant to
destroy it or hide it or to convert it to his own use made
no difference in the offence against the owner or against
the law.  On the other hand the defendant's counsel argued
that it was a mere matter of mischief; that there was no felonious
intent, and no purpose to deprive the owner permanently of
the property.  The Chief Justice charged very strongly for
the Commonwealth.  The jury very reluctantly brought in a
verdict of guilty.  The poor fellow was sorely distressed.
He was convicted as a thief.  His life seemed to be blighted
and ruined past hope.  The Chief Justice said:  "Mr. Clerk,
you may record the verdict.  I may as well sentence him now.
I shall fine him a dollar, without costs.  I once stole a
drum myself."


John A. Logan was a member of the House when I entered it,
and I served with him in the Senate also.  He was a man of
remarkable power, and remarkable influence, both with the
Senate and with the people.  It is, I believe, agreed by all
authorities that we had no abler officer in the Civil War
than he, except those who were educated at West Point.  He
was always a great favorite with the veteran soldiers.  He
was rough in speech, and cared little for refinements in
manner.  He was said to be an uneducated man.  But I believe
he was a man of a good many accomplishments; that he spoke
some foreign languages well, and had a pretty good knowledge
of our political history.  He was exceedingly imperious and
domineering, impatient of contradiction in any matter which
he had in charge.  So he was rather an uncomfortable man to
get along with.  He was especially sensitive of any ridicule
or jesting at his expense.  He was supposed, I know not how
truly, to be exceedingly impatient and ready for war on any
man who crossed his path.  But his behaviour when he was ordered
to supersede General Thomas, just before the battle at Nashville
and Franklin, is a noble instance of magnanimity.

When Sherman started for the sea, Hood, with a large rebel
army, was in his rear.  Gen. Thomas was ordered to attack
him.  But he delayed and delayed till the authorities at Washington
grew impatient and ordered Logan to supersede Thomas.  Everybody
knows the intensity of the passion for military glory.  General
Logan could have carried out his orders, taken advantage of
Thomas's dispositions, and won himself one of the most brilliant
victories of the war, which would have had a double lustre
from the seeming lukewarmness of his predecessor; but when
he arrived at the place of operations and learned Thomas's
dispositions and the reason for his delay, he became satisfied
that the great Fabius was right and wise.  His generous nature
disdained to profit by the mistake at headquarters and to
get glory for himself at the expense of a brave soldier.  So
he postponed the execution of his orders, and left Thomas
in his command.  The result was the battle of Nashville and
the annihilation of Hood.  Where in military story can there
be found a brighter page than that?  That one act of magnanimous
self-denial gave to American history two of its brightest
names,--the name of Thomas and the name of Logan.


Another very able member of the House was Thomas A. Jenks
of Rhode Island.  He never seemed to care much for that field
of service, but preferred to enjoy the practice of his profession,
in which he was largely employed, and was earning a large
income.  But he is entitled to honorable memory as the originator
and father of the reform of the civil service in this country.
He made a very able speech in its favor in 1867 or 1868, which
was the beginning of a movement which has been successful,
for which I think the public gratitude should be shared between
him and Dorman B. Eaton.


Elihu B. Washburn, of Illinois, was appointed Secretary of
State by General Grant, whose constant friend and supporter
he had been through his whole military career.  Washburn was
brave, vigorous and far-sighted, a man of great influence
in his State and in the House.  He was prominently spoken
of for the Presidency.  But with Grant and Logan as his competitors
from his own State, there was not much chance for him.  He
was afterward Minister to France, and gained great distinction
and credit by remaining in Paris throughout the siege, and
giving shelter and support to persons who were in danger from
the fury of the mob.  He earned the gratitude alike of the
Germans and the French ecclesiastics.

He was known as the watch dog of the Treasury, when he was
in the House.  Few questionable claims against the Government
could escape his vigilance, or prevail over his formidable
opposition.  But, one day, a private bill championed by his
brother, Cadwallader, passed the House while Elihu kept entirely
silent.  Somebody called out to the Speaker: "The watch dog
don't bark when one of the family goes by."


When I entered the House, William B. Allison, of Iowa, had
already acquired great influence there.  He manifested there
the qualities that have since given him so much distinction
in the Senate.  He was understood to favor what was called
Revenue Reform, and moderation in the exercise of all doubtful
national powers.

But his chief distinction has been gained by a service of
thirty years in the Senate.  He was out of public life two
years, and then was elected to the Senate, where he has been
kept by the State of Iowa, maintaining the confidence of his
State and of his associates in public life.  During all that
time he has done what no other man in the country, in my
judgment, could have done so well.  He has been a member
of the great Committee on Appropriations for thirty years,
most of the time Chairman, and for twenty-six years a member
of the Committee on Finance.  He has controlled, more than
any other man, indeed more than any other ten men, the vast
and constantly increasing public expenditure, amounting now
to more than 1,000 millions annually.  It has been an economical,
honest and wise expenditure.  He has been compelled in the
discharge of his duties to understand the complications and
mechanism of public administration and public expenditure.
That is a knowledge in which nobody else in the Senate, except
Senator Hale of Maine, and Senator Cockrell of Missouri, can
compare with him.  He has by his wise and moderate counsel
drawn the fire from many a wild and dangerous scheme which
menaced the public peace and safety.

He almost never takes part in the debates, unless it becomes
necessary to explain or defend some measure of which he has
charge.  It is said that he is very careful not to offend
anybody, and that he is unwilling to take responsibilities
or to commit himself.  There is undoubtedly some truth in
that criticism.  Indeed if it were otherwise, he would find
it very hard to maintain the personal influence necessary
to success in the duties to which he is immediately devoted.
But he never avoids voting.  His name, since he has been Senator,
has been first or second alphabetically on the roll of the
Senate.  He is found in the Senate Chamber unless engaged
in his committee-room on work which requires him to be there
during the sessions,--and he always votes when his name is
called.

I have never seen any indication that he is interested in
anything, or has any special knowledge or accomplishment,
except what is necessary to the line of his duty.  I do not
know that he has any interest in history or literature or
science or music.  What he does in his time of recreation--
if he ever has any time for recreation--I cannot tell.  He
never seems to take any active interest in any of the questions
which determine the action of the party or the destiny of
the State, except those that relate to its finances.  I use
the word finances in the largest sense, including means for
raising revenue and maintaining a sound currency, as well
as public expenditures.  He is like a naval engineer, regulating
the head of steam but seldom showing himself on deck.  I think
he has had a good deal of influence in some perilous times
in deciding whether the ship should keep safely on, or should
run upon a rock and go to the bottom.

There is a good story told that after Thaddeus Stevens died,
a friend of Mr. Blaine's was walking with him one day through
the Rotunda of the Capitol toward the House of Representatives.
Mr. Blaine said:  "The death of Stevens is an emancipation
for the Republican Party.  He kept the party under his heel."
His friend replied:  "Whom have you got for leaders left?"
Blaine said:  "There are three young men coming forward.  There
is a young man who will be heard from yet." He pointed to
Allison, who happened to be just approaching.  "James A. Garfield
is another." There was a little pause, and his friend said:
"Well, who is the third?"  Blaine gazed straight up into
the dome, and said:  "I don't see the third."

I give my estimate of James A. Garfield later in this book.


I think I ought not to leave out of an account of the very
able and remarkable Massachusetts delegation in the Congress
of 1869 the name of George S. Boutwell, although he remained
in the House only a few days after I entered in and is still
living.  He had been a very faithful, useful and prominent
member of the House from the time he entered it in March,
1863, at the middle of the War.

It was the desire of his associates in the House that he
should be a Member of General Grant's cabinet.  When General
Grant's Cabinet was announced the name of Governor Boutwell
did not appear, and my brother, Judge Hoar, was nominated
for Attorney-General.  He had a high opinion of Mr. Boutwell
and had been very earnest, so far as he could properly do
so, in advocating his original nomination to Congress.  In
the evening after the Cabinet had been announced Mr. William
B. Washburn, afterward Governor, called upon me at my room.
Mr. Washburn and I were not then intimate, although we afterward
became close friends.  He said that he had been requested
by the delegation to tell me that they earnestly hoped to
Mr. Boutwell might have a place in the Cabinet, and that,
although they had great regard for Judge Hoar, they hoped
that some arrangement might still be made which would bring
about the selection of Mr. Boutwell.  I told Mr. Washburn
that I was sure that the appointment of Judge Hoar would be
a surprise to him, as it was to me, and that I thought it
quite doubtful whether he would wish to leave his place on
the Bench for a seat in the Cabinet, but that I could not
speak for him or judge for him.  I telegraphed at once to
Judge Hoar not to commit himself in any way until he reached
Washington and could see me.  I met him at the depot, told
him of the communication of the Massachusetts delegation and
that, especially considering President Johnson's quarrel with
Congress, it seemed quite important that General Grant, who
had no experience whatever in political life, should have
some person among his counsellors who had the full confidence
of the leaders in Congress.  The Judge strongly appreciated
that view.  When he called upon President Grant his first
conversation consisted in urging upon him very strongly the
selection of Governor Boutwell.  He supposed then that it
would be quite unlikely that the President would take two
men from the same State and supposed that selection would
require his own refusal of the offer of the office of Attorney-
General.  President Grant said that he would think it over
and not decide the question that day.  The next morning he
sent for the Judge and said:  "Judge, I think I would like
to have you take the oath of office."  He handed the Judge
his commission.  The Judge looked at it and saw that it was
not signed.  He said:  "I think perhaps it would be better
if you were to sign it."  Grant laughed and complied with
the suggestion.  Judge Hoar's first official duty was to give
an opinion upon the question whether Mr. Stewart, who had
been nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, could under
the law undertake the office.  Mr. Stewart proposed to make
some conveyances of his business in trust, by which he should
part with his legal title to it while he held the office of
Secretary of the Treasury and come back to it again after
his term ended.  But the Attorney-General advised the President
that that was impracticable, and the result was the withdrawal
of Mr. Stewart's name and the appointment of Mr. Boutwell
a day or two afterward.

I have had some serious difficulties with Mr. Boutwell since
he left the Democratic Party after his term of service as
Governor.  They have, I believe, never been differences of
political principle.  My differences of opinion with him have
been mainly upon the question what individuals were fit to
be trusted with political office and power, and with the leadership
in political parties, and upon the question whether certain
men and influences were to be tolerated, or whether the public
safety required unsparing warfare upon them.  So, while we
have agreed in general as to policies, we have always had
an entirely different set of friends and companions.

Mr. Boutwell has borne an honorable part in our history.
His titles to a place in the grateful memory of his countrymen
are not likely to be overlooked.

One of them deserves special mention.  I am but repeating
what I said many years ago.  As a leading member of the House
of Representatives, and as Secretary of the Treasury under
President Grant's Administration, he had, of course, a large
influence upon our financial history.  He saw very early the
importance of devoting every resource of the country to the
reduction of the National debt.  It was not with him, as I
understand it, a question whether a little saving could be
made in the way of taxes by postponing the payment until the
rate of interest should be less or the National resources
greater.  He saw that it was important that the people should
not get accustomed, as the English people are, to consider
a National debt as something that was to continue always.
He saw that it was important to the character of the people,
as to an individual, that they should be impatient and restless
under the obligation of debt, and should consider it alike
the Nation's first duty and its greatest pride and luxury
to get rid of the burden.  This has always been the temper
of the State of Massachusetts, of her towns, and, in general,
of her citizens.

Accordingly he insisted that the debt should be reduced so
rapidly that the people would take pride in having paid it,
and would be relieved from the temptation of listening to
the specious and seductive arguments of persons contriving
dishonest methods of getting rid of it by issuing fiat money,
or any device of direct or indirect repudiation.  Many persons
can remember in what dangerous forms this temptation came,
and how many men, who otherwise deserve to be held in high
esteem, yielded to it wholly or partly.  Mr. Boutwell's powerful
influence was a very important factor in attaining the result
in which we all now take so much satisfaction, and keeping
the American people in the path of duty and honor.


William A. Wheeler, of New York, entered the House in 1869.
I soon became very well acquainted with him, an acquaintance
which ripened into a very intimate friendship.  He was a very
serious, simple-hearted and wise man.  There was no man in
his time who had more influence in the House.  His ancestors
dwelt in my native town of Concord in the early generations,
and in Lincoln, which had been part of Concord.  One of the
family emigrated to Vermont.  Wheeler's father went from Vermont
to Malone, New York, where he was born, and where he was left
by his father an orphan in very early youth.  The widow and
children were without any property whatever, but got along
somehow.  Wheeler got an education, spending two or three
years in college, and became the foremost man in his part
of New York.  The people of his district were in character
and way of thinking very much like our best Massachusetts
constituencies.  Wheeler had little respect for the devious
and self-seeking politics which are supposed to have been
needed for success in that State.  He very much disliked Roscoe
Conkling, and all his ways.  Conkling once said to him: "Wheeler,
if you will join us and act with us, there is nothing in the
gift of the State of New York to which you may not reasonably
aspire."  To which Wheeler replied:  "Mr. Conkling, there
is nothing in the gift of the State of New York which will
compensate me for the forfeiture of my own self respect."

Mr. Wheeler was one of the sub-committee, of whom Mr. Frye
and myself were the other two Republican members, to inquire
into the condition of the legality of the Kellogg State Government
of Louisiana.  He suggested what is known as the Wheeler
compromise, the acceptance of which by both sides was due
to his influence and capacity for conciliation.  The compromise
consisted in an agreement to allow the Republican State officers
to remain in office during the remainder of their terms, without
turbulent or factious opposition, to submit quietly to their
authority on the one hand, and that the two Houses of the
Legislature, on the other hand, should seat the Democratic
contestants whom our sub-committee found entitled to their
seats.  This compromise in reality gave effect to the opinion
of the committee, as if they had been a tribunal of arbitration.
Of course they had no authority to enforce their opinion against
the objection of either party.

As soon as the nomination of President Hayes was declared
in the Convention of 1876, I spent a very busy hour in going
about among the delegates whom I knew, especially those from
the Southern States, to urge upon them the name of Mr. Wheeler
as a suitable person for Vice-President.  I have no doubt
I secured for him his election.  Mr. James Russell Lowell
was a Massachusetts delegate.  He was a little unwilling to
vote for a person of whom he had no more knowledge.  I said
to him:  "Mr. Lowell, Mr. Wheeler is a very sensible man.
He knows the 'Biglow Papers' by heart." Lowell gave no promise
in reply.  But I happened to overhear him, as he sat behind
me, saying to James Freeman Clarke, I think it was: "I understand
that Mr. Wheeler is 'a very sensible man.'"

Wheeler was one of the best parliamentarians and one of the
best presiding officers I ever knew.  He had no children.
It is pathetic to remember the affection which existed between
him and his wife.  Their long living together had brought
about a curious resemblance.  She looked like him, talked
like him, thought like him, and if she had been dressed in
his clothes, or he had been in hers, either might have passed
for the other.  When she died Wheeler seemed to lose all interest
in this world, shut himself off from all ordinary activities,
and died a year or two after, I suppose with a broken heart.


CHAPTER XVI
POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN 1869

When the Republican Party came into power in 1869 under its
great and simple-hearted President, it found itself confronted
with very serious duties.  They were enough to fill ordinary
men in ordinary times with dismay.  The President was without
political experience.  He had never held civil office.  He
had voted but twice in his life.  He had voted the Whig ticket
once and the Democratic ticket once.  So he could not justly
be charged with being an offensive partisan.  He had no experience
in business except in a humble way and in that he had been
unfortunate.  Congress and the President could only act under
the restraint of a written Constitution.  Everything done
by either must pass the ordeal of the Supreme Court, a majority
of whose members then had no sympathy with a liberal interpretation
of the National powers.  The Chief Justice had been a great
Republican leader.  But he had quarrelled with Lincoln, and
was an eager aspirant for the Democratic nomination for the
Presidency.

Of the eight years after the inauguration of Lincoln more
than four had been years of actual war and more than five
passed before formal declaration of peace.  During all this
time nothing could be considered but the preservation of the
Union.  From the end of the War to the accession of President
Grant, Congress and the President had been engaged in a struggle
with each other for power.  President Johnson had been impeached
and put on trial before the Senate.  So there could be no
important legislation from the summer of 1866 until March,
1869, that did not command the assent of two thirds of both
Houses.

Yet the feeling everywhere among the Republicans in Washington
and throughout the North was of exultant and confident courage.
The strength of the Nation had been tried and not found wanting.
It had overthrown a mighty rebellion.  The burden of slavery,
which had hung like a millstone about the neck of the Republic,
had been thrown off.  Congress had been triumphant in its
contest with the President.  The loyal people of the country
looked to Grant with an almost superstitious hope.  They were
prepared to expect almost any miracle from the great genius
who had subdued the rebellion, and conducted without failure
military operations on a scale of which the world up to that
time had had no experience.  So the dominant party addressed
itself without fear to the great work before it.

They had to determine on what conditions the States that
had been in rebellion should come back to their place under
the Constitution.

They were to determine on what terms the men who had taken
part in the rebellion should be fully restored to citizenship.

They were to determine the civil and political condition
of more than five million people just set free from slavery.

They were to secure fair elections in fifteen States, where
for many years neither free elections nor free speech had
been tolerated.

If they could, they were to reconcile the North and the South,
estranged by a strife so bitter that even before the War the
life of no Northern man who dared to utter Northern opinions
was safe in half the States of the country, and which had
been intensified by four years of bloody war--bellum plus
quam civile--which had left nearly every household in the
country mourning for its dead.

They were to confront the greatest temptation that ever besets
men of Anglo-Saxon race, a race ever restless and ever hungry
for empire.  Hungry eyes were already bent on San Domingo
and Cuba.  Good men were rendered uneasy by the tales of Spanish
oppression in Cuba.  Men who were looking for the union of
the two oceans by a canal across the Isthmus, or who hoped
that we should extend our dominion in this continent southward,
looked upon the island belonging to the Negro Republics of
Hayti and San Domingo as a desirable addition to our military
and naval strength.

They were to provide for the payment of an enormous debt.

They were to accomplish the resumption of specie payment.

They were to consider and determine anew the question of
currency.  What should be the standard of value and a legal
tender for the payment of debts?

They were to get rid of the vast burden of war taxes which
pressed heavily upon all branches of business.

They were to decide whether the duties on imports which
had been laid to meet the heavy cost of war should be kept
in peace and whether to follow the counsel of Hamilton and
his associates in the first Administration of Washington, or
the counsel of the free traders and the English school of
political economics, in determining whether American industry
should be protected.

The people felt that they had suffered a grievous wrong from
England, and that unless there were reparation, which England
had so far steadily refused either to make or consider, the
honor of the country required that we should exact it by war.

The emigrants from foreign lands who had come to our shores
in vast numbers, and were coming in rapidly increasing numbers,
were made uneasy by the doctrine of perpetual allegiance on
which all Europe insisted.  They claimed that they were entitled
to protection like native-born American citizens everywhere
on the face of the earth.

The number of civil officers appointed by the Executive had
largely increased.  This put an undue and most dangerous
power into the hands of the party controlling the Government.
There was a strong feeling that this should be checked.

Besides; during the controversy with Andrew Johnson the members
of the two Houses of Congress had come to think that they
were entitled to control all appointments of civil officers
in their own States and Districts, and they were ready with
scarce an exception to stand by each other in this demand.
They had passed, over the veto of President Johnson, an act
of disputed and quite doubtful constitutionality, seriously
crippling the Executive power of removal from office, without
which the President's constitutional duty to see that the
laws are faithfully executed cannot be performed.  So each
Senator and Representative was followed like a Highland Chieftain
"with his tail on," by a band of retainers devoted to his
political fortunes, dependent upon him for their own, but
supported at the public charge.

This not only threatened the freedom of election, but itself
brought a corrupting influence into the Administration of
the Government.

But there was a still greater danger than all these in the
corruption which then, as always, followed a great war.  Unprincipled
and greedy men sought to get contracts and jobs from the Government
by the aid of influential politicians.  This aid they paid
for sometimes, though I think rarely, in money, and in contributions
to political campaigns, and in the various kinds of assistance
necessary to maintain in power the men to whom they were so
indebted.  This corruption not only affected all branches
of the Civil Service, especially the War and the Navy and
the Treasury, but poisoned legislation itself.

They had to deal with claims amounting to hundreds of millions
of dollars, some wholly fraudulent, some grossly exaggerated
and some entirely just.  Some of these belonged to persons
who had contracts with the Government for constructing and
supplying a powerful Navy, or for supplies to the Army.  There
were demands still larger in amount from the inhabitants of
the territory which had been the theatre of the War.  This
class of claims was wholly new in the history of our own country.
There were few precedents for dealing with them in the experience
of other countries, and the Law of Nations and the law of
war furnished imperfect guides.

Men wounded or disabled in the Military or Naval Service,
and their widows and orphans, were to be provided for by a
liberal pension system.

These were a part only of the questions that must be studied
and understood, under the gravest personal responsibility
by every member of either House of Congress.  Under the Administration
of Grant and those that succeeded, of course, there was a
constant struggle on the part of the party in power to keep
in power and on the part of its opponent to get power.  So
that it was necessary that a Representative or Senator who
would do his duty, or who had the ordinary ambition, or desired
that the counsel best for the country should prevail, should
master these subjects and take a large part in discussing
and advocating the policy of his party.

During the thirty-two years from the 4th of March, 1869,
to the 4th of March, 1901, the Democratic Party held the
Executive power of the country for eight years.  For nearly
four years more Andrew Johnson had a bitter quarrel with
the Republican leaders in both Houses of Congress.  For six
years the Democrats controlled the Senate.  For sixteen years
they controlled the House of Representatives.  There is left
on the Statute Book no trace of any Democratic legislation
during this whole period except the repeal of the laws intended
to secure honest elections.  The two Administrations of President
Cleveland are remembered by the business men and the laboring
men of the country only as terrible nightmares.  Whatever
has been accomplished in this period, which seems to me the
most brilliant period in legislative history of any country
in the world, has been accomplished by the Republican Party
over Democratic opposition.  The failure to secure honest
National elections and the political and civil rights of the
colored people is the failure of the Republican Party and
the success of its Democratic antagonist.  With that exception,
to all the problems which confronted the country in 1869 the
Republican Party has given a simple, wise, final and most
successful solution.  It has done it not only without help, but
over the constant opposition of its Democratic antagonist.

Every State that went into the Rebellion has been restored
to its place in the Union.

There has been complete and universal amnesty.  No man has
been punished for his share in the Rebellion.

In spite of dishonest and subtle counsel, and in spite of
great temptation, we have dealt with the public debt on the
simple and honest principle that the only thing to do with a
debt is to pay it.  The National credit is the best in the
world, and the National debt has ceased to be an object either
of anxiety or consideration.

Specie payments have been resumed.  Every dollar issued by
the Government, or by national banks under government authority,
passes current like gold.  Indeed the ease with which it can
be transported and the certainty of its redemption makes the
paper money of the United States better than gold.

The United States has joined the commercial nations of the
first rank in making gold the world's standard of value.
In doing this we have never departed from the theoretical
principle of bimetallism as announced by Hamilton and Washington
and Webster and all our statesmen without exception down to
1869.  The contest was an exceedingly close one.  The arguments
in support of the free coinage of silver were specious and
dangerous.  Undoubtedly for a time, and more than once, they
converted a majority of the American people.  The battle for
honest money would have been lost but for the wisdom of the
Republican statesmen who planted the party not only upon the
doctrine of theoretical bimetallism, but also upon the doctrine
that the question of the standard of value must be settled
by the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world
and that if there were to be one metal as a standard, gold,
the most valuable metal, was the fittest for the purpose.
That was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton.  To have avowed
any other principle would have reinforced our opponents with
the powerful authority of Hamilton and all his disciples
down to the year 1873.

The war taxes have been abolished.  The weight of the burden
which has been in that way lifted from the shoulders of the
people may perhaps be understood from the statement of a single
fact.  The Worcester District, which I represented, paid in
the direct form of taxes to the National Treasury the enormous
sum of $3,662,727 for the year ending June 30, 1866.  For
the year ending June 30, 1871, the taxes so paid amounted
in all to $225,000, and for the year ending June 30, 1872,
they amounted to about $100,000.

The policy of protection to American industry, which, like
the question of honest elections, has been always in contest
between the Republican Party and its Democratic antagonist
has, unless during the two Administrations of President Cleveland,
been successfully maintained.  As a consequence of that policy
our manufacturing independence has been achieved.  The United
States has become the foremost manufacturing nation in the
world.  We are penetrating foreign markets, and have built
up a domestic commerce, the like of which has never been seen
before, and whose extent surpasses the power of human imagination
to conceive and almost of mathematics to calculate.

The temptation to extend our territory by unlawful exercise
of power over Cuba and San Domingo was resisted by the American
people.  Cuba has been liberated and has taken her place among
the free nations of the world.

For the great offence committed against us by Great Britain
in the hour of our peril we have exacted apology and reparation.
There were not wanting counsellors enough to urge the American
people that we should nurse this grievance and lie in wait
until the hour for our revenge should come.  But the magnanimous
American people preferred peace and reconciliation to revenge.
I ought to except this from the list of achievements due to
the Republican Party alone.  In the matter of the British
Treaty, the Democratic leaders contributed their full share
to its successful accomplishment.  Mr. Justice Nelson of
the United States Supreme Court was a distinguished member
of the Commission that made the Treaty.

Under General Grant's Administration treaties were negotiated
with nearly all the great powers of the world by which they
renounced the old doctrine of perpetual allegiance, and the
American citizen of foreign birth is clothed with all the
rights and privileges of a native-born citizen wherever on
the face of the earth he may go.

The vast number of the National offices has ceased to be a
menace to the safety of the Republic and has ceased to be a
source of strength to the Administration in power, or to
become the price or reward of political activity.  The offices
of trust and profit now exist to serve the people and not to
bribe them.

The conflict between the Senate and the Executive which arose
in the time of Andrew Johnson, when Congress undertook to
hamper and restrict the President's Constitutional power of
removal from office, without which his Constitutional duty
of seeing that the laws are faithfully executed cannot be
performed, has been settled by a return to the ancient principle
established in Washington's first Administration.

The vast claims upon the Treasury growing out of the war have
been dealt with upon wise and simple principles which have
commanded general assent and in the main have resulted in
doing full justice both to the Government and to the claimant.

A disputed title to the Executive power which threatened
to bring on another civil war, and which would not have been
settled without bloodshed in any other country, has been peacefully
and quietly disposed of by the simple mechanism devised for
the occasion and by the enactment of a rule which will protect
the country against a like danger in the future.

With all these matters I have had something to do.

As to some of them my part has been a very humble one.  As
to others I have had a part of considerable prominence.  As
to all I have had full and intimate knowledge at the time
and have been in the intimate counsel of the men who were
responsible for the result.

Beside all these things there has been during a large part
of my public service, especially the part immediately following
the Civil War, a battle to maintain the purity of elections
and the purity of administration and government expenditure
against corruption.  The attempt to get possession of the
forces of the Government for corrupt purposes assumed its
most dangerous form and had its most unscrupulous and dangerous
leader in Massachusetts.  It was my fortune to have a good
deal to do with maintaining the ancient honor of the Commonwealth
and defending and vindicating the purity of her political
organization.

Upon all these matters I formed my opinions carefully in the
beginning.  I have adhered to those opinions, and acted on
them throughout.  I formed them in many cases when they were
shared by a few persons only.  But they have made their way,
and prevail.  They are the opinions upon which the majority
of the American people have acted, and the reasons which have
controlled that action, seem to me now, in looking backward,
to have been good reasons.  I have no regret, and no desire
to blot out anything I have said or done, or to change any
vote I have given.

The duties of a Representative and Senator demand a large
correspondence.  I have had always the aid of intelligent and
competent secretaries.  Disposing of the day's mail, even
with such aid, is not infrequently a hard day's work, especially
for a man past three score and ten.

Political campaigns in Massachusetts with its small territory
and compact population are easy as compared with most of the
other States.  But I have been expected every second year
to make many political speeches, commonly from thirty to forty.
Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Fry, and Mr. Reed, and a great many others
who could be named, were called on for a much larger number.
A man at all prominent in public affairs is also expected
to give utterance to the voice of the people on all great
occasions of joy or sorrow, at high festivals, or at colleges
and schools, on great National anniversaries, when great men
die and great historical events are celebrated.  So it was
a life of hard work upon which I entered when I took my seat
in the House of Representatives on the 4th of March, 1869.
The thirty-four years that have followed have been for me
years of incessant labor.


CHAPTER XVII
RECONSTRUCTION

The reconstruction policy of the Republican Party has been
bitterly denounced.  Some men who supported it are in the
habit now of calling it a failure.  It never commanded in
its fullest extent the cordial support of the whole party.
But it was very simple.  So far as it applied to the Southern
whites who had been in rebellion it consisted only of complete
amnesty and full restoration to political rights.  No man
was ever punished for taking part in the rebellion after
he laid down his arms.  There is no other instance of such
magnanimity in history.  The War left behind it little bitterness
in the hearts of the conquerors.  All they demanded of the
conquered was submission in good faith to the law of the land
and the will of the people as it might be constitutionally
declared.

Their policy toward the colored people was simply the application
to them of the principles applied to the whites, as set forth
in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution
of nearly every State in the Union.  There was to be no distinction
in political rights by reason of color or race.  The States
were left to regulate such qualifications as residence, character,
intelligence, education and property as they saw fit, only
subject to the condition that they were to apply to all alike.

It was the purpose of the dominant party to leave the control
of the election of national officers, as it had been left
from the beginning, in the hands of the local or State authorities.
The power was claimed, indeed it is clearly given by the Constitution,
as was asserted in the debates in the Convention that framed
it, to conduct those elections under National authority, if
it should be found by experience to be necessary.  But in
fact there was at no time any attempt to go further with National
election laws than to provide for punishment of fraudulent
or violent interference with elections or for a sufficient
provision to ascertain that they were properly conducted,
or to protect them against violence or fraud.

Beside this it was the desire of many Republican leaders,
especially of Mr. Sumner and General Grant, that there should
be a provision at the National charge for the education of
all the citizens in the Southern States, black and white,
so far as the States were unable or unwilling to afford it,
such as had been provided for in the States of the North
for all their citizens.  It was never contemplated by them
to give the right to vote to a large number of illiterate
citizens, without ample provision for their education at the
public charge.  General Grant accompanied his official announcement
to Congress of the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment with
an earnest recommendation of such a provision.  Earnest efforts
were made to accomplish this result by liberal grants from
the National treasury.  Many liberal and patriotic Southern
Democrats supported it.  But it was defeated by the timidity,
or mistaken notions of economy, of Northern statesmen.  In
my opinion this defeat accounts for the failure of the policy
of reconstruction so far as it has failed.  I do not believe
that self-government with universal suffrage could be maintained
long in any Northern State, or in any country in the world,
without ample provision for public education.

It has been claimed with great sincerity and not without
plausible reason that a great hardship and wrong was inflicted
by the victorious North on their fellow citizens when the
political power in their States was given over to their former
slaves.  This consideration had great force in the minds of
many influential Republicans in the North.  Governor Andrew
of Massachusetts, Governor Morton of Indiana, afterward Senator,
men whose influence was probably unsurpassed by any other
two men in the country, save Grant and Sumner alone, were
of that way of thinking.  They thought that our true policy
was to let the men who had led their States into the Rebellion
take the responsibility of restoring them to their old relations.

It is not unlikely that the strength of the Republican Party
would have been seriously impaired, perhaps overthrown, by
the division of sentiment on this subject.  But the white
Democrats in the South were blind to their own interest.  President
Johnson permitted them in several States to take into their
hands again the power of government.  They proceeded to pass
laws which if carried out would have had the effect of reducing
the negro once more to a condition of practical slavery.  Men
were to be sold for the crime of being out of work.  Their
old masters were to have the preference in the purchase.  So
the whole Republican Party of the North came to be united
in the belief that there could be no security for the liberty
of the freedman without the ballot.

It is said that this reconstruction policy has been a failure.
Undoubtedly it has not gained all that was hoped for it by
its advocates.  But looking back now I do not believe that
any other policy would have done as well as that has done,
although a large part of what was designed by the Republican
leaders of the period of reconstruction never was accomplished.

A complete system of education at the National charge was
an essential element of the reconstruction policy.  It was
earnestly advocated by Sumner and by Grant and by Edmunds
and by Evarts.  But there were other Republicans of great
influence who resisted it from the beginning.  Among these
was Senator Eugene Hale of Maine, a very accomplished Senator,
an able debater and a man of large influence with his colleagues.
His public life has been one of great distinction and usefulness.
While an earnest partisan he has given an example of independence
of action on several notable occasions.  But he always seemed
to be possessed by what seems to prevail among the Republicans
of Maine to a great extent, dislike for what is called sentimental
politics.  Mr. Hale always seemed to think that the chief
function of Congress was to provide for an honest, economical,
wise and at the same time liberal public expenditure, to keep
in the old paths and leave other matters alone.  He dislikes
new doctrines and new policies.  He is specially adverse to
anything like legal restraint.  He once in my hearing used
a very felicitous phrase, full of wisdom, "Government by good
nature."  John Sherman, who had originally been an earnest
advocate of a liberal National expenditure for education,
joined the ranks of its opponents, putting his opposition
largely on the ground that he was unwilling to trust the Southern
states with the expenditure of large sums of money.  He feared
that the money would not be fairly expended, as between the
two races, and that it would be made a large corruption fund
for political purposes.

So this most essential part of the reconstruction policy
of Sumner and Grant never took effect.  Mr. Sumner deemed
this matter vital to success.  He told me about a week before
his death that when the resolution declaring the provision
for public education at the National charge an essential part
of the reconstruction policy, was defeated in the Senate by
a tie vote, he was so overcome by his feelings that he burst
into tears and left the Senate Chamber.

Another part of the Republican plan for reconstruction was
never accomplished.  That was the securing of a fair vote
and a fair ascertainment of the result in National elections
by National power.  Some partial and imperfect attempts were
made to put in force laws intended to accomplish this result.
They never went farther than enactments designed to maintain
order at the polls, to secure the voter from actual violence,
and to provide for such scrutiny as to make it clear that
the vote was duly counted and properly returned, with a right
of appeal to the Courts of the United States in case of a
contest, the decision of the Court to be subject to the final
authority of the House of Representatives.  These laws, although
they had the support of eminent and zealous Democrats and
although they were as much needed and had as much application
to the Northern cities as to the Southern States, were the
object of bitter denunciation from the beginning.  Good men
in the North listened with incredulity to the narrative of
well established facts of cruelty and murder and fraud.  These
stories were indignantly denied at the time, although they
are not only confessed, but vauntingly and triumphantly affirmed
now.  The whole country seems to be made uneasy when the old
practice to which it had been accustomed everywhere of having
offences tried by a jury taken by lot from the people of the
neighborhood, and the result of election ascertained by officers
selected from the bystanders at the polls, is departed from.
Besides, no strictness of laws which provide only for the
proceedings at the elections will secure their freedom if
it be possible to intimidate the voters, especially men like
the colored voters at the South, from attending the elections,
by threats, outrages and actual violence at their homes.  Against
these the election laws could not guard.  Congress attempted
some laws to secure the Southern Republicans against such
crimes under the authority conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution.  But the Supreme Court held that these
laws were unconstitutional, it not appearing that the States
had by any affirmative action denied protection against such
offences to any class of their citizens by reason of race,
color, or previous condition.  It was idle to expect Southern
jurors, or State officers to enforce the law against such
crimes in the condition of sentiment existing there.

Further, the people of the North would not maintain the Republican
Party in power forever on this one issue alone.  They were
interested in other things.  They could not be expected, year
after year, election after election, and perhaps generation
after generation, to hold together by reason of this one question,
differing on other things.  So whenever the Democratic Party
should come into power it was apparent that all the vigor
would be taken out of the election laws.  If there be not
power to repeal them the House of Representatives can always
refuse to make the appropriation for enforcing them.  So it
became clear to my mind, and to the minds of many other Republicans,
that it was better to leave this matter to the returning and
growing sense of justice of the people of the South than to
have laws on this subject passed in one Administration, only
to be repealed in another.  A policy to be effective must
be permanent.  I accordingly announced in the Senate after
the defeat of the Elections Bill in 1894 that in my judgment
it would not be wise to renew the attempt to control National
election by National authority until both parties in the country
should agree upon that subject.

We should have had little difficulty in dealing with the
Negro or the Indian, or the Oriental, if the American people
had applied to them, as the Golden Rule requires, the principles
they expect to apply and to have applied to themselves.  We
have never understood that in some essential matters human
nature is the same in men of all colors and races.  Our Fathers
of the time of the Revolution understood this matter better
than we do.  The difficult problems in our national politics
at this hour will nearly all of them be solved if the people
will adhere to rules of conduct imposed as restraints in the
early constitutions.  The sublimity of the principle of self-
government does not consist wholly or chiefly in the idea
that self is the person who governs, but quite as much in
the doctrine that self is the person who is governed.  How
our race troubles would disappear if the dominant Saxon would
but obey, in his treatment of the weaker races, the authority
of the fundamental laws on which his own institutions rest!
The problem of to-day is not how to convert the heathen from
heathenism, it is how to convert the Christian from heathenism;
not to teach the physician to heal the patient, but to heal
himself.  The Indian problem is not chiefly how to teach the
Indian to be less savage in his treatment of the Saxon, but
the Saxon to be less savage in his treatment of the Indian.
The Chinese problem is not how to keep Chinese laborers out
of California, but how to keep Chinese politics out of Congress.
The negro question will be settled when the education of the
white man is complete.

We make every allowance for ourselves.  We expect mankind
to make every allowance for us.  We expect to be forgiven
for our own wrong-doing.  We easily forgive our own white
fellow citizens for the unutterable and terrible cruelties
they have committed on men of other races.  But if a people
just coming out of slavery or barbarism commit a hundredth
part of the same offence our righteous indignation knows no
bounds.  We have no recognition for their eager desire for
civilization or for liberty, no generous appreciation of their
improvement and promise.  And the thousand things in them
that give promise of good in the future are disregarded if
there be any trace left in them of the old barbarism.

Has Reconstruction been a failure?  Let us see about that.
We must remember that the relations of the black and white
races to each other, which have existed almost from the foundation
of the world, cannot be changed in a single generation.  It
is but thirty-three years since General Grant and the two
Houses of Congress, in political accord with him and with
each other, took possession of the Government.  That possession
has been interrupted more than once.  It is but forty years
since slavery was abolished.  It is less than thirty years
since the last of the three great Amendments to the Constitution
took effect.  What has happened in that time? Slavery has
been abolished.  That is not a failure.  The negro owns his
right to his own labor.  He cannot be separated from his wife
or children.  He is not prevented by law from learning to
read the Bible.  These things are not failures.  He can own
land.  He has schools and colleges.  The young colored man
is received as an equal into nearly every Northern college
and university.  He has frequently taken the highest university
honors.  I suppose he does not know, from the behavior of
his companions, that they think of the difference between
the color of his skin and theirs.  His right to vote is secure
in thirty-four of the forty-five States of the Union.  So
far, there has been no failure.  When the Civil War broke
out, there were fifteen slave States and sixteen free States.
In Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia the negro seems to
have his place now like other citizens.  The same thing probably
is true in St. Louis, and likely to be true before long throughout
Missouri.  There are thirty States out of forty-five, and
there will before long probably be thirty-five out of fifty
in which the old race feeling, growing out of slavery has
never got a hold.  The old race-hatred of the negro is getting
into a corner.  So far reconstruction has not been a failure.

Two things are not yet accomplished.  There are eleven States
in which the negro is not yet secure in his political rights;
and there are as many, and perhaps two or three more, in which
if he be suspected of a crime of the first magnitude, he is
likely to undergo a cruel death, without a trial.  That would
have been quite as likely, indeed a good deal more likely
to have happened, if the reconstruction measures had never
been enacted.

It is a bad thing that any man who has the Constitutional
right to vote should fail to have his vote received and counted.
But I think it is a fair question whether the existence of
this condition throughout so large a country, with the prospect
that slowly and gradually as the negro improves he will get
his rights, be not better than the alternative which must
have been his reduction to slavery again, or what is nearly
as bad, a race of peons in this country.  That is the question
into the answer of which so much prejudice enters that it
is hardly worth while to reason about it.  My opinion is that
as the colored man gets land, becomes chaste, frugal, temperate,
industrious, veracious, that he will gradually acquire respect,
and will attain political equality.  Let us not be in a hurry.
Evils, if they be evils, which have existed from the foundation
of the world, are not to be cured in the lifetime of a single
man.  The men of the day of reconstruction were controlled
by the irresistible logic of events; by a power higher than
their own.  I could see no alternative then, and I see no
alternative now, better than that which was adopted.


CHAPTER XVIII
COMMITTEE SERVICE IN THE HOUSE

The career of a Member of either House of Congress is determined,
except in rare cases, by his assignment to Committees.  In
the House that is wholly dependent on the favor of the Speaker.
In the Senate those assignments are made by Committees of
the two parties, chosen for the purpose, who first agree on
the representation to be assigned to each.  After the Senator
has been assigned to a Committee he remains there unless he
himself desire a change, and if the Members older in the service
retire he succeeds in the end to the Chairmanship of the Committee.
There has been no instance of a departure from this rule,
except when there is a change in the political control of
the body, and no instance of deposing a Member from a Committee
without his consent, except the single and well-known case
of Mr. Sumner.

I was always on friendly terms with Mr. Blaine during my entire
service of eight years in the House of Representatives.  But
I owed nothing to any favor of his in the matter of Committee
assignments.  When I entered the service I was put on the
Committee of Education and Labor and on the Committee of Revision
of the Laws, both obscure and unimportant.  In my second term
I served a little while on the Committee on Elections.  I
was also placed on the Committee of Railroad and Canals.  I
was made Chairman of a special Committee to visit Louisiana
and inquire into the legality of what was called the Kellogg
Government and report whether Governor Kellogg or his Democratic
rival should be recognized as the lawful Governor of Louisiana.
I was afterward placed on the Judiciary Committee, a position
of great honor, which I liked very much.

With the exception of the last none of these appointments
had any attraction for me.  They were all out of the line
of my previous experience in life and the service they required
of me was disagreeable.  I was placed on the Committee on
the Judiciary by Mr. Speaker Kerr, a Democrat.  Mr. Blaine
at this time very earnestly pressed Mr. Martin I. Townsend
of New York for the place.  I do not conceive that I had any
right to complain of Mr. Blaine in this matter.  I never made
any request of him for any appointment within his gift and
he was beset behind and before by the demands of men he was
unable to gratify, to many of whom he conceived himself under
great obligation.  It should be stated too that in Mr. Blaine's
time the Members from Massachusetts older in the service than
myself had very important places indeed.  So it was hardly
just to increase the number of important Committee appointments
from our State.

But it happened to me by great good fortune that I had an
opportunity, of which I was very glad, to accomplish something
by reason of my place on each Committee on which I served,
which I could not have accomplished without it.

An amusing piece of good fortune happened to me at the beginning
of my service.  I was placed, as I said, on the Committee
on the Revision of the Laws.  My law practice had been in
the interior of the Commonwealth.  So I had little knowledge
of United States jurisprudence.  I determined in order to
fit myself for my new duties to make a careful study of the
statutes and law administered in the United States Courts.
I took with me to Washington a complete set of the Reports
of the Supreme Court of the United States and purchased Abbott's
Digest of those decisions, then just published.  The first
evening after I got settled I spent in reading the opinions
of the Supreme Court.  I took the Digest beginning with the
letter A, reading the abstracts, and then reading the cases
referred to.  I got as far as Adm and read the cases relating
to admiralty practice.  The next morning the Speaker announced
his Committees and the House adjourned.  After the adjournment,
Judge Poland, Chairman of the Committee on the Revision of
the Laws, called the Committee together and laid before them
a letter he had just received from Mr. Justice Miller of
the Supreme Court, asking for a change in the law in regard
to monitions for summoning defendants in Admiralty.  The change
had been made necessary by some recent decisions of the Court.
The other members of the Committee looked at each other in
dismay.  None of them was familiar with the question, or knew
at all what it was all about.  I then stated to them the difficulty,
giving them the names of the cases and the volumes where they
were found.  They were all quite astonished to find a man
from the country, of whom probably none of them had ever heard
before, having the law of Admiralty at his tongue's end.
If the question had related to anything in the Digest under
Adr, or anything thereafter, I should have been found probably
more ignorant than they were.  But Judge Poland took me into
high favor, and I found his friendship exceedingly agreeable
and valuable.  I do not remember that the Committee on the
Revision of the Laws had another meeting while I belonged
to it.

I was also, as I have said, put on the Committee of Education
and Labor.  The Bureau of Education had been lately established
and the Commissioner appointed.  But the office was exceedingly
unpopular, not only with the old Democrats and the Strict
Constructionists, who insisted on leaving such things to the
States, but with a large class of Republicans.  A very zealous
attack was made on the Bureau, led by Mr. Farnsworth of Illinois,
and by Cadwallader C. Washburn, a very able and influential
Republican from Wisconsin.  The Committee on Appropriations,
of which my colleague, Mr. Dawes, was Chairman, reported
a provision for abolishing this Bureau.  Mr. Dawes, himself,
however, dissented.  The Republicans on the Committee of Education
and Labor took up the cudgels for the Bureau.  We beat the
Committee of Appropriations.  The result of the strife was
that the Bureau was put on a firmer footing with a more liberal
provision, and it has since been, under General Eaton and
Dr. Harris, the accomplished and devoted Commissioners, of
very great and valuable service to the country.

That led me to give special study to the matter of National
education.  I introduced a bill for establishing an education
system by National authority in States which failed to do
it themselves.  Later, I introduced and carried through the
House a measure for distributing the proceeds of the public
land and sums received from patents and some other special
funds, among all the States in aid of the common schools.
This bill passed the House, but was lost in the Senate mainly
because Senator Morrill of Vermont, a most excellent and influential
statesman, insisted that the money should go to the agricultural
colleges, in which he took great interest, and not to common
schools.  Later when I became a member of the Senate I succeeded
in getting a like measure twice through the Senate.  But it
failed in the House.  So the two Houses never agreed upon
it.  But the movement and discussion aroused public attention
throughout the country and were of great value.

While I was on that Committee, I think during my second term,
there was referred to it a bill to rebuild William and Mary
College in Virginia.  The principal building of that College
had been destroyed by fire.  The Union and Rebel forces had
fought for possession of it.  It had been held by the Union
soldiers and a court martial was sitting there when it was
attacked by the other side and the Union men driven out, and
the insurgents held the building for a few hours.  They abandoned
it very soon.  But before the Union soldiers had got back
in force some stragglers set fire to the building.  It was
totally destroyed.

William and Mary was the oldest college in the country, except
Harvard.  It numbered among its children many famous statesmen,
including Jefferson, Marshall, Peyton Randolph, and Monroe.
Washington was its Chancellor for twelve years.  Its graduates
loved it ardently.  I came to the conclusion that it would
tend very much to restore the old affectionate feeling between
the States to rebuild this College without inquiring too strictly
into the merits of the case, as tested by any strict principle
of law.  I accordingly reported and advocated a bill for appropriating
sixty or seventy thousand dollars to rebuild the College.
Afterward, when on the Committee of Claims in the Senate,
I advocated extending the same principle to all colleges,
schools and other institutions of education and charity destroyed
by the operations of the War without regard to the question
who was in fault.  This policy was, after a good deal of opposition
and resistance, successfully carried out.

But the William and Mary College Bill was reported at the
time when the passions excited by the War were still burning
in the breasts of many Republican statesmen.  The measure
was received with derision.  I was hardly allowed to go on
with my speech in order, and the ordinary courtesy of a brief
extension of time to finish it was refused amid great clamor.
But I got the Bill through the House the next winter.  I had
a powerful ally in Mr. Perce of Mississippi, a Northern soldier,
who had settled in that State after the War.  It was not considered
in the Senate.  The measure was renewed again later in the
House.  But it was bitterly attacked by Mr. Reed of Maine,
afterward Speaker, and defeated.  Afterward I succeeded in
getting it through the Senate when the Democrats had possession
of the House, during the Administration of President Harrison,
and it became a law.

I have been assured by many Southern men that that measure,
and the report and speech in which I advocated it, had a very
strong and wide influence in restoring good feeling toward
the Union in the minds of the people of Virginia.  Several
of the graduates of William and Mary who afterward became
Republicans have assured me of this with great emphasis.  I
was much pleased to get the following letter from Governor
Henry A. Wise, the eminent Virginia statesman, who was, with
two or three exceptions, the most powerful and influential
advocate of secession in the South.

RICHMOND VA
  Feby 13th 1872.
HON MR HOAR
OF MASSTS.

_Honored Sir._

I write for no reason but one of pure feeling of respect--
not even for a reply.  I am a visitor of Wm and Mary College
--truly of the most venerable of the "Mothers of Thought"
--and have read your excellent appeal to the H. Reps: in
her behalf.  It was worthy of that Grand old Comth, Massts,
the elder sister of this once glorious Comth, which hailed
her heartily in the Night of Revolution against Tyrrany.
It was worthy of sweet memories--worthy of Letters--it was
pious and patriotic.  Let me just add a sentence more, to
say that if Rebellion and Sectional Hate are to be eradicated--
and I hope they are--_that is the way to do it._  Your speech
& the passage of such bills, catholic in every sense of love
& charity, will do more to heal our Country's wounds than
all the caustic of reconstruction which can be applied.

With unaffected gratitude for your Speech, I pray you will
not pause upon it, but keep the bill to its passage through
both Houses of Congress.  I know you would if you could see
the destitution of instruction, and the poverty which cant
pay for it, on the Consecrated peninsula of Jas Town, York
Town, and Williamsburg.  Ah! tear down every parapet of War--
cruel War, wanton war call it if you will--but for the Past,
for Piety's sake, for Learning and Moral's sake let Old Wm
& Mary stand a Beacon Light for the guide of the Future.

  Very sincerely
  Yrs
  HENRY A. WISE

Governor Wise had a very conspicuous career in the United
States House of Representatives.  He was a very zealous supporter
of the Southern doctrine before the War.  He was regarded
as a good deal of a fire eater.  He was Governor of Virginia
when John Brown was executed.  But in spite of the horror
and indignation that the people of the South felt for John
Brown's raid he did full justice to the heroic quality of
the man.  He declared him "the gamest man" he ever saw.

I served in my second term on the Committee on Elections under
the Chairmanship of George W. McCrary.  Election cases in
the House up to that time were, as they always were in the
English House of Commons and as they have been too often in
the Senate, determined entirely by party feeling.  Whenever
there was a plausible reason for making a contest the dominant
party in the House almost always awarded the seat to the man
of its own side.  There is a well-authenticated story of Thaddeus
Stevens, that going into the room of the Committee of Elections,
of which he was a member, he found a hearing going on.  He
asked one of his Republican colleagues what was the point
in the case.  "There is not much point to it" was the answer.
"They are both damned scoundrels." "Well," said Stevens, "which
is the Republican damned scoundrel?  I want to go for the
Republican damned scoundrel."

We had a good many contests.  But the Committee determined
to settle all the questions before it as they would if they
were judges in a court of justice.  The powerful influence
of Mr. McCrary, the Chairman, aided largely to bring about
that result.  The Democratic minority soon discovered that
we were sincere and in earnest.  They met us in a like spirit.
I believe the Committee on Elections during that Congress
reported on every case with absolute impartiality, and the
House followed their lead.  I formed a very pleasant friendship
on that Committee with Judge William M. Merrick, a Maryland
Democrat, who had made himself very much disliked by the Republican
authorities during the War because of his supposed sympathy
with Rebellion.  I do not think he sympathized with the Rebellion.
But he construed the Constitution very strictly and was opposed
to many measures of the Administration.  He was nominated
by President Cleveland to be Judge of the Supreme Court of
the District of Columbia.  The Judiciary Committee of the
Senate reported against him, putting their objection on the
ground of the conduct imputed to him during the War, and also
of his age.  He was then sixty-seven years old.  I dissented
from the Committee, of which I was a member, and I exerted
myself with all my might to secure his confirmation, and was
successful.  He made a most admirable Judge, and my action
was abundantly vindicated by the result.

I have taken special satisfaction in two reports which I
made for that Committee.  I have a right to say that I dealt
with the subjects with the same freedom from bias or prejudice
with which it would have been my duty to give to the question
if I had been sitting on the Bench of the Supreme Court of
the United States.

The case of Cessna _vs._ Myers was perhaps the most interesting
and important of those in which I made a report for the Committee.
John Cessna had served the State of Pennsylvania for several
terms.  He was a very popular and eminent Republican member.
According to the returns, Myers, his adversary, had a majority
of 14.  Cessna showed beyond question, and his antagonist
admitted, that more than 14 illegal votes were cast for Myers.
On the other hand Myers claimed that there were many illegal
votes cast for Cessna, the evidence of which, so far as appeared,
came to his knowledge first when introduced in the case.  When
the evidence was taken Cessna claimed to have evidence that
328 illegal votes were cast for Myers, and that ten legal
votes, cast or offered for him, were rejected.  On the other
hand the sitting member claimed that there were 341 votes
illegally thrown for the contestant, and of those Cessna admitted
that 81 had proved to be illegal.  So the Committee were obliged
to examine by itself the evidence in regard to the right to
vote of each of several hundred persons.

The case turned finally on some very interesting questions
of the law of domicile.  It appeared that a considerable
number of persons who were entitled to vote, if they were
resident of the district where they voted, were workmen employed
in the construction of a railroad.  They had come from outside
the district for that purpose alone, and had no purpose of
remaining in the district after the railroad should be completed,
and meant then to get work wherever they could find it, there
or elsewhere.  There were also a number of votes cast by students
who had gone to college for the purpose of getting an education,
having no design to remain there after their studies terminated.
Still another class of voters whose right was in dispute,
were the paupers abiding in the public almshouse, and maintained
in common by a considerable number of townships and parishes.
These paupers voted in the district where the almshouse was
situated, although it was not the district of their domicile or
residence when they were removed to it.

The Committee held in the case of the laborer,--in spite of
the very earnest contention to the contrary, that if the laborer
elected in good faith when he came into the district to make
it his legal residence, it became his legal residence, even
if he intended to leave it and get another after his job was
done.

We applied a like doctrine to the case of the students, holding
that a student of a college, being personally present in any
district, had the right if he so desired, to take up his abode
there, and make it by his election his legal residence for
a fixed and limited time.

The question of the paupers we left undecided, as it turned
out that whichever way it were decided, Mr. Cessna had not
overcome his opponent's legal majority.

We also decided an Arkansas case where the title to his seat
of a well known Republican member of Congress was at stake,
in favor of his Democratic contestant.

I was somewhat gratified in the midst of a storm of vituperation
which I had encountered for some political action of mine,
in which I was charged by almost the entire Democratic press
of the country with being a bitter partisan to find two Democratic
gentlemen who had owed their seats to the impartiality of
the Committee on Elections, coming very zealously to the rescue.

I served also from 1873 to 1875 on the Committee on Railroads
and Canals.  I have no recollection of doing anything on that
Committee, except aiding in reporting a bill for the regulation
by National authority of railroads engaged in interstate commerce,
in defence of which I made a very elaborate speech.  But I
was able to secure the passage of one very interesting and
important measure.  James B. Eads, the famous engineer, architect
of the great St. Louis bridge, had a plan for opening to commerce
the mouth of the Mississippi River by a system of jetties.
He had submitted his plan to the Board of Engineers appointed
by the War Department.  But he could get no encouragement,
and of the twenty members of that Board, only one, General
Barnard, the President, looked with any approval upon his
scheme.  The Board thought that a very long and costly canal
was the only method of securing a water-way which would enable
ocean steamers to reach New Orleans, and the product of the
Mississippi valley to be carried to Europe that way.  Captain
Eads appeared before the Committee on Railroads and Canals
and urged his scheme in a speech of great interest and ability.
The Committee adjourned for a week.  They were to take up
the question at the next meeting.  The vote was unanimous
against Mr. Eads's Bill.  When the Committee came out of their
room he was waiting outside the door to learn his fate.  I
saw the look of disappointment and despair on his face when
he was told of the vote.  I asked him to come with me into
another room, which he did.  I told him that I was satisfied
from what I had heard that his plan was a good one, although
I had voted against it with the rest of the Committee.  It
seemed to me that it would be presumptuous in me, having no
special knowledge in such matters, to go against the practically
unanimous report of the United States Board of Engineers.
But I said:  "Captain Eads, can you not frame a bill, which
will provide that you shall not have any money from the Treasury
for your work until you have accomplished something.  If you
deepen the channel of the river a foot that will have done
some good.  Suppose you provide that when you have deepened
the river a certain number of feet you shall have so much
of your pay, when it is deepened further so much more, and
so on until the work is done."  Captain Eads eagerly caught
at the plan.  He said that he was willing to do it, and that
he was perfectly willing that his getting his pay should depend
upon the certificate of the engineers of his having accomplished
the result.  He agreed to have a bill drawn on that principle.
He brought it to me afterward.  I went over it very carefully,
inserting some additional securities for the Government.
I then took it to the next meeting of the Committee, moved a
reconsideration of the vote of the previous week.  That was
carried by a bare majority of one vote.  I then moved the
new bill as a substitute for the old one.  It was adopted.
The bill passed the House and Senate under which the Eads
jetties were constructed and vessels drawing over twenty-
eight feet of water passed freely up and down to and from
New Orleans.  The depth before that time, I think, had been
twelve feet.  Captain Eads afterward sent me a beautifully
bound copy of the history of the Eads's jetties with an inscription
certifying to the facts I have stated, in his own handwriting.
I told this story afterward at a meeting of the business men
of Boston.  Mr. Corthell who happened to be present made a
speech after I got through.  He is himself a very eminent
water engineer.  He said that he was associated with Captain
Eads at the time and had often heard Captain Eads tell the
story.

Captain Eads afterward had a scheme which always seemed to
me very feasible for a ship-railway across the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec.  His project was to construct a railway with
a sufficient number of tracks, and to raise ships of the largest
size on the principle applied in locks of ordinary canals.
He had a contrivance made of stout beams which would hold
and support a loaded vessel to which it was adjusted.  The
beams were to operate something like the keys of a piano,
and the whole operation was something like that by which hatters
measure and record the shape of a man's head.  This plan received
the hearty commendation of some very eminent engineers, including
Major Reed of England, the highest authority of such subjects,
the constructor of the dry docks at Malta.  The scheme had
a good many supporters in Congress.  I think it would have
been adopted but for Captain Eads's premature death.

Rather a singular coincidence took place when I was interesting
myself in this matter which possibly may be not too trivial
to record.  One Thanksgiving morning I received by express
a beautiful copy of Wordsworth, which I had bought in Boston
the day before.  Just as I was opening it the morning mail
was brought in.  I opened the book at random and turned to
Wadsworth's poem, "The Highland Broach." My eye caught the
following lines:

  Lo!  Ships from seas by nature barred,
  Mount along ways by man prepared;
  Along far stretching vales, whose streams
  Seek other seas, their canvas gleams,
  And busy towns grow up on coasts
  Thronged yesterday by airy ghosts.

I turned by eye from these verses to the mail in which was
a copy of a New York illustrated journal containing an account
of the Eads ship-railway.

The inscription in Eads's "History of the Jetties," above
referred to, is as follows:

To Hon. George F. Hoar, who, as a member of the House Committee
which matured the Jetty Act, prepared the _first report_ in
its favor, this book is presented; with the assurance that
his unfaltering support of the enterprise through all its
struggles, entitled him to a prominent place among the statesmen
to whom the producers in the Valley of the Mississippi are
most largely indebted.

  JAS B. EADS
  Washington, D. C.,
  February
  1881

I had the pleasure of receiving a telegram from New Orleans
shortly after the completion of the jetties saying that a
loaded steamer, drawing between twenty-seven and twenty-eight
feet of water, had safely passed through them to New Orleans.

The Commission appointed by the Government insisted upon having
the jetties constructed at the south pass of the Mississippi
River.  This Captain Eads strenuously resisted and urged the
superiority of the southwest pass for the purpose.  The House
when it passed the jetty bill adopted Mr. Eads's plan.  But
the Senate insisted on taking the opinion of the Commission,
much to his distress.  The Senate was firm, and the House
was obliged to yield.  I think everybody now agrees that Eads
was right, and that the scheme would have been perfectly successful,
and would have continued to perform all that was desired of
it, if his counsel had been taken.  As it is, the jetties
have been of great value and well worth their cost.  But it
will probably be necessary some time to construct a similar
work in the southwest pass.

During my first term in the House on the Committee on Education
and Labor I had the important duty of investigating the conduct
of the Freedman's Bureau and other charges made against General
Oliver O. Howard.  I wrote nearly the whole of the report,
all of it containing the arguments of the Committee, and the
summing up of the evidence.  A few passages are by the Chairman,
Mr. Arnell.  The Freedman's Bureau was established to aid
the colored people who had been suddenly emancipated by President
Lincoln's Proclamation, to attain a condition where they
could get their living in comfort, and their children could
be educated.  General Howard, a very eminent officer in the
Civil War, afterward at the head of the Army, was a man singularly
fitted for this duty.  He was profoundly religious, absolutely
incorruptible, a man of very kind heart, not afraid to break
out new paths, apt to succeed in all his undertakings, a lover
of Liberty and thoroughly devoted to his work.  The resources
at his command were the unclaimed pay of the negro soldiers
and some other sums specially granted from the Treasury.  But
the work was one entirely different from anything which had
been accomplished by government agency in the country before.
He purchased tracts of land, which were divided into building
lots, which were sold to the colored people.  Money was advanced
to them to build houses, the Freedman's Bureau taking a mortgage
as security.  The Bureau endowed Howard University, of which
General Howard was made President.  A large Congregational
Church was built in Washington with moneys advanced by the
Bureau, the religious society giving its bonds at seven per
cent. for which the structure was ample security.  General
Howard had incurred the bitter animosity not only of the enemies
of the negro race, who disliked the whole object for which
the Bureau was founded, but of other persons whom he had offended.
I believe in no instance was there any loss to the Government,
or to the fund in his charge.  He was able to establish in
comfortable homes, and to educate and to provide work for
many thousand freedmen who had flocked to Washington during
the disturbed period immediately following emancipation.  After
a thorough investigation, where the prosecution was conducted
by Fernando Wood, a very distinguished and able Representative
from New York, formerly Mayor of the City, General Howard
was completely exonerated by the report of the majority of
the Committee.  The report was accepted by the House.

In 1873 I visited Louisiana, as Chairman of a special committee
raised for the purpose of inquiring into the conditions there,
and ascertaining which of two rival State governments was
the lawful one.  The investigation disclosed a terrible story
of murder, brutality and crime.  I made the report, signed
also by Mr. Wheeler, afterward Vice-President, and Mr. Frye,
now Senator and President pro tempore of the Senate.  It told
the dreadful story of these things with absolute truth and
fidelity.  It is not worth while to revive these memories
now.  But at the same time I endeavored to do full justice
to the better qualities of the Southern people and to explain
how it happened that men otherwise so honorable and brave
and humane could be led by the passions of a political warfare
and race prejudice to commit such offences.  Mr. Lamar, of
Mississippi, one of the most brilliant and able statesmen
of his time, sought an interview with me after the report
went in and thanked me for what I had said of the Southern
people, and told me that "I was the first Northern man who
seemed to be capable of doing them justice." What he thought
will be found also stated by him.

In a speech made before a Democratic meeting in the spring
of 1875, Mr. Lamar said ("Life of Lamar," p. 221);

"Well, the character of that last Committee--especially of
its Chairman, Mr. George F. Hoar--was such as to lead to no
expectation that there would be any indulgence shown to the
people of the South, or any very harsh criticisms of his own
party.  By inheritance, by training, by political association,
he was intensely anti-Southern.  His manners toward Southern
men, so bitter are his feelings, are often cold and reserved;
and nothing but his instinct and refinement as a gentleman,
which he is in every respect, saved him from sometimes being
supercilious; acute in intellect, cultured, trained to the
highest expression of his powers, quick in his resentments
and combative in temperament, we certainly expected no quarter
from his hands.  But beneath all this there were genuine truth
and manhood in Hoar that lifted him above the sordid feeling
of malignant passion.  He went, then, to that country, and
he made a report; and, while there is much in it that saddened
my heart, while there is much which I say is unwise and unjust
in his observations, there are some things, fellow citizens,
which you people of the North should hark to bear in mind,
while you are coming to your conclusions with reference to
the relations which you intend to sustain to the prostrate
people of my section.  Here, fellow citizens, is what Mr.
Hoar says in reference to the South: 'We do not overlook the
causes which tended to excite deep feeling and discontent
in the white population of Louisiana.  (I must read these
extracts to you because a people's interest, a people's destiny,
hang largely upon the action of the people of New Hampshire
and other Northern States.)  There has been great maladministration;
public funds have been wasted (that means public funds have
been embezzled, appropriated by these governments that are
sucking the blood, the life blood, from a people already impoverished
by four years of calamitous war); public lands have been wasted,
public credit impaired.' Now, fellow citizens, that is the
testimony of one of the most uncompromising Republicans in
this country."

Mr. Lamar would not have used, I am sure, the word "bitter"
after we came to know each other better.  Perhaps I may be
forgiven if I insert here a letter from Mr. Lamar's nephew,
just elected a member of Congress from the State of Florida.
I know I must attribute the eulogy which it contains to his
kindness of heart, and desire to meet more than half way my
own cordial feeling toward the portion of my countrymen to
whom he belongs.  I do not take them literally.  But I confess
I like to leave on record, if I may, some evidence which will
contradict the charge so constantly made by critics near home,
that I am a man of intense partisan and personal bitterness.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.,
  Mch 10th, 1903

SENATOR GEORGE F. HOAR,
  Washington, D. C.

_Dear Sir:_

I would like very much to have a copy of your address lately
made before the Union League of Chicago.  I see notices of
the speech in the newspapers.

Also your address made before the New England Society some
three years ago, if you have a copy.

Your picture, sent to me at my request, hangs in my room.
It is the face and form of a great American statesman.  One
whom our people have learned to admire and love.

Our people venerate your years, still in vigorous life and
in full possession of great faculties of mind and heart.
We look to you and other great Northern men to keep us in
our sectional and racial questions.  In one way these questions
mean so little to the sections of the country not immediately
interested in them, but they mean so much to the Southern
people who have to deal with them as live, every day matters.

I left the Attorney-General's office in this State on February
28th, ult., after fourteen years service and two years yet
to run.  On March 4th, inst., I became Congressman from the
new Third Congressional district.

I go to Washington as a Democrat, but with full knowledge
that my party does not contain all the right or all the wrong
in it.  And I hope that in the vexing questions of the future,
that by a temperate course of thought and action, that my
influence may be worth something, however small, to my people
beyond even a party view.

But after all I feel that great and representative men of
other sections can assist the Southern people in these questions
quite as much, if not more, than we can assist ourselves.

I hope to meet you next winter.  The biography of my Uncle
Justice Lamar shows how much he esteemed you and your regard
for him.  I am with much respect,

  Very truly yours,
  (Signed) W. B. LAMAR.


I was also placed by Mr. Blaine on the Committee to investigate
the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier.  I shall
give an account of this matter in a separate chapter.

There was great public excitement on the subject.  After
the report on the Union Pacific Railroad, and within about
a week of the end of Congress, the House adopted a resolution
to make a like investigation of the affairs of the Central
Pacific Railroad.  It was absolutely impossible to accomplish
such an inquiry within the few remaining days of the session.
But if we failed to attempt it the political newspapers and
what are called Independent newspapers, always much less fair
to public men than political opponents, would have charged
us with failing to make the investigation from a desire to
screen the offenders.  The charge would have been greedily
believed in the excited condition of the public mind, which
our explanation would never reach.  So I advised the Committee
to call Mr. Huntington, the President of the Central Pacific
Railroad, and ask him to produce the accounts and records
of his Company.  To this it was anticipated that he would
reply that these records were in California and that he could
not get them before Congress and the authority of the Committee
would expire.  Mr. Huntington was accordingly summoned.  He
brought with him Mr. William M. Evarts, as counsel, and
testified as was expected.  He then, however, asked leave
of the Committee to make a statement in regard to the relation
of his road to the National Government.  This was granted.
He then went on to say what a great public benefactor his
company had been.  It had connected the two oceans by a great
railroad across the continent, saving millions upon millions
to the commerce of the country.  But beside that he said it
had saved to the Government more than all the moneys the Government
had advanced toward its construction, by preventing Indian
wars.  One winter especially his railroad corporation had
fed a hostile Indian tribe when the Government supplies had
failed to reach them, saving them from the danger of starvation
and saving the Government from a bloody and costly Indian
war.  I said, Mr. Huntington--Was not that ultra vires for
a railroad corporation?  He answered, "No, Sir! no, Sir! we
never gave them anything as strong as that." He evidently
thought he was being charged with supplying the Indians with
liquor, and that ultra vires meant extra strength.

The only other important committee work that I now recall
during my service in the House related to the investigation
of the conduct of Mr. Speaker Blaine.  He was charged with
having received stock in a railroad at a price much less than
its then value with the expectation of paying for it by aiding
the passage of legislation in which the road was interested,
by political service as a Member of the House of Representatives,
and especially by his great influence as Speaker.  It was
further claimed that in letters addressed by him to a man
named Mulligan he had demanded conveyances of such stock in
compensation for a ruling he had before made by which a measure
in conflict with the interest of the road was defeated.  These
charges were referred to the Committee of the Judiciary.  The
House was then Democratic and the majority of the Committee
was made up of Mr. Blaine's political opponents.  The investigation
was conducted in a spirit of bitter hostility to him.  The
evidence was taken by a sub-committee of which I was not
a member.  But as disputed questions of procedure and as
to the admission of evidence were constantly coming up which
were referred always to the full committee, which was considered
in session all the time for that purpose,--the members were
every day, sometimes several times a day, summoned from their
seats in the House to the meeting of the Committee.  I was
familiar with the whole case as it went in.  It was expected
that there would be a hostile report, and it was understood
that I should be charged with the duty of making a minority
report.

I studied that evidence as thoroughly and faithfully as I
could.  I have gone over the matter very carefully since.
I was then satisfied, and am satisfied now, that the charges
against Mr. Blaine of any corruption or wrong-doing were
totally unsustained.  They would never have found credit
for a moment except in minds deeply excited by the bitter
political passion which at that time raged to a degree wholly
unknown in our political strife to-day.  All Mr. Blaine did
was to say when he applied for the purchase of the stock to
the men who were then trying to dispose of it that "he should
not be a dead-head."  He meant by that only that he was able
to be of advantage to any undertaking in which he should be
interested, an assurance which his known ability and energy
and large acquaintance with business men thoroughly warranted
him in making.  There was no action of Congress expected,
or legislation in which the railroad was likely to have an
interest.  All that it expected to get from Congress had been
obtained already.

The other charge that he demanded a favor in this purchase
as compensation for a ruling he had made as Speaker was, in
my judgment, equally unfounded and trivial.  He simply alluded
to the fact that he had made a ruling which had saved the
road from hostile legislation.  Every lawyer had doubtless
many times had jurymen remind him of the fact that they had
been on juries that gave verdicts in his favor.  Every Member
of Congress likes to meet a pensioner for whom he has secured
a pension.  Neither has any thought of wrong in reviving such
a memory.  The ruling Mr. Blaine had made was simply stating
a clear rule of the House about which there could be no doubt
whatever.  At the same time, I said at the time, what I deem
it my duty to repeat now, I think Mr. Blaine erred, when
he thought it proper to embark in such a speculative investment.
Members of legislative bodies, especially great political leaders
of large influence, ought to be careful to keep a thousand
miles off from relations which may give rise to even a suspicion
of wrong.  Their influence and character are the property
of their country, and especially valuable to their political
associates.  The great doctrines of which they are the influential
advocates must not be imperiled by any smell of fire on their
garments.  But an error of judgment, or of good taste, on
their part, is very far from being corruption.  Henry Clay
was a gambler.  Other eminent statesmen both in this country
and in Europe have made no secret of even worse vices than
that.  They are undoubtedly to be disapproved, in some cases
severely condemned.  But the people always have made and always
will make a distinction between such offences and the final
unpardonable guilt of corruption in office.

James G. Blaine was a man of many faults and many infirmities.
But his life is a part of the history of his country.  It
will be better for his reputation that the chapter of that
history which relates to him shall be written by a historian
with a full and clear sense of those faults and infirmities,
concealing nothing, and extenuating nothing.  But also let
him set nought down in malice.  Mr. Blaine was a brilliant
and able man, lovable, patriotic, far-seeing, kind.  He acted
in a great way under great responsibilities.  He was wise
and prudent when wisdom and prudence were demanded.  If he
had attained to the supreme object of his ambition and reached
the goal of the Presidency, if his life had been spared to
complete his term, it would have been a most honorable period,
in my opinion, in the history of the country.  No man has
lived in this country since Daniel Webster died, save McKinley
alone, who had so large a number of devoted friends and admirers
in all parts of the country.


CHAPTER XIX
SALMON P. CHASE

Among the very interesting characters with whom I have formed
an acquaintance in Washington was Chief Justice Salmon P.
Chase.  I saw him but a few times.  But on those occasions
he spoke to me with a freedom with which famous public men
seldom speak, even to intimate friends.  I incline to think
it was his habit to speak freely to comparative strangers.
But of that I know nothing.

When I first went to Washington, in the spring of 1869, I
was invited by Commissary-General Eaton, whose daughter was
the wife of my cousin, to attend a meeting of a club at his
house.  The club was composed of scientific men who met at
each other's houses.  The reading of a paper by the host was
followed by a supper.  The host was permitted to invite such
guests as he saw fit, not members of the club.  Chief Justice
Chase was one of the guests.  I was introduced to him there
for the first time, except that I went, when I was quite a
young man, long before the war, to hear him speak and, with
a great many other persons, went up and shook hands with him
after the speech was over.

The Chief Justice left General Eaton's house when I did,
and asked me if I were going his way.  So we walked together
about a mile.  He talked all the way about the next nomination
for the Presidency; about the prospects of the various candidates,
and the probability of the success of the Democratic Party
if they had a candidate who would be satisfactory to the Republicans
who were disaffected with the present policies.  It was evident
that his great man had this subject, to use a cant phrase,
"on the brain."  This was before the Chief Justice had his
paralytic shock.  He was in the full vigor of health, a model
of manly strength and manly beauty, giving every evidence
that his great intellectual power was undiminished.

Not long afterward a friend of mine went to Ohio with his
wife.  In those days it was necessary for persons going from
Washington to the Northwest to cross Baltimore in a carriage--
the Washington station and the Ohio station being in different
parts of the city.  A friend of my friend went to Baltimore
to see his wife, who was going to Ohio, across the city and
then to return to Washington.  He knew Chief Justice Chase.
He introduced him to my friend on the cars, and they rode
across Baltimore in one carriage, the two gentlemen, the Chief
Justice, and the wife.  The Chief Justice talked to him whom
he had just met for the first time during the whole ride of
half an hour on the same engrossing subject, as he had to
me before.

I think there can be no doubt that Chief Justice Chase, like
many other great men, was consumed by an eager and passionate
ambition for the Presidency.  That has been true of other
great statesmen as well as of many small statesmen.  It has
been specially true of great orators.  The American people
are fond of eloquent speech.  They make their admiration known
to the speaker in a way that is quite likely to turn his head.
In Plato's day the bee Hymettus mingled with the discourse
as it came forth.  To-day the bee lights in his ear and fills
his fancy with delightful dreams of a hive by the Potomac,
thatched with flowers and redolent with the incense of flattery.

I do not doubt that if Salmon P. Chase had been elected President
of the United States he would have administered that lofty
office honorably and to the advantage of the country.  But
I think that his ambition clouded his judgment, and inclined
him, perhaps unconsciously, to take an attitude as a Judge
on some of the political questions on which parties were divided
after President Grant came in, which would be acceptable to
the Democrats, and would make it possible for him to accept
their nomination.  But all this is merest speculation.  If
he had maintained his mental and physical vigor it is quite
likely that he would have been nominated when Greeley was
nominated.  If he had been, it is not unlikely, in my opinion,
that he would have been elected.  I thought at the time that
if Mr. Adams had been nominated in 1872, he might have been
chosen.  The discontent with Grant was far-reaching, for the
reasons I have stated elsewhere.  But the nomination of Greeley
was ludicrous and preposterous.  Almost every attack on the
first Administration of President Grant was answered by the
political speakers on his side by a quotation from Greeley
or the New York _Tribune._ A candidate seeking an election
by reason of the mistakes his antagonist has made in accordance
with his own advice, does not stand much chance of winning.
The Southern people, even the white Democrats, always had
a kindly feeling for Grant.  They did not resent what he had
done as a soldier, as they resented what Greeley had said
as a politician.  They knew too, in spite of their strong
differences with Grant, the innate honesty, justice and courage
of the man.

Chase would have been a far stronger candidate than Greeley.
However any political antagonist might dislike him, every
antagonist must respect him, and nobody could laugh at him.

The question of the constitutional power of Congress to make
Treasury notes legal tender for all debts, whether incurred
before or after they were issued, came up for the decision
of the Court when Chase was Chief Justice.  It was a question
which profoundly interested and excited the public.  The Democratic
Party, which more lately favored the payment of all debts,
public and private, in irredeemable paper money, had assailed
the Republican Administration during the war for providing,
under an alleged necessity that Treasury notes, called greenbacks,
should be legal tender for the discharge of all debts.  The
constitutionality of that law had been affirmed by the courts
of fifteen States.  It had been denied by one court only,
that of Kentucky, the eminent Chancellor dissenting.  There
was scarcely a Republican lawyer or a Republican judge in
the country who doubted the constitutional power of Congress
to impose such a quality upon the paper currency if, in the
opinion of Congress, the public safety should require it.

The question came before the Supreme Court of the United States
in the case of Hepburn _v._ Griswold, and was decided by that
Court in December, 1869.

The Court were all agreed that Congress has power under the
Constitution to do not only what the Constitution expressly
authorizes, but to adopt any means appropriate, and plainly
adapted to carry in to effect any such express power.  So
the two questions arose:  First, Was the power to issue legal
tender notes an appropriate, and plainly adapted means to
any end which the National Government has a right to accomplish?
Second, Who are to judge of the question whether the means
be so appropriate, or plainly adapted?

There were then seven Justices of the Supreme Court.  Chief
Justice Chase, with the three Democratic Justices held the
Legal Tender Law unconstitutional, and declared that a law
making anything but gold or silver legal tender for debts
was neither appropriate nor plainly adapted to carrying on
war, or any other end for which the National Government was
erected.

He had, when Secretary of the Treasury during the War of the
Rebellion, originally advised the issuing of these legal
tender notes.  He had visited the Capitol.  He had called
members of the two Houses of Congress from their seats and,
by his great urgency, overcome their reluctance to vote for
the Legal Tender Law.  My late colleague, Mr. Dawes, has more
than once told me, and others in my hearing, that he was exceedingly
reluctant to resort to that measure, and that he was induced
to support it by Mr. Chase's earnest declaration that it was
impossible that the War should go on without it, that he was
at the last extremity of his resources.  A Government note
had been formally protested in the city of New York.  I have
heard a like statement from many public men, survivors of
that time.  It is not too much to say, that without Mr. Chase's
urgent and emphatic affirmation that the war must stop and
the Treasury be bankrupt and the soldiers without their pay,
unless this measure were adopted, it never could have passed
Congress.

Notwithstanding this, Mr. Chase puts his opinion in the Legal
Tender Cases on the ground that this was not a necessary,
or plainly adapted means to the execution of the unquestionable
power of carrying on a great war in which the life of the
Republic was in issue.

The question whether this necessity existed was a question
of fact.  Now questions of fact cannot be determined by the
courts.  If the fact be one on which depends the propriety
of legislation it must be determined by the law-making power.
Of course, where facts are of such universal or general knowledge
that the court can know them judicially, without proof, like
the fact of the time of the rising of the sun, or the laws
of mechanics, or the customs prevailing in great branches
of business, the court may take judicial notice of them.  But
how could Mr. Chase, as a judge, judicially declare as a fact
that the issue of legal tender notes was not necessary for
carrying on the war, when he had, as Secretary of the Treasury,
having better means of knowledge than any other man, so earnestly
and emphatically declared such necessity? How could he, as
a judge of one court, determine as of an unquestionable fact
of universal knowledge that the issue of a legal tender note
was not necessary for maintaining the Government in that
terrible war, when fourteen State tribunals, and a minority
of his own court, had declared the fact to be the other way?

This decision gave rise to an attack upon the Administration
of President Grant and especially upon Judge Hoar, then Attorney-
General, which, although it has no foundation whatever in
fact, is occasionally revived in later years, that the Court
was packed by appointing two new Judges to reverse the decision.
The decision in Hepburn _v._ Griswold was announced in the
Supreme Court February 7, 1870.  The court met at twelve o'clock.
The decision was read by the Chief Justice after several opinions
had been read by other judges, so that the afternoon must
have advanced considerably before it was promulgated.  It
had not been made known to the public in advance by the press,
and President Grant and Attorney-General Hoar both affirmed
that they had no knowledge of the decision and had no expectation
of what it would be before it was announced.  I myself had
a conversation with Attorney-General Hoar in the afternoon
of that day.  He had just heard the decision from the Chief
Justice with great astonishment and surprise.

Four judges concurred in the decision.  There were two vacancies
in the court--one occasioned by the withdrawal of Mr. Justice
Grier, and one by the Act of Congress of the previous Session
providing for an additional judge.  At twelve o'clock in the
morning of that day, before the decision in Hepburn _v._ Griswold
was made known, President Grant had sent to the Senate, and
the Senate had received the communication nominating Messrs.
Strong and Bradley to these vacancies.  They were regarded
as the ablest lawyers in the circuits where they dwelt.  By
common consent of the entire profession they are among the
ablest judges who ever sat on the Supreme Bench.  In my opinion
Mr. Justice Bradley has had no superior, save Marshall alone,
on that court, in every quality of a great judge.  I doubt
if he has had, on the whole, an equal, save Marshall alone.
They have both joined in opinions since their appointment
in very important political questions, in which the policy
of the party to which they belonged was not sustained.  An
offer to them of these vacancies in their circuits was the
most natural and proper thing that could have been done.
There was no Republican lawyer in the country, of any considerable
prominence, so far as I know, who questioned the constitutionality
of the Legal Tender Act, of distinction enough to make him
thought of anywhere for a place on the Supreme Bench.  So
far as I now remember, there is but one instance of an appointment
by the President of the United States to the Supreme Court
of a man not belonging to his own political party.  That is
the case of Mr. Justice Jackson, who was appointed by President
Harrison on my own earnest recommendation.  There has never
been made in any quarter, so far as I know, a statement or
pretence that there existed any evidence that President Grant
made these appointments, or that any member of his Cabinet
advised it because of its possible effect on the Legal Tender
Law.  Yet this foolish and dirty charge has found extensive
credit.  I read it once in the London _Times._  It was, however,
in a communication written by a degenerate and recreant American
who was engaged in reviling his own country.  It was also
referred to by Mr. Bryan in his book on the United States.
I sent him a copy of a pamphlet I prepared on the subject,
and received from him a letter expressing his satisfaction
that the story was without foundation.  It is the fashion
still, in some quarters, to speak, in spite of the decisions
of the Supreme Court and the numerous State courts, to which
I have referred, as if it were too clear for argument that
Congress had no right to make the Government notes a legal
tender.  The gentlemen who talk in that way, however, are
almost universally men of letters, or men without any legal
training or any considerable legal capacity.  They are of
that class of political philosophers who are never trusted
by their countrymen to deal with authority with any practical
question either legislative, administrative, or judicial.

While saying this, I wish to affirm my own belief that, while
it may be in some great emergencies like that of our late
Civil War essential to the maintenance of the Government
that this power which I believe Congress has, without a shadow
of a reasonable question, should be exercised, yet I should
hold it a great calamity if it were exercised except on such
an occasion.  It is a dangerous power, like the power of suspending
the writ of _Habeas corpus,_ or the power of declaring war,
or the power of reckless and extravagant public expenditure,
never to be exercised if it can possibly be helped.  I think
the American people have, in general, settled down on this
as the reasonable view, in spite of the clamor of the advocates
of fiat money on the one side, and the extreme strict constructionists
on the other.


CHAPTER XX
ADIN THAYER

The political history of Massachusetts from 1850 until 1888
cannot be written or understood without a knowledge of the
remarkable career of Adin Thayer.  When I was first nominated
for Congress, he was my earnest opponent.  That was due, so
far as I know, to no dislike to me, but only to his strong
friendship for Mr. Bird.  After my election, he became my
stanch friend.  Our friendship continued without interruption
to his death.  The name of Adin Thayer is dear to my memory
and to my heart.

I have often said that there were four men who honored me
with their friendship, whose counsel I liked to get under
any difficult public responsibility, and that when these four
men approved or agreed with anything I myself said or did,
I did not care what the rest of mankind thought.  It would
have been better to say that, although I did care very much
what the rest of mankind thought, I knew that when these
men were on my side, the wisdom and conscience of Massachusetts
would be there also.

One of them was John G. Whittier.  He added to the great genius
which made him a famous poet the quality of being one of the
wisest and most discreet political advisers and leaders who
ever dwelt in the Commonwealth.

Another was my own brother, Judge Hoar, of whom I will not
now undertake to speak.  He was the last friend of mine who
always performed the act of friendship to which Adin Thayer
was never unequal, that of telling me my faults and mistakes
with much more thoroughness and plainness of speech than he
ever used in praising any of my virtues.

The third was Samuel May, who died in an honored old age at
Leicester, his sunset hour cheered by the memories of noble
service and the consciousness of having borne his full share
in the greatest achievement of human history accomplished
by mere political instrumentalities--the freedom of the slave.

The fourth was Adin Thayer, a man quite as remarkable in his
way as either of the others in his.  Each of them gave high
and brave counsel in great emergencies.  Each of them had
a great part in the overthrow of the political forces that
were on the side of slavery, and in the triumphant overthrow
of the combination which would, if successful, have corrupted
Massachusetts and made of her the worst instead of the best
example on earth of republican self-government.

There is hardly room here for more than a sketch of Adin
Thayer.  He was a very striking, original and picturesque
figure in the history of the Commonwealth.  He was a strong,
brave, wise, unselfish man.  His life, so far as he took part
in political affairs, was devoted to objects wholly public,
never personal.  He was the greatest organizer of righteousness
in his generation.  We must go back to Sam Adams to find any
one who deserves to be compared with him in this respect.
I cannot now undertake to tell the story of his important
services to the Commonwealth at some very critical periods,
or to narrate the history of all the political events in which
he bore so conspicuous a share.  The time to do this has not
come.  It can be done only when the correspondence, the inner
personal life of men who were the leaders of Massachusetts
during the stormy period through which she has lately passed,
shall be given to the world.

Worcester County, from the day of Rufus Putnam until to-day,
has in every generation contributed eminent persons to the
service of the Commonwealth.  But the service of none of them
has been in the same field as his.  Indeed, as I have just
said, we must go back to the days of the Revolution to find
a conspicuous character who united so completely absolute
disinterestedness of character, inflexible integrity, passionate
love for Massachusetts, devotion to the loftiest ideals, and
was at the same time a most skilful and efficient organizer
of political forces.

Adin Thayer was born in the town of Mendon, in the County
of Worcester, December 5, 1828.  His birthplace was near Chestnut
Hill, in the territory which was incorporated into the town
of Blackstone in 1845.  He was the son of Caleb Thayer and
Hannah, the daughter of Peter Gaskill of Mendon.  His ancestors,
so far as known, in all the line of descent, were New England
farmers.  No better race ever existed for the development
of the highest intellectual and moral quality.  They wrung
a difficult livelihood from the soil and forest.  They were
educated by the responsibilities of self-government.  They
were accustomed to meditate and discuss with each other the
profoundest questions of theology and of the State.  Their
local traditions had made them familiar with a stimulant and
heroic history, in which every family had borne its share.
In these Puritan communities life was a perpetual gymnasium.
At the time of Mr. Thayer's birth, the strictness of the
Puritan manners had softened somewhat.  A milder theology
was slowly making its way, but the race which settled in New
England still remained without a tincture of any foreign element.

The town was one of the oldest in Worcester County.  In every
generation it had contained men of large influence in the
Commonwealth, who had kept alive the interest of the people
in public affairs.  Jonathan Russell, who, with Adams, Bayard,
Clay and Gallatin, negotiated the treaty of Ghent, and who
met rather an ignominious defeat afterward in an attempt to
measure lances with John Quincy Adams; the Hastings family,
three of whom were eminent lawyers, two of them having represented
the district in Congress; were of a generation that passed
from the stage at about the time of Judge Thayer's birth.

The people were fond of discussing public questions, not
only in town meeting, but in neighborhood gatherings and
debating societies.  The Judge used often to tell of the
eager interest with which in his boyhood he listened to these
encounters.  There were two men, one of whom survived until
Judge Thayer came to manhood, the other of whom died recently
in an honored old age, who were less known abroad than those
I have named, but who exerted a powerful influence upon the
community and upon the character of the observant and impressible
boy.  One of them was Dan Hill, the other the Reverend Adin
Ballou.

Dan Hill was one of the most remarkable men Worcester County
ever contained.  He was not bred to the bar, and was without
the advantage of what is called a liberal education.  But
he had a wonderful aptness for understanding legal principles
and the weight and effect of evidence.  His neighbors when
in trouble instinctively sought him as a shield.  He was an
unerring counsellor in the conduct of complicated affairs.
His aid was extensively sought in the preparation of causes,
in settling estates, and as guardian and trustee.  He was
concerned in hundreds of cases.  It would be hard to name
one in which he had anything to do that did not terminate
to the advantage of the party who employed him.  He had none
of the arts of the pettifogger.  He cared little for his own
personal advantage.  He had a native and lofty scorn for dishonesty
and meanness.  He was never better pleased than when, without
prospect of gain for himself, he was employing his talents
in the protection of poor and honest men against fraud and
oppression.  He had a large public spirit.  He was early an
anti-slavery man, and one of the founders of the Free Soil
Party.  He was specially at home in the Mendon and Blackstone
town meetings, in the meetings of the school district, in the
caucus, in the temperance and anti-slavery meetings and other
neighborhood gatherings where the people discussed matters
which concerned the public welfare.  In all these he gave
sensible counsel in common affairs and high counsel in high
affairs.

The influence of Adin Ballou, of whom Judge Thayer delighted
to speak in his later years, may be traced in the strong sympathy
the Judge always showed for aspirations, although exhibited
in the most crude and grotesque fashion, for the reconstruction
of society according to the laws of a newer and more spiritual
life.  Mr. Ballou, a man of clear intellect, stainless life,
sweet and amiable temper, undertook with about thirty companions
and disciples to form a community which should have the Beatitudes
for constitution, charter and by-laws.  This community was
established at Hopedale, now a separate town, then part of
Milford, formerly part of Mendon.  Some of the most important
members of this body withdrew from it, doubting its ability to
maintain itself financially, and it was abandoned.  But if
its sweet and gracious influence on the social life in its
neighborhood be any measure of its success, it was highly
successful.

Hopedale became famous afterward as the dwelling-place of
George Draper, one of the most eminent manufacturers and sagacious
and public-spirited citizens--founder of the Home Market Club--
the reputation and honor of whose name has been still more
extended by his sons, the eldest of whom is the admirable
soldier, Representative to Congress and Minister to Italy,
General William F. Draper.

Judge Thayer was named for Adin Ballou, although he afterward
dropped the middle name.  Mr. Ballou gives his estimate of
his namesake in the following letter:

HOPEDALE, MASS., Aug. 20, 1888.
  HON. GEORGE F. HOAR,--

_My Dear Sir,_--

Your lines of 11th inst. were duly received.  I am very glad
to learn that a Biography of Hon. Adin Thayer is in process
of preparation, and that the work is in such competent hands.
I reckoned him among my highly esteemed personal friends,
and was painfully shocked by the news of his lamentable death.
I knew his grandfather before him, his father and mother,
and the whole family connexion more or less intimately.  They
were often attendant on my public ministrations, and I have
been with them, during my long life, on many occasions of
interest, joy and sorrow.  They have all been persons of strong
common sense, downright honesty and solid worth.  Judge Thayer
descended from a sturdy, intelligent and respectable yeoman
stock.  And he has honored his heredity by his own intellectual
and moral excellence.  Although my personal intimacy with
him has never been close enough to enable me to describe the
footsteps of his upward career with graphical exactness, or
to enrich my memory with interesting anecdotes, I can bear
witness in a general way to his good characteristics, especially
in his youth while he was nearest under my observation, and
to some extent those of his mature years.  He was an industrious,
affectionate, and dutiful son from childhood to maturity.
He evinced early intelligence, rationality and moral principle
of a superior type, availing himself by close application
of every opportunity for acquiring useful knowledge, and did
so, as the sequel proved, successfully.  He was always an
independent, acute and logical thinker on a wide range of
subjects, as well outside of his professional life as inside.
But his constitution practically confined his ambition and
pursuits to the state of the world's affairs as manageable
for the time being, rather than to expending his energies
for the realization of theories greatly in advance of current
public opinion.  In this respect he differed from his friend
who writes this graphic contribution; whom nevertheless he
always respected.  But he was by no means a fossil conservative
lagging in the rear of progress.  He marched just as far forward
in the column as he was sure it could command the ground.
Thus he espoused the anti-slavery movement in politics in
its germinal stage, and became one of the most sagacious and
efficient organizers of the Republican Party in his native
State.  Of this, however, others are better qualified to treat
than this friend.  The same is true of his pecuniary and
financial achievements; also of his legal, judicial and official
attainments.  Let abler pens in those departments eulogise
him.  Whatever this writer saw of him in the judicial chair
or legal forum was unexceptionably creditable to him.

On the great themes of theology his conceptions and beliefs
accorded mainly with those of the writer.  They were sublimely
liberal and regenerative, excluding all notions of the divine
attributes and government in the least degree derogatory to
the character of God as the Supreme, All-Perfect Father of
the Universe.

Hoping that his numerous personal friends in the various
relations of life will do greater justice and honor to his
memory than this pen can, the foregoing is respectfully tendered.

  Very respectfully yours,
  ADIN BALLOU.

But it is not necessary to seek an explanation of Judge Thayer's
interest in life beyond the native tendencies which came to
him by lawful inheritance.  More than one person of his name
and blood in former generations were noted for their public
spirit and exercised a large influence in the affairs of the
town.  Traditions of two brothers, Captain Caleb Thayer and
'Squire Elisha Thayer, are still fresh.  Captain Caleb Thayer
was the great-grandfather of Adin Thayer, Esquire.  Elijah
was grandfather of Hon. Eli Thayer, member of Congress from
the Worcester district, and founder of the Emigrant Aid Society,
which had so illustrious a share in saving Kansas from slavery.
Eli Thayer tells me Elijah governed Mendon.  He always carried
in town meeting what he wanted to carry, and killed what he
wanted to kill.

Caleb Thayer, the father of the Judge, was an early anti-
slavery man, and one of the founders of the Free Soil Party.
He was a man of vigorous sense and great public spirit.  He
had large interests in Mendon and Blackstone.  He represented
Mendon in the Legislature and helped elect Charles Sumner
to the Senate in 1851.  He was generally sociable and cheerful,
but subject to occasional periods of depression of spirits,
when he liked to remain in solitude until the time of gloom
passed by.

Adin Thayer's education was chiefly in the district schools
of his neighborhood.  Hosea Biglow may be taken as the type
of the ordinary Yankee country boy of that day.  Adin had
the advantage, better, if you can have but one, than any
university, of being brought up in the country.  He was a
member of that absolute democracy, the old-fashioned New
England country town, where character and worth were the
only titles to respect in the community, where the son of
a President or the son of a Senator or of a Governor stood
on an absolute and entire social equality with the son of the
washerwoman.  If the son of a President or Governor gave
himself any airs on that account, he had applied to him a
very vigorous and effective remedy well known to our Saxon
ancestors.

Adin Thayer came to manhood when the hosts of slavery and
freedom were marshalling for the great contest for the territory
between the Mississippi and the Pacific.

He was soaked in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament,
a soaking which has somewhat the same effect on the moral
and mental fibre that seven years in a tanner's vat used to
have upon sole leather.  How often I have known Adin, on some
great political occasion or crisis, to crush some sophistry
or compromise, or attempt to get things on a lower plane,
by indignantly flashing out with some old text, such as, "Righteousness
exalteth a nation," or "Sin is a reproach to any people,"
or answer, as he did once, to a gentleman who wanted him to
sacrifice some moral principle for the sake of harmony in
the Republican Party, "My friend, we will be first pure, and
then peaceable."

Adin Thayer was a member of the School Committee of Worcester
for some years.  He was Senator from Worcester, I think, for
two years, in 1871 and 1872.  He was appointed Collector of
Internal Revenue for the eighth district by President Lincoln
on August 26, 1862, and gave way to a successor appointed
by President Johnson, September 14, 1866.  He was reappointed
by President Grant, June 22, 1872, and held the office until
January, 1877, when the eighth and tenth districts were consolidated.
He was appointed Judge of Probate by Governor Rice in the
fall of 1877, and held that office until his death.  He was
Chairman of the State Committee in 1878.  He gave to the public
three or four essays or speeches printed in newspapers, and
some of them in pamphlet form.  They were, under one title
or another, treatises on the moral duties of citizenship
and appeals to the youth of the State to take their full and
patriotic share in its administration.

But his function in life was that of an organizer.  He was
an ambitious man.  But he never suffered his ambitions to
stand in the way of what he thought was the good of the Commonwealth
or of the party.  Many and many a time, as there are plenty
of persons who can testify, it had been the expectation that
he would be the choice of his party for Senator or for Representative
of the district in Congress, or some important municipal office,
but when the time came, Mr. Thayer was the first to suggest
that victory and harmony or the public advantage would be
best attained by some other candidate, to whose service he
gave a zeal and efficiency which he never would have given
in his own behalf.  He believed in party in politics, in organization,
in work in the ward and in the school district.  But he believed
in those things because they were, in his judgment, essential
to the accomplishment of the highest results in the country
and in the Commonwealth.  He was absolutely incorruptible,
either by money or by office.  He was a man of clean hands
and a pure heart.  His methods were as open as the daylight.
He conducted the great campaign against General Butler, when
he was Chairman of the State committee.  He came to Boston
and found the knees of Boston trembling, people shaking in
their shoes and their teeth chattering.  He went into the
committee room, put things to rights, organized a campaign
never approached for thoroughness and efficiency in this Commonwealth,
and during the whole time there sat at the table next his
own a beautiful and refined young lady hearing and knowing
everything that went on from the beginning of the campaign
until the end.  He had no political secrets.  He never, to
use a common phrase, "laid his ear to the ground." He never
listened for the stamping of feet or the clapping of hands or
the shouting or excitement or acclaim of the multitude.  His
ear was to the sky.  He used to speak with infinite scorn of
settling questions of righteousness by a show of hands.  He
had a perfect faith in the American people and the people
of Massachusetts, but it was a faith in the American people
and the people of Massachusetts, governed by reason and not
by passion, acting under constitutional restraints, listening
ever for the voice of duty, a people acting not on the first
impulse, but on sober second thought.  He was often in the
minority, and once or twice in his life a bolter.  He was
never afraid of being in the minority.  But he never was contented
until he had changed or helped to change that minority into
a majority.  He was a politician almost from his cradle to
his grave.  He believed that the highest human occupation
was to take a share in the leadership and direction of a self-
governing people.  He was a very tolerant, friendly and considerate
man, in dealing with men who differed from himself.  He would
pardon sinners.  He would pardon politicians with whose efforts
there was, as he thought, even a mingling of ambition and
self-seeking.  But he had nothing but hatred and contempt
for men who received all the benefits of the Republic, but
shrank from any labor or sacrifice in its behalf.  To his
mind the one base creature in the Commonwealth was the man
who said he was no politician.  He thoroughly believed in
Ralph Waldo Emerson's saying, which he borrowed from his brother
Charles:  "That is the one base thing in the universe, to
receive benefits and render none."  He had a clear business
sense.  He was the best adviser I knew of in Worcester, with
but one possible exception, for clients who were in financial
difficulties.  He was a man of absolute integrity, of absolute
veracity, and of a tender and boundless compassion.  One of
the most touching scenes I ever beheld was, when at his funeral,
among the men of high station and of honor, there came forward
a little group of Negroes and fugitive slaves who had been
attracted to Worcester by its reputation as the home of freedom.
They passed by the coffin with bowed heads and moistened eyes,
every one of them probably knowing him as the friend and benefactor
who had made life possible for them in this strange and unaccustomed
community.  He did not get carried off his feet by any sentimentalities.

He was the best of company.  You could not talk with him or
tackle him without a bright and entertaining answer.  He was
no great respecter of persons in such an encounter.  I remember
meeting him one day, when he said he had just been spending
Sunday in Canton.  "Indeed!" said I, "my great-grandfather
used to live there, and is buried there." "Well, sir," he
answered, "it may be a very respectable town for all that."

A master of English fiction, who has won fame abroad, and
who dwelt for some little time in this country, has given
a most vivid and accurate description of Judge Thayer, his
speech and his style and eloquence and sense in a novel lately
published.  One of the persons of the novel asks an English
friend to the club, which he calls the State Club.  He goes
to the Club, and this is what happens:

"The State Club held its meeting in the parlor of the well-
known Warrener House.  There were some fifty members present,
who received the Mayor with cheers, as he entered with his
two friends.  A good deal of smoke was made, and a good many
speeches.

"Sir Hugh found interest in listening to some of the speakers,
and in looking at some of the members.  Montaigne pointed
out all of the notables.  One of the speakers* was a short
man, with a corpulent body and a large open face; but he was
a born orator of a certain type.  Rounded and polished, mellow
and musical, his sentences rolled from his mouth in liquid
cadence and perfect balance.  Sir Hugh put him down as his
ideal after-dinner speaker.  He made his points clearly, neatly,
and with occasional vigor that was always surprising."

[Footnote]
* John D. Long.
[End of Footnote]

"'He reminds me of the Younger Pitt.  Who is he?' asked Sir
Hugh, with a touch of enthusiasm that was in striking contrast
with his habitual and aristocratic insouciance.

"'Oh, that,' said Montaigne, with a smile, 'is Mr. William
Shortley, commonly called Billy Shortlegs.  He is very popular,
well up in classics, and stands a good chance of being Governor
some day.  Shall I introduce you?'

"'Thank you, presently.  Whom are they calling for now?' inquired
Sir Hugh, as a chorus of voices cried out 'Amos Blackstone!
Amos Blackstone!  Amos, Amos, Amos!'

"Montaigne himself was chanting 'Blackstone!  Blackstone!'
with great gusto.  When that gentleman rose, a perfect storm
of cheers went up, during which Montaigne said: 'Now you will
hear something, Sir Hugh.  I shall want to know what you think
of him.'

"Sir Hugh put up his eye-glass, not that his sight was defective
but the occasion was important.  Mr. Amos Blackstone had arrived
at the dignified age of three score years.  In some respects
he curiously resembled the previous speaker, though considerably
his senior.  He stood perhaps five feet five inches in his
boots.  With the exception of his legs, he was a heavily built
man, with a large head, an ample brow, a hairless face, very
red, with large cheeks, and an under jaw like a lion.  His
eyes were small, but wonderfully bright and intelligent.  He
looked so portentously solemn, that when you learnt that he
was perfectly well in mind, body and estate, the inclination
to laugh was irresistible.  This remarkable man began to speak
in a husky, asthmatical voice, that gradually came out of
the clouds and grew clear.  His subject was, 'The Abstention
of our Young Men from Politics: Causes and Cure.' He was evidently
a master of his subject, and spoke without notes.  He was
absolutely without any pretence to oratory; and yet for thirty
minutes he played upon his audience as it were a pipe, and
plucked out the heart of its mystery.  He was by turn, serious,
merry, doleful, witty, pathetic, humorous, ironical and gravely
philosophic.  When he was gay in speech, his face was funereal,
and during the utterances of his grave reflections, his face
was lighted up with a winning smile.  There were moments when
one might have heard a pin drop; when one could not have heard
his name, if shouted, for laughter; when one's eyes gathered
a sudden mist.

"Sir Hugh did not once remove his eye-glass; he would have
put up half a dozen glasses had he had them.

"'Well,' enquired Montaigne, as the after-cheering subsided.
'A grave, melancholy intellect, with a sprightly temperament;
a wonderful man.  Who is he?' asked Sir Hugh, dropping his
glass.

"'His name, as you know is Amos Blackstone; he lives some
miles away; but he is a household name.'

"'Is he in business?'

"'Yes, a lawyer; a patent lawyer.  Have you ever heard of
an institution called the Political Boss?'

"'Oh, yes.  At home we use him to a degree, as a sort of
political Black Bogey, to scare naughty children who like to
play at Radicalism.'

"'Well, Amos Blackstone is a specimen of the Political Boss.'

"'Indeed?  You surprise me,' gasped Sir Hugh.  'Don't mistake
me; they are not all like him.  He is a lion among jackals;
the best political organizer in the State.  But he is getting
crowded out by younger men.  We soon turn our war-horses out
to pasture, in this country,' explained Montaigne."

No man among his contemporaries in Massachusetts had a larger
number of devoted friends than Adin Thayer.  Many people who
were not counted among his acquaintances were attached to
him by sympathy of political opinions and by gratitude for
his important service to the Commonwealth.  He did a thousand
things for the benefit of the city, for the benefit of the
State.  Many bad men found that somehow their ambitions were
nipped in the bud by a process they could hardly understand,
and many good men were called into the public service in obedience
to a summons from a hand the influence of which they never
discovered.  But there were four things he largely helped
to do which were important and conspicuous in our history;
I will not say things that he did, but they were things which
would not have been done, in my judgment, if the power and
influence of Adin Thayer had been subtracted; things accomplished
with difficulty and with doubt.  He stood by Charles Sumner
when that great and dangerous attempt was made to banish him
from public life in the year 1862.  It was a time when Charles
Sumner, as he told me himself, could not visit the college
where he was graduated, and be sure of a respectful reception,
when a very important Republican paper, the most important
and influential Republican paper in Massachusetts, declared
that Charles Sumner could not address a popular audience in
New York with personal safety; when, under the lead of the
United States District Attorney, one of the most successful
managers of a political meeting who ever existed in Massachusetts,
an attempt was made to defeat a resolution of confidence in
him, in the Republican State Convention (when the whole of
the House of Representatives, or of the Caucus, or of the
Convention, was on one side and Richard H. Dana was on the
other, it was about an even chance which came out ahead),
Thayer stood by Mr. Sumner in that memorable State Convention,
and helped save his great career to the country and to liberty.

He was a devoted supporter of John A. Andrew.  Andrew had
been Governor the traditional three years, and there were
men eager to supplant him.  When Adin heard of a formidable
meeting called for that purpose, he exclaimed--I remember
very well the indignation with which he said it--"They shall
not lay their hands on the Lord's Anointed." He sent a message
to the meeting that he would fight their candidate in every
school district in Massachusetts.  The scheme was abandoned.

He was largely responsible for the defeat of the scheme for
substituting biennial for annual election, and biennial sessions
of the Legislature for yearly sessions in Massachusetts,
although it did not receive its deathblow at the hands of
the people until after his death.

But his chief service, after all, was in keeping the government
of Massachusetts clean and incorruptible, at the time of the
great raid which was made upon the Republican Party in the
years between 1871 and 1883.  And yet, in all these services
and contests he never appealed to a base passion or to a low
ambition in any man.  He summoned the nobility in men, and
it answered to his call.  He loved with the whole intensity
of his nature, his country, his Commonwealth, and the city
which was his home.  He loved the great cause of human freedom
and equality with the passionate devotion which a lover feels
for his mistress.  He was the most disinterested man I ever
knew in public life.  He was not devoid of ambition.  He believed
that the holding of public office was the best method of accomplishing
public results.  But, as I have already said, when the time
came, he always subordinated his own desire to what he deemed
the welfare of the public.

He had, I think, one favorite poem.  He was fond of all good
literature, especially the Bible, and was never without its
resources to illustrate or make emphatic what he had to say.
But there was one poem which was written to describe his and
my intimate friend, George L. Stearns, which I think was his
favorite above all the literature with which he was acquainted.
I have often heard him quote its verses.  They set forth the
character and quality and life of Adin Thayer himself.  If
Thayer had died before Stearns, I believe Whittier would have
written the same thing about him.  They are familiar to my
readers, I am sure, but I will close this brief and imperfect
tribute by citing them once more:

  He has done the work of a true man,--
  Crown him, honor him, love him.
  Weep over him, tears of women,
  Stoop, manliest brows, above him!

  * * * * * *

  For the warmest of hearts is frozen,
  The freest of hands is still;
  And the gap in our picked and chosen
  The long years may not fill.

  No duty could overtask him,
  No need his will outrun;
  Or ever our lips could ask him,
  His hands the work had done.

  He forgot his own soul for others,
  Himself to his neighbor lending;
  He found the Lord in his suffering brothers,
  And not in the clouds descending.

  * * * * * *

  Ah, well!--The world is discreet;
  There are plenty to pause and wait;
  But here was a man who set his feet
  Sometimes in advance of fate,--

  Plucked off the old bark when the inner
  Was slow to renew it,
  And put to the Lord's work the sinner
  When saints failed to do it.

  Never rode to the wrong's redressing
  A worthier paladin.
  Shall we not hear the blessing,
  "Good and faithful, enter in!"


CHAPTER XXI
POLITICAL CORRUPTION

John Jay said that the greatest achievements of diplomacy
were often little noted by history and that their authors
got, in general, little credit.  He compared it to the work
of levelling uneven ground of which the face of the earth
will show no trace when it is done.  The same thing is true
of successful battles with political corruption in high places,
the most formidable peril to any Government and, if it be
not encountered and overcome, fatal to a Republic.  A nation
will survive a corrupt minister or monarch, but a corrupt
people must surely and speedily perish.  We have had sporadic
examples of corruption in high office at several periods in
our history.  The first sixteen years after the inauguration
of the Constitution, including the Administrations of Washington,
John Adams, and the first four years of Jefferson, were by
no means free from it.  But it never got so dangerous a hold
upon the forces of the Government, or upon a great political
party, as in the Administration of General Grant.

General Grant was an honest and wise man.  History has assigned
him a place among our great Presidents.  He showed almost
unerring judgment in military matters.  He rarely, I suppose,
if ever, made a mistake in his estimate of the military quality
of a subordinate, or in a subordinate's title to confidence.
But he was very easily imposed upon by self-seeking and ambitious
men in civil life.  Such men studied his humors and imposed
upon him, if not by flattery, yet by the pretence of personal
devotion.  He had been himself bitterly and most unjustly
assailed by partisan and sectional hostility.  When any person
to whom he had once given his confidence was detected in any
low or corrupt action Grant was very unwilling to believe
or even to listen to the charge.  He seemed to set his teeth
and to say to himself: "They attack this man as they attack
me.  They attack him because he is my friend.  I will stand
by him." So it happened that attempts to secure pure and unselfish
administration got little help from him, and that designing
and crafty men whose political aims were wholly personal
and selfish got his ear and largely influenced his appointments
to office.

Hamilton Fish, the Secretary of State, always retained his
influence with President Grant.  He was a wise, able and thoroughly
honest man.  But as was fit, and indeed necessary, he kept
himself to the great interests which belonged to his Department,
and took little share, so far as the public knew, in other
questions.

General Cox, of Ohio, was an able, brave and upright man.
He resigned from President Grant's Cabinet, alleging as his
reason that he was not supported in the fight with corruption.
Judge Hoar strenuously insisted that the Judges of the newly
created Circuit Courts of the United States should be made
up of the best lawyers, without Senatorial dictation.  President
Grant acted in accordance with his advice.  The constitution
of the Circuit Courts gave great satisfaction to the public.
But leading and influential Senators, whose advice had been
rejected, and who were compelled by the high character of
the persons nominated to submit, and did not venture upon
a controversy with the President, were intensely angry with
the Attorney-General.  The result was that when he was nominated
by the President for the office of Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, he was rejected by the
Senate.  A few Senators avowed as a pretext for their action
that there was no Judge on that Bench from the South, and
that the new appointee ought to reside in the Southern Circuit.
But these gentlemen all voted for the confirmation of Mr.
Justice Bradley, a most admirable appointment, to whom the
same objection applied.  Judge Hoar never doubted that the
service of a clean, able, upright Circuit Court, appointed
without political influence, and entirely acceptable to the
public, was well worth the sacrifice.  Indeed the expression
of public regard which came to him abundantly in his lifetime,
and which was manifested in the proceedings of the Bar of
Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Historical Society, and
in the press of the country after his death, was more valued
by those to whom his memory is dear, than a thousand offices.

When I entered Congress in 1869 the corridors of the Capitol
and the Committee rooms were crowded with lobbyists.  The
custom of the two Houses permitted their members to introduce
strangers on the floor.  It would not be profitable to revive
all the scandals of that time.  In general the men elected
to the Senate and the House were honest and incorruptible.
There were some exceptions.  Adroit and self-seeking men were
often able in the multitude of claims which must necessarily
be disposed of by a rapid examination, to impose on Committees
of the two Houses.

As one of the managers of the Belknap trial, I alluded to
some of the more prominent and undisputed examples of corruption,
in the following words:

"I said a little while ago that the Constitution had no safeguards
to throw away.  You will judge whether the public events of
to-day admonish us to look well to all our securities to prevent
or power to punish the great guilt of corruption in office.
We must not confound idle clamor with public opinion, or accept
the accusations of scandal and malice instead of proof.  But
we shall make a worse mistake if, because of the multitude
of false and groundless charges against men in high office,
we fail to redress substantial grievances or to deal with
cases of actual guilt.  The worst evil resulting from the
indiscriminate attack of an unscrupulous press upon men in
public station is not that innocence suffers, but that crime
escapes.  Let scandal and malice be encountered by pure and
stainless lives.  Let corruption and bribery meet their lawful
punishment.

"My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant
one, extending little beyond the duration of a single term
of Senatorial office; but in that brief period I have seen
five judges of a high court of the United States driven from
office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration.
I have heard the taunt, from friendliest lips, that when the
United States presented herself in the East to take part with
the civilized world in generous competition in the arts of
life, the only product of her institutions in which she surpassed
all others beyond question was her corruption.  I have seen
in the State in the Union foremost in power and wealth four
judges of her courts impeached for corruption, and the political
administration of her chief city become a disgrace and a by-
word throughout the world.  I have seen the chairman of the
Committee on Military Affairs in the House, now a distinguished
member of this court, rise in his place and demand the expulsion
of four of his associates for making sale of their official
privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our great
military school.  When the greatest railroad of the world,
binding together the continent and uniting the two great seas
which wash our shores, was finished, I have seen our national
triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame by the
unanimous reports of three committees of Congress--two of
the House and one here--that every step of that mighty enterprise
had been taken in fraud.  I have heard in highest places the
shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office
that the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic
is to bribe the people with the offices created for their
service, and the true end for which it should be used when
gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification
of personal revenge.  I have heard that suspicion haunts the
footsteps of the trusted companions of the President.

"These things have passed into history.  The Hallam or the
Tacitus or the Sismondi or the Macaulay who writes the annals
of our time will record them with his inexorable pen.  And
now when a high Cabinet officer, the Constitutional adviser
of the Executive, flees from office before charges of corruption,
shall the historian add that the Senate treated the demand
of the people for its judgment of condemnation as a farce,
and laid down its high functions before the sophistries and
jeers of the criminal lawyer?  Shall he speculate about the
petty political calculations as to the effect on one party
or the other which induced his judges to connive at the escape
of the great public criminal?  Or, on the other had, shall
he close the chapter by narrating how these things were detected,
reformed and punished by Constitutional processes which the
wisdom of our fathers devised for us, and the virtue and purity
of the people found their vindication in the justice of the
Senate?"

This passage was quoted very extensively by the Democratic
speakers all over the country, and was circulated as a campaign
document.  I was reproached by some of my Republican associates
for furnishing ammunition for the enemy.  But I was satisfied,
and I am now, that in saying what I did I rendered a great
service to the Republican Party.  What was said helped to
arouse public attention, and the masses of the people--always
pure and incorruptible--set themselves earnestly and successfully
to reform the abuses.

It never occurred to me that these abuses furnished any reason
for placing the powers of the Government in the hands of the
Southern Democracy, or their ally, Tammany Hall.  If the men
who saved the Union were not to be trusted to keep it pure;
if the men who abolished slavery could not carry on a Government
in freedom and in honor, certainly it was not likely that
the men of Tammany Hall, or the men who had so lately attempted
to overthrow the Government, would do it any better.

I happened to be at lunch with General Garfield just after
the Belknap trial.  He spoke of my argument, and expressed
his strong sympathy and approval.  I told him that I had been
looking into the history of the first sixteen years of the
Government, which included the Administrations of Washington
and John Adams and the first term of Jefferson, and that in
my opinion there was not only more corruption in proportion
then than there had been under Grant, but there had been more
in amount, notwithstanding the difference in population.  I
stated to him a good many instances.  He urged me to make
a speech in which I should say publicly what I had said to
him.  I acted on his advice, and in the course of a speech,
in reply to Mr. Lamar, of Mississippi, I spoke as follows:

"The Republican Party, as I have said, has controlled the
Government for sixteen years, a term equal to that which covers
the whole Administration of Washington, the whole Administration
of John Adams, and the first term of Jefferson.  It has been
one of those periods in which all experience teaches us to
expect an unusual manifestation of public corruption, of public
disorder, and of evils and errors of administration.  A great
war; the time which follows a great war; great public debts;
currency and values inflated; the exertion of new and extraordinary
powers for the safety of the State; the sudden call of millions
of slaves to a share in the Government--any one of these things
would be expected to create great disturbances, and give rise
to great temptations and great corruptions.  Our term of
office has seen them all combined.  And yet I do not scruple
to affirm that not only has there been less dishonesty and
maladministration in the sixteen years of Republican rule
proportionally to the numbers and wealth of the people than
in the first sixteen years after the inauguration of Washington,
but there has been less absolutely of those things.

"Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to be misunderstood.  I do
not wish to be misrepresented in this matter.  Let no man
assert that I refer to the evils of those days as either
excuse or palliation for the evils of ours.  That generation
was a frugal and honest generation in the main, and they
would have visited with the swiftest condemnation and punishment,
every breach of public trust, whether through dishonesty or
usurpation.  But they did not send to England for Benedict
Arnold.  They did not restore the Tories to power.  They did
not go down on their knees to George III. and ask him to
take them back into favor.  They believed that if the Constitution
could not be administered honestly by a majority of the friends
of the Constitution, it could not be administered honestly
by a majority of its enemies; that if liberty were not safe
and pure in the hands of those who loved her, then liberty
was a failure upon the earth, and they did not think of intrusting
her to the hands of those who hated her.  So in this generation,
had they lived to-day, they would have done simply what a
distinguished president of the convention in my own State,
whom the gentleman quotes, recommended; they would have taken
the Government from the hands of the lovers of liberty who
are dishonest and put it into the hands of men who entertain
the same sentiments but who are honest.  It never would have
occurred to them that because among one hundred thousand men
there are found some few who will not keep the eighth commandment,
'Thou shalt not steal,' which is a mandate for all the public
service, they should put in power men who have no regard for
the sixth, 'Thou shalt not kill.'"

There were several conspicuous instances of corruption with
which I had personally to deal.

1.  One was the Credit Mobilier.

Two Committees were appointed to investigate the affairs
of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and the Credit Mobilier
of America.  One Committee investigated the conduct of some
members of the two Houses of Congress against whom some charges
had been made.  Of that Committee Judge Poland of Vermont
was the Chairman.  The other Committee investigated the history
of the Union Pacific Railroad Company to report whether its
charter had been forfeited.  Of that Committee Jeremiah M.
Wilson of Indiana, a very able lawyer and accomplished gentleman,
was Chairman.  The next member to him on the Committee was
Judge Shellabarger of Ohio.  Owing to reasons, stated later,
it fell to me as the next in rank to conduct the greater
part of the examination, and to make the report.

2.  Another was the impeachment and trial of General William
W. Belknap, Secretary of War, for receiving a bribe for the
appointment of a Post Trader.

3.  A third example of the prevalent laxity of morals that
occurred was the case of the Sanborn contracts.  I was a
member of the House when they were investigated, but took
no special part in the proceedings.

4.  A fourth example was the claim of Senators and Representatives
which had been asserted in Andrew Johnson's Administration,
and to which General Grant had partly yielded, to dictate
the appointment of executive officers.  In that way a vast
army of public servants, amounting to more than one hundred
thousand in number, who were appointed and removed at the
pleasure of the Executive, became first the instrument of
keeping the dominant party in power, and afterward became
not so much the instruments and servants of party as the political
followers of ambitious men to whom they owed their office,
and on whose pleasure they depended for maintaining them.
I made, in a speech at West Newton in 1876, an earnest attack
on this system, and afterward in the Senate had a good deal
to do with framing the Civil Service Law, as it was called,
which put an end to it.

5.  Perhaps the most dangerous attack upon the purity of
the Government was the attempt of General Butler to get possession
of the political power in Massachusetts, and ultimately that
of the country.  What I was able to do to resist and baffle
that attempt is the most considerable part of the public service
of my life, if it has been of any public service.

I shall speak of each of these a little more fully.

The responsibility for three of these, I regret to say, rested
upon Massachusetts men, members of the Republican Party.  The
Union Pacific Railroad Company and the Credit Mobilier were
made up largely of prominent Massachusetts men for whom General
Butler acted as counsel.  When Mr. Ames was on trial before
the House of Representatives General Butler, then a member
of the House, appeared as a member and took part and made
the extraordinary statement to the House that he was there
as counsel for Mr. Ames.

Sanborn, who made the contracts, was a Massachusetts man.
His profits were used largely in affecting elections in Massachusetts.
The Treasury officials who were in fault, whether through
carelessness or corruption, were Massachusetts men, and the
arch contriver of the scheme was a Massachusetts man.

Yet the lesson which these things have taught me is that
the American statesman who believes that the doctrines of
his party are sound should never abandon his principles or
quit political life because of its corruption.  Let him never
for any political advantage support or tolerate a corrupt
man, or vote for a corrupt candidate.  If a man whose principles
are good will yield to an evil motive, it is not likely that
the man whose principles are bad will resist it.  The American
people are upright and honest.  They will vindicate and stand
by any man in the contest for honesty and uprightness, be
he Democrat or Republican, so long as they believe that the
ends for which he is striving are for the public good.  They
will not sustain a man whose counsel they think bad, however
honest he may be in his own conduct, or however much he may
desire to secure honesty in the conduct of others.  No man
ever yet accomplished much good by abandoning his party while
he continued to hold its principles.  Many men have accomplished
a great deal of good by striving to purify it.

Every account of political history from the inside will exhibit
abundant evidence of wickedness, wrongdoing, and petty personal
motives, of low ambitions, of bargains and sales, of timidity,
of treachery.  The reverse of the most costly tapestry looks
mean and cheap.  It is said that no man is a hero to his valet.
The reason is not that the hero is mean or base, but that
the valet cannot see anything that is great and noble, but
only what is mean and base.  The history of no people is heroical
to its Mugwumps.  But, thank God, what is petty and personal
is also temporary and perishable.  The voice of all history,
especially the voice of the history of our Republic, speaks
to us the lesson which our great philosopher taught and so
implicitly believed,

  Saying, What is excellent,
  As God lives, is permanent.


CHAPTER XXII
CREDIT MOBILIER

During the election of 1872 many rumors appeared in the press
of the country that there had been great corruption in the
management of the affairs of the Union Pacific Railroad.  It
was charged that the members of the House and Senate, some
of whom were named, had been bribed by gifts of stock in the
Credit Mobilier to secure their influence in legislation affecting
the Union Pacific Railroad.

The Credit Mobilier Co. had been formed to take the contract
for building the Union Pacific Railroad.  The stockholders
of the two companies were identical.  Each stockholder of
the Credit Mobilier owned a number of shares of the Union
Pacific Railroad proportional to his holding in the former
company.

The Union Pacific Railroad Company and Central Pacific Railroad
Company received liberal land grants from the Government of
the United States, that they might each build a part of the
line which should connect the Atlantic States with the Pacific
Ocean.  In addition to the land grants, each road was to receive
a loan of Government bonds, payable in thirty years, of $27,000,000,
for which the Government was to pay interest, which interest
was not required to be repaid by the roads.  The roads were
also authorized to give a mortgage on their properties for
a like amount, of $27,000,000 each, which mortgage was to
be prior to the Government's lien for its loan.  The charter
of the Union Pacific Railroad was granted by the Government
of the United States.  That of the Central Pacific was from
the State of California.  The Government undertook to remove
all Indian titles from the public land granted to the Union
Pacific Railroad for a space of 200 feet in width on each
side of its entire route, and conferred the right to appropriate
by eminent domain necessary private land for depots, turnouts,
etc., and public lands to the amount of ten alternate sections
per mile, within the limits of twenty miles on each side of
the road.  It was required by the charter of the Union Pacific
Railroad that its stock should be paid in full in cash, and
that the interests of the Government should be specially protected
by the appointment by the President of five Government Directors.
The Government bonds were to be handed over on the certificate
of an officer appointed by the President, as the road advanced
to completion.  It was required that a Government Director
should be a member of every Committee, standing or select.

The managers of the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the franchise
of a Pennsylvania Company, known as the Credit Mobilier, divided
its stock among themselves in proportion to their ownership
in the Union Pacific Railroad, mortgaged the road to the extent
permitted by the act of Congress, being a little more than
$27,000,000 and mortgaged their land grants for a further
sum of $10,000,000.  Then they made a contract with the Credit
Mobilier Company to construct the road at a price which would
exhaust all the resources of the road, including the proceeds
of the bonds of all kinds, and divided the proceeds among
themselves as dividends on the stock of the Credit Mobilier.
This left the Union Pacific Railroad to begin business mortgaged
to its full value, without any resources for its operation,
and utterly stripped of the ample endowment which the bounty
of the Government had provided for it.

Congress supposed when this munificent grant of land and loan
of credit was made it would create a great public highway
across the continent for the use of the Government and the
people, in war and peace, which should be a strong, solvent
corporation, ready for every emergency, and as secure for
the public use as New York Harbor, or as the Pacific Ocean.

The devisers of this scheme soon got to quarrelling among
themselves.  One faction was made up largely of Boston capitalists,
and the other of men belonging in New York, New Jersey and
Connecticut.  The former wanted to have the headquarters of
the corporation in Boston, with a Boston man for President;
and the latter desired to have the management in New York.
A suit in equity was brought, and the Boston men, headed by
Oakes Ames, a member of Congress, and his brother Oliver,
both eminent and highly respected business men of Massachusetts,
were enjoined from voting at a stockholders' meeting held
in New York for the election of officers.  The injunction
was issued by Judge Barnard, who was afterward impeached,
and removed from office.  On the day of the stockholders'
meeting General Butler, counsel for the Ames faction, found
Judge Barnard at lunch, and got him so to modify the injunction
as to permit that the votes might be cast, the result of the
election not to be declared until the further order of the
Court.  The other faction who had rested with fancied security
under their injunction were taken by surprise.

The Ames ticket had a majority.  Thereupon one of the other
faction wrote a letter to Elihu B. Washburn, at Washington.
He was an influential member of the House of Representatives,
known as the "Watch Dog of the Treasury." The letter was put
in the post-office.  It exposed the whole transaction.  He
then informed his opponents what he had done.  They knew very
well that if Washburn moved an investigation by the House
of Representatives, which was likely, the game was up.  No
further bonds would come from the United States Treasury.
Judicial proceedings would in all likelihood be taken at once
to annul the charter, or restrain further action under it.
They instantly came to terms.  The two factions agreed on
a Board of Directors.  The letter to Washington was withdrawn
from the mail.  Oakes Ames received a quantity of the stock
of the Credit Mobilier, which he was to distribute among influential
members of Congress at par, "putting it," according to his
testimony given before a Committee afterward, "where it would
do the most good."  A list of members of the two Houses was
agreed upon, to whom the stock should be offered.  It was
expected that they would pay for it at par.  But there had
been already a large dividend assigned to it, which with the
dividend expected to be paid shortly, would amount to much
more than the nominal par value of the stock.  So the purchase
of one of the shares was like purchasing for $1,000 a bank
account which already amounted to, or shortly would amount
to, more than double that sum.

A list of the men who were to be induced to take this stock
was made out with wonderful and prophetic sagacity.  It contained
some of the ablest and most influential men in the two Houses
of Congress, representing different parts of the country.
It included men as conspicuous for integrity as ability.  Each
of them occupied already a great place in the respect of his
countrymen, and nearly every one of them attained a much greater
place afterward.  This is the list of the members of Congress
to whom stock was to be conveyed:

LIST OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO WHOM STOCK WAS TO BE
SOLD AGREED UPON IN NEW YORK, ENTERED IN OAKES
AMES'S MEMORANDUM BOOK, AND TAKEN BY
HIM TO WASHINGTON

  James G. Blaine of Maine.
  Senator James W. Patterson of New Hampshire.
  Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts.
  Schuyler Colfax of Indiana.
  Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts.
  Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts.
  George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts.
  James A. Garfield of Ohio.
  Glenni W. Schofield of Pennsylvania.
  William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania.
  Joseph F. Fowler of Tennessee.
  John A. Bingham of Ohio.
  Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware.
  William B. Allison of Iowa.
  James F. Wilson of Iowa.
  Roscoe Conkling of New York.
  James Brooks of New York.
  John A. Logan of Illinois.

When Mr. Ames got to Washington he added the names of several
Senators to his list, some of whom took the stock.

It will be seen by an examination that men of great ability
and influence were very skilfully selected.  Two of them
afterward became Vice-Presidents of the United States.  One
of them became President of the United States.  Another became
Secretary of the Treasury.  Two others became Speakers of
the House.  Five others were very prominent candidates for
the Presidency.  Another was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee
of the House.  Another became Chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations and subsequently of Ways and Means.  Nine of
these gentlemen, then members of the House, were afterward
elected to the Senate.

Mr. Blaine, Mr. Eliot, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Conkling and Mr. Boutwell
refused absolutely to have anything to do with the transaction.
All the others were fully acquitted on investigation, by the
judgment of the House, of any corrupt purpose or any desire
to make money or get private advantage by reason of their
official influence, or of any expectation that they would
be likely to be called upon to take or refuse any action by
reason of their relation to these corporations.  It was thought
that they had been careless in that they had not been put
on their guard by the fact that so large a dividend was to
be paid on the stock.  In all cases the amounts received were
very small, in general not amounting to more than $1,000.
In two or three instances the people thought there was want
of candor or frankness in telling the full transaction to
the public, when the newspaper charges first made their appearance.

Henry Wilson never had any of the stock.  But some of his
friends made a present of a small sum of money to Mrs. Wilson,
and the persons having the matter in charge invested a portion
of it in Credit Mobilier stock.  As soon as Wilson heard of
it, he directed that the stock be reconveyed to the person
from whom it had been received, and gave his wife a small
sum of money to make up the difference of what turned out
to be the value of the stock and the value of the investment
which had been made in its place.  There was no lack of the
most scrupulous integrity in the transaction.  Wilson met
at a great public meeting Gen. Hawley, who was one of the
speakers.  Hawley told Wilson on the platform just before
his speech that he understood that his name had been mentioned
in the papers as the owner of Credit Mobilier stock.  Wilson
answered that he never had any of it.  Thereupon Hawley in
his speech alluded to that matter and said he was authorized
by Mr. Wilson to say that he never owned any of the stock.
Mr. Wilson did not get up and say, No, I never owned any.
But my wife once had a present of a little money which was
invested in it, and as soon as I heard of it, I immediately
had it returned to the person from whom it came, and I made
up the loss to my wife myself.  Such, however, was the public
excitement that his omission to do that was held in some quarters
as culpable want of frankness.

All the persons who received any of the stock and told the
story frankly at the investigation were acquitted of any
wrongdoing whatever, and never in the least suffered in esteem
in consequence.

But Schuyler Colfax and Senator Patterson of New Hampshire
were found by the Committee, and believed by the people to
have been disingenuous in their account of the transaction.
The Senate Committee of investigation reported a resolution
for the expulsion of Senator Patterson.  The case was a very
hard one indeed for him.  The Senate adjourned, and his term
expired without any action on the resolution, or any opportunity
to defend himself.

Schuyler Colfax was also held to have given an untruthful
story of the transaction.  But the public attention was turned
from that by the discovery, in the investigation of his accounts
which the Committee made, that he had received large sums
of money from a person for whom he had obtained a lucrative
Government contract.  But his term of office as Vice-President
expired before any action could be taken, and he died soon
after.

Mr. Ames, whose character as a shrewd and skilful investor
and manager of property stood deservedly high, recommended
to his friends the stock of the Credit Mobilier as a safe
investment, and one in his judgment very sure to prove profitable.

It has been often asked how the managers of the Credit Mobilier
could be guilty of bribing men when nobody was guilty of being
bribed.  But the answer is easy.  The managers of the Credit
Mobilier knew that they had violated the law, and that an
investigation would ruin their whole concern.  The men who
received the stock were in ignorance of this fact.  It was
as if the managers of a railroad whose route under State laws
is to be determined by a city council, or a board of selectmen
or some other public body, should induce the members of such
a board to take stock in their enterprise, intending afterward
to petition the body to which the subscribers belonged to
adopt a route very near land owned by them, which would much
increase its value, the receivers of the stock being ignorant
of their scheme.  The person who should do that would be justly
chargeable with bribery, while the persons who received the
stock would be held totally innocent.  That was the judgment
of the House of Representatives which acquitted the members
who had received the stock, but held Ames, who had conducted
the transaction, censurable.  A large number of the members
voted for his expulsion.  Ames was a successful business man.
He was regarded by his neighbors as a man of integrity.  He
was generous and public spirited.  But he and his associates
in the Union Pacific Railroad seemed, in this matter, to be
utterly destitute of any sense of public duty or comprehension
of the great purposes of Congress.  They seemed to treat it
as a purely private transaction, out of which they might get
all the money they could, without any obligation to carry
out the act according to its spirit, or even according to
its letter, if they could only do so without being detected.
They seemed to have thought they were the sole owners of the
Union Pacific Railroad and of the Credit Mobilier corporation,
and that the transaction between the two concerned themselves
only and not the public.  They treated it as if they were
transferring money from one pocket to another.

When Congress met in December, Mr. Blaine, the Speaker, who
had been one of the persons implicated by public rumor, although
in fact he had refused absolutely to have anything to do with
the transaction, left the Chair, and, calling Mr. Cox of
New York to his place, introduced a resolution calling for
an investigation of the affairs of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Two Committees were appointed.  One, of which Judge Poland
was Chairman, undertook to deal with the charges against the
members of the House of Representatives.  The other, of which
Jeremiah M. Wilson of Indiana was Chairman, was directed to
inquire into the entire management of the affairs of the Union
Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier.  I was a member
of this last Committee.  A Committee was appointed also in
the Senate, with direction to inquire into the charges so
far as they affected Senators.  The whole country was profoundly
excited by the affair.

I stood third on the Committee on which I was a member.  It
was thought best that Mr. Wilson, the Chairman, who was a
very able and distinguished lawyer, should go to Boston where
the books of the Companies were kept, and make a searching
examination of their books and accounts.  Mr. Shellabarger
of Ohio, the second member on the Committee, one of the ablest
lawyers in the House, was in poor health.  He consented to
serve only on the condition that he should not be compelled
to do any duty requiring any considerable labor.  So I had
to a large degree the charge of the investigation in Washington,
where the witnesses were examined, and in the end the duty
of preparing the report.

We did not deal in our report with the alleged misconduct
of the individual members of the House, but solely with the
two corporations.  The report sets forth the transaction at
length, and contains the following summary of the Committee's
conclusions:

The purpose of the whole act was expressly declared to be
"to promote the public interest and welfare by the construction
of said railroad and telegraph line, and keeping the same
in working order, and to secure the Government at all times,
but particularly in time of war, the use and benefit of the
same for postal, military, and other purposes."

Your committee cannot doubt that it was the purpose of Congress
in all this to provide for something more than a mere gift
of so much land, and a loan of so many bonds on the one side,
and the construction and equipment of so many miles of railroad
and telegraph on the other.

The United States was not a mere creditor, loaning a sum of
money upon a mortgage.  The railroad corporation was not a
mere contractor, bound to furnish a specified structure and
nothing more.  The law created a body politic and corporate,
bound, as a trustee, so to manage this great public franchise
and endowment that not only the security for the great debts
due the United States should not be impaired, but so that
there should be ample resources to perform its great public
duties in time of commercial disaster and in time of war.

This act was not passed to further the personal interests
of the corporators, nor for the advancement of commercial
interests, nor for the convenience of the general public,
alone; but in addition to these the interests, present and
future, of the Government, as such, were to be subserved.
A great highway was to be created, the use of which for postal,
military, and other purposes was to be secured to the Government
"at all times," but particularly in time of war.  Your committee
deem it important to call especial attention to this declared
object of this act, to accomplish which object the munificent
grant of lands and loan of the Government credit was made.
To make such a highway and to have it ready at "all times,"
and "particularly in time of war," to meet the demands that
might be made upon it; to be able to withstand the loss of
business and other casualties incident to war and still to
perform for the Government such reasonable service as might
under such circumstances be demanded, required a strong, solvent
corporation; and when Congress expressed the object and granted
the corporate powers to carry that object into execution,
and aided the enterprise with subsidies of lands and bonds,
the corporators in whom these powers were vested and under
whose control these subsidies were placed, were, in the opinion
of your committee, under the highest moral, to say nothing
of legal or equitable obligations, to use the utmost degree
of good faith toward the Government in the exercise of the
powers and disposition of the subsidies.

Congress relied for the performance of these great trusts
by the corporators upon their sense of public duty; upon
the fact that they were to deal with and protect a large
capital of their own which they were to pay in money; upon
the presence of five directors appointed by the President
especially to represent the public interests, who were to
own no stock; one of whom should be a member of every Committee,
standing or special; upon the commissioners to be appointed
by the President, who should examine and report upon the work
as it progressed; in certain cases upon the certificate of
the chief engineer, to be made upon his professional honor;
and lastly, upon the reserved power to add to, alter, amend,
or repeal the act.

Your committee find themselves constrained to report that
the moneys borrowed by the corporation, under a power given
them, only to meet the necessities of the construction and
endowment of the road, have been distributed in dividends
among the corporators; that the stock was issued, not to men
who paid for it at par in money, but who paid for it at not
more than thirty cents on the dollar in road making; that
of the Government directors some of them have neglected their
duties and others have been interested in the transactions
by which the provisions of the organic law have been evaded;
that at least one of the commissioners appointed by the President
has been directly bribed to betray his trust by the gift of
$25,000; that the chief engineer of the road was largely interested
in the contracts for its construction; and that there has
been an attempt to prevent the exercise of the reserved power
in Congress by inducing influential members of Congress to
become interested in the profits of the transaction.  So that
of the safeguards above enumerated none seems to have been
left but the sense of public duty of the corporators.

The Judge Poland Committee investigated the conduct of the
members who were suspected and acquitted all but two.  The
House accepted their decision.  They recommended the expulsion
of Mr. Ames and of James Brooks, one of the Democratic members.
There were some special circumstances in the case of Brooks,
which it is not necessary to recite.  Brooks died before a
vote on his case was taken.  The House by a majority amended
the resolution reported by the Committee in the case of Mr.
Ames, and recommended a vote of censure, which was passed.
Ames felt the disgrace very keenly, and did not live very
long afterward.

These disclosures did much to bring about the uneasy condition
of the public mind which led to the Republican defeat in the
election of members of the House of Representatives in the
fall of 1874, and brought Tilden so near to an election in
1876.

But it may fairly, I think, be said for the majority of the
Republican Party in both houses of Congress, and the majority
of the Republican Party in the country, that they did their
very best to deal firmly and directly with any fraud or wrongdoing
that came to light, even if their own political associates
were the guilty parties.  The political atmosphere has been
purified as compared with the condition of those days.  The
lobbyist is not seen in the Committee Room or the Corridor
of the Capitol, as was the case when I entered Congress in
1869.  I ought perhaps to say that I think the acquittal of
Belknap on the ground that the Senate has no jurisdiction
to render judgment against a civil officer on process of impeachment
after he has left office, was influenced by political feeling.
I do not think most of the Republican Senators who voted that
way would have so voted if the culprit had been a Democrat.
But there were many able lawyers who thought the opinion of
these Senators right.


CHAPTER XXIII
THE SANBORN CONTRACTS

The forty-second Congress, at its second session, repealed
all laws which provided for the payment of moieties, or commissions,
to informers, so far as related to internal revenue taxes.
But a provision was inserted by the Conference Committee,
which attracted no attention, providing that the Secretary
of the Treasury might employ not more than three persons to
assist the proper officers of the Government in discovering
and collecting any money belonging to the United States whenever
the same might be for the interest of the United States.  The
Secretary was to determine the conditions of the contract,
and to pay no compensation except out of money received.  No
person was to be employed who did not file a written statement,
under oath, stating the character of the claim under which
the money was withheld or due, and the name of the person
alleged to withhold the same.

Under this law John D. Sanborn of Massachusetts, an active
supporter of General Butler, applied for a contract which
he obtained on the 15th of July, 1872, for the collection
of taxes illegally withheld by thirty-nine distillers, rectifiers
and purchasers of whiskey.  He was then himself an employee
of the Government as Special Agent for the Treasury Department.
Secretary Boutwell being then absent or otherwise unable to
attend to his duties, this contract was signed by Assistant
Secretary William A. Richardson.  Sanborn had already been
employed to work up certain whiskey cases for which he had
been paid $3,000 by the Government, and these cases were included
in the foregoing contract.

On the 25th of October, 1872, Sanborn made application to
have added to his contract the names of 760 persons, alleged
to have withheld taxes imposed on legacies, successions and
incomes.  An additional contract for that purpose was signed
by the Assistant Secretary Richardson.  On the 19th of March,
1873, Sanborn applied to have the names of more than 2,000
other like persons added to his contract, which Mr. Richardson
permitted.  On the 1st day of July, 1873, Sanborn again asked
to amend his contract, and Assistant Secretary Richardson
signed the contract by which the names of 592 railroad companies
were included.  That was substantially a complete list of
the railroad companies of the country.  Some of them had been
examined by Government officials before the day of the contract,
and the claims had been brought to light and found due.  Sanborn
had no knowledge of any delinquency, except as to about 150
of them.  When he so represented to the officers of the Treasury
Department he was told that it did not make any difference,
and to put them all in.  Thereupon he took oath that they
were all delinquent, and had them added to the contract.

The form of this contract was taken, in part, from one prepared
by Secretary Boutwell, which he had carefully considered with
Mr. Kelsey, a subordinate in the Treasury, in June, 1872.
That prepared by Mr. Boutwell, if adhered to, would have amply
protected the Government.  But it was departed from in essential
particulars.  Under Secretary Boutwell's contract only a small
number of claims was included.  Sanborn collected, in the
course of a year or two, $427,000, on which sum he received
50 per cent.

The unanimous report of the Committee of the House who investigated
the matter was written by Charles Foster of Ohio, afterward
Governor, and Secretary of the Treasury.  The Committee comprised
the following gentlemen: Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts;
W. D. Kelly of Pennsylvania; Horatio C. Burchard of Illinois;
Ellis H. Roberts of New York; John A. Kasson of Iowa; Henry
Waldron of Michigan; Lionel A. Sheldon of Louisiana; Charles
Foster of Ohio; James B. Beck of Kentucky; William E. Niblack
of Indiana; Fernando Wood of New York.

The Committee found that a large percentage of the $427,000
was not a proper subject for contract under the law, and that
it would have been collected by the Internal Revenue Bureau
in the ordinary discharge of its duty.  The law provided that
the person with whom it was made should assist the Treasury
officials in discovering and collecting, so that the collections
were to be made by the Treasury.  But the contract in fact
signed authorized Sanborn to make the collections, and required
the Treasury officials to assist him.

The Committee further called attention to the fact that the
law provided that no person should be employed who should
not have fully set forth in a written statement under oath
the character of the claim out of which he proposed to recover
or assist in recovering the moneys for the United States,
the laws by the violation of which the same had been withheld,
and the name of the person, firm or corporation having withheld
such moneys.  This provision was disregarded utterly.

The Committee found that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue
was not consulted in the matter, nor was any official of his
Bureau, nor was he advised as to the making of the contracts
or of the character of the claims, although the proper officials
of the Government, referred to in the statute, could only
have been the officials of the Internal Revenue Bureau.  It
was shown that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue wrote
a letter protesting against the manner of these collections
to the Secretary of the Treasury, which was never answered.
The Committee found that the Commissioner was studiously ignored
by the Secretary of the Treasury and the officials in his
office.

The wicked and fraudulent character of the transactions is
shown in the report.

When the Committee made their report the matter was debated
in the House of Representatives by Governor Foster and other
gentlemen who had taken part in the investigation.  All these
Sanborn transactions were with the Assistant Secretary in
Mr. Boutwell's absence, until later Mr. Richardson became
Secretary of the Treasury.  The Committee unanimously agreed
to report a resolution that the House had no confidence in
the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Richardson, and demanded
his removal.  President Grant was notified of this conclusion.
He sent for the members of the Committee and personally urged
them to withhold the resolution, and offered that the Secretary
should resign, and that he should be provided for in some
other department of the public service.  To this the Committee
agreed.  It was never thought that the Secretary himself profited
corruptly by the transaction, but only that he had suffered
himself to be hoodwinked.  It was unfortunate that nearly
all the persons who were connected with this transaction were
from New England, most of them from Massachusetts, and several
of them from Lowell.


CHAPTER XXIV
BENJAMIN F. BUTLER

No person can adequately comprehend the political history
of Massachusetts for the thirty-five years beginning with
1850 without a knowledge of the character, career and behavior
of Benjamin F. Butler.  It is of course disagreeable and in
most cases it would seem unmanly to speak harshly of a political
antagonist who is dead.  In the presence of the great reconciler,
Death, ordinary human contentions and angers should be hushed.
But if there be such a thing in the universe as a moral law,
if the distinction between right and wrong be other than fancy
or a dream, the difference between General Butler and the
men who contended with him belongs not to this life alone.
It relates to matters more permanent than human life.  It
enters into the fate of republics, and will endure after the
fashion of this world passeth away.

I cannot tell the story of my life at a most important period
without putting on record my estimate of him, and the nature
of his influence over the youth of the Commonwealth.  Besides,
it is to be remembered that he took special pains to write
and to leave behind him a book in which he gave his own account
of the great controversies in which he engaged, and bitterly
attacked some of the men who thwarted his ambitions.  This
book he sent to public libraries, including that of the British
Museum, where he had good reason to expect it would be permanently
preserved.

I shall say nothing of him which I did not say in public
speeches or published letters while he was living and in the
fulness of his strength, activity and power.  History deals
with Benedict Arnold, with Aaron Burr, with the evil counsellors
of Charles I. and Charles II., with Robespierre, with Barere
and with Catiline, upon their merits, and draws from their
lives examples, or warnings, without considering the fact
that they are dead.  This especially is a duty to be performed
fearlessly, though with due caution, when it is proposed in
some quarters to erect monuments of statues to such men for
the admiration of the youth of future generations.

Benjamin F. Butler was born November 5, 1818.  He was graduated
at Waterville College, now Colby University, in the year 1838.
He began the practice of law in Lowell.  Compared with other
men of equal ability and distinction, he was never a very
successful advocate.  Quiet and modest men who had the confidence
of the courts and juries used to win verdicts from him in
fairly even cases.  He was fertile in resources.  He liked
audacious surprises.  He was seldom content to try a simple
case in a simple way.  So that while he succeeded in some
desperate cases, he threw away a good many which with wise
management he might have gained.

Butler's practice in the beginning was chiefly in the defence
of criminals, or in civil cases where persons of that class
were parties.  There was very likely to be a dramatic scene
in court when he was for the defence.  His method of defence
was frequently almost as objectionable as the crime he was
defending.  He attacked the character of honest witnesses,
and of respectable persons, victims of his guilty clients,
who were seeking the remedy of the law.  He had many ingenious
fashions of confusing or browbeating witnesses, and sometimes
of misleading juries.  He once asked a medical expert who
undertook to testify about human anatomy, in a case of physical
injury, this question: "State the origin and insertion of
all the muscles of the forearm and hand from the elbow to
the tips of the fingers"; and another, "Give a list of the
names and the positions of all the bones in the body." This
was something like asking a man who claimed to know the English
language to give off hand all the words of the English language
beginning with a.  But it confused a worthy and respectable
country doctor, and misled the jury.  The best citizen of
a country village, or his wife or daughter, who had to testify
against a thief or burglar who had broken into a house had
to encounter his ruffianly treatment on the witness stand.
So Butler became a terror, not to evil-doers but to the opponents
of evil-doers throughout the county of Middlesex.  Few lawyers
liked to encounter his rough speech and his ugly personalities.

He was a Democrat in politics and became quite popular with
the poorer class of foreign immigrants who gathered in manufacturing
towns and cities like Lowell.  He had at first little success
in politics for the reason that his party was a small minority
in Massachusetts.  He was elected to the House of Representatives
for the Legislature of 1853.  During that session there was
a memorable struggle on the part of the Whigs to repeal so
much of the act providing for an election of delegates to
a Constitutional convention as required the election to be
by secret ballot.  There was also, as an incident of this
struggle, an angry contest in the joint convention of the
two Houses held for the purpose of electing some officers
required by the Constitution to be chosen by joint ballot.
The dispute related to the extent of the authority of the
President of the Senate, as presiding officer, to control
the joint assembly.  Butler was conspicuous in that scene
of turbulence and disorder.  On the occasion of some ruling
by the Whig Speaker, Mr. George Bliss, a worthy and respectable
old gentleman, Butler called out in a loud voice: "I should
like to knife that old cuss." That utterance was quoted not
only all over the Union, but in foreign countries, in England,
and on the continent, and in the West Indies, as a proof of
the degradation and licentiousness of popular governments.
It is a singular fact that a like question as to the authority
of the presiding officer of a joint convention of two legislative
bodies came up in Congress when the electoral vote was counted,
at the time of the election of General Grant in 1868.  Butler
repeated on a larger stage his disorderly conduct, until
Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House--although Mr. Wade,
President of the Senate, was then presiding over the joint
convention--resumed the chair of the House, in order, as Mr.
Blaine described it afterward, "to chastise the insolence
of the member from Massachusetts."

He was chosen in 1860, when the Democratic Party was divided
between the supporters of Douglas and the supporters of Breckenridge,
a delegate to the National Convention at Charleston, South
Carolina, by the Douglas Democrats of Massachusetts, under
instructions to vote for Douglas.  Instead, he voted thirty-
seven times for Jefferson Davis.  There has been but one other
instance, I believe, in the history of Massachusetts of such
a betrayal of trust.  That other related not to candidates
but to principles.

Under our political arrangements the presidential elector
is but a scribe.  He exercises no discretion, but only records
the will of the people who elect him.  The real selection of
the president is made by the nominating conventions.  The
nominee of the party having a majority becomes the president.
A breach of trust by a delegate to a nominating convention
is an act of dishonor of the same class with that to which
no presidential elector in the United States has yet stooped--
a breach of trust by an elector.

General Butler's career upon the national stage began with
the episode at Charleston.  From that time until his death
he was a very conspicuous figure in the eyes of the whole
country.  There are two or three public services for which
he deserves credit.  They ought not to be omitted in any fair
sketch of his life and character.

First.  When, in the earlier days of the Rebellion, there
was a doubt whether the Democratic Party would rally to the
support of the country, he promptly offered his services.
His example was of great importance in determining the question
whether the war of sections was also to be a war of parties.
He had a large clientage, especially among that class of Irish
Americans who were apt in Massachusetts to vote with the Democratic
Party.  His conduct so far was in honorable contrast with
that of some of his influential political associates, and
that of some of the old Whigs who never got over their chagrin
at the success of the Republican Party.

Second.  When the question what would be the treatment of
the negroes by the commanders of the Union army was doubtful,
and when many persons wished to conciliate the old slaveholders
in the border states by disclaiming any purpose of meddling
with the institution of slavery, General Butler made a bright
and important contribution to the discussion by declaring
the negro "contraband of war."  I do not know whether this
phrase was original with him or no.  It has been claimed that
he borrowed it.  But he undoubtedly made it famous.  This
tended somewhat to obliterate the effect of the shock caused
to the lovers of liberty by his offer to the Governor of Maryland
on the day his regiment landed at Annapolis, of his own services
and those of the forces under his command, to put down any
slave insurrection, in case the negro people should attempt
to assert their heaven-born rights.

Governor Andrew wrote to General Butler censuring his offer
of the use of the Massachusetts troops, as the first operation
of the war, to improve the security of rebels that they might
prosecute with more energy their attacks upon the Federal
government.  The Governor adds:  "I can perceive no reason
of military policy why a force summoned to the defence of
the Federal Government, at this moment of all others, should
be offered or diverted from its immediate duty to help rebels,
who stand with arms in their hands, in obstructing its progress
toward the city of Washington." General Butler answered that
"if the contest were to be prosecuted by letting loose the
slaves, some instrument other than myself must be found to
carry it on."  He had been, with a large part of his party,
an advocate and supporter of the Fugitive Slave Law, in the
days before the war.

Third.  He governed the rebel city of New Orleans with great
vigor.  He understood how to deal with a turbulent and ugly
populace.  He was not imposed upon by shams or pretences,
and treated the old Southern Democracy with little respect.
It is probable that his vigorous remedy saved the city from
yellow fever.

Fourth.  Another thing should be added to his credit, not
of moral quality, but of that quality which accounts largely
and naturally for his influence with the people.  He had a
gift of clear, racy and simple speech.  He could convey his
thought to the apprehension of common men without any loss
in the process.  His style was of the same class with that
of William Cobbett and Horace Greeley, without ornament,
not very copious, but simple, clear and vigorous.  When these
things have been said, nothing remains to be said in his favor.

He had a ready, though rough and coarse wit, suited to the
tastes of illiterate audiences and to that class of men who
are always delighted when anything is said in disparagement
of anybody.  I recall two or three examples.  He was rather
fond of appropriating the bright sayings of others, whether
jesting or serious, and claiming credit for them.  But he
also had a capacity of his own for such things.

I heard him argue a case involving the constitutionality
of the bill to annex Charlestown to Boston, before the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts.  He was interrupted by the Mayor,
who was on the other side, a fussy and self-important little
person.  Butler made the point that the meetings at which
the citizens had voted for annexation had not been legal,
the notice being not sufficient.  The Mayor, who had said
it was the practice in Charlestown to hold public meetings
on a notice not longer than the one in question.  He added:
"We only gave a week's notice for our election of Mayor."
Butler looked at him a moment, and said:  "I should think
they got up their Mayor on short notice."

His thrust at S. S. Cox in the House of Representatives attracted
the attention of the country.  It was in a five-minute debate.
Cox had attacked Butler savagely.  Butler replied, taking
up nearly the whole five minutes with arguing the question
before the House, taking no notice of Cox till just he was
about to finish.  He then said:  "There is no need for me
to answer the gentleman from New York.  Every negro minstrel
just now is singing the answer, and the hand organs are playing
the tune, 'Shoo Fly, don't bodder me.'"

In the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts twenty-
seven different schemes for a system of representation were
pressed.  Somebody moved to refer them all to a committee
to consist of the persons who had proposed the schemes.  "As
well refer twenty-seven babies to their twenty-seven mothers
to decide which is the prettiest," exclaimed Butler.

His military career was, with the exception I have stated,
disgraceful to himself and unfortunate to the country.  From
the beginning of Butler's recruiting for the war, wherever
he was in command came rumors of jobs, frauds, trading with
the rebels through the lines, and the putting of unfit persons
in responsible positions.  The scandal became so great that
Governor Andrew--than whom there was never a truer, nobler,
braver or more upright man in the executive chair of any State
in this country--was compelled to put on public record his
indignant denunciation.  He said in a letter to Charles Sumner
and Henry Wilson, Senators in Congress, December 21, 1861:

"I am compelled to declare with great reluctance and regret,
that the course of proceeding under Major-General Butler in
this Commonwealth seems to have been designed and adapted
simply to afford means to persons of bad character to make
money unscrupulously, and to encourage men whose unfitness
had excluded them from any appointment by me to the volunteer
militia service, to hope for such appointment over Massachusetts
troops from other authority than that of the Executive himself."*

[Footnote]
* Schouler's "Massachusetts in the War," Vol. I., p. 276.
[End of Footnote]

The first considerable military operation of which he took
charge was a movement upon the rebel forces at Big Bethel.
It was rash, unskiful, blundering and lacking both in perseverance
and courage.  His troops were repulsed with great and needless
slaughter.

It is a doubtful and debated question whether General Butler
was personally to blame for this terrible and disgraceful
repulse.  If it were only his misfortune, it is a sample of
the misfortunes which attended him throughout the war.  It
would not have happened to a great or even a fairly good general
officer.  The best that can be said for him is that if he
were without personal blame, that it is the chief incident
of a campaign which he went through without credit.

But the worst example of timidity and inefficiency in American
military history, not excepting Hull's surrender, was the
attempt and repulse at Fort Fisher.  I do not mean when I
say timidity, personal cowardice.  But I mean the fear of
the ordinary risks which accompany every bold and successful
operation in war.  This timidity is not infrequently, as it
was in this case, characteristic of men who thrust themselves
into places for which they are not fit.

It was highly important to capture Wilmington, of which Fort
Fisher was the key.  It was the last remaining gateway for
the admission of necessary supplies and ammunitions of war
to the rebellious States from the outer world.  It was a military
position of great importance, a chief centre of the rebellion,
and a great object in our military operations.  General Butler
entered upon this undertaking with every advantage.  He had
special detailed instructions from Grant, the greatest living
military commander; and he had under him and to cooperate
with him Admiral Porter who, with one possible exception,
was the ablest naval commander in our service.

Wilmington was stripped of troops.  The fort was garrisoned
by four companies of infantry and one light battery.  With
all the reinforcements which the enemy could muster but a
thousand and seventy-seven men were in the fort.  The greatest
armada ever in American waters was under Butler's command--
fifty vessels, thirty-three for attack and seventeen in reserve,
including four iron-clads.  The iron-clads opened fire upon
the fort, throwing one hundred and fifteen shells a minute.

"Fort Fisher replied at once with all its guns.  But those
on the northeast face were silenced almost as soon as the
monitors opened their terrific fire, and by the time the last
of the large vessels had anchored and got their batteries into
play, only one or two of the enemy's guns were able to reply.
The shower of shells had driven the gunners to the bomb-proofs.
In one hour and fifteen minutes after the first gun was fired,
not a shot came from the fort.  Two magazines had been blown
up, and the fort set on fire in several places.  Such a torrent
of missiles was falling and bursting that it was impossible
for anything human to stand."*

[Footnote]
* Badeau's "Military History of General Grant," Vol. 3, p. 314.
[End of Footnote]

In this condition of things General Butler arrived upon the
scene.  Not a soldier had been hurt on the Union side.

"General Curtis was now within fifty yards of the fort, and
sent word to General Ames that he could take the work, whereupon
Ames, not knowing Butler's determination, gave orders for
an assault.  Curtis at once moved forward, but by the time
he reached his position, night had come on, and the fleet
had nearly ceased its fire .... At this juncture Butler's
orders to reembark arrived, and no assault was made.  Curtis
and the officers with him, declared that the fort could have
been carried; that at the moment they were recalled, they
virtually had possession, having actually approached so close
that a rebel flag had been snatched from the parapet and a
horse brought away from the inside stockade.

"That night Butler informed the Admiral that he and Weitzel
were of the opinion that the place could not be carried by
assault .... I shall therefore sail, he said, for Hampton
Roads as soon as the transport fleet can be got in order."*

[Footnote]
* Ibid., p. 317.
[End of Footnote]

"Porter replied that he could fire much faster than he had
been doing, and would keep the enemy from showing himself
until our men were within twenty yards of the fort, and he
begged that Butler would leave some brave fellows like those
who had snatched the flag from the parapet and taken the horse
from the fort."

Butler was unchangeable.  He got all his troops aboard, except
Curtis's brigade, and started back.  In doing this Butler
made a fearful mistake.  "My instructions to the officer who
went in command of the expedition," says General Grant, "were
explicit in the statement that to effect a landing would be
of itself a great victory, and if one should be effected,
the foothold must not be relinquished; on the contrary, a
regular siege of the fort must be commenced and, to guard
against interference by reason of storms, supplies of provisions
must be laid in as soon as they could be got on shore.  But
Butler seems to have lost sight of this part of his instructions,
and was back at Fort Monroe on the 28th."*

[Footnote]
* Grant's "Memoirs," Vol. II., p. 394.
[End of Footnote]

The Admiral, however, was of a different mind from Butler
and replied to him:  "I have ordered the largest vessels
to proceed off Beaufort, and fill up with ammunition, to be
ready for another attack, in case it is decided to proceed
with this matter by making other arrangements.  We have not
commenced firing rapidly yet, and could keep any rebels inside
from showing their heads, until an assaulting column was within
twenty yards of the works.  I wish some more young gallant
fellows had followed the officer who took the flag from the
parapet, and the brave fellow who brought the horse from the
fort.  I think they would have found it an easier conquest
than is supposed."*

[Footnote]
* Ibid., Badeau, p. 318.
[End of Footnote]

"The Wilmington expedition has proven a gross and culpable
failure.  Many of the troops are back here.  Delays and free
talk of the object of the expedition enabled the enemy to
move troops to Wilmington to defeat it.  After the expedition
started from Fort Monroe, three days of fine weather were
squandered, during which the enemy was without a force to
protect himself.  Who is to blame, will, I hope, be known."*

[Footnote]
* Ibid., p. 318.
[End of Footnote]

Grant's statement, just quoted, was made when he had heard
Butler's side of the story alone.  What he thought when he
had heard the whole story will appear a little later.

Admiral Porter said, in his official dispatch:  "My dispatch
of yesterday will give you an account of the operations,
but will scarcely give you an idea of my disappointment at
the conduct of the army authorities in not attempting to take
possession of the fort . . . . Had the army made a show of surrounding
it, it would have been ours; but nothing of the kind was done.
The men landed, reconnoitred, and, hearing that the enemy
were massing troops somewhere, the orders were given to reembark
. . . . There never was a fort that invited soldiers to walk
in and take possession more plainly than Fort Fisher . . . .
It can be taken at any moment in one hour's time if the right
man is sent with the troops."

On the 30th of December Grant sent this message to Porter:

"Please hold on wherever you are for a few days, and I will
endeavor to be back again, with an increased force, _and without
the former commander."_

Grant at once took measures for renewing the attack and for
changing the commander.  On the 31st of December the Secretary
of the Navy telegraphs to Porter:  "Lieutenant-General Grant
will send immediately a competent force, _properly commanded,_
to cooperate in the capture of the defences of Federal Point."

So in every instance in which the head of the military or
naval department of this country issued an order to cooperate
in this expedition he found it necessary to assure the officer
to whom he gave his orders that the expedition would be properly
commanded.  The Secretary adds in his dispatch to Admiral
Porter:  "The Department is perfectly satisfied with your
efforts thus far."  On the next day Porter writes to General
Grant:  "I have just received yours of December 30th.  I shall
be all ready; and thank God we are not to leave here with
so easy a victory at hand.  Thank you for so promptly trying
to rectify the blunder so lately committed.  I knew you would
do it."  He adds, speaking of the late expedition: "We lost
one man killed.  You may judge what a simple business it was."

On the 2d of January Grant directs that Terry, who is to
command this new expedition, be sent to City Point to see
him.  "I cannot go myself," he adds to the Secretary of War,
"so long as Butler would be left in command."

January 4th, the next day but one, Grant asks for the removal
of Butler.  He says:  "I am constrained to request the removal
of Major-General Butler from the command of the department
of Virginia and North Carolina.  I do this with reluctance,
but the good of the service requires it.  In my absence General
Butler necessarily commands, and there is a lack of confidence
felt in his military ability, making him an unsafe commander
for a large army.  His administration of the affairs of his
department is also objectionable."

Stanton had just left the capital on a visit to Sherman,
at Savannah, and this letter at first received no answer; but
Grant was very much in earnest, and on the sixth he telegraphed
direct to the President:  "I wrote a letter to the Secretary
of War, which was mailed yesterday, asking to have General
Butler removed from command.  Learning that the Secretary
left Washington yesterday, I telegraph you asking that prompt
action be taken in this matter."

That was practically the end of Butler's military service.
He never received another command.

There is no country in the world, other than ours, where
an officer guilty of such conduct, whether it came from incapacity
or cowardice, would not have been promptly cashiered and probably
shot.  This would have been true, as in the case of Admiral
Keppel, if his fault had been merely a failure to attack.
But Butler's fault was an express disobedience of orders.
The order which he disobeyed was unknown to the subordinate
on whose advice he claimed to have relied.  General Grant
expressly ordered him that in case of failure to attack the
fort by assault, he should remain and entrench his troops
on the peninsula, and cooperate with the fleet for the reduction
of the place.  When Grant learned the circumstances he declared
that, in leaving after he had landed, Butler had violated
his express orders.

It is a source of just pride that a New England commander,
and one of Massachusetts descent, General Terry, was successful
in the new attempt.  Grant's instructions to him said: "I
have served with Admiral Porter, and know that you can rely
on his judgment and his nerve to undertake what he proposes
. . . . The first object to be attained is to get a firm position
on the spit of land on which Fort Fisher is built, from which
you can operate against the fort.  You want to look to the
practicability of receiving your supplies, and to defending
yourself against superior forces sent against you by any of
the avenues left open to the enemy.  If such a position can
be obtained, the siege of Fort Fisher will not be abandoned
until its reduction can be accomplished, or another plan of
campaign is ordered from these headquarters."

The fort which had enabled 397 vessels to pass the blockade
was taken by a great New England Captain, and largely by New
England troops.  Butler made one contribution, and only one,
to that victory.  That contribution was his absence.  It was
a curious coincidence which would have brought a blush of
shame upon any forehead but his, that when he was testifying
before an investigating committee of Congress, who were inquiring
into the cause of his great and shameful failure to take the
fort, and just after he had testified that Fort Fisher was
impregnable and that it was impossible for any Union force
to take it, a dispatch was received in the Committee Room
announcing its fall.

General Grant says in his "Memoirs":

"I had no idea of General Butler accompanying the expedition
until the evening before it got off from Bermuda Hundred,
and then did not dream but that General Weitzel had received
all the instructions, and would be in command.  I rather formed
the idea that General Butler was actuated by a desire to witness
the effect of the explosion of the powder-boat.  The expedition
was detained several days at Hampton Roads, waiting the loading
of the powder-boat.  The importance of getting the Wilmington
expedition off without any delay, with or without the powder-
boat, had been urged upon General Butler.  The powder-boat
was exploded on the morning of the 24th, before the return
of General Butler from Beaufort; but it would seem, from the
notice taken of it in the Southern newspapers, that he enemy
were never enlightened as to the object of the explosion until
they were informed by the Northern press."*

[Footnote]
* "Personal Memoirs, U. S. Grant," p. 604 appendix.
[End of Footnote]

"General Butler, in direct violation of the instructions
given, ordered the reembarkation of the troops and the return
of the expedition."*

[Footnote]
* Ibid., p. 605.
[End of Footnote]

"I advised Admiral Porter to hold on, and that I would send
a force and make another attempt to take the place.  This
time I selected Major-General A. H. Terry to command the expedition."
"At my request Major-General B. F. Butler was relieved."*

[Footnote]
* Ibid., p. 607.
[End of Footnote]

I will not undertake to give a detailed account of the blundering
strategy of what General Grant aptly called the "Bottling
up at Bermuda Hundred" which enabled a powerful Union army
to be held in check by a small Confederate force, leaving
free the bulk of their army for hostile operations against
the Union forces.

So the contribution of General Butler's military genius to
the success of the United States in the war consisted of
a scheme to blow up a powder-boat in the capture of Fort
Fisher, somewhat after the Chinese fashion of warfare, which
General Grant said hardly had the effect to excite the curiosity
of the occupants of the fort which it had been intended to
demolish; and of his scheme of engineering at Dutch Gap and
Bermuda Hundred.

General Grant got tired of him at last and ordered him to
report at Lowell.  So ended the military career of incompetence,
boasting and failure.

Massachusetts soldiers from those of the humblest origin
to those who came from the most cultivated circles have always
had the reputation of gentlemen.  I know of but one conspicuous
exception in her entire military history.  During the trial
of Andrew Johnson, Butler, who was one of the managers, employed
spies to visit, in his absence, the room of William M. Evarts,
counsel for the President, and to search his waste basket
in the hope of spying upon his correspondence.  Of this he
shamelessly afterward boasted.  Later he employed dishonest
persons to get from the wires the private telegraphic dispatches
of Henry L. Pierce, then his colleague in the House of Representatives,
sent to the Hon. W. W. Rice at Worcester.

But this is not all.  Wherever Butler is found in military
command there were constant rumors of the same story which
Governor Andrew told in the beginning.  It is like the ointment
of the hand which bewrayeth itself.  Jobs, fraudulent contracts,
trading through the lines, relatives enriched by public plunder,
corrupt understanding with the enemy.  These stories pursued
him to New Orleans and from New Orleans back to Lowell.  Is
there another Union General, at least was there ever another
Massachusetts General to whose integrity such suspicion attached?
He scarcely undertook to discuss the matter himself.  After
the war a New Orleans bank, on which Butler had made a requisition
for eighty thousand dollars in gold, employed the late Edwards
Pierpont to bring an action against General Butler on the
ground that the money had never been paid over to the Government,
but that he had kept it himself.  Butler saw the counsel for
the plaintiffs and said he had received the money in an official
capacity and had paid it over to the United States.  Mr. Pierpont
answered:  "If you will show that, it will constitute a good
defence."  In the course of the conversation Pierpont said:
"Your neighbors in Lowell will not think very well of it when
they see you riding in your carriage through the streets,
and know it was paid for out of the money you have taken unlawfully
from this bank."  Before the time came for the trial Butler
surrendered and paid over the money.  After the matter was
settled he said to Mr. Pierpont:  "Well, you beat me.  But
I want to tell you that you made one mistake.  You said the
people of Lowell would not think very highly of me when they
saw me riding through the streets in my carriage and knew
it was paid for by the money of this bank.  The people would
think I was a fool for not having taken twice as much."

General Butler was appointed treasurer of the National Soldiers'
Home.  He mingled the money of that institution with his own,
got the use of it, got interest upon it, for which he never
accounted.  An attempt was made to investigate his accounts
and he refused on the ground that he could not do it without
showing his private account books, which he was not compelled
to do.

He had a powerful political influence which made him an object
of terror to timid and ambitious men.  So, much to the shame
of our public authorities, the investigation was not pressed.
He was allowed to pay over only such sum as he himself admitted
to be due.

General Butler's chief title to distinction in political life
was a scheme which Massachusetts has pronounced a scheme
of dishonesty and infamy in every method by which her sentiment
can be made known.  This scheme was to pay off the national
debt and all other debts public and private, including all
widows' and soldiers' pensions, in irredeemable paper money.
He proposed to issue a series of government bonds bearing
interest, payable like the principal, in greenbacks, and providing
that the greenbacks should never be redeemed, but that the
holder might at any time, on demand, get from the Treasury
the equivalent in bonds.  This scheme had been announced by
General Butler for several years before the Presidential election
of 1876.  In that year General Butler, who had been defeated
for reelection to Congress from the Essex district in 1874,
was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the Middlesex
district, which included his home in Lowell.  There was much
opposition to him.  But the party feeling was very strong
and no other person of large enough reputation or of conspicuous
ability could be found to take the Republican nomination.
General Butler was accordingly nominated with the distinct
promise on his part that he would surrender his plans in regard
to finance out of deference to the known wishes of his constituents,
and would act with the Republican Party upon financial questions.
To this pledge he owed, if not his nomination and election,
certainly his great majority in the convention and at the
polls.  This pledge, as in the case of the trust which had
been committed to him by the Douglas Democrats before the
war, he most unblushingly and shamelessly violated.  He renewed
and advocated his fiat money scheme.  The result was that
at the next convention of the Republican Party in his district
the following resolution was passed, without a dissenting
vote:

_"Resolved,_ That we warn the people of the Commonwealth,
whose votes General Butler is now soliciting by promises to
serve them faithfully, that his professions when seeking office
have been found in our experience to be easily made and as
easily repudiated when the time for redeeming them came.

"That they are neither gold nor good paper, but are a kind
of fiat currency, having no intrinsic character, being cheap,
delusive, irredeemable and worthless."

This convention represented a large and overwhelming majority
of the people of the Middlesex district.  It was made up as
such conventions in Massachusetts always are made up, of men
of high standing and character and of great personal worth.
Can there be found in the history of Massachusetts such a
record of shameless dishonor and such a terrible indictment
and conviction?

A like judgment was expressed a little later by Mr. Edward
Avery, a Democrat of high standing, who declared that the
Democratic Party had found his promises and pledges could
not be trusted.

He was once elected Governor.  It so chanced that the Republican
Party had been disappointed by the defeat in their State Convention
of Mr. Crapo, a gentleman of the highest standing, who had
rendered conspicuous service to his country in the National
House of Representatives, and who was doubtless the choice
of a majority of his party.  His successful competitor was
a man of much personal worth and highly esteemed.  But it
was thought that his nomination had been compassed by skilful
political management by which the will of the people had been
baffled and defeated, and many Republicans declined to vote.
There was a certain curiosity, as many men expressed it, to
see what Butler would do and to test his professions of reform,
with a feeling that he would be quite harmless with a Republican
Legislature and Council.  So the experiment was tried.  The
people of the Commonwealth had no desire to try it a second
time.  The matter of General Butler's title to public respect,
if the rest of his record could be erased as by a wet sponge,
might be determined by the experience of a single year.  There
was never such an exhibition as that made by him in the executive
chair of Massachusetts.  He proceeded to attack, to promote
his own ambitions, the fair name and fame of the Commonwealth
itself.  One of his speeches was so gross in its nature that
the principal Democratic paper of Boston refused to print
it, declaring it unfit for publication.

General Butler declared in one of his public speeches when
a candidate for Governor, thereby insulting the Commonwealth,
especially the citizen-soldiery of Massachusetts, that the
soldiers of Massachusetts "needed but a word from him to clean
out the State House."

But he had his eye on a still higher prize.  He hoped to
compass the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.  That
nomination depended on his conciliating the old Democratic,
rebel element at the South, then powerful in National Democratic
councils.  He made an attack upon the administration of the
State Almshouse at Tewksbury, in which he declared that "the
selling and tanning of human skins was an established industry
in Massachusetts."  He charged the Commonwealth with desecrating
the graves and selling the bodies of deceased inmates of her
public institutions for money.  General Butler's charges were
refuted to the public satisfaction by the simple certificate
of Mrs. Clara Leonard, a member of the State Board of Lunacy
and Charities, who knew all about the matter, and in whose
high integrity and capacity to decide the question everybody
had implicit confidence.

There was an investigation, and Butler signally failed to
sustain himself.  One incident at the hearing revealed perfectly
his character and that of his affected sympathy for downtrodden
humanity.  Some human remains were brought into the presence
of the committee, which it was alleged had come from the almshouse.
Butler was in an angry mood at something that had occurred
and called out peremptorily: "Give me the skin that came off
the nigger."

I will not undertake myself to impute the motive which inspired
this attack upon his own State.  Whether it were anger inspired
by the knowledge of the estimate in which the majority of
her people held him; whether it were a gross nature with blunted
sensibilities; whether these expressions were uttered in haste
or anger, I will not say.  The Honorable William P. Frye,
an able and justly distinguished Representative and Senator
from Maine, with an intimate knowledge of General Butler,
which came from a long association in the public service,
charged General Butler in a public speech in Massachusetts,
in the autumn of 1883, in my hearing, what he repeated at
many places elsewhere in the Commonwealth--that Butler had
made this foul charge against Massachusetts in order that
he might win the favor of the slave-holding and rebel Democratic
elements of the South by catering to their prejudices against
her.  If that be true, this charge of General Butler's is
the most disgraceful single utterance that ever came from
American lips.  If it be not true, what must be the nature
of which the gentle, charitable and kindly Senator Frye could
believe it true after an intimate knowledge so many years?

General Butler was disappointed in his expectation of Democratic
support in the country at large.  He had thereafter no rest
in politics for the sole of his foot.  The remainder of his
life was spent in speculation and manufacturing enterprises.

I repeat what I said of General Butler in his lifetime, when
he was at the height of his power, with a full knowledge
of his vindictive character, that the success of his attempt
to use and consolidate the political forces of Massachusetts
would have been the corruption of her youth, the destruction
of everything valuable in her character, and the establishment
at the mouth of the Charles River of another New York with
its frauds, Tweed rings and scandals.

General Butler made an earnest effort to get the Republican
nomination for Governor in 1871.  He had built up what was
called a Butler party, in which he had had the aid of the
National Administration, and of all persons whom he could
either seduce by hope of reward or terrify by fear of his
vengeance.  It was not a question in considering candidacy
for office with him whether the man had rendered honest service
in civil or in military life, whether he was a man of honor
or of good or bad character, but only whether he was a Butler
man.  He conducted his own campaign for Governor in 1871 and
again in 1873.  In the former he summoned his adherents to
the State Convention, issuing a circular in which he advised
them to bring three days' rations in the expectation of a
long and angry struggle.

I was invited by the State Central Committee to preside at
the Convention of 1871.  It was quite likely that the Convention
might break up in disorder and the result would be two factions,
each claiming to be the regular Republican organization.  I
told the gentlemen of the State Central Committee, who communicated
to me their desire, that I would do it on condition that there
should be provided one hundred skilled and trustworthy police
officers who would obey my orders, and, if it became necessary,
would remove from the hall General Butler or any other person
who should defy the authority of the Convention.  This the
committee promised to do.  This promise was in substance kept.
The gentleman who made it as the organ of the State Central
Committee had himself been for many years a sheriff of the
County of Worcester, and had been a General in the Civil
War, and was a man of large capacity for handling disorderly
assemblies.  He came to me afterward and said that in a hall
like Mechanics Hall a well-disciplined force of not more than
fifty men would be better for the purpose of keeping order
than a more numerous one, and he had taken the liberty of
departing from our agreement to that extent.  To this I assented.

When I went to the Hall that morning in taking leave of my
wife I told her that the chances were that I should come
home the most disgraced man in Massachusetts.  If General
Butler succeeded in breaking up the Convention in disorder
the blame would be laid upon the presiding officer.

But we got through safely.  General Butler had calculated
that his opponents, who were divided among several candidates,
could not agree upon any one.  But such an agreement was effected
upon William B. Washburn.  His plan then, I supposed, was
to find some excuse for breaking up the Convention under circumstances
which would enable him to claim to President Grant that he
represented the regular Republican organization and that his
opponents were the bolters.  My duty on the other hand was
so to conduct the Convention that there should be no pretext
on his part for such a course.  The Convention was in continuous
session from 11 o'clock in the forenoon until half-past one
next morning.  There were several contests in which Butler
conducted the case on his own side.  But his opponents held
together and nominated William B. Washburn.  With the exception
of the National Convention of 1880, at which I also presided,
this was the most difficult duty in the way of presiding over
a deliberative assembly which ever fell upon any person in
this country so far as I know.

In the year 1873 General Butler made another attempt to get
the Republican nomination for Governor.  A meeting was called
at Hamilton Hall, in Boston, of a few persons opposed to his
candidacy, which resulted in an address to the people recommending
the reelection of Mr. Washburn.  I signed the address of which
I wrote a few sentences.  Judge Hoar made a bright and characteristic
speech in which he said that "the people of Massachusetts
would not yield the office of Governor to a Tichborne claimant,
whether with or without a bond." This name, "the Claimant,"
stuck to Butler for the rest of his life.

In 1871 my opposition to General Butler and support of Governor
Washburn was well known.  I announced my preference for the
latter in a letter to the Springfield _Republican._ This did
not occasion any personal quarrel with Butler, although our
relations were never cordial.  But in 1873 he was very angry
with the persons who signed the address in favor of the renomination
of Governor Washburn.  He wrote a letter to the people of
Massachusetts in which he angrily attacked many persons in
the Republican party whom he believed to be his opponents.
Among them he bitterly attacked me.  He sent a copy of this
letter in the form of a broadside to every newspaper in Massachusetts,
I believe, and had it folded into every copy of the paper.
I instantly replied, setting forth as well as I could the
character and quality of General Butler and the nature of
his influence upon the youth of the Commonwealth.  The letter
contained the following sentences:

"When General Butler proposed to pay off our national debt
in irredeemable paper, General Grant silenced him with the
ringing sentence in his inaugural, 'Let it be understood that
no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted
in public place,' because he knew that he was trying to tempt
this people to escape from a burden by a mean and base act.

"He has quarrelled with Grant and Wilson, and Colfax and Blaine,
and Andrew, and Sumner, and the Washburnes, and Bingham, and
Schenck, and Dawes, because he is quarrelsome.  They have
been compelled, each in his own way, to chastise and punish
him because he deserved to be whipped.

"Among the unprincipled adventurers who gained favor in the
corrupt times of the Stuarts, and whose evil counsels brought
Charles the First to his doom, the most notorious was Buckingham.
Gaining favor by lending himself as the subservient tool in
accomplishing every evil purpose:  restless, ambitious, unscrupulous,
selfish, revengeful, thrusting himself into military employments
for which he was unfit and from which he was compelled to
retire in disgrace, getting a 'competent private fortune'
by dishonest practices, which he lavished in overcoming the
virtue of timid and venal men, his name is the shame of England.
Nugent says of him: 'His shrewdness in judging of men was
employed only to enable him to found his influence upon their
weaknesses and vices; so that, when opposed to men of capacity,
or thwarted by what remained of public virtue in the country,
he found himself in conflict with weapons of which he knew
not the use; and his counsels were dangerous, and his administration
unprosperous.  His only wisdom was the craft with which he
managed weak or bad men, and his only virtue the courage with
which he overawed timid ones.' Such counsellors, fatal to a
monarch, are full of peril to a republic.  Such men can only
prosper in times of public corruption.

"General Butler has done, unless he has egregiously imposed
upon us, two things well.  He out-blackguarded a New York
mob in 1864, and with a United States army at his back, he
kept down a rebel city in 1862.  Massachusetts is not likely
soon to stand in need of either of these processes.  But he
never has accomplished anything else of much importance when
his point could not be carried by sheer blustering.  The history
of all his other attempts may be comprised in three words--
_Swagger, quarrel, failure._

"Other men have aspired before now to the office of Governor
of Massachusetts.  It is an honorable ambition.  They were
content to leave their claims to be set forth by others, and
were glad to waive them if by so doing they could promote
the harmony of the party.  This man seeks nothing but his
own selfish ends, utterly regardless of the wishes, the welfare,
or the harmony of the great party to which he professes to
belong.  The people of Massachusetts have sometimes elected
to this high office men who in some particulars are not deserving
of respect.  But the people respected them, and chose them
because they deemed them worthy, and the persons so chosen
endeavored to deserve the public confidence.  This man, if
he is chosen at all, is to be chosen without having the respect
of the men to whom he looks for support.  It would be harder
to find a leading supporter of General Butler who will say
that he deems him honest, truthful, disinterested, or incapable
of using power to gratify both his ambition and his revenge.
The men whom General Butler will beat are the men whom he
persuades to support him."

The morning after his defeat in the State Convention each
of the principal morning papers in Boston headed its account
of the Convention with the words, "Swagger, Quarrel, Failure."

General Butler made no further reply by letter.  But he came
to Worcester, where I dwelt, and addressed an enormous meeting
in Mechanics Hall.  I suppose many more people than those
that got in were obliged to go away because the Hall would
not hold them.  The General devoted his speech largely to
a powerful and bitter attack upon me.  I replied at a meeting
at the same place a few days after.  My speech ended with
the following sentences.  After describing the heroism of
the youth of Worcester in the battle with slavery and the
battle with Rebellion, I added:

"And now, after the war, another enemy, unarmed, but bringing
even greater danger, menaces the Republic.  The battle with
corruption is the duty of the hour.  The blow which rebellion
aimed at the Nation's life you could ward off.  The wounds
it inflicted are already in the process of cure.  But this
poison, this rotting from the core, is far more dangerous
to the Republic.  There is already danger that the operations
of the Tweeds and Goulds in New York may be repeated on a
more gigantic scale at the National capital.  The mighty railroads
to whom our public domain has been so lavishly granted, in
some cases I doubt not, wisely, afford infinite opportunity
for plunder and corruption.  All these are at the cost of
the labor of the country.  The increased tax falls in the
end on the consumer.  With the waste of our public land are
diminished the resources of the laborer.  Following bad precedents
Congress has itself been induced to set the pernicious example
of which you have heard so much discussion.  (This referred
to the measure known as the Salary Grab.)  The author of the
measure tells you that he knew what he was doing, and if you
didn't like it you could vote against him.  Are you quite
ready to declare to the country that in this great contest
with extravagance and corruption, wherever the Republicans
of the rest of the country may array themselves, the Republicans
of Massachusetts fight under the banner of General Butler?

"You are doubtless familiar with Victor Hugo's description
of the marine monster said to be found in the vicinity of
the Channel islands, and known as the Devil Fish.  It is
apparently formed of an almost transparent jelly, colorless,
almost indistinguishable from the water which surrounds it,
armed with long slender limbs, numerous as the feet of the
centipede, and strong in their grasp as hands of iron.  The
bather in those waters habitually provides himself with a
long keen blade, which, when he finds himself encountered
by one of these monsters, he elevates above his head in his
extended right hand.  As the creature approaches, the bather
feels himself slowly enveloped in the powerful limbs which
twine about him, holding him in their iron grasp.  Suddenly
a head appears, and drawing itself nearer the animal seeks
to fasten its mouth upon the lips of the victim and deprive
him of life.  At this moment the bather strikes with his knife
into the head of the monster.  Instantly the limbs relax their
hold, the hideous creature slowly disappears, and the bather
is left unharmed and safe.  Our Republic finds itself to-
day assailed by a monster as dangerous, unpalpable, soft,
horrible but strong--strong as hands of iron.  The limbs of
this monster of Corruption have seized upon our noble Republic,
but at last there is a head coming in sight, and I think the
Republicans of Massachusetts are able to bear the knife and
strike the blow which will destroy its horrible life so that
it shall fall powerless forever!"

That closed the discussion so far as we were concerned for
that campaign.

In 1876 Judge Hoar, who had been, very much against his will,
elected to Congress from the Middlesex District declined a
renomination.  General Butler, who had been defeated at the
polls in the Essex District two years before was thereupon
nominated, having pledged himself to the Republicans that
he would abandon his fiat money doctrines in obedience to
the declared will of the people; a pledge which as stated
above he shamefully violated.  There was no expectation of
defeating him.  But some few Republicans who were unwilling
to support him desired a candidate on whom to unite, and they
applied to Judge Hoar.  He said he had no desire to go to
Congress.  But he thought there ought to be a Republican candidate
against Butler and that he had no right to ask another man
to take a position from which he flinched himself, and accordingly
he was nominated.  But Butler was elected by a large majority.

That however was substantially the end of his relation with
the Republican Party.  After the Inauguration of President
Hayes he tried to have the public officers in his District
who had refused to support him removed.  On President Hayes's
refusal he left the Republican Party and became, a year or
two after, the Democratic nominee for Governor for two or
three years and, as has been seen, was elected in 1883.  I
of course supported the Republican candidate and made, I suppose,
thirty or forty speeches in each of those years.  He had said
in explaining and defending his fiat money scheme that the
word "fiat" means "let there be." God said "fiat lux," "let
there be light," and there was light.  He argued that fiat
money was excellent from the very fact that it cost nothing
and had no intrinsic value.  So if a bill were lost or destroyed
a new one could be supplied without cost.  He also said that
it would stay in the country and would not be sunk in the
morasses of Asia, especially in China and India, where silver
and gold were absorbed and never heard of in civilized nations
afterward.  I quoted these sentences with the following comment:
"That, Fellow-citizens, is precisely the difference between
Omnipotence and Humbug, between the Almighty and General Butler.
God said let there be light and there was light.  General
Butler says let there be money and there is--rags.  This is
the first time in our history that the American workingman
has been gravely asked to take for his wages money it costs
nothing to make, that it is no loss to lose, that it is no
gain to get, and that even a Chinaman won't touch." Butler
was very angry and answered, rather irrelevantly, as it seemed
to me, by saying that I did not go to the War, to which I
replied as follows:

"I see that the Greenback candidate for Governor has seen
fit to taunt some persons, including myself, who have ventured
to exercise the privilege of free speech in this campaign,
that they did not go to the war; while he boasts that he not
only went to the war but hung a rebel.  Those persons who
did not go to the war may, perhaps, possess at least this
advantage, that they can form an impartial opinion of the
merits of those who did.  It is the pride and the honor of
this noble Commonwealth of ours, that of the hundred thousand
brave soldiers and sailors she sent to the war, there was
but one notorious braggart; there was but one capable of parading
up and down the Commonwealth, vaunting that he had hung a
man; exhibiting himself as the Jack Ketch of the rebellion.
I bow reverently to the brave, modest, patriotic soldier,
who, without thought of personal gain, gave youth, health,
limb, life to save the country which he loved.  I am willing
to abide by his opinion, and to yield to him every place of
honor and of office.  But to you, General Butler, whose military
career is made up of the blunder and slaughter of Big Bethel;
of the powder explosion at Fort Fisher; of the engineering
at Dutch Gap; of the "bottling-up" at Bermuda Hundred; of
the trading with the rebels through the lines in North Carolina;
of the scandals of New Orleans; to you, who were ordered by
General Grant to go home in disgrace; to you whose best service
had been, if you, too, had stayed at home, I have no such
tribute to offer.  When Benedict Arnold taunts Jefferson that
he did not go into battle in the Revolution, when Aaron Burr
taunts John Adams with want of patriotism, then it will be
time for you to boast yourself over the men who performed
the duties of civil life during the Rebellion."

We have had turbulent and exciting times in our State and
National politics before and since that day.  But I think
there has been nothing in Massachusetts, and so far as I am
aware there has seldom been anything in the country anywhere
like the years from 1869 until 1877, when General Butler's
power was at its height.  You could hardly take up a morning
paper without dreading that you should read of the removal
from some position of honor of some brave honest soldier who
had deserved well of his country, and the substitution of
some disreputable person in his place.  All the dishonesty
of the time seemed to be combined and rallied to his support.
Three of his trusted lieutenants in different parts of the
Commonwealth were convicted of crime and sent to the State
Prison.  Another was detected in crime punishable by imprisonment
in the State Prison, but escaped prosecution by a compromise.
Still another was compelled to flee the country for a series
of forgeries, finding refuge in a South American State with
which we had no treaty of extradition.  Still another was
indicted for frauds which wrecked a National bank, and escaped
conviction by a technicality.  Still another was compelled
to flee from the Commonwealth by the detection of some notorious
frauds.  And now more recently, in 1898, another has been
arrested, a fugitive from justice, and brought back to Massachusetts,
having wrecked two banks and embezzled their funds.

In the autumn of 1883 General Butler was a candidate for
reelection.  He was so confident that he had prepared his
grounds for a magnificent illumination.  But he was signally
defeated.  I took a leading part in the campaign.  I give
the following extract from my speech at Worcester:

"But we are thinking to-night of the matter of electing a
Governor.  Character is more important than opinion; good
name to the State, as to the citizen, is better than riches.
I suppose it is true of each one of you as of myself that
among his chief comforts and pleasures in life is his pride
in being a Massachusetts citizen.  The honor and good fame
of our beloved State is far above any question of party.  I
think I do you no more than justice when I declare that you
lament as much as I do the personal character of the contest
which is upon us.  It has never been the habit of Republicans
to deal in personalities.  The Republican press and the Republican
platform in Massachusetts has been singularly free from these
things.  What Democratic candidate can be named other than
the present Governor to whom the Republicans have not delighted
to pay the respect due to honorable and respected opponents.
Have Gaston or Thompson or either Adams or Hancock or any
of their candidates for Congress, anything to complain of
in this respect? If we deal differently with General Butler,
it is because the difference is in him.  We have selected
our own candidate on a very simple principle.  In determining
on whom we would confer the title, His Excellency, we have
sought a man who represented in his own person our standard
of excellence.  We sought a man whom the fathers and mothers
of the Commonwealth would be willing to hold up to their children
for imitation.  We sought a man, tried and proved in important
public trusts, faithful, sincere, upright, downright, who
would continue and maintain the honored line of Massachusetts
Governors.  We have found such a man in George D. Robinson.
I will sum up what I have to say of Mr. Robinson by saying
that he is in every respect the reverse of his antagonist.
We are told that we must not discuss the record of the candidate
of our antagonists before his election last year.  That was
all condoned.  I do not concede for myself that truth is necessarily
determined by majorities.  I have a high respect for the people,
but they do not change men's characters by their votes.  But,
be it so, let bygones be bygones.  Let us concede that the
career of our present governor as citizen and soldier and
statesman furnishes a lofty example of every virtue under
heaven.  Let us admit that it was love of liberty that advocated
the Fugitive Slave Law in the old Democratic days; that it
was fidelity that was sent to Charleston, to vote for Douglas,
and voted fifty-seven times for Jefferson Davis; that it was
patriotism of which Governor Andrew said in 1861: 'I am compelled
to declare with great reluctance and regret that the whole
course of proceedings under Major General Butler in this Commonwealth
seems to have been designed and adopted to afford means to
persons of bad character to make money unscrupulously;' that
it was good generalship that caused the blunder and slaughter
of Big Bethel; that it was skilful engineering that made the
canal at Dutch Gap a laughing-stock to the civilized world;
that it was a great strategist that was bottled up at Bermuda
Hundred; that it was courage that retreated from the uncaptured
Fort Fisher; that it was purity that caused the scandals of
New Orleans, and integrity that traded through the lines in
North Carolina; that it was a great soldier that was ordered
by General Grant to report at Lowell; that it was zeal for
the public service that defended the Sanborn Contracts; that
it was modesty that has gone so often up and down the State
blowing his own trumpet; that it was honesty that mingled
the funds of the Soldiers' Home with its own; that it was
good faith that sought to juggle the public creditor out of
his debt; that it was care for the poor and the working men
that sought to give our laborers rags for wages and our soldiers
waste paper for pensions; that it was a faithful representative
that promised the men of the Middlesex District that if he
might go once more to fight the Rebel brigadiers he would
faithfully represent their opinions on finance and then proposed
that marvellous scheme of fiat money, which he represented
it would be no loss to lose and no gain to get, and that even
a Chinaman would not touch, so that the same constituency
demanded his resignation and 'resolved, that we warn the people
of the Commonwealth, whose votes General Butler is now soliciting
by promises to serve them faithfully, that his professions
when seeking office have been found in our experience to be
easily made and as easily repudiated when the time for redeeming
them came; that they are neither gold nor good paper, but
a kind of fiat currency, having no intrinsic value, cheap,
delusive, irredeemable and worthless;' that it was an honest
Democrat, of whom Mr. Avery, President of this year's Democratic
Convention, declared that his promises and pledges could not be
trusted; that it was consistency which has belonged to every
party in turn.  We will put the issue of this election upon
the record of the year's administration.  He has shown an
utter want of understanding of the true theory of the Constitution.
This is illustrated in his removal of Warden Earle.  He told
his friends at the prison that he made the removal because
Earle would not obey his orders.  He had no more right to
give an order to Earle than to you or me.  The Governor and
the Council have the right to prescribe rules for the government
of the prison--not the Governor.  The Board of Prison Commissioners
have the right to give directions to the Warden, but not the
Governor.  His telling Earle to obey his orders on pain of
dismissal was as flagrant a violation of law and of the fundamental
principles of the Constitution, as it was an injustice to
as brave an officer, as honest a man as ever tied a sash around
his waist.  He traduced the Commonwealth in his vile Tewksbury
speech.  I believe every charge he made broke down on his
own evidence or was thoroughly refuted.  But if the thing
were decent to do, it might be done decently.  Those of you
who have delighted to listen to the classic eloquence of Everett,
to the lofty speech of Sumner, to the noble appeals of Andrew,
aye, to the sincere and manly utterances of Robinson, take
that speech and read it.  He insulted womanhood in the person
of a defenceless girl.  He insulted purity by a speech so
gross that the principal Democratic paper in Boston declares
it unfit for circulation, and demands that it be suppressed.
He insulted every colored man in the State, when, in an unguarded
moment, speaking from his very soul, he called out: 'Give
me the skin that came off the nigger.' He insulted the citizen
soldiers of Massachusetts when he declared that they needed
but a word from him to clean out the State House.  He insulted
the common school system of Massachusetts when he said that
if his witness were a person of immoral character, the school
system was responsible.  He insulted the whole Commonwealth
in trying to cast upon the foul imputation that she was inhuman
and indifferent to her poor and unfortunate, and intimated
that the tanning of human skins was a recognized Massachusetts
industry.  Another insult is the menace of fraud that comes
from Boston.  The law requires the appointment of election
officers, to be chosen equally from the two great parties,
and every mayor of Boston, Republican and Democrat alike,
Pierce, Gaston and Green, have fairly and honorably discharged
their duty.  It is one of the most important trusts that can
be imposed upon a public official, to guard the purity of
the vote of their fellow citizens.  The Republican Committee
this year submitted its lists and the names upon them were
changed, and other men substituted, Butler men, Democrats
and criminals, all charged to the Republican account.  Our
neighbor, Judge Nelson, a few years ago, tried at the bar
of his court a man whom Governor Butler defended.  He was
convicted, sentenced and went to jail.  He is now out of prison,
and has been substituted for a Republican, probably by the
influence of his former counsel, to count the ballots of the
citizens of Boston.  You have heard of such proceedings in
other States, but never in Massachusetts.  Unless the people
of this Commonwealth rise in their might and crush out this
attempted fraud, they will have at the mouth of the Charles
River another New York, with its frauds, Tweed rings and scandals."

He answered that by an attack on the memory of my father who
had died more than twenty-five years before.  Thereupon the
controversy, so far as it had anything personal in it, ended.

It happened that the year when General Butler was Governor
I was elected President of the Harvard Alumni Association.
It was the custom of the College to invite the Governor to
the dinner of the Alumni on Commencement day as the guest
of the University and to confer upon him the degree of Doctor
of Laws.  It would have been my duty to preside at the dinner
and to walk with him at the head of the procession, to have
him seated by my side at the table, and to extend to him the
courtesies of the University.  I hardly knew what I ought
to do.  I must either walk with him and sit by his side in
silence or with a formal and constrained courtesy which would
in itself be almost an affront, or on the other hand, I must
take his hand, salute him with cordiality as becomes a host
on a great occasion in dealing with a distinguished guest,
and converse with him as I should have conversed with other
persons occupying his high place.  It did not seem to me that
I ought to do either, especially in the case of a man whose
offence had not been merely against me, but who had made a
gross and unfounded attack upon the memory of my father, and
of whose personal and public character I entertained the opinion
I had so often publicly expressed.  Accordingly I declined
to accept the office of President.  My place was filled by
Joseph H. Choate, who discharged the duty, of course, very
much better than I could have done it.

Mr. James F. Rhodes in his able and most impartial history
of the United States, speaking of the events of the summer
of 1864 and the disintegrating and discouraging condition
of the Army of the Potomac, says:

"Circumstances seemed to indicate the bitterness of disappointment
at the failure of the high hopes and expectations which filled
the soul of Grant when he crossed the Rapidan.  It was commonly
believed in the Army that his misfortune had driven him again
to drink, and on this account and others Butler with crafty
method acquired a hold on him which prevented him from acting
for the best interests of the service.  It is not a grateful
task to relate the story of Butler using Grant as a tool to
accomplish his own ends.  The picture of such a relation between
the two is repulsive, but it may be fraught with instruction
as men of the type of Butler are never absent from our political
life."*

[Footnote]
* Rhodes, "History," Vol. 4, p. 493.
[End of Footnote]

"Butler had some hold on the Commander of the Armies of the
United States and in the interview of July 9th showed his
hand."*

[Footnote]
* Rhodes, Ibid., Vol. 4, p.495.
[End of Footnote]

I do not suppose the secret of the hold which General Butler
had upon General Grant will ever be disclosed.  Butler boasted
in the lobby of the House of Representatives that Grant would
not dare to refuse any request of his because he had in his
possession affidavits by which he could prove that Grant had
been drunk on seven different occasions.  This statement was
repeated to Grant by a member of the House who told me of
the conversation.  Grant replied without manifesting any indignation,
or belief or disbelief in the story: "I have refused his requests
several times." In the case of almost any other person than
President Grant such an answer would have been a confession
of the charge.  But it ought not to be so taken in his case.
Unless he desired to take into his full confidence the person
who was speaking to him he was in the habit of receiving most
important communications with entire silence or with some
simple sentence which indicated his purpose to drop the subject.
My own belief is that at some time during the War, or before
the War in times of discouragement Grant may have been in
the habit of drinking freely and may at some time have done
so to excess.  During the whole time of his Presidency I had
a good opportunity to observe him in personal intercourse.
I was familiar with many men who were constantly in his company
at all hours of the day and often far into the night.  They
assured me that there was no foundation for any imputation
that he was in the habit of drinking to excess then.  If at
any time he had formed such a habit he had put it under his
feet.  For that I think he is entitled to greater honor than
if he had never yielded to temptation.  My explanation of
Butler's influence over Grant is to some extent conjecture.
But I believe Grant thought him a powerful political leader
and that he was entitled to respect as representing the opinions
of large numbers of men.  Beside that Butler had a great
influence over some ambitious men who were his confederates
and over some timid men who were afraid of him.  Their influence
with Grant was on Butler's side.  Then Grant was apt, as I
have said in another place, to sympathize with men who were
bitterly attacked, especially men who were charged with dishonesty
or corruption, because such charges were made against him.
So without undertaking to explain Butler's influence with
Grant, I content myself with stating it and lamenting it.
He led Grant to make some very bad appointments in Massachusetts
which were totally repugnant to the feeling of her people.
But for those appointments, in my opinion, the strong objection
felt by her people to giving any President of the United States
a third term would not have prevented her supporting him for
renomination in 1880, a support which would have insured his
success.

After President Hayes came into power General Butler tested
the President's willingness to permit him to control the patronage
of Massachusetts.  He demanded the appointment of a man recommended
by him to the office of Postmaster at Methuen.  The term had
expired.  President Hayes carefully examined the matter in
person, got a list of the principal patrons of the office,
and compared it with the petitions.  He determined to reappoint
the incumbent, who was an excellent officer, and a Republican
who had refused to vote for General Butler.  The man whom
General Butler recommended had lost a leg in the War.  He
had an artificial limb so well made that many people, even
those who worked in the same shop with him, did not know
that he had lost his leg.  Butler went before the Senate
Committee on Post Offices to get them to reject President
Hayes's nominee, taking his own candidate with him.  He had
the man leave off his artificial leg and come on crutches
to get greater sympathy.  He made an earnest and angry speech
before the Committee attacking President Hayes.  But he made
no impression, and the old Postmaster was confirmed and reappointed.
Thereupon Butler left the Republican party, first declaring
himself an Independent and attempting in that capacity to
get elected as Governor of the State.  Failing in that he
avowed himself a Democrat, and was, as has been already said,
elected by the Democrats in the fall of 1882.  This transaction
terminated his relation to the Republican Party, and his defeat
for Governor terminated his political life with the exception
that he was the Greenback candidate for the Presidency in
1884.  But he received little support.


CHAPTER XXV
BELKNAP IMPEACHMENT

March 3, 1876, a message was sent to the Senate from the
House of Representatives, impeaching General Belknap, the
Secretary of War.  He was charged with having received corruptly
a large sum of money, payable in quarterly instalments, for
the appointment of a Post Trader, an officer appointed by
the Secretary of War.  This was a very lucrative position,
the profits of which depended very largely upon the Secretary.
I was chosen one of the Managers of the Impeachment by the
House.  There was no serious question of the guilt of the
Secretary.  But he resigned, and his resignation was accepted,
after the discovery of his misconduct, before the proceedings
of impeachment were inaugurated.  The whole struggle was over
the question of the Constitutional right of the Senate to
convict a public officer on impeachment proceedings instituted
after he had left office.  Upon that question I made a careful
and elaborate argument.  A majority of the Senate (37 to 25)
were for sustaining the proceedings.  But the Senators who
thought the Senate had no jurisdiction to enter a judgment
of guilty when the proceedings were commenced after the person
left office, deemed themselves constrained to vote Not Guilty
as the only mode of giving that opinion effect.

So General Belknap was acquitted for the want of the two-
thirds vote for his conviction.  Every Democrat voted for
conviction except Mr. Eaton of Connecticut.  The following
Republicans voted for conviction:  Booth, Cameron of Pennsylvania,
Dawes, Edmunds, Hitchcock, Mitchell, Morrill, Oglesby, Robertson,
Sargent, Sherman, and Wadleigh.

It is difficult to believe that the Senators who voted for
acquittal were not, perhaps unconsciously, influenced by the
desire to shield a political associate from punishment.  The
power to impeach public officers after leaving office had been
exercised in England from time immemorial.  It is well settled
that when in the Constitution or legislation of the United
States a term of English law is used, that the meaning customarily
given to the term in English jurisprudence is to ascribed
to it here.

The history of this clause as found in the proceedings of
the Convention that framed the Constitution, makes very clear
the understanding of that body.  They first inserted the words:
"The Senate of the United States shall have power to try all
impeachments, but no person shall be convicted without the
concurrence of two-thirds of the members present, which in
case of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal
from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office
of trust and profit under the United States." The framers
of the Constitution regarded the power of impeachment as absolutely
essential to the working of the Government.

That clearly gave the two Houses of Congress the common law
powers of impeachment, as exercised by Parliament.  At a later
time there was added:  "The Vice-President and all civil officers
of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment
and conviction."  That was added as a limitation on the tenure
of office.  It seems incredible that they should have intended,
without debate or division, to wholly change and so greatly
limit and narrow the clause previously adopted.

It is obvious that impeachment and removal from office will
be in many cases an insignificant and unimportant part of
the remedy as compared with perpetual disqualification from
holding office.  It seems incredible that it could ever have
been intended that this judgment of perpetual disqualification
to hold office could only be rendered when the defendant is
willing, and can be avoided by his voluntary resignation.

The framers of the Constitution were very skilful Constitutional
mechanics.  I am satisfied that the opinion of the majority
of the Senate will prevail hereafter, unless the case where
the question shall come up be, like that of Belknap, strongly
affected by party feeling.

President Monroe said:  "The right of impeachment and of trial
by the Legislature is the mainspring of the great machine
of government.  It is the pivot on which it turns.  If preserved
in full vigor, and exercised with perfect integrity, every
branch will perform its duty."

I received a good many letters expressing approval of my
argument.  Perhaps, without inordinate vanity, I may be permitted
to preserve those which follow.  The approval of my honored
and beloved instructor, Judge Thomas, gave me special satisfaction.

I am led to publish these letters partly because I think
the opinion of the writers on the question is worth preserving
for future reference, but chiefly, I believe, from what I
hope will be deemed a pardonable vanity.  Mr. Sumner, in
editing the thirteen volumes of his speeches, has given in
regard to all of them, letters from friends and correspondents,
expressing his approval.  I do not suppose it would ever have
occurred to Daniel Webster to publish similar certificates
as to any speech or act of his.

FROM GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, GOVERNOR; SECRETARY OF THE
  U. S. TREASURY; U. S. SENATOR, ETC., TO
  JUDGE E. R. HOAR.

UNITED STATES SENATE,
  WASHINGTON, May 8th, 1876.

_My dear Judge,_

It was the opinion of all who heard your brother's argument
in the Belknap case that it was the best of the arguments
yet given and that it will rank with the best at any time
delivered in the Senate.

I do not write this because I was in any degree surprised,
but it cannot be otherwise than agreeable to you to know
that there is a concurrence in the view I have expressed.

  Very truly,
  GEO. S. BOUTWELL.
  To The Honble
  E. R. Hoar,
Concord, Mass.

FROM JUDGE BENJAMIN F. THOMAS OF THE SUPREME COURT
  OF MASSACHUSETTS.

NO. 9 PEMBERTON SQ
  BOSTON May 25th '76.

_My Dear Sir_

I am greatly obliged to you for sending me a copy of your
admirable argument on the question of jurisdiction in the
impeachment case.

The argument is sensible and exhaustive, the style clear,
forcible and attractive and the whole tone temper and spirit
becoming a jurist and statesman.

  Very truly yours
  BENJ F. THOMAS.
  Hon Geo F. Hoar

FROM WILLIAM M. EVARTS, SECRETARY OF STATE; UNITED
  STATES SENATOR, ETC.

NEW YORK, May 22, 1876.

_My dear Mr. Hoar,_

I am much obliged to you for sending me your speech, as manager,
on the question of jurisdiction.  I had seen it applauded
in the newspapers and am happy to add mine to the general
suffrage.  It seems to me a very complete and able presentation
both of law and reasons of State on your side.

My own opinions are strongly adverse to the jurisdiction,
and I should greatly lament its maintenance by the Senate.
In ordinary times I should not suppose it possible, and I
do not think it probable, now.

I hope the defendant's counsel presented the argument as satisfactorily
from their side as you have done for yours.  But I have little
hope that it is so.

  Yours very truly,
  (Signed) WM M. EVARTS.
  The Hon'ble
  Geo F. Hoar.

FROM JUDGE DWIGHT FOSTER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF
  MASSACHUSETTS.

BOSTON, 20 May, '76.

_My Dear Sir:_

I have read with satisfaction and admiration your exhaustive
and conclusive argument in the Belknap impeachment case.  It
would have convinced me, if I had not been of your opinion
already.  In thought I doubted a little at first.  My mind
was soon satisfied that the narrow construction which left
the accused to decide whether to abide his trial or by resignation
to defeat the jurisdiction of the court could not possibly
be correct.

Congratulating you on your success,

I am

  Yours sincerely
  DWIGHT FOSTER
  Honble Geo F. Hoar

FROM CHARLES DEVENS, JR., ATTORNEY-GENERAL, ETC.

WORCESTER
  May 18, '76.

_My Dear Hoar_

I have just read with the greatest interest and satisfaction
your speech on the jurisdiction in the impeachment case.  It
seems to me most able profound and convincing and I congratulate
you immensely on the effort which is spoken of by all who
have read it as most vigorous and successful.  It could not
have been better done.

  Yours most truly
  CHAS DEVENS JR

FROM CHARLES ALLEN, JUDGE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF
  MASSACHUSETTS.

BOSTON May 18 1876

_Dear Mr. Hoar_

Thanks for your argument in the Belknap case.  Massachusetts
is very proud of what you have done in this case; and I, among
the rest.

  Yours very truly
  CHARLES ALLEN.
  Hon. G. F. Hoar.


CHAPTER XXVI
ELECTORAL COMMISSION

When the Presidential election of 1876 was over both sides
claimed the victory.  When the certificates of the result
in the different States reached the President of the Senate,
in accordance with the requirement of the Constitution and
the law, it turned out that there was one majority for Hayes
and Wheeler, upon the face of the returns, if the returns
from the State of Oregon were construed in accordance with
the Republican claim.

The Governor of Oregon gave a transcript of the record and
declared his opinion that it showed one of the lawful electors
to have voted for Mr. Tilden.  That would have given one majority
for Tilden.  The Republicans claimed that upon the record
the election showed that all the Republican candidates for
elector had been chosen in Oregon, and that they had all voted
for Hayes and Wheeler.

The Democrats declared that the boards authorized to ascertain
and return the result of the election for Presidential electors
in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana had corruptly and
unlawfully rejected votes that ought to be counted for them,
and counted votes for the Republicans that ought not to be
so counted; and had in that way changed the result which,
if it had been correctly ascertained and reported, would have
shown a Democratic majority in those three States.

The country was deeply excited.  Threats of civil war were
heard in many quarters.  When I went to Washington for the
session of December, 1876, while I did not believe there would
be a civil war, and supposed there would be some method of
escape devised, I confess I saw no such method.  I now believe
that but for the bitter experience of a few years before,
with its terrible lesson, there would have been a resort to
arms.  It would have been a worse civil war than that of the
Rebellion, because the country would have been divided not
by sections, but by parties.

But, as I have related elsewhere, a majority in Congress
agreed to submit the question to a Commission composed of
five Senators, five Representatives, and five Judges of the
Supreme Court, who, proceeding in accordance with an ingenious
and skilfully devised mechanism, were to determine the case.

I believe that as time goes on, the great self-restraint of
the American people in dealing with the momentous peril of
1877, and the constructive ability which created the simple
but perfect mechanism of the Electoral Commission, will receive,
as they deserve, the admiration of mankind.  There was at
the time, as would be expected, some anger and disappointment
at the result.  Occasionally some bigot who can find nothing
but evil in the history and life of his country, generally
some recluse who has little knowledge of affairs, charges
the Commission with having wickedly deprived the majority
of the people of the fruits of an honest and lawful victory.
But, in general, wherever I go I find that intelligent men
of both parties are satisfied with the righteousness of the
decision, and admit that a different judgment would have wrought
the destruction of the Republic.

When the decision of the Electoral Commission was accepted
every Democratic vote in the two Houses was against it, and
every Republican vote, save two, given in its favor.  Of these
two, one shortly afterward left the Republican party and became
a bitter and angry Democrat.  The other, a most admirable
and excellent college president, told me that he thought the
Commission were technically right.  But he thought it better
for the effect on the country that the Democratic contention
should be sustained.  As if in a question of Constitutional
proceeding, or rather a question of Constitutional power,
a determination could be technically right, and wrong upon
the merits.  If Congress, technically, that is according to
the mandate of the Constitution, had no power to decide the
result of the elections in the States, but that power was
committed to State tribunals, how was it possible that any
member of either House of Congress, who had sworn to support
the Constitution, could usurp that power without being forsworn?
Beside, it must be conceded by everybody to be utterly impossible
that the power of investigating disputed questions, as to
the choice of presidential electors by the States, should
be exercised by Congress.  There is no time for such an investigation
by Congress.  It could only be done where a few precincts
or votes were in dispute, in places near the seat of Government.
It would have been impossible to do it in time for the inauguration
of the new President before the day of railroads and telegraphs
for any State in the country.  It would be impossible now
to do it in parts of the country distant from the seat of
Government.  The choice of electors takes place in November.
The result must be ascertained; the electors must meet; their
votes must be given; they must be certified to Congress; the
count must be made and result declared in Congress before
the 4th of March, a period of less than four months.  If there
should be a contest made in each of the forty-five States,
an investigation might be demanded for every election precinct
in the country.

It seems to me clear that the power to judge of elections,
returns, and qualifications of presidential electors is not
given by the Constitution to the two Houses of Congress, or
either of them.  The power which it was deemed necessary
carefully to express in regard to their own members, it could
hardly have been intended to bestow by implication from the
right to be present when the certificates are opened, or even
from the right to count the votes.  It is a power which it
is utterly impracticable for Congress to exercise between
the time when the certificates are brought officially to its
knowledge, and the time when it must be determined who has
been chosen President.  Indeed, the distinguished counsel
who closed the case for the Tilden electors* conceded this
difficulty, to which his only answer was the suggestion that
such an inquiry, like the right to the writ of _quo warranto,_
must be limited by discretion; in other words, that the two
Houses may go as far into the inquiry, who were duly chosen
electors in any State, as they in their discretion think fit,
or as time will permit.

[Footnote]
* Mr. Charles O'Connor.
[End of Footnote]

The statement of this position seems to be its refutation.
We are now discussing a question of jurisdiction.  In whom
is the power to determine who have been appointed electors
--in Congress or in the State?  It was gravely answered that
it is in Congress when the State to be investigated is near
the seat of Government, or the inquiry to a few election precincts
only, but it is to be left to the State in other cases; that
Congress may exert a power of inquiry into an election in
Delaware which is impossible as to California, or may inquire
into one election district in New York, but cannot into twenty
or a hundred.  This claim would never have arisen in any man's
mind before the days of railroads and telegraphs.  Such investigations,
possible only to the most limited extent now, would have been
wholly impossible as to most of the States when the Constitution
was adopted.

It is asked, is there no remedy if the officers to whom the
States intrust the power of ascertaining and declaring the
result of the election act fraudulently or make mistakes?
The answer is that the Constitution of the United States
gives no jurisdiction to Congress, when the certificates are
opened and the votes are to be counted, to correct such mistakes
or frauds.  A like question may be put as to every public
authority in which a final power of decision is lodged.  The
danger of mistake or fraud is surely quite as great if the
final power be lodged in Congress, and the framers of the
Constitution acted in nothing more wisely than in removing
from Congress all power over the election of President.

There was never yet a political party in this country, or
in England, which decided ordinary election cases, except
in the clearest case, on other than party considerations.  In
England and Canada it has been found necessary to commit to
the courts the consideration of election cases.  It is seldom
that either House of Congress has resisted partisan temptation
in election cases, when one seat only was the prize of the
contest.  Is it likely that public virtue would withstand
the temptation of the Presidency?

The simple doctrine on which the Commission proceeded was
that the right to determine absolutely and finally who are
the duly chosen presidential electors is committed by the
Constitution to the States.  The judgment of the tribunal
established by the State for that purpose is conclusive on
all the world.  Congress is only to count the votes of the
officials found by the State to have the right to cast them.

It is said that in the Oregon case the Commission departed
from this principle, which they had acted upon in the case
of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana.  But there is not
the slightest truth in that suggestion.  In all of those
three cases the laws of the State had established a tribunal
with absolute right to determine all questions arising out of
the election.  The tribunal had the right to reject votes, or
count votes, according as they found the votes to be lawful
or unlawful.  They had the right to reject returns from election
precincts where they found there could have been no lawful
or orderly election by reason of violence, or where they found
the returns untrustworthy by reason of fraud.  This power
they exercised, and from it there was no appeal.

On the other hand the laws of Oregon did not provide for
a board of State canvassers, but provided that the Secretary
of State should canvass the votes in the presence of the
Governor, and prepare duplicate lists thereof, which lists
should be singed by the Governor and Secretary.  These lists,
certified by the Secretary, were before the Electoral Commission,
and disclosed the choice of Republican electors.  The Governor,
however, undertook to declare his opinion of the result.  That
opinion was that a Democrat was chosen who had received less
than a majority of the votes, or to use the phrase of the
Governor, "received the highest number of votes cast for persons
eligible," because his Republican competitor was not eligible;
and he, therefore, certified that the Democrat had the largest
number of votes cast for persons eligible.  That Democratic
elector proceeded then to hold a meeting, at which he was
the only person present, and as the two Republicans whom everybody
admitted were lawfully chosen, did not meet with him, he proceeded
to fill two vacancies himself.

The Secretary of State made the canvass required by law,
recorded it and filed it in his office.  He made that canvass
in the presence of the Governor.  He could not change it.
He could not tamper with it.  He had completed his official
duty when he had completed it.  So that the Governor's certificate
as to the effect of the election was of no more official character
than a like certificate of the Governor-General of India would
have been.

There was no claim or pretence in any quarter that the Republicans
did not have a lawful majority of the votes cast for electors
in Oregon.  The only claim was that one of the electors was
postmaster, and that he did not lawfully resign before he
was chosen elector.  He was postmaster at the time of the
election, but resigned a few days later.  He was also chosen
after he had resigned to fill the vacancy in the Electoral
College, if his ineligibility created a vacancy, in the regular
form according to the laws of Oregon.  There was no question
or pretence in any quarter that the will of the people of
Oregon was not given due effect by the judgment of the Electoral
Commission.

I do not believe that there are any considerable number of
intelligent persons in the country, now that the excitement
of the time has gone by, who doubt that the will of the people
of South Carolina and Florida and Louisiana was carried into
effect by the judgment of the Commission; and that their judgment
baffled an unscrupulous conspiracy to deprive the majorities
in those States of their lawful rights in the election because
those majorities were made up largely of negroes.


CHAPTER XXVII
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS
1876

It has been my fortune to be a delegate from Massachusetts
in four National Conventions for the nomination of President
and Vice-President--those of 1876, 1880, 1884 and 1888.  In
the first I was a delegate from the Worcester district, which
I then represented in Congress.  In the other three I was
at the head of the delegation at large.  I presided over that
of 1880.

The history of these conventions is of great interest.  It
shows the rudeness of the mechanism by which the Chief Executive
of this country is selected, and what apparently slight and
trivial matters frequently determine the choice.  As is well
known, the framers of the Constitution, after considering
very seriously the question of entrusting the power of choosing
the President to the Senate, determined to commit that function
to electoral colleges, chosen in the several States in such
manner as their legislatures should determine, all the electors
to give their votes on the same day.  It is generally stated
that the President and Vice-President cannot be from the same
State.  That is not true.  The Constitutional provision is
that electors in their respective States shall vote by ballot
for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall
not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves.

It was intended that the choice of the President should not
be a direct act of the people.  It was to be committed to
the discretion of men selected for patriotism, wisdom and
sobriety, and removed as far as might be from all the excitements
of popular passion.

The Constitution further provides that no Senator or Representative,
or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an elector.  It was undoubtedly
the chief object of this last provision to prevent the perpetuation
of power in the same hands, or under the same influences,
by removing the choice of President wholly from the control
of persons wielding National authority.  In a considerable
measure this purpose has been defeated.  The elector, in practice,
is a mere agent or scribe.  He records and executes the will
of the nominating convention of the party to which he belongs,
in which the real power of selection is in fact lodged.  In
these conventions members of Congress, and holders of National
office, take frequently an active and influential share.  It
is remarkable, however, how often the nominating conventions
have discarded the candidates who were favored by the holders
of executive office or the two Houses of Congress.  And where
such candidates have been nominated by the convention of either
party, they have often been defeated at the polls.  General
Harrison, in 1840, was nominated instead of Webster or Clay,
who were the leaders of the Whig Party, and doubtless the
favorites at Washington.  In 1844, when Mr. Clay received
the Whig nomination, he was defeated by Mr. Polk, who had,
I suppose, hardly been heard of as a candidate in political
circles at the Capital.  In 1848 the popular feeling again
compelled the nomination of a candidate, General Taylor, over
the favorite leaders at the Capital.  In 1852 Fillmore and
Webster were both rejected by the Whigs for General Scott,
and General Pierce was summoned from private life for the
Democratic nomination.  In 1860 Seward was rejected for Lincoln.
And in 1876 Hayes, whose National service had consisted of
but one term in the House of Representatives, was chosen as
the result of a contest in which Blaine, Conkling, Morton
and Bristow, distinguished National statesmen, were the defeated
competitors.  So, in 1880, Garfield, who had not been much
thought of in official circles, was selected as the result of a
mighty struggle in which Grant and Blaine were the principal
champions, and in which Edmunds and Sherman, who had long
been prominent in the Senate, were also candidates.

Republican National Conventions since the War of the Rebellion
have been embarrassed by another influence, which I hope will
disappear.  In many of the Southern States the Democratic
Party consists almost entirely of whites who have possessed
themselves of the forces of government by criminal processes,
which have been a reproach not only to this country, but to
civilization itself.  The Republicans, however numerous, and
although having a majority of lawful voters in most of these
States, have been excluded from political power.  They have
however, of course, had their full proportionate representation
in the National Convention of the Republican Party.  Their
delegates have too often been persons who had no hope for
political advancement in their own States, and without the
ambition to commend themselves to public favor by honorable
public service, of which that hope is the parent.  They have
been, therefore, frequently either National office-holders
who may reasonably be supposed to be under the influence
of the existing Administration, or likely to be governed
by a hope of receiving a National office as a reward for
their action in the convention; or persons who can be influenced
in their actions by money.  This Southern contingent has been
in several of our National Conventions an uncertain and an
untrustworthy force.

The Republican nominating convention of 1876 was held at Cincinnati
on June 14.  The delegates from Massachusetts were:

_At Large._--E. R. Hoar, Richard H. Dana, Jr., Paul A. Chadbourne,
John M. Forbes.

_From Districts._--William T. Davis, Robert T. Davis, John
E. Sandford, Edward L. Pierce, Henry D. Hyde, J. Felt Osgood,
Alpheus Hardy, C. R. McLean, James M. Shute, James F. Dwinal,
George B. Loring, Henry Carter, William A. Russell, C. H.
Waters, James Freeman Clarke, James Russell Lowell, A. J.
Bartholomew, George F. Hoar, James F. Moore, William Whiting,
Edward Learned, S. R. Phillips.

The struggle for the nomination equalled in bitterness and
in importance many of the contests between different political
parties that had preceded it.  While the great majority of
the Republicans retained confidence in the personal integrity
and patriotism of President Grant, it had become painfully
manifest that he was often an easy victim to the influence
of unscrupulous and designing men.  Grant never lost his hold
upon the hearts of the Northern people.  Wherever there was
a contest in any State for political supremacy the least worthy
faction frequently got his ear and his confidence.  He never
wavered in his attachment to the doctrines of his party--
protection, sound principles of finance and currency, honesty
in elections.  But the old political leaders, whom the people
most trusted, were more and more strangers to his presence,
and ambitious and designing men, adventurers who had gone
South to make fortunes by holding office, men interested in
jobs and contracts, thronged the ante-chambers of the White
House.  The political scandals, always likely to follow a
great war, seemed to be increasing rather than diminishing
during his second term of office.

I never though that the proper way to put an end to this
state of things was to abandon what I deem sound political
principles, or to abandon the party that was formed to establish
them.  I should as soon have thought of turning Tory because
of like complaints in the Revolutionary War, or of asking
George III. to take us into favor again because of like scandals
which existed during the Administrations of Washington and
John Adams.  But I thought, in common with many others, that
a party of sound principles could be made and should be made
a party of pure politics.

The two divisions in the Republican Party, which I have indicated,
marshalled their forces for the struggle in the convention
of 1876.  The friends of Mr. Blaine were generally those Republicans
who had been dissatisfied with the conduct of the Administration.
They embraced, also, the larger number of the enthusiastic
young Republicans, who were attracted by Blaine's brilliant
qualities, as were those who had come in contact with him
by the marvellous personal charm of his delightful and gracious
manners.  Roscoe Conkling was regarded as the leader of the
other party.  The House of Representatives, by an almost unanimous
vote, had adopted the resolution declaring that it was contrary
to sound principle to elect a President for a third term.
So General Grant himself was not a candidate.

But as the time for the convention drew near, there had been
an investigation in the House of Representatives into the
affairs of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, which
had resulted in some uncomfortable revelations with reference
to Mr. Blaine.  He was charged with having acquired stocks
in railroads which were to be affected by National legislation,
either without consideration or for a consideration far below
their true value, and of having eagerly sought to acquire
other similar stocks, the real consideration which he paid,
or expected to pay, being the use of his official influence
in behalf of these corporations.  This investigation, ordered
by the Democratic House of Representatives, was conducted
by a majority of the committee charged with it, in a spirit
of bitter hostility.  The investigation was still in progress
when the Republican Convention met.  The facts, which were
distorted and discolored in public report, impressed many
excellent persons unfavorably to Mr. Blaine, and a few with
a belief of his guilt.  They were used dexterously by his
political opponents and by his rivals in his own party, and
by some conspicuous persons who had, or thought they had,
personal grievances against him, to excite the public mind.
On the other hand, as is natural in such cases, the great
body of Mr. Blaine's friends clung all the closer to him
from a belief that he was the object of unjust and malignant
slander.

I did not think it, under the circumstances, wise to nominate
Mr. Blaine, either in 1876 or later.  I believed then, and
now believe, that he would have been an admirable President
of the United States.  But I did not think it wise to put
at the head of a movement for reform and for purity of administration,
a man whose supporters must defend him against such charges,
and who must admit that he had most unwisely of his own accord
put himself into a position where such charges were not only
possible, but plausible.  But I was exceedingly anxious that
a candidate should be found who would be not only agreeable
to Mr. Blaine and his supporters, but whom, if possible, they
should have a large influence in selecting.

Such a candidate, it was hoped, might be found in Mr. Bristow.
He was a great favorite in his own State.  He was a man of
spotless integrity and great ability.  He had been a Union
soldier.  He was from Kentucky, and his selection as a candidate
would remove the charge of sectionalism from the Republican
Party, and tend to give it strength with the white people
of the South.  He had made an admirable Attorney-General,
and an admirable Secretary of the Treasury.  He had been appointed
to the Cabinet by Grant.  He had not been long enough in public
service to have encountered the enmities which almost always
attach themselves to men long in office, and he represented
no clique or faction.  He was a man of clean hands and of
pure heart.  For a good while it seemed as if the rival aspirations
of Blaine and Bristow might exist without ill-feeling, so
that when the time came, the supporters of either might easily
give their support to the other, or agree without difficulty
in the support of some third person.  I gave a banquet at
Wormley's in the spring of 1876, which I hoped might have
some tendency toward this desired harmony.  There were about
forty guests.  Mr. Blaine sat on my right hand as the guest
of honor, and Mr. Bristow on the left.  They talked together,
as I sat between them, during the whole evening in the most
friendly and delightful way, telling humorous anecdotes relating
to their own campaigns, as pleasantly as if they had been
describing the canvass of some third person whom they were
both supporting.  I do not believe there was at that time
in the heart of either a tinge of anger against the other.

But as the contest went on, Mr. Blaine seems to have become
possessed with a belief that the bitter public attacks upon
him were instigated by Bristow.  Some of the Kentucky papers
had been specially bitter.  The Republican Convention opened
in Cincinnati, Wednesday, June 14.  The Sunday morning before
Mr. Blaine fell in a swoon on the steps of the church at the
corner of G and Tenth Streets in Washington.  He was carried
to his house on Fifteenth Street.  Bristow was in his office
in the Treasury Department when a friend called upon him,
and gave him the news of Blaine's attack, and said: "Would
it not be well for you to go round and express your interest?"
Bristow took his hat, and the two friends went together to
Mr. Blaine's house.

An occurrence took place there which satisfied them both
that the feeling against Bristow on the part of Mr. Blaine
and his near friends was exceedingly strong and implacable.
The story was immediately telegraphed in cipher to Mr. Bristow's
principal manager at Cincinnati, from whom I had it a day
or two before committing it to paper.  The facts were communicated
by him in confidence to members of the Kentucky delegation.

On the first six ballots the total number of votes cast was
754.  Three hundred and seventy-eight were necessary for
a choice.  Mr. Blaine received votes varying from 285 on
the first ballot to 308 on the sixth.  On all these ballots, but
two, Bristow had the second largest number, ranging from
111 to 126.  On the first and second ballot he was led by
Morton, who had 124 and 120 votes, and was closely followed
by Conkling, whose highest vote was 99.  At the end of the
sixth ballot it had become manifest that the opponents of
Blaine, if they expected to succeed, must unite on a candidate.
A portion of the Pennsylvania delegation had already voted
for Blaine, who was a native of that State.  Others had been
held in restraint from voting for him with difficulty, by
the influence of Don Cameron, chairman of the delegation and
a strong adherent of Grant.  The New York Conkling men and
the majority of the Pennsylvania delegation, led by Cameron,
determined to cast their votes for Hayes, of Ohio, to prevent
the nomination of Blaine.  In doing that they were to unite
with their most earnest antagonists and give their support
to a candidate who probably sympathized with them less than
any other on the list.  It was manifest to the Kentucky delegation
that they must make their choice between Blaine and Hayes,
and that their choice would decide the nomination.  They had
a hurried consultation and determined to vote unanimously
for Hayes.  The going over of Kentucky to Hayes was followed
by the other States that had opposed Blaine.  Hayes had on
the final ballot 384 votes, Blaine 351, and there were 21
cast for Bristow, which had been cast by States standing
earlier in alphabetical order on the roll, who had cast their
votes before the stampede began.  If Kentucky had cast her
24 votes for Blaine, he would have been nominated.  I was
told by the close friend of Bristow, of whom I have spoken,
and I have no doubt he is right, that the Kentucky Republicans
had felt very kindly toward Blaine, and their action was determined
by the knowledge of the transaction I have just related.  They
thought that if this bitterness and anger and dislike of Mr.
Bristow existed in the mind of Mr. Blaine, it was hardly
worth while for Bristow's friends and supporters to clothe
him with the Presidential office.  If Bristow had not visited
Blaine's house that Sunday morning, Blaine would, in my opinion,
have been the Republican candidate for the Presidency.

What would have been the result if Mr. Blaine had been nominated
in 1876, it is now idle to speculate.  I am satisfied, in
looking back, that I myself underrated his strength as a candidate.
But it seems likely that he would have had the votes of all
the States which President Hayes received, and would have
been stronger than Hayes in New York.

Mr. Hayes came to the Presidency under circumstances of great
difficulty and embarrassment.  He was in my judgment one of
the wisest, sincerest and most honest and patriotic men who
ever held the office.

But President Hayes's Administration was embarrassed by the
disputes about his title.  The House of Representatives was
against him in the first Congress of his term, and in the
second Congress the Senate and House were in the hands of
his political opponents.  He also throughout the whole term
had to encounter the hardly disguised hostility of nearly
all the great leaders of his own party in both Houses of Congress.
Conkling never spoke of him in public or private without a
sneer.  I suppose he did not visit the White House or any
Department during President Hayes's term.  Mr. Blaine was
much disappointed by President Hayes's refusal to give Mr.
Frye a place in the Cabinet, which he desired as a means of
composing some incipient jealousies in Maine.  Hamlin, who
was a very influential Senator, was much disgusted by the
President's inclination to reform the civil service.  This
feeling was largely shared by Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania,
an able and patriotic man, who ruled the Republican Party
in that State with a despotic hand, and had as little respect
for the doctrines of the civil service reformers as you might
expect from one of his Highland ancestors who ruled over the
Clan Cameron in the days of the Scotch Stuarts.  Cameron
had also a personal grievance, although I do not think that
made any difference in his feeling.  He had been proposed
by the Pennsylvania delegation for the appointment to the
English Mission.  But the proposition had not been received
with favor by President Hayes.  Under these difficulties,
it is greatly to his honor that so much of public good was
accomplished in his time, and that he handed over the Government
to a Republican successor.


CHAPTER XXVIII
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS
1880

As the time approached for the Republican Convention of 1880,
it had become clear that it would witness a mighty struggle.
Conkling, Don Cameron, who had succeeded to his father's power
in Pennsylvania, and Logan, of Illinois, the most distinguished
volunteer soldier of the war, and a great favorite with his
old comrades, were the most conspicuous leaders of the party
who desired to restore the old Grant regime.  They were seconded
by Howe, formerly Senator from Wisconsin and later Postmaster-
General under President Arthur, Creswell, of Maryland, Postmaster-
General in Grant's first term, Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts,
who had a very distinguished public career as Governor, member
of the House of Representatives, Secretary of the Treasury,
and Senator.  They selected as their candidate their old chieftain,
General Grant.  He was strong not only in the powerful support
of these great political leaders, but in the solid confidence
of the great Methodist denomination to which he belonged,
in the love of the old soldiers, in the memory of his great
public service, both in war and peace, and the general respect
of the whole American people.  Against this was the unwritten,
but well-understood, rule of action by which the people had
been governed since the time of Washington, that no person
should be elected to the office of President for more than
two terms.  Against him, also, was the feeling that his judgment,
which had been sound and unerring in the selection of fit
men for good military service, was very much at fault in choosing
men in whom he should confide in civil affairs.  There was
a further feeling that the influence of unworthy politicians,
which had been powerful with him during his second term, would
be more powerful if he should go back to the Presidency with
their aid.

Mr. Blaine's old popularity had been increased in the four
years since his former defeat.  Many people believed that
he had been not only unjustly but cruelly treated, and were
eager to record their verdict of acquittal from the malignant
charges which had been made against him since 1876.  There
was a third class, of whom I was one, who felt that it would
be unwise to nominate either General Grant or Mr. Blaine.
While they had a great respect for the character of Grant,
they dreaded the influences which would be sure to surround
him, if he should come to the Presidency again.  While they
had the kindliest feeling for Mr. Blaine and shared the public
indignation at the character of the attacks of which he had
been the victim, they did not like to have a candidate who
would be so handicapped.  Mr. Blaine's own imprudence had
unquestionably given an opportunity and a plausibility to
these slanders.  They thought, also, that the nomination of
either Grant or Blaine would create a feeling of anger and
disappointment in the supporters of the defeated candidate,
which would seriously endanger the election.  They looked
about, therefore, for a person who might not be obnoxious
to either the Blaine men or the Grant men, and found such
a person in Mr. Edmunds of Vermont.  He was a man of ability
and long public service.  He was not a person calculated to
inspire much popular enthusiasm, but answered very well as
a standard-bearer, although his supporters were ready to transfer
their support to another candidate, other than Blaine or Grant,
on whom a majority of the Convention should be brought to
unite.  Mr. Sherman had also a considerable body of supporters
who respected him for his eminent talents and long and valuable
services.

General Grant had a peculiarly strong hold on the Republicans
of Massachusetts.  They shared with all patriotic men throughout
the country a profound gratitude for his illustrious military
services.  They had been impressed by a feeling of great respect
for his personal qualities. The modesty which led him to refuse
to enter Richmond in triumph at the close of the war; the
simplicity of his behavior; the magnanimity which led him
to claim so little praise for himself and give so much of
the credit to which he was entitled to Sheridan and Sherman,
and others of his military associates; his incorruptible personal
honesty; his soundness and firmness in dealing with all questions
affecting the public credit, the integrity of the currency,
and the rights of citizenship, had endeared him to the people
of a Commonwealth which ever valued such traits in her public
men.  The Methodist denomination, always large in Massachusetts
and powerful in her Republican councils, was proud that this
statesman and warrior was of its fold.  As the time for the
convention approached, four ex-Governors, men of great personal
influence, leaders in the Republican Party, yet of highly
different character, who represented very different shades
of Republican opinion--Boutwell, Bullock, Claflin and Rice--
declared themselves in favor of nominating him again.  Nothing
could have prevented his carrying Massachusetts as by a great
wave, but the fact that he had been, in his second term, subject
to a most unworthy influence in the matter of appointments
to public office.  The whole National executive patronage
in Massachusetts seemed given up to advancing the personal
fortunes of General Butler.  Brave soldiers, honored Republicans,
were turned out of post-offices, to be replaced by incompetent
and dishonorable adventurers, odious in the neighborhoods
from which they came, to please this ambitious and unscrupulous
man.  This excited a deep indignation which culminated when
William A. Simmons was made Collector of Boston.  No personal
respect for General Grant could induce the Massachusetts Republicans
to run the risk of having again a President who was subjected
to personal influences like these.  But for the appointment
of Simmons as the principal Federal officer in Massachusetts,
I think she would have supported Grant for a third term.  The
Edmunds movement would never have been made, and his nomination
at Chicago would have been certain.

The State Convention passed resolutions in favor of Mr. Edmunds,
and elected as Delegates-at-Large, George F. Hoar, Worcester;
Charles B. Codman, Boston; John E. Sanford, Taunton; and
Julius H. Seelye, Amherst.

The District Delegates were:  Charles W. Clifford, New Bedford;
Azariah Eldridge, Yarmouth; William C. Lovering, Taunton;
F. A. Hobart, Braintree; Phineas Pierce, Boston; Choate Burnham,
Boston; Eustice C. Fitz, Chelsea; Daniel Russell, Melrose;
Dudley Porter, Haverhill; N. A. Horton, Salem; George S.
Boutwell, Groton; George A. Marden, Lowell; R. M. Morse,
Jr., Boston; George W. Johnson, Milford; W. S. B. Hopkins,
Worcester; William Knowlton, Upton; Alpheus Harding, Athol;
Timothy Merrick, Holyoke; Wellington Smith, Lee; M. B. Whitney,
Westfield.

Of these, three were in favor of Grant, namely, Boutwell,
Eldridge, Marden; two were in favor of Sherman, and one for
Washburn.

The others voted for Mr. Edmunds in the beginning, meaning
to defeat both Grant and Blaine if they could, and were ready
to agree on any man of respectable character and capacity
by whom that defeat could be accomplished.

George F. Edmunds had a high reputation in the country as
an able lawyer, and a faithful and independent Senator.  He
had unquestionably rendered great public service in the Senate.
If elected, I believe he would have administered the Presidency
on the principles which a large majority of the people of
Massachusetts hold.  He was an excellent debater.  He was
very fond of criticising and objecting to what was proposed
by other men.  He seemed never so happy as when in opposition
to the majority of his associates.  But he possessed what
persons of that temper commonly lack, great capacity for constructive
statesmanship.  Any measure of which he was the author would
be likely to accomplish its purpose, and to stand fire.

David Davis, who was President pro tempore of the Senate,
used to say he could always compel Edmunds to vote in the
negative on any question by putting the question in the old
New England fashion, "Contrary-minded will say no," for Edmunds
was always contrary-minded.  I once told him, borrowing a
saying of an Englishman, that if George Edmunds were the only
man in the world, George would object to everything Edmunds
proposed.

The morning after the Massachusetts Convention of 1880, when
the convention passed resolutions, proposing Edmunds as a
candidate for the Presidency, and placing me first on the
delegation at large, Edmunds came to me and said, I have no
doubt with absolute sincerity:  "I have seen the proceedings
of your convention yesterday.  If I know myself, I have no
desire to be President of the United States.  I do not think
I am fit for it, and if I were, I should much prefer my present
service as Senator.  I would say so in a public letter, but
I suppose the chances of my nomination are so slight that
it might seem ridiculous to decline." I said: "But, Edmunds,
just think of the fun you would have vetoing bills." He smiled,
and his countenance beamed all over with satisfaction at the
idea, and he replied, with great feeling: "Well, that would
be good fun."

So while, as I have said, the Massachusetts delegates, most
of them, supported Mr. Edmunds as a person likely to hold
some votes until the opposition to Grant might be concentrated
on some other candidate to be agreed on as the proceedings
of the convention went on, and while I think he would have
made an excellent President if he had been chosen, his candidacy
was never a very strong one.

This convention was menaced by a very serious peril.  A plan
was devised which, if it had been successful, would, in my
judgment, have caused a rupture in the convention and the
defeat of the Republican Party in the election.  The Chairman
of the Republican National Committee was Don Cameron of Pennsylvania,
then and for some years afterward a Senator of the United
States from that State.  He was an ardent supporter of President
Grant and had been Secretary of War in his Cabinet, as his
father had been in the Cabinet of President Lincoln.  Like
his father before him, he had ruled the Republican Party of
Pennsylvania with a strong hand.  He was not given to much
speaking.  He was an admirable executive officer, self-reliant,
powerful, courageous and enterprising, with little respect
for the discontent of subordinates.  He was supported by a
majority of the delegates from Pennsylvania, although Blaine,
who was a native of that State, had a large following there.
The New York delegation was headed by Roscoe Conkling, who
had great influence over Grant when he was President, and
expected to retain that influence if he became President
again.  The Maryland delegation was headed by J. A. J. Creswell,
who had been Postmaster-General more than five years in Grant's
two Administrations.  On the Massachusetts delegation, as
I have said, was Governor Boutwell, Grant's Secretary of the
Treasury during nearly the whole of his first term, and on
that from Illinois John A. Logan.  These men had a large following
over the whole country.  There were three hundred and eight
persons in the convention who could be counted on to support
Grant from beginning to end, and about a dozen more were exceedingly
disposed to his candidacy.  The State Conventions of the
three largest and most powerful States, New York, Pennsylvania
and Illinois, and possibly one or two others, that I do not
now remember, had instructed their delegates to vote as a
unit for the candidate who should be agreed upon by the majority.
Grant had a majority in each of these States.  But there was
a minority of 18 in Illinois, 26 in Pennsylvania, and 19 in
New York, who were for other candidates than Grant.  If their
votes had been counted for him it would have given Grant on
the first ballot 367 votes, 13 less than the number necessary
for a choice.  As his votes went up on one of the ballots
to 313, it is pretty certain that counting these 63 votes
for Grant would have insured his nomination.  But there were
several contests involving the title of their seats of 16
delegates from the State of Louisiana, 18 from Illinois, and
three others.  In regard to these cases the delegates voted
in accordance with their preference for candidates.  This
was beside several other contests where the vote was not determined
by that consideration.  Now if the vote of Illinois, Pennsylvania
and New York had each been cast as a unit, in accordance
with the preference of the majority of the delegation in
each case, these 37 votes would have been added to Grant's
column and subtracted from the forces of his various antagonists;
and the 63 votes of the minority of the delegations in these
three States would also have been added to the Grant column,
which would have given him a total vote of more than 400,
enough to secure his nomination.  So the result of the convention
was to be determined by the adaption or rejection of what
was called the unit rule.

Don Cameron, the Chairman of the National Committee, left
the Senate for Chicago about ten days, I think, before the
day fixed for the meeting of the convention.  It was whispered
about before his departure that a scheme had been resolved
upon by him and the other Grant leaders, which would compel
the adoption of the unit rule, whatever might be the desire
of the convention itself.  It was his duty, according to established
custom, to call the convention to order and to receive nominations
for temporary presiding officer.  He was pledged, upon those
nominations, as it was understood, to hold that the unit rule
must be applied.  In that way the sitting members from the
disputed States and districts would be permitted to vote, and
the votes of the three States would be cast without dissent
for the Grant candidate.  When the temporary President took
his place he would rule in the same way on the question of
the choice of a permanent President, and the permanent President
would rule in the same way on the conflicting votes, for the
appointment of committees, for determining the seats of delegates,
and finally the nomination of the candidates for President
and Vice-President.  If the minority claimed the right to
vote and took an appeal from his decision, he was to hold
that on the vote on that appeal the same unit rule was to
apply.  If a second point of order were raised, he would hold,
of course, that a second point of order could not be raised
while the first was pending.  So the way seemed clear to exclude
the contesting delegates, to cast the votes of the three great
States solid for Grant, and compel his nomination.

But the majority of the National Committee, of which Cameron
was Chairman, was opposed to Grant.  They met, I think, the
day before the meeting of the convention to make the preliminary
arrangements.  Mr. Cameron, the Chairman, was asked whether
it was his purpose to carry out the scheme I have indicated.
He refused to answer.  A motion was then made that the Chairman,
after calling the convention to order, be instructed to receive
the vote of the individual delegates without regard to the
instruction of the majority of their delegation.  Cameron
refused to receive motions on that question, saying that it
was a matter beyond the jurisdiction of the committee.  A
large part of the entire day was spent in various attempts
to induce Cameron either to give a pledge or permit a resolution
to be entertained by the committee, instructing him as to
his action.  He was supported by Mr. Gorham, of California,
who I believe was not a member of the committee, but was
present either as Secretary or as _Amicus Curiae_.  He was
an experienced parliamentarian, and for a long time had been
Secretary of the Senate of the United States.  The discussion
for the majority was conducted largely by Mr. Chandler, of
New Hampshire, afterward Secretary of the Navy, and later
Senator.  After spending a large part of the day in that discussion,
some time in the afternoon an intimation was made, informally,
and in a rather veiled fashion, that, unless they had more
satisfactory pledges from Mr. Cameron, he would be removed
from the office of Chairman, and a person who would carry
out the wishes of the committee be substituted.  The committee
then adjourned until the next morning.  Meantime the Grant
managers applied to Colonel Strong, of Illinois, who had been
already appointed Sergeant-at-Arms by the committee, and
who was a supporter of Grant, to ascertain whether, if the
committee were to remove Cameron and appoint another chairman,
he would recognize him as a person entitled to call the convention
to order and preside until a temporary Chairman was chosen,
and would execute his lawful orders, or whether he would treat
them as without effect and would execute the orders of Cameron.
He desired time of consideration, which was conceded.  He
consulted Senator Philetus Sawyer of Wisconsin, who was himself
in favor of General Grant, but who desired above all things
the success of the Republican Party, and was not ready for
any unlawful or revolutionary action.  Mr. Sawyer was a business
man of plain manners, and though of large experience in public
life, was not much versed in parliamentary law.  He called
into consultation ex-Senator Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin,
formerly Senator from that State, and afterward Postmaster-
General under Arthur.  He was a very able and clear-headed
lawyer, and had a high reputation for integrity.  He advised
Mr. Strong that the committee might lawfully depose their
Chairman and appoint another, and that it would be his duty,
as Sergeant-at-Arms, to recognize the new Chairman and obey
his lawful orders.  Strong was under great obligations to
Sawyer, who had aided him very largely in business matters,
and had a high respect for his judgment.  He gave his response
to the Grant leaders in accordance with the advice of Mr.
Howe, in which Senator Sawyer concurred.  They had intended
to make General Creswell the President of the convention.
But finding it impossible to carry their plans into effect,
in order to prevent the severe measure of deposing the Chairman
of the committee, they consented that the assurances demanded
should be given.  There was then a negotiation between the
leaders on the side of Grant and of Blaine for an agreement
upon a presiding officer.  It was well known that I was not
in favor of the nomination of either.  Senator Hamlin, formerly
Vice-President and then a Senator, proposed my name to Mr.
Conkling as a person likely to be impartial between the two
principal candidates.  Mr. Conkling replied that such a suggestion
was an insult.  Hamlin said: "I guess I can stand the insult."
But on consultation of the Grant men and the Blaine men it
was agreed that I should be selected, which was done accordingly.
I was nominated orally from the floor when Mr. Cameron called
the convention to order, and chosen temporary President by
acclamation and unanimously.  As proceedings went on it was
thought best not to have any division or question as to a
permanent Chairman and it was at the proper time ordered,
also without objection, that I should act as permanent President.

But the Grant leaders were still confident.  They felt sure
that none of their original votes, numbering three hundred
and more, would desert them, and that it would be impossible
for the rest of the convention, divided among so many candidates,
to agree, and that they would in the end get a majority.

I was myself exceedingly anxious on this subject.  I also
felt that if the followers of Grant could get any pretext for
getting an advantage by any claim, however doubtful, that
they would avail themselves of it, even at the risk of breaking
up the convention in disorder, rather than be baffled in
their object.  So the time to me was one of great and distressing
responsibility.  The forces of Grant were led on the floor
of the convention by Roscoe Conkling, who nominated him in
a speech of great power and eloquence.  The forces of Blaine
were led, as they had been in 1876, very skilfuly by Senators
Hale and Frye.  Garfield was the leader of the supporters
of Mr. Sherman.  One of the greatest oratoric triumphs I ever
witnessed was obtained by Garfield.  There had been a storm
of applause, lasting, I think, twenty-five minutes, at the
close of Conkling's nominating speech.  It was said there
were fifteen thousand persons in the galleries, which came
down very near the level of the floor.  The scene was of indescribable
sublimity.  The fate of the country, certainly the fate of
a great political party, was at stake, and, more than that,
the selection of the ruler of a nation of fifty millions of
people--a question which in other countries could not have
been determined, under like circumstances, without bloodshed
or civil war.  I do not think I shall be charged with exaggeration
when I speak of it in this way.  I can only compare it in
its grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty torrent of Niagara.
Perhaps I cannot give a satisfactory reason for so distinguishing
it from other like assemblies that have gathered in this country.
But I have since seen a great number of persons from all parts
of the country who were present as members or spectators,
and they all speak of it in the same way.  A vast portion
of the persons present in the hall sympathized deeply with
the supporters of Grant.  Conkling's speech, as he stood
almost in the centre of that great assembly on a platform
just above the heads of the convention, was a masterpiece
of splendid oratory.  He began:

  And when asked what State he hails from,
  Our sole reply shall be,
  He comes from Appomattox,
  And its famous apple-tree.

It was pretty difficult for Garfield to follow this speech
in the tempest of applause which came after it.  There was
nothing stimulant or romantic in the plain wisdom of John
Sherman.  It was like reading a passage from "Poor Richard's
Almanac" after one of the lofty chapters of the Psalms of
David.  Garfield began, quietly:

"I have witnessed the extraordinary scene of this convention
with deep solicitude.  Nothing touches my heart more quickly
than a tribute of honor to a great and noble character.  But
as I sat in my seat and witnessed this demonstration, this
assemblage seemed to me a human ocean in a tempest.  I have
seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its
grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember
that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea
from which all heights and depths are measured.  When the
storm has passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean,
when the sunlight bathes its peaceful surface, then the astronomer
and surveyor take the level from which they measure all terrestrial
heights and depths.

"Gentlemen of the Convention, your present temper may not
mark the healthful pulse of our people.  When your enthusiasm
has passed, when the emotions of the hour have subsided, we
shall find below this storm and passion that calm level of
public opinion from which the thoughts of a mighty people
are to be measured, and by which their final action will be
determined.

"Not here, in this brilliant circle where fifteen thousand
men and women are gathered, is the destiny of the Republic
to be decreed for the next four years--not here, where I see
the enthusiastic faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates,
waiting to cast their lot into the urn and determine the choice
of the Republic; but by four millions of Republican firesides,
where the thoughtful voters, with wives and children about
them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of home and
country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future,
and reverence for the great men who have adorned and blessed
our nation in days gone by, burning in their hearts--_there_
God prepares the verdict which will determine the wisdom of
our work to-night.  Not in Chicago, in the heat of June, but
at the ballot-boxes of the Republic, in the quiet of November,
after the silence of deliberate judgment, will this question
be settled."

Conkling, while exciting the admiration of all men for his
dexterity and ability, lost ground at every step.  He made
a foolish attempt to compel the passage of a resolution depriving
of their rights to vote delegates who refused to pledge themselves
to support the choice of the convention whoever it might be.
His speech nominating Grant contained a sneer at Blaine.  So,
while he held his forces together to the last, he made it
almost impossible for any man who differed from him in the
beginning to come to him at the end.  On the contrary everything
that Garfield said was marked by good nature and good sense.
I said on the first day of the convention that in my opinion
if the delegates could be shut up by themselves and not permitted
to leave the room until they agreed, the man on whom they
would agree would be General Garfield.  This desire became
more and more apparent as the convention went on.  At last,
on the thirty-sixth ballot, and the sixth day of the convention,
the delegates who had previously voted for other candidates
than Grant, began to wheel into line for Garfield.  Garfield
had one vote from the State of Pennsylvania in previous ballots.
But on the thirty-fourth ballot Wisconsin, the last State
to vote in alphabetical order, had given him her sixteen votes,
and on the thirty-sixth ballot she was joined by the delegates
who had voted for other candidates than Grant.  Grant held
together his forces till the last, receiving three hundred
and thirteen votes on the thirty-fifth ballot, and three hundred
and six on the thirty-sixth.  It was a sublime moment, which
it was hoped would determine the destiny of the Republic for
many years, a hope which was cruelly disappointed by Garfield's
untimely death.  It was, as might be well believed, a moment
of sublime satisfaction to me.  Garfield had been my friend
for many years.  I had sat close to him in the House of Representatives
for three terms of Congressional service.  He had been my
guest at my house in Worcester; and I had been his colleague
on the Electoral Commission in 1876.  He had been educated
at a Massachusetts college.  He was of old Middlesex County
stock.  We were in thorough accord in our love for New England,
our firm faith in her hereditary principles, and our pride
in her noble history.

Garfield has been charged, in accepting the nomination for
the Presidency, with having been untrue to the interests
of John Sherman, who was the candidate of Ohio, and whom Garfield
had supported faithfully through every ballot.  The charge
is absolutely unjust.  Mr. Sherman's nomination was seen by
everybody to have been absolutely impossible long before the
final result.  I was in constant consultation with leaders
of the different delegations who were trying to unite their
forces.  There never was any considerable number of those
persons who thought the nomination of Mr. Sherman practicable,
notwithstanding the high personal respect in which they held
him.  At the close of the thirty-fourth ballot, when Garfield
received seventeen votes, he rose, and the following incident
took place:

  Mr. Garfield, of Ohio:  "Mr. President, ----"
  The President:  "For what purpose does the gentleman rise?"
  Mr. Garfield:  "I rise to a question of order."
  The President:  "The gentleman from Ohio rises to a question
  of order."
  Mr. Garfield:  "I challenge the correctness of the
  announcement.  The announcement contains votes for me.
  No man has a right, without the consent of the person voted
  for, to announce that person's name, and vote for him, in
  this convention.  Such consent I have not given."
  The President:  "The gentleman from Ohio is not stating
  a question of order.  He will resume his seat.  No
  person having received a majority of the votes cast, another
  ballot will be taken.  The Clerk will call the roll."

This verbatim report is absolutely correct, except that where
there is a period at the end of Mr. Garfield's last sentence
there should be a dash, indicating that the sentence was not
finished.  I recollect the incident perfectly.  I interrupted
him in the middle of his sentence.  I was terribly afraid that
he would say something that would make his nomination impossible,
or his acceptance impossible, if it were made.  I do not believe
it ever happened before that anybody who attempted to decline
the Presidency of the United States was to be prevented by
a point of order, or that such a thing will ever happen again.

During the thirtieth ballot a vote was cast by a delegate
from the Territory of Wyoming for General Philip H. Sheridan.
General Sheridan, who was upon the platform as a spectator,
came forward instantly, and said:  "I am very much obliged
to the delegate from Wyoming for mentioning my name in this
convention, but there is no way in which I could accept a
nomination from this convention, if it were possible, unless
I should be permitted to turn it over to my best friend."
The President said:  "The Chair presumed the unanimous consent
of the convention to permit the illustrious soldier who has
spoken to interrupt its order for its purpose.  But it will
be a privilege accorded to no other person whatever." The
General's prompt suppression of this attempt to make him a
candidate was done in a direct and blunt soldierly fashion.
I did not think it best to apply to him the strictness of
parliamentary law; and in that I was sure of the approval
of the convention.  But the precedent of permitting such a
body to be addressed under any circumstances by a person not
a member would be a dangerous one, if repeated.  Perhaps I
may with propriety add one thing of a personal nature.  It
has been sometimes charged that the delegates from Massachusetts
were without great influence in shaping the result of this
convention.  They moved, and carried, against a formidable
opposition, the civil service plank, which embodied the doctrine
of civil service reform as among the doctrines of the Republican
Party.  Of whatever value may be attributed to the humble
services of the President of the Convention, they are entitled
to the credit.  They had, I think, more to do than any other
delegation with effecting the union upon Garfield.  Of course
the wishes of Mr. Blaine had very great influence indeed.
I think he preferred Garfield to any other person except Robert
Lincoln, of Illinois, of whom he spoke to me as a person from
whom it would be impossible to keep the votes of the colored
delegates from the South, and who would be, by reason of the
respect felt for his father's memory, highly acceptable through
the country.  But Mr. Lincoln, under the circumstances, could
not have got the support of his own State, and without it
it seemed unwise to attempt a union upon him.

But to continue with what is personal to myself and the delegation
from Massachusetts.  When I got back to the Capitol, as I
went into the cloak-room of the Senate to leave my hat, Don
Cameron sat there surrounded by a group of interested listeners.
He was relating to them the story of the great contest.  As
I approached the group he looked up and said:

"There comes Massachusetts.  There were twenty-three men from
Massachusetts who went there to keep six hundred men from
doing what they wanted to.  And, by God, they did it."

A few Sundays after his inauguration, during the spring session
of the Senate, President Garfield invited Mrs. Hoar and myself
to dinner at the White House.  President Hopkins, his old
friend and teacher, and Mrs. Hopkins were there.  There were
no other guests, except Judge Nott and his wife, President
Hopkins's daughter, President Garfield's mother, and, I think,
Mr. Archibald Hopkins, President Hopkins's son.  President
Garfield asked me to remain after President Hopkins had taken
his leave.  I had a long and interesting conversation with
him about his plans and purposes, and especially the difficulties
which were then showing themselves in regard to the great
New York appointments.  Before I went upstairs, he gave his
arm to my wife and walked with her about the East room.  He
said to her:  "I hope I may live to repay your husband for
all he has done for me."  Perhaps I am indulging in an unpardonable
vanity in relating this testimony of two of the most interested
parties and most competent observers as to the value of the
work of the Massachusetts delegation in that convention.

I hope that somewhere before I die I may put on record my
estimate of James A. Garfield, when I can say some things
which ought to be said, and for which there is not room in
this book and was not room in the eulogy delivered just after
his death.  It is the fashion, even among his friends, to
speak of him as a person timid if not time-serving, and as
easily swayed and moulded by a strong will.  I have heard
men who knew him very well say that when he led the House
on the Republican side, and had led his party into a position
which excited sharp conflict, they never could be sure that
he would not get wrong at the last moment, or have some private
understanding with the Democrats and leave his own side in
the lurch.  This was attributed to moral timidity.  I feel
very sure that this is a great mistake.  Garfield's hesitation,
want of certainty in his convictions, liability to change
his position suddenly, were in my opinion the result of intellectual
hesitation and of a habit of going down to the roots of his
subject before he made up his mind.  He had a great deference
for other men's opinions.  When, after he had expressed his
opinion, some strong and positive man came to him with a confident
utterance of a different opinion, unless Garfield had gone
to the bottom of the subject himself, he was very likely to
defer, to hesitate, to think himself mistaken.  But when he
had had time and had thought the thing out and made up his
mind, nobody and no consideration of personal interest or
advantage would stir him an inch.  I suppose his courage and
genius as a soldier have never been questioned.  He performed
some very important military exploits.  He gave a thorough
investigation into the military conditions of Tennessee and
Kentucky, and his letter to the Department of War accomplished
a great deal toward putting things in a better way.  He was
a thorough lover of his country.  He hesitated long as to
the doctrine of protection, and undoubtedly made some inconsistent
utterances before he took the ground which he held at last.  But
he studied the financial question, especially the great subjects
of currency and the standard of value, to the very bottom.
He stood like a rock when Ohio and the whole West seemed to
be going against him, and when the statesmanship even of John
Sherman was of the willow and not of the oak.  When his District
Convention met and passed resolutions in favor of paying interest
on the Government bonds with paper, Garfield declared that
he would not take the nomination on such a platform.  The
good fight he made in Ohio turned the scale in that great
struggle.  I do not believe he wold have been a tool or servant
in the Presidency.  He would have mastered for himself the
great subjects to be dealt with in our foreign policy, as
well as in domestic administration and legislation.  His will
would, in my opinion, if he had been spared to us, have been
the dominant will in our Government for eight fortunate and
happy years.  Next to the assassination of Lincoln, his death
was the greatest national misfortune ever caused to this country
by the loss of a single life.

I have not the slightest respect for the suggestion that
General Garfield in the least violated his honor or good
faith in consenting to accept the nomination after he had
been elected as a delegate in the interest of Mr. Sherman.
The office of the President is not personal.  There can be
no such thing as a personal claim upon it, or a personal
obligation in regard to it.  President Garfield got no advantage
whatever from the fact that he had favored Mr. Sherman.  Mr.
Sherman's nomination was an impossibility from the beginning.
That the majority of the convention united upon Garfield was
due to the fact that he had no enemies or antagonists in the
convention or among the people and, to some degree undoubtedly,
also to the admiration felt by his fellow-delegates for the
tact, sense and good nature which he showed in its discussions--
qualities which were in marked contrast with those of his
very able and powerful antagonist, Mr. Conkling.

Beside, when the voting for Garfield in the Convention began,
a dispatch was received from Mr. Sherman urging his friends
to unite in Garfield's support.  That was before Garfield
had taken any action, except an earnest attempt to decline
the nomination which, as I have already stated, was suppressed
by a peremptory exercise of the authority of the chair.

I have given more than once my estimate of James A.  Garfield,
although not as fully as I should like.  Shortly after his
death I delivered a eulogy before the people of Worcester
at the request of the City Government.  I was asked by John
Sherman, who more than anybody else had the matter in charge,
to deliver the eulogy before the two Houses of Congress.  But
Mr. Sherman had spoken without due authority.  The Committee
of the two Houses determined to invite Mr. Blaine, then Secretary
of State.  That arrangement was required by every consideration
of propriety, and was in all respects the best possible.  Mr.
Blaine's address on Garfield is one of the treasures of our
literature.  It would have been a great public misfortune
if that noble oration had been lost to the world.

I knew Garfield very intimately.  For six of the eight years
I served in the House with him my seat was so near his that
we could converse with each other in whispers.  By a singular
chapter of accidents our families had been closely associated
in several generations, although neither of us knew it until
long after our friendship began.

The land of Captain John Sherman and the land of Captain John
Prescott, both my ancestors on the mother's side, adjoined
the land of Edward Garfield, the ancestor of the President,
in Watertown.  His land lay on both sides of what is now the
line between Waltham and Watertown.  Captain Benjamin Garfield,
who may be properly called the founder of Waltham, was the
leader of an earnest and protracted controversy in Watertown
in which my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Sherman, was leader
on the other side.

Lieutenant Thomas Garfield, another of the President's ancestors
in the direct line, built a house in that part of Watertown,
afterward Weston, which later still was incorporated with
parts of Concord and Lexington as the town of Lincoln.  He
and his son Thomas were among the first incorporators, of
whom my great-grandfather, John Hoar, was also one.  Thomas
Garfield built a house now standing at the end of a grass-
grown lane about forty rods from the high road leading from
Lincoln to Waltham and about two miles south from the centre
of Lincoln.  It is a secluded spot of great beauty.  The house,
a square, unpainted, two-story house with a great chimney
in the middle, stands surrounded by old elms and apple trees,
in a tract of fertile meadow, with the Lincoln hill in the
distance.  This estate passed from Lieutenant Thomas Garfield
to his son Thomas, Jr., from him to his daughter Rebecca,
wife of David Fiske, from her to her son Elijah Fiske, and
from him to his children.  One of these children married my
cousin.  I attended the wedding in my boyhood in the old Garfield
house.

Abram Garfield, son of the second Thomas, the President's
great-uncle, from whom his middle name came to him, was a
soldier at Concord Bridge on the 19th of April, 1775, in the
Lincoln Company of which my grandfather, Samuel Hoar, was
Lieutenant and my two great-grandfathers served as privates.
The depositions of Abram Garfield and John Hoar as to the
facts of the Concord fight were taken with others by the patriots
and sent to England for their vindication.  This Abram Garfield
died in the summer of 1775, a few months after the battle
at Concord.  His grave, with that of his father and grandfather,
the President's direct ancestors, is close to the graves of
my own ancestors in the Lincoln burial-ground.

The President's great-grandfather settled in Westminster.
His land was close by the land of my wife's great-grandfather,
and not far from the spot where her father was born.  His
house is still standing in Westminster.  My grandfather's
uncle, Daniel Hoar, was one of the founders of that town and
owned land not far off.

So our friendship came by lawful inheritance.  I discovered
myself many of these facts relating to his ancestry which
had been previously unknown to him.  I have from him a letter
written the day before he was assassinated in which he promises
after visiting Williams College and the White Mountains to
meet me at Concord and to spend the night with my brother
there and visit the dwelling and burial places of his ancestors
in Lincoln and then to come to Worcester as my guest.

James A. Garfield was a man of indefatigable industry and
vast information.  He seemed constantly possessed by an intelligent
curiosity in regard to all subjects.  He had a tenacious memory.
Its stores were always ready at hand for his use on all occasions.
There has been no man in public life in my time, except Charles
Sumner, who was always so glad to render any service in his
power to literature and science.  He was a great friend of
the Congressional Library, and helped largely to increase
its appropriations.  I got his powerful aid in procuring the
purchase of the Margry papers, at the instance of Parkman,
the historian.

During Garfield's service in the House he was the leader
of its best thought.  Everything he did and said manifested
the serious, reverent love of excellence.  He was ever grave,
earnest, addressing himself only to the reason and conscience
of his auditors.  You will search his speeches in vain for
an appeal to a base motive or an evil passion.  He was remarkably
independent in forming his judgments and inflexible in adhering
to them on all grand and essential questions.  His friend
and Commander, General Thomas, whose stubborn courage saved
the day in the battle for the possession of Tennessee, was
well called The Rock of Chickamauga.  In the greater battle
in 1876 for the Nation's honor Garfield well deserves to be
called The Rock of Ohio.  There has been hardly any single
service to this country in recent times greater than that
rendered by him when he stood against the fiat money movement
in Ohio.


CHAPTER XXIX
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS
1884

It happened to me again to be put at the head of the Massachusetts
delegation in the convention of 1884.  The leading candidates
were Mr. Blaine and President Arthur.  Mr. Arthur had, in
many respects, made a very satisfactory President.  He was
a man of pleasant manners and skilled in the subtle ways of
New York politicians.  He had been one of the chief representatives
of a faction in the Republican Party, and he never seemed
able to shake off the influences which had surrounded him
before his election.  At a dinner shortly after he was chosen
Vice-President, he made an apparently approving allusion to
what he called the use of soap, which was understood to mean
the use of money for corrupt purposes.  He made a fatal mistake,
as it always seemed to me, in permitting the resignation of
President Garfield's Cabinet and filling their places with
men who, like himself, belonged to the Grant faction.  If
he had said that he would not allow the act of an assassin
to make a change in the forces that were to control the Administration
so far as could be helped and that he would carry into effect
the purposes of his predecessor, wherever he could in conscience
do so, he would have maintained himself in the public esteem.
But that was not his only mistake.  Inconsiderately he lent
himself to the popular prejudice against the policy of river
and harbor improvements, and, in vetoing a bill passed by
large majorities in both Houses of Congress, he sent in a
message in which he said in substance that the more corrupt
the measure the more votes it was likely to get in Congress.
When in the next winter he was asked to specify the objectionable
items in the bill he had vetoed, which appropriated about
$18,000,000, he was able to point out less than five per cent.
of all the appropriations which he could say he thought were
for purposes not required by the interests of international
or interstate commerce.  And his claim was thoroughly refuted
even in regard to the items which he specified.  He also
made some very bad appointments, which deeply offended the
best Republican sentiment in many of the States.  It is a
little singular that the appointment of the Collector of
the Port of Boston should have cost two Presidents of the
United States a renomination.  Yet so it is.  The old feeling
in Massachusetts that it was not, on the whole, desirable
to nominate Mr. Blaine existed in great strength.  The business
men liked Arthur.  They thought their interests were safe
with him.  But the honest Republican sentiment of Massachusetts
was deeply outraged by the appointment to the office of Collector
of Boston, of Mr. Roland Worthington, against the protest
of her Senators and Representatives in Congress.  He had been
known only as an unscrupulous supporter of General Butler,
and as the editor of a scurrilous newspaper which bitterly
attacked the opponents of that person even where they were
honest and trusted Republicans.  To give this place to Mr.
Worthington the President refused to reappoint Mr. Beard,
who had made an admirable Collector, and who was supported
by a large majority of the best men of Boston.  It was believed
that this appointment had been made in exchange for assurances
of General Butler's support in the approaching election.
Worthington made a poor Collector, and, at the State election
after his appointment, voted for Butler against the candidate
of the Republican Party.  But for the indignation caused by
this appointment, I think the delegation from Massachusetts,
with three exceptions, would have supported Mr. Arthur for
reelection.  There would have been no movement for Mr. Edmunds,
and but for that movement Mr. Arthur would have received
the Republican nomination.  Upon the final ballot the vote
of Massachusetts was seven for Arthur, three for Blaine and
eighteen for Edmunds.

A somewhat interesting incident occurred which shows the depth
of a feeling, which I think was largely a prejudice, which
is still manifesting itself as a disturbing element in American
politics.  There was a great desire on the part of those who
were opposed to both Arthur and Blaine, to find a candidate
upon whom they could unite, of such popularity and national
distinction as to make it impossible for the managers for
these candidates to hold their forces together.  We thought
that General Sherman was the person that we wanted.  It was
known that he had written a letter to Mr. Blaine declining
to have his name used, and that a telegram had been received
from him by a delegate during the session of the convention
to the same effect.  But it was thought that if he were once
nominated he would find it impossible to decline, and that
his previous refusal would be an element of strength and not
of weakness in the country.  After the adjournment, which
was at 11:45 A. M., on Friday, June 6, the day before the
balloting, I made an arrangement to meet Mr. George William
Curtis, the Chairman of the New York delegation, and one or
two other gentlemen of the same way of thinking, from one
or two other States, and we agreed that when the convention
came in again we would cast the votes of our delegates who
agreed with us for General Sherman.  I had been authorized
by a large majority of the Massachusetts delegation to have
this interview, and I knew that I represented their opinions,
although they had not, all of them, spoken to me about General
Sherman.  When I got back to the next meeting of the convention,
I made known to them what I had done.  I was told by several
of them that they would stand by me, but that it would cause
great dissatisfaction when they got home.

"What is the matter?" I said.  "Our people do not want a Father
Confessor in the White House," was the answer.  Although General
Sherman was a Protestant, it is well known that his wife was
a Catholic.  Soon after, Mr. Curtis came over to my seat and
said:  "Mr. Hoar, I cannot carry out our agreement." "What
is the matter?" said I.  "There is an insurrection in the
New York delegation," was his reply.  "They do not want a
Father Confessor in the White House." So we agreed we should
have to give it up.  When I came back to Washington, I called
at John Sherman's house and talked over the convention with
him.  I told him the story I have just related.  He said he
was not surprised, and that he believed the unwillingness
to have the religious faith of his wife made matter of public
discussion had a good deal to do with his brother's refusal to
permit himself to be a candidate.

While the convention of 1884 did not nominate the candidate
favored by the Republicans of Massachusetts, the action of
the State, in my opinion, was decisive in defeating the nomination
of President Arthur.  But for that there would have been no
movement for Edmunds, and his support would have gone to the
President.  Mr. Blaine, who was nominated, was defeated at
the election.  The event proved him a much stronger candidate
than I had supposed, and his subsequent career in the Department
of State, I believe, satisfied a majority of his countrymen
that he would have made an able and discreet President.  I
suppose it would hardly be denied now by persons acquainted
with the details of the management of the Democratic campaign,
at any rate I have heard the fact admitted by several very
distinguished Democrats, members of the Senate of the United
States, that the plurality of the vote of New York was really
cast for Mr. Blaine, and that he was unjustly deprived of
election by the fraud at Long Island City by which votes cast
for the Butler Electoral Ticket were counted for Cleveland.
I suppose also that but for the utterances of a foolish clergyman
named Burchard, Mr. Blaine's majority in that State would
have been so large that these frauds would have been ineffectual.


CHAPTER XXX
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS
1888

In 1888 there was a very strong, almost irresistible feeling
among Republicans in the country that Blaine should be put
in nomination again, although he had peremptorily and publicly
refused to be a candidate.  He was travelling abroad during
that year.  His mental vigor was unabated, as was shown by
his answer to Cleveland's free trade message, which was cabled
across the ocean and reached the people almost as soon as
the message.  But the disease of which he afterward died was
then upon him, as was known to some few of his intimate friends.
Besides that, he had had an attack at Milan, which deprived
him for a good while of the use of his limbs on one side.
In 1892 I was in the care, at Milan, of a man who I suppose
was the most eminent physician in the north of Italy, Dr.
Fornoni, who gave me an account of Mr. Blaine's illness in
the very apartments where I was ill, and which Blaine had
occupied before me.  But when the convention came together
they were so eager to nominate Blaine that he was obliged
to send another cable, I think, from Paris, insisting that
his wishes should be respected.  There was a great diversity
of opinion as to candidates, but little of the eager antagonism
that had characterized the preceding convention.  The Republican
Party had been sobered a good deal by four years of adversity.
The delegates from Massachusetts where:

_At Large._--George F. Hoar, Worcester; Henry S. Hyde, West
Springfield; Frederick L. Burden, North Attleboro; Alanson
W. Beard, Boston.

_District._--Frank S. Stevens, Swansea; Jonathan Bourne,
New Bedford; William H. Bent, Taunton; Eben L. Ripley, Hingham;
Arthur W. Tufts, Boston; Edward P. Wilbur, Boston; Jesse M.
Gove, Boston; Charles J. Noyes, Boston; Edward D. Hayden,
Woburn; Elmer H. Capen, Somerville; William B. Littlefield,
Lynn; Samuel W. McCall, Winchester; William Cogswell, Salem;
William E. Blunt, Haverhill; Joseph L. Sargent, Dracut; George
S. Merrill, Lawrence; J. Henry Gould, Medford; David Farquhar,
Newton; William A. Gile, Worcester; George L. Gibbs, Northbridge;
John W. Wheeler, Orange; John G. Mackintosh, Holyoke; Emerson
Gaylord, Chicopee; and William M. Prince, Pittsfield.

I was very desirous that the vote of Massachusetts should
be given to John Sherman.  He was, except Mr. Blaine, unquestionably
the most distinguished living Republican statesman.  He had
been an able champion of the opinions which the Republicans
of Massachusetts held, and of the policies under which her
special industries had been fostered.  To nominate him would
be to go back to the early habit of placing the greatest and
wisest statesmen of the country in its highest offices.  But
I could not get the majority of the Massachusetts delegation
to come to my way of thinking.  General Coggswell, a very
able and accomplished member of the House of Representatives,
and Mr. Edward D. Hayden, also a member of the House--a
service which he left greatly to the regret of his own constituents
and the people of the State--seemed to have very strong objections
indeed to Mr. Sherman.  The delegation very kindly offered
before the first ballot, and again just before the fourth
or fifth ballot, to present my name as the candidate of Massachusetts.
It would have been a very great honor to have received such
a vote from Massachusetts.  I was told also by gentlemen from
other States, who spoke to me about it, that I should have
had a considerable vote from other parts of the country.  I
had quite a number of very intimate friends in the convention
from States outside of Massachusetts.  I thought then, and
think now, though that is a matter of conjecture, that I should
have got about seventy votes.  But I thought my nomination
out of the question.  I thought also that it would be utterly
inexpedient, if it could be accomplished.  And I thought also
that the office of a Senator from Massachusetts would be
more agreeable to me, and better adapted to my capacity than
that of the President of the United States.  Still the temptation
to get the high compliment and honor of such a vote was very
strong indeed.  But there were thirteen of our delegation
of twenty-eight, who were willing to vote with me for Mr.
Sherman.  If I had consented to the subtraction of their votes
from his column on the first ballot, it would have made a
serious diminution of his strength.

If I had consented to the same thing on a later ballot it
would have put him in the position of having his forces diminishing
and falling away.  I thought I ought not, for a mere empty
honor to myself, to permit such an injury to be inflicted
upon him, although I confess I did not then think his nomination
likely.  But while the Massachusetts delegation does not seem
to me to have exerted a very decisive influence upon the result
of that convention, it came very near it.  After several ineffectual
ballotings, in which the votes of the different States were
divided among several candidates, the convention took a recess
at twelve o'clock to four o'clock of the same day.  Immediately
a meeting was called by a number of gentlemen representing
different delegations in a room in the building where the
convention was held, for consultation, and to see if they
could agree upon a candidate.  The Massachusetts delegation
had authorized me to cast their vote as a unit for any candidate
whom I should think best, whom sixteen of the delegates--
being one more than a majority--approved.  I had ascertained
their opinion.  While as I said there were but thirteen at
most who would support Sherman, considerably more than sixteen
were willing to support either Harrison or Allison, and perhaps
one or two others, who had been prominently mentioned, including,
I think, Mr. Depew, although of that I am not certain.  We
met as I said.  The New York delegation had authorized its
vote to be cast unanimously for any person on whom the four
delegates at large, Platt, Miller, Depew and Hiscock, representing
different shades of opinion in the Republican Party of that
State, should agree.  Three of these gentlemen, Platt, Miller
and Hiscock, were present at the meeting.  Mr. Quay, Chairman
of the Pennsylvania delegation, was also authorized to cast
the vote of the entire delegation as he should think fit.
Mr. Spooner of Wisconsin, Chairman of the Wisconsin delegation,
was present with a like authority.  Mr. Farwell, Chairman
of the Illinois delegation, was present with a like authority
from his State.  Mr. Clarkson, Chairman of the Iowa delegation,
was present with authority to vote for Mr. Allison from the
beginning.  De Young, of California, thought he could speak
for his people, though I believe without claiming authority
from them.  Filley, of Missouri, was also present.  There
were several other gentlemen of influence, though not all
of them delegates, and not all of them entitled to speak for
their States, but feeling able to assure the company that
their States would accede to whatever agreement might be made
there.  The names of several candidates were discussed.  I
made a very earnest speech in favor of Mr. Allison, setting
forth what I thought were the qualities that would make him
a popular candidate, and would make him an able and wise President.

Finally, all agreed that their States should vote for Mr.
Allison when the convention came in in the afternoon.  Depew,
as I have said, was absent.  But his three colleagues said
there could be no doubt that he would agree to their action,
and there would be no difficulty about New York.  We thought
it best as a matter of precaution, to meet again a half-hour
before the coming in of the convention, to make sure the thing
was to go through all right.  I suppose that everybody in
that room when he left it felt as certain as of any event
in the future that Mr. Allison would be nominated in the convention.

But when we met at the time fixed, the three delegates at
large from New York said they were sorry they could not carry
out their engagement.  Mr. Depew, who had been supported as
a candidate by his State in the earlier ballots, had made
a speech withdrawing his name.  But when the action of the
meeting was reported to him, he said he had been compelled
to withdraw by the opposition of the Agrarian element, which
was hostile to railroads.  He was then President of the New
York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.  He said that
his opposition to him came largely from Iowa, and from the
Northwest, where was found the chief support of Allison; that
while he had withdrawn his own name, he would not so far submit
to such an unreasonable and socialistic sentiment as to give
his consent that it should dictate a candidate for the Republican
Party.  The three other delegates at large were therefore
compelled to refuse their support to the arrangement which
had been conditionally agreed upon, and the thing fell through.
If it had gone on, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, Iowa, California, and perhaps Missouri, would
have cast their votes unanimously for Allison, and his nomination
would have been sure.  I think no other person ever came so
near the Presidency of the United States, and missed it.

The result was the nomination of Mr. Harrison.  It was a nomination
quite agreeable to me.  I had sat near him in the Senate for
six years, my seat only separated from his by that of John
Sherman, who, for a large part of the time, had been President
pro tempore.  So Sherman's seat was not then occupied and
Harrison and I were next neighbors.  I had become very intimate
with him, and had learned to respect him highly as a very
able, upright and wise man, although he developed, as President,
an ability which I think his most intimate friends had not
known before.  Our relations then, and afterward, were exceedingly
cordial.  He was a wise, pure, upright and able President,
and an eloquent orator, capable of uttering great truths in
a great way, and able to bring them home to the understanding
and conviction of his countrymen.  He lacked what gave Mr.
Blaine so great a charm, the quality of an agreeable and gracious
manner.  He had little tact in dealing with individuals.  If
a man travelled three thousand miles across the continent
to say something to President Harrison, he would find himself
broken in upon two minutes after the conversation began with
a lecture in which the views in opposition to his were vigorously,
and, sometimes roughly, set forth.  He did this even when
he was of the same way of thinking and meant to grant the
gentleman's request.  Blaine would refuse a request in a way
that would seem like doing a favor.  Harrison would grant
a request in a way which seemed as if he were denying it.
An eminent Western Senator said to me once what, of course,
was a great exaggeration, that if Harrison were to address
an audience of ten thousand men, he would capture them all.
But if each one of them were presented to him in private,
he would make him his enemy.

However, in spite of all this the country was safe with him.
While his hand was on the helm she would keep the course of
safety, of honor, of glory, of prosperity, of republican liberty.
There would be no fear for the future of the country if we
were sure to have in the great office of President a succession
of Benjamin Harrisons.

This fault of his is a fault apt to beset good and honest
men, especially when they are under the burden of great anxieties
and cares.  Such men at such times are intent upon the object
to be accomplished.  They are not thinking of personal considerations,
of making friends or allies, or of the impression they are
making for themselves upon mankind.  But they need to learn
a lesson.  It is a lesson which many of them learn very late
in life, that many a good cause has been jeopardized or lost
by this infirmity of men who are leaders on the righteous
side.  There is written on the walls of one of the great English
schools a legend which I suppose has been there for seven
hundred years:  "Manners Makyth Man." It is a curious fact,
however, that this legend illustrates a portrait of a pig.

But while public men ought to be made to see how great a thing
this is, the people ought to learn how little a thing it is--
how insignificant are these foibles, irritable temper, habits
of personal discourtesy, impatience, even vanity and self-
confidence, compared with the great things that concern the
character, the welfare, and the glory of the State.  I beg
to assure my readers that I make these observations partly
as a critic and partly as a penitent.

I wrote to Benjamin Harrison after the Presidential campaign
of 1896, urging him to consent to come to the Senate from
Indiana, citing the example of Presidents Adams and Johnson,
both of whom came back to public life after they had been
President, although Mr. Johnson did not live to render any
service in the Senate.

In my letter I expressed my sense of the great value of what
he had done in the campaign.  In reply I got the following
letter.  Nobody who reads it will doubt that the man who wrote
it had a kind and affectionate heart.

November 10, 1896
  674 NORTH DELAWARE STREET,
  INDIANAPOLIS, IND.

_My dear Senator:_

It is very kind of you to take note of my work in the campaign,
and I value very highly what you say of it--though your friendship
has perhaps, in some degree, spoiled your judgment.  I am
thoroughly tired of the cares and excitements incident to
public life in our country.  To you I may say that the people
of this state seem to be more strongly attached to me than
ever.  I never appear before an audience that I am not deeply
moved by the demonstrations of the affectionate interest of
my home people.

Possibly they would send me to the Senate this winter if I
should intimate a willingness to take the place, but I do
not feel that I can, and have said so.

If I could believe that any exigency in public affairs called
for me, then my personal wishes would be subservient--but
it is not so.  My own belief is that as a free citizen I can
do more towards giving a right direction to public affairs
than I could as a Senator.

. . . . . . . . . . .

My wife joins me in the desire to be kindly remembered to
Mrs. Hoar.

  Most sincerely your friend,
  BENJAMIN HARRISON.
  Hon. George F. Hoar,
  Worcester, Mass.

I had a great many interesting experiences of Harrison's
roughness of manner and honesty and kindness of heart, which
it would not be right to relate here.  But I may mention two
or three.

When the term of General Corse, the Democratic Postmaster
at Boston, expired, Mr. Dawes and I earnestly recommended
that he should be reappointed.  He was, with one or two exceptions,
the most eminent living veteran of the Civil War.  He was
the hero of one of its noted exploits.  "Hold the Fort" had
made him famous in song and story.  The business men of Boston,
without distinction of party, were satisfied with him, and
recommended that he be continued in the service.  There was
an association of the principal trades, nineteen in number,
in which each trade had three representatives, making fifty-
seven in all.  Of these fifty-four were Republicans, and three
were Democrats.  Fifty-four, though not the same fifty-four,
recommended the continuance of General Corse in the service.
He was recommended by the Republican members from Boston in
the Massachusetts Senate, and by most of those in the House,
and by several of the Republican members of Congress, whose
districts contained a part of the territory served by the
office.

President Harrison almost angrily refused to reappoint Corse.
He said that while Marshals were being murdered in Florida,
and the execution of the law resisted, he would appoint no
man to public office who either sympathized with such things,
or belonged to a party that did not oppose and resist them.
I said to him:  "Mr. President, how do you reconcile this
with your declaration that no man would be removed from public
office for political reasons?" The President was quite angry,
and showed his anger in his reply.  I said: "Good morning,
Mr. President," and took my leave, also quite angry.  But
in a moment or two I went back, and said: "Mr. President,
if you think there is a man in the country who has a higher
regard for you, or a more sincere desire for your success
than I have, I will never come here again." Mr. Harrison
said, very pleasantly, "I know that very well, Mr. Hoar."
And the difference ended as quickly as it began.

President Harrison sent for me in a few days, and said he
had made up his mind not to appoint Corse, but would appoint
any Republican I would nominate.  I gave a list of six names,
of which that of Mayor Thomas H. Hart stood at the head.  Next
to him was that of Col. Horace Rockwell.  Next to him was
Wm. A. Russell.  I selected Mr. Russell on account of his
eminent business capacity, and also because I knew that both
the President and Postmaster-General had great regard for
him.  I told him at the same time that I did not believe Mr.
Russell would accept the office.  Next to him was Samuel W.
McCall, and the fifth name was that of John W. Candler.  Next
came Congressman Frank W. Rockwell.  A messenger was sent
to Boston that afternoon.  He got there before daylight the
next morning, and found Mr. Russell was absent on a long
journey to the South.  It was not thought the chances of
his acceptance made it worth while to keep the office open.
So it was offered to Mr. Hart, who accepted it.

Pretty soon afterward there came a vacancy in the United
States Circuit Court for the First Judicial Circuit by the
resignation of Judge Lowell.  I desired to have Judge Putnam,
of Maine, succeed him.  He, too, was a Democrat.  I did not
know exactly what to do about it, after my experience in the
post-office matter.  So I saw Judge Gray of the Supreme Court,
who had a high regard for Putnam, and asked him if he would
be willing to recommend him to the President.  Judge Gray
said he would do it if the President applied to him for advice.
But he was not willing to offer such advice unasked.  He agreed,
however, that I might say that Judge Lowell was about to resign,
and that when the matter came up, if the President desired
to know Judge Gray's opinion, he would be very happy to give
it.  The resignation took effect in the vacation of Congress.
The President invited Judge Gray to come to see him, and
determined to accept his advice.  When I got to Washington
in December, President Harrison sent for me and said: "Mr.
Hoar, I have pretty much made up my mind to appoint Judge
Putnam to the Circuit Court, if you approve." I said: "Mr.
President, I heartily approve.  But I shall look with some
curiosity to see how you answer the excellent argument you
made against the appointment of a Democrat to office when
General Corse's term expired," to which Harrison burst out
into hearty laughter; and both incidents closed.

When the bill for rebuilding the William and Mary College
building, which had been destroyed during the war, was passed,
President Tyler and several other gentlemen interested in
the College, were very anxious lest the President should refuse
to sign it.  They came to Washington to ask me to go with
them to see him.  This I did.  I told him the history of the
College, giving a list of the famous men who were graduated
from there.  I spoke of the great affection that had inspired
the people of Virginia for centuries, and reminded him that
his own ancestor, General Washington's friend, General Benjamin
Harrison of the Revolution, had been a child of the College,
and I pointed out what a measure of reconcilement it would
be.  The President listened with a rather disgusted look,
until I got through, and just as I rose to take my leave,
said:  "Mr. Hoar, have you got any reasons except sentimental
ones?"  I said I had no others, except those I had stated.
The gentlemen went out very down-hearted, and said when they
got out that of course he would veto the bill.  I said: "I
think I know the man pretty well, and I think there is more
than an even chance that he will sign it," and he did.

Just before his term of office ended, he was in the President's
Room, at the Capitol, to dispose of bills when there was not
time to take them to the White House before the hour of twelve
o'clock, on the 4th of March.  Many measures had been passed
within an hour of the time of adjournment, among them a bill
for the relief of the widow of Jefferson Davis.  She had written
a Memoir of her husband, on the sale of which it was understood
she depended for her livelihood in her advancing years.  But
the publishers had neglected a technicality which, if the
decision of one Circuit Judge were good law, made the copyright
void.  So she was at the mercy of her publishers, and it was
feared that they meant to take advantage of the defect.  She
applied through General Gordon, then a member of the Senate,
to Congress for relief.  A bill passed the two Houses, which
I had drawn, providing that where the copies required by law
to be deposited in the Library of Congress, had not been so
deposited within the time required by law, the author of the
book might deposit them at a later time, and the copyright
should not be rendered void.  This was made a general law.
Just before twelve o'clock, when the Senators were in their
seats ready for the inauguration of President Harrison's successor,
which was to take place in about ten minutes, General Gordon
came to me in great distress, saying: "The Attorney-General
says the President means to refuse to sign that bill and that
he can do nothing with him.  Can you help us?" I had devised
the plan, and had got it through the Senate.  I went into
the President's Room with General Gordon and said to the President
that I wanted to speak to him about that bill, and began my
story when he broke in upon me, very uncivilly, and said:
"We cannot pass laws to take care of hard individual cases."
I said:  "No, Mr. President, we cannot pass laws to take care
of individual cases, but where a general law is just and proper,
it is no objection to it that it also affords relief in a
case of individual injustice."  The President made some remark
to the effect that the people of the North would not like
that we should go out of our way to help the widow of Jefferson
Davis.  I had not told my story, nor stated my reasons.  I
said quite angrily:  "Well, Mr. President, if you will not
hear me, I will stop now." I made my bow and withdrew from
the circle.  The President called after me: "Mr. Hoar, I
will hear you." Whereupon I told my story.  But there was
no sign of relenting upon his grim countenance.  I went back
to my seat with General Gordon, who had accompanied me.  He
tore off a piece of an order of exercises for the Inauguration,
and handed it to a page, telling him to give it to a friend
of Mrs. Davis, who was outside.  He had written on it: "He
won't sign the bill."  Just after the page had departed, the
Attorney-General came up and told us that the President had
signed the bill.  General Gordon called back the page.  I
asked him to give me the torn fragment of the order of exercises,
on which he had written the message, which I have kept as
a memorial of the transaction, and of him.  Perhaps I may
be pardoned for adding that General Gordon came to me just
afterward with great emotion, and said, "Hoar, save my allegiance
to the Democratic Party, I want you to know that you own me."

These stories may seem trifling.  But such trifles sometimes
give an idea of the character of men like Harrison more than
their greater actions.

Benjamin Harrison many times thought rashly and spoke hastily.
But he acted always, so far as I knew, under the impulse of
a warm, kind and brave heart, and of a great and wise intellect.

Some of my Southern brethren have spoken of me with undeserved
kindness in recent years, and they like to say that my heart
has softened within the last few years, and that I have become
more tolerant and less harsh and bigoted than I was of old.
Some Northern papers have taken the same view.  What I did
to secure the rebuilding of the William and Mary building,
and to establish the policy of restoring at National cost
all the property of institutions of education, charity and
religion destroyed at the South, both of which were in the
beginning opposed by the almost unanimous sentiment of my
party associates, was done in the first and second terms of
my service in the House of Representatives, now thirty-five
years ago.  A Boston newspaper published a series of articles
denouncing me as a bitter partisan and a bigoted and intolerant
hater of the people of the South, some years ago.  That very
week I received a letter from Mrs. Jefferson Davis thanking
me for what I had done to save her from privation in her old
age; a telegram from the authorities of William and Mary College,
thanking me for my service in accomplishing the rebuilding
of the College; and a personal call from Judge Howell E. Jackson,
of Tennessee, a Southern Democrat and Confederate, thanking
me for what I had done toward procuring his appointment as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
These things all happened in the same year, I believe, certainly
in a very short time after I had done what I could to induce
the reappointment of General Corse and the selection of Judge
Putnam.

I freely admit that I have believed with all my heart and
soul in the principles of the Republican Party.  But I think
there can be found few members of that party who have been
less controlled in their public actions by violent partisanship
than I have.


CHAPTER XXXI
SATURDAY CLUB

In 1877, about the time of my election to the Senate, I was
chosen a member of the famous Saturday Club.  I always attended
the meetings when I could be in Boston until after the death
of my brother, when every man who was a member when I was
chosen was dead, except Mr. Norton and Judge Gray and the
younger Agassiz and Mr. Howells, and all of them had ceased
to be constant attendants.

They used to meet at the Parker House in Boston once a month.
Each member was at liberty to bring a guest.

I suppose there was never a merely social club with so many
famous men in it or another where the conversation was more
delightful since that to which Johnson and Burke and Goldsmith
and Garrick and Reynolds belonged.  There was plenty of sparkling
wit and repartee and plenty of serious talk from philosophers
and men of letters and science.  Agassiz and Jeffries Wyman
would sometimes debate Darwin's theory of evolution, which
Darwin had confided to Asa Gray, another member, long before
he made it known to the public.  Holmes and Lowell contributed
their wit, and Judge Hoar, whom Lowell declared the most brilliant
man in conversation he had ever known, his shrewd Yankee sense
and his marvellous store of anecdote.  Some of the greatest
members, notably Emerson and Longfellow and Whittier, were
in general quite silent.  But it was worth going a thousand
miles if but to see one of them, or to hear the tones of his
voice.

In the beginning I suspected Dr. Holmes of getting himself
ready for the talk at the dinner as for a lecture.  But I
soon found that was utterly unjust.  He was always as good
if a new subject were brought up, which he could not have
expected and which was wholly out of the range of his experience.
His stream was abundant and sparkling and clear, whenever
you might tap the cask.  "Take another glass of wine, Judge,"
he said to one of the members who was starting near midnight
to drive twenty miles in the cold rain of autumn, "Take another
glass of wine; it will shorten the distance and double the
prospect."

Dr. Holmes and I were born on the same day of the year, although
I was seventeen years behind him.  I sent to the delightful
Autocrat the following note which reached him on the morning
of his eightieth birthday.

WORCESTER, Aug. 28th, 89.

_My dear Dr. Holmes:_  Let me add my salutation to those
of so many of your countrymen, and so many who are not your
countrymen, save in the republic of letters, on your birthday.
You may well be amused to think how many political reputations
have risen and set during your long and sunny reign.  I was
led to think of this by the fact that my own birthday also
comes Aug. 29th.  But alas!

  Consules sunt quotannis et novi proconsules,
  Solus aut Rex aut Poeta non quotannis nascitur.

Of Governors and Senators we have an annual crop.  But Autocrats
and Poets come but once in eighty years.  The asteroids must
not envy the Georgium Sides his orbit of fourscore years,
but rather rejoice in his beneficent and cheerful light,
and in the certainty that it will keep on shining so long
as there is a star in the sky.

  I am
  Faithfully yours
  GEO. F. HOAR.

I got the following pleasant reply:

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 30, 1889.

_My dear Mr. Hoar,_

Your note of felicitation upon my having reached that "length
of days" which Wisdom, if I remember correctly, holds in her
right hand, was the first I received and is the first I answer.
Briefly, of course, but with heartfelt sincerity, for I hardly
thought that you whose hand is on the wheel that governs the
course of the Nation, would find time to remember so small
an event as my birthday.

You cannot doubt that it was a great pleasure to me to read
your name at the bottom of a page containing so much that
it was kind in you to write and most agreeable for me to read.

Please accept my warmest and most grateful acknowledgments,
and believe me

  Faithfully yours,
  OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

NAMES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE SATURDAY CLUB WHEN I
USED TO ATTEND ITS MEETINGS.
  Ralph Waldo Emerson,      Francis Parkman,
  Edwin P. Whipple,         Alexander Agassiz,
  Horatio Woodman,          R. H. Dana,
  John S. Dwight,           Wolcott Gibbs,
  Samuel G. Ward,           Horace Gray,
  R. H. Dana, Jr.,          Edward N. Perkins,
  Louis Agassiz,            Asa Gray,
  Benjamin Pierce,          W. D. Howells,
  J. R. Lowell,             Edmund Quincy,
  H. W. Longfellow,         E. L. Godkin,
  J. L. Motley,             William B. Rogers,
  C. C. Felton,             William Amory,
  O. W. Holmes,             James Freeman Clarke,
  E. R. Hoar,               Phillips Brooks,
  William H. Prescott,      William W. Story,
  John G. Whittier,         George F. Hoar,
  Nathaniel Hawthorne,      John Lowell,
  T. G. Appleton,           O. W. Holmes, Jr.,
  J. M. Forbes,             Theodore Lyman,
  Charles E. Norton,        William James,
  J. Elliot Cabot,          Francis A. Walker,
  Samuel G. Howe,           Charles F. Adams, Jr.,
  Frederick H. Hedge,       F. L. Olmsted,
  Estes Howe,               R. Pumpelly,
  Charles Sumner,           H. H. Richardson,
  Henry James,              William Endicott, Jr.,
  Martin Brimmer,           William C. Endicott,
  James T. Fields,          William W. Goodwin,
  S. W. Rowse,              John C. Gray,
  John A. Andrew,           Edward C. Pickering,
  Jeffries Wyman,           Thomas B. Aldrich,
  E. W. Gurney,             Edward W. Emerson,
  W. M. Hunt,               Walbridge A. Field,
  Charles F. Adams, Sen.,   Henry L. Higginson,
  Charles W. Eliot,         Edward W. Hooper,
  Charles C. Perkins,       Henry P. Walcott.


CHAPTER XXXII
THE WORCESTER FIRE SOCIETY

I have been for fifty years a member of another club called
the Worcester Fire Society, some of whose members have had
a remarkable relation to important events in the history of
the country, of which the story will be worth recording.  The
club was founded in 1793, before the days of fire-engines,
so that if the house of any of the members caught fire, his
associates might come to the rescue with buckets and bags
and bed-keys and other apparatus to put out the fire and save
the property.  But it long since became a mere social club.
It is limited to thirty members.

The elder Levi Lincoln, Mr. Jefferson's intimate friend,
confidential correspondent and Attorney-General in his Cabinet,
organizer of the political movement which built up Mr. Jefferson's
power in New England in the beginning of the last century,
was not, I believe, a member of the Society himself.  But
his sons were, and many of his descendants and connections
by marriage, certainly twelve or fifteen in all.  When the
office of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
became vacant, by reason of the death of Mr. Justice William
Cushing of Massachusetts, September 13, 1809, Levi Lincoln
the elder was appointed, confirmed by the Senate and commissioned
to fill the vacancy.  Mr. Jefferson earnestly desired and
urged his appointment.  President Madison accompanied the
offer of the office with a letter urging Mr. Lincoln to accept
it in spite of a malady of the eyes from which he was suffering.
Mr. Madison says he had got along very well as Attorney-
General and he thinks he would find less inconvenience in
discharging the duties of Judge.  But Mr. Lincoln declined
the office.  He lived until 1820, retaining his health and
vigor, except for the trouble with his eyes.

He was a very able man.  He argued the case in which it was
decided by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts that slavery
was abolished in that State by the Constitution, in 1780.

Judge Story was appointed in his place.  If Mr. Lincoln had
accepted, it is likely that the great judicial fame of Judge
Story would be lacking from American jurisprudence.  Story
would have devoted himself, probably, to professional or political
life.  At any rate he would not have been appointed to the
Bench before 1820.

There can be no doubt that if Lincoln had accepted the seat
upon the Bench, he would have been a thorn in the flesh of
Marshall.  He doubtless shared Mr. Jefferson's dislike for
the great Chief Justice.  The case of Dartmouth College _v._
Woodward was decided in 1819.  There was in fact but one dissent,
but any person who reads Shirley's book on the history of
that case will be inclined to believe that without Judge Story
Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward would not have been decided
as it was.

More interesting and important is the relation, to Mr. Webster's
seat in the Senate, of the second Levi Lincoln, son of him
of whom I have just spoken, himself a member of the Worcester
Club that has been referred to.  He was Governor of Massachusetts,
Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and a Member
of the National House of Representatives.  He was elected
Senator of the United States by one branch of the Massachusetts
Legislature when the term of Elijah H. Mills expired, March
3, 1827.  There can be no doubt that if he had consented he
would also have been elected by the other house.  Mr. Webster
was chosen at the next Session.  But before he was elected
he wrote very strongly urging Mr. Lincoln to accept the office.
He said in his letter dated May 22, 1827:

"I beg to say that I see no way in which the public good
can be so well promoted as by your consenting to go to the
Senate.  This is my own clear and decided opinion; it is
the opinion, equally clear and decided, of intelligent and
patriotic friends here, and I am able to add that it is also
the decided opinion of all those friends elsewhere, whose
judgment in such matters we should naturally regard.  I believe
I may say, without violating confidence, that it is the wish,
entertained with some earnestness, of our friends at Washington,
that you should consent to be Mr. Mills's successor.  I need
hardly add after what I have said that this is my own wish."

Mr. Lincoln felt constrained to decline, although the office
would doubtless have been very agreeable to him, by reason
of some statements he had made when elected Governor that
he should not be a candidate for the Senate.  Mr. Lincoln
might, without dishonor or even indelicacy, have accepted
the office in spite of those utterances.  It was quite clear
that all the persons who might be supposed to have acted
upon them, desired his election when the time came on.  But
he was a man of scrupulous honor and did not mean to leave
any room for the imputation that he did not regard what is
due to "consistency of character," to use his own phrase.
Now if Mr. Lincoln would have accepted the office it is likely
that he would have held it until his death in 1868.  At any
rate it is quite certain that he would have held it until
the political revolution of 1851.

It is quite clear to me that the office of Senator was at
Mr. Lincoln's command.  Observe that this was in 1827, and
was the election for the term of six years, ending March 3,
1833.  That includes the period of Jackson's great contest
with Nullification, when Mr. Webster, with all his power,
came to Jackson's support.  It includes the time of the Reply
to Hayne, and the great debate with Calhoun.

Daniel Webster, I need not say, would have been a great figure
anywhere.  But if Mr. Lincoln had acted otherwise, there would
have been absent from our history and literature Webster's
Reply to Hayne, the support of Jackson in the day of Nullification,
the debate with Calhoun including the speech, "The Constitution
not a Compact between Sovereign States," and the powerful
attack on Jackson's assertion of power in the removal of the
deposits.  The speech on the President's Protest, with the
wonderful passage describing the power of England, would not
have been made.

If the sentiment of Patriotism, and love of Liberty and Union
are to be dominant in this Republic, we cannot measure the
value of the influence of Daniel Webster and the speech in
reply to Hayne.  I am not sure that, without Mr. Webster's
powerful championship of the side which prevailed, Mr. Calhoun's
theory would not have become established.  At any rate, it
was the fortune of Daniel Webster that the doctrine of National
Unity, whenever it has prevailed in the hearts of his countrymen,
has been supported by his argument and clothed in his language.

Another incident of the same kind, not of like importance
to those of which I have told, but still of a good deal of
interest and importance, happened more lately.  I had a good
deal to do with it myself.

When President Hayes entered upon office, there were but three
members of the Senate of either party who were supporters
of his Administration.  I was one of them.  The other two
were my colleague, Mr. Dawes, and Stanley Matthews of Ohio.
President Hayes was, in my opinion, a very wise and able and
upright man.  It was an admirable Administration.  He had
a strong and excellent Cabinet.  But his nomination had disappointed
the ambitions of some very influential men in his own party,
and the powerful factions of which they were the leaders and
candidates.  The opposing party had not only felt the usual
disappointment in defeat, but denied the lawfulness of his
election.  So I was more familiar than would ordinarily have
been likely to have been the case with all the councils of
his Administration.  The Secretary of State was my near kinsman,
and the Attorney-General had been my law partner.

When the vacancy occurred in the English mission by the resignation
of Mr. John Welsh, I very strongly urged the appointment of
Mr. Lowell.  Mr. Evarts was quite unwilling to select Mr.
Lowell, and in deference to his wishes, President Hayes offered
the place to several other persons, including myself.  The
offer was communicated to me by Mr. Evarts who was, at that
time, Secretary of State.  But there were many good reasons
why I could not accept it.  The offer was made to Governor
Alexander H. Bullock, a member of the little society of which
I have spoken.  I was myself authorized by the President to
communicate his desire to Governor Bullock.  His answer, declining
of account of the condition of his family, will be found in
the life prefixed to the published volume of his speeches.

Now, if Governor Bullock had accepted the appointment, which
was undoubtedly very attractive to him, what Mr. Lowell did
in England would not have been done.  He will doubtless go
down in literature as a great poet.  But it seems to me he
is entitled to an equal rank among the prose writers of the
country, and indeed among the prose writers of the English
language of our time.  His admirable address on Democracy,
the delightful address as President of the Wordsworth Society,
several estimates of the British poets, delivered by him on
various occasions in England when he was Minister there, are
among the very best examples of his work in prose.


APPENDIX I

It was upon Mr. Sherman's motion that the words, "Common Defence
and General Welfare," which have played so important a part
in the construction of the Constitution, were introduced into
that instrument.  He proposed to add to the taxing clause
the words, "for the payment of said debts and for the defraying
of expenses that shall be incurred for the defence and general
welfare."

This proposition, according to Mr. Madison, was disagreed
to as being unnecessary.  It then obtained only the single
vote of Connecticut.  But three days afterward Mr. Sherman
moved and obtained the appointment of a Committee, of which
he was a member, to which this and several subjects were committed.
That Committee reported the clause in the shape in which it
now stands, and it was adopted unanimously.

Its adoption is an instance of Mr. Sherman's great tenacity,
and his power to bring the body, of which he was a member,
to his own way of thinking in the end, however unwilling in
the beginning.  This phrase had played not only an important
but a decisive part in the great debate between a strict construction
of the Constitution and the construction which has prevailed
and made it the law of the being of a great National life.

This story is well told in Farrar's "Manual of the Constitution,"
pages 110, 309, 324.


APPENDIX II

Roger Minott Sherman, son of Roger Sherman's brother Josiah,
was born in Woburn, Mass., May 22, 1773.  Mr. Sherman was
much attached to him and defrayed the cost of his education.
He was an inmate of his uncle's family while a student at
Yale College.  He was graduated in the year 1792.  He was
one of the ablest lawyers and advocates New England ever produced,
probably having no equal at the Bar of New England except
Jeremiah Mason and Daniel Webster.  I attended a dinner of
the Alumni of Yale College some years ago.  President Woolsey
sat on one side of me, and Dr. Leonard Bacon on the other;
and right opposite at the table was Rev. Dr. Atwater, then
I believe of Princeton, but formerly Mr. Sherman's pastor in
Fairfield.  President Woolsey said that Roger Minott Sherman
came nearer his conception of Cicero than any other person
he ever heard speak.  They used frequently to invite him to
deliver public addresses at the College.  But he never would
accept the invitation.  After refusal, the invitation would
be renewed again after a few years with like result.

To the above estimate of Mr. Sherman, Dr. Bacon and Mr. Atwater
agreed.

When I was in the Law School at Harvard, Professor Simon Greenleaf
told the class in one of his lectures that he was once travelling
through Connecticut in a carriage on a summer journey, and
came to a town, I think Fairfield, which was the county seat.
He stopped to get his dinner and rest his horses.  While the
horses were being fed he went into the court-house, intending
to stay only a few minutes, and found Roger Minott Sherman
arguing a case before the Supreme Court with Judge Gould on
the other side.  He was much impressed by Mr. Sherman's clear
and powerful argument.  Mr. Sherman and Judge Gould were
engaged on opposite sides in nearly all the cases.  Professor
Greenleaf was so much interested by what he heard that he
remained and attended court during the entire week.  I do
not remember his exact language, but he, in substance, gave
an estimate of Mr. Sherman as a profound lawyer and able advocate,
not less exalted than President Woolsey had given of him as
an orator.

Some slight account of Roger Minott Sherman will be found
in Goodrich's "Recollections."

Mr. Evarts once told me that there was an important controversy,
involving the title to a valuable cargo, in which a lawyer
in Hartford was on one side, and a member of the Bar of the
city of New York on the other.  The New York lawyer went to
Hartford to negotiate about the case.  The Hartford lawyer
had obtained the opinion of Roger Minott Sherman for his client
and held it in his hand during the conversation, labelled
on the outside, "Opinion of Roger Minott Sherman," and moved
it about under the eye of his opponent.  The opinion was in
fact that the Hartford man's client had no case.  But the
New York lawyer supposed that if the man had got Roger Minott
Sherman's opinion, and seemed to set so much store upon the
document, it was favorable to the party who had consulted
him.  He was much alarmed and settled the case on favorable
terms to his antagonist.

Mr. Sherman was famous for his quickness of wit.  A story
went the rounds of the papers in my youth, which may or may
not have any truth in it, but which I will record.  It is
said that he was once arguing a case against Nathan Smith,
a very able but rather coarse lawyer.  Mr. Smith had discussed
the question of law with the subtilty for which he was distinguished.
Mr. Sherman said to the court that he thought his brother
Smith's metaphysics were out of place in that discussion;
that he was not adverse to such refinement at a proper time,
and would willingly, on a fit occasion, chop logic and split
hairs with him.  Smith pulled a hair out of his own head,
and holding it up, said,--"Split that." Sherman replied, quick
as lightning, "May it please your Honor, I didn't say bristles."

The following is the passage referred to from S. G. Goodrich's
"Recollections of a Lifetime":

"Roger Minott Sherman was distinguished for acute logical
powers and great elegance of diction,--words and sentences
seemed to flow from his lips as if he were reading from the
_Spectator._  He was a man of refined personal appearance
and manners; tall, stooping a little in his walk; deliberate
in his movements and speech, indicating circumspection, which
was one of his characteristics.  His countenance was pale
and thoughtful, his eye remarkable for a keen penetrating
expression.  Though a man of grave general aspect, he was
not destitute of humor.  He was once travelling in western
Virginia, and stopping at a small tavern, was beset with questions
by the landlord, as to where he came from, whither he was
going, etc.  At last said Mr. Sherman, 'Sit down, sir, and
I will tell you all about it.' The landlord sat down.  'Sir,'
said he, 'I am from the Blue Light State of Connecticut.'
The landlord stared.  'I am a deacon in a Calvinistic church.'
The landlord was evidently shocked.  'I was a member of the
Hartford Convention.' This was too much for the democratic
nerves of the landlord; he speedily departed, and left his
lodger to himself."

[Frontispiece:  v2.jpg]

[Title page]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF SEVENTY YEARS

BY
GEORGE F. HOAR

WITH PORTRAITS

VOLUME II.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1903

[Table of Contents]
CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I
ELECTION TO THE SENATE

CHAPTER II
PRESIDENT HAYES

CHAPTER III
CABINET OF PRESIDENT HAYES

CHAPTER IV
ATTEMPT TO REOPEN THE QUESTION OF THE TITLE TO THE
PRESIDENCY

CHAPTER V
THE SENATE IN 1877

CHAPTER VI
LEADERS OF THE SENATE IN 1877

CHAPTER VII
COMMITTEE SERVICE IN THE SENATE

CHAPTER VIII
THE RIVER AND HARBOR BILL

CHAPTER IX
CHINESE TREATY AND LEGISLATION

CHAPTER X
THE WASHINGTON TREATY AND THE GENEVA AWARD

CHAPTER XI
THE PRESIDENT'S POWER OF REMOVAL

CHAPTER XII
FISHERIES

CHAPTER XIII
THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS BILL

CHAPTER XIV
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS AND THE PRESIDENTIAL
SUCCESSION BILL

CHAPTER XV
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S JUDGES

CHAPTER XVI
SOME SOUTHERN SENATORS

CHAPTER XVII
CUSHMAN KELLOGG DAVIS

CHAPTER XVIII
GEORGE BANCROFT

CHAPTER XIX
VISITS TO ENGLAND (1860, 1868, 1871)

CHAPTER XX
VISITS TO ENGLAND, 1892

CHAPTER XXI
VISITS TO ENGLAND, 1896

CHAPTER XXII
SILVER AND BIMETALLISM

CHAPTER XXIII
VISITS TO ENGLAND, 1899

CHAPTER XXIV
A REPUBLICAN PLATFORM

CHAPTER XXV
OFFICIAL SALARIES

CHAPTER XXVI
PROPRIETY IN DEBATE

CHAPTER XXVII
THE FISH-BALL LETTERS

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BIRD PETITION

CHAPTER XXIX
THE A. P. A. CONTROVERSY

CHAPTER XXX
THE ENGLISH MISSION

CHAPTER XXXI
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE SYRIAN CHILDREN

CHAPTER XXXII
NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

CHAPTER XXXIV
APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE

CHAPTER XXXV
ORATORY AND SOME ORATORS I HAVE HEARD

CHAPTER XXXVI
TRUSTS

CHAPTER XXXVII
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WORCESTER BAR

CHAPTER XXXVIII
SOME JUDGES I HAVE KNOWN

CHAPTER XXXIX
POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS FAITH

CHAPTER XL
EDWARD EVERETT HALE

APPENDIX
THE FOREST OF DEAN (BY JOHN BELLOWS)

INDEX

[Second Title page]

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS

[Text]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS

CHAPTER I
ELECTION TO THE SENATE

I have every reason to believe that my constituents in the
Worcester district would have gladly continued me in the
public service for ten years longer, if I had been so minded.
I presided over the District Convention that nominated my
successor.  Before the convention was called to order the
delegates crowded around me and urged me to reconsider my
refusal to stand for another term, and declared they would
gladly nominate me again.  But I persisted in my refusal.
I supposed then that my political career was ended.  My home
and my profession and my library had an infinite attraction
for me.  I had become thoroughly sick of Washington and politics
and public life.

But the Republican Party in Massachusetts was having a death
struggle with General Butler.  That very able, adroit and
ambitious man was attempting to organize the political forces
of the State into a Butler party, and to make them the instrument
of his ambitions.  He had in some mysterious way got the ear
of General Grant and the control of the political patronage
of the State, so far as the United States offices were concerned.
I had denounced him and his methods with all my might in a
letter I had written to the people of Massachusetts, from
which I have already made extracts.  I had incurred his bitter
personal enmity, and was regarded with perhaps one exception,
that of my older brother Judge Hoar, as his most unrelenting
opponent.

The people of Massachusetts were never an office-seeking
people.  There is no State in the Union whose representatives
at the seat of Government have less trouble in that way, or
that gives less trouble to the Executive Departments or to
the President.  I have had that assurance from nearly every
President since I have been in public life.  And the people
of Massachusetts have never concerned themselves very much
as to who should hold the Executive offices, small or large,
so that they were honestly and faithfully served, and that
the man appointed was of good character and standing.  The
reform which took the civil service out of politics always
found great favor in Massachusetts.  But since General Butler,
in some way never fully explained to the public, got the ear
of the appointing power he seemed to be filling all the Departments
at Washington with his adherents, especially the important
places in the Treasury.  The public indignation was deeply
aroused.  Men dreaded to read the morning papers lest they
should see the announcement of the removal from the public
service of some honest citizen, or brave soldier, who was
filling the place of postmaster or marshal, or Custom House
official, or clerk in a Department at Washington, and the
putting in his place some unscrupulous follower of the fortunes
of General Butler.  The climax was reached when Butler's chief
lieutenant, Simmons, was appointed Collector of the Port of
Boston.  Judge Russell, the old Collector, was an able and
very popular man.  He had given Butler a sort of half-hearted
support.  But he was incapable of lending himself to any base
or unworthy purpose.  He was compelled to vacate the office,
much to his disgust.  He accepted that of Minister to Venezuela,
an unimportant foreign mission, and William A. Simmons was
appointed in his place.  The process of weeding out the Custom
House then went on with great rapidity.  Colonel Moulton,
one of the bravest soldiers of the Civil War, who had been
under rebel fire in a Charleston dungeon, and Colonel A. A.
Sherman, a man with a marvellous military record, were removed
to make way for men for whom, to say the least, the public
had no respect.  The order for their removal was recalled
in consequence of a direct appeal to President Grant.  Mr.
Hartwell, the Treasurer, an excellent officer, who had graduated
the first scholar at Harvard, was removed.  Mrs. Chenoweth,
a very accomplished lady, widow of one of the bravest officers
of the Civil War, a member of Grant's staff, who was filling
a clerical position at the Custom House, was notified of her
removal.  That also was arrested by a direct appeal to Grant.
General Andrews, one of our best officers, afterwards professor
at West Point, was dropped from the office of Marshal, and
one of the adherents of Butler put in his place.

The indignation of the better class of Republicans was aroused.
Before the appointment of Simmons, Mr. Boutwell had been elected
Senator, and Mr. Richardson had succeeded him as Secretary
of the Treasury.  Mr. Boutwell was a favorite with the President.
Mr. Sumner, then the senior Senator, was on the most unfriendly
relations with the President, and had opposed his reelection
to the best of his ability.  It was not considered likely,
under the custom then universally prevailing and indeed prevailing
ever since, that President Grant would ever have made such
an appointment without the entire approval of the Senator
from the State interested, with whom he was on most friendly
terms and who had served in his Cabinet as Secretary of the
Treasury.  Governor Boutwell was consulted about it, and gave
it his approval, although it is understood that afterward,
in obedience to the indignant feeling of the people, which
was deeply excited, he voted against the confirmation of Simmons
in the Senate.  At the same time he informed his associates
that he did not wish to have them understand that he requested
them to vote against Simmons because of his opposition, or
because of any so-called courtesy of the Senate.  Simmons
was the manager of Mr. Boutwell's campaign for reelection,
and General Butler was his earnest supporter, giving him notice
and urging him to repair at once to Boston when the movement
against him became formidable.

I am quite sure that but for the determination of the people
of Massachusetts not to endure Butler and Butlerism any longer,
and probably but for the appointment of Simmons, I should
never have been elected Senator.  It is likely there would
have been no change in the office until this moment.

When I left home for Washington at the beginning of the December
session of Congress in 1876, the late Adin Thayer told me
that some of the Republicans had got sick of Butler's rule,
and they were determined to have a candidate for Senator who
could be trusted to make zealous opposition to him and his
methods, and that they proposed to use my name.  I told him
I did not believe they would be able to get twenty-five votes,
that Mr. Boutwell, then Senator, was an able man, and that
I did not think the fact even that he was understood to be
a strong friend and ally of General Butler would induce the
people to displace him.  Mr. Thayer replied that at any rate
there should be a protest.

I had no communication from any other human being upon the
subject of my candidacy for the Senate, and made none to any
human being, with one exception, until my election by the
Legislature was announced.  My oldest sister was fatally sick,
and I received a letter every day giving an account of her
condition.  In a postscript to one letter from my brother,
he made some slight allusion to the election for Senator then
pending in the Massachusetts Legislature.  But with that exception
I never heard about it and had nothing to do with it.

I can truly say that I was as indifferent to the result, so
far as it affected me personally, as to the question whether
I should walk on one side of the street or the other.  I did
not undervalue the great honor of representing Massachusetts
in the Senate of the United States.  But I had an infinite
longing for my home and my profession and my library.  I never
found public employment pleasant or congenial.  But the fates
sent me to the Senate and have kept me there until I am now
the man longest in continuous legislative service in this
country, and have served in the United States Senate longer
than any other man who ever represented Massachusetts.

The last three times I have been elected to the Senate I
have had, I believe, every Republican vote of the Legislature,
and I was assured--of course I cannot speak with much confidence
of such a matter--that I could have all the Democratic votes,
if necessary.  I state these things with a feeling of natural
pride.  But I do not attribute it to any special merit of
mine.  It has been the custom of Massachusetts to continue
her Senators in public life so long as they were willing,
and were in general accord with the political opinion of the
majority of the people.

I have, however, owed very much indeed to the moderation
and kindness of the eminent gentlemen who might have been
most formidable competitors, if they had thought fit.  Just
before the election of 1883, when all the discontented elements
were seeking a candidate, General Francis A. Walker, one
of the ablest men ever born on the soil so productive of good
and able men, was proposed as my competitor.  He would have
had a great support.  I think he would have liked the service,
for which he was so eminently fitted.  He had been my pupil,
and had gone from my office to the War.  He came out promptly
in a letter in which he declared that in his judgment Mr.
Hoar was the fittest person in the Commonwealth for the office
of Senator.  Governor Long was my Republican competitor in
1883.  But on two or three occasions since, when he was proposed
in many quarters for the office of Senator, he promptly refused
to have his name submitted to the Legislature, and declared
himself for me.  He is a man of brilliant ability, and a great
favorite with the people of the Commonwealth.  General William
F. Draper, lately Ambassador to Italy, a most distinguished
soldier, a business man of great sagacity and success, having
inherited from his father a right to the regard of the people--
a regard which has been extended not only to him, but also
to his very able and excellent brothers--more than once when
there has been an election of Senator, has been proposed in
many quarters.  He has promptly, both in letter and in public
interviews, rejected the suggestion, finally with impatience
that he was put to the trouble of repeating himself in the
matter so often.

I think that in any other State than Massachusetts, and even
there, without the great kindness and moderation of these
gentlemen, my tenure of office, which will have continued
for thirty-eight years, if my life be spared, would have been
much shorter.

Mr. Sumner was in general accord with the Republicans of Massachusetts
on important questions in issue in his time.  But he bitterly
and savagely attacked President Grant at the height of his
popularity, and did his best to defeat him for reelection.
He allowed his name to be used as candidate for Governor,
against Governor Washburn.  The defeat of Grant would, of
course, have caused that of Henry Wilson, candidate for the
Vice-Presidency.  Still I have no doubt that if Mr. Sumner
had lived, he would have been reelected to the Senate without
any very formidable opposition.


CHAPTER II
PRESIDENT HAYES

President Hayes's Administration began under circumstances
of peculiar difficulty.  In the first Congress of his term
the Democrats had a majority in the House.  They had refused
to pass the Army Appropriation Bill the winter before and
would not consent to such a bill in the following winter without
a condition that no military force should be used to maintain
order at elections, or to keep in power state governments
obnoxious to them.  But his worst foes were of his own household.
There were two factions among the Republicans, one led by
Mr. Blaine and the other by Conkling and Cameron.  Blaine
and Conkling had been disappointed aspirants for the Presidency.
Mr. Hayes and his advisers were in favor of what was called
reform in the civil service and utterly rejected the claim
of Senators and Representatives to dictate nominations to
executive and judicial offices.  With the exception of Stanley
Matthews of Ohio and my colleague, Mr. Dawes, I was, I believe,
the only cordial supporter of the President in the Senate.

Mr. Blaine was disposed, I think, in the beginning, to give
the President his support.  But he was rendered exceedingly
indignant by the refusal of President Hayes to appoint Mr.
Frye to a seat in the Cabinet, which Mr. Blaine desired, as
it would smooth the way of Mr. Eugene Hale, his most intimate
friend and strongest supporter, to succeed Mr. Hamlin in
the Senate.  President Hayes was willing to appoint Mr. Hale
to a Cabinet office.  But Mr. Hale, I think very wisely, declined
the overture, as he had before declined the tender of a seat
in the Cabinet from President Grant.  He would have made an
excellent Cabinet officer.  But he was specially fitted for
the more agreeable and permanent public service of Senator.
I do not know what occasioned President Hayes's reluctance
to comply with Mr. Blaine's desire.  But it was a fortunate
decision for Mr. Frye.  If he had gone into the Cabinet,
in all likelihood the people of Maine would have chosen another
Senator when Mr. Blaine became Secretary of State under Garfield
in 1881, and according to the habit of the people of that
State would have continued him in their service.  So Mr.
Frye's brilliant and useful career in the Senate would have
been wanting to the history of the Republic.

I had myself something to do with the selection of the Cabinet.
I had been a member of the Convention held at Cincinnati that
had nominated President Hayes.  The Massachusetts delegation
had turned the scale between him and Blaine.  Their votes
gave him the slender majority to which he owed his nomination.
I had also been a member of the Electoral Commission to which
the contest between him and Tilden had been submitted and
I had been on the committee that framed the bill under which
that Commission was created.  I had voted with the Democrats
of the House to support that bill against the judgment of
a large majority of the Republicans.  I agreed with President
Hayes in the matter of a reform in the civil service and in
his desire to free the Executive power from the trammel of
senatorial dictation.

I had formed a strong friendship with Mr. McCrary in the House
of Representatives and had earnestly commended him to the
President for appointment to the office of Attorney-General.
I did not expect to make any other recommendation.  There
had been an unfortunate estrangement between the Republicans
of Massachusetts and of Maine by reason of the refusal of
the Massachusetts delegation to support Mr. Blaine for the
Presidency.  I thought it desirable for the interest of the
Republican Party that that breach should be healed and especially
desirable that the incoming administration, so beset with
difficulty, should have the powerful support of Mr. Blaine
and of those Republicans of whom he was the leader and favorite.
So I thought it best that he should be consulted in the matter
of the selection of a Cabinet officer from New England and
that I should keep aloof.

But the day after President Hayes's inauguration, rather
late in the afternoon, Mr. Blaine came into the Senate Chamber
and told me with some appearance of excitement that he thought
the President wanted to see the Massachusetts Senators.  I
did not, however, act upon that message, and did not go to
the White House that day.  I was at my room in the evening
when Senator Morrill of Vermont came and told me that President
Hayes wished him to inquire of me what Massachusetts man I
desired to have appointed to a place in the Cabinet.  I told
Mr. Morrill that there were two gentlemen of great capacity
and high character, either of whom would make an excellent
Cabinet officer.  One of them was William B. Washburn, and
the other Alexander H. Rice.  Each of them had held the office
of Governor of the Commonwealth, and each of them had been
a very eminent member of the House of Representatives.  But
I said that each belonged to what might be called a separate
faction or division in the Republican Party, and the appointment
of either would be distasteful to some of the supporters of
the other.  I added that there was one man of whom I thought
very highly indeed, an intimate friend of mine, whose appointment
I thought would give pleasure to everybody in Massachusetts.
That was General Charles Devens, then Judge of the Supreme
Court, a very eminent advocate and orator, and one of the
most distinguished soldiers the State had sent into the war.

Mr. Morrill went back to the President with the message.
Early the next morning I received notice from the White
House that the President wished to see me.  I complied with
his desire at once.  Mr. Dawes had also been sent for and
was there.  The President said he could offer General Devens
the Department of War, or perhaps the Navy.  Mr. Dawes thought
that he would not be willing to accept the latter.  I told
the President that I thought he would; that General Devens
was a native of Charlestown.  He had always taken a great
interest in the Navy.  He had known a great many of the old
and famous naval officers, and some of his near relatives
had been in that service.  But the President finally authorized
me to send a telegram to General Devens offering him the Department
of War.  I sent the telegram and requested Devens to come
at once to Washington, which he did.  At the same time, the
President stated his purpose to offer Mr. McCrary the Department
of Justice.  In the course of the day, however, it was reported
to the President that Mr. McCrary had formed a decided opinion
in favor of the McGarrahan claim, a claim which affected large
and valuable mining properties in California.  Most persons
who had investigated the claim believed it to be utterly fraudulent.
There were many persons of great influence who were interested
in the mining property affected.  They strongly appealed to
the President not to place in the office of Attorney-General
a man who was committed in favor of the claim.  The President
then asked me if I thought General Devens would be willing
to accept the office of Attorney-General, and exchange it
for that of Secretary of War later, when the McGarrahan claim
had been disposed of so far as Executive action was concerned.
I told the President that I thought he would.  When General
Devens arrived I stated the case to him.  He said he should
be unwilling to agree to such an arrangement.  He would be
willing to accept the office in the beginning, but if he were
to give up the office of Attorney-General after having once
undertaken it, he might be thought to have failed to discharge
his duties to the satisfaction of the President, or that of
the public.  He was unwilling to take that risk.

So the President determined to offer the Department of Justice
to General Devens, and the Department of War to Mr. McCrary,
a good deal to the disappointment of the latter.  All McCrary's
ambitions in life were connected with his profession.  He
took the first opportunity to leave the Executive Department
for a judicial career.

The other members of the Cabinet were:  William M. Evarts,
Secretary of State; John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury;
Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior; David M. Key, Postmaster-
General; Richard M. Thompson, of Indiana, Secretary of the
Navy.

President Hayes was a simple-hearted, sincere, strong and
wise man.  He is the only President of the United States who
promised, when he was a candidate for office, not to be a
candidate again, who kept his pledge.  He carried out the
principles of Civil Service Reform more faithfully than any
other President before or since down to the accession of President
Roosevelt.  General Grant in his "Memoirs" praises the soldierly
quality of President Hayes very highly.  He was made Brigadier-
General on the recommendation of Sheridan, and brevetted Major-
General for gallant and distinguished services.  He wrote,
after the Presidential election, to John Sherman, as follows:
"You feel, I am sure, as I do about this whole business.  A
fair election would have given us about forty electoral votes
at the South, at least that many; but we must not allow our
friends to defeat one outrage by another.  There must be
nothing curved on our part.  Let Mr. Tilden have the place
by violence, intimidation and fraud rather than undertake
to prevent it by means that will not bear the severest scrutiny."

He upheld the good faith of the nation in his veto of the
bill to authorize the coinage of the silver dollar of 412-1/2
grains, and to restore its legal tender character in 1879; and
in his veto of the bill violating our treaty with China.  He
grew steadily in public favor with all parties, and with all
parts of the country, as his Administration went on.  Under
his Administration the resumption of specie payments was accomplished;
and, in spite of the great difficulties caused by the factional
opposition in his own party, he handed down his office to
a Republican successor.

The weakness and folly of the charge against the decision
of the Electoral Commission, that it was unconstitutional
or fraudulent, and the fact that the American people were
never impressed by these charges, is shown by the fact that
General Garfield, one of the majority who gave that decision,
was elected to succeed President Hayes, and that six of the
eight members of that majority, now dead, maintained, every
one them, throughout their honored and useful lives, the respect
and affection of their countrymen, without distinction of
party.  Certainly there can be found among the great men of
that great generation no more pure and brilliant lights than
Samuel F. Miller, William Strong, Joseph P. Bradley, Frederick
T. Frelinghuysen, Oliver P. Morton and James A. Garfield.
There are two survivors of that majority, Mr. Edmunds and
myself.  Neither has found that the respect in which his countrymen
held him has been diminished by that decision.

President Hayes has been accused of abandoning the reconstruction
policy of his party.  It has also been said that he showed
a want of courage in failing to support the Republican State
Governments in Louisiana and South Carolina; that if the votes
of those States were cast for him they were cast for Packard
and Chamberlain at the elections for Governor held the same
day, and that he should have declined the Presidency, or have
maintained these Governors in place.  But these charges are,
at the least, inconsiderate, not the say ignorant.  It ought
to be said also that President Grant before he left office
had determined to do in regard to these State Governments
exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted with
his full approval.  Second, I have the authority of President
Garfield for saying that Mr. Blaine had come to the same
conclusion.  The Monday morning after the electoral count
had been completed and the result declared, Blaine had a long
talk with Garfield, which Garfield reported to me.  He told
him that he had made up his mind, if he had been elected,
to offer the office of Secretary of State to Mr. Evarts,
or, if anything prevented that, to Judge Hoar.  He further
said that he thought it was time to discontinue maintaining
Republican State Governments in office by the National power
and that the people of the Southern States must settle their
State elections for themselves.  Mr. Blaine by his disappointment
in the formation of President Hayes's Cabinet was induced
to make an attack on him which seems inconsistent with this
declaration.  But Mr. Blaine soon abandoned this ground,
and, so far as I now remember, never afterward advocated interference
with the control of the Southern States by National authority.
It seems to me that President Hayes did only what his duty
under the Constitution peremptorily demanded of him.  I entirely
approved his conduct at the time, and, so far as I know and
believe, he agreed exactly with the doctrine on which I always
myself acted before and since.  The power and duty of the
President are conferred and limited by the Constitution.  The
Constitution requires that no appropriation shall be made
for the support of the Army for more than two years.  In practice
the appropriation is never for more than one year.  That is
for the express purpose, I have always believed, of giving
to Congress, especially to the House of Representatives, which
must inaugurate all appropriation bills, absolute control
over the use of the Army, and the power to determine for what
purposes the military power shall be used.  At the session
before President Hayes's inauguration the Democratic House
of Representatives had refused to pass an Army Bill.  The
House refused to pass an Army Bill the next year, except on
condition that the soldiers should not be used to support
the State Government.

It became necessary to call a special session of Congress
in October, 1877, by reason of the failure of the Army Appropriation
Bill the winter before.  The first chapter of the Statutes
of that session, being an act making appropriations for the
support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1878,
and for other purposes, enacts "that none of the money hereby
appropriated shall be expended, directly or indirectly, for
any use not strictly necessary for, and directly connected
with, the military service of the Government; and this restriction
shall apply to the use of public animals, forage, and vehicles."

It was, therefore, President Hayes's Constitutional duty,
in my judgment, to desist from using the military power of
the Government on the 30th day of June, 1877, when the fiscal
year expired for which there was an appropriation for the
support of the Army.  In fact he removed the troops a little
earlier.  But he received assurances from the Democratic leaders--
whether they were made good I will not now undertake to inquire--
that there should be no unlawful force on their part after
the removal of the troops.  Mr. Hayes was right and wise
in securing this stipulation if he could, by freeing these
communities from military grasp a few weeks before he would
have been compelled to do it at any rate.  Obedience to this
clear mandate of Constitutional duty was not in the least
inconsistent with a faithful and vigorous use of all the other
powers which were lodged in his hands by the Constitution
for securing the rights of the colored people, or the purity
and integrity of National elections.  It is true that substantially
the same vote elected Packard of Louisiana as that which chose
the Hayes electors.  But the authority to declare who is the
President lawfully chosen, and the Constitutional power to
maintain the Governor in his seat by force are lodged in
very different hands.  The latter can only be used by the
National Executive under the circumstances specially described
in the Constitution, and it can never be used by him for any
considerable period of time contrary to the will of Congress,
and without powers put in his hands by legislation which must
originate in the body which represents the people.

The infinite sweetness and tact of his wife contributed greatly
to the success of the Administration of President Hayes.  She
was a woman of great personal beauty.  Her kindness of heart
knew no difference between the most illustrious and the humblest
of her guests.  She accomplished what would have been impossible
to most women, the maintenance of a gracious and delightful
hospitality while strictly adhering to her principles of total
abstinence, and rigorously excluding all wines and intoxicating
liquors from the White House during her administration.  The
old wine drinkers of Washington did not take to the innovation
very kindly.  But they had to console themselves with a few
jests or a little grumbling.  The caterer or chef in charge
of the State dinners took compassion on the infirmity of our
nature so far as to invent for one of the courses which came
about midway of the State dinner, a box made of the frozen
skin of an orange.  When it was opened you found instead of
the orange a punch or sherbet into which as much rum was crowded
as it could contain without being altogether liquid.  This
was known as the life-saving station.

Somebody who met Mr. Evarts just after he had been at a dinner
at the White House asked him how it went off.  "Excellently,"
was the reply, "the water flowed like champagne."


CHAPTER III
CABINET OF PRESIDENT HAYES

There has hardly been a stronger Cabinet since Washington
than that of President Hayes.  Its members worked together
in great harmony.  All of them, I believe, were thoroughly
devoted to the success of the Administration.

The Secretary of State was William M. Evarts.  He was my near
kinsman and intimate friend.  His father died in his early
youth.  My father was Mr. Evarts's executor, and the son,
after his mother broke up housekeeping, came to my father's
house in his college vacations as to a home.  He studied law
at the Harvard Law School, and with Daniel Lord, a very eminent
lawyer in New York.  One of his early triumphs was his opening
of the celebrated Monroe-Edwards case.  The eminent counsel
to whom the duty had been assigned being prevented from attendance
by some accident, Evarts was unexpectedly called upon to take
his place.  He opened the case with so much eloquence that
the audience in the crowded court-room gave him three cheers
when he got through.

He rose rapidly to a distinguished place in his profession,
and before he died was, I suppose, the foremost advocate
in the world, whether in his country or Europe.  He was counsel
for President Johnson on his impeachment, counsel for the
Republican side in support of the title of President Hayes
before the Electoral Commission; counsel for the United States
against Great Britain before the Tribunal at Geneva.  He was
counsel in the celebrated Lemon case, where the case was settled
as to the rights of slave owners to bring their slaves into
the free States, and hold them _in transitu_.  In all these
he was successful.  He was counsel also in another trial of
almost equal interest and celebrity, the Tilton divorce suit--
in which Henry Ward Beecher was charged with adultery.  In
this the jury disagreed.  But the substantial victory was
with Evarts's client.

Mr. Evarts was a man of unfailing equanimity and good nature,
never thrown off his balance by any exigency in diplomacy,
in political affairs, or in the trial of causes.  Any person
who has occasion to follow him in his diplomatic discussions
will be impressed with the far-sighted wisdom and caution
with which he took his positions.

He was always a delightful orator.  He rose sometimes to a
very lofty eloquence, as witness especially his argument in
defence of President Johnson.  He had an unfailing wit.  You
could never challenge him or provoke him to an encounter without
making an abundant and sparkling stream gush forth.  He never
came off second best in an encounter of wits with any man.
He was a man of great generosity, full of sympathy, charity,
and kindliness.  If his biography shall ever be properly written,
it will be as delightful as that of Sheridan or Sidney Smith
for its wit, and will be valuable for the narrative of the
great public transactions in which he took a part.  Especially
it will preserve to posterity the portraiture of a great lawyer
and advocate of the time before the days of specialists, when
the leaders of the American Bar were great lawyers and advocates.

I do not think Evarts's capacity as a diplomatist is known.
Perhaps it never will be thoroughly understood.  The work
of a Secretary of State in dealing with foreign countries
is performed in the highest confidence and does not ordinary
come to light until interest in the transaction to which it
relates has grown cold.  Evarts conducted some very delicate
negotiations, including that in regard to the Fortune's Bay
matter, with much skill.  He was careful never, for the sake
of present success, to commit the country to any doctrine
which might be inconvenient in the remote future.

I think Evarts failed to appreciate his own political strength.
He was in the early part of his life devoted to Mr. Webster,
for whom he had great reverence, and later to Mr. Seward.
He sometimes, I think, failed to take wholly serious views
of political conditions, so far as they affected him personally.
I do not think he ever knew the hold he had upon the respect
of the country, or upon the affection of the men with whom
he was brought into intimate association in public life, and
at the Bar.  He was very fond of his friends, classmates and
kindred, and of his college.

After the defeat of the Republican Party in 1884 he was chosen
Senator from the State of New York.  He had been candidate
for the Senate in 1861, to succeed Mr. Seward.  His competitor
was Horace Greeley.  Some of Mr. Evarts's friends thought
that the old supporters of Mr. Seward, and perhaps Mr. Seward
himself, did not stand by him as the unfailing and powerful
support of Seward would have led men to expect.  But when
he came into public life in 1885, and took his seat as a Senator
from the great State of New York, men looked to him to be
the great leader in restoring the broken ranks of the Republican
Party.  I think it would have been easy to make him the Republican
candidate, and to elect him to the Presidency in 1888, if
he had been willing to take that position himself.  But he
did not in the Senate, or in the counsels of the party, take
or attempt to take the leadership for which he was fitted.

He was invited in the spring or early summer of 1885 to address
a political club in Boston.  The whole country listened eagerly
to see what counsel the great Senator and the great Constitutional
lawyer, and great orator, had to give to his party associates
and to the people in that momentous time.  But he contented
himself with making a bright and witty speech.  The club was
known as the Middlesex Club, though it had its meetings in
Boston.  He gave a humorous description of the feelings of
the Middlesex man when he went over to Boston, and those of
the Boston man when he went over to Middlesex; and told one
or two stories of his early days in Boston, where he was born.
That was all.  I felt as I listened as though a pail of ice-
water had been poured down my spine.

But modesty and disinterestedness are qualities that are
so infrequent among public men that we may well pardon this
bright and delightful genius for that fault.

In the last years of his service in the Senate he had a very
serious affliction of the eyes, which rendered it impossible
for him to use them for reading or study, or to recognize
by sight any but the most familiar human figures.  He bore
the calamity with unfailing cheerfulness.  I believe it was
caused by overwork in the preparation of a case.  The first
I knew of it, he asked me to meet him at Concord, where he
was about to make a visit.  He told me what had happened,
and that his physicians in Washington and New York thought
there was a possibility that they congestion of the veins
surrounding the optic nerve might be absorbed.  But they thought
the case very doubtful, and advised him to go to Europe for
the benefit of the journey, and for the possible advantage
of advice there.  He wanted me to undertake the duties devolving
on him in the Committee of which he was Chairman, and to attend
to some other public matters in his absence.  His physician
in Paris told him there was not the slightest hope.  He thought
that the darkness would certainly, though gradually, shut
down upon him.  He received this sentence with composure.
But he said that he had long wished to see Raphael's famous
Virgin at Dresden, and that he would go to Dresden to see
it before the night set in.  This he did.  So the faces of
the beautiful Virgin and the awful children were, I have no
doubt, a great consolation to him in his darkened hours.


John Sherman was Secretary of the Treasury.  I sat next to
him in the Senate for several years.  I came to know him quite
intimately.  I suppose few men knew him more intimately, although
I fancy he did not give his inmost confidence to anybody,
unless to his brother the General, or to a few persons of
his own family or household.  I paid the following tribute
to him the day after his death:

"It is rarely more than once or twice in a generation that
a great figure passes from the earth who seems the very embodiment
of the character and temper of his time.  Such men are not
always those who have held the highest places or been famous
for great genius or even enjoyed great popularity.  They rather
are men who represent the limitations as well as the accomplishments
of the people around them.  They know what the people will
bear.  They utter the best thought which their countrymen
in their time are able to reach.  They are by no means mere
thermometers.  They do not rise and fall with the temperature
about them.  But they are powerful and prevailing forces,
with a sound judgment and practical common sense that understands
just how high the people can be lifted, and where the man
who is looking not chiefly at the future but largely to see
what is the best thing that can be done in the present should
desist from unavailing effort.  Such a man was John Sherman,
for whom the open grave is now waiting at Mansfield.  For
nearly fifty years he has been a conspicuous figure and a
great leader in the party which has controlled the Government.
Of course, in a republic it can be claimed for no man that
he controlled the course of history.  And also, of course,
it is not possible while the events are fresh to assign to
any one man accurately his due share in the credit for what
is done, especially in legislative bodies, where matters
are settled in secret council often before the debate begins
and almost always before the vote is taken.

"But there are some things we can say of Mr. Sherman without
fear of challenge now and without fear of any record that
may hereafter leap to light.

"He filled always the highest places.  He sat at the seat
of power.  His countrymen always listened for his voice and
frequently listened for his voice more eagerly than for that
of any other man.  He became a Republican leader almost immediately
after he took his seat in the House of Representatives in
1855.  He was candidate for Speaker before the war, at the
time when the Republican Party achieved its first distinct
and unequivocal national success, unless we except the election
of General Banks, who had himself been elected partly by Know-
Nothing votes.  Mr. Sherman failed of an election.  But the
contest left him the single preeminent figure in the House
of Representatives--a preeminence which he maintained in his
long service in the Senate, in the Treasury, and down to within
a few years of his death.

"He was a man of inflexible honesty, inflexible courage,
inflexible love of country.  He was never a man of great
eloquence, or greatly marked by that indefinable quality
called genius.  But in him sound judgment and common sense,
better than genius, better than eloquence, always prevailed,
and sometimes seemed to rise to sublimity which genius never
attains.  His inflexible courage and his clear vision manifested
themselves in the very darkest period of our history, when
hope seemed at times to have gone out in every other heart.
There is a letter in his Memoirs, written April 12, 1861,
which, as I remember the gloom and blackness of that time,
seems to me one of the sublimest utterances in our history.
The letter was written to his brother William, afterward the
General, who had been offered a place in the War Department,
which Mr. Chase urged him to accept, saying that he would
be virtually Secretary of War.  The offer must have been a
dazzling temptation to the young soldier who had left his
profession and was engaged in civil duties as an instructor,
I think, in a college somewhere.  But John earnestly dissuades
his brother from accepting it, urges him to take a position
in the field, and foretells his great military success.  He
then adds the following prediction as to the future of the
country.  It was written at midnight at the darkest single
hour of our history:

"'Let me now record a prediction.  Whatever you may think
of the signs of the times, the Government will rise from the
strife greater, stronger and more prosperous than ever.  It
will display every energy and military power.  The men who
have confidence in it, and do their full duty by it, may reap
whatever there is of honor and profit in public life, while
those who look on merely as spectators in the storm will fail
to discharge the highest duty of a citizen, and suffer accordingly
in public estimation.'

"Mr. Sherman's great fame and the title to his countrymen's
remembrance which will most distinguish him from other men
of his time, will rest upon his service as a financier.  He
bowed a little to the popular storm in the time of fiat money.
Perhaps if he had not bowed a little he would have been uprooted,
and the party which would have paid our national debt in fiat
money would have succeeded.  But ever since that time he has
been an oak and not a willow.  The resumption of specie payments
and the establishment of the gold standard, the two great
financial achievements of our time, are largely due to his
powerful, persistent and most effective advocacy.

"It is a little singular that two great measures that are
called by his name are measures, one of which he disapproved,
and with the other of which he had nothing to do.  I mean
the bill for the purchase of silver, known as the Sherman
Law, and the bill in regard to trusts, known as the Sherman
Anti-Trust Law.  The former was adopted against his protest,
by a committee of conference, although he gave it a reluctant
and disgusted support at the end.  It was, in my judgment,
necessary to save the credit of the country at the time, and
a great improvement on the law it supplanted.

"The other, known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Bill, I suppose
he introduced by request.  I doubt very much whether he read
it.  If he did, I do not think he ever understood it.  It
was totally reconstructed in the Judiciary Committee."

Mr. Sherman was delightful company.  He had a fund of pleasant
anecdote always coming up fresh and full of interest from
the stores of long experience.

He was wise, brave, strong, patriotic, honest, faithful,
simple-hearted, sincere.  He had little fondness for trifling
and little sense of humor.  Many good stories are told of
his serious expostulation with persons who had made some
jesting statement in his hearing which he received with immense
gravity.  I am ashamed to confess that I used to play upon
this trait of his after a fashion which I think annoyed him
a little, and which he must have regarded as exceedingly frivolous.

He used occasionally to ask me to go to ride with him.  One
hot summer afternoon Mr. Sherman said:  "Let us go over and
see the new electric railroad," to which I agreed.  That was
then a great curiosity.  It was perhaps the first street railroad,
certainly the first one in Washington which had electricity
for motive power.  Mr. Sherman told his driver to be careful.
He said the horses were very much terrified by the electric
cars.  I said:  "I suppose they are like the labor reformers.
They see contrivances for doing without their labor, and they
get very angry and manifest displeasure." Mr. Sherman pondered
for a moment or two, and then said with great seriousness:
"Mr. Hoar, the horse is a very intelligent animal, but it
really does not seem to me that he can reason as far as that."
I told the General of it afterward, who was full of fun, and
asked him if he really believed his brother thought I made
the remark seriously; to which he replied that he had no doubt
of it; that John never had the slightest conception of a jest.

At another time, one very hot summer day, Mr. Sherman said:
"Hoar, I think I shall go take a ride; I am rather tired.
When a vote comes up, will you announce that I am paired with
my colleague?"  I called out to Senator Rollins of New Hampshire,
who sat a little way off, and who kept the record of pairs
for the Republican side: "Rollins, there will be no vote this
afternoon, except one on a funeral resolution in honor of
Mr. Allen of Missouri.  Will you kindly announce that Mr.
Sherman is paired with his colleague?" Mr. Sherman got up
in great haste and went over to Mr. Rollins, and said: "Mr.
Rollins, Mr. Hoar entirely misunderstood me.  I never should
think of announcing a pair on a funeral resolution."

Mr. Sherman was not an eloquent man, except on some few occasions,
when his simple statement without ornament or passion rose
to the highest eloquence by reason of the impressiveness of
his fact or of his reasoning.  His memory failed in his last
years, and the effect of age on his other faculties became
apparent when he undertook to deal with new and complicated
subjects.  But he was clear to the last when his great subject
of finance was under consideration.  One of the most admirable
examples of his power, also one of the most admirable examples
of American campaign speaking, is his statement of the financial
issue between the two parties at the beginning of the campaign
of 1896.  It struck the key-note.  The other Republican speakers
only followed it.

He took great satisfaction in his New England ancestry.  He
frequently spoke with great pleasure of a visit made by him
and the General, some twelve or fifteen years ago, I think,
to Woodbury, Connecticut, where his ancestors dwelt.  He took
a special pride in the character of his father, one of the
Ohio pioneers, from whom, I judge from his account, both his
illustrious sons derived in large measure their sterling quality.
He was a far-away kinsman of my own, a relationship of which
it may well be believed I am highly proud, and of which both
General Sherman and Senator Sherman were kind enough frequently
to speak.

For me his death ended an intimate friendship of nearly twenty-
five years, during many of which we sat side by side in the
Senate Chamber and enjoyed much unreserved social intercourse
in long rides and walks.  Among the great characters which
American has given to mankind these two famous brothers, so
different, yet so like in their earnest love of country, their
independence and courage, their devotion to duty, will ever
hold a high place.


George W. McCrary had been an eminent member of the House
of Representatives, where he had the confidence of both parties.
He was a protege of Judge Miller, with whom he studied law.
His chief ambition, however, was for judicial service.  He
was much disappointed when it was found desirable that he
should take the Department of War instead of the Department
of Justice to which President Hayes originally intended to
invite him.  He very gladly accepted the offer of a seat on
the Bench of the United States Circuit Court.  He filled that
office with great credit, and it is highly probable would
have been promoted to the Supreme Court of the United States,
but for his untimely death.

He was the originator of the method of solution of the dispute
as to the title to the Presidency in 1876.  It ought to be
said, however, that it was done in full consultation with
Mr. Blaine.  I was then quite intimate with both of them,
and a member of the Committee in the House who reported the
plan.  On the seventh day of December, 1876, at the beginning
of the winter session, after the election, Mr. McCrary offered
the following resolution.  It was adopted.

"Whereas there are differences of opinion as to the proper
mode of counting the electoral votes for President and Vice-
President and as to the manner of determining questions that
may arise as to the legality and validity of returns made
of such votes by the several States;

"And whereas it is of the utmost importance that all differences
of opinion and all doubt and uncertainty upon these questions
should be removed, to the end that the votes may be counted
and the result declared by a tribunal whose authority none
can question and whose decision all will accept as final: Therefore,

"Resolved, That a committee of five members of this House
be appointed by the Speaker, to act in conjunction with any
similar committee that may be appointed by the Senate, to
prepare and report without delay such a measure, either legislative
or constitutional, as may in their judgment be best calculated
to accomplish the desired end, and that said committee have
leave to report at any time."


I do not know that a sketch of Richard W. Thompson, or Dick
Thompson, as he was familiarly and affectionately called,
properly finds a place in my autobiography.  I knew him very
slightly.  I dare say I visited the Navy Department in his
time.  But I have now no recollection of it.  I had a great
respect for him.  He lived in the lifetime of every President
of the United States, except Washington, and I believe he
saw every one of them, except Washington, unless it may be
that he never saw Theodore Roosevelt.  He was a very interesting
character, a man of great common sense, public spirit, with
a wonderful memory, and a rare fund of knowledge of the political
history of the Northwest.  Indeed he was an embodiment of
the best quality of the people of the Ohio Territory, although
born in Virginia.  His great capacity was that of a politician.
He made excellent stump speeches, managed political conventions
with great shrewdness, and also with great integrity, and
had great skill in constructing platforms.  Colonel Thompson
was a very valuable political adviser.  It has never been
the custom to select Secretaries of the Navy on account of
any previously acquired knowledge of naval affairs, although
the two heads of that Department appointed by Presidents McKinley
and Roosevelt have conducted it with wonderful success in
a very difficult time.  A day or two after the Inauguration,
John Sherman, the new Secretary of the Treasury, gave a very
brilliant dinner party to the Cabinet, at which I was a guest.
The table was ornamented by a beautiful man-of-war made out
of flowers.  Just before the guests sat down to dinner a little
adopted daughter of Secretary Sherman's attached a pretty
American flag to one of the masts.  Somebody called attention
to the beauty of the little ornament.  I asked Secretary Thompson
across the table to which mast of a man-of-war the American
flag should be attached.  Thompson coughed and stammered a
little, and said:  "I think I shall refer that question to
the Attorney-General."


David M. Key was appointed Postmaster-General in furtherance
of President Hayes's desire, in the accomplishment of which
he was eminently successful, to promote harmony between the
sections, and to diminish, so far as possible, the heat of
party feeling which had blazed so intensely at the time of
his election.  Mr. Key was a Democrat, and never, I believe,
certainly not during President Hayes's Administration, abandoned
his allegiance to the Democratic Party.  He had been a member
of the Senate from Tennessee, and Lieutenant-Colonel in the
Confederate Army.  His appointment was a popular one.  Mr.
Key administered the affairs of the Department very satisfactorily,
in which he was aided very much by his Assistant Postmaster-
General, Mr. Tyner, who had been an eminent member of the
House, to whom, I suppose, he left the matter of appointments
to office.


Carl Schurz was a very interesting character.  When I entered
the House he was a member of the Senate from the State of
Missouri.  He was admirably equipped for public service.  Although
a native of Germany, he had a most excellent, copious and
clear English style.  No man in either House of Congress equalled
him in that respect.  He was a clear reasoner, and not lacking
on fit occasion in a stirring eloquence.  He had rendered
great service to the country.  The value to the Union cause
of the stanch support of the Germans in the Northwest, including
Missouri, whose principal city, St. Louis, contained a large
German population, can hardly be over-estimated.  Without
it Missouri would have passed an ordinance of secession, and
the city would have been held by the Confederates from the
beginning of the war.  To prevent this the patriotism and
influence of Carl Schurz, then very powerful with his German
fellow-citizens, largely contributed.  He also combated with
great power the dangerous heresy of fiat money and an irredeemable
currency.  He was a stanch advocate of civil service reform,
although he left Congress before the legislation which accomplished
that was adopted.  So he will be entitled to a high place
in the history of the very stormy time in which he has lived,
and to the gratitude of his countrymen.

But he seems to me to have erred in underrating the value
of party instrumentalities and of official power in accomplishing
what is best for the good of the people.  When his Republican
associates committed what he thought some grave errors, he
helped turn Missouri over to the Democrats, who have held
it ever since.  So the political power of the State since
Mr. Schurz abandoned the Republican Party because of his personal
objection to President Grant, has been exerted against everything
Mr. Schurz valued--honest elections, sound money, security
to the enfranchised Southern men, and the Constitutional rights
which Mr. Schurz helped gain for them.  He has never seemed
to care for organization, still less to be influenced by that
attachment to organization which, while sometimes leading
to great evil, has been the source of inspiration of nearly
everything that has been accomplished for good in this world.

Mr. Blaine says of him, with some exaggeration, but with
some truth, that he has not become rooted and grounded anywhere,
has never established a home, and is not identified with any
community.

So the influence of Mr. Schurz has only been to contribute
some powerful arguments to the cause which he espoused and
never, certainly for a great many years, that of a leader.
Mr. Schurz's arguments for the last thirty years would have
been as effective if published anonymously, and I dare say
more effective than they have been when given to the world
under his name.

Mr. Blaine says of him that he has not the power of speaking
extempore; that he requires careful and studious preparation,
and is never ready, off-hand, to shoot on the wing.  I do
not agree with Mr. Blaine's estimate of Mr. Schurz in that
particular.  I have heard him make very effective speeches
in the Senate, and elsewhere, that were undoubtedly extemporary.
Mr. Blaine says that Mr. Schurz is so deficient in this respect
that he has been known to use manuscript for an after-dinner
response.  But that has been done, not infrequently, by persons
who have first-rate capacity for extemporary speaking, but
who desire to say something to a number of persons much greater
than those who sit around the tables, who are eager to read
what they say.  That should be carefully matured both in thought
and phrase, and should convey their meaning with more precision
than off-hand speaking is likely to attain, and be reported
with more accuracy than off-hand speaking is likely to get.

I have never been intimate with Mr. Schurz.  I deeply lamented
his action in supporting Mr. Cleveland, and contributing what
was in his power to the defeat of the Republican Party on
two occasions--a defeat which brought so much calamity to
the Republic.  I have thought that in his dislikes and severe
judgment of individuals he lost sight of great principles.
His independence of his own party led him to support a very
much worse party domination, and to help to accomplish measures
and establish principles to which he had been all his life
utterly opposed.  But the services to which I have alluded
should not be forgotten.  They entitle him to the highest
respect, and should far outweigh his faults and mistakes.

Mr. Schurz made one very unfortunate mistake quite early in
the course of his administration of the Interior Department.
He had formed the opinion, I suppose without much practical
experience in such matters, that it would be a good plan to
get the civilized Indians of the country into the Indian Territory.
Accordingly he had issued an order for the removal of the
Ponca Indians, of Nebraska, to the Indian Territory.  The
Poncas were a small tribe, living on excellent lands, to which
they were exceedingly attached.  They were a peaceful people.
It was their boast that no Ponca had ever injured a white
man.  Mr. Schurz had been informed that the Poncas were willing
to go.  But when they heard of the scheme, they strenuously
objected.  They sold their ponies to enable an agent to go
to Washington to make their protest known.  But Mr. Schurz
was immovable.  The Nebraska Senators waited upon him, but
their expostulations were received with disdain, as the counsel
of politicians who were not entitled to much respect.  The
removal was effected.  The Indian Territory proved unhealthy
for them.  A part of the tribe made their escape, took the
coffins of those who had died with them, and made their way
back to the original home of their ancestors.

The public feeling was deeply aroused.  I happened to be at
home in Worcester when a meeting was called by clergymen and
other philanthropic gentlemen.  It was addressed by a young
Indian woman, named Bright Eyes, who belonged, I think, to
a tribe closely allied to the Poncas.  I attended the meeting,
but was careful not to commit myself to any distinct opinion
without knowing more of the facts.  When I got back to Washington,
President Hayes called on my at my room.  It was the only
time I have ever known a President of the United States to
call upon a member of either House of Congress on public business,
although I believe President Lincoln sometimes did it; and
it may possibly have happened on other occasions.  President
Hayes was very much excited.  He seemed at the time to think
that a great wrong had been done by the Secretary.  He brought
his fist down upon the table with great emphasis, and said:
"Mr. Hoar, I will turn Mr. Schurz out, if you say so." I said:
"O no, Mr. President, I hope nothing of that kind will be
done.  Mr. Schurz is an able man.  He has done his best.  His
mistake, if he has made one, is only that he has adhered obstinately
to a preconceived opinion, and has been unwilling to take
advice or receive suggestions after he had determined on his
course.  It would be a great calamity to have one of your
Cabinet discredited by you." President Hayes took that view
of it.  Indeed, I believe on further and fuller inquiry, he
came to the conclusion that it was his duty to sustain the
Secretary, so far as to keep in the Indian Territory the fragment
of the Ponca Tribe who were still there.

I took no public part in the matter.  My colleague, Mr. Dawes,
who was a very earnest champion and friend of the Indians,
commented on the course of the Secretary in the Senate with
great severity; and he and the Secretary had an earnest controversy.

Mr. Schurz was a great favorite with our Independents and
Mugwumps, many of whom had, like him, left the Republican
Party in 1872, and some of whom had not returned to their
old allegiance.  Mr. Schurz was invited to a public dinner
in Boston, at which President Eliot, Dr. James Freeman Clarke
and several eminent men of their way of thinking, took part.
They did not discuss the merits of the principal question
much, but the burden of their speech was eulogy of Mr. Schurz
as a great and good man, and severe condemnation of the character
of the miserable politicians who were supposed to be his critics
and opponents.  There was a proposition for a call for a public
meeting on the other side to condemn the Secretary, and stand
by the Indians.  In this call several very able and influential
men joined, including Governor Long.  I advised very strongly
against holding the meeting.  I was quite sure that, on the
one hand, neither Mr. Schurz nor the Administration was likely
to treat the Indians cruelly or unjustly again; and on the
other hand I was equally sure of the absolute sincerity and
humanity of the people who had found fault with his action.
A day or two, however, after the Schurz dinner, a reporter
of a prominent newspaper in Boston asked me for an interview
about the matter, to which I assented.  He said: "Have you
seen the speeches of President Eliot and Dr.  Clarke and Mr.
Codman at the Schurz banquet?" I said, "Yes." He asked me:
"What do you think of them?" I said: "Well, it is very natural
that these gentlemen should stand by Mr. Schurz, who has
been their leader and political associate.  President Eliot's
speech reminds me of Baillie Nichol Jarvie when he stood
up for his kinsman, Rob Roy, in the Town Council of Glasgow
when some of the Baillie's enemies had cast in his teeth
his kinship with the famous outlaw.  'I tauld them,' said
the Baillie, 'that barring what Rob had dune again the law,
and that some three or four men had come to their deaths by
him, he was an honester man than stude on ony of their shanks.'"
This ended the incident, so far as I was concerned.


To draw an adequate portraiture of Charles Devens would require
the noble touch of the old masters of painting or the lofty
stroke of the dramatists of Queen Elizabeth's day.  He filled
many great places in the public service with so much modesty
and with a gracious charm of manner and behavior which so
attracted and engrossed our admiration that we failed at first
to discern the full strength of the man.  It is not until
after his death, when we sum up what he has done for purposes
of biography or of eulogy, that we see how important and varied
has been the work of his life.

Charles Devens was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, April
4, 1820.  His family connections led him to take early in
life a deep interest in the military and naval history of
the country, especially in that of the War of 1812; while
the place of his birth and the fact that he was the grandson
of Richard Devens gave to him the interest in the opening
of the Revolution which belongs to every son of Middlesex.
He was a pupil at the Boston Latin School; was graduated
at Harvard in 1838; was admitted to the bar in 1840; practised
law in Northfield and afterward in Greenfield; was Senator
from Franklin County in 1848 and 1849; was Brigadier-General
of the militia; was appointed United States Marshal by President
Taylor in 1849, holding that office until 1853; removed to
Worcester in 1854; formed a partnership with George F. Hoar
and J. Henry Hill in December, 1856; was City Solicitor in
the years 1856, 1857 and 1858.  The news of the surrender
of Fort Sumter was received in Worcester Sunday, April 14.
Monday forenoon came the confirmation of the news and President
Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers.  General Devens was
engaged in the trial of a cause before the Supreme Court,
when the news was told him.  He instantly requested another
member of the Bar to take his place in the trial, went immediately
up street, offered his services to the Government, was unanimously
chosen the same day Major of the Third Battalion of Massachusetts
Rifles, commissioned the next day, April 16, departed for
the seat of war April 20.  The battalion under his command
was stationed at Fort McHenry.  On the 24th of July following
he was appointed Colonel of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment.

Gen. Devens was in command of the Fifteenth Regiment at the
disastrous battle of Ball's Bluff, where he was struck by
a musket ball, which was intercepted by a metallic button
which saved his life.  His conduct on that day received high
encomium from General McClellan.  He was soon after appointed
a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and assigned to a brigade
in Couch's Division of the Fourth Corps.  His division was
engaged in the battle in front of Fort Magruder on the 5th
of May, 1862.  On the 31st of the same month he was engaged
in the most critical portion of the desperate fight at Fair
Oaks, where his command was conspicuous for valor and devotion.
This was one of the most stubbornly contested fields of the
war.  Gen. Devens was severely wounded toward the close of
the day, but with a few other officers he succeeded in reforming
the repeatedly broken lines and in holding the field until
reinforcements arrived and stayed the tide of Confederate
triumph.  He returned to his command as soon as his wound
would permit, and took part in the battle of Fredericksburg
in December, 1862.  In his official report General Newton
says:  "My acknowledgments are due to all according to their
opportunities, but especially to Brigadier-General Charles
Devens, who commanded the advance and the rear guard, in the
crossing and recrossing of the river."  In the following
spring General Devens was promoted to the command of a division
of the Eleventh Corps.  He was posted with his division of
4,000 men on the extreme right of the flank of Hooker's army,
which was attacked by 26,000 men under the great rebel leader,
Stonewall Jackson.  General Devens was wounded by a musket
ball in the foot early in the day; but he kept the field,
making the most strenuous efforts to hold his men together
and stay the advance of the Confederates until his Corps was
almost completely enveloped by Jackson's force and, in the
language of General Walker, "was scattered like the stones
and timbers of a broken dam." He recovered from his wound
in time to take part in the campaign of 1864.  His troops
were engaged on the first of June in the battle of Cold Harbor,
and carried the enemy's entrenched line with severe loss.
On the third of June, in an attack which General Walker characterizes
as one "which is never spoke of without awe and bated breath
by any one who participated in it," General Devens was carried
along the line on a stretcher, being so crippled by inflammatory
rheumatism that he could neither mount his horse nor stand
in his place.  This was the last action in which he took an
active part.  On the third of April, 1865, he led the advance
into Richmond, where the position of Military Governor was
assigned to him after the surrender.  He afterwards was second
in command to General Sickles, in the Southeastern Department,
and exercised practically all the powers of government for
a year or two.  This command was of very great importance
to him as a part of his legal training.  Upon him practically
devolved the duty of deciding summarily, but without appeal,
all important questions of military law as well as those affecting
the civil rights of citizens during his administration.

He was offered a commission in the regular army, which he
declined.  He came back to Worcester in 1866; renewed his
partnership with me for a short time; was appointed Justice
of the Superior Court April, 1867; was appointed Justice of
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1873; was offered the
appointment of Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President
Hayes March 5, 1877; a day or two later was tendered the office
of Attorney-General by the President, which he accepted and
held until the expiration of President Hayes's Administration.
He was offered the office of Judge of the Circuit Court of
the First Circuit at the death of Judge Shepley, which he
very much desired to accept.  But the President, although
placing this office at his disposal, was exceedingly unwilling
to lose his service in the Cabinet; and General Devens, with
his customary self-denial, yielded to the desire of his chief.
He was again appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts
in 1881, and held that office until his death.

He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society
October 21, 1878.  He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical
Society.  He received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard University
in the year 1877.  He was chosen President of the Harvard
Alumni Association, and again elected President of that Association
in 1886, in order that he might preside at the great celebration
of the 250th anniversary of the foundation of the college,
which he did with a dignity and grace which commanded the
admiration of all persons who were present on that interesting
occasion.  He died January 7, 1891.

General Devens gained very soon after establishing himself
in Worcester the reputation of one of the foremost advocates
at the bar of Massachusetts.  He was a model of the professional
character, of great courtesy to his opponent, great deference
to the court, fidelity to his client, giving to every case
all the labor which could profitably be spent upon it.  The
certainty of the absolute fidelity, thoroughness, and skill
with which his part of the duty of an important trial would
be performed, made it a delight to try cases as his associate.
He was especially powerful with juries in cases involving
the domestic relations, or which had in them anything of the
pathos of which the court-house so often furnishes examples.
He did not care in those days for the preparation or argument
of questions of law, although he possessed legal learning
fully adequate to the exigencies of his profession, and never
neglected any duty.

His fine powers continued to grow as he grew older.  I think
he was unsurpassed in this country in the generation to which
he belonged in native gifts of oratory.  He had a fine voice,
of great compass and power, a graceful and dignified presence.
He was familiar with the best English literature.  He had
a pure and admirable style, an imagination which was quickened
and excited under the stimulus of extempore speech, and was
himself moved and stirred by the emotions which are most likely
to move and stir an American audience.  Some of his addresses
to juries in Worcester are now remembered, under whose spell
jury and audience were in tears, and where it was somewhat
difficult even for the bench or the opposing counsel to resist
the contagion.  He never, however, undertook to prepare and
train himself for public speaking, as was done by Mr. Choate
or Mr. Everett, or had the constant and varied practice under
which the fine powers of Wendell Phillips came to such perfection.
But his fame as an orator constantly increased, so that before
his death no other man in Massachusetts was so much in demand,
especially on those occasions where the veterans of the war
were gathered to commemorate its sacrifices and triumphs.

Among the most successful examples of his oratoric power is
his address at Bunker Hill at the Centennial in 1875, where
the forming the procession and the other exercises occupied
the day until nearly sundown, and General Devens, the orator
of the day, laid aside his carefully prepared oration and
addressed the audience in a brief speech, wholly unpremeditated,
which was the delight of everybody who heard it.*

[Footnote]
* "The oration by Judge Devens was magnificent.  He spoke wholly
without notes and his effort was largely extemporaneous.  He
began by saying that the lateness of the hour ('twas nearly six
o'clock) would prevent his following the train of any previously
prepared effort and he would briefly review the history of the
battle and its results upon the world's history.  He spoke for
nearly and hour and a quarter, holding his fine audience in rapt
attention by his eloquence, the elegance of his diction and his
superb enunciation.  It was, indeed, a wonderful effort, and
will compare favorably with Webster's great orations in '25 and
'43."--From the diary of Henry H. Edes.
[End of Footnote]

At New Haven he delivered the address before the Army of the
Potomac in commemoration of General Meade and the battle of
Gettysburg, which is a fine specimen of historic narrative
mingled and adorned with stately eloquence.  At the banquet
in the evening of the same day the gentleman who had been
expected to respond to the toast, "The private soldier," was
unexpectedly called away, and General Devens was asked at
a moment's notice and without preparation to take his place.
I heard President Grant--no mean judge--who had himself listened
to so much of the best public speaking in all parts of the
country, say that General Devens's response to this toast
was the finest speech he ever heard in his life.  The eulogy
upon Grant delivered at Worcester, especially the wonderful
passage where he contrasts the greeting which Napoleon might
expect from his soldiers and companions in arms at a meeting
beyond the grave with that which Grant might expect from his
brethren, is also one of the best specimens of eloquence in
modern times.  Surpassing even these are the few sentences
he addressed to his regiment after the battle of Ball's Bluff.

General Devens had a modest estimate of his own best powers.
While he was an admirable judge, bringing to the court the
weight of his great experience, his admirable sense, his stainless
integrity, his prefect impartiality, his great discernment,
his abundant learning, it has always seemed to me that he
erred after the war in not preferring political life to his
place upon the bench.  He could easily have been Governor
or Senator, in which places the affection of the people of
Massachusetts would have kept him for a period limited only
by his own desire, and might well have been expected to pass
from the Cabinet to an even higher place in the service of
his country.  But he disliked political strife, and preferred
those places of service which did not compel him to encounter
bitter antagonism.

He filled the place of Attorney-General with a dignity and
an ability which has been rarely if ever surpassed by any
of the illustrious men who have filled that great office.  The
judges of the Supreme Court long after he had left Washington
were accustomed to speak of the admirable manner in which
he had discharged his duties.  I once at a dinner heard Mr.
Justice Bradley, who was without a superior, if not without
a peer in his day, among jurists on either side of the Atlantic,
speak enthusiastically of his recollection of General Devens
in the office of Attorney-General.  Judge Bradley kindly acceded
to my request to put in writing what he had said.  His letter
is here inserted:

WASHINGTON, January 20th, 1891.
  HON. GEO. F. HOAR.

_My Dear Sir:_  You ask for my estimate of the services and
character of General Devens as Attorney-General of the United
States.  In general terms I unhesitatingly answer, that he
left upon my mind the impression of a sterling, noble, generous
character, loyal to duty, strong, able, and courteous in the
fulfillment of it, with such accumulation of legal acquirement
and general culture as to render his counsels highly valuable
in the Cabinet, and his public efforts exceedingly graceful
and effective.  His professional exhibitions in the Supreme
Court during the four years that he represented the Government,
were characterized by sound learning, chastely and accurately
expressed, great breadth of view, the seizing of strong points
and disregard of minute ones, marked deference for the court
and courtesy to his opponents.  He was a model to the younger
members of the bar of a courtly and polished advocate.  He
appeared in the court only in cases of special importance;
but of these there was quite a large number during his term.
As examples, I may refer to the cases of Young _v._ United
States (97 U. S. 39), which involved the rights of neutrals
in our Civil War, and particularly the alleged right of a
British subject, who had been engaged in running the blockade,
to demand compensation for a large quantity of cotton purchased
in the Confederacy and seized by the military forces of the
United States;--Reynolds _v._ United States (98 U. S. 145),
which declared the futility of the plea, in cases of bigamy
among the Mormons, of religious belief, claimed under the
first amendment of the Constitution; and established the principle
that pretended religious belief cannot be accepted as a justification
of overt acts made criminal by the law of the land;--The Sinking
Fund Cases (99 U. S. 700), which involved the validity of
the act of Congress known as the Thurman Act, requiring the
Pacific Railroad Companies to make annual payments for a
sinking fund to meet the bonds loaned to them by the Government;--
Tennessee _v._ Davis (100 U. S. 257), as to the right of a
United States officer to be tried in the Federal courts for
killing a person in self-defence whilst in the discharge of
his official duties;--The Civil Rights case of Strander _v._
W. Virginia and others (100 U. S. 303-422), in which were
settled the rights of all classes of citizens, irrespective
of color, to suffrage and to representation in the jury box,
and the right of the Government of the United States to interpose
its power for their protection;--Neal _v._ Delaware (103 U.
S. 370), by which it was decided that the right of suffrage
and (in that case) the consequent right of jury service of
people of African descent were secured by the 15th Amendment
to the Constitution, notwithstanding unrepealed state laws
or constitutions to the contrary.

In all these cases and many others the arguments of the Attorney-
General were presented with distinguished ability and dignity,
and with his habitual courtesy and amenity of manner; whilst
his broad and comprehensive views greatly aided the court
in arriving at just conclusions.  In all of them he was successful;
and it may be said that he rarely assumed a position on behalf
of the Government, in any important case, in which he was
not sustained by the judgment of the court.  His advocacy
was conscientious and judicial rather than experimental--
as is eminently fitting in the official representative of
the Government.  It best subserves the ends of justice, the
suppression of useless litigation, and the prompt administration
of the law.

I can only add that the members of the Supreme Court parted
with Attorney-General Devens with regret.  Of him, as of so
many other eminent lawyers, the reflection is just, that the
highest efforts of advocacy have no adequate memorial.  Written
compositions remain; but the noblest displays of human genius
at the bar--often, perhaps, the successful assaults of Freedom
against the fortresses of Despotism--are lost to history and
memory for want of needful recordation.  _Vixere fortes ante
Agamemnona;_ or, as Tacitus says of the eloquent Haterius,
"Whist the plodding industry of scribblers goes down to posterity,
the sweet voice and fluent eloquence of Haterius died with
himself."

  Very truly yours.
  JOSEPH P. BRADLEY.

He was an admirable historical investigator and narrator.
He carefully investigated the facts.  He told the story of
the heroic days of the Revolution and of the heroic days of
the War for the Union with a graphic power which will give
his addresses on such subjects a permanent place in our best
historical literature.

But it is as a soldier that his countrymen will remember
him, and it is as a soldier that he would wish to be remembered.
Whatever may be said by the philosopher, the moralist, or
the preacher, the instincts of the greater portion of mankind
will lead them to award the highest meed of admiration to
the military character.  Even when the most selfish of human
passions, the love of power or the love of fame, is the stimulant
of the soldier's career, he must at least be ready for the
supreme sacrifice--the willingness to give his life, if need
be, for the object he is pursuing.  But when his end is purely
unselfish, when the love of country or the desire to save
her life by giving his own has entire mastery of the soul,
all mankind are agreed to award the good soldier a glory which
it bestows nowhere else.

There was nothing lacking in General Devens to the complete
soldierly character.  He had a passionate love of his country;
he was absolutely fearless; he never flinched before danger,
sickness, suffering or death.  He was prompt, resolute and
cool in the face of danger.  He had a warm and affectionate
heart.  He loved his comrades, especially the youth who were
under his command.  He had that gentle and placable nature
which so often accompanies great courage.  He was incapable
of a permanent anger.  He was still less capable of revenge
or of willingness to inflict injury or pain.

As Clarendon says of Falkland:  "He had a full appetite of
fame by just and generous actions, so he had an equal contempt
for it by base and servile expedients."  He never for an instant
tolerated that most pernicious and pestilent heresy, that
so long as each side believed itself to be in the right there
was no difference between the just and the unjust cause.  He
knew that he was contending for the life of his country, for
the fate of human liberty on this continent.  No other cause
would have led him to draw his sword; and he cared for no
other earthly reward for his service.

  Oh just and faithful knight of God,
  Ride on, the prize is near.


CHAPTER IV
ATTEMPT TO REOPEN THE QUESTION OF THE TITLE TO
THE PRESIDENCY

In general the determination of the title to the Presidency
was acquiesced in in a manner highly creditable to the people.
The Democratic party submitted to their disappointment in
a manner which was on the whole exceedingly praiseworthy.
This was due very largely to the influence of Mr. Lamar,
of Mississippi, and I suppose to that of Mr. Bayard, of Delaware.
But there were not wanting persons who were willing to revive
the question for political advantage, whatever the effect
upon the public tranquillity.  On May 13, 1878, when the President
had been for more than a year in the quiet possession of his
office, Mr. Clarkson N. Potter, of New York, introduced in
the House of Representatives a resolution for the appointment
of a Committee to investigate alleged frauds in the States
of Louisiana and Florida, in the recent Presidential election.
This resolution was adopted by the House, in which every
possible parliamentary method for its defeat was resorted
to by the Republican minority.  The Republicans were exceedingly
alarmed, and the proceeding seemed likely to create a financial
panic which would disturb and injure the business of the country.

Shortly after Mr. Potter's committee was appointed, it was
expected that a report would be made denying the validity
of President Hayes's title, and that the Democratic House
of Representatives would be advised to refuse to acknowledge
him as President.  This would have thrown the Government into
great confusion and would have made a square issue.  A caucus
of Republican Senators was held, and the following gentlemen
were appointed a Committee, with directions to report what
action, if any, ought to be taken in the Senate in the matter:
Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Howe, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Allison, Mr. Sargent,
Mr. Ingalls, Mr. Oglesby, Mr. Jones (of Nevada), Mr. Christiancy,
Mr. Blaine, Mr. Hoar.

I was requested by my associates to prepare an address to
the people, to be signed by the Republican Senators, arraigning
the Democratic leaders for their unjustifiable and revolutionary
course, and pointing out the public danger.  The Committee
had a second meeting, when I read to them the following address,
which I had prepared and which I still have in my possession:

"Our sense of the presence of a great public danger makes
it our duty to address you.  We are satisfied that the leaders
of the Democratic Party meditate an attack on the President's
possession of his office, the results of which must be the
destruction of the reviving industries of the country, civil
confusion and war.  There has been difference of opinion whether
the count of the electoral vote, which under the Constitution
determines the President's title, must be made by the two
Houses of Congress, or by the President of the Senate in their
presence.  In the count of electoral votes, which resulted
in the declaration of the election of President Hayes, both
methods concurred, the action of the two Houses being in accordance
with a law regulating their proceedings, enacted in the last
Congress to meet the case by large majorities of both branches.
The title of President Hayes, therefore, not only rests upon
the strongest possible Constitutional sanction, but the honor
of both the great parties in the country is solemnly pledged
to maintain it.

"Yet the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives
has set on foot a proceeding, which they call an investigation,
intended, if they can get control of the next Congress, to
pave the way for the expulsion of President Hayes, and the
seating of Mr. Tilden in his place.  It will be the President's
duty to maintain himself in office, and the duty of all good
citizens to stand by him.  The result is Civil War.

"We know that many Democratic Senators and Representatives
disclaim in private the purpose we attribute to their leaders,
and denounce the wickedness and folly of an attempt to set
aside the accepted result of the last election of President.
You doubtless know that many of your Democratic neighbors
give you the same assurance.  Be not lulled by these assurances
into a false security.  He is little familiar with the history
of that party who does not know how its members follow in
compact columns where its leaders point the way.  Like assurances
preceded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  Like assurances
on the part of many Democrats at the South preceded the late
rebellion.  Such convictions on the part of the Democrats,
however honest or earnest, of the danger and dishonor of the
proceedings just inaugurated found expression in but a single
dissenting vote in the House of Representatives.

"They say that they believe that the result in two of the
States was accomplished by fraud.  We believe, on the other
hand, that those States, and others whose votes were counted
for Tilden, were strongly Republican, and would have been
counted for Hayes without a question, but for violence and
crime.  The Constitution provides the time, place and manner
in which these contentions must be settled.  They have been
so settled as between Hayes and Tilden, and it is only by
usurpation and revolution that a subsequent Congress can undertake
to reopen them.  You know how easily party majorities persuade
themselves, or affect to persuade themselves, of the existence
of facts, which it is for their party interest to establish.

"At the end of his four years the President lays down his
office, and his successor is chosen.  The people have in their
hands this frequent, easy and peaceful remedy for all evils
of administration.  The usurpation by Congress of the power
to displace a President whenever they choose to determine
that the original declaration of the result of an election
was wrong, on whatever pretence it is defended, is a total
overthrow of the Constitution.

"If you would ward off this blow at the national life, you
have one perfect means of defence, the election of a Republican
majority in the next House of Representatives."

When they had all agreed to it, Mr. Conkling, a member of
the Committee who had not attended the previous meeting,
came in late.  The document was read to him.  He opposed the
whole plan with great earnestness and indignation, spoke with
great severity of President Hayes, and said that he hoped
it would be the last time that any man in the United States
would attempt to steal the Presidency.  Mr. Conkling's influence
in the Senate and in the country was then quite powerful.
It was thought best not to issue the appeal unless it were
to have the unanimous support of the Republicans.  But the
discovery of some cipher dispatches, implicating some well-
known persons, including one member of Mr. Tilden's household,
in an attempt to bribe the canvassing boards in the South
and to purchase some Republican electors in the South and
one in Oregon, tended to make the leading members of that
party sick of the whole matter.  President Hayes served out
his term peacefully and handed over the executive power, not
only to a Republican successor, but to a member of the majority
of the Electoral Commission.  So it seems clear that the bulk
of the American people had little sympathy with the complaints.


CHAPTER V
THE SENATE IN 1877

When I came to the Senate that body was at the very height
of its Constitutional power.  It was, I think, a more powerful
body than ever before or since.  There were no men in it,
I suppose, who were equal in reputation or personal authority
to either of the great triumvirate--Webster, Clay and Calhoun.
If we may trust the traditions that have come down from the
time of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, when
the Senate sat with closed doors, none of them ever acquired
the authority wielded by the profound sagacity of Ellsworth.

But the National authority itself, of which the Senate was
a part, was restricted by the narrow construction which prevailed
before the Civil War.  During the Civil War everything was
bowed and bent before the military power.  After the war ended
the Senate was engaged in a controversy with Andrew Johnson,
during which there could be no healthy action either of the
executive or the legislative branch of the Government.  It
was like a pair of shears, from which the rivet was gone.

With the coming in of Grant harmonious relations were established
between the two departments.  But the Senators were unwilling
to part with the prerogatives, which they had helped each
other to assert, and which had been wrenched from the feeble
hand of Johnson.  What was called Senatorial Courtesy required
every Senator belonging to the party in the majority to support
every other in demanding the right to dictate and control
the executive and judicial appointments from their respective
States.  So every Senator had established a following, like
that of the Highland chieftain--"Vich Ian Vohr with his tail
on"--devoted, of course, to the party, but devoted more completely
and immediately to his political fortunes.

President Grant in the beginning undertook to break down this
arrogant claim.  He recommended the repeal of the Civil Tenure
Act, the establishment of a system of competitive examinations
for appointments in the civil service and, under the advice
of Attorney-General Hoar, made the nominations to the new
Circuit Court without regard to Senatorial dictation.  But
he very soon abandoned this purpose, and formed a close friendship
and alliance with the most earnest opponents of the reform.

While, in my opinion, this claim of the Senators was untenable
and of injurious public consequences, it tended to maintain
and increase the authority of the Senate.  The most eminent
Senators--Sumner, Conkling, Sherman, Edmunds, Carpenter, Frelinghuysen,
Simon Cameron, Anthony, Logan--would have received as a personal
affront a private message from the White House expressing
a desire that they should adopt any course in the discharge
of their legislative duties that they did not approve.  If
they visited the White House, it was to give, not to receive
advice.  Any little company or coterie who had undertaken
to arrange public policies with the President and to report
to their associates what the President thought would have
rapidly come to grief.  These leaders were men, almost all
of them, of great faults.  They were not free from ambition.
Some of them were quite capable of revenge, and of using
the powers of the Government to further their ambition or
revenge.  But they maintained the dignity and the authority
of the Senatorial office.  Each of these stars kept his own
orbit and shone in his sphere, within which he tolerated no
intrusion from the President, or from anybody else.

The reform of the civil service has doubtless shorn the office
of Senator of a good deal of its power.  I think President
McKinley, doubtless with the best and purest intentions,
did still more to curtail the dignity and authority of the
office.  I dare say the increase in the number of Senators has
had also much to do with it.  President McKinley, with his
great wisdom and tact and his delightful individual quality,
succeeded in establishing an influence over the members of
the Senate not, I think, equalled from the beginning of the
Government, except possibly by Andrew Jackson.  And while
the strong will of Jackson subjugated Senators, in many cases,
as it did other men, yet it roused an antagonism not only
in his political opponents, but in many important men of his
own party, which would have overthrown him but for his very
great popularity with the common people.  President McKinley
also made one serious mistake, of which indeed he did not
set the example.  Yet he made what was before but an individual
and extraordinary instance, a practice.  If that practice
continue, it will go far, in my judgment, to destroy the independence
and dignity of the Senate.  That is, the appointment of members
of the Senate to distinguished and lucrative places in the
public service, in which they are to receive and obey the
command of the Executive, and then come back to their seats
to carry out as Senators a policy which they have adopted
at the command of another power, without any opportunity of
consultation with their associates, or of learning their
associates' opinions.

The Constitution provides, Article I., Sec. 6,

"No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for
which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under
the authority of the United States, which shall have been
created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased,
during such time; and no person holding any office under the
United States shall be a member of either House during his
continuance in office."

It is, I suppose, beyond dispute that the intention of that
provision was to protect the members of the Legislative branch
of the Government from Executive influence.  The legislator
was not to be induced to create a civil office, or to increase
its emoluments, at the request of the Executive, in the hope
that he might be appointed.  He was to preserve his independence
of Executive influence, and to approach all questions in which
he might have to deal with matters which concerned the Executive
power, or Executive action, absolutely free from any bias.

This provision comes, with some modification, from the English
Constitution.  The fear of Executive influence was in that
day constantly before the framers of the Constitution and
the people who adopted it.  Roger Sherman, in his correspondence
with John Adams, says that he "esteems the provision made
for appointment to office to be a matter of very great importance,
on which the liberties and safety of the people depend nearly
as much as on legislation."

"It was," he says, "a saying of one of the Kings of England
that while the King could appoint the Bishops and Judges he
might have what religion and laws he pleased."

I think that sooner or later some emphatic action will be
taken, probably in the form of a declaratory resolution,
which will put an end to this abuse.  But there will always
be found men in either branch who desire such honorable employment.
They will be men of great influence.  There are also frequently
men of personal worth who always support whatever the President
of the United States thinks fit to do, and trot or amble along
in the procession which follows the Executive chariot.  So,
if any President shall hereafter repeat this attempt it will
require a good deal of firmness to defeat it.

Senator Morgan of Alabama made a very bright comparison of
the relation to the White House of some very worthy Senators
to that of the bird in a cuckoo clock.  He said that whenever
the clock at the White House strikes the bird issues out of
the door in the Senate Chamber, and says: "Cuckoo, Cuckoo,"
and that when the striking is over, he goes in again and shuts
the door after him.  He was speaking of Democratic Senators.
But I am afraid my excellent Republican brethren can furnish
quite as many instances of this servility as their opponents.

The President has repeatedly, within the last six years,
appointed members of the Senate and the House to be Commissioners
to negotiate and conclude, as far as can be done by diplomatic
agencies, treaties and other arrangements with foreign Governments,
of the gravest importance.  These include the arrangement
of a standard of value by International agreement; making
a Treaty of Peace, at the end of the War with Spain; arranging
a Treaty of Commerce between the United States and Great Britain;
making a Treaty to settle the Behring Sea controversy; and
now more lately to establish the boundary line between Canada
and Alaska.

President McKinley also appointed a Commission, including
Senators and Representatives, to visit Hawaii, and to report
upon the needs of legislation there.  This last was as clearly
the proper duty and function of a committee, to be appointed
by one or the other branch of Congress, as anything that could
be conceived.

The question has been raised whether these functions were
offices, within the Constitutional sense.  It was stoutly
contended, and I believe held by nearly all the Republican
Senators at the time when President Cleveland appointed Mr.
Blount to visit Hawaii, and required that the diplomatic
action of our Minister there should be subject to his approval,
that he was appointing a diplomatic officer, and that he had
no right so to commission Mr. Blount, without the advice and
consent of the Senate.  President McKinley seemed to accept
this view when he sent in for confirmation the names of two
Senators, who were appointed on the Commission to visit Hawaii.
The Senate declined to take action upon these nominations.
The very pertinent question was put by an eminent member of
the Senate:  If these gentlemen are to be officers, how can
the President appoint them under the Constitution, the office
being created during their term? Or, how can they hold office
and still keep their seats in this body? If, on the other
hand, they are not officers, under what Constitutional provision
does the President ask the advice and consent of the Senate
to their appointment?

But the suggestion that these gentlemen are not officers,
seems to me the merest cavil.  They exercise an authority,
and are clothed with a dignity equal to that of the highest
and most important diplomatic officer, and far superior to
that of most of the civil officers of the country.  To say
that the President cannot appoint a Senator or Representative
postmaster in a country village, where the perquisites do
not amount to a hundred dollars a year, where perhaps no other
person can be found to do the duties, because that would put
an improper temptation in the way of the legislator to induce
him to become the tool of the Executive will, and then permit
the President to send him abroad; to enable him to maintain
the distinction and enjoy the pleasure of a season at a foreign
capital as the representative of the United States, with all
his expenses paid, and a large compensation added, determined
solely by the Executive will; and to hold that the framers
of the Constitution would for a moment have tolerated that,
seems to me utterly preposterous.

Beside, it places the Senator so selected in a position where
he cannot properly perform his duties as a Senator.  He is
bound to meet his associates at the great National Council
Board as an equal, to hear their reasons as well as to impart
his own.  How can he discharge that duty, if he had already
not only formed an opinion, but acted upon the matter under
the control and direction of another department of the Government?

The Senate was exceedingly sensitive about this question
when it first arose.  But the gentlemen selected by the Executive
for these services were, in general, specially competent for
the duty.  Their associates were naturally quite unwilling
to take any action that should seem to involve a reproof to
them.  The matter did not, however, pass without remonstrance.
It was hoped that it would not be repeated.  At the time of
the appointment of the Silver Commission, I myself called
attention to the matter in the Senate.  Later, as I have said,
the Senate declined to take action on the Commission appointed
to visit Hawaii.  But there was considerable discussion.  Several
bills and resolutions were introduced, which were intended
to prohibit such appointments in the future.  The matter was
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.  It turned out
that three members of that Committee had been appointed by
President McKinley on the Canadian Committee.  One of them,
however, said he had accepted the appointment without due
reflection, and he was quite satisfied that the practice was
wrong.  The Committee disliked exceedingly to make a report
which might be construed as a censure of their associates.
So I was instructed to call upon President McKinley and say
to him in behalf of the Committee, that they hoped the practice
would not be continued.  That task I discharged.  President
McKinley said he was aware of the objections; that he had
come to feel the evil very strongly; and while he did not
say in terms that he would not make another appointment of
the kind, he conveyed to me, as I am very sure he intended
to do, the assurance that it would not occur again.  He said,
however, that it was not in general understood how few people
there were in this country, out of the Senate and House of
Representatives, qualified for important diplomatic service
of that kind, especially when we had to contend with the trained
diplomatists of Europe, who had studied such subjects all
their lives.  He told me some of the difficulties he had encountered
in making selections of Ministers abroad, where important
matters were to be dealt with, our diplomatic representatives
having, as a rule, to be taken from entirely different pursuits
and employments.

That Congress in the past has thought it best to extend rather
than restrict this prohibition is shown by the statute which
forbids, under a severe penalty, members of either House of
Congress from representing the Government as counsel.


CHAPTER VI
LEADERS OF THE SENATE IN 1877

As I just said, there was no man in the Senate when I entered
it who equalled in renown either Webster, Clay or Calhoun,
or wielded in the Senate an influence like that of Oliver
Ellsworth.  With at most but two or three exceptions, no one
of them would be counted among the great men of the century
in which he lived, or will be remembered long after his death.
But the average excellence was high.  It was a company of
very wise men, fairly representing the best sentiment and
aspiration of the Republic.  The angers and influences of
the Civil War had gradually cooled under the healing influence
of Grant.  The American people was ready to address itself
bravely to the new conditions and new problems, or to old
problems under new conditions.

I shall speak briefly here of some of the principal Senators
who were there when I took my seat on March 4, 1877, or who
came into the Senate shortly afterward during that Congress.
Others I have mentioned in other places in this book.

William A. Wheeler, of New York, was Vice-President and President
of the Senate.  On the Republican side were: William B. Allison
of Iowa, Henry B. Anthony and Ambrose E. Burnside of Rhode
Island, James G. Blaine and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Blanche
K. Bruce of Mississippi, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Roscoe
Conkling of New York, John A. Logan of Illinois, Henry L.
Dawes of Massachusetts, George F. Edmunds and Justin S. Morrill
of Vermont, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, John J.
Ingalls of Kansas, John P. Jones of Nevada, Stanley Matthews
and John Sherman of Ohio, John H. Mitchell of Oregon, Oliver
P. Morton of Indiana, Aaron A. Sargent of California, Henry
M. Teller of Colorado, Bainbridge Wadleigh of New Hampshire
and William Windom of Minnesota.

On the Democratic side were:  Thomas F. Bayard and Eli Saulsbury
of Delaware, James B. Beck of Kentucky, Francis M. Cockrell
of Missouri, A. H. Garland of Arkansas, John B. Gordon of
Georgia, L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, Matt Ransom of North
Carolina, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, William P. Whyte of Maryland,
M. C. Butler of South Carolina, William W. Eaton of Connecticut,
James B. Eustis of Louisiana, Francis Kernan of New York, J. R.
McPherson of New Jersey, and Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana.

Henry B. Anthony was the senior member of the Senate when
I entered it.  When he died he had been a Senator longer than
any other man in the country, except Mr. Benton.  He had
come to be the depository of its traditions, customs and unwritten
rules.  He was a man of spirit, giving and receiving blows
on fit occasions, especially when anybody assailed Rhode Island.
He had conducted for many years a powerful newspaper which
had taken part in many conflicts.  But he seemed somehow the
intimate friend of every man in the Senate, on both sides.
Every one of his colleagues poured out his heart to him.  It
seemed that no eulogy or funeral was complete unless Anthony
had taken part in it, because he was reckoned the next friend
of the man who was dead.

He was fully able to defend himself and his State and any
cause which he espoused.  No man would attack either with
impunity under circumstances which called on him for reply,
as he showed on some memorable occasions.  But he was of a
most gracious and sweet nature.  He was a lover and maker
of peace.  When his own political associates put an indignity
upon Charles Sumner, the great leader of emancipation in the
Senate, which had been the scene of his illustrious service,
no man regretted the occurrence more than Mr. Anthony.

  And straight Patroclus rose,
  The genial comrade, who, amid the strife
  Of kings, and war of angry utterance,
  Held even balance, to his outraged friend
  Heart-true, yet ever strove with kindly words
  To hush the jarring discord, urging peace.

Mr. Anthony was a learned man; learned in the history of the
Senate and in parliamentary law; learned in the history of
his country and of foreign countries; learned in the resources
of a full, accurate and graceful scholarship.  Since Sumner
died I suppose no Senator can be compared with him in this
respect.  Some passages in an almost forgotten political satire
show that he possessed a vein which, if he had cultivated
it, might have placed him high in the roll of satiric poets.
But he never launched a shaft that he might inflict a sting.
His collection of memorial addresses is unsurpassed in its
kind of literature.  He was absolutely simple, modest, courteous
and without pretence.  He was content to do his share in accomplishing
public results, and leave to others whatever of fame or glory
might result from having accomplished them.

  To be, and not to seem, was this man's wisdom.

The satire, of which I have just spoken, is almost forgotten.
It is a poem called "The Dorriad," written at the time of
the famous Dorr Rebellion.  The notes, as in the case of the
"Biglow Papers," are even funnier than the text.  He gives
an account of the Dorr War in two cantos, after the manner
of Scott's "Marmion."  He describes the chieftain addressing
his troops on Arcote's Hill, the place where one Arcote, in
former days, had been hung for sheep-stealing, and buried
at the foot of the gallows.

  The Governor saw with conscious pride,
  The men who gathered at his side;
  That bloody sword aloft the drew,
  And "list, my trusty men," he cried--
  "Here do I swear to stand by you,
  As long as flows life's crimson tide;--
  Nor will I ever yield, until
  I leave my bones upon this hill."
  His men received the gallant boast
  With shouts that shook the rocks around.
  But hark, a voice? old Arcote's ghost
  Calls out, in anger, from the ground,
  "If here your bones you mean to lay,
  Then, damn it, I'll take mine away."


I do not know that I can give a fair and impartial estimate
of Roscoe Conkling.  I never had any personal difficulty
with him.  On the other hand, he was good enough to say of
a speech which I made in the Presidential campaign of 1872,
that it was the best speech made in the country that year.
But I never had much personal intercourse with him, and formed
an exceedingly unfavorable opinion of him.  He was an able
man, though not superior in ability to some of his associates.
I do not think he was the equal in debate of Mr. Blaine,
or of Carl Schurz, or, on financial questions with which the
latter was familiar, of John Sherman.  But he was undoubtedly
a strong man.  His speech nominating Grant at the National
Convention of 1880 was one of very great power.  But he was
unfit to be the leader of a great party, and was sure, if
he were trusted with power, to bring it to destruction.  He
was possessed of an inordinate vanity.  He was unrelenting
in his enmities, and at any time was willing to sacrifice
to them his party and the interests of the country.  He used
to get angry with men simply because they voted against him
on questions in which he took an interest.  Once he would
not speak to Justin S. Morrill, one of the wisest and kindliest
of men, for months, because of his anger at one of Morrill's
votes.  I suppose he defeated the Republican Party in New
York when General John A. Dix was candidate for Governor.
That opinion, however, depends chiefly on common rumor.  Governor
Boutwell, in this "Recollections," says that Mr. Conkling
contributed secretly to the defeat of Mr. Blaine, although
he had been willing to support Blaine four years before.
He was one of the men whose counsel wrought grievous injury
to Grant, and persuaded him to permit the foolish attempt
to nominate him for a third term.  The deserved respect which
the American people had for Grant, and his great influence,
would not induce them to bring Conkling and the men who were
his associates again into power.  I can hardly think of a
man of high character in the Republican Party, except Grant,
who retained Conkling's friendship.  His resignation of the
office of Senator showed how utterly lacking he was in sound
political wisdom, or in lofty political morality.  That a
Senator of the United States should vacate his own office
because he could not control Executive patronage was a proceeding
not likely to be regarded with much respect by the American
people.  I suppose he expected that he would be returned by
the New York Legislature, and that the scene of his coming
back would be one of great dramatic effect.

The reason of his action was President Garfield's nomination
of Judge Robertson, who had been his own earnest supporter
for the Presidency, to the office of Collector of the port
of New York.  It happened in this way:  General Garfield's
nomination for the Presidency, of which I have told the story
in another place, was brought about in part by the aid of
some of the New York delegation, led by Judge Robertson, who
had broken away from Conkling's leadership.  He was of course
angry.  After Garfield's election, he demanded that no one
of the New York opponents to Grant's nomination should be
appointed to office by the incoming Administration.  Garfield
told me the whole story during the spring session of 1881.
He had an interview with Conkling, I think by his own request,
and endeavored to come to some understanding with him which
would ensure harmony.  He told Conkling that he desired to
make one conspicuous appointment of a New York man who had
supported him against President Grant, and that thereafter
appointments should be made of fit men, without regard to the
factional division of the party in New York, between his
supporters and those of Grant, and that the Senators would
in all cases be consulted.  Conkling would not listen to the
suggestion, and declared that he would not consent to the
appointment of Judge Robertson to any important office in this
country; that if the President chose to send him abroad, he
would make no objection.  President Garfield told me that
Conkling's behavior in the interview was so insolent that it
was difficult for him to control himself and keep from ordering
him out of his presence.  Nothing could be more preposterous
or insolent than the demand of a Senator from any State that
a President just elected, who had received the support of
the people of that State, should ostracize his own supporters.
It would have been infamous for Garfield to yield to the demand.

I ought, in saying that there was no man of high integrity
and great ability among the leaders of the Republican Party
who retained Conkling's friendship, to have excepted Hamilton
Fish.  He was a man of great wisdom, who understood well the
importance to the Republican Party of avoiding a breach with
the powerful Senator from New York.  But Conkling was jealous
of all the other able men in the Republican Party in his own
State.  He could--

  Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

The spirits of good and evil politics have striven with one
another in New York from the beginning of her history as
Jacob and Esau strove together in the womb.  In general the
former has prevailed in western New York and along the lakes.
In the city of New York sometimes one has carried the day,
and sometimes the other.  When the bad element was in power,
the noble State has reminded me of Tennyson's eagle caught
by the talons in carrion, unable to fly or soar.

Oliver Wolcott, who had been one of Washington's Cabinet,
afterward Governor of Connecticut, dwelt in New York for some
time.  He gives this account of New York politics.

"After living a dozen years in that State, I don't pretend
to comprehend their politics.  It is a labyrinth of wheels
within wheels, and it is understood only by the managers.
Why, these leaders of the opposite parties, who--in the papers
and before the world--seem ready to tear each other's eyes
out, will meet some rainy night in a dark entry, and agree,
whichever way the election goes, they will share the spoils
together!"

John G. Palfrey, in his wonderful "Papers on the Slave Power,"
was led by his natural impatience with the conduct of the
great State, which seemed to him such an obstacle in the path
of Liberty, to utter the following invective:

"Pour soulless giant, her honorable history is yet to begin.
From her colonial times, when, patching up a dastardly truce,
she helped the French and Indians down from the Berkshire
hills against the shield which brave Massachusetts held over
the New England settlements, through the time of her traitors
of the Revolutionary age, down to the time of her Butlers
and her Marcys, her Van Burens and Hoyts, poltroonery and
corruption have with her ruled the hour.  Nature has her freaks,
and in one of them she gave a great man, John Jay, to New
York.  Hamilton was a waif from the West Indies on her spirit-
barren strand, and Rufus King from Massachusetts.  No doubt,
among her millions, she has many wise and good, but the day
when they begin to impress any fit influence of theirs upon
her counsels, will open a new chapter in the annals of New
York."

I am tempted to quote this powerful invective for its literary
excellence, and not for its justice.  The history of New
York, on the whole, has been a noble history.  It must be
considered that any people that opens its hospitable door of
welcome to all mankind, with the elective franchise, must
itself, for a time, seem to suffer in the process, and must be
strongly tempted to protect itself against evil government
by getting control of the powers of Government by unjustifiable
methods.

For many years a large majority of the people of the city
of New York were of foreign birth or parentage.  But how
wonderfully most of these have grown in the elements of good
citizenship, and of honorable manhood; and how wonderfully
their sisters and daughters have grown in the elements of
womanhood.  Freedom is the best schoolteacher.

Sometimes a political leader in New York who had got power
by forbidden ways, has used it for the good of the Republic.
I suppose the worst examples of all low political leadership
were the Pelhams, the Duke of Newcastle and his brother; yet
without them, Lord Chatham's glorious career would have been
unknown to the history of English liberty.  Chatham used to
say:  "The Duke of Newcastle lends me his majority to carry
on the Government."

Let me not be understood as meaning to compare Roscoe Conkling
with such characters.  He was fearless.  He was a powerful
debater.  He never flinched in debate from the face of any
antagonist.  There was something almost sublime in his lofty
disdain.  He was on the side of the country in her hour of
peril.  I like Charles Sumner and John Jay and John Adams
better.  Neither of these men could have lived long on terms
of friendship with Conkling.  I do not think George Washington
could have endured him.  But let what was best in him, after
all, be remembered, even if we do not forget his great faults.


I ought not, in speaking of the eminent Senators whom I have
known, to omit Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi.  Except Mr.
Revels, from the same State, he is the only negro who ever
sat in the Senate of the United States.  He conducted himself
with great propriety.  He was always courteous and sensible.
He had a clear understanding of great questions which came
up, and was quite influential with his fellow Senators.  When
the Chinese matter was up, he stated in a few words that he
could not, when he recalled the history of his own race, consent
to vote for any measure which discriminated against any man
by reason of his race or color.  He left the Senate Chamber,
I believe, with the entire respect of his associates on both
sides.  He was afterward Register of the Treasury.  His speech
and vote on the Chinese question were in contrast with those
of Senator Jonas, of the neighboring State of Louisiana.  In
my speech in opposition to the Chinese bill, or that on the
Chinese Treaty, I alluded at some length to the treatment
of the Jews in the dark ages and down to a very recent time.
Senator Jonas, who was a Jew, paid me some compliments about
my speech.  I said:  "Why will you not remember the terrible
history of the men of your own race and blood, and help me
resist a like savage treatment of another race?" Mr. Jonas
rejected the suggestion with a great emphasis, and said: "Mr.
Hoar, the Jews are a superior race.  They are not to be classed
with the Chinese."

There were several negro Representatives from the South when
I was in the House of Representatives.  All of them behaved
with great propriety.  They were men who took care of themselves
and the interests of their people in any debate.  Mr. Rainey,
of South Carolina, had a spirited tilt with S. S. Cox, one
of the most brilliant of the Democratic leaders, in which
he left Cox unhorsed and on his back in the arena.  None of
them ever said an indiscreet thing, no one of them ever lost
his temper or gave any opportunity for an angry or intolerant
or contemptuous reply.

Soon after Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy,
came to the House, in the Congress of 1875-7, unanimous consent
was asked that he might address the House at length, without
being limited by the hour rule.  Judge Hoar, then a member
of the House, stipulated that Mr. Elliott, of South Carolina,
should, if he liked, have leave to reply.  This could not
decently be refused, and that was granted also.  Thereupon
Stephens made a powerful speech, for which he had doubtless
made most careful preparation.  Robert B. Elliott then made,
on the instant that Stephens got through, an admirable reply,
of which it is great praise and still not saying too much
that it deserves to rank with the speech of Mr. Stephens.

Elliott delivered an excellent eulogy on Charles Sumner,
in Boston, which was published with those of Carl Schurz
and George William Curtis, and was entirely worthy of the
companionship.

Perhaps, on the whole, the ablest of the colored men who
served with me in Congress, although each of the gentlemen
I have named deserves high commendation, was John R. Lynch
of Mississippi.  I had a very pleasant acquaintance with him
when he was in the House.  He was afterward Fourth Auditor
of the Treasury.

I was the means of procuring for him a national distinction
which very much gratified the men of his color throughout
the country.  The supporters of Mr. Blaine in the National
Convention of 1884 had a candidate of their own for temporary
presiding officer.  I think it was Mr. Clayton of Arkansas.
It was desired to get a Southern man for that purpose.  The
opponents of Mr. Blaine also desired to have a candidate of
their own from the South.  The colored Southern men were generally
Blaine men.  I advised them to nominate Lynch, urging that
it would be impossible for the Southern colored people, whatever
their preference might be as a candidate for the Presidency,
to vote against one of their own color.  Lynch was nominated
by Henry Cabot Lodge, afterward my colleague in the Senate,
and seconded by Theodore Roosevelt and by George William Curtis.
Lynch presided over the Convention during the whole of the
first day, and a part of the second.  He made an admirable
presiding officer.

Quite curiously, I have had something to do with introducing
a little more liberal practice in this respect into the policy
of the country.

I was the first person who ever invited a colored man to
take the Chair in the Senate.  I happened to be put in the
Chair one afternoon when Vice-President Wheeler was away.
I spied Mr. Bruce in his seat, and it occurred to me that
it would be a good thing to invite him to take my place, which
he did.

When I was presiding over the National Convention of 1880,
one of the English Royal Princes, Prince Leopold, Duke of
Albany, son of Victoria, visited the Convention.  He was brought
up and introduced to me.  I suppose that was one of the very
rare instances in which a scion of the English Royal House
was presented to anybody, instead of having the person presented
to him.  Wishing to converse with the Prince, I called Mr.
Bruce to the Chair.  I thought it would be an excellent opportunity
to confer an honor upon a worthy colored man in the presence
of a representative of this Royal House.  Frederick Douglass
afterward called on me with a delegation of colored men, and
presented me with a letter signed by prominent colored men
of the country, thanking me for this act.

It also was my fortune to secure the selection, on my recommendation,
of the first colored man ever appointed to the Railway Mail
Service.  This was soon after I entered the House of Representatives
in 1869.

Perhaps I may as well add in this connection that I believed
I recommended the first married woman ever appointed postmaster
in this country, shortly after I entered the House.

When Colonel Chenoweth, who had been on General Grant's staff,
a most brilliant and able officer of the War, died in office
as Consul at Canton, China, to which he was appointed by President
Grant, I urged very strongly upon Grant the appointment of
the widow to the place.  She had, during her husband's illness,
performed a great part of the duties very well, and to the
great satisfaction of the merchants doing business there.
I told General Grant the story.  He said he would make the
appointment--to use his own phrase--if Fish would let him.
But Mr. Fish was inexorable.  He thought it would be a very
undignified proceeding.  He also urged, with great reason,
that a Consul had to hold court for the trial of some grave
offences, committed often by very bad characters, and that
it was out of the question that a delicate lady should be
expected to know or to have anything to do with them.  So
the proposal fell through.


Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana served in the House with me.
I had with him there one very angry conflict.  But it did
not interrupt our friendly relations.  He was a man of a good
deal of eloquence, very popular in his own State, and said
to have been a very successful and able lawyer, especially
in arguing cases to juries.  His political speeches in the
Senate were carefully prepared, very able statements of his
side, and very severe denunciations of his antagonists.  But
he was a very kind-hearted man indeed, always willing to do
a kindness to any of his associates, or to any person in trouble.
If he could not be relied on to protect the Treasury against
claims of doubtful validity, when they were urged by persons
in need, or who in any way excited his sympathy, it ought
to be said in defence of him, that he would have been quite
as willing to relieve them to the extent of his power from
his private resources.


Bainbridge Wadleigh of New Hampshire succeeded to the Chairmanship
of the Committee on Privileges and Elections after Mr. Morton's
death in the summer of 1869.  He was a modest, quiet and unpretending
man, of stainless integrity, of great industry in dealing
with any matter for which he had direct responsibility, and
of great wisdom and practical sense.  I formed a very pleasant
friendship with him, and regretted it exceedingly when he
left the Senate, after serving a single term.  There was at
the time a very bad practice in New Hampshire of frequently
changing her Senators.  So few of the very able men who have
represented her in the Senate for the last fifty years have
made the impression upon the public service, or gained the
fame to which their ability would have entitled them, if they
had had longer service.  Mr. Wadleigh was an excellent lawyer,
and the Senate gave him its confidence in all matters with
which his important Committee had to deal.


David Davis of Illinois was a very interesting character.
He had been a successful lawyer, an eminent Judge in his
State, and a very admirable Judge of the Supreme Court of
the United States, to which office he was appointed by Abraham
Lincoln.

He entered the Senate when I did, and served one term of
six years.  His service in the Senate did not add at all to
his distinction.  The one thing he had done in life of which
he was very proud and which was of most importance, was bringing
about the nomination of Abraham Lincoln at Chicago.  Of that
he liked to discourse whenever he could get a listener, and
his discourses were always so entertaining that everybody
listened who could.

David Davis thought that but for him Lincoln would not have
been nominated.  I have little doubt that he was right.  He
had many able and bright men to help him.  But he was the
leader, director and counsellor of all the forces.  He threw
himself into it with all the zeal of a man fighting for his
life.  He made pledges right and left, seeming to discover
every man's weak point, and used entreaty, flattery and promises
without stint, and, if he were himself to be believed, without
much scruple.  When somebody said to him in my hearing, "You
must have used a good deal of diplomacy, Judge, at that Convention."
"Diplomacy," replied Davis, "My dear man, I lied like the
devil."  He had that sense of humor peculiar to Americans,
which likes to state in an exaggerated way things that are
calculated to shock the listener, which our English and German
brethren cannot comprehend.  So I do not think this statement
of Davis's is to be taken without many grains of salt. I suppose
he thought the man to whom he said it would not take it too
literally.

Judge Davis was a man of very warm sympathy.  He liked to
give accounts of cases he had tried, sitting in equity, or
I think sometimes in divorce cases, where he had invented
a curious rule of law, or had stretched his discretion, to save
some poor widow, or wronged wife, or suffering orphan, a
share of an estate to which their legal title was in considerable
doubt.  If he were led by his sympathies ever to be an unjust
Judge, at least the poor widow had no need to worry him by
her importunities.  He avenged her speedily the first time.

He was a Republican before and during the War, and a steadfast
supporter of Lincoln's policies.  His opinion had been in
general in support of the liberal construction of the Constitution,
under which the National powers had been exerted to put down
the Rebellion.

He was elected to the Senate after resigning his place on
the Supreme Court Bench, by a union of Democrats of the Illinois
Legislature with a few discontented Republicans, defeating
Logan.  When he came to the Senate he preserved his position
as an Independent.  He did not go into the caucuses of either
party.  He had no sympathy with the more radical element among
the Democrats.  Yet he liked to be considered a special representative
of the Labor Party in the country.  I think he hoped that
there might be a union or coalition of the Democrats and Labor
men in the Presidential election of 1880, and that in that
way he would be elected President.

His seat was on the Republican side.  When there was a division,
if he voted with the Republicans, he sat in his seat, or rose
in his seat if there was a rising vote; but when, as not unfrequently
happened, he voted with the Democrats, he always left his
seat and went over to the Democratic side of the Chamber,
and stood there until his name was called, or his vote counted.
As he passed Conkling one day in one of these movings, Conkling
called out, "Davis, do you get travel for all these journeys?"

When the Senate came together in special session, on Monday,
October 10, 1881, it was found that the Democrats had a majority
of two.  One Senator only was present from Rhode Island, one
only from Nevada, and the two newly elected Senators from
New York had not been admitted to their seats.  A motion of
Mr. Edmunds that the oath prescribed by law be administered
to the Senators from New York was laid on the table.  On that
vote the Democrats had a majority of two, Mr. Davis voting
with the Republicans.  On a resolution that Thomas F. Bayard,
a Senator from Delaware, be chosen President pro tempore,
Mr. Edmunds moved an amendment by striking it all out and
inserting a resolution that the oath of office be administered
to Mr. Miller and Mr. Lapham of New York, and Mr. Aldrich
of Rhode Island, by Mr. Henry B. Anthony the senior Senator
of the Senate.  That resolution was lost by a vote of thirty-
four to thirty-three, Mr. Davis voting with the Republicans.
Mr. Edmunds then moved to add to the resolution declaring
Mr. Bayard President pro tempore, the words "for this day."
That was lost by one vote, Mr. Davis voting with the Republicans.
After several other unsuccessful attempts, Mr. Bayard was
chosen President pro tempore, the resolution being carried
by a majority of two votes, Mr. Davis not voting.  Thereupon
Mr. Bayard accepted the office in a speech, brief, but which
clearly implied an expectation on his part to continue in
it for a considerable period of time.

The next day, being Tuesday, October 11, Mr. Aldrich of Rhode
Island, Mr. Lapham and Mr. Miller of New York, were admitted
to their seats.  This left a majority of two for the Republicans,
if Mr. Davis acted with them, and the two parties tied, if
Mr. Davis acted with the Democrats.

The Democrats had succeeded in electing their President pro
tempore, whom the Republicans could not displace, and there
was left before the body a struggle for the organization
of the Senate, including the executive officers and the Committees,
in which no progress could be made without Mr. Davis's help.

That being the condition of things, the Republicans called
a caucus, in which Senator Logan, Mr. Davis's colleague,
appeared with a message from Mr. Davis.  This substance of
the message was that Mr. Davis thought that the Republicans
ought to leave the organization, so far as the executive
offices were concerned, in the hands of the Democrats, who
had elected the existing officers during the previous Congress,
and that the Committees should be appointed with Republican
majorities.  Mr. Logan further announced that if the Republicans
should see fit to elect Mr. Davis President pro tempore, he
would vote in accordance with that understanding.  Mr. Ingalls
of Kansas and I were quite unwilling to accede to this arrangement.
But at that time the Committees lasted only for the session
for which they were appointed.  So the Senate could transact
no business of importance, and the office of Secretary, and
Sergeant-at-Arms, and Door-keeper, and all the important offices
of the Senate would continue in Democratic hands.  So, very
reluctantly, we yielded to the desire of our associates.
Whereupon a resolution was adopted continuing the standing
Committees for the session as they had come over from the last
session, and indeed from the session before, Mr. Davis voting
with the Republicans.  This vote was passed by a majority
of two votes.  General Logan then introduced the following
resolution:  That David Davis, a Senator from Illinois, is
hereby chosen President pro tempore of the Senate.  This was
also passed by a majority of two votes, Mr. Davis and Mr.
Bayard not voting.  Mr. Bayard descended from the elevation
he had occupied for so short a time, amid general laughter
in which he good-naturedly joined, and Mr. Davis ascended
the throne.  He made a brief speech which began with this
sentence:  "The honor just conferred upon me comes, as the
seat in this body which I now hold did, without the least
expectation on my part.  If it carried any party obligation,
I should be constrained to decline this high compliment.  I
do not accept it as a tribute to any personal merit, but rather
as a recognition of the independent position which I have
long occupied in the politics of the country."

So, it was Mr. Davis's fortune to hold in his hands the determination
between the two parties of the political power of the country,
on two very grave occasions.  But for his choice as Senator
from Illinois, he would have been on the Electoral Commission.
I do not think, in so important a matter, that he would have
impaired his great judicial fame by dissenting from the opinion
which prevailed.  But if he had, he would have given the Presidency
to Mr. Tilden.  And again, but for the arrangement by which
he was elected to the Presidency of the Senate, the Republicans
would not have gained control, so far as it depended on the
Committees.

He did not make a very good presiding officer.  He never
called anybody to order.  He was not informed as to parliamentary
law, or as to the rules of the Senate.  He had a familiar
and colloquial fashion, if any Senator questioned his ruling,
of saying, "But, my dear sir"; or, "But, pray consider." He
was very irreverently called by somebody, during a rather
disorderly scene in the Senate, where he lost control of the
reins, the "Anarch old."

But, after all, the office of presiding over the Senate is
commonly not of very great consequence.  It is quite important
that the President of the Senate should be a pleasant-natured
gentleman, and the gentleman in the Senator will almost always
respond to the gentleman in the Chair.  Senators do not submit
easily to any vigorous exercise of authority.  Vice-Presidents
Wheeler, Morton and Stevenson, and more lately, Mr. Frye,
asserted their authority with as little show of force as if
they were presiding over a company of guests at their own
table.  But the order and dignity of the body have been preserved.

Mr. Davis's fame must rest on his long and faithful and able
service as a wise, conscientious and learned Judge.  In writing
these recollections, I have dwelt altogether too much on little
foibles and weaknesses, which seem to have something amusing
in them, and too little, I am afraid, on the greater qualities
of the men with whom I have served.  This is perhaps true
as to David Davis.  But I have said very much what I should
have said to him, if I had been chatting with him, as I very
frequently did, in the cloak room of the Senate.

He was a man of enormous bulk.  No common arm chair would
hold him.  There is a huge chair, said to have been made for
Dixon H. Lewis of Alabama, long before the Civil War, which
was brought up from the basement of the Capitol for his use.
The newspaper correspondents used to say that he had to be
surveyed for a new pair of trousers.

I was one night in the Chair of the Senate when the session
lasted to near three o'clock in the morning.  It was on the
occasion of the passage of the bill for purchasing silver.
The night was very dark and stormy and the rain came down
in torrents.  Just before I put the final question I sent
a page for my coat and hat, and, as soon as I declared the
Senate adjourned, started for the outer door.  There were
very few carriages in waiting.  I secured one of them and
then invited Davis and his secretary and another Senator,
when they came along, to get in with me.  When we stopped
to leave Judge Davis at the National Hotel, where he lived,
it was found impossible to get the door of the hack open.
His great weight pressed it down, so that the door was held
tight as in a vise.  The hackman and the porters pulled on
the outside, and the passengers pushed and struggled from
within; but in vain.  After fifteen or twenty minutes, it
occurred to some one that we within should all squeeze ourselves
over to one side of the carriage, and those outside use their
whole strength on the opposite door.  This was successful.
We escaped from our prison.  As Davis marched into the hotel
the hackman exclaimed, as he stared after him: "By God, I
should think you was eight men."


Eli Saulsbury of Delaware was a very worthy Southern gentleman
of the old school, of great courage, ability and readiness
in debate, absolutely devoted to the doctrines of the Democratic
Party, and possessed of a very high opinion of himself.  I
knew him very intimately.  He was Chairman of the Committee
on Privileges and Elections, and was a member of it when I
was Chairman.  We went to New Orleans together to make what
was called the Copiah investigation.  We used to be fond of
talking with each other.  He always had a fund of pleasant
anecdotes of old times in the South.  He liked to set forth
his own virtues and proclaim the lofty morality of his own
principles of conduct, a habit which he may have got from
his eminent colleague, Senator Bayard, who sometimes announced
a familiar moral principle as if it were something the people
who listened to him were hearing for the first time, and of
which he in his youth had been the original discoverer.  I
once told Saulsbury, when he was discoursing in that way,
that he must be descended from Adam by some wife he had before
Eve, who had nothing to do with the fall.  He was fond of
violently denouncing the wicked Republicans on the floor of
the Senate, and in Committee.  But his bark was worse than
his bite.

When the Kellogg case was investigated by the Committee on
Privileges and Elections, when I first entered the Senate,
Mr. Saulsbury rose in the first meeting of the Committee
and proceeded to denounce his Republican associates.  He
declared they came there with their minds made up on the
case, a condition of mind which was absolutely unfit for a
grave judicial office, in the discharge of which all party
considerations and preconceived opinions should be banished.
He said we should have open minds to hear the arguments and
the evidence to be introduced, as if it were a solemn trial
in a court of justice.  When he was in the midst of a very
eloquent and violent philippic, the Chairman of the Committee,
Bainbridge Wadleigh, said quietly, "Brother Saulsbury, haven't
you made up your mind?" Mr. Saulsbury stopped a moment, said,
"Yes, I have made up my mind," broke into a roar of laughter,
and sat down.

He was a confirmed and incorrigible bachelor.  There was in
New Orleans, when we were there, a restaurant famous all over
the country, kept by a very accomplished widow.  The members
of the Committee thought it would be a good thing if we could
have such a restaurant as that in Washington.  We passed a
unanimous vote requesting Mr. Saulsbury to marry the widow,
and bring her to Washington, as a matter of public duty.  He
took the plan into consideration, but nothing came of it.
Some mischievous newspaper correspondent circulated a report,
which went through the country, that Mr. Saulsbury was very
much in love with a lady in Washington, also a charming widow.
It was said that he visited her every evening; that she had
a rare gift of making rum punch; that she always gave him
a glass, and that afterward, although he was exceedingly temperate
in such things, he fell on his knees, offered himself to the
widow, and was refused; and that this ceremony had been repeated
nightly for many years.  I once mentioned this story to him,
and he didn't deny it.  But, on the other hand, he didn't
admit it.

When he was chosen to the Senate he had two brothers who competed
with him for the office.  One of them was then Senator.  The
Senate had a good deal of difficulty in getting through its
business before the 4th of March, when the new Administration
came in, and the term of the elder Mr. Saulsbury ended.  There
had been an all-night session, so some of the Senators had
got worn out and overcome by the loss of sleep.  Just before
twelve o'clock at noon Senator Willard Saulsbury put his head
down on this desk and fell asleep.  The Senate was called
to order again for the new session, the roll called, and Mr.
Saulsbury's brother Eli had been sworn in.  Willard waked
up, rose, and addressed the Chair.  The presiding officer
quietly replied:  "The gentleman from Delaware is no longer
a member of the Senate." Whereupon he quietly withdrew.


Matthew C. Butler of South Carolina was another Southern
Democrat, fiery in temper, impatient of control or opposition,
ready to do battle if anybody attacked the South, but carrying
anger as the flint bears fire.  He was zealous for the honor
of the country, and never sacrificed the interest of the country
to party or sectional feeling.  He was quite unpopular with
the people of the North when he entered the Senate, partly
from the fact that some of his kindred had been zealous Southern
champions before the War, at the time of some very bitter
sectional strifes, and because he was charged with having
been the leader and counsellor in some violent and unlawful
conduct toward the colored people after the War.  I have not
investigated the matter.  But I believe the responsibility
for a good deal of what was ascribed to him belonged to another
person of the same name.  But the Republicans of the Senate
came to esteem and value Senator Butler very highly.  He deserves
great credit, among other things, for his hearty and effective
support of the policy of enlarging the Navy, which, when he
came into public life, was feeble in strength and antiquated
in construction.  With his departure from the Senate, and
that of his colleague, General Wade Hampton, ended the power
in South Carolina of the old gentry who, in spite of some
grave faults, had given to that State an honorable and glorious
career.  When the Spanish War broke out, General Butler was
prompt to offer his services, although he had lost a leg in
the Civil War.


James B. Beck came into the House of Representatives when
I did, in 1869.  He served there for six years, was out of
public life for two years, and in 1877 came to the Senate
when I did.

I do not think any two men ever disliked each other more
than we did for the first few years of our service.  He hated
with all the energy of his Scotch soul,--the _perfervidum
ingenium Scotorum,_--everything I believed.  He thought the
New England Abolitionists had neither love of liberty nor
care for the personal or political rights of the negro.  Indeed
he maintained that the forefathers of the New England abolitionists
were guilty of bringing slavery into this continent.  He hated
the modern New England theological heresies with all the zeal
of his Scotch Presbyterian forbears.  He hated the Reconstruction
policy, which he thought was inspired by a desire to put the
white man in the place where the negro had been.  He hated
with all the energy of a free-trader the protection policy,
which he deemed the most unscrupulous robbery on a huge scale.
He considered the gold standard a sort of power press with
which the monopolists of the East were trying to squeeze
the last drop of blood out of the farmers and workingmen
of the South.  He thought the public debt was held by men
who had paid very little value for it, and who ought to be
paid off in the same cheap money which was in vogue when
it was originally incurred.  He hated New England culture
and refinement, which he deemed a very poor crop coming from
a barren intellectual soil.  He regarded me, I think, as
the representative, in a humble way, of all these things, and
esteemed me accordingly.

I was not behindhand with him, although I was not quite so
frank, probably, in uttering my opinions in public debate.
But I found out, after a little while, that the Northern men
who got intimate with him on committees, or in private intercourse,
found him one of the most delightful companions, fond of poetry,
especially of Burns, full of marvellous stores of anecdotes,
without any jot of personal malice, ready to do a kindness
to any man, and easily touched by any manifestation of kindly
feeling toward him, or toward his Southern neighbors and constituents.
My colleague, Mr. Dawes, served with him on some of the great
committees of the Senate and in the House, and they established
a very close and intimate friendship.  I came to know Mr.
Beck later.  But he had changed his feeling toward me, as
I had toward him, long before either found out what the other
was thinking about.  So one day--it was the time of Mr. Dawes's
last reelection to the Senate--he came over to my side of
the Chamber, took my hand and said with great emotion: "I
congratulate you on the reelection of Mr. Dawes.  He is one
of my dearest friends, and one of the best men I ever knew
in my life."  And then, as he turned away, he added: "Mr.
Hoar, I have not known you as well.  But I shall the same
thing about you, when your reelection takes place."

He had a powerful and vigorous frame, and a powerful and vigorous
understanding.  It seemed as if neither could ever tire.  He
used to pour out his denunciation of the greed of the capitalists
and monopolists and protectionists, with a fund of statistics
which it seemed impossible for the industry of any man to
have collected, and at a length which it would seem equally
impossible for mortal man to endure.  He was equally ready
on all subjects.  He performed with great fidelity the labor
of a member of the Committee on Appropriations, first in the
House, and afterward in the Senate.  I was the author of a
small jest, which half amused and half angered him.  Somebody
asked in my hearing how it was possible that Mr. Beck could
make all those long speeches, in addition to his committee
work, or get time for the research that was needed, and how
it was ever possible for his mind to get any rest; to which
I answered, that he rested his intellect while he was making
his speeches.  But this was a sorry jest, with very little
foundation in fact.  Anybody who undertook to debate with
him, found him a tough customer.  He knew the Bible--especially
the Psalms of David--and the poems of Burns, by heart.  When
he died I think there was no other man left in the Senate,
on either side, whose loss would have occasioned a more genuine
and profound sorrow.


When I came into the Senate one of the most conspicuous characters
in American public life was Oliver P. Morton of Indiana.  He
had been Governor of Indiana during the War.  There was a
large and powerful body of Copperheads among the Democrats
in that State.  They were very different from their brethren
in the East.  They were ugly, defiant and full of a dangerous
activity.  Few other men could have dealt with them with the
vigor and success of Governor Morton.  The State at its elections
was divided into two hostile camps.  If they did not resort
to the weapons of war, they were filled with a hatred and
bitterness which does not commonly possess military opponents.
Gov. Morton, in spite of the great physical infirmity which
came upon him before the War ended, held the State in its
place in the Union with an iron hand.  When he came to the
Senate he found there no more powerful, brave or unyielding
defender of liberty.  He had little regard for Constitutional
scruples.  I do not think it should be said that he would
willingly violate his oath to support the Constitution.  But
he believed that the Constitution should be interpreted in
the light of the Declaration of Independence, so as to be
the law of life to a great, powerful and free people.  To this
principle of interpretation, all strict or narrow criticism,
founded on its literal meaning, must yield.

His public life was devoted to two supreme objects:

1.  Preservation of the Constitutional authority of the Government.

2.  The maintenance by that authority of the political and
personal rights of all citizens, of all races and classes.

As I have said, he interpreted the Constitution in a manner
which he thought would best promote these objects.  He had
little respect for subtilties or refinements or scruples
that stood in the way.

He was for going straight to his object.  When the Hayes
and Tilden contest was up, he was for having the President
of the United States put Hayes and Wheeler in power by using
all the National forces, military and other, that might be
needful.  He was a member of the Committee that framed the
bill for the Electoral Commission, but refused to give it
his support.

I made a very pleasant acquaintance with him during the sessions
of that Committee.  I suppose it was due to his kindly influence
that I was put upon the Committee of Privileges and Elections,
of which he was Chairman, when I entered the Senate.  But
he died in the following summer, so I never had an opportunity
to know him better.  He was a great party leader.  He had
in this respect no superior in his time, save Lincoln alone.


It was never my good fortune to be intimate with Zachariah
Chandler.  But I had a good opportunity for observing him
and knowing him well.  I met him in 1854, at the Convention
held in Buffalo to concert measures for protecting and promoting
Free State immigration to Kansas.  He was the leading spirit
of that Convention, full of wisdom, energy and courage.  He
was then widely known throughout the country as an enterprising
and successful man of business.  When I went into the House
of Representatives, in 1869, Mr. Chandler was already a veteran
in public life.  He had organized and led the political forces
which overthrew Lewis Cass and the old Democratic Party,
not only in Michigan but in the Northwest.  He had been in
the Senate twelve years.  Those twelve years had been crowded
with history.  The close of the Administration of Buchanan,
the disruption of the Democratic Party at Charleston, the
election and inauguration of Lincoln, the putting down of
the Rebellion, the organizing, directing and disbanding of
great armies, the great amendments to the Constitution, and
the contest with Andrew Johnson, had been accomplished.  The
reconstruction of the rebellious States, the payment of the
public debt, keeping the national faith under great temptation,
reconciliation and the processes of legislation and administration
under the restraints which belonged to peace, were well under
way.  In all these Chandler bore a large part, and a part
wise, honest, powerful and on the righteous side.  I knew
him afterward in the Department of the Interior.  He was,
in my judgment, the ablest administrative officer without
an exception who has been in any executive department during
my public life.  His sturdy honesty, his sound, rapid, almost
instinctive judgment, his tact, his business sense, his love
of justice were felt in every fibre and branch of the great
Interior Department, then including eight great bureaus each
almost important enough to be a Department by itself.

The humblest clerk who complained of injustice was sure to
be listened to by the head of that great Department, who,
with his quick sympathy and sound judgment, would make it
certain that right would be done.

Chandler has little respect for the refinements of speech
or for literary polish.  He could not endure Mr. Sumner's
piling precedent upon precedent and quotation upon quotation,
and disliked his lofty and somewhat pompous rhetoric.  He
used sometimes to leave his seat and make known his disgust
in the cloak room, or in the rear of the desks, to visitors
who happened to be in the Senate Chamber.  But he was strong
as a rock, true as steel, fearless and brave, honest and incorruptible.
He had a vigorous good sense.  He saw through all the foolish
sophistries with which the defenders of fiat money, or debased
currency, sought to defend their schemes.  He had no mercy
for treason or rebellion or secession.  He was a native of
New Hampshire.  He had the opinions of New England, combined
with the directness and sincerity and energy of the West.
He had a very large influence in making the State of Michigan
another New England.

He was a sincere, open-hearted, large-hearted and affectionate
man.  He was the last man in the world of whom it would be
proper to speak as a member of an intrigue or cabal.  His
strategy was a straightforward, downright blow.  His stroke
was an Abdiel stroke,

  This greeting on thy impious crest receive.

His eloquence was simple, rugged, direct, strong.  He had
but a scanty vocabulary.  It contained no word for treason
but "treason."  He described a lie by a word of three letters.
The character of his speech was that which Plutarch ascribes
to Demosthenes.  He was strongly stirred by simple and great
emotions--love of country, love of freedom, love of justice,
love of honesty.  He hated cant and affectation.

I believe he was fond of some good literature, but he was
very impatient of Mr. Sumner's load of ornament and quotation.
He had little respect for fine phrases or for fine sentiment
or the delicacies of a refined literature.  He was rough and
plain-spoken.  I do not think he would ever have learned to
care much for Tennyson or Browning.  But the Psalms of David
would have moved him.

I suppose he was not much of a civil service reformer.  He
expected to rule Michigan, and while he would have never bought
or bribed an antagonist by giving him an office, he would
have expected to fill the public offices, so far as he had
his way, by men who were of his way of thinking.  He was much
shocked and disgusted when Judge Hoar wanted to inquire further
concerning a man whom he had recommended for the office of
Judge of the Circuit Court.  The Judge said something about
asking Reuben Rice, a friend he highly respected who had lived
long in Michigan.  Chandler spoke of it afterward and said:
"When Jake Howard and I recommended a man, the Attorney-
General wanted to ask a little railroad fellow what he thought
of him."

He joined with Conkling and Carpenter and Edmunds in their
opposition to the confirmation of Judge Hoar.  He came to
know the Judge better afterward and declared that he himself
had made a mistake.

He was a strong pillar of public faith, public liberty, and
of the Union.  He had great faults.  But without the aid
of the men whom he could influence and who honored him, and
to whom his great faults were as great virtues, the Union
never would have been saved, or slavery abolished, or the
faith kept.  I hold it one of the chief proofs of the kindness
of divine Providence to the American people in a time of very
great peril that their leaders were so different in character.
They are all dead now--Sumner and Fessenden and Seward and
Wilson and Chase and Stanton and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan
and Chandler,--a circle in which Lincoln shines as a diamond
in its setting.  Not one of them could have been spared.

It is proper that I should add that I have known very well
a good many of the most eminent citizens of Michigan.  This
list includes Governor and Senator Henry P. Baldwin, and Judge
Christiancy, who displaced Chandler in the Senate.  I have
frequently heard them speak of Mr. Chandler.  Without an exception
I believe they held him in profound esteem and honor.  They
were proud of him as the most eminent citizen of their State
which has been prolific of strong men, speaking of him as
we do of Sumner or Webster.

Mr. Chandler was a remarkable example of what I have often
noticed, how thoroughly the people come to know the true character
of a public man, even when the press of the whole country
unite to decry him.  I suppose there was not a paper in New
England, Republican or Democratic, that spoke kindly of Zach.
Chandler for many years.  He was disliked by the Democratic
press for his unyielding Republicanism.  He was disliked by
the Republican press that supported Charles Sumner, for his
opposition to him.  He was represented as a coarse, ignorant
and unscrupulous man.  In the campaign of 1880 I sent him
a telegram, asking him to visit me in Massachusetts and make
a few speeches in our campaign.  I added: "You will be received
with unbounded respect and honor."  The telegram was an astonishment
and revelation to the old man.  He had no idea that the people
of New England had that opinion of him.  Governor Baldwin
told me that he happened to be passing Chandler's house just
as he received my message.  Chandler knocked on the window
for the Governor to come in.  He had the telegram in his hand
when the Governor entered, and exclaimed: "Look at that; read
that; and I did not graduate at Harvard College either." His
colleague, Senator Ferry, alludes to his gratification at the
receipt of this message, in his obituary delivered in the Senate.
He spoke in Worcester and Boston and Lowell, and in one or
two other places.  His passage through the State was a triumphal
march.  He was received as I had predicted.  In Worcester
we had no hall large enough to hold the crowds that thronged
to see him, and were compelled to have the meeting in the
skating-rink.  Chandler went back to Michigan full of satisfaction
with his reception.  I think he would have been among the
most formidable candidates for the Presidency at the next
election, but for his sudden death.  If he had been nominated,
he would undoubtedly have been elected.  But, a short time
after, he was one morning found dead in his bed at Chicago.
In his death a great and salutary force was subtracted from
the public life of the country, and especially from the public
life of the great State to whose history he had contributed
so large and noble a part.

I have found among some old notes a few sentences with which
I presented him to a mighty audience in my own city:

"Worcester is here in person to-night to give a welcome from
the heart of Massachusetts to the Senator of Michigan.  If
our guest had nothing of his own to recommend him, it would
be enough to stir the blood of Massachusetts that he represents
that honored State, another New England in her interests and
in her opinions.  With her vast forests, her people share
with Maine, our own great frontier State, those vast lumber
interests, for which it has been our own policy to demand
protection.  Daughter of three mighty lakes, she takes a large
share in our vast inland commerce.  Her people are brave,
prosperous and free.  They have iron in their soil, and iron
in their blood.  Great as is her wealth and her material interest,
she shares with Massachusetts the honor of being among the
foremost of American States in educational conditions.  Massachusetts
is proud to--

  Claim kindred there, and have the claim allowed.

"But our guest brings to us more than a representative title
to our regard.  The memory of some of us goes back to the
time when, all over the great free Northwest, the people seemed
to have forgotten to what they owed their own prosperity.
The Northwest had been the gift of Freedom to the Republic
on her birthday.  In each of her million homes dwells Liberty,
a perpetual guest.  But yet that people in Illinois and Michigan
and Indiana and Ohio seemed for a time to have forgotten their
own history, and to be unworthy of their fair and mighty heritage.
They had been the trusted and sturdy allies of the slave power
in the great contest for the possession of the vast territory
between the Mississippi and the Pacific.  The old leaders,
Douglas in Illinois and Cass in Michigan, who ruled those
States with an almost despotic power, sought to win the favor
of the South for their aspirations for the Presidency by espousing
the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, under which the invaders
from the slave States hard by, without even becoming residents
in good faith, might fix forever the character of that fair
domain.  At that time a young knight, a figure of manly courage
and manly strength, came forward to challenge General Cass
to a struggle for the supremacy in Michigan.  It was our guest
of this evening.  As you all know, the young champion vanquished
the veteran warrior in a trial by battle for the freedom of
the Continent.  I met him at Buffalo in 1854, in the height
of the conflict, at a gathering of a few gentlemen to concert
measures for sustaining, aiding and arming the Free State
immigrants in Kansas.  He was the leader and the life of
the company.  Many of those immigrants had gone from Worcester
County, where the Emigrants' Aid Society was first devised
by Edward Hale and organized by Eli Thayer.  I met him again
when I went to Washington in 1869.  I found him among the
foremost of the leaders of the Senate.  He had gone through
the great period of the Civil War, and the period before the
Civil War.  He had stood by Lincoln in that time of trouble.
He had stood firm as a rock for the financial integrity of
the country.  Afterward it was my good fortune to know a good
deal of his administration of the great Department of the
Interior.  I have never known, or known of, a better administration
of any Department from the beginning of the Government, than
his of that great office, with its eight important bureaus.

"He brings to you to-night the news from Maine and the news
from Ohio.  He can tell you what the Republicans are thinking
of and are doing all over the country, as they prepare themselves
for the great contest beginning this year, to end, as we hope
and believe, with a great Republican victory in 1880."


John James Ingalls was in many respects one of the brightest
intellects I ever knew.  He was graduated at Williams in 1855.
One of the few things, I don't know but I might say the only
thing, for which he seemed to have any reverence was the character
of Mark Hopkins.  He was a very conspicuous figure in the
debates in the Senate.  He had an excellent English style,
always impressive, often on fit occasions rising to great
stateliness and beauty.  He was for a good while President
pro tempore of the Senate, and was the best presiding officer
I have ever known there for conducting ordinary business.
He maintained in the chair always his stately dignity of bearing
and speech.  The formal phrases with which he declared the
action of the Senate, or stated questions for its decision,
seemed to be a fitting part of some stately ceremonial.  He
did not care much about the principles of parliamentary law,
and had never been a very thorough student of the rules.  So
his decisions did not have the same authority as those of
Mr. Wheeler or Mr. Edmunds or Mr. Hamlin.

I said to him one day, "I think you are the best presiding
officer I ever knew.  But I do not think you know much about
parliamentary law."  To which he replied:  "I think the sting
is bigger than the bee."

He never lost an opportunity to indulge his gift of caustic
wit, no matter at whose expense.  When the morning hour was
devoted to acting upon the reports of committees in cases
of private claims, or pensions, he used to look over, the
night before, the reports which were likely to be on the next
day's calendar.  When a bill was reached he would get up and
make a pretty sharp attack on the measure, full of wit and
satire.  He generally knew very little about it.  When he
got through his speech he would disappear into the cloak room
and leave the Senator who had reported the bill, and had expected
to get it through without any difficulty--the case being very
often absolutely clear and just--to spend his time in an elaborate
and indignant explanation.

Mr. Ingalls disliked very much the scrupulous administrations
of Hayes and Harrison.  He yielded to the craze for free silver
which swept over parts of the West, and in so doing lost the
confidence of the people to whose momentary impulse he had
given way.  If he had stood stanchly on the New England doctrines
and principles in which he was educated, and which I think
he believed in his heart, he would have kept his State on
the right side.  Shortly before the campaign in which he was
defeated for Senator, he said in the cloak room, in my hearing,
that he did not propose to be a martyr.  He was the author
or a beautiful poem, entitled "Opportunity," which I think
should accompany this imperfect sketch.

  OPPORTUNITY

  Master of human destinies am I!
  Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
  Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
  Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
  Hovel and mart and palace--soon or late
  I knock unbidden once at every gate!

  If sleeping, wake--if feasting, rise before
  I turn away.  It is the hour of fate,
  And they who follow me reach every state
  Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
  Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
  Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
  Seek me in vain and uselessly implore.
  I answer not, and I return no more!

Ingalls was a native of Haverhill, Massachusetts.  Somewhere
about 1880, being in Boston, he gave an interview to one of
the papers in which he commented very severely on the want
of able leadership in the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
I suppose the criticism was directed at me, although he did
not mention my name.  In 1880 Massachusetts gave a Republican
majority of 48,697, and Kansas a Republican majority of 41,897.
Mr. Ingalls's leadership in Kansas had been manifested very
largely in the control of official patronage.  He said in
the Senate that he and his colleague sought to get rid of
all Democrats in office in Kansas as with a fine-toothed comb.

So far as I had been concerned, and so far as the Republican
leaders in Massachusetts had been concerned, with the exception
of General Butler, a different policy had been adopted.  We
had never attempted to make a political instrument of official
patronage.  There had never been anything like a "boss" or
a machine.  Our State politics had been conducted, and our
candidates for office nominated, after the old fashion of
a New England town meeting.  When an election approached,
or when a great measure or political question was to be decided,
men who were influential consulted together informally, ascertained
the public sentiment, deferred to it, if it seemed to be right,
and did what they could to persuade it and guide it by speech
and discussion in the press, if it needed guidance, and trusted,
hardly ever in vain, to the intelligence of the people for
the result.  I do not know but the diminution of the comparative
importance of the towns, and the change of the Commonwealth
and cluster of cities and manufacturing villages, and the
influx of other elements than that of the old New England
stock may not bring about, or if indeed it is not already
bringing about, a different conduct of affairs.  But I have
never adopted any other method, and I have never desired that
my public life or influence should survive the introduction
of any other method in Massachusetts.  Mr. Ingalls's methods
and mine have been tested by their results.  The people of
Kansas are largely of Massachusetts origin.  I believe if
her leading men had pursued Massachusetts methods she would
to a great extent have repeated Massachusetts history.  Our
method of political management and control has been vindicated
by the fact that the Commonwealth has been kept true to its
ancient faith, except in a very few years when accidental
causes have caused the election of a Democratic Governor.
Those elections were protests against an attempt to depart
from the old-fashioned method of ascertaining the will of
the people in selecting Republican candidates.  Massachusetts
has kept the succession of United States Senators unbroken,
and has had a Republican delegation in the House ever since
the party came into power, with two exceptions.  She has in
general maintained her great Republican majority.  On the other
hand Kansas has been represented in turn by Democrats and
Populists and Socialists and the advocates of fiat money and
free silver.


Senator Cockrell of Missouri entered the Senate two years
before I did, and has been there ever since.  He is a man
of great sincerity and integrity, of great influence with his
own party, and highly esteemed by his Republican associates.
He can generally be depended upon for a fair vote, certainly
always for an honest and incorruptible vote, and to do full
justice to a political opponent.  He used for many years to
prepare one speech, in each session, in which he went over
the political issues of the two parties in a violent and extreme
fashion.  He would give us the whole history of the year and
point out the imperfections and weakness and atrocity of the
party in power in a most unsparing fashion.  This speech he
would frank home to Missouri.  He seemed to think his duty
as a Democratic politician was done, and he would betake himself
to statesmanship the rest of the year.  I think he has of
late discontinued that practice.  I do not want what I have
said to be taken too seriously.  There is scarcely a member
of either side in either House who would be more missed from
the public service, if anything were to happen to him, than
Mr. Cockrell, nor for whom all men have a kindlier and more
affectionate regard.  Like Mr. Allison, he knows the mechanism
of administration and legislation through and through.  He
would be entirely competent to fill a chair of public administration
in any college, if, as I hope may be done, such chairs shall
be established.


When Justin Morrill died, not only a great figure left the
Senate Chamber--the image of the ancient virtue of New England--
but an era in our national history came to an end.  He knew
in his youth the veterans of the Revolution and the generation
who declared independence and framed the Constitution, as
the young men who are coming to manhood to-day know the veterans
who won our victories and the statesmen who conducted our
policy in the Civil War.  He knew the whole history of his
country from the time of her independence, partly from the
lips of those who had shaped it, partly because of the large
share he had in it himself.  When he was born Washington had
been dead but ten years.  He was sixteen years old when Jefferson
and Adams died.  He was twenty-two years old when Charles
Carroll died.  He was born at the beginning of the second
year of Madison's Presidency, and was a man of twenty-six
when Madison died.  In his youth and early manhood the manners
of Ethan Allen's time still prevailed in Vermont, and Allen's
companions and comrades could be found in every village.
He was old enough to feel in his boyish soul something of
the thrill of our great naval victories, and of the victory at
New Orleans in our last war with England, and, perhaps, to
understand something of the significance of the treaty of
peace of 1815.  He knew many of the fathers of the country
as we knew him.  In his lifetime the country grew from seventeen
hundred thousand to thirty-six hundred thousand square miles,
from seventeen States to forty-five States, from four million
people to seventy-five million.  To the America into which
he was born seventeen new Americas had been added before he
died.

A great and healthful and beneficent power departed from our
country's life.  If he had not lived, the history of the country
would have been different in some very important particulars;
and it is not unlikely that his death changed the result in
some matters of great pith and moment, which are to affect
profoundly the history of the country in the future.  The
longer I live, the more carefully I study the former times
or observe my own time, the more I am impressed with the sensitiveness
of every people, however great or however free, to an individual
touch, to the influence of a personal force.  There is no
such thing as a blind fate; no such thing as an overwhelming
and pitiless destiny.  The Providence that governs this world
leaves nations as He leaves men, to work out their own destiny,
their own fate, in freedom, as they obey or disobey His will.

  Man is his own star; and the soul that can
  Render an honest and a perfect man
  Commands all life, all influence, all fate;
  Nothing to him falls early or too late.
  Our acts our angels are, or good or ill;
  Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

It is wonderful what things this man accomplished alone,
what things he helped others to accomplish, what things were
accomplished by the political organization of which he was
a leader, which he bore a very large part in accomplishing.

Mr. Morrill's public life was coincident with the advent
of the Republican Party to National power.  His first important
vote in the House of Representatives helped to elect Mr. Banks
to the office of Speaker, the first National victory of a
party organized to prevent the extension of slavery.  From
that moment, for nearly half a century, Vermont spoke through
him in our National Council, until, one after another, almost
every great question affecting the public welfare has been
decided in accordance with her opinion.

It would be impossible, even by a most careful study of the
history of the country for the last forty years, to determine
with exactness what was due to Mr. Morrill's personal influence.
Many of the great policies to which we owe the successful
result of the Civil War--the abolition of slavery, the restoration
of peace, the new and enlarged definition of citizenship,
the restoration of order, the establishment of public credit,
the homestead system, the foundation and admission of new
States, the exaction of apology and reparation from Great
Britain, the establishment of the doctrine of expatriation,
the achievement of our manufacturing independence, the taking
by the United States of its place as the foremost nation in
the world in manufacture and in wealth, as it was already
foremost in agriculture, the creation of our vast domestic
commerce, the extension of our railroad system from one ocean
to the other--were carried into effect by narrow majorities,
and would have failed but for the wisest counsel.  When all
these matters were before Congress there may have been men
more brilliant or more powerful in debate.  But I can not
think of any wiser in counsel than Mr. Morrill.  Many of
them must have been lost but for his powerful support.  Many
owed to him the shape they finally took.

But he has left many a personal monument in our legislation,
in the glory of which no others can rightfully claim to rival
him.  To him is due the great tariff, that of 1861, which
will always pass by his name, of which every protective tariff
since has been but a modification and adjustment to conditions
somewhat changed, conditions which in general, so far as they
were favorable, were the result of that measure.  To him is
due the first antipolygamy bill, which inaugurated the policy
under which, as we hope and believe, that great blot on our
National life has been forever expunged.  The public buildings
which ornament Washington, the extension of the Capitol grounds,
the great building where the State, War and Navy Departments
have their home, the National Museum buildings, are the result
of statutes of which he was the author and which he conducted
from their introduction to their enactment.  He was the leader,
as Mr. Winthrop in his noble oration bears witness, of the
action of Congress which resulted in the completion of the
Washington Monument after so many years' delay.  He conceived
and accomplished the idea of consecrating the beautiful chamber
of the old House of Representatives as a Memorial Hall where
should stand forever the statues of the great men of the States.
So far, of late, as the prosperity and wise administration
of the Smithsonian Institution has depended upon the action
of Congress it has been due to him.  Above all, the beautiful
National Library building, unequalled among buildings of its
class in the world, was in a large measure the result of his
persistent effort and powerful influence, and stands as an
enduring monument to his fame.  There can be no more beautiful
and enviable memorial to any man than a portrait upon the
walls of a great college in the gallery where the figures
and faces of its benefactors are collected.  Mr. Morrill
deserves this expression of honor and gratitude at the hands
of at least one great institution of learning in every American
State.  To his wise foresight is due the ample endowment of
Agricultural or Technical colleges in every State in the Union.

He came from a small State, thinly settled--from a frontier
State.  His advantages of education were those only which
the public schools of the neighborhood afforded.  All his
life, with a brief interval, was spent in the same town,
nine miles from any railroad, except when absent in the public
service.  But there was no touch of provincialism in him.
Everything about him was broad, national, American.  His intellect
and soul, his conceptions of statesmanship and of duty expanded
as the country grew and as the demands upon him increased.
He was in every respect as competent to legislate for fifty
States as for thirteen.  He would have been as competent to
legislate for an entire continent so long as that legislation
were to be governed, restrained, inspired by the principles
in which our Union is founded and the maxims of the men who
builded it.

He was no dreamer, no idealist, no sentimentalist.  He was
practical, wise, prudent.  In whatever assembly he was found
he represented the solid sense of the meeting.  But still
he never departed from the loftiest ideals.  On any question
involving righteousness or freedom you would as soon have
had doubt of George Washington's position as of his.  He had
no duplicity, no indirection, no diplomacy.  He was frank,
plain-spoken, simple-hearted.  He had no faculty for swimming
under water.

  His armor was his honest thought
  And simple truth his utmost skill.

The Apostle's counsel to his young disciple will serve for
a lifelike portraiture of Justin Morrill:

  "Be sober-minded:
  "Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
  "In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works:
  in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity;
  "Sound speech that can not be condemned; that he that is
  of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing
  to say of you."

If you wish to sum up the quality of Justin Morrill in a
single word, mind, body, and soul, that word would be Health.
He was thoroughly healthy, through and through, to the center
of his brain, to his heart's core.  Like all healthy souls,
he was full of good cheer and sunshine, full of hope for the
future, full of pleasant memories of the past.  To him life
was made up of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows.
But with all his friendliness and kindliness, with all his
great hold upon the love and respect of the people, with all
his large circle of friends, with all his delight in companionship
and agreeable converse, he dared to be alone.  He found good
society enough always, if no other were at hand, in himself.
He was many times called upon to espouse unpopular causes
and unpopular doctrines.  From the time when in his youth
he devoted himself to the anti-slavery cause, then odious
in the nostrils of his countrymen, to the time when in the
last days of his life he raised his brave voice against a
policy upon which the majority of his political associates
seemed bent, he never yielded the conclusions of his own judgment
or the dictates of his own conscience to any majority, to
any party dictation, or to any public clamor.  When Freedom,
Righteousness and Justice were on his side he considered himself
in the majority.  He was constant in his attendance on the
worship of a small and unpopular religious denomination.
He never lost his good nature, his courage, or his supreme
confidence in the final triumph of truth.

Mr. Morrill was not a great political leader.  Great political
leaders are not often found in the Senate nowadays.  He was
contented to be responsible for one man; to cast his share
of the vote of one State; to do his duty as he conceived
it, and let other men do theirs as they saw it.  But at least
he was not a great political follower.  He never committed
himself to the popular currents, nor studied the vanes to
see how the winds were blowing, nor sounded the depths and
the shallows before he decided on his own course.  There was
no wire running to his seat from any centre of patronage or
power.  To use a felicitous phrase, I think of Senator Morgan
of Alabama, he did not "come out of the door and cry 'Cuckoo!'
when any clock struck elsewhere."

Mr. Morrill was a brave man--an independent man.  He never
flinched from uttering his thought.  He was never afraid to
vote alone.  He never troubled himself about majorities or
administrations, still less about crowds or mobs or spasms
of popular excitement.  His standard of excellence was high.
He was severe, almost austere, in his judgments of other men.
And yet, with all this, everybody liked him.  Everybody who
came to know him well loved him.  It seems strange that he
never incurred enmities or provoked resentments.  I suppose
the reason is that he never had any controversy with anybody.
He did not mingle in the discussion of the Senate as a debater.
He uttered his opinion and gave his reasons as if he were
uttering judgments.  But he seldom or never undertook to reply
to the men who differed from him, and he rarely, if ever,
used the weapons of ridicule or sarcasm or invective, and he
never grew impassioned or angry.  He had, in a high degree,
what Jeremy Taylor calls "the endearment of prudent and temperate
speech."

He was one of the men that Washington would have loved and
Washington would have leaned upon.  Of course I do not compare
my good friend with him to whom no man living or that ever
lived on earth can be compared.  And Mr. Morrill was never
tried or tested by executive or by military responsibilities.
But the qualities which belonged to Washington belonged to
him--prudence, modesty, sound judgement, simplicity, absolute
veracity, absolute integrity, disinterestedness, lofty patriotism.
If he is not to be compared with Washington, he was at least
worthy to be the countryman of Washington, and to hold a high
place among the statesmen of the Republic which Washington
founded.

Neither ambition nor hatred, nor the love of ease nor the
greed of gain, nor the desire of popularity, nor the love of
praise, nor the fear of unpopularity found a place in that
simple and brave heart.

  Like as a ship that through the ocean wide
  By conduct of some star doth make her way--

no local attraction diverted the magnet in his soul, which
ever pointed to the star of day.

As I just said, he was one of the men that Washington would
have loved and that Washington would have leaned upon.  If
we do not speak of him as a man of genius, he had that absolute
probity and that sound common sense which are safer and better
guides than genius.  These gifts are the highest ornaments
of a noble and beautiful character; they are surer guides
to success and loftier elements of true greatness than what
is commonly called genius.  It was well said by an early American
author,* now too much neglected, that--

"There is no virtue without a characteristic beauty.  To
do what is right argues superior taste as well as morals;
and those whose practice is evil feel and inferiority of
intellectual power and enjoyment, even where they take no
concern for a principle.  Doing well has something more in
it than the mere fulfilling of a duty.  It is a cause of a just
sense of elevation of character; it clears and strengthens
the spirits; it gives higher reaches of thought.  The world
is sensible of these truths, let it act as it may.  It is not
because of his integrity alone that it relies on an honest man,
but it has more confidence in his judgment and wise conduct,
in the long run, than in the schemes of those of greater
intellect who go at large without any landmarks of principle.
So that virtue seems of a double nature, and to stand oftentimes
in the place of what we call talent."

[Footnote]
* Richard H. Dana, the elder.
[End of Footnote]

He was spared the fate of so many of our great New England
statesmen, that of closing his life in sorrow and in gloom.
His last days were days of hope, not of despair.  Sumner came
to his seat in the Senate Chamber as to a solitude.  When
he was struck with death there was found upon his table a
volume of Shakespeare with this passage, probably the last
printed text on which his eyes ever gazed, marked with his
own hand:

  Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
  For what is in this world, but care and woe?

The last days of Samuel Adams were embittered by poverty,
sickness, and the death of his only son.

Daniel Webster laid wearily down his august head in disappointment
and sorrow, predicting with dying breath that the end had
come to the great party to whose service his life was given.

When John Quincy Adams fell at his post in the House of Representatives
a great newspaper declared that there could not be found in
the country another bold enough or bad enough to take his
place.

But Mr. Morrill's last days were filled with hope and not
with despair.  To him life was sweet and immortality assured.
His soul took its flight

  On wings that fear no glance of God's pure sight,
  No tempest from his breath.

And so we leave him.  His life went out with the century
of which he saw almost the beginning.  What the future may
have in store for us we cannot tell.  But we offer this man
as an example of an American Senator and American citizen
than which, so far, we have none better.  Surely that life
has been fortunate.  He is buried where he was born.  His
honored grave is hard by the spot where his cradle was rocked.
He sleeps where he wished to sleep, in the bosom of his beloved
Vermont.  No State ever mourned a nobler son; no son was ever
mourned by a nobler State.  He enjoyed to a ripe old age everything
that can make life happy--honor, love, obedience, troops of
friends,

  The love of friends without a single foe,
  Unequalled lot below.

He died at home.  The desire of the wise man,

  Let me die in my nest,

was fulfilled to him.  His eyes in his old age looked undimmed
upon the greatness and the glory of his country, in achieving
which he had borne so large a part.


CHAPTER VII
COMMITTEE SERVICE IN THE SENATE

I was appointed upon the Committee on Privileges and Elections,
March 9, 1877, and have continued a member of it ever since.

I was appointed on the same day a member of the Committees
on Claims, Indian Affairs and Agriculture.  I made a special
study in the vacation of 1877, expecting to master, as well
as I could, the whole Indian question, so that my service
on that Committee might be of some value.  But I was removed
from the Committee on Indian Affairs, by the Committee who
made the appointments, in the following December.  This was
very fortunate, for the country and for the Indians.  Mr.
Dawes, my colleague, not long after was placed upon the Committee.
He was a most intelligent, faithful and stanch friend of the
Indians during the remainder of his lifetime.  He was ready,
at the Department and on the floor of the Senate, and wherever
he could exert an influence to protect and baffle any attempt
to wrong them.  His quiet and unpretending service to this
unfortunate and oppressed race entitles him to a very high
place in the affectionate remembrance of his countrymen.

The Committee on Agriculture was then of little importance.
I remained a member of it for a few years, and then gave it
up for some service in which my constituents were more immediately
interested.

In December, 1878, I was put on the Committee on Patents,
and remained upon it for a little while.  The Committee had
to deal occasionally with special cases of applications for
extension of patents by statute, which demanded a knowledge
of the patent law, and industry and sound judgment on the
part of the Senator to whom they were committed for report.
But they were not of much public interest or importance.

In December, 1879, I was put on the Committee on the Revision
of the Laws; in December, 1883, on the Joint Committee on
the Library; in December, 1884, on the Committee of the Judiciary,
of which I have been a member ever since; in December, 1888,
on the Committee on Relations with Canada; in December, 1891,
on the Committee on Woman Suffrage; in December, 1895, on
the Committee on Rules.

I was on the Committee on Claims for ten years, from March
9, 1877, to March 4, 1887.  It is impossible to establish
by the record the part any man performs, who is a member of
a deliberative body consisting of several persons, in influencing
its decisions, or in establishing the principles on which
they are based.  But I believe I may fairly claim, and that
I could cite my associates on the Committee to bear testimony,
that I had a great deal to do, and much more than any other
person, in settling the doctrines upon which the Senate acted
in dealing with the great questions of the claims of individuals
and States and corporate bodies growing out of the War.  Upon
the rules then established the Government claims amounting
to hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars were decided.
The victorious Republic dealt justly and generously with the
vanquished and misguided men who had assailed it and sought
its destruction.

The general doctrines by which Congress was governed were
these:

1.  No rightful claim accrued to anybody for the destruction
or injury to property by military movements, or operations,
in a country which was the theatre of war.

2.  A fair price was to be paid for supplies for the use of
the Army in the field (1) to loyal persons, (2) to disloyal
persons, if it were shown by a certificate of the officer who
took them, or otherwise, that they were taken with the purpose
of paying for them.  Inhabitants of States in rebellion were
presumed to be disloyal, unless their loyalty were shown affirmatively.

3.  A like rule was followed in determining the questions
of payment for the use of buildings, occupied as soldiers'
quarters, or for other official purposes, by the Army, or
injury to them caused by such occupation.

4.  Property taken by the Army was paid for at its actual
value to the Government, and not necessarily at its value
to owner.

5.  No claim accrued by reason of the destruction of property
whether of loyal or disloyal persons, to prevent its falling
into the hands of the enemy.

6.  An exception to the principle above stated, founded not
on any strict principle or established law or conduct of Governments,
but on sound public policy, was adopted in the case of institutions
of charity, education and religion.

I first affirmed that doctrine in the House of Representatives,
in the case of the College of William and Mary of Virginia,
against the almost unanimous opinion of my political associates.
I thought that such a principle would be a great protection
to such institutions in all future wars, that it would tend
to heal the bitter recollections of the Civil War and the
estrangements then existing between the sections of the country.
I have lived to see the doctrine thoroughly established, the
College of William and Mary rebuilt by the Government, and
every church and school and hospital which suffered by the
military operations of the Civil War reimbursed, if it has
presented its claim.

If I have been able to render any public service, I look
upon that I have rendered upon the Committee on Claims, although
it has attracted but little attention, and is not of a nature
to make great public impression, as perhaps more valuable
than any other.

The duties of that Committee, when I was upon it, were very
laborious.  I find that in the first session of the first
Congress, I made reports in seventeen cases, each of them
involving a study of the evidence, a finding of the facts, and
an investigation, statement and consideration of important
principles of law, in most cases to be applied to a novel state
of facts.  I think that winter's work upon the Committee on
Claims alone required more individual labor than that required
to perform the duties of his office by any Judge of a State
Court, of which I have any knowledge; and that the amount
of money, and importance of the principles involved very far
exceeded that involved in the aggregate of the cases in the
Supreme Court of any State for a like period.

I was a member of the Committee on the Library for several
years.  For two or three years I was its acting Chairman
during the summer, and in that capacity had to approve the
accounts of the Congressional Library, and the National Botanic
Garden.

To that Committee were referred applications for the erection
of monuments and statues and similar works throughout the
country, including the District of Columbia, and the purchase
of works for art for the Government.  They used to have a
regular appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars annually,
to be expended at their discretion, for works of art.  That
appropriation was stopped some years ago.

My service on that Committee brought me into very delightful
relations with Mr. Sherman and Mr. Evarts.  I introduced and
got through a bill for a monument and statue to Lafayette
and, as acting Chairman of the Library Committee was, with
the Secretary of War and the Architect of the Capitol, a member
of the Commission who selected the artists and contracted
for the statue and monument.  A resolution to build the monument
passed the Continental Congress, but was not carried into
effect by reason of the poverty of the Confederacy in that
day.  In Washington's first Administration somebody called
attention to the fact that the monument had not been built,
to which my grandfather, Roger Sherman, answered: "The vote
is the monument." I was led by the anecdote to do what I could
to have the long-neglected duty performed.  The statue and
monument, by two French artists of great genius, now stands
at one corner of Lafayette Square.  The statue of Rochambeau
has just been placed at another corner of that square.

I was also fortunate enough, when I was on the Library Committee,
to secure the purchase of the Franklin Papers for the Department
of State.  William Temple Franklin, the Doctor's son, died
in London, leaving at his lodgings a mass of valuable correspondence
of his father, and other papers illustrating his life, especially
in France.  They were discovered in the possession of the
keeper of his lodgings, many years after, by Henry Stevens,
the famous antiquary and dealer in rare books.  Stevens had
got into difficulties about money, and had pledged the collection
for about twenty-five thousand dollars.  It had been offered
to the Government.  Several Secretaries of State, in succession,
including Mr. Blaine, had urged Congress to buy it, but without
avail.

One day Mr. Dwight, Librarian of the State Department, came
to see me at the Capitol about some not very important matter.
While I was talking with him, he said that the one thing he
wished most was that Congress would buy the Franklin Papers.
He added "I think if I were to die, the words 'Franklin Papers,'
would be found engraved on my heart." I said I thought I could
accomplish the purchase.  So I introduced a resolution, had
it referred to the Library Committee, and we had a hearing.
It happened that Edward Everett Hale, who probably knew as
much about the subject and the value of the papers as anybody,
was then in Washington.  At the same time John Russell Bartlett
was here, who had charge of the famous Brown Collection in
Rhode Island.  They were both summoned before the Committee,
and on their statement the Committee voted to recommend the
passage of the resolution.  It passed the Senate.  The provision
was then put upon the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill.  With
it, however, was a provision to buy the Rochambeau Papers,
which had been sent to this county on the assurance of Mr.
Sherman, who was Chairman of the Committee on the Library,
that Congress would purchase them.  There was also a provision
for buying the papers of Vans Murray, Envoy to France in Napoleon's
time; and for buying two other quite important manuscript
collections.  When the bill got to the House, all these things
were stricken out.  The Conference Committee had a great strife
over them, the House refusing to put any of them in, and the
Senate insisting upon all.  At last they compromised, agreeing
to take them alternately, including the first one, rejecting
the second; including the third, rejecting the fourth, and
so on.  In this lottery the Franklin Papers were saved, and
Mr. Sherman's Rochambeau Papers were stricken out, much to
his disgust.  But he got an appropriation for them in a subsequent
Congress.

The Committee on Rules have the control of the Capitol, and
the not very important power of assigning the rooms to the
different Committees.  Beyond that they have not, in general,
much to do.  There have been few important amendments to the
rules in my time, of which I was the author of two.

One of them provides that an amendment to any bill may be
laid on the table, on special motion, without carrying the
bill itself with it.  The motion to lay on the table not being
debatable, this enables the Senate to dispose promptly of
a good many propositions, which otherwise would consume a
good deal of time in debate.  There had been such a provision
as to appropriation bills before.  When I first suggested
this change, Mr. Edmunds exclaimed in a loud whisper, "we
won't do that."  But I believe he approved it finally.

The other was an amendment relating to order in debate, made
necessary by a very disagreeable occurrence, which ended in
the exchange of blows in the Senate, by two Senators from
the same State.  I had long in mind to propose, when the occasion
came, the last clause of this amendment.  If Senators are
to be considered to any degree as ambassadors of their States,
it would seem proper that they should not be compelled to
hear any reproachful language about the State they represent.
Such attacks have given rise to a great deal of angry debate
in both Houses of Congress.

The following is the amendment:

No Senator in debate shall directly or indirectly by any
form of words impute to any Senator or to other Senators
any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.

No Senator in debate shall refer offensively to any State
of the Union.

I was also for several years a member of the Committee on
Woman Suffrage.  That Committee used to hear the advocates
of Woman Suffrage who liked to have their arguments reported
and sent through the mails as public documents under the franking
privilege.

Although a very decided advocate of the extension of the
right of suffrage to women, I have not thought that it was
likely that that would be accomplished by an amendment to
the National Constitution, or indeed that it was wise to
attempt to do it in that way.  The Constitution cannot be
amended without the consent of three-fourths of the States.
If a majority can be got in three-fourths of the States for
such an amendment, their people would be undoubtedly ready
to amend their State Constitutions by which, so far as each
State is concerned, the object would be accomplished.  So
it seems hardly worth while to take the trouble of plying
Congress with petitions or arguments.


But my longest service upon Committees has been upon the two
great Law Committees of the Senate,--the Committee on Privileges
and Elections, and the Committee on the Judiciary.

I have been a member of the Committee on Privileges and Elections
since March 9, 1877.  I was Chairman for more than ten years.
I have been a member of the Committee on the Judiciary since
December, 1884, and have been its Chairman since December,
1891, except for two years, from March 4, 1893, to March 4,
1895, when the Democrats held the Senate.

While I was Chairman it was of course my duty to represent
and defend in debate the action of these Committees on all
the important questions referred to them.  I have also, by
reason of my long service, now more than twenty-six years,
on the Committee of Privileges and Elections, been expected
to take part in the discussion of all the Election cases,
and of all matters affecting the privileges and dignity of
the Senate, and of individual Senators.  The investigations
into alleged outrages at the South, and wrongs connected with
them, have been conducted by that Committee.  So it has been
my fortune to be prominent in nearly all of the matters that
have come up in the Senate since I have been a member of it,
which have excited angry sectional or political feeling.  Matters
of finance and revenue and protection, while deeply interesting
the people, do not, in general, cause angry feeling on the
part of the political leaders.  To this remark, the state
of mind of our friends, whom we are in the habit of calling
Mugwumps, and who like to call themselves Independents, is
an exception.  They have commonly discussed the profoundest
and subtlest questions with an angry and bitter personality
which finds its parallel only in the theological treatises
of the dark ages.  It is lucky for some of us that they have
not had the fires of Smithfield or of the Inquisition at their
command.

So, at various times in my life, I have been the object of
the most savage denunciation, sometimes from the Independent
newspapers, sometimes from the Democratic newspapers, especially
those in the South, and sometimes from the press of my own
party whom I have offended by differing from a majority of
my political friends.

But such things are not to be taken too seriously.  I have
found in general that the men who deliver themselves with
most bitterness and fury on political questions are the men
who change their minds most easily, and are in general the
most placable, and not uncommonly are the most friendly and
pleasant men in the world in private intercourse.  I account
it my great good fortune that, although I have never flinched
from uttering whatever I thought, and acting according to
my own conviction of public duty, that, as I am approaching
four score years, I have, almost without an exception, the
good will of my countrymen, certainly if I may trust what
they tell me when I meet in private intercourse men from different
parts of the country, or what they are saying of me just now
in the press.  But it is quite possible that I may say or
do something before I get through which will change all that.
So whether my sunset, which is to come very soon, is to be
clear or under a cloud, it is impossible even to guess.

During this period I have taken a leading part in all questions
affecting the security of the right of suffrage conferred
by the Constitution of the United States on the colored people,
of honesty in elections, of questions affecting disputed titles
to seats in the Senate, and the extension of suffrage to women.

A very interesting question, now happily almost forgotten,
came up at the December session of 1878, and was renewed at
the following March session of 1879.

In 1878 the Democrats had a majority in the House of Representatives,
while the Republicans had the Presidency and the Senate.  In
March, 1879, there was a Democratic majority in the Senate
and in the House, but a Republican President.  The Democratic
Party chafed exceedingly under the National laws for securing
the purity of elections and for securing impartial juries
in the courts of the United States.  In the December session
of 1878, the House inserted a provision repealing these laws.
They insisted, in conference, on keeping in this provision,
and refused to consent to the passage of the Executive, Legislative
and Judicial Appropriation Bill, unless the Senate and the
President would yield to their demand.  Mr. Beck of Kentucky,
one of the conferrees on the part of the Senate, representing
what was then the Democratic minority, but what became at
the March session the majority, stated the doctrine of the
House, as announced by their conferrees--adding that he agreed
with it--that unless the States should be allowed to conduct
their own elections in their own way, free from all Federal
interference, they would refuse under their Constitutional
right to make appropriations to carry on the Government.

This was in defiance of the express provision of the Constitution
that Congress might at any time alter the regulations prescribed
by the State Legislatures as to time, place and manner of
holding elections for Senators and Representatives.

Mr. Beck declared that that course would be adopted and adhered
to, no matter what came of the Appropriation Bills.  He was
followed by Mr. Thurman of Ohio, the leader of his party in
the Senate, and Chairman of the Judiciary when it came into
power.  He said it was a question upon which he had thought
long and deeply, one of the gravest which ever arose for the
consideration of the American Congress, and added:

"We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England
established after two centuries of contest, to say that we
will not grant the money of the people unless there is a redress
of grievances . . . . England was saved from despotism and an
absolute monarchy by the exercise of the power of the House
of Commons to refuse supplies except upon conditions that
grievances should be redressed . . . . It is a mistake to suppose
that it was a fight simply between the Throne and the Commons;
it was equally a fight between the Lords and the Commons;
and the result of two centuries of contest in England was
the rule that the House of Lords had no right to amend a Money
Bill."

This startling proposition claimed that it was in the power
of the House of Representatives to control the entire legislation
of the country.  It could, if the doctrine of Mr. Beck and
Mr. Thurman had prevailed, impose any condition upon an appropriation
for the Judges' salaries, for the salaries of all executive
officers, for carrying on the courts, and for all other functions
of the Government.

I made a careful study of this question and satisfied the
Senate,--and I think I satisfied Mr. Beck and Mr. Thurman,
--that the doctrine had no support in this country, and had
no support even in England.  An examination of Parliamentary
history, which I studied carefully, afforded the material
for giving a narrative of every occasion when the Commons
exerted their power of withholding supplies as a means of
compelling a redress of grievances, from the Conquest to the
present hour.  I did not undertake in a speech in the Senate
to recite the authorities in full.  But I summed up the result
of the English and American doctrine in a few sentences, which
may be worth recording here.

"First.  The Commons never withheld the supplies as a means
of coercing the assent of the Crown or the Lords to _legislation._

"Second.  The supplies withheld were not the supplies needed
for the ordinary functions of government, to which the ordinary
revenues of the Crown were sufficient, but were for extraordinary
occasions, as to pay the King's debts, or to conduct foreign
wars.

"Third.  That when the hereditary revenues of the Crown,
or those settled on the King for life at the beginning of his
reign, ceased to be sufficient for the maintenance of government
and for public defence, the practice of withholding supplies
ceased.

"Fourth.  There has been no instance since the Revolution
of 1688 of attaching general legislation to a bill for raising
or appropriating money, and scarcely, if ever, such an instance
before that date.  When such an attempt has been made it has
been resisted, denounced and abandoned, and the English Constitutional
authorities, without exception, are agreed that such a proceeding
is unwarrantable, revolutionary and destructive of the English
Constitution.

"It is true that the luxury or ambition of Kings or their
indulgent bounty to their favorites led them to assemble
Parliament and to ask additional supplies from their subjects.
It is also true that these requests furnished the occasion
to the Commons to stipulate for redress of grievances.  But
the grievances so redressed had no relation to the laws of
the Realm.  These laws were made or altered by the free assent
of the three estates in whom the law-making power vested by
the Constitution.  The grievances of which the Commons sought
redress, whether from Tudor, Plantagenet or Stuart, were the
improper use of prerogatives, the granting of oppressive monopolies,
the waging of costly foreign wars, the misconduct of favorites
and the like.  The improvident expenditure of the royal patrimony,
the granting the crown land or pensions to unworthy persons,
is a frequent ground of complaint.

"But there is a broader and simpler distinction between the
two cases.  The mistake, the gross, palpable mistake, which
these gentlemen fall into in making this comparison, lies
at the threshold.  The House of Commons, in its discretion,
used to grant, and sometimes now grants, supplies to the King.
The American Congress, in its discretion, never grants supplies
to the President under any circumstances whatever.  The only
appropriation of the public money to which that term can properly
apply, the provision for the President's compensation, is
by design and of purpose placed wholly out of the power of
Congress.  The provision is peremptory that--

"'The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services
a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished
during the period for which he shall have been elected, and
he shall not receive within that period any other emolument
from the United States, or any of them.'

"Alexander Hamilton, in No. 72 of the 'Federalist,' declares
that the very purpose of this enactment is to put it beyond
the power of Congress to compel the President 'to surrender
at discretion his judgment to their inclinations.'"

Almost immediately after I entered the Senate the case came
up of the title of William Pitt Kellogg to a seat in the
Senate from Louisiana.

In January, 1877, a Republican Legislature was organized
in Louisiana, which recognized Mr. Packard as the lawful Governor
of the State.  Packard had been elected, according to the
claim of the Republicans, at the same election at which the
Republican electors, who cast their votes for President Hayes,
had been chosen.  That Legislature elected Kellogg.  When
President Hayes refused to continue his support of the Republican
government in Louisiana by military force, the Democrats organized
the Legislature, a Democratic Governor took possession of
power, and the Republican State Legislature melted away.  It
had done little or nothing, except to elect Mr. Kellogg.

Under these circumstances, the Democrats on the Committee
on Privileges and Elections, and in the Senate, claimed that
the recognition of the Democratic Governor had an ex post
facto operation which determined the title and right of the
Legislature who undertook to elect Mr. Spofford, Mr. Kellogg's
competitor.  The Republicans, on the other hand, claimed that
nothing which occurred afterward could operate to determine
the question of the lawfulness of the Kellogg Legislature,
or its power to elect a Senator.  That must be settled by
the law and the fact.  Upon these we thought Kellogg's title
to be clear.  Kellogg was seated.  But when the Democrats
got a majority, two years later, the Committee on Privileges
and Elections, under the lead of Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia,
undertook to set aside this judgment, and to seat Mr. Spofford.
Mr. Hill made a long and, it is unnecessary to say, an able
report, setting forth the view taken by himself and by the
majority of the Committee, and recommended the admission of
Mr. Spofford.  I advised the Republican minority to decline
to follow the Democrats into the discussion of the evidence,
and to put the case alone and squarely on the authority of
the previous judgment of the Senate.  This I did in the following
report:

The undersigned, a minority of the Committee on Privileges
and Elections, to whom was referred the memorial of Henry
M. Spofford, claiming the seat now occupied by William Pitt
Kellogg, submit the following as their views:

On the 30th day of November, 1877, the Senate passed the following
resolutions.

_"Resolved,_ That William Pitt Kellogg is, upon the merits
of the case, entitled to a seat in the Senate of the United
States from the State of Louisiana for the term of six years,
commencing on the 4th of March, 1877, and that he be admitted
thereto on taking the proper oath.

_"Resolved,_ That Henry M. Spofford is not entitled to a
seat in the Senate of the United States."

The party majority in the Senate has changed since Mr. Kellogg
took the oath of office in pursuance of the above resolution.
Nothing else has changed.  The facts which the Senate considered
and determined were in existence then, as now.  It is sought,
by a mere superiority of numbers, for the first time, to thrust
a Senator from the seat which he holds by virtue of the express
and deliberate final judgment of the Senate.

The act which is demanded of this party majority would be,
in our judgment, a great public crime.  It will be, if consummated,
one of the great political crimes in American history, to
be classed with the Rebellion, with the attempt to take possession
by fraud of the State Government of Maine, and with the overthrow
of State Governments in the South, of which it is the fitting
sequence.  Political parties have too often been led by partisan
zeal into measures which a sober judgment might disapprove;
but they have ever respected the constitution of the Senate.

The men whose professions of returning loyalty to the Constitution
have been trusted by the generous confidence of the American
people are now to give evidence of the sincerity of their
vows.  The people will thoroughly understand this matter,
and will not likely to be deceived again.

We do not think proper to enter here upon a discussion of
the evidence by which the claimant of Mr. Kellogg's seat
seeks to establish charges affecting the integrity of that
Senator.  Such evidence can be found in abundance in the
slums of great cities.  It is not fit to be trusted in cases
affecting the smallest amount of property, much less the
honor of an eminent citizen, or the title to an object of so
much desire as a seat in the Senate.  This evidence is not
only unworthy of respect or credit, but it is in many instances
wholly irreconcilable with undisputed facts, and Mr. Kellogg
has met and overthrown it at every point.

  GEORGE F. HOAR,
  ANGUS CAMERON,
  JOHN A. LOGAN.

The Democratic majority presented their report, without asking
to have it read.  Then we of the minority presented ours,
and had it read.  It attracted the attention of the Senate
and of the country.  My report contains but a few sentences.
That of the Democratic minority occupies eight columns of
very fine print in the Congressional Record.  The result was
that some of the Southern Democrats, including Mr. Bayard
of Delaware, General Gordon of Georgia, General Wade Hampton
of South Carolina, and Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, refused to
support their associates in the extreme measure of unseating
a Senator when nothing had happened to affect the judgment
which seated him, except that the majority of the Senate had
changed.  Some of the Democratic gentlemen, however, while
resting upon the old judgment of the Senate, and while refusing
to set that aside, thought the Democratic charges made out
on the evidence, and that Mr. Kellogg's conduct and character
deserved the severest denunciation.  Senator Pendleton, of
Ohio, however, with a courage and manliness that did him infinite
credit, after stating what his Democratic brethren said: "I
am bound to say that I have read the evidence carefully, and
there is nothing in it that in the least warrants any imputation
upon the integrity of that Senator."

In speaking of my Committee service, perhaps I ought to say
that I was appointed one of the Regents of the Smithsonian
Institution in the year 1881.  I liked the position exceedingly.
I was very much interested in the work of the Institution,
and enjoyed meeting the eminent scholars and men of science
who were its members.  After I had been a member a year or
two a very eminent Republican Senator complained that I was
getting more than my share of the prominent places in the
gift of the Senate, and specified the Regency of the Smithsonian
Institution as an instance.  I thought there was great justice
in the complaint, and accordingly I resigned and Justin S.
Morrill was put in my place.  It was a very fortunate thing.
Mr. Morrill's influence secured the construction of the National
Museum building, which I do not think it likely that I could
have accomplished.  That Museum was then in charge of the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

A somewhat similar thing happened to me later.  In the year
1885 the Nominating Committee of the Senate, of which Senator
Allison was then Chairman, proposed my name for the Committee
on Foreign Relations.  I should have liked that service very
much.  I should have liked to study the history of our diplomacy,
and the National interests specially in charge of that Committee,
better than anything else I can think of.  But I was then
a member of the Committees on the Judiciary, Privileges and
Elections, Library, Patents and the Select Committee to Inquire
into the Claims of Citizens of the United States against Nicaragua,
no one of which I desired to give up.  On the other hand,
Senator Frye of Maine, a very able Senator to whom the Republicans
of Massachusetts were under special obligations for his services
in their campaigns, was not at that time placed in positions
on Committee service such as his ability and merit entitled
him to.  Accordingly I told the Committee I thought they had
better amend their report and put Mr. Frye on the Committee
on Foreign Relations instead of myself.  That was done.

I incline to think that if that had not been done, and I
had remained on the Committee for Foreign Relations, that
I could have defeated the Spanish Treaty, prevented the destruction
of the Republic in the Philippine Islands, and the commitment
of this country to the doctrine that we can govern dependencies
under our Constitution, in which the people have no political
or Constitutional rights but such as Congress choose to recognize.

I am not sure that modesty or disinterestedness has much
place in the matter of the acceptance of high political office.
We often hear a gentleman say:  "I am not fit to be Judge;
I am not fit to be Governor, or Senator, or member of Congress.
I think other men are better qualified, and I will not consent
to stand in their way."  This is often said with the utmost
sincerity.  But anybody who acts on such a feeling ought to
remember that if he accept the office, it will not be filled
by a worse man than he; if he accept the office, it being
a political office, he is sure that the office will be filled
by a man who will desire to accomplish, and will do his best
to accomplish, the things he thinks for the public good.  He
should also remember, so far as the matter of ability is concerned,
that other men are likely to be much better judges of his
capacity than he is himself.  If men are likely often to overrate
their own capacity, they are also very often likely to underrate
it.

Let me not be understood as commending the miserable self-
seeking which too often leads men to urge their own claims
without regard to the public interests.  A man who is his
own candidate is commonly a very bad candidate for his party.

One vote, more than once, would have saved the country from
what I think its wretched policy in regard to the Philippine
Islands.  There was just one vote to spare when the Spanish
Treaty was ratified.  One Senator waited before voting until
the roll-call was over and the list of the votes read by the
clerk, before the finally voted for the treaty.  He said he
did not wish to butt his head against the sentiment of his
State if he could do no good; but if his vote would defeat
it, he should vote against it.  If there had been one less
vote, his vote would have defeated it.  The Treaty would have
been lost, in my opinion, if Senator Gray, one of the Commissioners
who made it, who earnestly protested against it, but afterward
supported it, had not been a member of the Commission.  The
resolution of Mr. Bacon, declaring our purpose to recognize
the independence of the Philippine people, if they desired
it, was lost also by a single vote.  The Philippine Treaty
would have been lost but for Mr. Bryan's personal interposition
in its behalf.  It would have been defeated, in my judgment,
if Speaker Reed, a man second in influence and in power in
this country to President McKinley alone, had seen it to be
his duty to remain in public life, and lead the fight against
it.

So I think it is rarely safe for a man who is in political
life for public, and not for personal ends, and who values
the political principles which he professes, to decline any
position of power, either from modesty, doubt of his own
ability, or from a desire to be generous to other men.


My twenty years' service on the Committee on the Judiciary,
so far as it is worth narrating, will appear in the account
of the various legal and Constitutional questions which it
affected.


CHAPTER VIII
THE RIVER AND HARBOR BILL

I have throughout my whole public political life acted upon
my own judgment.  I have done what I thought for the public
interest without much troubling myself about public opinion.
I always took a good deal of pride in a saying of Roger Sherman's.
He was asked if he did not think some vote of his would be
very much disapproved in Connecticut, to which he replied
that he knew but one way to ascertain the public opinion of
Connecticut; that was to ascertain what was right.  When he
had found that out, he was quite sure that it would meet the
approval of Connecticut.  That in general has been in my judgment
absolutely and literally true of Massachusetts.  It has required
no courage for any representative of hers to do what he thought
was right.  She is apt to select to speak for her, certainly
those she sends to the United States Senate, in whose choice
the whole Commonwealth has a part, men who are in general
of the same way of thinking, and governed by the same principles
as are the majority of her people.  When she has chosen them
she expects them to act according to their best judgement,
and not to be thinking about popularity.  She likes independence
better than obsequiousness.  The one thing the people of Massachusetts
will not forgive in a public servant is that he should act
against his own honest judgment to please them.  I am speaking
of her sober, second thought.  Her people, like the rest of
mankind, are liable to waves of emotion and of prejudice.
This is true the world over.  It is as true of good men as
of bad men, of educated as of ignorant men, whenever they
are to act in large masses.  Alexander Hamilton said that
if every Athenian citizen had been a Socrates, still every
Athenian assembly would have been a mob.  So I claim no credit
that I have voted and spoken as I thought, always without
stopping to consider whether public opinion would support
me.

The only serious temptation I have ever had in my public
life came to me in the summer of 1882, when the measure known
as the River and Harbor Bill was pending.  The bill provided
for an expenditure of about eighteen million dollars.  Of
this a little more than four million was for the execution
of a scheme for the improvement of the Mississippi River and
its tributaries, which had been recommended by President Arthur
in a special message.  All the other appropriations put together
were a little less than fourteen million dollars.  The bill
passed both Houses.  President Arthur vetoed it, alleging
as a reason that the measure was extravagant; that the public
works provided for in it were of local interest, not for the
advantage of international or interstate commerce; and that
it had got through by a system of log-rolling, the friends
of bad schemes in one State joining with the friends of bad
schemes in another, making common cause to support the bill.
He added that in that way, the more objectionable the measure,
the more support it would get.  The press of the country,
almost without exception, supported the President.  The reasons
which applied to each improvement were not well understood
by the public.  So the conductors of the newspapers naturally
supposed the President to be in the right in his facts.  The
Democratic newspapers were eager to attack Republican measures.
Where there were factions in the Republican Party, the Republican
papers of one faction were ready to attack the men who belonged
to the other.  The independent newspapers welcomed any opportunity
to support their theory that American public life was rotten
and corrupt.  So when the question came up whether the bill
should pass notwithstanding the objections of the President,
there was a storm of indignation throughout the country against
the men who supported it.

But the committees who had supported it and who had reported
it, and who knew its merits, and the men who had voted for
it in either House of Congress, could not well stultify themselves
by changing their votes, although some of them did.  I was
situated very fortunately in that respect.  I had been absent
on a visit to Massachusetts when the bill passed.  So I was
not on record for it.  I had given it no great attention.
The special duties which had been assigned to me related to
other subjects.  So when the measure came up in the Senate
I had only an opinion founded on my general knowledge of the
needs of the country and the public policy, that it was all
right.  My reelection was coming on.  I was to have a serious
contest, if I were a candidate, with the supporters of General
Butler, then very powerful in the State.  He, in fact, was
elected Governor in the election then approaching.  My first
thoughts were that I was fortunate to have escaped this rock.
But when the vote came on I said to myself: "This measure
is right.  Is my father's son to sneak home to Massachusetts,
having voted against a bill that is clearly righteous and
just, because he is afraid of public sentiment?" Senator McMillan,
the Chairman of the Committee who had charge of the bill,
just before my name was called, asked me how I meant to vote.
I told him I should vote for the bill, because I believed
it to be right, but that it would lose me the support of every
newspaper in Massachusetts that had been friendly to me before.
I voted accordingly.  The vote was met by a storm of indignation
from one end of Massachusetts to the other, in which every
Republican newspaper in the State, so far as I know, united.
The Springfield _Republican_ and the Boston _Herald,_ as will
well be believed, were in glory.  The conduct of no pick-
pocket or bank robber could have been held up to public indignation
and contempt in severer language than the supporters of that
bill.  A classmate of mine, an eminent man of letters, a gentleman
of great personal worth, addressed a young ladies' school,
or some similar body in Western Massachusetts, on the subject
of the decay of public virtue as exemplified by me.  He declared
that I had separated myself from the best elements in the
State.

The measure was passed over the President's veto.  But it
cost the Republican Party its majority in the House of Representatives.
A large number of the member of the House who had voted for
it lost their seats.  If the question of my reelection had
come on within a few weeks thereafter, I doubt whether I should
have got forty votes in the whole Legislature.  If I had flinched
or apologized, I should have been destroyed.  But I stood
to my guns.  I wrote a letter to the people of Massachusetts
in which I took up case by case each provision of the bill,
and showed how important it was for the interest of commerce
between the States, or with foreign countries, and how well
it justified the moderate expenditure.  I pointed out that
the bill had been, in proportion to the resources of the Government,
less in amount than those John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster
had formerly advocated; that Mr. Webster, with the single
exception of his service for preserving the Union, prided
himself on his support of this policy of public improvement
more than on anything else in his life, and had made more
speeches on that subject than on any other.  Mr. Adams claimed
to be the author of the policy of internal improvements.  So
that it was a Massachusetts policy, and a Massachusetts doctrine.
I asked the people of Massachusetts to consider whether they
could reasonably expect to get their living by manufacture,
to which nearly the whole State was devoted, bringing their
raw material and their fuel and their iron and coal and cotton
and wool from across the continent, and then carrying the
manufactured article back again to be sold at the very places
where the material came from, in competition with States like
Pennsylvania and New York and Ohio and Indiana, unless the
cost of transportation was, so far as possible, annihilated.

I concluded by saying that I knew they would not come to my
way of thinking that afternoon or that week, but that they
were sure to come to it in the end.  With very few exceptions
the letter did not change the course of the newspapers, or
of the leading men who had zealously committed themselves
to another doctrine.  But it convinced the people, and I believe
it had a very great effect throughout the country, and was
the means of saving the policy of internal improvements from
destruction.

Mr. Clapp, of the Boston _Journal,_ with a manliness that
did him infinite credit, declared publicly in its columns that
he had been all wrong, and that I was right.  The Worcester
_Spy,_ edited by my dear friend and near kinsman, Evarts
Greene, had with the rest of the press attacked my vote.
Mr. Greene himself was absent at the time, so the paper was
then in charge of an associate.  When Mr. Greene returned
I asked him to spend an afternoon at my house.  That was
before my letter came out.  I had sent to Washington for
all the engineers' reports and other documents showing the
necessity of every item of the bill.  Mr. Greene made a careful
study of the bill and agreed with me.

The Boston _Herald_ also obtained all the material from Washington
and sent it to a very able gentleman who, though not taking
any part in the ordinary conduct of the _Herald,_ was called
upon for services requiring special ability and investigation.
They asked him to answer my letter.  He spent five days in
studying the matter, and then wrote to the managing editor
of the paper than Mr. Hoar was entirely right, and that he
should not write the article desired.  The _Herald,_ however,
did not abandon its position.  It kept up the war.  But I
ought to say it so far modified its action that it supported
me for reelection the next winter.

The Springfield _Republican_ saw and seized its opportunity.
It attacked the River and Harbor Bill savagely.  It said:
"Mr. Hoar is a candidate for reelection and has dealt himself
a very severe blow.  The Commonwealth was prepared to honor
Messrs. Crapo and Hoar anew.  To-day it pauses, frowns and
reflects."  So it kept up the attack.  It had previously advocated
the selection of Mr. Crapo as candidate for Governor.  It
bitterly denounced me.  Mr. Crapo had himself voted for the
River and Harbor Bill.  It could not consistently maintain
its bitter opposition to me, because of my vote, while supporting
Mr. Crapo.  So it declared it could no longer support him.

When the State Convention came the feeling was still strong,
though somewhat abated.  I had been asked by the Committee,
a good while before, to preside at the Convention.  This I
did.  I was received rather coldly when I went forward.  But
I made no apologies.  I began my speech by saying: "It gives
me great pleasure to meet this assembly of the representatives
of the Republicans of Massachusetts.  I have seen these faces
before.  They are faces into which I am neither afraid nor
ashamed to look."  The assembly hesitated a little between
indignation at the tone of defiance, and approval of a man's
standing by his convictions.  The latter feeling predominated,
and they broke out into applause.  But the resolutions which
the Committee reported contained a mild but veiled reproof
of my action.

Mr. Crapo was defeated in the Convention.  I have no doubt
he would have been nominated for Governor, but for his vote
for the River and Harbor Bill.  His successful competitor,
Mr. Bishop, was a gentleman of great personal worth, highly
esteemed throughout the Commonwealth, and of experience in
State administration.  But it was thought that his nomination
had been secured by very active political management, concerted
at the State House, and that the nomination did not fairly
represent the desire of the people of the Commonwealth.  Whatever
truth there may have been in this, I am very sure that Mr.
Crapo's defeat could not have been compassed but for his vote
for the River and Harbor Bill.  The result of the above feeling,
however, was that the Republican campaign was conducted without
much heart, and General Butler was elected Governor.

When the election of Senator came in the following winter,
I was opposed by what remained of the feeling against the
River and Harbor Bill.  My principal Republican competitors
were Mr. Crapo, whose friends rightly thought he had been
treated with great injustice; and Governor Long, a great public
favorite, who had just ended a brilliant and most acceptable
term of service as Governor.  Governor Long had presided at
a public meeting where President Arthur had been received
during the summer, and had assured him that his action had
the hearty approval and support of the people of the Commonwealth.
I had, of course, no right to find the least fault with the
supporters of Governor Long.  He would have been in every
way a most acceptable and useful Senator.  I ought to say
that, as I understood it, he hardly assumed the attitude of
a candidate for the place, and declared in a public letter
or speech that he thought I ought to be reelected.  So, after
a somewhat earnest struggle I was again chosen.

One curious incident happened during the election.  The morning
after the result was declared, a story appeared in the papers
that Mr. Crapo's supporters had been led to come over to me
by the statement that one of them had received a telegram
from him withdrawing his name, and advising that course.  The
correspondent of one of the papers called upon Mr. Crapo,
who answered him that he had never sent any such telegram
to Boston.  So it was alleged that somebody who favored me
had brought about the result by this false statement.  A newspaper
correspondent called on me in Washington, and asked me about
the story.  I told him that I had not heard of the story, but
that if it turned out to be true I, of course, would instantly
decline the office.  A full investigation was made of the
matter, and it turned out that Mr. Crapo had sent such a
telegram to a member of the Legislature in New Bedford, who
had taken it to Boston and made it known.

The next winter, at my suggestion, a resolution was passed
calling upon the Secretary of War, Mr. Lincoln, to specify
which items in the River and Harbor Bill of the previous winter
were not, in his opinion, advisable, or did not tend to promote
international or interstate commerce.  He replied specifying
a very few items only, amounting altogether to a very few
thousand dollars.  This reply was made by the Secretary of
War, as he told me in private afterward, by the express direction
of the President, and after consultation with him.  That ended
the foolish outcry against the great policy of internal improvement,
which has helped to make possible the marvels of our domestic
commerce, one of the most wonderful creations of human history.
The statistics of its vast extent, greater now, I think, than
all the foreign commerce of the world put together, from the
nature of the case, never can be precisely ascertained.  It
is not only wonderful in its amount, but in its origin, its
resources, and in its whole conduct.  All its instrumentalities
are American.  It is American at both ends, and throughout
all the way.  This last year a bill providing for an expenditure
of sixty millions, nearly four times the amount of that which
President Arthur, and the newspapers that supported him, thought
so extravagant, passed Congress without a murmur of objection,
and if I mistake not, without a dissenting vote.

I should like to put on record one instance of the generosity
and affection of Mr. Dawes.  He had not voted when his name
was called, expecting to vote at the end of the roll-call.
He meant to vote against the passage of the bill over the
veto.  But when he heard my vote for it, he saw that I was
bringing down on my head a storm of popular indignation,
and made up his mind that he would not throw the weight of
his example on the side against me.  So, contrary to his opinion
of the merits of the bill, he came to my side, and voted with
me.

I suppose a good many moralists will think that it is a very
wicked thing indeed for a man to vote against his convictions
on a grave public question, from a motive like this, of personal
friendship.  But I think on the whole I like better the people,
who will love Mr. Dawes for such an act, than those who will
condemn him.  I would not, probably, put what I am about to
say in an address to a Sunday-school, or into a sermon to
the inmates of a jail or house of correction.  I cannot, perhaps,
defend it by reason.  But somehow or other, I am strongly
tempted to say there are occasions in life where the meanest
thing a man can do is to do perfectly right.  But I do not
say it.  It would be better to say that there are occasions
when the instinct is a better guide than the reason.  At any
rate, I do not believe the recording angel made any trouble
for Mr. Dawes for that vote.


CHAPTER IX
CHINESE TREATY AND LEGISLATION

Much of what I have said in the preceding chapter is, in substance,
applicable to my vote on another matter in which I had been
compelled to take an attitude in opposition to a large majority
of my own party and to the temporary judgment of my countrymen:
that is the proposed legislation in violation of the Treaty
with China; the subsequent Treaty modifying that negotiated
in 1868 by Mr. Seward on our part, and Mr. Burlingame for
China; and the laws which have been enacted since, upon the
subject of Chinese immigration.  I had the high honor of being
hung in effigy in Nevada by reason of the report that I had
opposed, in secret Session of the Senate, the Treaty of 1880.
My honored colleague, Mr. Dawes, and I were entirely agreed
in the matter.  Mr. Dawes complained good-naturedly to Senator
Jones, of Nevada, that he had been neglected when the Nevada
people had singled me out for that sole honor, to which Mr.
Jones, with equal good-nature, replied that if Mr. Dawes
desired, he would have measures taken to correct the error,
which had inadvertently been made.

In 1868 the late Anson Burlingame, an old friend of mine
and a man highly esteemed in Massachusetts, who had been
sent to China as the American Minister in Mr. Lincoln's time,
was appointed by the Chinese Government its Ambassador, or
Envoy, to negotiate treaties with the United States and several
European powers.  He made a journey through this country and
Europe, travelling with Oriental magnificence, in a state
which he was well calculated to maintain and adorn.  It was
just after we had put down the Rebellion, abolished slavery,
and made of every slave a freeman and every freeman a citizen.
The hearts of the people were full of the great doctrines
of liberty which Jefferson and the Fathers of our country
had learned from Milton and the statesmen of the English Commonwealth.

The Chinese Treaty was concluded on the 28th of July, 1868,
between Mr. Seward and Mr. Burlingame and his associate Plenipotentiaries
Chih-Kang and Sun Chia-Ku.  It contained the following clause:

"The United States of American and the Emperor of China cordially
recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change
his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of
free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects
respectively from one country to the other for purposes of
curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents."

Article VII. of the same Treaty stipulated that citizens of
each power should enjoy all the privileges of the public
educational institutions under the control of the government of
the other, enjoyed by the citizens or the subjects of the most
favored nation, and that the citizens of each might, themselves,
establish schools in the others' country.  Congress passed
an Act, July 27, 1868, to a like effect, to which the following
is the preamble to the first section:

"Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent
right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the
rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and
whereas in the recognition of this principle this government
has freely received emigrants from all nations, and invested
them with the rights of citizenship; and whereas it is claimed
that such American citizens, with their descendants, are subjects
of foreign states, owing allegiance to the governments thereof;
and whereas it is necessary to the maintenance of public peace
that this claim of foreign allegiance should be promptly and
finally disavowed: Therefore," etc.

Thereafter, in the first term of the Administration of President
Hayes, in the December Session of 1878, a bill was introduced
which, almost defiantly, as it seemed to me, violated the
faith of the country pledged by the Burlingame Treaty.  There
had been no attempt to induce China to modify that Treaty.
I resisted its passage as well as I could.  But my objection
had little effect in the excited condition of public sentiment.
The people of the Pacific coast were, not unnaturally, excited
and alarmed by the importation into their principal cities
of Chinese laborers, fearing, I think without much reason,
that American laboring men could not maintain themselves in
the competition with this thrifty and industrious race who
lived on food that no American could tolerate, and who had
no families to support, and who crowded together, like sardines
in a box, in close and unhealthy sleeping apartments.

I supposed that the labor of this inferior class would raise the
condition of better and more intelligent laborers.  That,
however, was a fairly disputable question.  But I could not
consent to striking at men, as I have just said, because of
their occupation.  This bill was vetoed by President Hayes,
who put his objections solely upon the ground that the bill
was in violation of the terms of the existing Treaty.  The
House, by a vote of 138 yeas to 116 nays, refused to pass
the bill over the veto.

But in 1880 a Treaty was negotiated, and approved by the Senate
and ratified July 19, 1881, which relieved the United States
from the provisions of the Burlingame Treaty, and permitted
the exclusion of Chinese laborers.  I made a very earnest
speech, during a debate on this Treaty in Executive Session
of the Senate, in opposition to it.  The Senate did me the
honor, on the motion of Mr. Dawes, of a vote authorizing my
speech to be published, notwithstanding the rule of secrecy.
But one Senator from the Pacific coast complained, I think
with some reason, that I was permitted to publish my argument
on one side when he not only was not permitted to publish
his on the other, but his constituents had no means of knowing
that he had defended his views or made proper answer to mine.
So I thought it hardly fair to make by speech public, and
it was not done.

Later, in the spring of 1882, a bill was passed to carry
into effect the Treaty of 1880.  That I resisted as best I
could.  In opposition to this bill I made an earnest speech
showing it to be in conflict with the doctrines on which our
fathers founded the Republic; with the principles of the
Constitutions of nearly all the States, including that of
California, and with the declarations of leading statesmen down
to the year 1868.  I showed also that the Chinese race had
shown examples of the highest qualities of manhood, of intelligence,
probity and industry.  I protested against a compact between
the two greatest nations of the Pacific, just as we were about
to assert our great influence there, which should place in
the public law of the world, and in the jurisprudence of America,
the principle that it is fitting that there should be hereafter
a distinction in the treatment of men by governments and in
the recognition of their right to the pursuit of happiness
by a peaceful change of their homes, based, not on conduct,
not on character, but upon race and occupation; by asserting
that you might justly deny to the Chinese what you might not
justly deny to the Irish, that you might justly deny to the
laborer what you might not deny to the idler.  I pointed out
that this declaration was extorted from unwilling China by
the demand of America; and that laborers were henceforth to
be classed, in the enumeration of American public law, with
paupers, lazzaroni, harlots, and persons afflicted with pestilential
diseases.  I ended what I had to say as follows:

"Humanity, capable of infinite depths of degradation, is also
capable of infinite heights of excellence.  The Chinese,
like all other races, has given us its examples of both.  To
rescue humanity from this degradation is, we are taught to
believe, the great object of God's moral government on earth.
It is not by injustice, exclusion, caste, but by reverence
for the individual soul that we can aid in this consummation.
It is not by Chinese policies that China is to be civilized.
I believe that the immortal truths of the Declaration of Independence
came from the same source with the Golden Rule and the Sermon
on the Mount.  We can trust Him who promulgated these laws
to keep the country safe that obeys them.  The laws of the
universe have their own sanction.  They will not fail.  The
power that causes the compass to point to the north, that
dismisses the star on its pathway through the skies, promising
that in a thousand years it shall return again true to its
hour and keeps His word, will vindicate His own moral law.
As surely as the path on which our fathers entered a hundred
years ago led to safety, to strength, to glory, so surely
will the path on which we now propose to enter bring us to
shame, to weakness, and to peril."

The Statute then enacted, expired by its own limitations
twenty years afterward.  Meantime the prejudice against Chinese
labor had modified somewhat.  The public had become somewhat
more considerate of their rights and, at any rate, there was
a desire to maintain some show of decency in legislating the
matter.  So a more moderate Statute was enacted in 1902.  I
was the only person who voted against it in either House.
It was, of course, clear that resistance was useless.  It
was not worth while, it seemed to me, to undertake to express
my objections at length.  I contented myself with the following
brief remonstrance:

"Mr. President, I think this bill and this debate indicate
a great progress in sentiment.  The sentiment of the country
has passed, certainly so far as it is represented by a majority
of the Senate, the stage, if it ever was in it, of a reckless
seeking to accomplish the result of Chinese exclusion without
regard to constitutional restraints, treaty obligations, or
moral duties.  There was in some quarters, as it seemed to
me, in olden times, a disregard of all these restraints, certainly
in the press, certainly in the harangues which were made to
excited crowds in various parts of the country.  Among others
I can remember a visit of the apostle of Chinese exclusion
to Boston Common which indicated that spirit.

"Now, that has gone largely, and the Senate has discussed
this question with a temperate desire on the part of all classes
and all Senators, whatever ways of thinking they have, to
do what seemed to them for the benefit of labor, the quality
of the citizenship of this country, in a moderate and constitutional
fashion.

"But I cannot agree with the principle on which this legislation
or any legislation on the subject which we have had in the
country since 1870 rests.  I feel bound to enter a protest.
I believe that everything in the way of Chinese exclusion
can be accomplished by reasonable, practical and wise measures
which will not involve the principle of striking at labor,
and will not involve the principle of striking at any class
of human beings merely because of race, without regard to
the personal and individual worth of the man struck at.  I
hold that every human soul has its rights, dependent upon
its individual personal worth and not dependent upon color
or race, and that all races, all colors, all nationalities
contain persons entitled to be recognized everywhere they go
on the face of the earth as the equals of every other man."

I do not think any man ever hated more than I have hated the
affectation or the reality of singularity.  I know very well
that the American people mean to do right, and I believe with
all my heart that the men and the party with whom I have acted
for fifty years mean to do right.  I believe the judgment
of both far better than my own.  But every man's conscience
is given to him as the lamp for his path.  He cannot walk
by another light.

It is also true that the great political principles which
have been in issue for the last thirty years, have been, in
general, those that have been debated for centuries, and
which cannot be settled by a single vote, in a legislative
body, by the result of a single election, or even by the opinion
of a single generation.  In nearly every one of what I am
sorry to say are the numerous instances where I have been
compelled to act upon my judgment against that of my own party,
and even against that of the majority of my own countrymen,
the people have subsequently come around to my way of thinking,
and in all of them, I believe, I have had on my side the opinion
of the great men of the great generations of the past.  Certainly
the Chinese Exclusion Bill and the Chinese Treaty; the Spanish
Treaty and the War against the Philippine people could not
have lived an hour before the indignation of the American
people at any time from the beginning down to the time when,
in 1876, they celebrated the centennial of their Independence.


CHAPTER X
THE WASHINGTON TREATY AND THE GENEVA AWARD

The Treaty of Washington, creditable to all who engaged in
it, not to be judged by its details, but by its great effect
in securing peace to the world, saved Great Britain from a
war with us, in which it is not unlikely that the nations
of Europe who hated her would have come to take part on our
side.  But it saved us from the greater danger of having the
war spirit renewed and intensified by this gigantic struggle,
from an international hatred which would not have cooled again
for a century; or, if we did not declare war, from taking
the ignoble attitude of a great and free people lying in wait
for an opportunity to revenge itself.

It was the purpose of that Treaty to remove every cause of
quarrel.  One constant cause of quarrel, for many years,
had been the exercise of our right to fish on the shores
of Newfoundland.  In the Treaty it was agreed that the United
States should have, in addition to her existing rights for
ten years, and for such further times as the parties should
agree, the right to take fish on the sea coast of the British
Provinces north of us, with permission to land for the purpose
of drying nets and curing fish, and that we were to pay for
the privilege a sum to be fixed by arbitrators.  Two of these
arbitrators were to be appointed by the United States and
Great Britain; the other, who would serve as umpire, to be
agreed upon by the two powers, or, if not agreed upon within
a certain time, then to be appointed by the Emperor of Austria.
Great Britain insisted upon having the Belgian Minister to
the United States for the third arbitrator, and refused to
name or suggest or agree to any other person.  So the time
expired.  Thereupon the Belgian Minister, Mr. Delfosse, was
selected by the Emperor of Austria.  Mr. Delfosse's own fortune
in public life depended upon his Sovereign's favor.  We had
already notified Great Britain that, if the Belgian Minister
were selected, he would probably deem himself disqualified
by reason of the peculiar connection of his Government with
that of Great Britain.  When the Treaty was negotiated, Earl
de Grey, Chairman of the Commissioners, said, speaking of
the Government to whom the matter might be referred: "I do
not name Belgium, because Great Britain has treaty arrangements
with that Government which might be supposed to incapacitate
it."  Belgium, as was notorious, was dependent upon Great
Britain to maintain its political existence against the ambitions
of France and Germany.  Mr. Delfosse's sovereign was the
son of the brother of Queen Victoria's mother and Prince Albert's
father, and was, himself, brother of Carlotta, wife of Maximilian,
whom we had lately compelled France to abandon to his fate.

The referee awarded that we should make a payment to Great
Britain for this fishery privilege of five million five hundred
thousand dollars.  We never valued them at all.  We abandoned
them at the end of ten years.  It would have been much better
to leave the matter to Great Britain herself.  If she had
been put upon honor she would not have made such an award.
No English Judge who valued his reputation would have suggested
such a thing, as it seemed to us.

I would rather the United States should occupy the position
of paying that award, after calling the attention of England
to its injustice and wrong, than to occupy the position of
England when she pocketed the money.  A war with England would
have been a grievous thing to her workingmen who stood by
us in our hour of peril, and to all that class of Englishmen
whom we loved, and who loved us.  Such a war would have been
a war between the only two great English-speaking nations
of the world, and the two nations whose policy, under methods
largely similar, though somewhat different, were determined
by the public opinion of their people.

If however our closer and friendlier relations with England
are to result in our adopting her social manners, her deference
to rank and wealth, and of adopting her ideas of empire and
the method of treating small and weak nations by great and
strong ones, it would be better that we had kept aloof, and
that the old jealousy and dislike engendered by two wars had
continued.

A very interesting question was settled during the Administration
of President Hayes as to the disposition of the $15,500,000
recovered from Great Britain by the award of the tribunal
of Geneva for the violation of the obligations of neutrality
during the Civil War.  Great Britain, after what we had claimed
what was full notice of what was going on, permitted certain
war vessels to be constructed in England for the Confederate
Government.  She permitted those vessels to leave her ports
and, by a preconcerted arrangement, to receive their armament,
also procured in Great Britain.  She turned a deaf, an almost
contemptuous ear, to the remonstrances of Mr. Adams, our
Minister.  The Foreign Office, after a while, informed him
that they did not wish to receive any more representations
on that subject.  But, as the War went on and the naval and
military strength of the United States increased and became
more manifest, Great Britain became more careful.  At last
some Rebel rams were built by the Lairds, ship-builders of
Liverpool.  Mr. Adams procured what he deemed sufficient
evidence that they were intended for the Confederate service,
and made a demand on Lord Russell, the British Foreign Minister,
that they be detained.  To this Lord Russell replied that
he had submitted the matter to the Law officers of her Majesty's
Government, and they could see no reason for interfering.
To this Mr. Adams instantly replied that he received the communication
with great regret, adding, "It would be superfluous in me
to point out to your Lordship that this is war." Lord Russell
hastily reconsidered his opinion, and ordered the rams to
be stopped.

He afterward, as appears in his biography by Spencer Walpole,
admitted his error in not interfering in the case of the vessels
that had gone out before.  But the mischief was done.  The
terror of these Confederate vessels had driven our commerce
from the sea, or had compelled our merchant vessels to sail
under foreign flags, and had enormously increased the rate
of insurance to those who kept the sea under our flag.

After the War had ended a demand for compensation was earnestly
pressed upon Great Britain.  A demand was made to refer the
claims to arbitration, and a Treaty negotiated for that purpose
by Reverdy Johnson under Andrew Johnson's Administration,
was rejected by the Senate, on the ground, among other reasons,
that the element of chance entered into the result.

Thereafter, in General Grant's time, a Joint High Commission
to deal with this controversy was agreed upon between the
two countries, which sat in Washington, in 1871.  The Commissioners
in behalf of the United States were Hamilton Fish, Secretary
of State; Robert C. Schenck, then our Minister to England;
Samuel Nelson, Judge of the Supreme Court; Ebenezer Rockwood
Hoar, lately Attorney-General, and George H. Williams, afterward
Attorney-General.  On behalf of Great Britain there were Earl
de Grey and Ripon, afterward Marquis of Ripon; Sir Stafford
H. Northcote, afterward Earl of Idesleigh; Edward Thornton,
then the British Minister here; John A. MacDonald, Premier
of Canada, and Montague Bernard, Professor of International
Law at Oxford.  The two countries could not, in all probability,
have furnished men more competent for such a purpose.  They
agreed upon a treaty.  The rules by which neutral governments
were to be held to be bound for the purposes of the arbitration
were agreed on beforehand in the Treaty itself.  They agreed
to observe these rules between themselves in the future, and
to invite other maritime powers to accede to them.  The Treaty
also contained a statement that Her Britannic Majesty had
"authorized her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to
express in a friendly spirit the regret felt by Her Majesty's
Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances,
of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and
for the depredations committed by those vessels."  I am not
aware a like apology has ever been made by Great Britain during
her history, to any other country.  There was a provision
also, for the reference of some other matters in dispute between
the two countries.  One of these related to the fisheries--
a source of irritation between this country and the British
possessions north of us ever since the Revolution.

I will not undertake to tell that part of the story here.
It was agreed to submit the questions of the claims growing
out of the escape of the Rebel cruisers to a tribunal which
was to sit at Geneva.  Of this, one member was to be appointed
by each of the parties, and the others by certain designated
foreign governments.  Our Commissioner was Charles Francis
Adams, who had borne himself so wisely and patiently during
the period of the Civil War.  The English Commissioner was
Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of England.  The
United States was represented by Caleb Cushing, William M.
Evarts and Morrison R. Waite, afterward Chief Justice of
the United States, as counsel.

Adams rarely betrayed any deep emotion on any public occasion,
however momentous.  But it must have been hard for him to
conceal the thrill of triumph, after the ignominy to which
he had submitted during that long and anxious time, when he
heard the tribunal pronounce its judgment, condemning Great
Britain to pay $15,500,000 damages for the wrong-doing against
which he had so earnestly and vainly protested.  Perhaps the
feeling of his grandfather when he signed the Treaty of Independence
in 1783 might alone be compared to it.  Yet his father, John
Quincy Adams, had something of the same feeling when, at the
close of a war which put an end forever to the impressment
of American seamen, and made the sailor in his ship as safe
as the farmer in his dwelling, he signed the Treaty which
secured our boundary and our fisheries as they had been secured
by his father.*  John Quincy Adams had struck, by the direction
of his father, in 1815, a seal which he gave to his son, with
the injunction to give it to his, bearing the motto, "Piscemur,
venemur, ut olim,"--We keep our hunting grounds and our fishing
grounds as of old.  I doubt if three such achievements, by
three successive generations, can be found in the annals of
any other family however illustrious.

[Footnote]
* This story is told more fully at page 147.  It seems appropriate
in both places.
[End of Footnote]

The $15,500,000 was promptly paid.  Then came the question
what to do with it.  There was no doubt anywhere, that the
owners of vessels or cargoes that had been captured or destroyed
by the cruisers for whose departure from British ports Great
Britain was in fault, were entitled to be paid.  That, however,
would not consume the fund.  The fund had been paid in gold
coin by Great Britain, September 9, 1873, and had been covered
into the Treasury the same day.  This sum was invested in
a registered bond for the amount, of the five per cent. loan
of 1881, dated September 10, 1873, inscribed, "Hamilton Fish,
Secretary of State, in trust.  To be held subject to the future
disposition of Congress, etc." This sum largely exceeded what
was necessary to make good the principal of all losses directly
resulting from the damages caused by the insurgent cruisers,
above what had already been reimbursed from insurance.  These
claims were popularly termed the "claims for direct damages."

The question what to do with the balance was the subject
of great dispute throughout the country, and of much debate
in both Houses of Congress.  Some persons claimed that the
owners directly damaged should receive interest.  That would
still leave a large part of the fund undisposed of.  It was
insisted that the remainder belonged to the Government for
the benefit of the whole people who had borne the burden and
cost of the war.  Others claimed that, as nothing but direct
damages were lawfully assessable, the balance should be paid
back to Great Britain.  Still others claimed that the persons
who had suffered indirectly by the loss of voyages, the increased
rates of insurance, and the breaking up of business, were
justly entitled to the money.  Still others, perhaps the most
formidable and persistent of all, claimed that the underwriters
who had paid insurance on vessels or cargoes destroyed, were
entitled to the money on the familiar principle that an insurer
who pays a loss is subrogated to all the legal and equitable
claims of the party insured.

These disputes prevented any disposition of the fund by Congress
until the summer of 1874.

Judge Hoar, who was then a Member of the House of Representatives,
suggested that as everybody agreed that the claims for direct
damage ought to be paid, that it was not fair that they should
be kept waiting longer in order to settle the dispute about
the rest of the fund.  In accordance with his suggestion a
Court was provided for by Act of Congress, whose duty it was
to receive and examine all claims directly resulting from
damages caused by the insurgent cruisers.  They were directed,
however, not to allow any claim where the party injured had
received indemnity from any insurance company, except to the
excess of such claim above the indemnity.  They were further
authorized to allow interest at the rate of four per cent.
The Court performed its duty.  When its judgments had been
paid there still remained a large balance.  The ablest lawyers
in the Senate, in general, pressed the claim of the insurance
companies to the balance of the fund, including Mr. Edmunds,
Judge Davis, Judge Thurman and Mr. Bayard.  I took up the
question with a strong leaning for the insurance companies.
I was, of course, impressed by the well-known principle of
law that the underwriter who had paid for property destroyed
by the cause against which he had insured, was entitled to
be substituted to all other rights or remedies which the owner
may have for reimbursement of his loss.  I was very much impressed
also in favor of the insurance companies, who were making
what they doubtless believed an honest and just claim, fortified
by many of the best legal opinions in Congress and out of
it, by the character of the attacks made on them, especially
by General Butler.  These attacks appealed to the lowest passions
and prejudices.  It was said that the companies were rich;
that they made their money out of the misfortunes of their
countrymen; that they were trying to get up to their arm-pits in
the National Treasury, and that they employed famous counsel.
If there be anything likely to induce a man with legal or
judicial instincts to set his teeth against a proposition,
it is that style of argument.

But I came to the conclusion, both from the history of the
proceedings at Geneva, and from the nature of the submission,
that the claim that had been established against Great Britain
was a National claim, made by National authority for a National
injury.  That this was the character of the claim our counsel
gave express notice to Great Britain and to the tribunal.
This opinion was asserted by Mr. Fish in his instructions
to the counsel.  When the Government of the United States
received it, it seemed to me that it was entitled to apply
it in its high discretion; and to give it to such persons
entitled to its protection or consideration as it should see
fit.  I made a careful argument in support of this view.  I
thought, accordingly, that the balance of the fund, after
compensating all persons, not yet paid, for claims directly
resulting from damage done on the high seas by Confederate
cruisers, and the class of insurance companies above mentioned,
should be paid to persons who had paid premiums for war risks
after the sailing of any Confederate cruiser.  I maintained
this doctrine as well as I could against the powerful arguments
I have named.  There were other very strong arguments on the
same side, and I had the gratification of being assured by
several Senators that my presentation of the case had convinced
them.  Mr. Blaine, who had, himself, earnestly engaged in
the debate, said that he thought that the opinion of the majority
of the Senators had been changed by my argument.


CHAPTER XI
THE PRESIDENT'S POWER OF REMOVAL

The two most important questions of the construction of the
Constitution which came up in our early history have been
finally put at rest in our day.  I have had something to do
with disposing of both of them.  With the disposition of one
of them I had a leading part.

The first of these questions was whether in executing the
powers conferred upon it by the Constitution, Congress must
confine itself to such means and instrumentalities as are
strictly and indispensably necessary to their accomplishment;
or whether it might select, among the measures which fairly
promote such Constitutional ends, any method which it shall
think for the public interest, exercising this power in a
liberal way, and remembering in doing so that it is a Constitution--
the vital power of a free people,--we are defining and limiting,
and not an ordinary power of attorney.

This question first came up in Washington's Administration,
on the bill for establishing a National Bank.  Seldom any
doubt is raised now as to the Constitutional power of the
National Government to accomplish and secure any of the great
results which we could not secure before the war, by reason
of what is called the doctrine of State Rights.  Democrat
and Republican, men of the South and men of the North, now
agree in exercising without a scruple the power of Congress
to protect American interests by the tariff, to endow and
to subsidize railroads across the continent, and to build
an Oceanic canal.

I have in my possession, in Roger Sherman's and James Madison's
handwriting, a paper which contains the first statement of
a controversy which divided parties and sections, which inspired
Nullification, and which entered largely in the strife which
brought on the Civil War.

(In Roger Sherman's handwriting.) "You will admit that Congress
have power to provide by law for raising, depositing and applying
money for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution." X
(and generally of regulating the finances).  "That they have
power so far as no particular rules are pointed out in the
Constitution to make such rules and regulations as they may
judge necessary and proper to effect these purposes.  The
only question that remains is--Is a bank (a necessary and)
a proper measure for effecting these purposes? And is not
this a question of expediency rather than of right?"

(The following, on the same slip of paper, is in James Madison's
handwriting.) "Feb. 4, 1791.  This handed to J. M. by Mr.
Sherman during the debate on the constitutionality of the
bill for a National bank.  The line marked X given up by him
on the objection of J. M.  The interlineation of 'a necessary
&' by J. M. to which he gave no other answer than a smile."

The other matter relates to the power of removal from office.
Upon that the Constitution is silent.  In the beginning two
views were advocated.  There was a great debate in 1789, which
Mr. Evarts declares, "decidedly the most important and best
considered debate in the history of Congress." The claim that
the power of removal is vested absolutely in the President
by the Constitution prevailed in the House of Representatives,
under the lead of Madison, by a majority of twelve, and by
the casting vote of John Adams in the Senate.  Mr. Madison
said:

"The decision that is at this time made will become the permanent
exposition of the Constitution; and on a permanent exposition
of the Constitution will depend the genius and character of
the whole Government."

One party claimed that the power of removal was a necessary
incident to the power of appointment, and vested in the President
by virtue of his power to appoint.  It was claimed also on
the same side that the President's duty to see the laws faithfully
executed could not be discharged if subordinates could be
kept in office against his will.  In most cases the President
never executes the laws himself, but only has to see them
executed faithfully.

This view prevailed, as we have seen, in Washington's Administration.
It continued to be acted upon till the time of President Johnson.
In General Jackson's time its soundness was challenged by
Webster, Calhoun and Clay.  But there was no attempt to resist
it in practice.  Mr. Webster in 1835 earnestly dissented
from the original decision, while he admitted that he considered
it "a settled point; settled by construction, settled by precedent,
settled by the practice of the Government, and settled by
statute."  It remained so settled, until, in the strife which
followed the rebellion, a two-thirds majority in Congress
was induced by apprehension of a grave public danger to attempt
to wrest this portion of the executive power from the hands
of Andrew Johnson.  The statute of March 2, 1867, as construed
by nearly two-thirds of the Senate, enacted that officers
appointed by the predecessor of President Johnson, who, by
the law in force when they were appointed, and by the express
terms of their commission, were removable at the pleasure
of the President, should remain in office until the Senate
should consent to the appointment of their successors, or
approve their removal.

In 1867 Congress undertook to determine by statute the construction
of the Constitution as to this disputed question.  Some persons
claimed that that power existed in the provision--"To make
all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers
vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United
States, or in any Department officer thereof."

The Constitutionality and effect of this statute were debated
on the trial of President Johnson.  But it served its purpose
during the last two years of Johnson's Administration.  Five
days after Grant's inauguration, the House of Representatives,
by a vote of 138 to 16, passed a bill totally repealing it.
The Senate was unwilling to let go the hold which it had acquired
on the Executive power, but proposed to suspend the law for
one year, so that there might be no obstacle in the path of
General Grant to the removal of the obnoxious officials who
had adhered to Andrew Johnson.  So a compromise was agreed
upon.  It permitted the President to suspend officers during
the vacation of the Senate, but restored officers so suspended
at the close of the next session, unless, in the meantime,
the advice and consent of the Senate had been obtained to
a removal or the appointment of a successor.

President Grant, in his message of December, 1869, urged
the repeal of this modified act on the ground that--

"It could not have been the intention of the framers of the
Constitution that the Senate should have the power to retain
in office persons placed there by Federal appointment, against
the will of the President.  The law is inconsistent with a
faithful and efficient administration of the Government.  What
faith can an Executive put in officials forced on him, and
those, too, whom he has suspended for reason? How will such
officials be likely to serve an Administration which they
know does not trust them?"

The House acted on this recommendation, and passed a bill
for the repeal of the statutes of 1867 and 1869 by a vote
of 159 to 25.  For this bill the whole Massachusetts delegation,
including Mr. Dawes and myself, voted.  It was never acted
on in the Senate.  In 1872 a similar bill passed the House
without a division.

The Democratic Party has invariably supported the position
of Madison and Jackson, that the power of removal is vested
by the Constitution in the President, and cannot be controlled
by legislation.

This was the condition of matters when Mr. Cleveland came
into office March 4, 1885.  The Revised Statutes, Sections
1767-1772, contained in substance the law as it was left by
the legislation of 1867 and 1869 (Sec. 1767): "Every person
holding any civil office to which he has been or hereafter
may be appointed by and with the consent of the Senate, and
who shall have become duly qualified to act therein, shall
be entitled to hold such office during the term for which
he was appointed, unless sooner removed by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, or by the appointment, with the
like advice and consent, of a successor, in his place, except
as herein otherwise provided."

The President was however authorized to suspend civil officers
during the recess, except Judges, until the next session of
the Senate, and to designate a substitute who should discharge
the duties of the office, himself being subject to removal
by the designation of another.

The President was further required to nominate within thirty
days after the commencement of each session of the Senate
persons to fill all vacancies in office, which existed at
the meeting of the Senate, whether temporarily filled or not,
and in place of all officers suspended.  If no appointment
were made, with the advice and consent of the Senate during
such session, the office was to be in abeyance.

It will be seen that this statute required the assent of the
Senate to the exercise of the President's power of removal,
although without its consent he could suspend the officer so
as to deprive him of the emoluments of his office.

So the appointment of a new officer by the advice and consent
of the Senate operated in such case as a removal of the person
them holding office, and a failure of the Senate to confirm
such proposed appointment had the effect to restore the officer
suspended, or temporarily removed.

Under these conditions there grew up a very earnest controversy
between President Cleveland and the Republican majority in
the Senate, led by the Judiciary Committee, of which Mr. Edmunds
was then Chairman.  It has been, I suppose from the beginning
of the Government, the practice of the President to furnish
to the Senate all papers and documents in his possession relating
to the fitness of officials nominated to the Senate.

Mr. Cleveland made no objection, if I understood him correctly,
to continuing that practice.  But he claimed that the Senate
had nothing to do with the exercise of his power of removal,
and therefore was not entitled to be informed of the evidence
upon which he acted in that.  So he refused and sustained
the heads of Departments in refusing the request of the Senate
to send for its information the documents on file relating
to removals.

This position was encountered by the Republican majority,
some of them claiming that the Senate had the same rightful
share in the removals as in appointments, and that no difference
was to be made between the two cases.  Others believed, as
I did, that although the power of removal might be exercised
by the President alone on his own responsibility, without
requiring the advice and consent of the Senate, still that
while the President was proceeding under the law by which
the appointment itself operated as a removal, and a failure
to affirm the appointment restored the old officer to his
place again, that the Senate whose action was to have that
important effect, was entitled not only to know whether the
public interest would be served by the appointment of the
proposed official on his own merits solely, but also whether
it would be best served by the removal of his predecessor
or by the restoration to office of his predecessor.  Both
the President and the Senate were acting under the existing
law, treating it as in force and valid.  Now suppose it were
true that the question of advising and consenting to the appointment
proposed by the President were a very doubtful one indeed,
the question on its merits being closely balanced; and the
officer to be removed or restored according as the Senate
should consent or refuse to consent, was a man of conspicuous
and unquestioned capacity and character, against whom no reasonable
objection was brought, to be removed for political reasons
solely.  The Senate certainly, in exercising its power had
the right to consider all that the President had a right to
consider, and therefore it seems to me that we were justified,
in that class of cases, in asking for the documents in his
possession bearing upon the question of removal.

It will be observed that in none of the arguments of this
Constitutional question has it been claimed that the President
had the right without statute authority to suspend public
officers, even if he had the right to remove them.  That right,
if he had it at all, he got under the statute under which
he and the Senate were acting.

On the 17th of July, 1885, the President issued an order
suspending George M. Duskin of Alabama, from the office of
Attorney of the United States, by virtue of the authority
conferred upon him by Sec. 1768 of the Revised Statutes,
which is a reenactment of the law of which I have just spoken.

On the 14th of December, 1885, the President nominated to
the Senate John D. Burnett, vice George M. Duskin, suspended.
The Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, as had been
usual in such cases, addressed a note to the Attorney-General,
asking that all papers and information in the possession of
the Department touching the conduct and administration of
the officer proposed to be removed, and touching the character
and conduct of the person proposed to be appointed, be sent
to the Committee for its information.  To this the Attorney-
General replied that he was directed by the President to say
that there been sent already to the Judiciary Committee all
papers in the Department relating to the fitness of John D.
Burnett, recently nominated, but that it was not considered
that the public interests would be promoted by a compliance
with said resolution and the transmission of the papers and
document therein mentioned to the Senate in Executive session.

That made a direct issue.  Thereupon a very powerful report
affirming the right of the Senate to require such papers was
prepared by Mr. Edmunds, Chairman of the Committee on the
Judiciary, and signed by George F. Edmunds, Chairman, John
J. Ingalls, S. J. R. McMillan, George F. Hoar, James F. Wilson
and William M. Evarts.

This was accompanied by a dissenting report by the minority
of the Committee, signed by James L. Pugh, Richard Coke, George
C. Vest and Howell E. Jackson, afterward Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States.

So it will be seen that the two sides were very powerfully
represented.  The report of the Committee was encountered
by a message from President Cleveland, dated March 1, 1886,
in which the President claimed that these papers in the Attorney-
General's Department were in no sense upon its files, but
were deposited there for his convenience.  He said: "I suppose
if I desired to take them into my custody I might do so with
entire propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them no one
could complain."  Continuing, the President says that the
demands of the Senate "assume the right to sit in judgment
upon the exercise of my exclusive discretion and Executive
function, for which I am solely responsible to the people
from whom I have so lately received the sacred trust of office."

He refers to the laws upon which the Senate based its demand
and said:  "After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost
innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth--apparently
the repealed as well as the unrepealed--and put in the way
of an Executive who is willing, if permitted, to attempt an
improvement in the methods of administration.  The Constitutionality
of these laws is by no means admitted."

The President seemed to forget that he had taken action under
those laws, and had expressly cited them as the authority
for his action, in his message announcing the suspension of
the official.

The controversy waxed warm in the Senate, and in the press
throughout the country.  The effect of it was that the confirmation
of Mr. Cleveland's nominees for important offices was postponed
for several months, in some cases eight to ten, but as they
were exercising their functions under temporary appointments,
it made no difference to them.  When they were at last confirmed
by the Senate, they received commissions dated from the appointment
which took place after the advice and consent of the Senate.
So the four years, for which they could hold office, began
to run then, and when a new Administration of a different
politics came into power, they held their office for a period
considerably more than four years, except a few who were
actually removed by President Harrison.

I do not think the people cared much about the dispute.  The
sympathy was rather with President Cleveland.  The people,
both Republicans and Democrats, expected that the political
control of the more important offices would be changed when
a new party came into power, and considered Mr. Edmunds's
Constitutional argument as a mere ingenious device to protract
the day when their political fate should overtake the Republican
officials.

I united with the majority of the Committee in the report,
for the reasons I have stated above.  I still think the position
of the Senate right, and that of the President wrong.  But
I never agreed to the claim that the Senate had anything to
do with the President's power of removal.  So I took the first
opportunity to introduce a bill repealing the provisions of
the statute relating to the tenure of office, which interfered
with the President's power of removal, so that we might go
back again to the law which had been in force from the foundation
of the Government, in the controversy with President Jackson.
A majority of the Republicans had attempted to do that, as
I have said, in the first session of Congress under President
Grant.  But it had been defeated by the Senate.  So I introduced
in the December session, 1886, a bill which became a law March
3, 1887, as follows:

"Be enacted, etc., That sections 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770,
1771, and 1772 of the Revised Statutes of the United States
are hereby repealed.

"Sec. 2.  This repeal shall not affect any officer heretofore
suspended under the provisions of said sections, or any designation,
nomination or appointment heretofore made by virtue of the
provisions thereof.

"Approved, March 3, 1887."

But the blood of my Republican associates was up.  I got
a few Republican votes for my Bill.  It passed the House
by a vote of 172 to 67.  Every Massachusetts Representative
voted for the Bill, as did Speaker Reed.  But in general
the votes against it were Republican votes.  Governor Long
made an able speech in its favor.

In the Senate three Republicans only voted with me.  Among
the nays were several Senators who, as members of the House,
had voted for a Bill involving the same principle in 1869.
Mr. Evarts, though absent at the time of this vote, declared
his approval of the Bill in debate; and so, I think, did Mr.
Dawes, although of that I am not sure.  Mr. Edmunds opposed
it with all his might and main.

Mr. Sherman, always a good friend of mine, remonstrated with
me.  He asked me with great seriousness, if I was conscious
of the extent of the feeling among the Republicans of the
Senate at my undertaking to act in opposition to them on
this and one or two other important matters, to which he
alluded.  I replied that I must of course do what seemed to
be my duty, and that in my opinion I was rendering a great
service to the Republican Party in getting rid of the controversy
in which the people sympathized generally with the Democrats,
and that I thought the gentlemen who differed from me, would
come to my way of thinking pretty soon.  The result proved
the soundness of my judgment.  I do not think a man can be
found in the Senate now who would wish to go back to the law
which was passed to put fetters on the limbs of Andrew Johnson.
I have asked several gentlemen who voted against the repeal
whether they did not think so, and they all now agree that
the measure was eminently wise and right.  The opposition
to the statute of 1887 was but the dying embers of the old
fires of the Johnson controversy.


CHAPTER XII
FISHERIES

If, on looking back, I were to select the things which I
have done in public life in which I take the most satisfaction,
they would be, the speech in the Senate on the Fisheries
Treaty, July 10, 1886, the letter denouncing the A. P. A., a
secret, political association, organized for the purpose of
ostracizing our Catholic fellow-citizens, and the numerous
speeches, letters and magazine articles against the subjugation
of the Philippine Islands.

I do not think any one argument, certainly that my argument,
caused the defeat of the Fisheries Treaty, negotiated by Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain and Mr. Bayard during Mr. Cleveland's
first Administration.  The argument against it was too strong
not to have prevailed without any one man's contribution to
it; and the Senate was not so strongly inclined to support
President Cleveland as to give a two-thirds majority to a
measure, unless it seemed clearly for the public interest.
He had his Republican opponents to reckon with, and the Democrats
in the Senate disliked him very much, and gave him a feeble
and half-hearted support.

The question of our New England fisheries has interested
the people of the country, especially of New England, from
our very early history.  Burke spoke of them before the Revolutionary
War, as exciting even then the envy of England.  One of the
best known and most eloquent passages in all literature is
his description of the enterprise of our fathers.  Burke adds
to that description:

"When I reflect upon the effects, when I see how profitable
they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink,
and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt
and die away within me.  My rigor relents.  I pardon something
to the spirit of Liberty."

The War of the Revolution, of course, interrupted for a time
the fisheries of the American colonies.  But the fishermen
were not idle.  They manned the little Navy whose exploits
have never yet received from history its due meed of praise.
They furnished the ships' companies of Manly and Tucker and
Biddle and Abraham Whipple.  They helped Paul Jones to strike
terror into St. George's Channel.  In 1776, in the first year
of the Revolutionary War, American privateers, most of them
manned by our fishermen, captured three hundred and forty-
two British vessels.

The fisheries came up again after the war.  Mr. Jefferson
commended them to the favor of the nation in an elaborate
and admirable report.  He said that before the war 8,000 men
and 52,000 tons of shipping were annually employed by Massachusetts
in the cod and whale fisheries.  England and France made urgent
efforts and offered large bounties to get our fishermen to
move over there.

For a long time the fisheries were aided by direct bounties.
Later the policy of protection has been substituted.

John Adams has left on record that when he went abroad as
our representative in 1778, and again when the Treaty of 1783
was negotiated, his knowledge of the fisheries and his sense
of their importance were what induced him to take the mission.
He declared that unless our claims were fully recognized,
the States would carry on the war alone.  He said:

"Because the people of New England, besides the natural claim
of mankind to the gifts of Providence on their coast, are
specially entitled to the fishery by their charters, which
have never been declared forfeited."

In the debate on the articles of peace in the House of Lords,
Lord Loughborough, the ablest lawyer of his party, said:

"The fishery on the shores retained by Britain is in the
next article not ceded, but recognized as a right inherent in
the Americans, which though no longer British subjects, they
are to continue to enjoy unmolested."

This was denied nowhere in the debate.

John Adams took greater satisfaction in his achievement when
he secured our fisheries in the treaty of 1783 than in any
other of the great acts of his life.*  After the treaty of 1783
he had a seal struck with the figures of the pine tree, the deer
and the fish, emblems of the territory and the fisheries
secured in 1783.  He had it engraved anew in 1815 with the
motto, "Piscemur, venemur, ut olim."  I have in my possession
an impression taken from the original seal of 1815.  This
letter from John Quincy Adams tells its story:

"QUINCY, September 3, 1836.

_"My Dear Son:_  On this day, the anniversary of the definitive
treaty of peace of 1783, whereby the independence of the United
States of America was recognized, and the anniversary of your
own marriage, I give you a seal, the impression upon which
was a device of my father, to commemorate the successful assertion
of two great interests in the negotiation for the peace, the
liberty of the fisheries, and the boundary securing the acquisition
of the western lands.  The deer, the pine tree, and the fish
are the emblems representing those interests.

"The seal which my father had engraved in 1783 was without
the motto.  He gave it in his lifetime to your deceased brother
John, to whose family it belongs.  That which I now give to
you I had engraved by his direction at London in 1815, shortly
after the conclusion of the treaty of peace at Ghent, on the
24th of December, 1814, at the negotiation of which the same
interests, the fisheries, and the bounty had been deeply involved.
The motto, 'Piscemur, venemur, ut olim,' is from Horace.

"I request you, should the blessing of heaven preserve the
life of your son, Charles Francis, and make him worthy of
your approbation, to give it at your own time to him as a
token of remembrance of my father, who gave it to me, and
of yours.

  "JOHN QUINCY ADAMS."
  "My son Charles Francis Adams."

[Footnote]
* See Ante, p. 131.
[End of Footnote]

The negotiations of 1815 and 1818 were under the control
of as dauntless and uncompromising a spirit, and one quite
as alive to the value of the fisheries and the dishonor of
abandoning them as that of John Adams himself.  If John Quincy
Adams, the senior envoy at Ghent, and the Secretary of State
in 1818, had consented to a treaty bearing the construction
which is lately claimed he never could have gone home to face
his father.  When the War of 1812 ended, Great Britain set
up the preposterous claim that the war had abrogated all treaties,
and that with the treaty of 1783 our rights in the fisheries
were gone.  There was alarm in New England; but it was quieted
by the knowledge that John Quincy Adams was one of our representatives.
It was well said at that time that, as

"John Adams saved the fisheries once, his son would a second
time."

When someone expressed a fear that the other commissioners
would not stand by his son, the old man wrote in 1814, that--

"Bayard, Russell, Clay, or even Gallatin, would cede the
fee-simple of the United States as soon as they would cede
the fisheries."  (pp. 21-22).

These fisheries still support the important city of Gloucester,
and are a very valuable source of wealth to the hardy and
enterprising people who maintain them.  Their story is full
of romance.  A touching yearly ceremonial is celebrated at
the present time in Gloucester in commemoration of the men
who are lost in this dangerous employment.

But the value of the fisheries does not consist chiefly in
historic association or in the wealth which they contribute
to any such community.

They are the nursery of seamen, more valuable and less costly
than the Naval School at Annapolis.  They train the men who
are employed in them to get to be at home on the sea.  They
are valuable for naval officers and for sailors.  Whenever
there shall be a war with a naval power, they will be thrown
out of employ, and will seek service in our Navy.  All the
English authorities, I believe, concur in this opinion.  I
read in my speech a very interesting letter from Admiral Porter
who testified strongly to that effect.

While it is true that many of our common sailors engaged
in our cod and other fisheries are of foreign birth, it is
equally true that they, almost all of them, come to live in
this country, get naturalized and become ardent Americans.
This is true of the natives of the British Dominions.  But
it is still more true of the Scandinavians, a hardy and adventurous
race, faithful and brave, who become full of the spirit of
American nationality.

Mr. Bayard who was, I think, inspired by a patriotic and
praiseworthy desire to establish more friendly relations
with Great Britain, seemed to me to give away the whole American
case, and to have been bamboozled by Joseph Chamberlain at
every point.  The Treaty gave our markets to Canada without
anything of value to us in return, and afforded no just indemnity
for the past outrages of which we justly complained, and gave
no security for the future.

The Treaty, which required a two-thirds majority for its
ratification, was defeated by a vote of twenty-seven yeas
to thirty nays.  There were nine Senators paired in the affirmative,
and eight in the negative.  The vote was a strict party vote,
with the exception of Messrs. Palmer and Turpie, Democrats,
who were against it.

I discussed the subject with great earnestness, going fully
into the history of the matter, and the merits of the Treaty.
I think I may say without undue vanity that my speech was
an important and interesting contribution to a very creditable
chapter of our history.


CHAPTER XIII
THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS BILL

In December, 1889, the Republican Party succeeded to the legislative
power in the country for the first time in sixteen years.
Since 1873 there had been a Democratic President for four
years, and a Democratic House or Senate or both for the rest
of the time.  There was a general belief on the part of the
Republicans, that the House of Representatives, as constituted
for fourteen years of that time, and that the Presidency itself
when occupied by Mr. Cleveland, represented nothing but usurpation,
by which, in large districts of the country, the will of the
people had been defeated.  There were some faint denials at
the time when these claims were made in either House of Congress
as to elections in the Southern States.  But nobody seems
to deny now, that the charges were true.  Mr. Senator Tillman
of South Carolina stated in my hearing in the Senate:

"We took the Government away.  We stuffed ballot boxes.  We
shot them.  We are not ashamed of it.  The Senator from Wisconsin
would have done the same thing.  I see it in his eye right
now.  He would have done it.  With that system--force, tissue
ballots, etc.--we got tired ourselves.  So we called a Constitutional
Convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored
people whom we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.

"I want to call your attention to the remarkable change that
has come over the spirit of the dream of the Republicans;
to remind you, gentlemen of the North, that your slogans of
the past--brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God--have gone
glimmering down the ages.  The brotherhood of man exists no
longer, because you shoot negroes in Illinois, when they come
in competition with your labor, and we shoot them in South
Carolina, when they come in competition with us in the matter
of elections.  You do not love them any better than we do.
You used to pretend that you did; but you no longer pretend
it, except to get their votes.

"You deal with the Filipinos just as you deal with the negroes,
only you treat them a heap worse."

No Democrat rose to deny his statement, and, so far as I know,
no Democratic paper contradicted it.  The Republicans, who
had elected President Harrison and a Republican House in 1888,
were agreed, with very few exceptions, as to the duty of providing
a remedy for this great wrong.  Their Presidential Convention,
held at Chicago in 1888, passed a resolution demanding, "effective
legislation to secure integrity and purity of elections, which
are the fountains of all public authority," and charged that
the "present Administration and the Democratic majority in
Congress owe their existence to the suppression of the ballot
by a criminal nullification of the Constitution and the laws
of the United States."

In the Senate at the winter session of 1888 and at the beginning
of the December session of 1889, a good many Bills were introduced
for the security of National elections.  Similar Bills were
introduced in the House.  A special Committee was appointed
there to deal with that subject.  I had, myself, no doubt
of the Constitutional authority of Congress, and of its duty,
if it were able, to pass an effective law for that purpose.

I was the Chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections,
and it was my duty to give special attention to that subject.
I had carefully prepared a Bill in the vacation, based on
one introduced by Mr. Sherman, providing for holding, under
National authority, separate registrations and elections for
Members of Congress.  But when I got to Washington, I found,
on consultation with every Republican Senator except one,
that a large majority were averse to an arrangement which
would double the cost of elections throughout the country,
and which, in States where personal registration every year
is required, would demand from every citizen his presence
at the place of polling or registration four times every alternate
year.  That is, in the years when there were Congressmen to
be elected he must go twice to be registered--once for the
State election, and once for the Congressional--and twice
to vote.  So I drew another Bill.  I say I drew it.  But I
had the great advantage of consultation with Senator Spooner
of Wisconsin, a very able lawyer who had lately come to the
Senate, and I can hardly say that the Bill, as it was finally
drafted, was more mine or his.  This Bill provided, in substance,
that there should be National officers of both parties who
should be present at the registration and election of Members
of Congress, and at the count of the vote, and who should
know and report everything which should happen, so that all
facts affecting the honesty of the election and the return
might be before the House of Representatives.  To this were
added some section providing for the punishment of bribery,
fraud and misconduct of election officers.

In the meantime the House of Representatives had appointed
a special Committee charged with a similar duty.  Members
of that Committee saw me, and insisted, with a good deal of
reason, that a measure which concerned the election of members
of the House of Representatives, should originate in that
body.  Accordingly the Senate Committee held back its Bill,
and awaited the action of the House, which sent a Bill to
the Senate, July 15, 1890.  The House Bill dealt not only
with the matter of elections, but also with the selection
of juries, and some other important kindred subjects.  Our
Committee struck out from it everything that did not bear
directly on elections; mitigated the severity of the penalties,
and reduced the bulk of the Bill very considerably.  The measure
was reported in a new draft by way of substitute.  It remained
before the Senate until the beginning of the next Session,
when it was taken up for action.  It was a very simple measure.

It only extended the law which, with the approbation of both
parties, had been in force in cities of more than twenty
thousand inhabitants, to Congressional districts, when there
should be an application to the Court, setting forth the
necessity for its protection.  That law had received the
commendation of many leading Democrats, including S. S. Cox,
Secretary Whitney, the four Democratic Congressmen who represented
Brooklyn, and General Slocum, then Representative at large
from the State of New York.  It had been put in force on the
application of Democrats quite as often as on that of Republicans.
We added to our Bill a provision that in case of a dispute
concerning an election certificate, the Circuit Court of the
United States in which the district was situated should hear
the case and should award a certificate entitling the member
to be placed on the Clerk's roll, and to hold his seat until
the House itself should act on the case.  That provision was
copied from the English law of 1868 which has given absolute
public satisfaction there.  This was the famous Force Bill,
and the whole of it--a provision that, if a sufficient petition
were made to the court for that purpose, officers, appointed
by the court, belonging to both parties should be present
and watch the election; that the Judge of the Circuit Court
should determine, in case of dispute, what name should be
put on the roll of the House of Representatives, in the beginning,
subject to the Constitutional power of the House to correct
it, and that a moderate punishment for bribery, intimidation
and fraud, on indictment and conviction by a jury of the vicinage,
should be imposed.  That was the whole of it.

But the Southern Democratic leaders, with great adroitness,
proceeded to repeat the process known as "firing the Southern
heart."  They persuaded their people that there was an attempt
to control elections by National authority.  They realized
that the waning power of their party at the South, many of
whose business men saw that the path of prosperity for the
South as well as for the North lay in the adoption of Republican
policies, might be reestablished by exciting the fear of negro
domination.  The Northern Democrats, either very ignorantly
or wilfuly, united in the outcry.  Governor William E. Russell
of Massachusetts, a gentleman of large influence and popularity
with both parties, telegraphed to President Cleveland a pious
thanksgiving for the defeat of this "wicked Bill."

Some worthy Republican Senators became alarmed.  They thought,
with a good deal of reason, that it was better to allow existing
evils and conditions to be cured by time, and the returning
conscience and good sense of the people, rather than have
the strife, the result of which must be quite doubtful, which
the enactment and enforcement of this law, however moderate
and just, would inevitably create.

On reflection, I came myself to the conclusion that, while
the Bill was reasonable and there was no reasonable doubt
of the power of Congress to enact it, yet the attempt to pass
it, if it were to fail, would do the cause infinite mischief.  It
would be an exhibition of impotence, always injurious to
a political party.  It would drive back into the Democratic
Party many men who were afraid of negro domination; who looked
with great dislike on the assertion of National power over
elections, and whom other considerations would induce to act
with the Republicans.  So I thought it was best to ascertain
carefully the prevailing opinion and see if we were likely
to get the Bill through, and, if we found that unlikely, not
to proceed far enough to have a debate in either House.

Accordingly I visited the House of Representatives, saw several
of my Massachusetts colleagues and some other leaders.  They
agreed that, if I found that the Bill could not, in all probability,
pass the Senate, it should be arranged to lay it aside in
the House without making any serious movement for it there.
After that arrangement was made there was a Senate caucus.
I brought up the matter and moved the appointment of a Committee
to consider the whole question of legislation with reference
to the security of elections.  A gentleman who had recently
become a Member of the Senate rose and quite angrily objected
to taking up the matter for consideration.  He declared that
he would not consent to have the subject introduced in a
Republican caucus.  The proceedings of such caucuses are
supposed to be kept from the public.  But they are pretty
sure to leak out.  I could not very well get up and say that
my reason for asking for a committee was to see whether the
law should be suppressed or not.  So I did not urge my motion.
But I did the best I could.

Before reporting the Bill I saw every Republican Senator
and obtained his opinion upon it.  I have in my possession
the original memoranda of the various answers.  Not only a
majority of the Republican Senators, but a majority of the
whole Senate declared emphatically for an Election Bill.  I
further consulted them whether the authority, in case of a
disputed election, to order, upon hearing, the name of the
person found to be elected to be placed on the roll should
be lodged in the United States Courts, or in some special
tribunal.  Two or three preferred that the court should not
be invoked.  But a majority of the whole Senate favored vesting
the power in the courts, and those who preferred another way
stated that they were willing to abide by the judgment of
the Committee.

When the House Bill came up, it was, on the 7th of August,
1890, reported favorably with my Bill as a substitute.  Meantime
the McKinley Tariff Bill, which Mr. Cleveland had made, so
far as he could, the sole issue in the late election, had
been matured and reported.  It affected all the business interests
of the country.  They were in a state of uncertainty and alarm.
Mr. Quay of Pennsylvania proposed a resolution to the effect
that certain enumerated measures, not including the Election
Bill, should be considered at that session, and that all others
should be postponed.  That, I suppose, would have had the
entire Democratic support and Republicans enough to give it
a majority.  It would have postponed the Election Bill without
giving any assurance of its consideration at the short session.
So a conference of Republicans was held at which an agreement
was made, which I drew up, and signed by a majority of the
entire Senate.  It entitled the friends of the Election Bill to
be assured that it would be brought to a vote and passed at
the short session, if there were then a majority in its favor.
This is the agreement, of which I have the original, with
the original signatures annexed, in my possession.

"We will vote:  1.  To take up for consideration on the first
day of the next session the Federal Election Bill, and to
keep it before the Senate to the exclusion of other legislative
business, until it shall be disposed of by a vote.  2.  To
make such provision as to the time and manner of taking the
vote as shall be decided, by a majority of the Republican
Senators, to be necessary in order to secure such vote, either
by a general rule like that proposed by Mr. Hoar, and now
pending before the committee on rules, or by special rule of
the same purport, applicable only to the Election Bill."

At the next December session the Bill was taken up for consideration
and, after a few days' debate, there was a motion to lay it
aside.  Since the measure had been first introduced, the sentiment
in certain parts of the country in favor of the free coinage
of silver had been strengthened.  Several of the Republican
Senators were among its most zealous advocates.  There was
a motion to lay aside the Election Bill which was adopted
by a bare majority--the Democrats voting for it and several
of the Silver Republican Senators, so-called.  All but one
of these had signed their names to the promise I have printed.
I never have known by what process of reasoning they reconciled
their action with their word.  But I know that in heated political
strife men of honor, even men of ability, sometimes deceive
themselves by a casuistic reasoning which would not convince
them at other times.

The Election Bill deeply excited the whole country.  Its
supporters were denounced by the Democratic papers everywhere,
North and South, with a bitterness which I hardly knew before
that the English language was capable of expressing.  My mail
was crowded with letters, many of them anonymous, the rest
generally quite as anonymous, even if the writer's name were
signed, denouncing me with all the vigor and all the scurrility
of which the writers were capable.  I think this is the last
great outbreak of anger which has spread through the American
people.

I got, however, a good deal of consolation from the stanch
friendship and support of the Republicans of Massachusetts,
which never failed me during the very height of this storm.
Whittier sent me a volume of poetry which he had just published,
with the inscription written on the blank leaf in his own
hand, "To George F. Hoar, with the love of his old friend,
John G. Whittier."  I think I would have gone through ten
times as much objurgation as I had to encounter for those
few words.

There has never since been an attempt to protect National
elections by National authority.  The last vestige of the
National statute for securing purity of elections was repealed
in President Cleveland's second Administration, under the
lead of Senator Hill of New York.  I have reflected very carefully
as to my duty in that matter.  I am clearly of the opinion
that Congress has the power to regulate the matter of elections
of Members of the House of Representatives and to make suitable
provisions for honest elections and an honest ascertainment
of the result, and that such legislation ought to be enacted
and kept on the statute book and enforced.  But such legislation,
to be of any value whatever, must be permanent.  If it only
be maintained in force while one political party is in power,
and repealed when its antagonist comes in, and is to be constant
matter of political strife and sectional discussion, it is
better, in my judgment, to abandon it than to keep up an incessant,
fruitless struggle.  It is like legislation to prohibit by law
the selling of liquor.  I believe that it would be wise to
prohibit the sale of liquor, with the exceptions usually made
in prohibitory laws.  But if we are to have in any State,
as we have had in so many States, a prohibitory law one year,
another with different provisions the next, a license law
the next, and the difficulty all the time in enforcing any
of them, it is better to give the attempt at prohibition
up and to adopt a local option, or high license, or some
other policy.  In other words, it is better to have the second
best law kept permanently on the statute book than to have
the best law there half the time.

So, after Senator Hill's repealing act got through the Senate,
I announced that, so far as I was concerned, and so far as
I had the right to express the opinion of Northern Republicans,
I thought the attempt to secure the rights of the colored
people by National legislation would be abandoned until there
were a considerable change of opinion in the country, and
especially in the South, and until it had ceased to be a matter
of party strife.  To that announcement, Senator Chandler of
New Hampshire, who had been one of the most zealous advocates
of the National laws, expressed his assent.  That statement
has been repeated once or twice on the floor of the Senate.
So far as I know, no Republican has dissented from it.  Certainly
there has been no Bill for that purpose introduced in either
House of Congress, or proposed, so far as I know, in the Republican
press, or in any Republican platform since.

The question upon which the policy of all National election
laws depends is, At whose will do you hold your right to be
an American citizen?  What power can you invoke if that right
be withheld from you?  If you hold the right at will of your
State, then you can invoke no power but the State for its
vindication.  If you hold it at the will of the Nation, as
expressed by the people of the whole Nation under the Constitution
of the United States, then you are entitled to invoke the
power of the United States for its enforcement whenever necessary.
If you hold it at the will of the white Democracy of any State
or neighborhood then, as unfortunately seems to be the case
in a good many States, you will be permitted to exercise it
only if you are a white man, and then only so long as you
are a Democrat.

I have had during my whole life to deal with that most difficult
of all political problems, the relation to each other, in
a Republic, of men of different races.  It is a question
which has vexed the American people from the beginning of
their history.  It is, if I am not much mistaken, to vex
them still more hereafter.  First the Indian, then the Negro,
then the Chinese, now the Filipino, disturb our peace.  In
the near future will come the Italian and the Pole and the
great population of Asia, with whom we are soon to be brought
into most intimate and close relation.

In my opinion, in all these race difficulties and troubles,
the fault has been with the Anglo-Saxons.  Undoubtedly the
Indian has been a savage; the Negro has been a savage; the
lower order of Chinamen have been gross and sometimes bestial.
The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, in their natural
rights, which, as we had solemnly declared to be a self-evident
truth, were theirs beyond question, have committed acts of
barbarism.  But in every case, these inferior and alien races,
if they had been dealt with justly, in my opinion, would have
been elevated by quiet, peaceful and Christian conduct on
our part to a higher plane, and brought out of their barbarism.
The white man has been the offender.

I have no desire to recall the story of the methods by which
the political majorities, consisting in many communities
largely of negroes and led by immigrants from the North, were
subdued.

This is not a sectional question.

It is not a race question.  The suffrage was conferred on
the negro by the Southern States themselves.  They can always
make their own rules.  If the negro be ignorant, you may define
ignorance and disfranchise that.  If the negro be vicious,
you may define vice and disfranchise that.  If the negro be
poor, you may define poverty and disfranchise that.  If the
negro be idle, you may define idleness and disfranchise that.
If the negro be lazy, you may define laziness and disfranchise
that.  If you will only disfranchise him for the qualities
which you say unfit him to vote and not for his race or the
color of his skin there is no Constitutional obstacle in your
way.

So it was not wholly a race or color problem.  It was largely
a question of party supremacy.  In three states, Alabama,
South Carolina and Florida, white Democrats charged each other
with stifling the voice of the majority by fraudulent election
processes, and in Alabama they claimed that a majority of
white men were disfranchised by a false count of negro votes
in the black belt.

It was not wholly unnatural that the men who, in dealing
with each other, were men of scrupulous honor and of undoubted
courage should have brought themselves to do such things,
or at any rate to screen and sympathize with the more hot-
headed men who did them.  The proof in the public records
of those public crimes is abundant.  With the exception of
Reverdy Johnson of Maryland there is no record of a single
manly remonstrance, or expression of disapproval from the
lips of any prominent Southern man.  But they had persuaded
themselves to believe that a contest for political power with
a party largely composed of negroes was a contest for their
civilization itself.  They thought it like a fight for life
with a pack of wolves.  In some parts of the South there were
men as ready to murder a negro who tried to get an office
as to kill a fox they found prowling about a hen roost.  These
brave and haughty men who had governed the country for half
a century, who had held the power of the United States at
bay for four years, who had never doffed their hats to any
prince or noble on earth, even in whose faults or vices there
was nothing mean or petty, never having been suspected of
corruption, who as Macaulay said of the younger Pitt, "If
in an hour of ambition they might have been tempted to ruin
their country, never would have stooped to pilfer from her,"
could not brook the sight of a Legislature made up of ignorant
negroes who had been their own slaves, and of venal carpet-
baggers.  They could not endure that men, some of whom had
been bought and sold like chattels in the time of slavery,
and others ready to sell themselves, although they were freemen,
should sit to legislate for their States with their noble
and brave history.  I myself, although I have always maintained,
and do now, the equal right of all men of whatever color or
race to a share in the government of the country, felt a thrill
of sadness when I saw the Legislature of Louisiana in session
in the winter of 1873.

There was a good deal to provoke them also in the character
of some of the Northern men who had gone to the South to take
an active part in political affairs.  Some of them were men
of the highest character and honor, actuated by pure and unselfish
motives.  If they had been met cordially by the communities
where they took up their abode they would have brought to
them a most valuable quality of citizenship.  If Northern
immigration and Northern capital had been welcomed at the
South it would have had as helpful and influence as it had
in California and Oregon.  But the Southern men treated them
all alike.  I incline to think that a large number of the
men who got political office in the South, when the men who
had taken part in the Rebellion were still disfranchised,
and the Republicans were still in power, were of a character
that would not have been tolerated in public office in the
North.  General Willard Warner of Alabama, a brave Union soldier,
a Republican Senator from that State, was one of the best
and bravest men who ever sat in that body.  Governor Packard
of Louisiana was I believe a wise and honest man.  But in
general it was impossible not to feel a certain sympathy with
a people, who whatever else had been their faults never were
guilty of corruption or meanness, or the desire to make money
out of public office, in the intolerable loathing which they
felt for these strangers who had taken possession of the high
places in their States.

President Grant gave the influence and authority of his Administration
toward maintaining in power the lawfully chosen Republican
State Governments.  But in spite of all he could do they had
all been overthrown but two when the Presidential election
was held in 1876.  Those two were South Carolina and Louisiana.
The people of those two States had chosen Republican Governors
at the State election held on the same day with the election
of the President.  But these Governors could not hold their
power twenty-four hours without the support of the National
administration.  When that was withdrawn the negro and carpet-
bag majority was powerless as a flock of sheep before a pack
of wolves to resist their brave and unscrupulous Democratic
enemy, however inferior the latter in numbers.

In attempting to give a dispassionate account of the history
of this great question which has entered so deeply into the
political and social life of the American people almost from
the beginning, it is hard to measure the influence of race
prejudice, of sectional feeling, and of that other powerful
motive, eagerness for party supremacy.

Suffrage was conferred upon the negro by the Southern States
themselves.  Under the Constitution every State can prescribe
its own qualifications for suffrage, with the single exception
that no State can deny or abridge the right of a citizen of
the United States to vote on account of race, color or previous
condition of servitude.

But I am bound to say, indeed it is but to repeat what I have
said many times, that my long conflict with their leaders
has impressed me with an ever-increasing admiration of the
great and high qualities of our Southern people.  I said at
Chicago in February, 1903, what I said, in substance, twenty
years before in Faneuil Hall, and at about the same time in
the Senate:

"Having said what I thought to say on this question, perhaps
I may be indulged in adding that although my life, politically
and personally, has been a life of almost constant strife
with the leaders of the Southern people, yet as I grow older
I have learned, not only to respect and esteem, but to love
the great qualities which belong to my fellow citizens of
the Southern States.  They are a noble race.  We may well
take pattern from them in some of the great virtues which
make up the strength, as they make the glory, of Free States.
Their love of home; their chivalrous respect for women; their
courage; their delicate sense of honor; their constancy, which
can abide by an opinion or a purpose or an interest of their
States through adversity and through prosperity, through the
years and through the generations, are things by which the
people of the more mercurial North may take a lesson.  And
there is another thing--covetousness, corruption, the low
temptation of money has not yet found any place in our Southern
politics.

"Now, my friends, we cannot afford to live, we don't wish
to live, and we will not live, in a state of estrangement from
a people who possess these qualities.  They are our kindred;
bone of our bone; flesh of our flesh; blood of our blood,
and whatever may be the temporary error of any Southern State
I, for one, if I have a right to speak for Massachusetts,
say to her, 'Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from
following after thee.  For where thou goest I will go, and
where thou stayest, I will stay also.  And they people shall
be my people, and thy God my God.'"

In July, 1898, I was invited to deliver an address before
the Virginia Bar Association.  I was received by that company
of distinguished gentlemen with a hospitality like that I
had found in Charleston the year before.  Certainly the old
estrangements are gone.  I took occasion in my address to
appeal to the Virginia bar to give the weight of their great
influence in sustaining the dignity and authority of the Supreme
Court, in spite of their disappointment at some of its decisions
of Constitutional questions.  They received what I had to
say, although they knew I differed from them on some of the
gravest matters which concerned the State, and had been an
anti-slavery man from my youth, with a respect and courtesy
which left nothing to be desired.  At the banquet which followed
the address, this toast was given by William Wirt Henry, a
grandson of Patrick Henry, himself one of the foremost lawyers
and historians of the South.  I prize very highly the original
which I have in his handwriting.

  "Massachusetts and Virginia.
  "Foremost in planting the English Colonies in America;
  "Foremost in resisting British tyranny;
  "Foremost in the Revolution which won our Independence
  and established our free institutions;
  "May the memories of the past be the bond of the future."

My own endeavor, during my long public life, has been to
maintain the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence,
which declares the right of every man to political equality
by virtue of his manhood, and of every people to self-government
by virtue of its character as a people.  This our fathers
meant to lay down as the fundamental law of States and of
the United States, having its steadfast and immovable foundation
in the law of God.  It was never their purpose to declare
that ignorance or vice or want of experience of the institutions
of a country should not disqualify men from a share in the
Government.  Those things they meant to leave to the discretion
of the power, whether State or National, which was to prescribe
the qualifications of suffrage.  But they did not mean that
the accident of birthplace, or the accident of race, or the
accident of color, should enter into the question at all.
To this doctrine I have, in my humble way, endeavored to adhere.
In dealing with the Chinese, or any class of immigrants, I
would prescribe as strict a rule as the strictest for ascertaining
whether the immigrant meant in good faith to be an American
citizen, whether he meant to end his life here, to bring his
wife and children with him, whether he loved American institutions,
whether he was fit to understand the political problems with
which the people had to deal, whether he had individual worth,
or health of body or mind.  I would make, if need be, ten
years or twenty years, as the necessary period of residence
for naturalization.

I would deal with the Negro or the German or the Frenchman
or the Italian on the same principle.  But the one thing
I have never consented to is that a man shall be kept out of
this country, or kept in a position of inferiority, while he is
in it, because of his color, because of his birthplace, or
because of his race.

One matter in connection with the management of the Elections
Bill I have never been able to think of since without a shudder.
The Democrats in the Senate, led by Mr. Gorman, the most
skilful of their leaders, endeavored to defeat the bill by
the tactics of delay.  If the debate could be prolonged so
that it was impossible to get a vote without the loss of the
great Appropriations Bills, or some of them, the bill, of
course, must be laid aside.  So the Republicans, on the other
hand, as is usual in such cases, refrained from debate, leaving
their antagonists to take up the time.  Every afternoon at
about five o'clock some Democrat would come to me saying that
he was to take the floor, but that he did not feel well, or
was not quite ready with some material, and ask me as a personal
favor to let the matter go over until the next morning.  This
happened so often that I became satisfied it was a concerted
scheme, and made up my mind that I would not yield to such
a request again.

But one afternoon Senator Wilson of Maryland, a quiet and
most estimable gentleman, whom I had known very well, and
for whom I had a high regard, came to me and said he felt
quite unwell; he could go on that afternoon, if I insisted
upon it; but he would like much better to put off speaking
till the next day.  I was just beginning my answer to the
effect that I had heard that so often that I had determined I
would not yield again to the request.  But I said to myself,
It cannot be possible that this man would undertake to deceive
me.  He is a gentleman of high character, absolutely honorable
and incapable of falsehood.  So I answered, Of course, Mr.
Wilson, if you are ill, I will consent to your desire.  Mr.
Wilson made his speech the next day.  This was December 15.
A few weeks after, on the 24th of February, Mr. Wilson died
suddenly of heart disease.  It was an affection of which he
had been conscious for some years, and which he had for some
time expected would cause sudden death.  I dare say if he
had been compelled to proceed with his speech that day it
would have been fatal.  In that case my life would have been
embittered by the memory.

We had a meeting of the Republican members of the Committee,
for consultation, before we reported the Bill.  Mr. Evarts,
while he approved the principle of the measure, shared very
strongly my own hesitation, caused by the fear of the political
effect of the defeat of a measure likely to excite so much
angry strife throughout the country.  After hearing the opinion
of those who favored going on with the Bill, Mr. Evarts said:
"I spent a Sunday with Judge Kent on the Hudson a good many
years ago, with several New York lawyers.  We all went to
the Episcopal church in the forenoon, and dined with the Judge
after church.  During the service one of the company kept
far behind in the responses, which annoyed the Judge a good
deal.  At dinner he broke out, 'Davis, why can't you descend
into hell with the rest of the congregation?' I will descend
into hell with the rest of the congregation."

Mr. Evarts made the descent and stood loyally by the measure
in the debate to the best of his great ability.


CHAPTER XIV
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS AND THE PRESIDENTIAL
SUCCESSION BILL

When I entered the Senate, I found one very serious inconvenience
and one very great public danger in existing conditions.

The great inconvenience grew out of the fact that by the Constitution
the session of Congress must end on the fourth of March every
other year.  A third of the Senate goes out at the same time,
and every fourth year the Presidential term ends.  That session
of Congress meets, according to our usage, on the first Monday
of December.  The meeting cannot well come much earlier without
preventing the members of the two Houses of Congress from
taking part in the political campaign, where they are justly
expected by the people to give an account of their stewardship,
and to discuss the questions to be considered by the people
in the election.  So there are but thirteen weeks in which
to pass fourteen or fifteen great Appropriation Bills, making
it impossible to deal with any other great subject except by
unanimous consent.  The result is also that the Appropriation
Bills are put in the power of a very few men indeed.  The
House has to submit to the dictation of the Appropriation
Committee, and cannot be allowed to debate, or even to have
a separate vote on matters which nearly the whole House would
like to accomplish, if there were time, but which the Chairman
of the Appropriation Committee, who is usually omnipotent
with his associates, may happen to dislike.  On the other
hand, in the Senate, where there is no cloture rule, any single
member, or at best, a very few members, can defeat an Appropriation
Bill and compel an extra session by exercising their right
of uncontrolled debate.

Besides; people from all parts of the country like to attend
the inauguration of a new President.  The fourth of March
is at an inclement season, and is apt to be an inclement day,
and it may come on Saturday or Sunday or Monday.  So persons
who attend may be obliged to be away from home over Sunday,
and a great many persons have lost their health or life from
exposure in witnessing the inauguration.

I prepared a Constitutional amendment providing that the inauguration
should take place on the last Thursday in April.  I have reported
this to the Senate several times.  It has always passed that
body with scarcely a dissenting vote, on debate and explanation.
If that had been adopted, if the session were to begin in
the middle of November, a week after the November elections--
which could be accomplished by an act of Congress--instead
of thirteen weeks, to which the session is now limited, there
would be a session of twenty-three or twenty-four weeks.  This
would give time for the consideration of such legislation
as might be needful.  It would probably, also, permit the
shortening somewhat of the long session, which not infrequently
extends to July or August.  But the plan has never found
much favor in the House.  Speaker Reed, when he was in power,
said rather contemptuously, that "Congress sits altogether
too long as it is.  The less we have of Congress, the better."

The public danger is found in the fact that there is no provision
in the Constitution for the case where the President-elect
dies before inauguration.  The provision is:

"In case of the Removal of the President from Office, or
of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the
Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve
on the Vice-President, and the Congress may by Law provide
for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability,
both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what Officer
shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly,
until the Disability shall be removed, or a President shall
be elected."

Strictly construed, it is only in the case of the death,
inability, etc., of a President, that a Vice-President can
succeed, or in the case of the death, inability, etc., of the President
and Vice-President both, that Congress has power to declare
on whom the office shall devolve.  It must be a President
and Vice-President that die; not merely a President and Vice-
President-elect.  That his is not an imaginary danger is shown
by the fact of the well-known scheme to assassinate Lincoln
on his way to the seat of the Government, and also by the
fact that either the President or the Vice-President has died
in office so many times in the recollection of men now living.
President Harrison died during his term; President Taylor
died during his term; Vice-President King died during Pierce's
term; Vice-President Wilson died during Grant's term; President
Garfield died during his term; Vice-President Hendricks died
during Cleveland's term; Vice-President Hobart died during
McKinley's term, and President McKinley during his own second
term.  So within sixty years eight of these high officials
have died in office; five of them within thirty years; four
of them within twenty years.

I have also drawn and repeatedly procured the passage through
the Senate of an amendment to the Constitution to protect
the country against this danger.  That also has failed of
attention in the House.  I suppose it is likely that nothing
will be done about the matter until the event shall happen,
as is not unlikely, that both President and Vice-President-
elect shall become incapacitated between the election and
the time for entering upon office.

I was more successful in providing against another situation
that might prove quite awkward.  In Washington's Administration
Congress exercised, as far as it could, the power given by
the Constitution to provide against the death or disability
of both the President and Vice-President, if it should happen
after they had entered upon office, as follows:

"In case of removal, death, resignation or inability of both
the President and the Vice-President of the United States,
the President of the Senate, or, if there is none, then the
Speaker of the House, for the time being, shall act as President,
until the disability is removed or a President elected."

There is a tradition that when this awkward arrangement was
made, the proposition that the Secretary of State should succeed
in the case of such vacancy was defeated by the suggestion
that Mr. Jefferson had too much power and consequence already.
The arrangement seemed to me clearly objectionable.  In the
first place the Vice-President, who, it is supposed, has died
or become incapable, is the Constitutional President of the
Senate.  The Senate, under the practice and construction of
its power which prevailed down to a very recent period, only
elected a President pro tempore when the Vice-President vacated
the chair.  His office terminated when the Vice-President
resumed it, and there was no Constitutional obligation on
the Senate to elect a President pro tempore at all.  So it
was quite uncertain whether there would be a President pro
tempore of the Senate at any particular time, especially when
the Senate was not in session.  There have been two instances
where the President of the Senate has refused to vacate the
chair, for the reason that he did not desire to have a President
pro tempore elected, and thereby have an honor conferred on
a member of another party than his own.  That happened once
in the case of Vice-President Gerry, and again, within my
personal knowledge, in the case of Vice-President Arthur.
When he succeeded to the Presidency there was no President
of the Senate who would have taken his place if he too had
happened to be assassinated.  So of the Speaker of the House.
For a great many years the first session of a newly-elected
House of Representatives has begun in December.  There is
no Speaker from the previous fourth of March until that time.
Beside, the Senate, whose members hold office for six years
and of whom only one-third goes out every two years, is very
apt to have a majority whose political opinions are opposed
to those which have prevailed in the last Presidential election.
So, if the President and Vice-President both die before taking
their seats, the President of the Senate is quite likely to
bring into the Executive Office opinions which the people
have just rejected in the election.

On the other hand, the Secretary of State is always a member
of the party that has prevailed in the last election, and
is usually the member of the party, next to the President
himself, highest in its confidence.  Our Secretaries of State,
with rare exceptions, have been among the very ablest public
men of the country.  Among them have been Timothy Pickering,
John Marshall, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams,
Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, Edward Livingston, Louis McLane,
John Forsyth, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, James Buchanan,
John M. Clayton, Edward Everett, Elihu B. Washburne, Hamilton
Fish, William M. Evarts, James G. Blaine, Thomas F. Bayard,
John Sherman, and John Hay.  These men, with scarcely an exception,
have been among the very foremost statesmen of their time.
Several of them have been Presidents of the United States,
and a good many more of them have been prominent candidates
for the Presidency.  On the other hand, the list of Presidents
of the Senate contains few names of any considerable distinction.
Another objection to the arrangement was the fact that the
President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House might
be changed at the will of the body that elected them.  So
the acting President might be displaced at the will of a political
body.  There is a good deal of reason, also, for claiming
that if Congress declare that the officer shall act as President,
he must discharge the duties of his office and the duties
of the President at the same time, a burden which would be
very hard for one man to support.  Accordingly I drew and
introduced the existing law, which reads as follows:

_"Be it enacted, etc.,_ That in case of removal, death, resignation
or inability of both the President and Vice-President of the
United States, the Secretary of State, or if there be none,
or in case of his removal, death, resignation or inability,
then the Secretary of the Treasury, or if there be none, or
in the case of his removal, death, resignation or inability,
then the Secretary of War, or if there be none, or in case
of his removal, death, resignation or inability, then the
Attorney-General, or if there be none, or in case of his
removal, death, resignation or inability, then the Secretary of
the Interior, shall act as President until the disability of the
President or Vice-President is removed or a President shall
be elected:

"_Provided,_ That whenever the powers and duties of the office
of President of the United States shall devolve upon any of
the person named herein, if Congress be not then in session,
or if it would not meet in accordance with law within twenty
days thereafter, it shall be the duty of the person upon whom
said powers and duties shall devolve to issue a proclamation
convening Congress in extraordinary session, giving twenty
days' notice of time of meeting.

"Sec. 2.  That the preceding section shall only be held to
describe and apply to such officers as shall have been appointed
by the advice and consent of the Senate to the offices therein
named, and such as are eligible to the office of President
under the Constitution, and not under impeachment by the House
of Representatives of the United States at the time the powers
and duties of the office shall devolve upon them respectively.

"Sec. 3.  That sections one hundred and forty-six, one hundred
and forty-seven, one hundred and forty-eight, one hundred
and forty-nine and one hundred and fifty of the Revised Statutes
are hereby repealed.  (_January_ 19, 1886)."

There was some objection to it at first.  It was resisted very
strenuously to the end by Senator Edmunds.  But after full
discussion it passed the Senate with few dissenting votes.

In the House Mr. Reed, afterward Speaker, appealed without
success to the political feeling of his associates, demanding
to know if they would rather have Mr. Bayard, who was then
Secretary of State, than John Sherman, who then happened to
be President of the Senate, for President of the United States.
But the House, also, by a large majority, passed the measure.


CHAPTER XV
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S JUDGES

I earnestly supported William B. Hornblower against the opposition
of Senator Hill, when he was nominated by Mr. Cleveland for
Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States.  I was then
on the Judiciary Committee.  I made very careful inquiry,
and had reason to believe that the best lawyers in New York
thought highly of him.  Judge Gray told me that Mr. Hornblower
had argued a case in the Court not long before, and that as
the Judges walked out Judge Blatchford said to him: "I hope
you have as good a man in your Circuit to succeed you, when
the time comes, as we have in ours in Mr. Hornblower to succeed
me."

I did not, however, support Mr. Wheeler H. Peckham.  The newspapers
circulated the story extensively that--to use the phrase of
one of them--I "led the opposition." That was not true.  I
expected to vote for Mr. Peckham until just before the vote
was taken.  I had communicated my expectation to support him
to Senator Vilas, who had charge of the case.  I thought before
the vote was taken it was my duty to tell him I had changed
my mind.  So I went round to his seat and told him.  Nobody
else knew my purpose till I voted.

I had no political sympathy with Senator Hill, still less
with the claim often imputed to the Senate by writers of
newspapers, but of which I have never seen the slightest
evidence, that Senators have the right to dictate such appointments.
But I thought Mr. Cleveland ought not to have made such an
appointment without consulting Mr. Hill, who was a lawyer
of eminence and knew the sentiment of the majority of the
Democratic Party.  Mr. Cleveland had nominated in succession
two persons to an office which ought to be absolutely non-
partisan, who belonged to a very small company of men devoted
to his personal fortunes, who had bitterly attacked Mr. Hill.
I should not, however, have deemed this objection sufficient
to justify a vote against Mr. Peckham, but for the fact that
I became satisfied he was a man of strong prejudices, with
little of the judicial temper or quality about him, and quite
likely to break down under the strain of heavy responsibility.

I urged Mr. Vilas to ask President Cleveland to send in the
name of Mr. Hornblower again, having some hope that the Senate
would reconsider its action in his case.  But President Cleveland
solved the difficulty quite skilfully by sending in the name
of Senator White of Louisiana, a most admirable gentleman
and Judge, and afterward, when there came another vacancy,
that of Rufus W. Peckham of New York, both of whom were confirmed,
I believe, without an objection.

I just referred to Senator William F. Vilas, of Wisconsin.
I should like to put on record my great esteem for his character
as a man, and the excellence of his service as a Senator.
He was on the Judiciary Committee while I was Chairman, and
also for a time when his party had the majority.  He was industrious,
wise, conservative, courteous, and fair, a most admirable
lawyer, full of public spirit, well acquainted with the mechanism
of the Government, and doing always much more than his full
share of the work of the Committee and of the Senate.  I hope
the country may have again the benefit of his great ability
in some department of the public service.

Chief Justice Fuller said with singular felicity:

"Mr. Justice Lamar always underrated himself.  This tendency
plainly sprung from a vivid imagination.  With him the splendid
passions attendant upon youth never faded into the light of
common day, but they kept before him as an ideal, the impossibility
of whose realization, as borne in upon him from time to time,
opposed him with a sense of failure.  Yet the conscientiousness
of his work was not lessened, nor was the acuteness of his
intellect obscured by these natural causes of his discontent;
nor did a certain Oriental dreaminess of the temperament ever
allure him to abandon the effort to accomplish something that
would last after his lips were dumb."

Matthew Arnold says in one of his essays that Americans lack
distinction.  I have a huge liking for Matthew Arnold.  He
had a wonderful intellectual vision.  I do not mean to say
that his three lectures on translating Homer are the greatest
literary work of our time.  But I think, on the whole, that
I should rather have the pair of intellectual eyes which can
see Homer as he saw him, than any other mental quality I can
think of.  But Mr. Arnold has never seemed to me to be fortunate
in his judgment about Americans.  He allows this quality of
distinction to Grant, but denies it, for all the world, to
Abraham Lincoln.  The trouble with Mr. Arnold is that he
never travelled in the United States, when on this side the
Atlantic.  He spent his time with a few friends who had little
love for things American.  He visited a great city or two,
but never made himself acquainted with the American people.
He never knew the sources of our power, or the spirit of our
people.

Yet there is a good deal of truth in what he says of the
Americans of our time.  It is still more true of the Englishmen
of our time.  The newspaper, and the telegraph, and the telephone,
and the constant dissemination of news, the public library
and the common school and college mix up all together and
tend to make us, with some rare and delightful exceptions,
eminently commonplace.  Certainly the men who are sent to
Congress do not escape this wearying quality.  I know men
who have been in public office for more than a generation,
who have had enormous power and responsibility, to whom the
country is indebted for safety and happiness, who never said
a foolish thing, and rarely ever when they had the chance
failed to do a wise one, who are utterly commonplace.  You
could not read the story of their public career without going
to sleep.  They never said anything worth quoting, and never
did anything that any other equally good and sensible man
would not have done in their place.  I have a huge respect
for them.  I can never myself attain to their excellence.
Yet I would as lief spend my life as an omnibus horse as live
theirs.

But we have occasionally some delightful exceptions.  It
so happens that some of the best, most attractive men I have
known, were from the South.  They are men who stood by the
Southern people through thick and thin during the Rebellion,
and in resisting every attempt on the part of the victorious
Northern majority to raise the colored people to a political
equality.  They have all of them, I believe, been Free Traders.
In general they have opposed the construction of the Constitution
which has prevailed in New England and throughout the North,
and in which I have myself always believed.

I have never had much personal intimacy with any of them.
I have had some vigorous conflicts with one or two of them.
Yet I have had from each before our association ended, assurances
of their warm personal regard.  One of them, perhaps, on the
whole, the most conspicuous, is Lucius Q. C. Lamar.  His
very name, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, indicates that his
father must have looked for his example for his son to follow
far away from the American life about him.

Lamar was one of the most delightful of men.  His English
style, both in conversation and in public speaking, was fresh
and original, well adapted to keep his hearers expectant and
alert, and to express the delicate and subtle shades of meaning
that were required for the service of his delicate and subtle
thought.

He had taken the part of the South with great zeal.  He told
me shortly before he left the Senate that he thought it was
a great misfortune for the world that the Southern cause had
been lost.  He stood by his people, as he liked to call them,
in their defeat and in their calamity without flinching or
reservation.  While he would, I am sure, have done nothing
himself not scrupulously honorable, and while there was nothing
in his nature of cruelty, still less of brutality, yet he
did not stop to inquire into matters of right and wrong when
a Southerner had got into trouble, by reason of anything a
white Democrat had done in conflict with the National authority.
Yet Mr. Lamar desired most sincerely the reconciliation of
the sections, that the age-long strife should come to an end
and be forgotten, and that the whole South should share the
prosperity and wealth and refinement and contentment, which
submission to the new order of things would bring.

He was a far-sighted man.  He was not misled by temporary
excitement or by deference to the majority of his political
friends who were less far-sighted than he, into any mistakes.
When there was an attempt to break faith in regard to what
was called the Wheeler compromise in the Democratic House,
Mr. Lamar interposed and prevented it.  Just after the count
under the Electoral Commission had been completed, there was
a very dangerous movement to delay action on the returns from
Vermont, which would have prevented the completion of the
work before the 4th of March.  Mr. Lamar put forth all his
powerful influence among his Democratic associates on the
floor of the House, and saved the peace of the country.  He
knew very well that the cause of the South, as he would have
called it, and the cause of the Democratic Party itself, would
not be promoted by a new civil convulsion, still less by any
breach of faith.

He voted against the free coinage of silver in spite of the
fact that the people of his State earnestly favored it, and
against the express instructions of its Legislature.  In 1874,
at a time when the passions of the Civil War seemed to blaze
higher, and the angry conflict between the sections seemed
to blaze higher even than during the war itself, he astonished
and shocked the people of the South by pronouncing a tender
and affectionate eulogy on Charles Sumner.  He testified to
Sumner's high moral qualities, to his intense love of liberty,
to his magnanimity, and to his incapacity for a personal
animosity, and regretted that he had restrained the impulse
which had been strong on him to go to Mr. Sumner and offer
him his hand and his heart with it.  It would have been almost
impossible for any other man who had done either of these
things to go back to Mississippi and live.  But it never shook
for a moment the love for Lamar of a people who knew so well
his love for them.

Afterward Mr. Lamar was made an Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States.  I voted against him--in which
I made a mistake--not because I doubted his eminent integrity
and ability, but because I thought that he had little professional
experience and no judicial experience, and that his health--
he was then beginning to show signs of the disease which
ended his life shortly after--was not sufficient for undertaking
the great study and the labor which the new office would require.
He was not long on the Bench, and was not greatly distinguished
as a Judge.  But he wrote a few opinions which showed his
great intellectual capacity for dealing with the most complicated
legal questions, especially such are apt to arise in patent
cases.

He was a delightful man in ordinary conversation.  He had
an infinite wit and great sense of humor.  He used to tell
delightful stories of queer characters and events that had
come within his own observation.  My relations to him for a
good while were entirely antagonistic.  We had some very
sharp controversies.  He would never tolerate any expression,
in his presence, of disrespect to Jefferson Davis.  He would
always meet the statement that Mr. Davis was a traitor with
a vigorous denial.  When I made a motion excepting Jefferson
Davis from the benefit of the bill to pension the soldiers
of the Mexican War, Mr. Lamar compared him to Prometheus,
and me to the vulture preying upon his liver.  He was the
last person from whom I should have expected an expression
of compliment, or even of kindness in those days.  Yet when
the question of my reelection was pending in 1883 and the
correspondent of a newspaper which was among my most unrelenting
and unscrupulous opponents thought he might get some material
which would help him in his attacks, called upon Mr. Lamar
in the Democratic cloak room, and asked him what he thought
of me, Mr. Lamar replied in language which seems almost ridiculous
to quote, and which was inspired only by his indignation
at the attempt to use him for such a purpose:  "Sir, Massachusetts
has never been more powerfully represented in the Senate,
not even in the time of Daniel Webster, than by Mr. Hoar."

It was with feeling of great pleasure that in 1886 I saw
Harvard confer her highest honor on this delightful Mississippian.

He was, in his time, I think, the ablest representative,
certainly among the ablest, of the opinions opposed to mine.
He had a delightful and original literary quality which, if
the lines of his life had been cast amid other scenes than
the tempest of a great Revolution and Civil War, might have
made him a dreamer like Montaigne; and a chivalrous quality
that might have made him a companion of Athos and D'Artagnan.

His eulogy on Calhoun, with whom in general he sympathized,
was a masterpiece of eloquence, but his eulogy on Charles
Sumner, which probably no other man in the South could have
uttered without political death, was greater still.  It was
a good omen for the country.  At the moment he uttered it,
I suppose Charles Sumner was hated throughout the South with
an intensity which in this day of reconciliation it is almost
impossible to conceive.  Yet Mr. Lamar in his place in the
House of Representatives dared to utter these sentences:

"Charles Sumner was born with an instinctive love of freedom,
and was educated from his earliest infancy to the belief that
freedom is the natural and indefeasible right of every intelligent
being having the outward form of man.  In him, in fact, this
creed seems to have been something more than a doctrine imbibed
from teachers, or a result of education.  To him it was a
grand intuitive truth, inscribed in blazing letters upon the
tablet of his inner consciousness, to deny which would have
been for him to deny that he himself existed.  And along with
the all-controlling love of freedom he possessed a moral sensibility
keenly intense and vivid, a conscientiousness which would
never permit him to swerve by the breadth of a hair from what
he pictured to himself as the path of duty.  Thus were combined
in him the characteristics which have in all ages given to
religion her martyrs, and to patriotism her self-sacrificing
heroes."

After speaking of the kindness of Mr. Sumner to the South,
and his spirit of magnanimity, he added:

"It was my misfortune, perhaps my fault, personally never
to have known this eminent philanthropist and statesman.
The impulse was often strong upon me to go to him and offer
him my hand, and my heart with it, and to express to him my
thanks for his kind and considerate course toward the people
with whom I am identified.  If I did not yield to that impulse,
it was because the thought occurred that other days were coming
in which such a demonstration might be more opportune and less
liable to misconstruction.  Suddenly and without premonition,
a day as come at last to which, for such a purpose, there
is no to-morrow.  My regret is therefore intensified by the
thought that I failed to speak of him out of the fulness of
my heart while there was yet time."

That Mr. Lamar well understood what was to be the effect
of this wonderful speech upon the whole country is shown
by his letter to his wife the next day, in which he says:  "I
never in all my life opened my lips with a purpose more single
to the interests of our Southern people than when I made this
speech."

I said of this speech in an article in the _North American
Review:_

"The eloquent words of Mr. Lamar so touched the hearts of
the people of the North that they may fairly be said to have
been of themselves an important influence in mitigating the
estrangements of a generation."

The following letter explains my absence from the Senate
when Judge Lamar's death was announced:

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 29, 1893

_My Dear Madam:_

I was kept in bed, under the orders of my physician, the
day the death of your husband was announced to the Senate.
I regret exceedingly that I could not be in my place to express
my sense of the great public loss and my warm personal admiration
for his great qualities of intellect and of heart.  I served
with him in the House of Representatives for more than four
years, and in the Senate for more than eight years.  It was
a stormy and exciting time.  We differed widely on very grave
questions, and this difference was more than once very sharply
manifested in public; but the more I knew him, the more satisfied
I became of the sincerity of his patriotism, of his profound
and far-sighted wisdom, of the deep fountain of tenderness
in his affectionate and simple heart, and of his brave and
chivalrous quality of soul.  I was more than once indebted
to him for very great kindness indeed, under circumstances
when I do not think he supposed it would ever come to my knowledge.

Some of his judgments on the Supreme Bench are characterized
by marvellous beauty and felicity of style.  He maintained
his place on that great tribunal to the satisfaction of his
friends and that admiration of his countrymen, in spite of
failing health and of the fact that the best years of his life
had been given to other studies than that of the law.

It is a good omen for our country that the friends and disciples
of Charles Sumner unite with the people of Mississippi in
their reverence for this noble and manly character.

  I am faithfully yours,
  GEORGE F. HOAR
  Mrs. Lamar.


CHAPTER XVI
SOME SOUTHERN SENATORS

Another most delightful Democrat, with whom it was my pleasure
to form quite intimate relations, was Senator Howell E. Jackson
of Tennessee.  He had been in the Confederate service.  I
think he did not approve Secession, but like most others who
dwelt in the South, thought his allegiance primarily due to
his State.  He was an admirable lawyer, faithful, industrious,
clear-headed and learned in the law.  He had been a Whig before
the war, and, like other Southern Whigs, favored a moderate
protective tariff.  He was anxious to have the South take
her place as a great manufacturing community, for which her
natural resources of iron and coal and her great water power
gave her such advantages.  He was opposed to the Republican
measures of Reconstruction and to placing the negro on a political
equality with the whites.  But he also discountenanced and
condemned any lawless violence or fraud.

Senator Jackson was appointed Judge of the United States Circuit
Court by President Cleveland.  He held that office when a
vacancy on the Bench of the Supreme Court came by the death
of Justice Lamar.  The election of 1892 had resulted in the
choice of President Cleveland.  The Democrats in the Senate
were determined that no Republican who should be nominated
by President Harrison should be confirmed, and did not mean,
if they could help it, that the place should be filled during
the December session.  The only way to get such a confirmation
would be for the Republican majority to put the question ahead
of all other subjects, to go into Executive session every
day as soon as the Senate met, and remain there until the
judgeship was disposed of.  The Democrats must then choose
between defeating the Appropriation Bills, and compelling
an extra session, which the in-coming Administration would
not like.  In order to do that, however, the small Republican
majority must hold together firmly, and be willing to take
the risk of an extra session.

I called on President Harrison and urged upon him the appointment
of Judge Jackson.  I represented that it was desirable that
there should be some Democrats upon the Bench, and that they
should be men who had the confidence of their own part of
the country and of the country at large; that Judge Jackson
was a man of admirable judicial quality; that he had the public
confidence in a high degree, and that it would be impossible
for the Democratic Party to object to his selection, while
it would strengthen the Bench.  So I thought that even if
we could put one of our men there without difficulty, it would
be wise to appoint Jackson.

President Harrison was very unwilling, indeed, to take this
view.  He answered me at first in his rough impulsive way,
and seemed very unwilling even to take the matter into consideration.
But after a considerable discussion he asked me to ascertain
whether the Republicans would be willing, if he sent in a
Republican name, to adopt the course above suggested, and
transact no other business until the result was secured, even
at the risk of defeating the Appropriation Bills and causing
an extra session.  I went back to the Senate and consulted
a good many Senators.  Nearly all of them said they would
not agree to such a struggle; that they thought it very undesirable
indeed; that the effect would be bad.  So it was clear that
nothing could be accomplished in that way.  I went back to
the White House and reported.  I got the authority of the
gentlemen I had consulted to tell the President what they
said.  The result was the appointment of Judge Jackson, to
the great satisfaction of the country.  He was a very industrious
and faithful Judge.  But his useful life came to an end soon
afterward, I suppose largely as the result of overwork in his
important and laborious office.

The Attorney-General said of Mr. Justice Jackson:  "He was
not so much a Senator who had been appointed Judge, as a Judge
who had served for a time as a Senator."

I served with Senator Jackson on the Committee on Claims,
and on the Committee on the Judiciary.  We did not meet often
in social life.  He rarely came to my room.  I do not remember
that I ever visited him in his home.  But we formed a very
cordial and intimate friendship.  I have hardly known a nature
better fitted, morally or intellectually, for great public
trusts, either judicial or political, than his.  In the beginning,
I think the framers of the Constitution intended the Senate
to be a sort of political Supreme Court, in which, as a court
of final resort, the great conflicts which had stirred the
people, and stirred the Representatives of the people in the
lower House, should be decided without heat and without party
feeling.  It was, I have been told, considered a breach of
propriety to allude to party divisions in early debates in
the Senate, as it would be now deemed a breach of propriety
to allude to such divisions in the Supreme Court of the United
States.

Howell E. Jackson had this ancient Senatorial temperament.
He never seemed to me to be thinking of either party or section
or popular opinion, or of the opinion of other men; but only
of public duty.

He never flinched from uttering and maintaining his opinions.
He never caressed or cajoled his political antagonists.  It
is a great tribute to his personal quality that he owed his
election as Senator to his political opponents who, when his
own party was divided, joined a majority of his party to elect
him.  He also, as has been said, owed his appointment as Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court to the impression which his probity
and ability had made on his political opponents.  When sick
with a fatal illness he left a sick bed to take his place
upon the Bench at the call of duty when the Income Tax case
was to be decided.  There is no doubt that the effort hastened
his death.  I do not agree with the conclusion to which he
came on that great occasion.  But the fact that he came to
that conclusion is enough to make me feel sure that there
were strong reasons for it, which might well convince the
clearest understanding, and be reconciled with the most conscientious
desire to do right.

No list of the remarkable Senators of my time would be complete
which did not contain the name of Senator Vest of Missouri.
He was not a very frequent speaker, and never spoke at great
length.  But his oratoric powers are of a very high order.
On some few occasions he has made speeches, always speaking
without notes, and I suppose without previous preparation
so far as expression and style go, which have very deeply
moved the Senate, though made up of men who have been accustomed
to oratory and not easily stirred to emotion.  Mr. Vest is
a brave, sincere, spirited and straightforward man.  He has
a good many of the prejudices of the old Southern Secessionist.
I think those prejudices would long ago have melted away in
the sunshine of our day of returning good feeling and affection,
but for the fact that his chivalrous nature will not permit
him to abandon a cause or an opinion to which he has once
adhered, while it is unpopular.  He is like some old cavalier who
supported the Stuarts, who lived down into the days of the
House of Hanover, but still toasted the King over the water.

Among the most interesting characters with whom it has been
my fortune to serve is Senator John W. Daniel of Virginia.
Our ways of life, and in many particulars our ways of thinking,
are far apart.  But I have been led to form a great respect
for his intellectual qualities, and for his sincere and far-
sighted patriotism.

Mr. Daniel came into the Senate in 1887.  He had been known
as a very eminent lawyer at the Virginia Bar, author of two
excellent law books.  He had served a single term in the National
House of Representatives.  He had won a National reputation
there by a very beautiful and brilliant speech at the completion
of the Washington Monument.  There were two notable orations
at the time, one by Mr. Daniel and one by Robert C. Winthrop.
These gentlemen were selected for the purpose as best representing
two sections of the country.  Mr. Winthrop was, beyond all
question, the fittest man in the North for such a task.  I
have a special admiration for the spirit and eloquence with
which he performed such duties.  To my mind no higher praise
could be given Mr. Daniel's address than that it is worthy
of that company.

I had occasion to look at Mr. Winthrop's address some little
time ago, and, opening the volume containing it in the middle,
I read a page or two with approval and delight thinking it
was Mr. Winthrop's.  But I found, on looking back to the beginning
that it was Senator Daniel's.

Mr. Daniel speaks too rarely in the Senate.  He is always
listened to with great attention.  He speaks only on important
questions, to which he always makes an important contribution.
He has the old-fashioned Virginia method of speech, now nearly
passed away,--grave, deliberate, with stately periods and
sententious phrases, such, I suppose, as were used in the
Convention that adopted the Constitution, or in that which
framed or revised the Constitution of Virginia.

Mr. Daniel was a Confederate soldier.  He is a Virginian
to his heart's core.  He looks with great alarm on the possibility
that the ancient culture and nobility of the South, and the
lofty character of the Virginian as he existed in the time
of Washington and Marshall and Patrick Henry may be degraded
by raising what he thinks an inferior race to social or even
political equality.

But he retains no bitterness or hate or desire for revenge
by reason of the conflict of the Civil War.  He delivered an
address before the President of the United States, the Supreme
Court, the representatives of foreign Governments, the two
Houses of Congress and the Governors of twenty-one States
and Territories, on the 12th of December, 1900, on the occasion
of the celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of establishing
the seat of Government at Washington.  That remarkable address
was full of wise counsel to his countrymen.  Coming from a
representative of Virginia, who had borne arms and been badly
wounded in the Civil War, it had a double value and significance.
Mr. Daniel declared the cheering and hopeful truth that great
races are made of a mixture of races, and that the best and
bravest blood of the world's great races is mixed in the
American.  He appealed eloquently to the circumstances which
should stir the heart of the whole people to a new and loftier
love of country.  He pointed out that the differences in forty-
five great Commonwealths are not greater than ought to be
expected, and indeed not greater than is healthy.  He pointed
out the National strength, the power of our great Republic
stands at the dawn of a new century, with every man under
its flag a freeman and ready to defend it.  He called upon
his countrymen to stand by the Monroe Doctrine, to be ready
to defend it, if need be, in arms.  He then specially appealed
to the people to foster the inventive genius of the country,
and repeated Mr. Jefferson's lofty prophecy that in some future
day--

"The farthest star in the heavens will bear the name of Washington,
and the city he founded be the Capital of the universal Republic."

Isham G. Harris entered the Senate the same day I did.  I
counted him always among my friends, although we had some
sharp passages.  I cannot describe him better than by reprinting
here what I said of him in the Senate after his death.

"Mr. President, the great career of Senator Harris is well
known to his countrymen.  He has been for more than a generation
a striking and conspicuous figure in our public life.  His
colleague, his successor, the men of his own political faith,
the people of the great State which he served and honored
and loved so long, will, each in their own way, portray his
character and record their esteem and affection.

"My tribute must be that of a political opponent.  So far
as I have been able to exert any influence upon the history
of my country during the long conflict now happily past, it
has been in opposition to him, to the party to which he belonged,
to the opinions which he held, I am sure, quite as zealously
and conscientiously as I hold my own.

"We entered the Senate on the same day.  He was a Southerner,
a Democrat and a Confederate.  I was born and bred in New
England, a Republican, and an Abolitionist.  We rarely spoke
in the same debate except on different sides.  Yet I have
no memory of him that is not tender and affectionate, and
there is nothing that I can honestly say of him except words
of respect and of honor.

"He was a typical Southerner.  He had the virtues and the
foibles that belonged to that character in the generation
the last of whom are now passing from the stage of public
action.  He was a man of very simple and very high qualities.
He was a man of absolute frankness in public behavior and
in private dealing.  The thought that was in his heart corresponded
absolutely with the utterance of his lips.  He had nothing
to conceal.  I was about to say he was a man without the gift
of diplomacy; but he was a man with the gift of the highest
diplomacy--directness, simplicity, frankness, courage--qualities
which make always their way to their mark and to their goal
over all circumlocutions and ambiguities.

"He was a man of brief, clear and compact speech.  He would
sum up in a few vigorous and ringing sentences the argument
to which other men would give hours or days.  He had an instinct
for the hinge or turning point of a debate.

"He was a man of absolute integrity and steadfastness.  What
he said, that he would do.  Where you left him, there, so
long as he lived, you would find him when you came back.
He was a man of unflinching courage.  He was not afraid of
any antagonist, whether in the hall of debate or on the field
of battle.

"He was an acknowledged master of parliamentary law, a system
upon which not only the convenient procedure of legislative
bodies largely depends, but which has close relations to Constitutional
Liberty itself.  How often a few simple and clear sentences
of his have dispersed the clouds and brought order out of
confusion in this Chamber.

"His great legislative experience made him invaluable as
a servant of his own State, of the country and as a counsellor
to his younger associates.

"He was a pleasant man in private intercourse.  He had great
sense of humor, a gift of portraiture, a good memory.  So
he brought out of the treasure-house of his varied experience
abundant matter for the delight of young and old.  There is
no man left in the Senate who was better company in hours
of recreation.

"His influence will be felt here for a long time.  His striking
figure will still seem to be hovering about the Senate Chamber,
still sitting, still deliberating, still debating.

"Mr. President, it is delightful to think how, during the
lives of the men who took part in the great conflict which
preceded and followed the Civil War and the greater conflict
of the war itself, the old bitterness and estrangements are
all gone.  Throughout the whole land the word 'countryman'
has at last become a title of endearment.  The memory of the
leaders of that great conflict is preserved as tenderly by
the men who fought with them as by the men who followed them.
Massachusetts joins with Tennessee in laying a wreath on the
tomb of her great soldier, her great Governor, her great Senator.
He was faithful to truth as he saw it; to duty as he understood
it; to Constitutional Liberty as he conceived it.

"If, as some of us think, he erred, his error was that of a
brave man ready to give life and health and hope to the unequal
struggle.

  To his loved cause he offered, free from stain,
  Courage and faith; vain faith and courage vain.

"And, Mr. President, when he returned to his allegiance,
he offered to the service of his reunited country the same
zeal and devotion he had given to the Confederacy.  There
was no reserved or half-hearted loyalty.  We could have counted
on his care for the honor and glory of his country, on his
wise and brave counsel, in this hour of anxiety, with an unquestioning
confidence.  So Massachusetts to-day presses the hand of Tennessee
and mourns with her for her great citizen who has departed."

James B. Eustis of Louisiana was of old Massachusetts stock.
His father was graduated at Harvard, and went to New Orleans,
where he acquired great distinction at the bar, and as Chief
Justice of that State.  Senator Eustis's great-uncle was General
Eustis, an eminent solider of the Revolutionary War, and afterward
Governor of Massachusetts.

Senator Eustis seemed somewhat indolent, and to take very
little interest indeed in what was going on, except on some
few occasions when he bore himself in debate with remarkable
ability.  I think his grave, scholarly style, and his powerful
reasoning, the propriety, dignity and moderation with which
he dealt with important subjects, made him nearly the finest
example of Senatorial behavior I have ever known.  He once
made a speech in Executive session, on a topic which was suggested
suddenly and he could not have anticipated, on the character
and history of French diplomacy, which was marvellous alike
for his profound and accurate knowledge of the subject and
the beauty and grace of his discourse.

I was not intimate with him in Washington.  But I met him
in Paris, while he was Ambassador there under President Cleveland's
Administration.  I have delightful memories of his hospitality,
especially of one breakfast, where there was but one other
guest beside myself, in a beautiful room overlooking the Seine
and the Place de la Concorde.

If I were to select the one man of all others with whom I
have served in the Senate, who seems to me the most perfect
example of the quality and character of the American Senator,
I think it would be Edward C. Walthall of Mississippi.  I
knew him personally very little.  I do not now remember that
I ever saw him, except in the Capitol, or in the Capitol grounds.
I had, I dare say, some pleasant talks with him in the Senate
Chamber, or the cloak room.  But I remember little of them
now.  He rarely took part in debate.  He was a very modest
man.  He left to his associates the duty of advocating his
and their opinions, unless he was absolutely compelled by
some special reason to do it himself.  When he did speak the
Senate listened to a man of great ability, eloquence and dignity.
I once heard him encounter William M. Evarts in debate.  Evarts
made a prepared speech upon a measure which he had in charge.
Walthall's reply must have been unpremeditated and wholly
unexpected to him.  I think Evarts was in the right and Walthall
in the wrong.  But the Mississippian certainly got the better
of the encounter.

It is a remarkable truth, which impresses itself upon me more
and more the longer I live, that men who are perfectly sincere
and patriotic may differ from each other on what seem the
clearest principles of morals and duty, and yet both sides
be conscientious and patriotic.  There is hardly a political
question among the great questions that have excited the American
people for the last half century on which we did not differ
from each other.  The difference was not only as to the interpretation
of the Constitution, and the welfare of the people, but seemed
to go down to the very roots of the moral law.

Yet what I have just said about him is without exaggeration.
I have the right to believe that he entertained the kindliest
and most cordial feeling of regard for me.  Not long before
he died, President McKinley sent for me to come to the White
House.  He wished to talk with me about what he should do
in dealing with Cuba.  He was then holding back the popular
feeling, and resisting a demand which manifested itself among
Republicans in both Houses of Congress for immediate and vigorous
action which would without doubt have brought on the war with
Spain without delay.  He hoped then that the war might be
avoided.  I had to go to the Capitol before complying with
the President's request, as it was shortly before the time
for the session.  As I was leaving the Capitol to go to the
White House, I met Senator Walthall.  He said, "You seem to
be going the wrong way this morning," or something like that.
I said, "Yes, I am going to see the President." Senator Walthall
said;  "I wish you would be good enough to say to him from
me that he may depend upon the support of the Democrats in
the Senate, with only one or two exceptions," whom he named,
"to support him in his efforts to avoid war, and to accomplish
a peaceful solution of the difficulties in regard to Cuba."
I undertook to give the message.  And just as we were parting,
Senator Walthall turned and said to me that he wished to tell
me how highly he regarded me, and how sensible he was, notwithstanding
my very strong Northern feeling, of my appreciation of the
character of the Southern people, and my desire to do them
full justice.  He added that he regarded it one of the most
pleasant things that had happened to him in life that he had
had the pleasure of serving with me.  I do not now remember
that I ever spoke to him again.  He did not come to the Senate
Chamber very often afterward.  I have thought since that this
unwonted expression of deep feeling from a gentleman not
wont to wear his heart upon his sleeve toward his political
opponent, and a man with whom he so often disagreed, was
due to a premonition, of which he was perhaps unconscious,
that the end of his life was near, and to the kindly and
gentle emotions which in a brave and affectionate heart like
his the approach of death is apt to bring.

I could hardly venture to repeat this story, to which there
is no other witness than my own, but for some letters in my
possession from Mr. Walthall's daughter and friends in which
the writers quote even stronger expressions of his regard.

I heard a great deal of him from Senator Lamar, who loved
him as a brother, and almost worshipped him as a leader.  Senator
Lamar told me that he thought Walthall the ablest military
genius of the Confederacy, with the exception of Lee, and,
I think, of Stonewall Jackson.  Indeed, I think he expressed
doubt whether either exception could be made.  He said that
if anything had happened to Lee, Walthall would have succeeded
to the chief command of the Confederate forces.  General Walthall
seemed to me the perfect type of the gentleman in character
and speech.  He was modest, courteous and eager to be of service
to his friends or his country.  The description of the young
Knight given us by Chaucer, the morning star of English poetry,
still abides as the best definition of the gentleman.

  Curteis he was, lowly and serviceable.

His colleague, Mr. Williams of Mississippi, after Walthall's
death, described the Southern gentleman of our time in a sentence
which deserves to stand by the side of Chaucer's:

"The ideal gentleman was always honest; spoke the truth;
faced his enemy; fought him, if necessary; never quarrelled
with him nor talked about him; rode well; shot well; used
chaste and correct English; insulted no man--bore no insult
from any; was studiously kind to his inferiors, especially
to his slaves; cordial and hospitable to his equals; courteous
to his superiors, if he acknowledged any; he scorned a demagogue,
but loved his people."

I do not undertake to draw his portraiture.  I suppose that
whoever does that must describe a great soldier and a great
lawyer, as well as a great Senator.  I only state what I saw
of him in the Senate Chamber.  It was said of him by an eminent
Republican Senator, his associate on the Committee on Military
Affairs, that in dealing with questions which affected the
right of Union soldiers, or growing out of service to the
Union during the Civil War, no stranger could have discovered
on which side of that great war he had ranged himself.


CHAPTER XVII
CUSHMAN KELLOGG DAVIS

I reprint here a paper read before the American Antiquarian
Society shortly after Mr. Davis's death.

Cushman Kellogg Davis was born at Henderson, Jefferson County,
New York, June 16, 1838, and died at St. Paul, Minnesota,
November 27, 1900.  On his mother's side he was descended
from Robert Cushman and Mary Allerton, the last survivor of
the company which came over in the Mayflower.  He was graduated
at the University of Michigan in 1857, and admitted to the
Bar shortly before the breaking out of the Civil War.  He
enlisted at the beginning of the War and served as First Lieutenant
of Company B, Eighth Wisconsin Regiment, until 1864, when
he was compelled by physical infirmity to resign his commission.
He was an excellent soldier.  He sustained an injury to one
of his eyes, which caused him much pain through life, until
a few years before his death he lost the sight of that eye
altogether.

After his return from the war, he began the practice of the
law anew, in which he gained great distinction.  For many
years, and until his death, he was the acknowledged leader
of the Bar of his State.  He was a member of the State Legislature
of Minnesota in 1867, United States District Attorney from
1868 till 1873, and Governor of the State in 1874 and 1875.
He was one of the Regents of the State University of Minnesota
from 1892 to 1898.  In 1887 he was elected United States Senator,
and reelected in 1893 and 1899.  He held the office of Senator
until his death.  He was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations from March, 1897, till his death.  He was one of
the Commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Paris with
Spain.

He was a great lover of books, of which he had a costly collection.
He knew Shakespeare very thoroughly, and was the author of
a book called "The Law of Shakespeare."

He was also a zealous and thorough student of the career
of Napoleon, whose civic and military career he greatly admired.
His mind was a marvellous storehouse of literary gems which
were unknown to most scholars, but rewarded his diligent search
and loving study of his books.

Many good stories are told by his companions of the Bar and
in public life of his apt quotations.  It is said that he
once defended a Judge in an impeachment case.  The point involved
was the power of the court to punish for contempt, and Davis
quoted in support of his position the splendid and well-known
lines of Henry the Fourth, in the famous scene where the Chief
Justice punishes the Prince of Wales for contempt of the judicial
office and authority.  For this anecdote, the writer is indebted
to Senator Lodge.  In the Senate, during the Hawaiian debate,
he quoted this passage from Juvenal:

  Sed quo cecidit sub crimine; quisnam
  Delator? quibus judiciis; quo teste probavit?
  Nil horum; verbosa et grandis epistola venit
  A Capreis.  Bene habet; nul plus interrogo.

He then proceeded:

"My friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Hoar) requests me to translate
that.  He does not need it, of course. But another Senator
(Mr. Washburn) suggests that some of the rest of us do.  I
will not attempt to give a literal translation, but I will
give an accurate paraphrase, which will show its application.
'Into what crime has he fallen? By what informer has he been
accused?  What judge has passed upon him? What witness has
testified against him? Not one or any of these.  A verbose
and turgid message has come over from Capri.  That settles
it.  I will interrogate no further.'"

The most ardent admirers of the then President, Mr. Cleveland,
could not help joining in the laugh.

Mr. Davis took great delight in his descent from the early
settlers of Plymouth, and valued exceedingly the good will
of the people of Massachusetts.  The members of the Society
who were fortunate enough to meet him will not forget their
delight in his pleasant companionship, when he visited Massachusetts
a few years ago to attend our meeting and contribute a paper
to our Proceedings.  He had hoped to repeat the visit.

I prefer, instead of undertaking to complete this imperfect
sketch by a new portraiture of my honored friend, to add what
I said in the Senate, when the loss of Mr. Davis was still
recent:--

"Mr. President:  There is no Senator who would not be glad
to lay a wreath of honor and affection on the monument of
Cushman K. Davis.  That, however, is more especially the right
of his colleague and his successor and the members of the
great Committee where he won so much of his fame.  I ought
to say but a few words.

"The Senate, as its name implies, has been from the beginning,
with few exceptions, an assembly of old men.  In the course
of nature many of its members die in office.  That has been
true of thirty-eight Senators since I came to the Capitol.
Others, a yet larger number, die soon after they leave office.
Of the men with whom I have served in this Chamber fifty-
eight more are now dead, making in all ninety-six, enough
and to spare to organize another Senate elsewhere.  To that
number has been added every Vice-President but two.  Upon
those who have died in office eulogies have been pronounced
in this Chamber and in the House.  The speakers have obeyed
the rule demanded by the decencies of funeral occasions--nil
de mortuis nisi bonum--if not the command born of a tenderer
pity for human frailty--jam parce sepulto.  But in general,
with scarcely and exception, the portraitures have been true
and faithful.  They prove that the people of the American
States, speaking through their legislative assemblies, are
not likely to select men to represent them in this august
assembly who are lacking in high qualities either of intellect
or of character.  However that may be, it is surely true of
Mr. Davis that whatever has been or will be said of him to-
day, or was said of him when the news of his death first shocked
the country, is just what would have been said when he was
alive by any man who knew him.  I have served with him here
nearly fourteen years.  I have agreed with him and I have
differed from him in regard to matters of great pith and moment
which deeply stirred the feelings of the people, as they did
mine, and doubtless did his own.  I never heard any man speak
of him but with respect and kindness.

"Of course, Mr. President, in this great century which is
just over, when our Republic--this infant Hercules--has been
growing from its cradle to its still youthful manhood, the
greatest place for a live man has been that of a soldier
in time of war and that of a statesman in time of peace.
Cushman K. Davis was both.  He did a man's full duty in both.
No man values more than I do the function of the man of letters.
No man reveres more than I do the man of genius who in a loving
and reverent way writes the history of a great people, or
the poet from whose lyre comes the inspiration which induces
heroic action in war and peace.  But I do not admit that the
title of the historian or that of the poet to the gratitude
and affection of mankind is greater than that of the soldier
who saves nations, or that of the statesman who creates or
preserves them, or who makes them great.  I have no patience
when I read that famous speech of Gladstone, he and Tennyson
being together on a journey, when he modestly puts Mr. Tennyson's
title to the gratitude of mankind far above his own.  Gladstone,
then Prime Minister, declared that Tennyson would be remembered
long after he was forgotten.  That may be true.  But whether
a man be remembered or whether he be forgotten; whether his
work be appreciated or no; whether his work be known or unknown
at the time it is accomplished, is not the test of its greatness
or its value to mankind.  The man who keeps this moral being,
or helps to keep this moral being we call a State in the paths
of justice and righteousness and happiness, the direct effect
of whose action is felt in the comfort and happiness and moral
life of millions upon millions of human lives, who opens and
constructs great highways of commerce, who makes schools and
universities not only possible but plenty, who brings to pass
great policies that allure men from misery, and poverty, and
oppression, and serfdom in one world, to free, contented,
happy, prosperous homes in another, is a great benefactor
to mankind, whether his work be accomplished with sounding
of trumpets, or stamping of feet, or clapping of hands, or
the roar and tumult of popular applause, or whether it be
done in the silence of some committee room, and no man know
it but by its results.

"I am not ready to admit that even Shakespeare worked on a
higher plane, or was a greater power on earth, than King Alfred
or George Washington, even if it be that he will survive them
both in the memory of man.  The name of every man but one
who fought with Leonidas at Thermopylae is forgotten.  But
is AEschylus greater than Leonidas, or Miltiades, or Themistocles?
The literature of Athens preserves to immortality the fame
of its great authors.  But it was Solon, and Pericles, and
Miltiades that created and saved and made great the city,
without which the poets could not have existed.  Mr. Tennyson
himself came nearer the truth than his friend, Mr. Gladstone,
when he said:

  He
  That, through the channels of the state,
  Conveys the people's wish, is great;
  His name is pure; his fame is free.

"There have been soldiers whose courage saved the day in great
decisive battles when the fate of nations hung in the scale,
yet whose most enduring monument was the column of smoke which
rose when their death shot was fired.  There have been statesmen
whose silent influence has decided the issue when the country
was at the parting of the ways, of whose service history takes
no heed.  The great Ohio Territory, now six imperial States,
was twice saved to freedom by the almost unnoticed action
of a single man.  With all respect for the man of letters,
we are not yet quite ready to admit that the trumpeter is
better than the soldier, or the painter greater than the lion.

"There is no need of many words to sum up the life and character
of Cushman Davis.  His life was in the daylight.  Minnesota
knew him.  His country knew him and loved him.  He was a good
soldier in his youth, and a great Senator in his maturer manhood.
What can be said more, or what can be said better, to sum
up the life of an American citizen? He offered his life for
his country when life was all before him.  His State and his
country rewarded him with their highest honor.  The great
orator and philosopher of Rome declared in his youth, and
repeated in his age, that death could not come prematurely
to a man who had been Consul.  This man surely might be accounted
ready to die.  He had discharged honorably life's highest
duty, and his cup of honor and of glory was full.

"We are thinking to-day of something more than a public sorrow.
We are mourning the loss of a close and delightful companionship,
a companionship which lightened public care and gave infinite
pleasure to private intercourse.  If he had never held office,
if his name had never been heard even beyond the boundaries
of a single municipality, he would have been almost anywhere
a favorite and foremost citizen.  He was, in the first place,
always a gentleman; and a true gentleman always gives tone
to any company in which he is found, whether it be among the
rulers of States or the humblest gathering of friendly neighbors.
Lord Erskine said on a great occasion:

"'It is impossible to define in terms the proper feelings
of a gentleman; but their existence has supported this country
for many ages, and she might perish if they were lost,'

"Certainly our friend had this quality.  He was everywhere
a gentleman.  He met every occasion in life with a simple
and quiet courtesy.  There was not much of deference in it.
There was no yielding or supplication or timidity in it.  I
do not think he ever asked favors, though no man was more
willing to grant them.  But there is something more than this
in the temper of which I am speaking.  The man who possesses
it gives unconsciously to himself or his associates tone to
every circle, as I just said, in which he is found.  So, wherever
he was, his manner or behavior prevailed, whatever might have
happened to the same men if they had been left alone.

"Senator Davis was a man who kept well his own counsel.  He
was a man to whom it was safe for other men to trust their
counsel.  His conversation, to which it was always a delight
to listen, had no gossip in it.  Still less had it ever anything
of ill nature or sarcasm.  He liked to share with a friend
the pleasure he took in finding some flower or gem of literature
which, for long ages till he found it in some out-of-the-
way nook, had--

  Blushed unseen,
  And wasted its sweetness on the desert air.

"He had what Jeremy Taylor calls, 'the great endearment of
prudent and temperate speech.'

"His conversation was sparkling and witty and full of variety,
but no spark from him was ever a cinder in the eye of his
friend.

"He had a learning rare among public men, and, for its variety,
rare, I think, among scholars.  He would bring out bits of
history, full of interest and instruction, from the most obscure
sources, in common conversation.  He was an excellent Latin
scholar.  He had read and mastered Tacitus, and a man who
has mastered Tacitus has had the best gymnastic training of
the intellect, both in vigor and style, which the resources
of all literature can supply.

"One secret of his great popularity with his companions here--
a popularity I think unexcelled, indeed, I incline to think
unequalled by that of any other man with whom I have served--
is that to which the late Justin Morrill owed so much.  He
never debated.  He rarely answered other men's arguments,
never with warmth or heat.  But he was exceedingly tenacious
of his own opinion.  He was, in the things he stood for, as
unyielding as flint and true as steel.  But his flint or steel
never struck out a spark by collision with any other.  He
spoke very rarely in debate in general; only when his official
place on his committee, or something which concerned his own
constituents especially, made speaking absolutely imperative.
Then he gave his opinion as a judge gives it, or as a delegate
to some great international council might be supposed to give
it; responsible for it himself, but undertaking no responsibility
for other men's opinion or conduct; never assuming that it
was his duty or within his power to convert, or change, or
instruct them, still less to chastise them.  Whether that
way be the best way for usefulness in a deliberative body,
especially in a legislative body of a great popular government,
I will not undertake now to say.  Certainly it is not the
common way here or elsewhere.  It is very rare indeed, that
any man possessing the great literary and oratorical power
of Mr. Davis, especially a man to whom nobody ever thought
of imputing timidity or undue desire to enjoy public favor,
or want of absolute confidence in his own opinions, will be
found to refrain from employing these qualities to persuade
or convince other men.

"He had a rare and exquisite gift which, if he had been a
man of letters and not a man engaged in a strenuous public
life, would have brought him great fame.  Once in a while
he said something in private, and more rarely, though once
or twice, in a public speech, which reminded you of the delicate
touch of Hawthorne.  His likening President Cleveland and
Mr. Blount, looking upon the late royalty of the Sandwich
Island with so much seriousness, to Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza taking in great earnest the spectacle of a theatrical
representation at a country fair and eager to rescue the distressed
damsel, was one of the most exquisite felicities of the literature
of the Senate.

"He had great pride in his ancestry, and was a great lover
of the history of New England and Plymouth, from which they
came, though he never gave himself airs on account of it.
He was a descendant of Robert Cushman, the preacher of the
Pilgrims, whose service was in a thousand ways of such value
to the little colony at Plymouth.  Yet it had never happened
to him to visit the scenes with which the feet of his ancestors
had been so familiar, until a few years ago he did me the
honor to be my guest in Massachusetts, and spent a few days
in visiting her historic places.  He gazed upon Boston and
Plymouth and Concord reverently as ever Moslem gazed upon
Mecca or the feet of palmer stood by the holy sepulchre.  That
week to him was crowded with a delight with which few other
hours in his life could compare.  I had hoped that it might
be my fortune and his that he might visit Massachusetts again,
that her people might gather in their cities to do him honor,
and might learn to know him better, and might listen to the
sincere eloquence of his voice.  But it was ordered otherwise.

"There are other things his country had hoped for him.  She
had hoped a longer and higher service, perhaps the highest
service of all.  But the fatal and inexorable shaft has stricken
him down in the full vigor of a yet strenuous manhood.  The
great transactions in which he had borne so large a part still
remain incomplete and their event is still uncertain.

"There is a painting which a great Italian master left unfinished.
The work was taken up and completed by a disciple.  The finished
picture bears this inscription:  'What Titian left unfinished,
Palma reverently completed, and dedicated to God.' So may
our beloved Republic find always, when one servant leaves
his work unfinished, another who will take it up and dedicate
it to the country and to God."


CHAPTER XVIII
GEORGE BANCROFT

One of the most delightful friendships of my life was with
George Bancroft, the famous historian.  I never knew him
until I went to Washington in 1877.  But we established at
once, as a matter of course, the relation of an intimate friendship.
He was born in Worcester, to which he was much attached, though
he had spent little of his life there after he had left college.
Mrs. Bancroft had known my oldest brother and sister intimately,
when she lived in Boston.  I had learned from Mr. Emerson,
who rarely gave his praise lightly, as well as from my own
study, to value Mr. Bancroft very highly as a historian,
which he soon found out.

I almost always found him waiting for me on the doorstep
of my dwelling when I came from church the first Sunday after
I reached Washington, at the beginning of a session.  I have
enjoyed many hours at his table, rendered delightful by the
conversation of the eminent guests whom he gathered there,
but by no conversation more delightful than his own.

Mr. Bancroft had two enthusiasms which made him a great historian--
an enthusiasm for truth which spared no labor and left no
stores of information unsearched, and an enthusiastic love
of country.  He believed that the great emotions and motives
which move a free people are the noble, not the mean motives.
He has written and interpreted the history of the United States
in that faith.  I believe his work will endure so long as
the love of liberty shall endure.  I gave my estimate of him
at a meeting of the American Antiquarian Society, of which
we were both chosen Vice-Presidents, in October, 1880, just
after the completion of his eightieth year and of his "History
of the United States," as follows:

"It is not usual to discuss the report of the committee to
propose a list of officers.  But one of the names reported
gives special interest to the occasion.  On the third of this
month of October, our honored associate Mr. Bancroft completed
his eightieth year.  At the same time he completed his 'History
of the United States' to the formation of the Federal Constitution.

"This Society, while it is national and continental in the
scope of its investigations, strikes down its roots into the
soil of this locality, where its founder dwelt, and where its
collections are kept.

"For both these reasons we cherish our relations to Mr. Bancroft.
He was born within a few rods of this spot.  He is descended
by the mother's side from an old Worcester County family who
were conspicuous in the administration of its public affairs
long before the Revolution.  His father was one of the six
persons who petitioned for the act of incorporation of this
Society, and one of its first members.  His brother by marriage,
Governor Davis, was your predecessor in the President' chair.

"These reasons would be enough to induce us to value our relation.
But he has filled a highly honorable and conspicuous place
in public life.  He is, I believe, the senior person living
who has been a member of the Cabinet.  He is the senior among
living persons who have filled important diplomatic stations.
He has represented the United States at Berlin and at St. James.

"His history is, and doubtless will be, the great standard
authority upon the important period which it covers.  He
is the only person living whose judgment would change the
place in public estimation held by any of the great statesmen
of the Revolutionary times.  He has had the rare good fortune
among men of letters, to have proposed to himself a great
task, requiring a lifetime for its accomplishment, the successful
achievement of which is enough to make any life illustrious,
and to have lived to complete it with powers of body and mind
undiminished.  It is his fate to know, while alive, the estimate
in which he will be held by posterity.  In his case, that
knowledge can be only a source of pleasure and satisfaction.

"In this Mr. Bancroft resembles Gibbon.  We all remember
Gibbon's delightful account of the completion of his great
work.

"In another thing, alone among great historians, Mr. Bancroft
resembles Gibbon.  As an artist he has accomplished that most
difficult task of composing a history made up of many separate
threads, which must keep on side by side, yet all be subordinate
to one main and predominant stream.  But his narrative never
loses its constant and fascinating interest.  No other historian,
I believe, except Gibbon, has attempted this without becoming
insufferably dull.

"Mr. Bancroft tells the story of thirteen States, separate,
yet blending into one National life.  It is one of the most
wonderful things in our history, that the separate States
having so much in common, have preserved so completely, even
to the present time, their original and individual characteristics.
Rhode Island, held in the hollow of the hand of Massachusetts;
Connecticut, so placed that one would think it would become
a province of New York; Delaware, whose chief city is but
twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, yet preserve their distinctive
characteristics as if they were states of the continent of
Europe, whose people speak a different language.  This shows
how perfectly state rights and state freedom are preserved
in spite of our National union, how little the power at the
centre interferes with the important things that affect the
character of a people.  Why is it that little Delaware remains
Delaware in spite of Pennsylvania, and little Rhode Island
remains Rhode Island notwithstanding her neighbor Massachusetts?

  What makes the meadow flower its bloom unfold?
  Because the lovely little flower is free
  Down to its roots, and in that freedom bold.
  And so the grandeur of the forest tree
  Comes, not from casting in a formal mould,
  But from its own divine vitality.

"But Mr. Bancroft is more fortunate than Gibbon.  Gibbon wrote
of decline, of decay, of dissolution, and death; of the days,
to use his own words, 'when giants were becoming pigmies.'
Bancroft tells the story of birth, and growth, and youth,
and life.  His name is to be inseparably associated with a
great and interesting period in the world's history; with
what in the proud imagination of his countrymen must ever
be the greatest and most interesting of all periods, when
pigmy villages were becoming giant States.  I am sure that
it is a delight to this assembly of distinguished scholars,
assembled near his birthplace, to send him, at the completion
of his great work, and of his eightieth year, their cordial
salutation."

I went to see Mr. Bancroft on the evening of the last Sunday
in December, 1890.  He was sitting in his library up stairs.
He received me in his usual emphatic manner, taking both my
hands and saying, "My dear friend, how glad I am to see you!"
He was alone.  He evidently knew me when I went in, and inquired
about Worcester, as he commonly did, and expressed his amazement
at its remarkable growth.

I stayed with him about twenty or thirty minutes.  The topics
of our conversation were, I believe, suggested by me, and
the whole conversation was one which gave evidence of full
understanding on his part of what we were talking about.  It
was not merely an old man's memory of the past, but the fresh
and vigorous thought on new topics which were suggested to
him in the course of the conversation.  I think he exhibited
a quickness and vigor of thought and intelligence and spoke
with a beauty of diction that no man I know could have surpassed.

I asked him if he could account for the interest in historical
study among the older Harvard graduates, and mentioned the
fact that the principal historians of this country, including
himself, Prescott, Sparks, Motley, Palfrey and Parkman, were
all Harvard men and were eminent at a time when there were
scarcely any other eminent historical scholars in America.
He did not directly answer this question, but said that his
own inclination toward history, he thought, was due very much
to the influence of his father.  He said his father would
have been a very eminent historian, if he had had material
at his command, and that he had a remarkably judicious mind.

He spoke of some clergymen, especially the Unitarian clergymen,
so many of whom belonged to Harvard at his time.  He said
he had little sympathy for the Unitarianism of his day, "for
its theology, no; for its spirituality, yes."

He asked me about the Election Bill pending in the Senate.
I spoke of the great storm of abuse I had had to encounter
for advocating it, but said I thought on the whole the feeling
between the different sections of the country and different
political parties was better than it ever had been before
in this country, and much better than that which now existed
between different political parties in foreign countries.
He cordially agreed to this, and made some observations which
I do not now recall, but which were interesting and bright.

After we had talked together for some time, he said:  "My
memory is very poor:  I cannot remember your first name."
I said:  "It is the same as yours, Mr. Bancroft--George."
He paused a moment with an amused and puzzled look, and said:
"What is your last name?"  He had evidently known me very
well during most of the preceding part of the interview.

I told his son about this conversation the day after Mr.
Bancroft's death.  He said that the presence of a visitor
acted in this way as a stimulant, but that he had not lately
shown much intelligence in the family, seeming lost and feeble.


CHAPTER XIX
VISITS TO ENGLAND
[1860, 1868, 1871]

I was born within a mile of the spot where the War of the
Revolution began.  My ancestors and other kindred on both
sides took an active and prominent part in the struggle with
England.  I am descended from the early Puritans of Massachusetts
in every line of descent.  So it will readily be believed
that all my feeling and sympathy have been on the side of
my country in the great controversy with England, which began
with the exile of the Pilgrims in 1620 and continued, with
little interruption, until our last great quarrel with her,
which ended with the arbitration at Geneva.  Yet I am a passionate
lover of England.  Before I ever went abroad, I longed to
visit the places famous in her history, as a child longs to
go home to his birthplace.

I have visited Europe six times.  On each occasion I devoted
the largest part of my time to Great Britain.  The desire
to see England again has increased with every visit.  Certainly
there is nothing like England, and there never has been anything
like England in the world.  Her wonderful history, her wonderful
literature, the beauty of her architecture, the historic and
poetic associations which cluster about every street and river
and mountain and valley, her vigorous life, the sweetness
and beauty of her women, the superb manhood of her men, her
navy, her gracious hospitality, her courage and her lofty
pride--although some single race of people may have excelled
here in a single particular--make up a combination never equalled
in the world.  I am, of course, not to be understood to bring
my own country into the comparison.

The first time I went abroad was in 1860.  I had for a companion
my friend from infancy, George M. Brooks, of Concord.  We
travelled like a couple of Bohemians, never riding where we
could walk; lunching or dining where he happened to find ourselves
when we were hungry; taking second or third class carriages
on the railroads, and getting into conversation with anybody
who would talk to us.  I doubt whether I shall ever have in
this world, or in another, a sensation more delicious than
that I had when the old steamer, "America," steamed up the
Channel toward the mouth of the Mersey, with the green shores
of Ireland on one side and England on the other.  I am afraid
if I were to relate the story of that journey, it would be
only to please myself by reviving its recollections, and not
for the delight of my readers, so many of whom have a similar
memory of their own.

We heard John Bright and Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston
in a great debate in the House of Commons on the paper duties,
and saw Lord Brougham walking backward and forward on the
terrace by Brougham Castle, near Penrith.  We saw Edinburgh
and the Trosachs, and Abbotsford and Stirling.  I had been
a loving reader of Scott from my childhood, and was almost
as much at home in Scotland as if I had been born in the Canongate
or the Saltmarket.  I had had a special fancy for reading
and studying topographical books on London, and found myself,
pretty soon, so much at home there that I think I could have
made a very decent living as a guide.

We spent a month in Switzerland.  I made the journey over
the mountain passes on foot, keeping up with my companion,
who had a horse or a mule.  I could walk twenty-five or thirty
miles a day without great fatigue.

Augustus Flagg of the famous book-selling firm of Little
& Brown, with whom I had dealt a great deal, was on the
ship when I went out.  He went abroad to purchase books for
his house.  In those days the book-stalls in London were mines
of rare treasures.  They had not been much examined by collectors
or dealers, and the men who kept them did not know the value
of books that were almost priceless in the eyes of virtuosos.
Mr. Flagg and I spent together a good many days in ransacking
the old book-stalls and shops, some of them in out-of-the-
way places in the old city, even below the Tower.  I could
not afford to buy a great many books then.  But I knew something
about them, and the experience was like having in my hands
the costliest rubies or diamonds.

The journey each way, which now takes six or seven days, then
took fourteen.  The Cunard steamer, whose successor, with
its bilge keel and its vastly greater size, is as comfortable,
even in very rough weather, as the first class city hotel,
was as disagreeable in rough weather, to a man unaccustomed
to the ocean, as a fishing smack.  But the passengers got
well acquainted with one another.  There was agreeable society
on board, and the days passed pleasantly.

Among the passengers was Joseph Coolidge of Boston, father
of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, late Minister to France.  Mr.
Coolidge had been a great traveller in his day; had had some
commercial occupations in the East, and was very pleasant
company.  His wife was a granddaughter of Mr. Jefferson.
He told me that two of Mr. Jefferson's daughters--or granddaughters,
I am not now absolutely sure which--had kept school and earned
money, which they had applied to the payment of Mr. Jefferson's
debts.  The story was highly creditable to these Virginia
ladies, who might well have thought that their illustrious
ancestor's service might excuse his family from making sacrifices
in discharge of such an obligation, if his countrymen at large
did not feel its force.

I went over pretty much the same ground in 1868 with three
ladies.  I made both these journeys as an ordinary sightseer.
I took few letters of introduction.  I did not deliver those,
except in one or two cases to American gentlemen living abroad.

One experience in this latter journey, however, it may be
worth while to tell.  I had a very pleasant friendship with
Henry T. Parker, a Boston man and a graduate of Harvard,
who had a comfortable property and had married an English
lady and had settled in London.  He found an occupation,
congenial to his own taste, in buying books, as agent of some
of the great libraries in the United States, including the
Harvard Library and the Boston City Library.  He was an intimate
friend of Mr. Cox, the accomplished Librarian of the Bodleian,
to whom he gave us letters.

Mr. Cox treated us with special courtesy and showed us many
treasures of the Library, especially some wonderful illuminated
manuscripts.  One of them, the Duc de Monpensier, who had
been at Oxford shortly before and who was an authority in
such matters, felt confident was illustrated by Raphael.  Mr.
Cox had discovered, just before I was there, in some crypt
where it had lain unknown for two hundred years, a touching
letter from Clarendon, who was Chancellor of the University,
which I think will move the heart of every man who loves the
college where he was educated.  The letter was written by
Lord Clarendon just after he had landed at Calais, a hopeless
exile, on his last flight from the country to which he was
never again to return.  The great orator, statesman, historian,
lawyer, judge,--counsellor, companion and ancestor of monarchs,--
flying for his life, in his old age, into a foreign land,
from the court of which, for a generation, he had been the
ornament and head, soon as his feet touch a place of safety,
thinks of his University.  See the noble heart through the
simple and stately rhetoric:

GOOD MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR;

Having found it necessary to transport myselfe out of England,
and not knowing when it shall please God that I shall returne
againe, it becomes me to take care that the University may
not be without the service of a person better able to be of
use to them than I am like to be, and I doe therefore hereby
surrender the office of chancellor into the hand of said University,
to the end that they may make choyce of some other person
better qualified to assist and protect them, than I am.  I
am sure he can never be more affectionate to it.  I desire
you as the last suite I am likely to make to you, to believe
that I doe not fly my country for guilt, and how passionately
soever I am pursued, that I have not done anything to make
the University ashamed of me, or to repent the good opinion
they had once of me, and though I must have no mention in
your publique devotions, (which I have always exceedingly
valued,) I hope I shall always be remembered in your private
prayers, as

  Good Mr. Vice-Chancellor,
  Your affectionate servant,
  CLARENDON.
  CALAIS, this 7-17 Dec., 1667.

In 1871 I went abroad alone.  I spent the whole time in England,
except for a brief visit to Scotland.  My purpose in going
away was to get a vacation.  I meant to do some studying in
the British Museum, especially to make a thorough study of
the conditions and economic principles affecting the strife
between capital and labor, which then threatened both this
country and England.  I got a collection of the authorities
and the references.  But I did not find that I got a great
deal of light from anything that had been written or said
so far.  I made a few very agreeable acquaintances.  I had
a letter to Thomas Hughes, and visited at his house.  I found
George W. Smalley, who had been a pupil in my office, established
in a delightful house near London.  He seemed to be on terms
of intimacy with the famous Englishmen who were the leaders
of both political parties, and with many eminent men of letters.
I spent a delightful evening with Mr. Hughes at a club which
I think was called the European Club, or something like that,
where the members smoked clay pipes and drank beer.  There
seemed to be no other provision for the refreshment of the
body or soul.  But the conversation was very pleasant.  The
members sat together about a table, and the conversation was
quite general and very bright.  The talk turned, during the
evening, on Scotsmen.  The Englishmen present seemed to have
something left of the old prejudice about Scotland with which
Dr. Johnson was possessed.  They imputed to the modern Scotsmen
the same thrifty habit and capacity for looking after himself
that prevailed a hundred years before, when Dr. Johnson and
John Wilkes, who quarrelled about everything else, became
reconciled when they united in abuse of their Northern neighbors.
Sir Frederick Pollock cited a marginal note from the report
of some old criminal case, to the following effect: "Possession
of property in Scotland evidence of stealing in England."

I was guilty of one piece of stupid folly.  Mr. Hughes kindly
proposed to take me to see Carlyle.  This was not very long
after our war, when our people were full of indignation at
Carlyle's bitter and contemptuous speech about us, especially
his "American Iliad in a Nutshell."  I was a little doubtful
about what sort of a reception I should get, and declined
the invitation.  I have bitterly regretted this ever since.
My brother visited Carlyle about 1846, bearing with him a
letter from Emerson.  Carlyle was very civil to him, and liked
him very much, as appears by a letter from him to Mr. Emerson.

During the visit I heard a great debate between Gladstone
and Disraeli.  A brief account of it will be found in the
chapter on "Some Famous Orators I have Heard."

A friend in Worcester gave me a letter to Mr. Wornum, the
Director of the National Gallery, with whom he had been a
fellow-pupil at Kensington.  Mr. Wornum received me with great
cordiality.  He asked me to come to the Gallery the next
day, when it would be closed to the public.  He said he would
be glad to show it to me then, when we would be free of interruption.
He was the author of what I understand to be an excellent
history of painting, and was regarded as the most competent
judge in Europe of the value and merit of paintings.  I suppose
Parliament would at any time, on his sole recommendation,
have given ten or twenty or perhaps fifty thousand guineas
for a masterpiece.  I shall never forget the delight of that
day.  He told me the history of the great paintings in the
National Gallery, some of which had belonged to monarchs,
popes, noblemen or famous merchants of almost all the countries
in Europe.  He said that while there were many larger galleries,
the National Gallery was the best in the world as affording
the best and most characteristic examples of every school
of painting.  I cannot remember much that was said in that
long day, interrupted only by a pleasant lunch together.  But
it was a day full of romance.  It was as if I had had in my
hand the crown jewels of every potentate in the world, and
somebody had told me the history of each gem.  For this picture
Francis the First, or Charles V., or Henry VIII. had been
bidders.  This had belonged to Lorenzo de Medici, or Pope
Leo X.  This had come from the famous collection of Charles
I., scattered through Europe on his death; and this had belonged
to some nobleman whose name was greater than that of monarchs.

Mr. Wornum spoke of his treasures with an enthusiasm which
no worshipper at the throne of any Saint or Divinity could
surpass.  That day was among the few chiefest delights of
my life.


CHAPTER XX
VISITS TO ENGLAND
1892

My next visit to England was in the spring of 1892.  The
winter before, I had a severe attack of iritis, which left my
eyes in a very demoralized condition.  I did not find much
relief in this country, not, I suppose, because of want of
skill in our ophthalmic surgeons, but because of the impossibility
of getting any rest anywhere where I could be reached by telephone
or telegraph.  To a person who can bear an ordinary voyage
there is no retreat like an ocean steamer.  Telephone, telegraph,
daily paper; call or visit of friend, client, or constituent;
daily mail--sometimes itself, to a busy public man, enough
for a hard day's work--all these are forgotten.  You spend
your ten days in an infinite quiet like that of Heaven.  You
sit in your deck-chair with the soft sea breeze on your forehead,
as the mighty ocean cradle rocks you, and see the lace of
an exquisite beauty that no Tyrian weaver ever devised, breaking
over the blue or purple waves, with their tints that no Tyrian
dye ever matched.  Ah! Marconi, Marconi, could not you let
us alone, and leave the tired brain of humanity one spot
where this "hodge-podge of business and trouble and care"
could not follow us and find us out?

On this journey I visited England, France and Switzerland.
It so happened that I had had a good deal to do with the appointment
of our Ministers to these three countries.  Colonel John D.
Washburn, a very accomplished and delightful gentleman, now
dead, had been a pupil of mine as a law student.  He lived
in Worcester and had been a very eminent member of the Massachusetts
Legislature.  I think he would have been Governor of the State
and had a very brilliant career but for a delicacy of organization
which made him break down in health when under any severe
strain of responsibility, especially such as involved antagonism
and conflict.  He was of a very friendly, gentle disposition,
and disliked to be attacked or to attack other men.  I told
Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State when Mr. Harrison's Administration
came in, that I had but one favor to ask of it; that was,
that he should send Washburn as Minister to Switzerland.  I
had two or three very pleasant days with him at Berne.  But
he had sent his family away and was preparing to resign his
place.  So I had not much opportunity of seeing Switzerland
under his guidance.

Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, then Minister to France, had also
been appointed on my very earnest recommendation.  He was
a great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, a very able business
man, highly esteemed throughout the country.  His guidance
was implicitly followed by many people in important business
transactions.  He had had the charge of the financial affairs
of some large manufacturing corporations, and was understood
to have extricated the Northern Pacific Railroad out of some
serious difficulties, into which it fell again after he left
its control.  He had been a Democrat.  But he had seen the
importance of the protective policy to American interests,
as would naturally be expected of a descendant of that high
protectionist, Thomas Jefferson.  He had no sympathies with
any measures that would debase or unsettle the currency, and
set his face and gave his powerful influence against all forms
of fiat or irredeemable paper money, and the kindred folly
of the free coinage of silver by this country alone, without
the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world.

Soon after Mr. Harrison's Administration began, I received
a message about nine o'clock one evening, asking me to go
to the White House at once.  I obeyed the summons.  The President
said he desired, if I had no objection, to send in the name
of Dr. Loring of Massachusetts, as Minister to Portugal.  I
told him that I had no objection whatever; that Dr.  Loring
was an able man of agreeable manners, and had performed admirably
every public duty he had undertaken.  I said that the Doctor
had felt a little disturbed, I thought, that I had refused
to call a meeting of the Massachusetts delegation to press
his name upon the President for a Cabinet office, to which
President Harrison replied, "I put my foot on that pretty
quick."  Dr. Loring had been a great friend and supporter
of Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State.  I conjectured, although
the President did not say so, that the choice of Dr. Loring
had been made at the Secretary's instance.

The President then said that he wanted to talk with me about
the English Mission, which had troubled him a good deal.  He
mentioned the names of several prominent men in different
parts of the country, including Robert Lincoln and Mr. Jewett,
an eminent lawyer in Chicago, whose name was earnestly pressed
upon him by the Senators from Illinois.  I said that I had
known Mr. Lincoln pretty well when he was in President Garfield's
and Mr. Arthur's Cabinet, and thought very highly of him.
He was a very modest man indeed, never pressing any claim
to public consideration or office, either on his own account
or as his father's son, and never seeking responsibility.
But I had noticed that when he had anything to say or anything
to do, he always said or did the wisest and best thing to be
said or done under the circumstances.  I do not know how
much influence what I said had, but it seemed to gratify
President Harrison exceedingly, and he stated that he was
strongly inclined to appoint Mr. Lincoln.

I was told the next morning he sent for the two Illinois
Senators, and told them that he had made up his mind to nominate
Mr. Lincoln, and that one of them, Senator Farwell, was exceedingly
offended.  He was also much disturbed by President Harrison's
attitude in regard to the appointment of the postmaster at
Chicago.  The result was that when President Harrison's name
came up for another nomination, Mr. Farwell was opposed to
him, and when he was with difficulty nominated for reelection,
the State of Illinois voted for Cleveland.  Senator Cullom,
though not liking very well to have his opinion disregarded,
was more discreet.  He did not see fit to make the exercise
of the President's rightful and Constitutional prerogative
a reason for breaking off his friendly relations with the
Administration, with whose principles he was in full accord.
This is an instance of President Harrison's want of tact.
I have little doubt that if, before finally announcing his
intention, he had sent for the Illinois Senators--as Abraham
Lincoln would have done, or as President McKinley would have
done--gone over the whole ground with them, and told them
his reasons and desire, they would have cheerfully acquiesced
in the conclusion to which he had come, and their friendship
with him would have been strengthened and not weakened.

After saying what was to be said about the English Mission,
I said to President Harrison:  "We have a gentleman in Massachusetts,
whom I think it is very desirable indeed to place in some
important public service; that is Thomas Jefferson Coolidge.
He is a great-grandson of Mr. Jefferson." I said to the President
the substance of what I have just stated above, about Mr.
Coolidge.  I added that while Mr. Coolidge would be an excellent
person for the English Mission, which his uncle Mr. Stevenson
had held, yet, of course, I did not think, under the circumstances,
that it would be proper to make another important diplomatic
appointment from Massachusetts just then; but I hoped that
an opportunity might come later.  President Harrison seemed
to be much impressed with the suggestion, and said that he
would bear it in mind.

When I went back to my room, it occurred to me that I had better
speak to Mr. Blaine about it.  If he first heard of it from
the President he might think that I was trying to deal with
the President about matters in his Department over his head
and without consulting him.  So I went round to the State
Department early the next morning, and told Mr. Blaine what
I had said to the President.  I found that he knew all about
Mr. Coolidge.  I inadvertently spoke of him as grandson of
Mr. Jefferson.  Blaine immediately corrected me by saying,
"great-grandson."  He seemed to like the plan very well.

Nothing came of the matter at that time.  But later, when
the Pan-American Commission was appointed, the President,
of his own motion, appointed Mr. Coolidge as one of the American
representatives.  Later, I happened to be one day at the White
House, and President Harrison told me that Whitelaw Reid had
announced his intention of resigning the French Mission before
long.  I reminded him of our conversation about Mr. Coolidge,
and urged his name very strongly on him.  He hesitated a good
deal.  I got the approval of every New England Senator but
one to the proposal.  The President still hesitated and seemed
inclined to appoint Mr. Andrew D. White.  But he finally
yielded to the urgency for Mr. Coolidge.  I should have been
sorry if anything I had done had resulted in depriving the
country of the service of Andrew D. White.  I suppose him
to be one of the very best representatives we ever had abroad.
But an opportunity came soon after, to send him first to
Russia, and then to Germany, where he has represented what is
best in the character, ability, desire, interest and scholarship
of the American people.

So we had two first-rate representatives abroad instead of
one.  Mr. Coolidge discharged his functions to the satisfaction
of the Administration, and to the universal approval of his
countrymen.

He received me when I visited Paris with a very cordial and
delightful hospitality.  I had the pleasure of meeting at
his house at dinner M. Ribot, then Prime Minister of France
and afterward President of the French Republic, and several
others of the leading men in their public life.  But I spoke
French very imperfectly indeed, and understood it much less,
when spoken by a Parisian.  The conversation was, in general,
in French.  So I got very little knowledge of them by being
in their society.

My visit in England gave me a good deal more to remember.
Mr. Lincoln also received me with great cordiality.  He gave
a dinner at which several of the leaders of the Liberal Party
were present; among them, Sir William Vernon Harcourt.  I
had letters to Sir William Vernon Harcourt, and to Lord Rosebery,
and to Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England.  Sir
William Vernon Harcourt and Lord Rosebery each called on me,
and spent an hour at my room.  But Parliament was dissolved
just at that time, so the Liberal leaders had at once to begin
the campaign which resulted in Mr. Gladstone's victory.  So
I had no opportunity to make an intimate acquaintance with
either of them.  I owed to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes an introduction
to John Bellows, a Quaker, a most delightful gentleman, the
first authority in his time on the Roman antiquities of Great
Britain, a fine classical scholar and learned in old English
literature and in the languages from which came the roots
of our English tongue.  I formed with him a close friendship
which ended only with his death, in 1902.  A year before he
died he visited me in my home at Worcester, and received the
degree of Master of Arts from Harvard.  Mr. Bellows is the
author of the wonderful French Dictionary.

I spent a few days with Lord Coleridge in Devon.  His house
at Ottery St. Mary's is close to the spot where Samuel Taylor
Coleridge was born.  I met there several of the race.  I do
not know whether they were living in the neighborhood or happened
to be there on a visit.

I found in the church, close by, the tomb of John Sherman,
one of my own kindred, I have no doubt, of the race which
came from Colchester and Dedham in Essex, and Yaxley in Suffolk.

The Lord Chief Justice was much distressed lest he had done
wrong in complying with General Butler's invitation to visit
him at Lowell.  He said that many of his American friends
had treated him coldly afterward, and that his friend Richard
Dana, whom he highly esteemed, had refused to call upon him
for that reason.

I told him he did absolutely right, in my opinion.  I said
that General Butler was then Governor of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, and that an eminent person, holding a high
official character, from a foreign country, could not undertake
to question the personal character, or the title to be considered
gentlemen, of the men whom the American people put into their
high places.

Lord Coleridge said he received fifty guineas every morning
for his services in the Tichborne trial.  "But," he added,
"my general practice in my profession was so much interrupted
by it that I could not have got along that year but for my
salary as Attorney-General."

He spoke with great pride of his cross-examination of the
Claimant.  He said one of the papers had complained that
his cross-examination did no good to his case whatever.  "But
I made him admit that he sent his photograph to some person,
as the photograph of Arthur Orton."  He said the common people
in England still held to the belief that the Claimant was
the genuine Sir Roger Tichborne, and, by a curious contradiction,
this feeling was inspired largely by their sympathy with him
as a man of humble birth.  I said, "Yes, I think that is true.
I heard somebody, a little while ago, say that they heard
two people talking in the cars, and one of them said to the
other, 'They wouldn't give him the estate, because he was
the son of a poor butcher.'"  This very much amused the Lord
Chief Justice.

I asked him about the story I had heard and had verified
some time before, of the connection, in the person of Lady
Rolle, between two quite remote periods.  Lady Rolle was
alive until 1887, maintaining her health so that she gave
dinner parties in that year, shortly before she died.  She was
the widow of Mr. Rolle, afterward Lord Rolle, who made a
violent attack on Charles James Fox in 1783.  He was then
thirty-two years old.  From him the famous satire, the Rolliad,
took its name.  When he went to pay his homage to Queen Victoria
at her Coronation in Westminster Abbey, he was quite feeble,
and rolled down the steps of the throne.  The young Queen
showed her kindness of heart by jumping up and going to help
him in person.  Some of the English told the foreigners present
at the ceremonial that that was part of the ceremony, and
that the Rolles held their lands on the tenure of going through
that performance at every coronation.  Lady Rolle was married
to her husband in 1820.  He was then sixty-nine, and she a
young girl of twenty years old.  He was eighty or ninety years
old when he died, and she survived as his widow for many years.
Something came up on the subject of longevity which induced
me to refer to this story and ask Lord Coleridge if it were
true.  We were then riding out together; "Yes," said he, "there,"
pointing to a dwelling-place in full sight, "is the house
where she lived."

His Lordship asked me about an American Judge with whom he
had some acquaintance.  I told him that I thought his reputation
was rather that of a jurist than a Judge.  "Oh, yes," said
he, "a jurist is a man who knows something about the law of
every country but his own."

Lord Coleridge had a good reputation as a story-teller.  It
was pleasant to get an auditor who seemed to like to hear
the stories which have got rather too commonplace to be worth
telling over here.  He had a great admiration for President
Lincoln, and was eager to hear anything anybody had to tell
of him.  I told him the famous story of Lincoln's reply to
the man who had left with him his poem to read, when he gave
it back.  "If anybody likes that sort of thing, it's just
the sort of thing they'd like."  I overheard his Lordship,
as he circulated about the room, a little while afterward,
repeating the story to various listeners.

He thought Matthew Arnold the greatest living Englishman.
He spoke with great respect of Carlyle.  He said: "Emerson
was an imitator of Carlyle, and got his thoughts from him."
I could not stand that.  It seemed to me that he had probably
never read a page of Emerson in his life, and had got his
notion from some writer for a magazine, before either of these
great men was well known.  I took the liberty of saying, with
some emphasis, "Emerson was a far profounder and saner intellect
than Carlyle."  To which he said, "Why, what do you say?"
I repeated what I had said, and he received the statement
with great politeness, but, of course, without assent.

During this summer I paid a visit to Moyle's Court, near
Southampton, formerly owned by Lady Alice Lisle, whose daughter
married Leonard Hoar, President of Harvard College.  Leonard
Hoar was the brother of my ancestor, John Hoar of Concord,
and the son of Charles Hoar, Sheriff of Gloucester.  There
is a statement in an old account of some Puritan worthies
that I have seen, to the effect that John Hoar and Leonard
married sisters.  If that be true, John Hoar's wife, Alice,
was a daughter and namesake of Lady Alice Lisle.  Although
I should like to believe it, I am afraid that the claim cannot
be made good.  Lady Alice Lisle was a lady of large wealth
and good lineage.  Her husband was John Lord Lisle, who was
Lord Justice under Cromwell, and one of the Judges in the
trial of Charles I.  He drew the indictment and sentence of
the King, and sat next to Bradshaw at the trial, and directed
and prompted him in difficult matters.  He was murdered one
Sunday morning on his way to church when in exile at Lausanne,
Switzerland, on the Lake of Geneva, by three ruffians, said
to be sent for that purpose by Queen Henrietta.  Lady Alice
Lisle was a victim of the brutality of Jeffries.  After Monmouth's
rebellion and defeat, she gave shelter and food to two fugitives
from Monmouth's army.  The report of her trial is in Howell.
There was no proof that she knew that they were fugitives
from Monmouth's army, although she supposed one of them was
a Dissenting minister.  There had been no conviction of the
principals, which the English law required before an accessory
after the fact could be found guilty.  She suggested this
point at the trial, but it was overruled by Jeffries.  He
conducted the case with infinite brutality.  She was a kindly
old lady, of more than seventy years.  She slept during part
of the trial, probably being fatigued by the journey, in which
she had been carried on horseback from Moyle's Court to Winchester,
and the sleepless nights which would naturally have followed.
She was sentenced to be burned at the stake.  But the sentence
was commuted to beheading, at the intercession of the gentry
of the neighborhood.  She had disapproved of the execution
of the King; said she had always prayed for him, and had a
son in the King's army.  Macaulay's account of the story is
familiar to all readers of English history.

I was received at the old house with great kindness by Mrs.
Fane, wife of the present proprietor.  It is a beautiful
old house with carved oak partitions, with a dining room
rising to the roof.  Lady Lisle's chamber and the place where
the two fugitives were concealed are still shown.  Mrs. Fane
had gathered some local traditions which are not found in
print.  One old lady, who had been well known to persons now
living, had received some of them from her grandmother, who
was cotemporary with Lady Alice.

The lady was very popular with her tenants in the neighborhood.
The messenger who came from Winchester to arrest her took
her on horseback behind him, according to the custom of the
time.  The horse cast a shoe.  The messenger was for pressing
on without regard to the suffering of the animal.  She insisted
that he should stop and have the horse shod.  The man roughly
refused.  She said:  "I have made no outcry, on my own account.
But everybody here loves me.  If you do not stop, I shall
cry out.  You will never get away with me alive." The fellow
was frightened and consented to stop at a smithy.  When the
smith had finished his work, Lady Lisle said: "I will be back
this way in two or three days, and I will pay you."  To this
the messenger said:  "Yes, you will be back this way in two
or three days, but without your head."

The headless body was brought back from Winchester after the
trial.  The next day, when the household were at dinner, a
man came to the outside and thrust into the dining room window
a basket, containing her head.  This was said to be for "greater
indignity."

Lady Lisle had known Hicks, one of the persons whom she relieved,
before.  When the court was sitting for the trial of Charles
I., she went up to London to expostulate with her husband.
She arrived at his lodgings just as he was setting out in
a procession, with some state, for Westminster Hall, where
the trial was held.  As she approached to speak to him, he
did not recognize her in the soiled dress in which she had
travelled, and motioned her away rather roughly.  It was said
that she was overcome by the press in the crowd and fell to
the ground.  Hicks, who was a Dissenting minister, raised
her up and took her to his own lodging near by in the Strand.
She said to him that she could not recompense him there, but
if he would come to Hampshire, or to the Isle of Wight, where
she had property, she would be glad to repay him.

Saturday, October 22, 1892, with Mrs. Hoar and her sister,
Mrs. Rice, I went from Southampton to Ringwood, about twenty
miles, and thence drove to Ellingham Church, about two miles
and a half.  The church is a small but very beautiful structure
of stone, with a small wooden belfry.  The tomb of Lady Alice
Lisle is a heavy, flat slab of gray stone, raised about two
or three feet from the ground, bearing the following inscription:

  Here lies Dame Alicia Lisle
  and her daughter Ann Harfeld
  who dyed the 17th of Feb. 1703-4
  Alicia Lisle dyed the
  second of Sept. 1685.

It is close to the wall of the church, on the right of the
porch.  In the church is seen the old Lisle pew of carved
oak, now the pew of the Earl of Normanton.  Opposite the
pew is the pulpit, also of carved black oak, apparently ancient.
The church contains a tablet to the memory of the former owner
of Moyle's Court, who died in 1622.

Moyle's Court is about a mile and a half from Ellingham Church.
The drive is along a beautiful lane shaded by trees whose
branches meet from the two sides, through a beautiful and
fertile country, adorned by herds of fine cattle.  Moyle's
Court is a large two-story building, consisting of two square
wings connected by the main building.  The wings project from
the main building in front, but the whole forms a continuous
line in the rear.  As you approach it, you pass numerous
heavy, brick outbuildings, including several farmhouses, one
of which is quite large, and apparently of great antiquity.
We were received by Mrs. Fane with the greatest courtesy.
She said that the landed estate connected with Moyle's Court
is very large, now or recently yielding the Earl of Normanton
seven thousand pounds a year.

The present occupant of Moyle's Court, Frederick Fane, Esq.,
came there about twenty-one years before.  The house was then
much dilapidated, but he has restored it in a style in keeping
with the ancient architecture.  The principal room is a dining
hall, rising from the ground some twenty-five feet in height,
with a gallery at one end, on a level with the second story.
The walls of this room are of beautiful, carved oak, the front
of the gallery being ancient, and as it existed in the time
of Lady Alice Lisle.  The staircase, also of fine, carved
oak, is of equal antiquity.  The carved oak in the passages
and some of the other rooms has been restored by Mr. Fane
from material found in the attic.  There is also a curious
old kitchen, with a large fireplace, with a closet in the
chimney where it is said one of the persons succored by Lady
Alice Lisle was found hidden.  In the cellar is a curiously
carved head on a stone beam, which seemed as if it might formerly
have supported a mantel-piece or shelf.  It is said that this
portion of the cellar was once a chapel.

Some of the chambers have been named by Mr. Fane from persons
connected with the tragedy--Dame Alicia, Monmouth, Nelthrop,
Hicks, Tryphena--these names being inscribed on the doors.
The room is shown where Lady Lisle is said to have been seized.

The old tombstone over the grave of Leonard Hoar and his wife,
at the Quincy burial-ground, in Massachusetts, is almost an
exact copy of that over Lady Alice Lisle, at Ellerton near
Moyle's Court.  They were doubtless selected by the same taste.
Mrs. Leonard Hoar, whose maiden name was Bridget Lisle, was
connected quite intimately with three of the great tragedies
in the history of English liberty.  Her father, as has been
said, was murdered at Lausanne.  Her mother was murdered under
the form of the mock judgment of Jeffries, at Winchester.
Her niece married Lord Henry Russell, son of the Duke of Bedford,
and brother of Lord William Russell, the story of whose tragic
death is familiar to every one who reads the noble history
of the struggle between liberty and tyranny which ended with
the Revolution of 1688.

Bridget Hoar married again after the death of her husband,
President Hoar.  Her second husband was a Mr. Usher, who
seems to have been insane.  She lived with him very unhappily,
then separated from him and went back to England, staying
there until he died.  She then came back to Boston and died,
May 25, 1723.  At her own request she was buried at the side
of her first husband.  A great concourse of the clergy and
the principal citizens, including the Governor, attended her
funeral.

It was my good fortune to be instrumental, after this visit,
in correcting an evil which had caused great annoyance to
our representatives abroad for a good many years.

The Americans have never maintained their representatives
abroad with a dignity becoming a great power like the United
States.  The American Minister is compelled by our rules to
wear a dress which exposes him to be mistaken for a waiter
at any festive gathering.  Distinctions of rank are well established
in the diplomatic customs of civilized nations.  It is well
understood that whether a representative of a county shall
be an Ambassador, a Minister Plenipotentiary, a Minister Resident,
or a Charge' d'affaires, depends on the sense of its rank
among the nations of the world of the country that sends him.
For many years all argument was lost on Congress.  The United
States representative must not adopt the customs as to dress
of the effete monarchies of the old world.  To send an Ambassador
instead of a Minister was to show a most undemocratic deference
to titles, abhorrent to every good republican.  There had
been several attempts to make a change in this matter, always
unsuccessful, until I went abroad in 1892.

When I was in London in that year, I saw a great deal of
Mr. Lincoln.  He told me how vexatious he found his position.
When the Minister for Foreign Affairs received the diplomatic
representatives of other countries at the Foreign Office,
Ambassadors were treated as belonging to one rank, or class,
and the Ministers as to a lower one.  The members of each
class were received in the order of their seniority.  We change
our Ministers with every Administration.  So the Minister
of the United States is likely to be among the juniors.  He
might have to wait all day, while the representatives of insignificant
little States were received one after another.  If, before
the day ended, his turn came, some Ambassador would arrive,
who would get there, perhaps, five minutes before it was time
for Mr. Lincoln to go in, he had precedence at once.  So the
representative of the most powerful country on earth might
have to lose the whole day, only to repeat the same experience
on the next.

An arrangement was made which partly cured the trouble by
the Minister for Foreign Affairs receiving Mr. Lincoln, on
special application, informally, at his residence, on some
other day.  But that was frequently very inconvenient.  And,
besides, it was not always desirable to make a special application
for an audience, which would indicate to the English Government
that we attached great importance to the request he might
have to make, so that conditions of importance would be likely
be attached to it by them.  It was quite desirable, sometimes,
to mention a subject incidentally and by the way, rather than
to make it matter of a special appointment.

When I got to Paris, I found Mr. Coolidge complaining of the
same difficulty.  I told our two Ministers that when I got
home I would try to devise a remedy.  Accordingly I proposed
and moved as an amendment to the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation
Bill, the following clause:

"Whenever the President shall be advised that any foreign
government is represented, or is about to be represented in
the United States, by an Ambassador, Envoy Extraordinary,
Minister Plenipotentiary, Minister Resident, Special Envoy,
or Charge' d'affairs, he is authorized, in his discretion,
to direct that the representatives of the United States to
such government shall bear the same designation.  This provision
shall in no wise affect the duties, powers, or salary of such
representative."

This had the hearty approval of Senators Allison and Hale,
the leading members of the Committee on Appropriations, and
was reported favorably by that Committee.

Senator Vest was absent when the matter came up, and it passed
without opposition.  Mr. Vest announced, the next day, that
he had intended to oppose it.  I am afraid if he had, he would
have succeeded in defeating it.

When it went to the House, the Committee on Appropriations
consented to retain the amendment, and it was favored by Mr.
Hitt of Illinois, who had, himself, represented the country
abroad and knew all about such matters.  There was a little
opposition in the House.  But it was quieted without great
difficulty.  Vice-President Morton, who had, himself, represented
the country at Paris, went personally to the House and used
his great influence in favor of the proposition.  Mr. Blount
of Georgia, a very influential Democrat, threatened to make
a strong opposition.  But the gentlemen who favored it said
to him:  "Now you are going out of the House, but your countrymen
will not long let you stay in retirement.  You will be summoned
to important public service somewhere.  It is quite likely
that your political friends will call you to one of these
important diplomatic places, where you will be in danger of
suffering the inconvenience yourself, if the present system
continue." Mr. Blount was pacified.  And the measure which
I think would have been beaten by a pugnacious opposition
in either House of Congress, got through.

Among the most impressive recollections of my life is the
funeral of Tennyson in Westminster Abbey.  I got a seat at
the request of the American Minister by the favor of Archdeacon
Farrar, who had charge of the arrangements.  It was a most
impressive scene.  I had a seat near the grave, which was
in the Poets' Corner, of which the pavement had been opened.
The wonderful music; the stately procession which followed
the coffin through the historic West entrance, in the most
venerable building in the world, to lay the poet to sleep
his last sleep with England's illustrious dead of more than
a thousand years,

  In those precincts where the mighty rest,
  With rows of statesmen and with walks of Kings,

to which

  Ne'er since their foundation came a nobler guest,

was unspeakably touching and impressive.  The solemn burial
service was conducted by the aged Dean, doomed, not long after,
to follow the beloved poet to his own final resting-place
near by.

The choir sang two anthems, both by Tennyson--"Crossing the
Bar" and "Silent Voices"--the music of the latter by Lady
Tennyson.

The grave lay next to Robert Browning's, hard by the monument
to Chaucer.  I looked into it and saw the oaken coffin with
the coronet on the lid.

The pall-bearers were the Duke of Argyle, Lord Dufferin,
Lord Selbourne, Lord Rosebery, Mr. Jowett, Mr. Lecky, Mr.
Froude, Lord Salisbury, Dr. Butler, Head of Trinity, Cambridge,
Sir James Paget, Lord Kelvin and the United States Minister.
The place of Mr. Lincoln, who had gone home on leave of absence,
was taken by Mr. Henry White.

After depositing the body, the bearers passed the seat where
I sat, one by one, pressing through between two rows of seats,
so that their garments touched mine as they went by.

The day was cloudy and mournful, blending an unusual gloom
with the dim religious light of the Abbey.  But just as the
body was let down into the earth, the sun came out for a moment
from the clouds, cheering and lightening up the nave and aisles
and transepts of the mighty building.  As the light struck
the faces of the statues and the busts, it seemed for a moment
that the countenances changed and stirred with a momentary
life, as if to give a welcome to the guest who had come to
break upon their long repose.  Of course it was but an idle
imagination, begot, perhaps, of the profound excitement which
such a scene, to the like of which I was so utterly unaccustomed,
made upon me.  But as I think of it now, I can hardly resist
the belief that it was real.

It was my good fortune during this journey to become the
purchaser of Wordsworth's Bible.  It was presented to him
by Frederick William Taber, the famous writer of hymns.  While
it is absolutely clean, it bears the mark of much use.  It
was undoubtedly the Bible of Wordsworth's old age.  On my
next visit to England I told John Morley about it.  He said,
if it had been known, I never should have been allowed to
take it out of England.  It bears the following inscription
in Taber's handwriting:

  William Wordsworth
  From Frederick Wm Taber,
  In affectionate acknowledgment of his many kindnesses,
  and of the pleasure and advantage of his friendship.
  Ambleside.  New Year's Eve.  1842.  A. D.
  Be stedfast in thy Covenant, and be _conversant_
  therein, and wax old in thy work.
  Ecclesiasticus XI. 20.


CHAPTER XXI
VISITS TO ENGLAND
1896

In 1896 I found myself again utterly broken down in health
and strength.  I had, the November before, a slight paralysis
in the face, which affected the muscles of the lower lid of
one of my eyes, causing a constant irritation in the organ
itself.  After a time this caused a distortion of the lips,
which I concealed somewhat by a moustache.  But it operated,
for a little while, as an effective disguise.  When I came
home during the winter, an old conductor on the Boston & Albany
Railroad, whom I had known quite well, when he took my ticket
looked at me with some earnestness and said, "Are you not
related to Senator Hoar?"  To which I answered, "I am a connection
of his wife, by marriage."

I found I must get rid of the work at home, if I were to
get back my capacity for work at all.  So I sailed for Southampton
before the session of Congress ended.  It was the only time
I had absented myself from my duties in Congress, except for
an urgent public reason, for twenty-seven years and more.

I saw a good many interesting English people.  It is not
worth while to give the details of dinners and lunches and
social life, unless something of peculiar and general interest
occur.  Almost every American who can afford it goes abroad
now.  Our English kinsmen are full of hospitality.  They have
got over their old coldness with which they were apt to receive
their American cousins, although they were always the most
delightfully hospitable race on earth when you had once got
within the shield of their reserve.

I remember especially, however, a very pleasant Sunday spent
on the Thames, at the delightful home of William Grenfell,
Esq., which I mention because, by a fortunate accident, the
visit had some very interesting consequences.  There I met
Sir John Lubbock, now Baron Avebury, famous for his writings
on financial questions and on Natural History, especially
for his observations of the habits of ants.  He told me, if
I am not mistaken, that he had personally watched the conduct
and behavior of more than fifteen thousand individual ants.
There was a company of agreeable English ladies and gentlemen.
They played games in the evening after dinner, as you might
expect of a company of American boys and girls of sixteen
or eighteen years old.

Mr. Grenfell was a famous sportsman.  His house was filled
with the trophies of his skill in hunting.  I was told that
he had crossed the Channel in a row-boat.

Sir John Lubbock invited me to breakfast with him a few days
afterward in St. James Square.  There I met a large number
of scientific men, among them the President of the Geographical
Society, and the Presidents or Heads of several other of the
important British Societies.  I was presented to all these
gentlemen.  But I found I could not easily understand the
names, when they were presented.  Englishmen usually, even
when they speak the language exactly as we do, have a peculiar
pronunciation of names, which makes it very hard for an American
ear to catch them.  I could not very well say, "What name
did you say?" or ask the host to repeat himself.  So I was
obliged to spend the hour in ignorance of the special dignity
of most of the illustrious persons whom I met.

Just behind my chair hung a full-length portrait of Admiral
Boscawen, a famous naval officer connected with our early
history.  For him was named the town of Boscawen in New Hampshire,
where Daniel Webster practised law.  The house where we were
had been his.  I think he was in some way akin to the host.

I sailed for home on Wednesday.  The Friday night before,
I dined with Moreton Frewen, Esq., an accomplished English
gentleman, well known on this side of the Atlantic.  Mr. Frewen
had been very kind and hospitable to me, as he had been to
many Americans.  He deserves the gratitude of both nations
for what he has done to promote good feeling between the two
countries by his courtesy to Americans of all parties and
ways of thinking.  He has helped make the leading men of both
countries know each other.  From that knowledge has commonly
followed a hearty liking for each other.

I mention this dinner, as I did the visit to Mr. Grenfell,
because of its connection with a very interesting transaction.
The guests at the dinner were Sir Julian Pauncefote, afterward
Lord Pauncefote, the British Ambassador to the United States,
who was then at home on a brief visit; Sir Seymour Blaine,
an old military officer who had won, as I was told, great
distinction in the East, and two Spanish noblemen.

The soldier told several very interesting stories of his
military life, and of what happened to him in his early days.

Of these I remember two.  He said that when he was a young
officer, scarcely more than a boy, he was invited by the Duke
of Wellington, with other officers, to a great ball at Apsley
House.  Late in the evening, after the guests had left the
supper room, and it was pretty well deserted, he felt a desire
for another glass of wine.  There was nobody in the supper
room.  He was just pouring out a glass of champagne for himself,
when he heard a voice behind him.  "Youngster, what are you
doing?"  He turned round.  It was the Duke.  He said, "I am
getting a glass of wine." To this the Duke replied, "You ought
to be up-stairs dancing.  There are but two things, Sir, for
a boy like you to be doing.  One is fighting; the other dancing
with the girls.  As for me I'm going to bed." Thereupon the
Duke passed round the table; touched a spring which opened
a secret door, in what was apparently a set of book-shelves,
and disappeared.

Sir Seymour Blaine told another story which, I dare say,
is well known.  But I have never seen it in print.  He said
that just before the Battle of Talavera when the Duke, then
Sir Arthur Wellesley, was in command in Spain, the English
and French armies had been marching for many days on parallel
lines, neither quite liking to attack the other, and neither
having got the advantage in position which they were seeking.
At last, one day, when everybody was pretty weary with the
fatigues of the march, the Duke summoned some of his leading
officers together and said to them:  "You see that clump of
trees (pointing to one a good distance away, but in sight
from where they stood)--when the head of the French column
reaches that clump of trees, attack.  As for me I'm going
to sleep under this bush."  Thereupon the great soldier lay
down, all his arrangements being made, and everything being
in readiness, and took his nap while the great battle of Talavera--
on which the fate of Spain and perhaps the fate of Europe
depended--was begun.  This adds another instance to the list
of the occasions to which Mr. Everett refers when he speaks
of Webster's sleeping soundly the night before his great reply
to Hayne.

"So the great Conde' slept on the eve of the battle of Rocroi;
so Alexander slept on the eve of the battle of Arbela; and
so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame!"

But this dinner of Mr. Frewen's had a very interesting consequence.
As I took leave of him at his door about eleven o'clock, he
asked me if there were anything more he could do for me.  I
said, "No, unless you happen to know the Lord Bishop of London.
I have a great longing to see the Bradford Manuscript before
I go home.  It is in the Bishop's Library.  I went to Fulham
the other day, but found the Bishop was gone.  I had supposed
the Library was a half-public one.  I asked the servant who
came to the door for the librarian.  He told me there was
no such officer, and that it was treated in all respects as
a private library.  But I should be very glad if I could get
an opportunity to see it." Mr. Frewen answered, "I do not
myself know the Bishop.  But Mr. Grenfell, at whose house
you spent Sunday, a little while ago, is his nephew by marriage.
He is in Scotland.  But if I can reach him, I will procure for
you a letter to his uncle."  That was Friday.  Sunday morning
there came a note from Mr. Grenfell to the Bishop.  I enclosed
it to his Lordship in one from myself, in which I said that
if it were agreeable to him, I would call at Fulham the next
Tuesday, at an hour which I fixed.  I got a courteous reply
from the Bishop, in which he said that he would be glad to
show me the "log of the Mayflower," as he called it.  I kept
the appointment, and found the Bishop with the book in his
hand.  He received me very courteously, and showed me a little
of the palace.  He said that there had been a Bishop's palace
on that spot for more than a thousand years.

I took the precious manuscript in my hands, and examined
it with an almost religious reverence.  I had delivered the
address at Plymouth, the twenty-first of December, 1895, on
the occasion of the two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary
of the landing of the Pilgrims upon the rock.  In preparing
for that duty I read carefully, with renewed enthusiasm and
delight, the noble and touching story as told by Governor
Bradford.  I declared then that this precious history ought
to be in no other custody than that of their children.

There have been several attempts to procure the return of
the manuscript to this country.  Mr. Winthrop, in 1860, through
the venerable John Sinclair, Archdeacon, urged the Bishop
of London to give it up, and proposed that the Prince of Wales,
then just coming to this country, should take it across the
Atlantic and present it to the people of Massachusetts.  The
Attorney-General, Sir Fitzroy Kelley, approved the plan, and
said it would be an exceptional act of grace, a most interesting
action, and that he heartily wished the success of the application.
But the Bishop refused.  Again, in 1869, John Lothrop Motley,
the Minister to England, who had a great and deserved influence
there, repeated the proposition, at the suggestion of that
most accomplished scholar, Justin Winsor.  But his appeal
had the same fate.  The Bishop gave no encouragement, and said,
as had been said nine years before, that the property could
not be alienated without an Act of Parliament.  Mr. Winsor
planned to repeat the attempt on his visit to England in 1887.
When he was at Fulham the Bishop was absent, and he was obliged
to go home without seeing him in person.

In 1881, at the time of the death of President Garfield,
Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of London, proposed again in
the newspapers that the restitution should be made.  But
nothing came of it.

When I went abroad I determined to visit the locality on
the borders of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, from which Bradford
and Brewster and Robinson, the three leaders of the Pilgrims,
came, and where their first church was formed, and the places
in Amsterdam and Leyden where the emigrants spent thirteen
years.  But I longed especially to see the manuscript of Bradford
at Fulham, which then seemed to me, as it now seems to me,
the most precious manuscript on earth, unless we could recover
one of the four gospels as it came in the beginning from the
pen of the Evangelist.

The desire to get it back grew and grew during the voyage
across the Atlantic.  I did not know how such a proposition
would be received in England.  A few days after I landed
I made a call on John Morley.  I asked him whether he thought
the thing could be done.  He inquired carefully into the story,
took down from his shelf the excellent though brief life of
Bradford in Leslie Stephen's "Biographical Dictionary," and
told me he thought the book ought to come back to us, and
that he should be glad to do anything in his power to help.
It was my fortune, a week or two after, to sit next to Mr.
Bayard at a dinner given to Mr. Collins, by the American consuls
in Great Britain.  I took occasion to tell him the story,
and he gave me the assurance, which he afterward so abundantly
and successfully fulfilled, of his powerful aid.  I was compelled,
by the health of one of the party with whom I was travelling,
to go to the Continent almost immediately, and was disappointed
in the hope of an early return to England.

After looking at the volume and reading the records on the
flyleaf, I said:  "My Lord, I am going to say something which
you may think rather audacious.  I think this book ought to
go back to Massachusetts.  Nobody knows how it got over here.
Some people think it was carried off by Governor Hutchinson,
the Tory Governor; other people think it was carried off by
British soldiers when Boston was evacuated; but in either
case the property would not have changed.  Or, if you treat
it as booty, in which last case, I suppose, by the law of
nations ordinary property does change, no civilized nation
in modern times applies that principle to the property of
libraries and institutions of learning."

The Bishop said:  "I did not know you cared anything about
it."

"Why," said I, "if there were in existence in England a history
of King Alfred's reign for thirty years, written by his own
hand, it would not be more precious in the eyes of Englishmen
than this manuscript is to us."

"Well," said he, "I think myself that it ought to go back,
and if it depended on me it would have gone back before this.
But many of the Americans who have been here have been commercial
people, and did not seem to care much about it except as a
curiosity.  I suppose I ought not to give it up on my own
authority.  It belongs to me in my official capacity, and
not as private or personal property.  I think I ought to consult
the Archbishop of Canterbury.  And, indeed," he added, "I
think I ought to speak to the Queen about it.  We should not
do such a thing behind Her Majesty's back."

I said:  "Very well, when I go home I will have a proper
application made from some of our literary societies, and
ask you to give it consideration."

I saw Mr. Bayard again and told him the story.  He was at
the train when I left London for the steamer at Southampton.
He entered with great interest into the matter, and told me
again he would do anything in his power to forward it.

When I got home I communicated with Secretary Olney about
it, who took a kindly interest in the matter, and wrote to
Mr. Bayard that the Administration desired he should do everything
in his power to promote the application.  The matter was then
brought to the attention of the Council of the American Antiquarian
Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Pilgrim
Society of Plymouth and the New England Society of New York.
These bodies appointed committees to unite in the application.
Governor Wolcott was also consulted, who gave his hearty approbation
to the movement, and a letter was despatched through Mr. Bayard.

Meantime, Bishop Temple, with whom I had my conversation,
had himself become Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity
Primate of all England.  His successor, Rev. Dr. Creighton,
had been the delegate of Emanuel, John Harvard's College,
to the great celebration at Harvard University in 1886, on
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation.
He had received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the University,
had been a guest of President Eliot, and had received President
Eliot as his guest in England.

The full story of the recovery of the manuscript, in which
the influence of Ambassador Bayard and the kindness of Bishop
Temple, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, had so large a
part, is too long to tell here.  Before the question was decided
Archbishop Temple consulted Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, who
took a deep interest in the matter, and gave the plan her
cordial approval.  I think, as I had occasion to say to the
British Ambassador afterward, that the restoration of this
priceless manuscript did more to cement the bonds of friendship
between the people of the two countries than forty Canal Treaties.
In settling Imperial questions both nations are thinking,
properly and naturally, of great interests.  But his restoration
was an act of purest kindness.  The American people, in the
midst of all their material activities, their desire for wealth
and empire, are a sentimental people, easily and deeply stirred
by anything that touches their finer feelings, especially
anything that relates to their history.

The Bishop was authorized to return the manuscript by a decree
rendered in his own Court, by his Chancellor.  The Chancellor
is regarded as the servant of the Bishop, and holds office,
I believe, at his will.  But so does the King's Chancellor
at the King's will.  I suppose the arrangement by which the
Chancellor determines suits in which his superior is affected
may be explained on the same ground as the authority of the
Lord Chancellor to determine suits in which the Crown is a
party.

I was quite curious to know on what ground, legal or equitable,
the decree for the restoration of the manuscript was made.
I wrote, after the thing was over, to the gentleman who had
acted as Mr. Bayard's counsel in the case, asking him to enlighten
me on this subject.  I got a very courteous letter from him
in reply, in which he said he was then absent from home, but
would answer my inquiry on his return.  After he got back,
however, I got a formal and ceremonious letter, in which he
said that, having been employed by Mr. Bayard as a public
officer, he did not think he was at liberty to answer questions
asked by private persons.  As the petition and decree had
gone on the express ground that the application for the return
of the manuscript was made by Mr. Bayard, not in his official,
but only in his private capacity, as he had employed counsel
at my request, and I had been responsible for their fees,
I was, at first, inclined to be a little vexed at the answer.
On a little reflection, however, I saw that it was not best
to be too curious on the subject; that where there was a will
there was a way, and probably there was no thought, in getting
the decree, on the part of anybody concerned, to be too strict
as to legalities.  I was reminded, however, of Silas Wegg's
answer to Mr. Boffin, when he read aloud to him and his wife
evening after evening "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,"
which Silas had spoken of at first, as "The Decline and Fall
of the Russian Empire."  Mr. Boffin noticed the inconsistency,
and asked Mr. Wegg why it was that he had called it "The Decline
and Fall of the Russian Empire" in the beginning.  To which
Mr. Wegg replied that Mrs. Boffin was present, and that it
would not be proper to answer that question in the presence
of a lady.

The manuscript was brought to Massachusetts by Mr. Bayard,
on his return to the United States at the end of his official
term.  It was received by the Legislature in the presence
of a large concourse of citizens, to whom I told the story
of the recovery.  Mr. Bayard delivered the book to the Governor
and the Legislature with an admirable speech, and Governor
Wolcott expressed the thanks of the State in an eloquent reply.
He said that "the story of the departure of this precious
work from our shores may never in every detail be revealed;
but the story of its return will be read of all men, and will
become a part of the history of the Commonwealth.  There are
places and objects so intimately associated with the world's
greatest men or with mighty deeds that the soul of him who
gazes upon them is lost in a sense of reverent awe, as it
listens to the voice that speaks from the past, in words like
those which came from the burning bush, 'Put off thy shoes
from off they feet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground.'

"The story here told is one of triumphant achievement, and
not of defeat.  As the official representative of the Commonwealth,
I receive it, sir, at your hands.  I pledge the faith of the
Commonwealth that for all time it shall be guarded in accordance
with the terms of the decree under which it is delivered into
her possession as one of her chiefest treasures.  I express
the thanks of the Commonwealth for the priceless gift, and
I venture the prophecy that for countless years to come and
to untold thousands these mute pages shall eloquently speak
of high resolve, great suffering and heroic endurance made
possible by an absolute faith in the over-ruling providence
of Almighty God."

The Bishop gave the Governor of Massachusetts the right to
deposit the manuscript either in his office at the State
House or with the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which
Archbishop Temple and Bishop Creighton, who succeeded Bishop
Temple in the See of London, were both Honorary members.  The
Governor, under my advice, deposited the manuscript in the
State House.  It seemed to him and to me that the Commonwealth,
which is made up of the Colony which Bradford founded, and
of which he was Governor, blended with that founded by the
Puritans under Winthrop, was the fitting custodian of the
life in Leyden of the founders of Plymouth, of the voyage
across the sea, and of the first thirty years of the Colony
here.  It is kept in the State Library, open at the spot which
contains the Compact made on board the Mayflower--the first
written Constitution in history.  Many visitors gaze upon
it every year.  Few of them look upon it without a trembling
of the lip and a gathering of mist in the eye.  I am told
that it is not uncommon that strong men weep when they behold
it.


CHAPTER XXII
SILVER AND BIMETALLISM

I was compelled, by the state of my health, to be absent
from the country in the campaign which preceded the Presidential
election of 1896, except for the last week or two.  But, of
course, I took a very deep interest indeed in the campaign.
Mr. Bryan's theories, and those of his followers in many parts
of the country, had thoroughly alarmed the business men of
the Northern and Eastern States.  But in the new States of
the Northwest, especially in those that contained silver mines,
a large majority of the people, without distinction of party,
had become converts to the doctrine that the United States
should coin silver at a ratio compared to gold of sixteen
to one, and make the silver so coined legal tender in the
payment of all debts, public and private.  The price of silver
as compared with that of gold had been constantly falling
for several years past.  This was attributed to the effect
of the legislation which demonetized silver except to a limited
amount.  Several eminent Republicans, both in the Senate and
in the House, as well as many others in private station, left
the Republican Party on that issue.  Several States that had
been constantly and reliably Republican became Democratic
or Populist, under the same influence.

The Democratic Platform of 1896 demanded the immediate restoration
of the free coinage of gold and silver at the present ratio
of 16 to 1, without waiting for the consent of any other nation.
That doctrine was reaffirmed and endorsed in the Democratic
National Platform for 1900.

There were two theories among the persons who desired to maintain
the gold standard.  One was entertained by the persons known
as Gold Monometallists.  They insisted that no value could
be given to any commodity by legislation.  They said that
nothing could restore silver to its old value as compared
with gold; that its fall was owing to natural causes, chiefly
to the increased production.  They insisted that every attempt
to restore silver to its old place would be futile, and that
the promise to make the attempt, under any circumstances,
was juggling with the people, from which nothing but disaster
and shame would follow.  They justly maintained that, if we
undertook the unlimited coinage of silver, and to make it
legal tender, under the inevitable law long ago announced
by Gresham, the cheaper metal, silver, would flow into the
country where it would have a larger value for the purpose
of paying debts, and that gold, the more precious metal, would
desert the country where there would be no use found for it
as long as the cheaper metal would perform its function according
to law.  From this, it was claimed, would follow the making
of silver the exclusive basis of all commercial transactions;
the disturbance of our commercial relations with other countries,
and the establishment of a standard of value which would fluctuate
and shrink as the value of silver fluctuated and shrunk.  So
that no man who contracted a debt on time could tell what
would be the value of the coin he would be compelled to pay
when his debt became due, and all business on earth would
become gambling.  They, therefore, demanded that the Republican
Party should plant itself squarely on the gold standard; should
announce its purpose to make gold the exclusive legal tender
for the country, and appeal to the people for support in the
Presidential election, standing on that ground.

To them their antagonists answered, that the true law was
stated by Alexander Hamilton in his famous Report, accepted
by all his contemporaries, and by all our statesmen of all
parties down to 1873 or thereabouts, and recognised in the
Constitution of the United States.  That doctrine was, that
the standard of value must necessarily be fixed by the agreement
of all commercial nations.  No nation could, without infinite
suffering and mischief, undertake to set itself against the
rule adopted by the rest of mankind.  It was best, if the
nations would consent to it, to have two metals instead of
one made legal tender, at a ratio to be agreed upon by all
mankind, establishing what was called Bimetallism.  If this
were done, the Gresham law could not operate, because there
would be no occasion for the cheaper metal to flow into any
one country by reason of its having a preference there in
the payment of debts; and nothing which would cause the more
precious metal to depart from any country by reason of its
being at a disadvantage.  If such a rule were adopted, and
a proper ratio once established, it would be pretty likely
to continue, unless there were a very large increase in the
production of one metal or the other.  If the supply of gold
in proportion to silver were diminished a little, the corresponding
demand for silver by all mankind would bring up its price
and cure the inequality.  So, if the supply of gold were to
increase in proportion to silver, a like effect would take
place.

If, however, the nations of the world were to agree on one
metal alone, it was best that the most precious metal should
be taken for that purpose.

The above, in substance, was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton,
the ablest practical financier and economist that ever lived,
certainly without a rival in this country.

The duties specially assigned to me in the Senate and in
the House related to other matters.  But I made as thorough
and faithful a study as I could of this great question, and
accepted Hamilton's conclusions.  I believed they were right
in themselves, and thought the reasons by which they were
supported, although the subject is complex and difficult,
likely to find favor with the American people.  Silver has
always been a favorite metal with mankind from the beginning.
While gold may be the standard of value, it is too precious
to be a convenient medium of payment for small sums, such
as enter into the daily transactions of ordinary life.  It
is said that you can no more have a double standard, or two
measures of value, than you can have a double standard, or
two measures of distance.  But the compensating effect may
be well illustrated by what is done by the makers of clocks
for the most delicate measurements of time, such as are used
for astronomical calculations.  The accuracy of the clock
depends upon the length of the pendulum and the weight which
the pendulum supports.  If the disk at the end of the pendulum
be humg by a wire of a single metal, that metal expands and
shrinks in length under changing atmospheric influences, and
affects the clock's record of time.  So the makers of these
clocks resort to two or three wires of different metals, differently
affected by the atmosphere.  One of these compensates for
and supplements the other, so that the atmospheric changes
have much less effect than upon a single metal.

Beside the fact that I thoroughly believed in the soundness
of bimetallism, as I now believe in it, I thought we ought
not to give our antagonists who were pressing us so hard,
and appealing so zealously to every debtor and every man in
pecuniary difficulties, the advantage, in debate before the
people, of arraying on their side all our great authorities
of the past.  We had enough on our hands to encounter Mr.
Bryan and the solid South and the powerful Democratic Party
of New York and the other great cities, and every man in the
country who was uneasy and discontented, without giving them
the right to claim as their allies Alexander Hamilton, and
George Washington, and Oliver Ellsworth, and John C. Calhoun,
and Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, and Thomas H. Benton.
I was, therefore, eager that the Republican Party should state
frankly in its platform what I, myself, deemed the sound doctrine.
It should denounce and condemn the attempt to establish the
free coinage of silver by the power of the United States
alone, and declare that to be practical repudiation and national
ruin.  But I thought we ought also to declare our willingness,
if the great commercial nations of the earth would agree,
to establish a bimetallic system on a ratio to be agreed upon.

Some of the enemies of the Republican Party, who could not
adopt the Democratic plan for the free coinage of silver,
without contradicting all their utterances in the past, denounced
this proposal as a subterfuge, a straddle, an attempt to deceive
the people and get votes by pledges not meant to be carried
out.

I believed then, and I believe now, that we were right in
demanding that the Republican Party should go into the campaign
with the declaration I have stated.

It is true that you cannot give value to any commodity by
law.  It is as idle to attempt to make an ounce of silver
worth as much as an ounce of gold by legislation, as it is to
try to make one pound weigh two pounds, or one yard measure
two yards.  You cannot increase the price of a hat, or a coat,
or a farm, by act of Congress.  The value of every article,
whether gold or silver, whether used as money or as merchandise,
must depend upon the inexorable law of demand and supply.
But you can, by legislation, compel the use of an article,
which use will create a demand for it, and the demand will
then increase its price.  If Congress shall require that every
soldier in the United States Army shall wear a hat or coat
of a particular material or pattern, or shall enact that every
man who votes shall come to the polls dressed in broadcloth,
if there be a limited supply of these commodities, the price
of the hat or the coat or the broadcloth will go up.  So,
when the nations of the world joined in depriving silver of
one of its chief uses--that of serving the function of a tender
for the payment of debts, the value of silver diminished because
one large use which it had served before was gone.  Whether
this doctrine be sound or no, it was the result of as careful
study as I ever gave in my life, to any subject, public or
private.  It was not only the doctrine of the Fathers, but
of recent generations.  It was the doctrine on which the Republicans
of Massachusetts, a community noted for its conservatism and
business sagacity, had planted the Commonwealth, and it was
the doctrine on which the American people planted itself and
which triumphed in the election of 1896.

I have been accused, sometimes, of want of sincerity, and,
by one leading New England paper, with having an imperfect
and confused understanding of the subject.  Perhaps I may
be pardoned, therefore, for quoting two testimonials to the
value of my personal contribution to this debate.  One came
from Senator Clay of Georgia, one of the ablest of the Democratic
leaders.  After I had stated my doctrine in a brief speech
in the Senate one day, he crossed the chamber and said to
me that, while he did not accept it, he thought I had made
the ablest and most powerful statement of it he had ever heard
or read.  The other came from Charles Emory Smith, afterward
a member of President McKinley's Cabinet and editor of the
_Press,_ a leading paper in Philadelphia.  I have his letter
in which he says that he think an edition of at least a million
copies of my speech on gold and silver should be published
and circulated through the country.  He also said, in an article
in the _Saturday Evening Post,_ June 14, 1902:

"In the great contest over the repeal of the Silver Purchase
Act he made the most luminous exposition, both of what had
been done, and the reasons for it; and what ought to be done,
and the grounds for it, that was heard in the Senate."

It occurred to me that I could render a very great service
to my country, during my absence, if I could be instrumental
in getting a declaration from England and France that those
countries would join with the United States in an attempt
to reestablish silver as a legal tender.

It was well known that Mr. Balfour, Leader of the Administration
in the House of Commons, was an earnest bimetallist.  He had
so declared himself in public, both in the House and elsewhere,
more than once.

There had been a resolution, not long before, signed by more
than two thirds of the French Chamber of Deputies, declaring
that France was ready to take a similar action whenever England
would move.  I, accordingly, with the intervention of Mr.
Frewen, the English friend I have just mentioned, arranged
an interview with Mr. Balfour in Downing Street.  We had a
very pleasant conversation indeed.  I told him that if he
were willing, in case the United States, with France and Germany
and some of the smaller nations, would establish a common
standard for gold and silver, to declare that the step would
have the approval of England, and that, although she would
maintain the gold standard alone for domestic purposes, she
would make a substantial and most important contribution to
the success of the joint undertaking, that it would insure
the defeat of the project for silver monometallism, from which
England, who was so largely our creditor, would suffer, in
the beginning almost as much as we would, and perhaps much
more, and would avert the panic and confusion in the business
of the world, which would be brought about by the success
of the project.

I did not state to Mr. Balfour exactly what I thought the
contribution of England to this result ought to be.  He, on
the other hand, did not tell me what he thought she would
do.  I did not, of course, expect that England would establish
the free coinage of silver for her own domestic purposes.
But I thought it quite likely that she would declare her cordial
approval of the proposed arrangement between the other countries,
and would reopen her India mints to the free coinage of the
rupee, and maintain the silver standard for the Queen's three
hundred million subjects in Asia.  This contribution, I thought,
if Great Britain went no farther, would give great support
to silver, and would ensure the success of the concerted attempt
of the other commercial nations to restore silver to its old
place.

Mr. Balfour expressed his assent to my proposal, and entered
heartily into the scheme.  He said he would be very happy
indeed to make such a declaration.  I suggested to him that
I had been authorized to say, by one or two gentlemen with
whom I had talked, that, if he were willing, a deputation
of the friends of Bimetallism would wait upon him, to whom
he could express his opinion and purpose.  He said he thought
it would be better that he should write a letter to me, and
that if I would write to him stating what I had said orally,
he would answer it with such a statement as I desired.  I
told him I was going to Paris in a few days, and that I would
write to him from Paris when I got there.  The matter was
left in that way.  The next day, or the next day but one,
a luncheon was given me at White's, the club famous for its
memories of Pitt and Canning and the old statesmen of that
time, and still the resort of many of the Conservative leaders
of to-day.  There were present some fifteen or twenty gentlemen,
including several members of the Government.  A gentleman
who had known of my interview with Mr. Balfour, and sat at
the table some distance from me, made some allusion to it
which was heard by most of the guests.  I said that I did
not like to repeat what Mr. Balfour had said; that gentlemen
in his position preferred, if their opinions were to be made
public, to do it for themselves, rather than to have anybody
else do it for them.  To this, one member of the Government--
I think it was Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, but I will not undertake
to be sure--said: "It is no secret that Mr. Balfour's opinions
are those of a majority of Her Majesty's Government."

I went to Paris, and wrote at once the letter that had been
agreed upon, of which I have in my possession a copy.  I
at once secured an introduction to M. Fougirot, the Member
of the French Assembly who had drawn and procured the signatures
to the resolution to which I just referred.  That is, I am
told, a not uncommon way in France of declaring the sense
of the House in anticipation of a more formal vote.  He entered
heartily into the plan.  He thought Germany would at once
agree, at any rate, he was sure that Belgium, Spain, Italy
and all the European commercial powers would come into the
arrangement, and that the whole thing would be absolutely
sure if Great Britain were to agree.  I waited a week or two
for the letter from Mr. Balfour.  In the meantime I got a
letter from Mr. Frewen, who told me that Mr. Balfour had
shown him the letter he had written to me; that it was admirable,
and eminently satisfactory.  But no letter came.  I waited
another week or two, and then got another letter from Mr.
Frewen, in which he said that he had taken no copy of Mr.
Balfour's letter, and had returned the original, and asked
me, if I had no objection, if I would give him a copy of it.
I answered that I had heard nothing, whereupon Mr. Frewen
wrote a note to Mr. Balfour, telling him that I had not heard.
Mr. Balfour said that he had, after writing the letter, submitted
it to a meeting of his colleagues; that one of them had expressed
his most emphatic disapproval of the plan, and that he did
not feel warranted in taking such a step against the objection
of one of his colleagues.  I gathered, from what I heard afterward,
that Mr. Balfour wished he had sent he letter without communicating
its contents.  But of this I have no right to be sure.  Mr.
Balfour sent Mr. Frewen the following letter, which is now
in my possession.  It was, I suppose with his approval, sent
to me.

10 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL, S. W.
  August 6, 1896.

DEAR MORETON FREWEN.

I think Senator Hoar has just reason to complain of my long
silence.  But, the truth is that I was unwilling to tell
him that my hopes of sending him a letter for publication
had come to an end, until I was really certain that this was
the case.  I am afraid however that even if I am able now
to overcome the objections of my colleagues, the letter itself
would be too late to do much good.  Please let me know what
you think on this subject.

  Yours sincerely,
  ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR.

I never blamed him.  He was in the midst of a good deal of
difficulty with his Education Bill.  Certainly there can
be no obligation on the Leader of the English House of Commons
to do anything that he is not sure is for the interests of
his own country, or his own party, for the sake of benefitting
a foreign country, still less for the sake of affecting its
politics.  Indeed, I suppose Mr. Balfour would have utterly
and very rightfully disclaimed any idea of writing such a
letter, unless he thought what was proposed would benefit
England.  When I went back to London, an offer was made me
later to arrange another interview with Mr. Balfour, and
see if something else could not be devised.  This I declined.
I thought I had gone as far as I properly could, with a due
sense of my own dignity.  The exigency at home had pretty
much passed by.

A day or two after I got to Paris, after I had seen M. Fougirot,
I cabled my colleague, Mr. Lodge, at St. Louis, where the
delegates to the convention to nominate a President were then
gathering, stating my hope that our convention would insert
in its platform a declaration of the purpose of the Republican
Party to obtain, in concert with other nations, the restoration
of silver as a legal tender in company with gold, and that
I had reason to feel sure that such a plan could be accomplished.
This cable reached St. Louis on the morning the convention
assembled.  I do not know how much influence it had, or whether
it had any, in causing the insertion of that plank in the
platform.  Such a plank was inserted.  In my opinion it saved
the Presidential election, and, in my opinion, in saving the
Presidential election, it saved the country from the incalculable
evil of the free coinage of silver.

After I came home, at the next winter's session, I told the
story of what I had done, to a caucus of the Republican Senators.
A Committee was thereupon appointed by John Sherman, President
of the Caucus, to devise proper means for keeping the pledge
of the National platform and establishing international bimetallism
in concurrence with other nations.  The Committee consisted
of Messrs. Wolcott, Hoar, Chandler, Carter and Gear.  They
reported the Act of March 3, 1897, authorizing a commission
to visit Europe for that purpose, of which Senator Wolcott
was chairman.

A Commission was sent abroad by President McKinley, in pursuance
of the pledge of the Republican National platform, to endeavor
to effect an arrangement with the leading European nations
for an international bimetallic standard.  Senator Wolcott
of Colorado, who was the head of this Commission, told me
he was emboldened to undertake it by the account I had given.
The Commission met with little success.  I conjecture that
the English Administration, although a majority of the Government,
and probably a majority of the Conservative Party, were Bimetallists
and favored an international arrangement on principle, did
not like to disturb existing conditions at the risk of offending
the banking interests at London, especially those which had
charge of the enormous foreign investments, the value of
which would be constantly increasing so long as their debts
were payable, principal and interest, in gold, the value of
which, also, was steadily appreciating.

It has been the fashion of some quite zealous--I will not
say presumptuous, still less ignorant or shallow writers on
this subject--to charge bimetallists with catering to a mischievous,
popular delusion, for political purposes, or with shallowness
in thinking or investigating.  I have had my share of such
criticism.  All I have to say in reply to it is that I have
done my best to get at the truth, without, so far as I am
concerned, any desire except to get at and utter the truth.
In addition to the authority of our own early statesmen,
and to that of the eminent Englishmen to whom I have referred,
I wish to cite that of my pupil and dear friend, General Francis
A. Walker, who is declared by abundant European, as well as
American authority, to be the foremost writer on money of
modern times.  He was a thorough believer in the doctrine
I have stated.

He pointed out the danger, indeed the ruin, of undertaking
to reestablish silver without the consent of foreign nations.
But he declared that the happiness and, perhaps, the safety
of the country rested on Bimetallism.  He said:

"Indeed, every monometallist ought also to be a monoculist.
Polyphemus, the old Cyclops, would be his ideal.  Unfortunately
our philosophers were not in the Garden of Eden at the time
when the Creator made the mistake of endowing men with eyes
in pairs.  Perhaps it would not be too much to say that there
are probably few men whose eyes do not differ from each other
as to every element affecting vision by more than the degree
from which gold and silver varied from the French standard
of fifteen and a half to one for whole decades."

The German Imperial Parliament passed a resolution, in June,
1895, in favor of Bimetallism, and the Prussian Parliament
passed a resolution favoring an international bimetallic convention,
provided England joined it, May 22, 1895.

The great increase in the gold product of the world, and
the constant diminution in the value of silver, have put an
end to the danger of the movement for the free coinage of
silver, and made the question purely academic or theoretic,
at any rate for a good while to come.  The same causes have
diminished the desire for a bimetallic standard, and make
the difficulty of establishing a parity between silver and
gold, for the present, almost insuperable.  So the question
which excited so much public feeling throughout the world
for nearly a quarter of a century, and endangered not only
the ascendancy of the Republican Party, but the financial
strength of the United States, has become almost wholly one
of theory and ancient history.

After leaving Paris I spent a few delightful weeks at Innsbruck
in Austria, and Reichenhall in Germany, both near the frontier
between those two countries.  The wonderful scenery and the
curious architecture and antiquity of those towns transport
one back to the Middle Ages.  But I suppose they are too well
known now, to our many travellers, to make it worth while
to describe them.  I went to those places for the health of
a lady nearly allied to my household.  She was under the care
of Baron Liebig, one of the most famous physicians in Germany,
the son of the great chemist.  I got quite well acquainted
with him.  He was a very interesting man.  He had a peculiar
method of dealing with the diseases of the throat and lungs
like those under which my sister-in-law suffered.  He had
several large oval apartments, air-tight, with an inner wall
made of porcelain, like that used for an ordinary vase or
pitcher.  From these he excluded all the air of the atmosphere,
and supplied its place with an artificial air made for the
purpose.  The patients were put in there, remaining an hour
and three quarters or two hours each day--I do not know but
some of them for a longer time.  Then they were directed to
take long walks, increasing them in length day by day, a considerable
part of the walk being up a steep hill or mountain.  I believe
his method was of very great value to the patient who was
in my company.  The Baron thought he could effect a complete
cure if she could stay with him several months.  But that
was impossible.


CHAPTER XXIII
VISITS TO ENGLAND
1899

I visited England again in 1899.  I did not go to the Continent
or Scotland.  My wife consulted a very eminent London physician
for an infirmity of the heart.  He told her to go to the Isle
of Wight; remain there a few weeks; then to go to Boscombe;
stay a few weeks there; then to Malvern Hills, and thence
to a high place in Yorkshire, which, I believe, is nearly,
if not quite, the highest inhabited spot in England.  This
treatment was eminently advantageous.  But to comply with the
doctor's direction took all the time we had at our command
before going home.

We had a charming and delightful time in the Isle of Wight.
We stayed at a queer little Inn, known as the "Crab and Lobster,"
kept by Miss Cass, with the aid of her sister and niece.  We
made excursions about the island.  I saw two graves side by
side which had a good deal of romance about them.  One was
the grave of a woman.  The stone said that she had died at
the age of one hundred and seven.  By its side was the grave
of her husband, to whom she had been married at the age of
eighteen, and who had died just after the marriage.  So she
had been a widow eighty-nine years, and then the couple, separated
in their early youth, had come together again in the grave.

We found a singular instance of what Americans think so astonishing
in England, the want of knowledge by the people of the locality
with which they were familiar in life, of persons whose names
have a world-wide reputation.  In a churchyard at Bonchurch,
about a mile from our Inn at Ventnor, is the grave of John
Stirling--the friend of Emerson--of whom Carlyle wrote a memoir.
Sterling is the author of some beautiful hymns and other poems,
including what I think is the most splendid and spirited ballad
in English literature, "Alfred the Harper." Yet the sexton
who exhibited the church and the churchyard did not seem to
know anything about him, and the booksellers near by never
had heard of him.  The sexton showed, with great pride, the
grave of Isaac Williams, author of the "Shadow of the Cross"
and some other rather tame religious poetry.  He was a devout
and good man, and seemed to be a feeble imitator of Keble.
I dare say, the sexton first heard of Sterling and saw his
grave when we showed it to him.

The scenery about Boscombe and the matchless views of the
Channel are a perpetual delight, especially the sight, on
a clear day, of the Needles.

We did not find it necessary to obey the doctor's advice to
go to Yorkshire.  After leaving Boscombe, I spent the rest
of my vacation at Malvern Hills, some eight or nine miles
north of Worcester, and some twenty miles from Gloucester.

The chief delight of that summer--a delight that dwells freshly
in my memory to-day, and which will never be forgotten while
my memory endures--was a journey through the Forest of Dean,
in a carriage, in company with my friend--alas, that I must
say my late friend!--John Bellows, of Gloucester.  He was,
I suppose, of all men alive, best qualified to be a companion
and teacher of such a journey.  He has written and published
for the American Antiquarian Society an account of our journey--
a most delightful essay, which I insert in the appendix.
He tells the story much better than I could tell it.  My readers
will do well to read it, even if they skip some chapters of
this book for the purpose.  I am proud and happy in this way
to associate my name with that of this most admirable gentleman.

I visited Gloucester.  I found the houses still standing
where my ancestors dwelt, and the old tomb in the Church
of St. Mary de Crypt, with the word Hoare cut in the pavement
in the chancel.

My ancestors were Puritans.  They took an active part in the
resistance to Charles I., and many traces are preserved of
their activity in the civic annals of Gloucester.  Two of
my name were Sheriffs in those days.  There were two other
Sheriffs whose wives were sisters of my direct ancestors.
Charles Hoar, my direct ancestor, married one of the Clifford
family, the descendant of the brother of Fair Rosamond, and
their arms are found on a tomb, and also on a window in the
old church at Frampton-on-Severn, eight miles from Gloucester,
where the Cliffords are buried.  The spot where fair Rosamond
was born, still, I believe, belongs to the Clifford family.

I got such material as I could for studying the history of
the military operations which preceded the siege and capture
of Worcester and the escape of Charles II.  Several of the
old houses where he was concealed are shown, as also one in
Worcester from which he made his escape out of the window
when Worcester was stormed, just as Cromwell's soldiers were
entering at the door.

Shakespeare used to pass through Gloucester on his way to
London.  Some of his celebrated scenes are in Gloucestershire.
The tradition is that Shakespeare's company acted in the yard
of the New Inn, at Gloucester, an ancient hostelry still standing,
a few rods only from the Raven Tavern, which belonged to my
ancestors, and is mentioned in one of their wills still extant.
I have no doubt my kindred of that time saw Shakespeare, and
saw him act, unless they had already learned the Puritanism
which came to them, if not before, in a later generation.

I purchased, some years ago, some twenty ancient Gloucestershire
deeds, of various dates, but all between 1100 and 1400.  One
of them was witnessed by John le Hore.  It was of lands at
Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire.  I have in my possession
a will of Thomas Hore of Bristol, dated 1466, in which he
mentions his wife Joanna, and his daughters Joanna and Margery,
and his sons Thomas and John.  These names--Thomas, John,
Joanna and Margery--are the names of members of the family
who dwelt in the city of Gloucester in later generations.
So I have little doubt that Thomas was of the same race, although
there is a link in the pedigree, between his death and 1560
or 1570 which I cannot supply.  This Thomas bequeaths land
at Wotton-under-Edge, so I conjecture that John also was of
the same race.  A large old black oak chest bound with iron,
bequeathed by Thomas to Bristol in 1466, is still in the
possession of the city.

I was very much gratified that the people of the old City
of Gloucester were glad to recognize the tie of kindred which
I, myself, feel so strongly.  I received a handsome box,
containing a beautifully bound copy of an account of the City
from the Traders' Association of the City of Gloucester.
This account of the matter appears in the _Echo,_ a local
paper of July 4, 1899.

GLOUCESTER CITY.  GLOUCESTER TRADERS' ASSOCIATION.
INTERESTING PRESENTATION

On Monday evening a largely attended public meeting was held
in the Guildhall under the auspices of the Gloucester Traders'
Association for the purpose of hearing addresses on "The municipal
electricity supply."  Mr. D.  Jones (president) occupied the
chair, and there were also present on the platform the Mayor
(Mr. H. R. J. Braine), City High Sheriff (Mr. A. V. Hatton),
Councillors Holborook, Poole and several members of the association.

The Chairman said that in his position as president of the
association it was his pleasurable duty to present a copy of
their guide to Mr. G. F. Hoar, the distinguished member of
the United States Government, who had always taken a great
interest in their historic City.--The presentation consisted
of a handsomely carved box made by Messrs.  Matthews and Co.
from pieces of historic English oak supplied by Mr. H. Y.
J. Taylor.  On the outside of the cover are engraved the City
arms, and a brass plate explaining the presentation.  A beautifully
printed copy of the well-known guide, bound in red morocco,
has been placed within, and on the inside of the cover there
is the following illuminated address:

"To the Hon. G. F. Hoar, of Worcester, Mass., Senator of the
United States of America.  Sir,--The members of the Traders'
Association, Gloucester, England, ask your acceptance of a
bound copy of their guide to this ancient and historic City,
together with this box made from part of a rafter taken from
the room in which Bishop Hooper was lodged the night before
his burning, and from oak formerly in old All Saints' Church,
as souvenirs of the regard which the association entertains
for you and its recognition of your ardent affection for the
City of Gloucester, the honored place of the nativity of the
progenitor of your family, Charles Hoar, who was elder Sheriff
in 1634; and may these sincere expressions also be typical
of the sterling friendship existing between Great Britain
and America."

"Senator Hoar had been unable to attend the meeting, and
the presentation was entrusted to the American Vice-Consul,
Mr. E. H. Palin, to forward to him.  Remarking on the presentation,
the Mayor expressed his regret that Mr. Hoar had been unable
to accept the high and important position of American Ambassador
which had been offered to him.  Addresses on the installation
of the electric light were then given by Mr. Hammond, M.I.C.E.,
and Mr. Spencer Hawes."

I was invited by the Corporation of the City to visit them
in the fall and receive the freedom of the City, which was
to be bestowed at the same time on Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.
But I had arranged to return to the United States before the
time fixed for the ceremonial.  So I was deprived of that
great pleasure and honor.

I had a great longing to hear the nightingale.  I find in
an old memorandum that I heard the nightingale in Warwickshire
in 1860, somewhere about the twentieth of May.  But the occurrence,
and the song of the bird, have wholly faded from my memory.
When I was abroad in 1892 and '96 I hoped to hear the song.
But I was too late.  Mrs. Warre, wife of the Rector of Bemerton,
George Herbert's Parsonage, told me that the nightingales
were abundant in her own garden close to the Avon, but that
they did not sing after the beginning of the nesting session
which, according to a note to White's "History of Selborne,"
lasts from the beginning of May to the early part of June.
Waller says:

  Thus the wise nightingale that leaves her home,
  Pursuing constantly the cheerful spring,
  To foreign groves does her old music bring.

There are some counties in England where the bird is not
found.  It is abundant in Warwickshire, Gloucester and the
Isle of Wight.  It is not found in Scotland, Derbyshire or
Yorkshire or Devon or Cornwall.  Attempts to introduce it
in those places have failed.  The reason is said to be that
its insect food does not exist there.

I utterly failed to hear the nightingale, although I was
very close upon his track.  On the night of the fifth of
June at Freshwater, close to Tennyson's home, we were taken
by a driver, between eleven and twelve at night, to two copses
in one of which he said he had heard the nightingale the night
before; and at the other they had been heard by somebody,
from whom he got the information, within a very few days.
But the silence was unbroken, notwithstanding our patience
and the standing reward I had offered to anybody who would
find one that I could hear.  Two different nights shortly
afterward, I was driven out several miles past groves where
the bird was said to be heard frequently.  Nothing came of
it.  May 29, at Gloucester, I rode with my friend, H. Y.
J. Taylor, Esq., an accomplished antiquary, out into the country.
We passed a hillside where he said he had heard the nightingale
about eleven o'clock in the daytime the week before.  Shakespeare
says:

  The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
  When every goose is cackling, would be
  No better a musician than the wren.

But the nightingale does sometimes sing by day.  Mr. Taylor
says that on the morning he spoke of the whole field seemed
to be full of singing birds.  There were larks and finches
and linnets and thrushes, and I think other birds whose name
I do not remember.  But when the nightingale set up his song
every other bird stopped.  They seemed as much spellbound
by the singing as he was, and Philomel had the field to himself
till the song was over.  It was as if Jenny Lind had come
into a country church when the rustic choir of boys and girls
were performing.

The nightingale will sometimes sing out of season if his
mate be killed, or if the nest with the eggs therein be destroyed.

He is not a shy bird.  He comes out into the highway and will
fly in and out of the hedges, sometimes following a traveller.
And the note of one bird will, in the singing season, provoke
the others, so that a dozen or twenty will sometimes be heard
rivalling one another at night, making it impossible for the
occupants of the farmhouses to sleep.

The superstition is well known that if a new-married man
hear the cuckoo before he hear the nightingale in the spring,
his married peace will be invaded by some stranger within
the year.  But if the nightingale be heard first he will be
happy in his love.  It is said that the young married swains
in the country take great pains to hear the nightingale first.
We all remember Milton's sonnet:

  O nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray
  Warbl'est at eve, when all the woods are still,
  Thou with fresh hope the Lover's heart dost fill,
  While the jolly hours lead on propitious May,
  They liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
  First heard before the shallow Cuckoo's bill
  Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will
  Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,
  Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
  Foretell my hopeless doom in some Grove nigh;
  As thou from year to year hast sung too late
  For my relief; yet hadst no reason why,
  Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate,
  Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

I had a funny bit of evidence that this superstition is not
entirely forgotten.  A very beautiful young lady called upon
us in London just as we were departing for the Isle of Wight.
I told her of my great longing to hear the nightingale, and
that I hoped to get a chance.  She said that she had just
come from one of her husband's country estates; that she had
not seen a nightingale or heard one this year, although they
were very abundant there.  She said she had seen a cuckoo,
which came about the same time.  I suppose she observed a
look of amusement on my countenance, for she added quick as
lightning, "But he didn't speak."

I made this year a delightful visit to Cambridge University.
I was the guest of Dr. Butler, the Master of Trinity, and
his accomplished wife, who had, before her marriage, beaten
the young men of Cambridge in all of the examinations.  Dr.
Butler spoke very kindly of William Everett, with whom he
had been contemporary at Cambridge.  He told me that Edward
Everett, when he received his degree at Oxford, was treated
with great incivility by the throng of undergraduates, not
because he was an American, but because he was a Unitarian.
I told this story afterwards to Mr. Charles Francis Adams.
He confirmed it, and said that his father had refused the
degree because he did not wish to expose himself to a like
incivility.

I dined in the old hall of Trinity, and met many very eminent
scholars.  I saw across the room Mr. Myers, the author of
the delightful essays, but did not have an opportunity to speak
to him.  I was introduced, among other gentlemen, to Aldus
Wright, Vice or Deputy Master, eminent for his varied scholarship,
and to Mr. Frazer, who had just published his admirable edition
of Pausanias.

A great many years ago I heard a story from Richard H. Dana,
illustrating the cautious and conservative fashions of Englishmen.
He told me that when the Judges went to Cambridge for the
Assizes they always lodged in the House of the Master of Trinity,
which was a royal foundation, the claim being, that as they
represented the King, they lodged there as of right.  On the
other hand the College claims that they are there as the guests
of the College, and indebted to its hospitality solely for
their lodging.  When the Judges approach Cambridge, the Master
of Trinity goes out to meet them, and expresses the hope that
they will make their home at the College during their stay;
to which the Judges reply that "They are coming." The Head
of the College conducts them to the door.  When it is reached,
each party bows and invites the other to go in.  They go in,
and the Judges stay until the Assize is over.  This ceremony
has gone on for four hundred years, and it never yet has been
settled whether the Judges have a right in the Master's house,
or only are there as guests and by courtesy.  I suppose that
in the United States both sides would fight that question
until it was settled somehow.  Each would say: "I am very
willing to have the other there.  But I want to know whether
he has any right there."  I asked about the truth of this
story.  Dr. Butler said it was true and seemed, if I understood
him aright, to think the Judges' claim was a good one.  Mr.
Wright, the Deputy Master, to whom I also put the question,
spoke of it with rather less respect.


CHAPTER XXIV
A REPUBLICAN PLATFORM

I have had occasion several times to prepare the Republican
platform for the State Convention.  The last time I undertook
the duty was in 1894.  I was quite busy.  I shrunk from the
task and put it off until the time approached for the Convention,
and it would not do to wait any longer.  So I got up one morning
and resolved that I would shut myself up in my library and
not leave it until the platform was written.  Accordingly
I sat down after breakfast, with the door shut, and taking
a pencil made a list of topics about which I thought there
should be a declaration in the platform.

I wrote each at the top of a separate page on a scratch-
block, intending to fill them out in the usual somewhat grandiloquent
fashion which seems to belong to that kind of literature.
I supposed I had a day's work before me.

It suddenly occurred to me:  Why not take these headings
just as they are, and make a platform of them, leaving the
Convention and the public to amplify as they may think fit
afterward.  Accordingly I tore out the leaves from the scratch-
block, and handed them to a secretary to be put into type.
The whole proceeding did not take fifteen minutes.

The sense of infinite relief that the Convention had when,
after listening a moment of two, they found I was getting
over what they expected as a rather tedious job, with great
rapidity, was delightful to behold.  I do not believe there
was ever a political platform received in this country with
such approval, certainly by men who listened to it, as that:

PLATFORM

"The principles of the Republicans of Massachusetts are as
well known as the Commonwealth itself; well known as the Republic;
well known as Liberty; well known as Justice.

Chief among them are:

An equal share in Government for every citizen.

Best possible wages for every workman.

The American market for American labor.

Every dollar paid by the Government, both the gold and the
silver dollars of the Constitution, and their paper representatives,
honest and unchanging in value and equal to every other.

Better immigration laws.

Better naturalization laws.

No tramp, Anarchist, criminal or pauper to be let in, so
that citizenship shall not be stained or polluted.

Sympathy with Liberty and Republican government at home and
abroad.

Americanism everywhere.

The flag never lowered or dishonored.

No surrender in Samoa.

No barbarous Queen beheading men in Hawaii.

No lynching.

No punishment without trial.

Faith kept with the pensioner.

No deserving old soldier in the poorhouse.

The suppression of dram drinking and dram selling.

A school at the public charge open to all the children, and
free from partisan or sectarian control.

No distinction of birth or religious creed in the rights of
American citizenship.

Devotion paramount and supreme to the country and to the flag.

Clean politics.

Pure administration.

No lobby.

Reform of old abuses.

Leadership along loftier paths.

Minds ever open to the sunlight and the morning, ever open
to new truth and new duty as the new years bring their lessons."

I ought to explain one phrase in this platform, which I have
since much regretted.  That is the phrase, "No barbarous Queen
beheading men in Hawaii."  It was currently reported in the
press that the Queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, was a semi-
barbarous person, and that when Mr. Blount, Mr. Cleveland's
Commissioner, proposed to restore her government and said
that amnesty should be extended to all persons who had taken
part in the revolution, she had said with great indignation,
"What, is no one to be beheaded?" and that upon that answer
Mr. Blount and Mr. Cleveland had abandoned any further purpose
of using the power of the United States to bring the monarchy
back again.  That, so far as I knew, had never been contradicted
and had obtained general belief.

I ought not to have accepted the story without investigation.
I learned afterward, from undoubted authority, that the Queen
is an excellent Christian woman; that she has done her best
to reconcile her subjects of her own race to the new order
of things; that she thinks it is better for them to be under
the power of the United States than under that of any other
country, and that they could not have escaped being subjected
to some other country if we had not taken them; and that she
expended her scanty income in educating and caring for the
children of the persons who were about her court who had lost
their own resources by the revolution.  I have taken occasion,
more than once, to express, in the Senate, my respect for
her, and my regret for this mistake.


CHAPTER XXV
OFFICIAL SALARIES

When I was in the House the salaries of the Judges of the
Supreme Court of the United States were raised to ten thousand
dollars a year, and a provision for a retiring pension, to
be continued for life to such of them as became seventy years
old, and had served ten years on the Bench, was enacted.

But it is always very difficult indeed to get salaries raised,
especially the salaries of Judges.  That it was accomplished
them was due largely to the sagacity and skill of Mr. Armstrong
of Pennsylvania.  He was a very sensible and excellent Representative.
His service, like that of many of the best men from Pennsylvania,
was too short for the public good.  I had very little to do
with it myself, except that I talked the matter over a good
deal with Mr. Armstrong, who was a friend of mine, and heartily
supported it.

After I entered the Senate, however, I undertook to get through
a bill for raising the salaries of the Judges of the United
States District Courts.  The District Judges were expected
to be learned lawyers of high reputation and character, and
large experience.  Very important matters indeed are within
the jurisdiction of the District Courts.  They would have
to deal with prize cases, if a war were to break out.  In
that case the reputation of the tribunals of the United States
throughout the world would depend largely on them.  They have
also had to do a large part of the work of the Circuit Courts,
especially since the establishment of the Circuit Courts of
Appeals, as much of the time of the Circuit Judges is required
in attendance there.

I had great difficulty in getting the measure through.  But
at last I was successful in getting the salaries, which had
ranged from $1,500 to $4,000 in different districts of the
country, made uniform and raised to $5,000 a year.

Later I made an attempt to have the salaries of the Judges
of the Supreme Court of the United States increased.  My
desire was to have the salary of the Associate Judges fixed
at $15,000, being an increase of fifty per cent., that of the
Chief Justice to be $500 more.  I met with great difficulty,
but at last, in the winter of 1903, I succeeded in getting
through a measure, which I had previously reported, which
increased the salary of the Associate Judges to $12,500, and
that of the Chief Justice to $13,000.  The same measure increased
the salaries of the District Judges from $5,000 to $6,000,
and that of the Circuit Judges from $6,000 to $7,000 a year.

The salary of Senators and Representatives is shamefully
small.  This is a great injustice, not only to members of
the two Houses, but it is a great public injury, because the
country cannot command the service of able men in the prime
of life, unless they have already acquired large fortunes.
It cannot be expected that a lawyer making from $25,000 to
$50,000 a year, or a man engaged in business, whose annual
income perhaps far exceeds that amount, will leave it for
$5,000 a year.  In that way he is compelled not only to live
frugally himself, but what is more disagreeable still, to
subject his household to the live in the humblest style in
a costly and fashionable city, into which wealthy persons
are coming from all parts of the country.

The members of Congress have a great many demands upon them,
which they cannot resist.  So a Senator or Representative
with $5,000 a year, living in Washington a part of the year
and at home the other part, cannot maintain his family as
well as an ordinary mechanic or salaried man who gets $2,500
or $3,000 a year, and spends all his time in one place.

The English aristocracy understand this pretty well.  They
give no salary at all to the members of their House of Commons.
The result is that the poor people, the working people and
people in ordinary life, cannot get persons to represent them,
from their own class.  That will soon be true in this country,
if we do not make a change.  I suppose nearly every member
of either House of Congress will tell you in private that
he thinks the salary ought to be raised.  But the poor men
will not vote for it, because they think the example will
be unpopular, and the rich men do not care about it.


CHAPTER XXVI
PROPRIETY IN DEBATE

The race of demagogues we have always with us.  They have
existed in every government from Cleon and the Sausage-maker.
They command votes and seem to delight popular and legislative
assemblies.  But they rarely get very far in public favor.
The men to whom the American people gives its respect, and
whom it is willing to trust in the great places of power,
are intelligent men of property, dignity and sobriety.

We often witness and perhaps are tempted to envy the applause
which many public speakers get by buffoonery, by rough wit,
by coarse personality, by appeal to the vulgar passions.  We
are apt to think that grave and serious reasonings are lost
on the audiences that receive them, half asleep, as if listening
to a tedious sermon, and who come to life again when the stump
speaker takes the platform.  But it will be a great mistake
to think that the American people do not estimate such things
at their true value.  When they come to take serious action,
they prefer to get their inspiration from the church or the
college and not from the circus.  Uncle Sam likes to be amused.
But Uncle Sam is a gentleman.  In the spring of 1869, when
I first took my seat in Congress, General Butler was in the
House.  He was perhaps as widely known to the country as any
man in it except President Grant.  He used to get up some
scene of quarrel or buffoonery nearly every morning session.
His name was found every day in the head-lines of the newspapers.
I said to General Banks one day after the adjournment: "Don't
you think it is quite likely that he will be the next President
of the United States?"  "Never," said General Banks, in his
somewhat grandiloquent fashion.  "Why," said I, "don't you
see that the papers all over the country all full of him every
morning?  People seem to be reading about nobody else.  Wherever
he goes, the crowds throng after him.  Nobody else gets such
applause, not even Grant himself."

"Mr. Hoar," replied General Banks, "when I came down to the
House this morning, there was a fight between two monkeys
on Pennsylvania Avenue.  There was an enormous crowd, shouting
and laughing and cheering.  They would have paid very little
attention to you or me.  But when they come to elect a President
of the United States, they won't take either monkey."

The men who possess the capacity for coarse wit and rough
repartee, and who indulge it, seldom get very far in public
favor.  No President of the United States has had it.  No
Judge of the Supreme Court has had it, no Speaker of the
House of Representatives, and, with scarcely an exception,
no eminent Senator.


CHAPTER XXVII
THE FISH-BALL LETTER

In August, 1890, the Pittsburg _Post,_ a Democratic paper,
made a savage attack on me.  He attributed to me some very
foolish remark and declared that I lived on terrapin and champagne;
that I had been an inveterate office-seeker all my life; and
that I had never done a stroke of useful work.  Commonly it
is wise to let such attacks go without notice.  To notice
them seriously generally does more harm than good to the party
attacked.  But I was a good deal annoyed by the attack, and
thought I would make a good-natured and sportive reply to
it, instead of taking it seriously.  So I sent the editor
the following letter, which was copied quite extensively throughout
the country, North and South; and I believe put an end, for
the rest of my life, to the particular charges he had made:

UNITED STATES SENATE,
  WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 10, 1890.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PITTSBURG POST;

_My Dear Man:_  Somebody has sent me a copy of your paper
containing an article of which you do me the honor to make
me the subject.  What can have put such an extravagant yarn
into the head of so amiable and good-natured a fellow? I never
said the thing which you attribute to me in any interview,
caucus or anywhere else.  I never inherited any wealth or
had any.  My father was a lawyer in very large practice for
his day, but he was a very generous and liberal man and never
put much value upon money.  My share of his estate was about
$10,500.  All the income-producing property I have in the
world, or ever had, yields a little less than $1,800 a year;
$800 of that is from a life estate and the other thousand
comes from stock in a corporation which has only paid dividends
for the last two or three years, and which I am very much
afraid will pay no dividend, or much smaller ones, after two
or three years to come.  With that exception the house where
I live, with its contents, with about four acres of land,
constitute my whole worldly possessions, except two or three
vacant lots, which would not bring me $5,000 all told.  I
could not sell them now for enough to pay my debts.  I have
been in my day an extravagant collector of books, and have
a library which you would like to see and which I would like
to show you.  Now, as to office-holding and working.  I think
there are few men on this continent who have put so much hard
work into life as I have.  I went one winter to the Massachusetts
House of Representatives, when I was twenty-five years old,
and one winter to the Massachusetts Senate, when I was thirty
years old.  The pay was two dollars a day at that time.  I
was nominated on both occasions, much to my surprise, and
on both occasion declined a renomination.  I afterward twice
refused a nomination for Mayor of my city, have twice refused
a seat on the Supreme Bench of Massachusetts, and refused
for years to go to Congress when the opportunity was in my
power.  I was at last broken down with overwork, and went
to Europe for my health.  During my absence the arrangements
were made for my nomination to Congress, from which, when
I got home, I could not well escape.  The result is I have
been here twenty years as Representative and Senator, the
whole time getting a little poorer year by year.  If you
think I have not made a good one, you have my full authority
for saying anywhere that I entirely agree with you.  During
all this time I have never been able to hire a house in Washington.
My wife and I have experienced the varying fortune of Washington
boarding houses, sometimes very comfortable, and a good deal
of the time living in a fashion to which no mechanic earning
two dollars a day would subject his household.  Your "terrapin"
is all in my eye, very little in my mouth.  The chief carnal
luxury of my life is in breakfasting every Sunday morning
with an orthodox friend, a lady who has a rare gift for making
fish-balls and coffee.  You unfortunate and benighted Pennsylvanians
can never know the exquisite flavor of the codfish, salted,
made into balls and eaten on a Sunday morning by a person
whose theology is sound, and who believes in all the five
points of Calvinism.  I am myself but an unworthy heretic,
but I am of Puritan stock, of the seventh generation, and
there is vouchsafed to me, also, some share of that ecstasy
and a dim glimpse of that beatific vision.  Be assured, my
benighted Pennsylvania friend, that in that hour when the
week begins, all the terrapin of Philadelphia or Baltimore
and all the soft-shelled crabs of the Atlantic shore might
pull at my trousers legs and thrust themselves on my notice
in vain.

  I am faithfully,
  GEO. F. HOAR


CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BIRD PETITION

Before the year 1897 I had become very much alarmed at the
prospect of the total extinction of our song-birds.  The
Bobolink seemed to be disappearing from the field in Massachusetts,
the beautiful Summer Red Bird had become extinct, and the
Oriole and the Scarlet Tanager had almost disappeared.  Many
varieties of songbirds which were familiar to my own boyhood
were unknown to my children.  The same thing seems to be going
on in other countries.  The famous Italian novelist, Ouida,
contributed an article in the _North American Review_ a few
years ago in which she described the extermination of the
Nightingale in Italy.  The Director of the Central Park, in
one of his Reports, stated that within fifteen or twenty years
the song-birds of the State of New York had diminished forty-
five per cent.

One afternoon in the spring of 1897, Governor Claflin called
on me at my Committee Room in the Capitol and told me a lady
had just visited his daughter at her rooms who had on her
head eleven egrets.  These egrets are said to come from the
female White Heron, a beautiful bird abounding in Florida.
They are a sort of bridal ornament, growing out on the head
of the female at pairing time and perishing and dropping off
after the brood is reared.  So the ornament on the horrible
woman's head had cost the lives of eleven of these beautiful
birds and very likely in every case the lives of a brood of
young ones.

When I went home I sat down after dinner and wrote with a
pencil the following petition.

_"To the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

"We, the song-birds of Massachusetts and their playfellows,
make this our humble petition:_

"We know more about you than you think we do.  We know how
good you are.  We have hopped about the roofs and looked in
at the windows of the homes you have built for poor and sick
and hungry people and little lame and deaf and blind children.
We have built our nests in the tress and sung many a song
as we flew about the gardens and parks you have made so beautiful
for your own children, especially your poor children, to play
in.

"Every year we fly a great way over the country, keeping
all the time where the sun is bright and warm; and we know
that whenever you do anything, other people all over the
great land between the seas and the great lakes find it out,
and pretty soon will try to do the same thing.  We know;
we know.  We are Americans just as you are.  Some of us,
like some of you, came from across the great sea, but most
of the birds like us have lived here a long while; and birds
like us welcomed your fathers when they came here many years
ago.  Our fathers and mothers have always done their best
to please your fathers and mothers.

"Now we have a sad story to tell you.  Thoughtless or bad
people are trying to destroy us.  They kill us because our
feathers are beautiful.  Even pretty and sweet girls, who
we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers
and children so that they may wear plumage on their hats.
Sometimes people kill us from mere wantonness.  Cruel boys
destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones.  People
with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us, as if the place
for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window
or under a glass case.  If this goes on much longer, all your
song-birds will be gone.  Already, we are told, in some other
countries that used to be full of birds, they are almost gone.
Even the nightingales are being all killed in Italy.

"Now we humbly pray that you will stop all this, and will
save us from this sad fate.  You have already made a law
that no one shall kill a harmless song-bird or destroy our
nests or our eggs.  Will you please to make another that no
one shall wear our feathers, so that no one will kill us to get
them?  We want them all ourselves.  Your pretty girls are
pretty enough without them.  We are told that it is as easy
for you to do it as for Blackbird to whistle.

"If you will, we know how to pay you a hundred times over.
We will teach your children to keep themselves clean and neat.
We will show them how to live together in peace and love and
to agree as we do in our nests.  We will build pretty houses
which you will like to see.  We will play about your gardens
and flower-beds,--ourselves like flowers on wings,--without
any cost to you.  We will destroy the wicked insects and worms
that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and apples
and roses.  We will give you our best songs and make the spring
more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you.  Every June
morning when you go out to the field, Oriole and Blackbird
and Bobolink will fly after you and make the day more delightful
to you; and when you go home tired at sundown, Vesper Sparrow
will tell you how grateful we are.  When you sit on your porch
after dark, Fife Bird and Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush will
sing to you; and even Whip-poor-will will cheer up a little.
We know where we are safe.  In a little while all the birds
will come to live in Massachusetts again, and everybody who
loves music will like to make a summer home with you."

I thought it might, perhaps, strike the Legislature of Massachusetts
and the public more impressively than a sober argument.  The
whole thing took only fifteen or twenty minutes.  The petition
was signed by all the song-birds of Massachusetts, and illustrated
by Miss Ellen Day Hale with the portraits of the signers.
It was presented to the Massachusetts Senate by the Honorable
A. S. Roe, Senator from the Worcester District.  The Legislature
acted upon it and passed the following Statute:

"Whoever has in his possession the body of feathers of any
bird whose taking or killing is prohibited by section four
of chapter two hundred and seventy-six of the acts of the
year eighteen hundred and eighty-six, or wears such feathers
for the purpose of dress or ornament, shall be punished as
provided in said section:  _provided_ that his act shall not
be construed to prohibit persons having the certificate provided
for in said sections from taking or killing such birds; and
_provided, further,_ that this act shall not apply to Natural
History Associations, or to the proprietors of museums, or
other collections for scientific purposes.

_"Approved June 11, 1897."_

The Statute was copied in several other States.  I think
the petition helped a good deal the healthy reaction which,
owing largely to the efforts of humane societies and Natural
History Associations and especially of some very accomplished
ladies, has arrested the destruction of these beautiful ornaments
of our woods and fields and gardens, "our fellow pilgrims
on the journey of life," who have so much of humanity in them
and who, like us, have their appointed tasks set to them by
the great Creator.


CHAPTER XXIX
THE A. P. A. CONTROVERSY

One very unreasonable, yet very natural excitement has stirred
deeply the American people on several occasions in our history.
It came to us by lawful inheritance from our English and Puritan
ancestors.  That is the bitter and almost superstitious dread
of the Catholics, which has resulted more than once in riots
and crimes, and more than once in the attempt to exclude them
from political power in the country.  This has sometimes taken
the form of a crusade against all foreigners.  But religious
prejudice against the Catholics has been its chief inspiration.

I just said that this feeling, though absolutely unjustifiable,
was yet quite natural, and that it came to us by lawful inheritance.
I have always resisted it and denounced it to the utmost of
my power.  My father was a Unitarian.  I was bred in that
most liberal of all liberal faiths.  But I have believed that
the way to encounter bigotry is by liberality.  If any man
try to deprive you of your absolute right, begin to defend
yourself by giving him his own.  Human nature, certainly American
human nature, will never, in my opinion, long hold out against
that method of dealing.

Our people, so far as they are of English descent, learned
from their fathers the stories of Catholic persecution and
of the fires of Smithfield.  Fox's "Book of Martyrs," one
of the few books in the Puritan libraries, was, even down to
the time of my youth, reverently preserved and read in the
New England farmhouses.

So it was believed that it was only the want of power that
prevented the Catholics from renewing the fires of Smithfield
and the terrors of the Inquisition.  It was believed that
the infallibility and supremacy of the Pope bound the Catholic
citizen to yield unquestioning obedience to the Catholic clergy
in matters civil and political, as well as spiritual.  There
was a natural and very strong dread of the Confessional.

This feeling was intensified by the fact of which it was
partly the cause, that when the Irish-Catholics first came
over they voted in solid body, led often by their clergy, for
the Democratic Party, which was in the minority in the New
England States, especially in Massachusetts.  England down
to a very recent time disqualified the Catholics from civil
office.

Our people forgot that the religious persecution, of which
they cherished the bitter memory, was the result of the spirit
of the age, and not of one form of religious faith.  They
forgot that the English Protestants not only retaliated on
the Catholics when they got into power, but that the Bishops
from whose fury, as John Milton said, our own Pilgrim Fathers
fled, were Protestant Bishops and not Catholic.  They forgot
the eight hundred years during which Ireland had been under
the heel of England, and the terrible history so well told
by that most English of Englishmen, and Protestant of Protestants,
Lord Macaulay.

"The Irish Roman Catholics were permitted to live, to be fruitful,
to replenish the earth; but they were doomed to be what the
Helots were in Sparta, what the Greeks were under the Ottoman,
what the blacks now are at New York.  Every man of the subject
caste was strictly excluded from any public trust.  Take what
path he might in life, he was crossed at every step by some
vexatious restriction.  It was only by being obscure and inactive,
that he could, on his native soil, be safe.  If he aspired
to be powerful and honoured, he might gain a cross or perhaps
a Marshal's staff in the armies of France or Austria.  If
his vocation was to politics, he might distinguish himself
in the diplomacy of Italy or Spain.  But at home he was a
mere Gibeonite, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water.  The
statute book of Ireland was filled with enactments which furnish
to the Roman Catholics but too good a ground for recriminating
on us when we talk of the barbarities of Bonner and Gardiner;
and the harshness of those odious laws was aggravated by a
more odious administration.  For, bad as the legislators were,
the magistrates were worse still.  In those evil times originated
that most unhappy hostility between landlord and tenant, which
is one of the peculiar curses of Ireland.  Oppression and
turbulence reciprocally generated each other.  The combination
of rustic tyrants was resisted by gangs of rustic banditii.
Courts of law and juries existed only for the benefit of the
dominant sect.  Those priests who were revered by millions
as their natural advisers and guardians, as the only authorised
dispensers of the Christian sacraments, were treated by the
squires and squireens of the ruling faction as no good-natured
man would treat the vilest beggar."

When I came into political life shortly after 1848, I found
this anti-Catholic feeling most intense.  The Catholics in
Massachusetts were, in general, in a very humble class.  The
immigration, which had well begun before the great Irish Famine,
was increased very much by that terrible calamity.  The Irishmen
were glad to build our railroads at sixty cents a day, dwelling
in wretched shanties, and living on very coarse fare.  They
had brought with them the habit of drinking whiskey, comparatively
harmless in their native climate--though bad enough there--
but destructive in New England.  So they contributed very
largely to the statistics of crime and disorder.

Even then they gave an example--from which all mankind might
take a lesson--of many admirable qualities.  They had a most
pathetic and touching affection for the Old Country.  They
exhibited an incomparable generosity toward the kindred they
had left behind.  From their scanty earnings, Edward Everett,
a high authority, estimates that there were sent twenty millions
of dollars in four years to their parents and kindred.

There was some jealousy on the part of our working people,
especially the men and women employed in large manufacturing
establishments, lest the Irish, by working at cheaper wages,
would drive them out of employment.  But the Irishman soon
learned to demand all the wages he could get.  The accession
of the Irish laborer increased largely the productive forces
of the State.  So there was more wealth created, of which
the better educated and shrewder Yankee got the larger share.
By the bringing in of a lower class of labor he was elevated
to a higher place, but never driven out of work.  The prejudice
of which I have spoken showed itself in some terrible Protestant
riots in New Orleans and in Baltimore, and in the burning
of the Catholic Convent at Charlestown.

There was also a strong feeling that the compact body of
Catholics, always voting for one political party was a danger
to the public security.  Of course this feeling manifested
itself in the Whig Party, for whose adversary the solid Irish-
Catholic vote was cast.  As early as 1844, after the defeat
of Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster made a suggestion--I do know where
it is recorded now, but I was informed of it on good authority
at about the time he made it--that there must be some public
combination with a view to resist the influence of our foreign
element in our politics.

But there was no political movement on any considerable scale
until 1854.  In that year there was a very dangerous crusade
which came very near National success, and which got control
of several States.

In the fall of 1857 the Republican Party elected its first
Governor.  The slavery question was still very prominent,
and the people were deeply stirred by the attempt to repeal
the Missouri Compromise.  So in that year, under the leadership
of Nathaniel P. Banks, Gardner, the Know-Nothing Governor,
was defeated, and from that time the strength of Know-Nothingism
was at an end.  I was elected to the Senate in the fall of
1856 as the Republican candidate from the county of Worcester
over the Know-Nothing and Democratic candidates.

It is a remarkable fact that of the men known to join the
Know-Nothing Party, no man, unless he were exceedingly young
and obscure when he did it, ever maintained or regained the
public confidence afterward, with the exception of Henry Wilson,
Anson Burlingame and Nathaniel P. Banks.  These men all left
it after the first year.  Wilson and Burlingame denounced
it with all the vigor at their command, and Banks led the
forces of the Republican Party to its overthrow.

I ought to say, however, of this movement and of the A. P.
A. movement, as it is called, of which I am now to speak,
that I do not think the leaders in general shared the bitter
and proscriptive feeling to which they appealed.  The secret
organization, founded on religious prejudice, or on race prejudice,
is a good instrument to advance the political fortunes of
men who could not gain advancement in an established political
organization.  So a great many men are active and busy in
such organizations, who would be equally active and busy in
movements founded on precisely the opposite doctrines, if
they could as well find their advancement in them.  Yet, as
I have said, the prejudice which lay at the bottom of this
movement was very powerful, very sincere, and not unnatural.

Secret societies were formed all over the country.  It seemed
not unlikely that the surprise of 1854 would be repeated,
and that the great Republican party, which had done so much
for civil liberty, would either be broken to pieces or would
be brought to take an attitude totally inconsistent with religious
liberty.

The organization, calling itself the American Protective
Association, but known popularly as the A. P. A., had its
branches all over the North.  Its members met in secret,
selected their candidates in secret--generally excluding all
men who were not known to sympathize with them--and then attended
the Republican caucuses to support candidates in whose selection
members of that political party who were not in their secret
councils had no share.  Ambitious candidates for office did
not like to encounter such a powerful enmity.  They in many
cases temporized or coquetted with the A. P. A. if they
did not profess to approve its doctrine.  So far as I know,
no prominent Republican in any part of the country put himself
publicly on record as attacking this vicious brotherhood.
Many men who did not agree with it were, doubtless, so strong
in the public esteem that they were not attacked.

That was the condition of things when, in the early summer
of 1895, I delivered an address at the opening of the Summer
School of Clark University in which I spoke briefly, but in
very strong terms, in condemnation of the secrecy and of the
proscriptive principles of this political organization.  I
declared:  "I have no patience or tolerance with the spirit
which would excite religious strife.  It is as much out of
place as the witchcraft delusion or the fires of Smithfield."
I added:  "This Nation is a composite.  It is made up of many
streams, of the twisting and winding of many bands.  The quality,
hope and destiny of our land is expressed in the phrase of
our Fathers, 'E Pluribus Unum'--of many, one--of many States,
one Nation--of many races, one people--of many creeds, one
faith--of many bended knees, one family of God." A little
later I went with the Massachusetts Club, of which I was a
member, to an outing at Newport.  There, briefly but still
more emphatically, I called upon the people not to revive
the bitter memories of ancient, social and religious strife.

These two speeches excited the indignation of the leaders
of this organization.  A gentleman named Evans, I believe
born in England, took up the cudgels.  He was supported by
many worthy clergymen and a good many newspapers which had
been established to support the doctrine of the A. P. A.
organization.  Mr. Evans, if I am right in my memory, claimed
that he was not a member of the organization.  But he stood
up for it stanchly in two letters to me, in which he very
severely denounced what I had said, and pointed out the wicked
behavior of some Catholic priests to whom he referred.  He
said he had looked up to me as he formerly did to Charles
Sumner and William H. Seward; that my course would tend as
absolutely to the breaking up of the Republican Party as Daniel
Webster's speech did to the breaking up of the old Whig Party,
and that I had rung my own death knell; that the one mistake
Wesley made when he called slavery "the sum of all villainies"
was that he did not except the Roman Catholic Church.  He
added that there were at least three million members of these
patriotic orders, constituting at least three fifths of the
Republican Party, and that their membership was being added to
daily.  Mr. Evans also said, what was absolutely without
foundation, that I had said, "We need a Father Confessor."

That gave me my opportunity.  I answered with the following
letter in which I stated my own doctrine as vigorously and
clearly as I knew how.

WORCESTER, Aug. 5, 1895.
  T. C. EVANS, ESQ.:

_My Dear Sir_--One of the great evils, though by no means
the greatest evil of secret political societies, is that foolish
and extravagant statements about men who don't agree with
them get circulated without opportunity for contradiction
or explanation.  You seem to be a well-meaning and intelligent
man; yet I am amazed that any well-meaning and intelligent
man should believe such stuff as you repeat in your letter
of August 3.  I never said, thought or dreamed what you impute
to me.  I don't believe there ever was any report in the Worcester
_Telegram_ to that effect.  Certainly there is none in the
report of what I said in the summer school at Clark University
the morning after, and there is no such statement in any of
the other Worcester newspapers.  I never anywhere expressed
the idea that there should be a confessional or that there
was any need of a Father Confessor, or that I wanted to see
something in our Protestant churches like the Father Confessor
in the Catholic.  The whole thing is a miserable lie and invention
made out of whole cloth.  The language, which you quote, about
an attempt to recall on one side, "the cruelties of the Catholic
Church and frighten our women and children with horrid hobgoblins,"
is not my language.  That does appear in the _Telegram_.  But
it is the reporter's statement of what he understood my idea
to be in his own language.  What I said was: "We are confronted
with a public danger which comes from an attempt to rouse
the old feelings of the dark ages, and which ought to have
ended with them, between men who have different forms of faith.
It is an attempt to recall on one side the cruelties of the
Catholic Church and to frighten old women of both sexes, and,
on the other side, to band the men of the Catholic Church
together for political action.  Both these attempts will fail."

There is no more zealous believer in the principles of the
New England Puritans, and no more zealous advocate of them,
than I am.  There is not a man in Massachusetts who has more
at heart the welfare and perpetuity of our system of free
common schools than I have.  I was the first person, so far
as I know, who called public attention to the fact that they
were in danger, in any formal way.  I drew and had put in
the platform of the Republican State Convention the following
resolution:  "The Republican Party ever has maintained and
ever will maintain and defend, the common schools of Massachusetts
as the very citadel of happiness.  They shall be kept open
to all the children and free from all partisan and sectarian
control."

This doctrine I stand by.  And I stand by the further doctrine,
as I stated at length in my address at Clark University, that
the whole resources of the Commonwealth are pledged to their
support, and that that is the bottom mortgage on every dollar
of our property, and that no person can escape or be allowed
to escape that responsibility.  The difference between you
and me is a difference of method.  I want to get the 700,000
Catholics in Massachusetts on our side.  I want them to send
their children to the public schools, to pay their share of
the cost, and when their young men and women are suitable,
are intelligent, liberal persons, attached to the school system,
I want some of them to be employed as teachers.  I don't wish
to exclude them from my political support when they are Republicans
and agree with me in other matters, because of their religious
faith.  Nor do I wish to exclude them from being public school
teachers, if they will keep their particular religious tenets
out of their instruction, because of their religious faith, any
more than I would have excluded Phil Sheridan from his office
in the army, or would have refused to support him for any
public office, if he had been nominated for it.  Further,
I want to state and advocate my opinions in the face of day,
and you may be sure that I shall do this without flinching
before anybody's threats or anybody's displeasure or indignation.
You, on the other hand, I understand, want to go into a cellar
to declare your principles.  You want to join an association
whose members are ashamed to confess they belong to it; many
of whom, without apparently forfeiting the respect of their
fellows, lie about their membership in it when they are asked
about it.  You want to mass together the whole Catholic population
of Massachusetts to the support of their extreme and wrong-
headed priests, if any such can be found.

The difference between us is a difference of methods in accomplishing
the same result.  I think your method would overthrow the
common school system, would overthrow the Republican Party,
and would end by massing together all the Catholic voters,
as proscription always does mass men together, to increase
and strengthen that political power which you profess so much
to dread.

When O'Neill, the young Catholic soldier of Worcester, lay
dying, he said:  "Write to my dear mother and tell her I die
for my country.  I wish I had two lives to give.  Let the
Union flag be wrapped around me and a fold of it laid under
my head."  I feel proud that God gave me such a man to be
my countryman and townsman.  I have very little respect for
the Americanism that is not moved and stirred by such a story.
If O'Neill had left a daughter who had her father's spirit,
I would be willing to trust my child or grandchild to her
instruction in secular education in the public school, even
if the father had kissed with his last breath the cross on
which the Saviour died, or even if the parting soul had received
comfort from the lips of Thomas Conaty or John Power or John
Ireland or Archbishop Williams.

When John Boyle O'Reilly, the Catholic poet, sang the praises
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in that noblest of odes, when
he quoted in his preface from William Bradford and John Robinson
and Robert Cushman, I was glad to hear what he said, especially
when he quoted from the lips of the clergyman Robinson: "I
charge you before God that you follow me no further than you
have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ.  If God reveal
anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready
to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my
ministry, for I am verily persuaded, I am very confident,
the Lord hath more truths yet to break forth out of His Holy
Word."  I liked what he said.  If I understand your former
letter correctly, you didn't.  That is where we differ.  When
John Boyle O'Reilly said, declaring the very spirit of New
England Puritanism, and speaking of religious faith, "the
one sacred revolution is change of mind," when he spoke these
noble lines:

  So held they firm, the Fathers aye to be,
  From Home to Holland, Holland to the sea--
  Pilgrims for manhood, in their little ship,
  Hope in each heart, and prayer on every lip.
  Apart from all--unique, unworldly, true,
  Selected grain to sow the earth anew;
  A winnowed part--a saving remnant they;
  Dreamers who work; adventurers who pray!
  We know them by the exile that was theirs;
  Their justice, faith and fortitude attest.

When he further said:

  On the wintry main
  God flings their lives as farmers scatter grain,
  His breath propels the winged seed afloat;
  His tempests swerve to spare the fragile boat;
  Here on this rock and on this sterile soil,
  Began the kingdom, not of kings, but men;
  Began the making of the world again,
  Their primal code of liberty, their rules
  Of civil right; their churches, courts and schools;
  Their freedom's very secret here laid down--
  The spring of government is the little town!
  On their strong lines, we base our social health--
  The man--the home--the town--the Commonwealth;
  Their saintly Robinson was left behind
  To teach by gentle memory; to shame
  The bigot spirit and the word of flame;
  To write dear mercy in the Pilgrim's law;
  To lead to that wide faith his soul foresaw--

I liked what he said.  If I understand your former letter,
you didn't.  You don't want a man who differs from you saying
or thinking such things.  I want the whole 700,000 Catholics
of Massachusetts to believe what John Boyle O'Reilly believed,
and to love and reverence the Puritan founders of Massachusetts
as he did, and I think my way is the way to make them do it.
You don't, if I understand you.  You think the way to make
good citizens and good men of them and to attract them to
Protestantism, is to exclude them, their sons and daughters,
from all public employment and to go yourself into a dark
cellar and curse at them through the gratings of the windows.

I stated my religious faith and my ideas of the relation
of our religious denominations to each other, in an address
I delivered at Saratoga last year, of which I send you a
copy, and which I hope, as you have kindly volunteered to
send me so much of your opinion, you may perhaps be willing
to read.  It doesn't become me to say anything about it myself.
I am deeply sensible of its imperfections.  It fails to do
justice to what is in my own heart.  But perhaps I may be
permitted to say that within a few weeks after it was delivered,
an eminent Catholic clergyman sent me a message expressing
his delight in it.  The most famous Episcopalian Bishop in
the country said to a friend of mine that he had read it with
great pleasure and that it sounded to him like the old times.
A Baptist minister, bearing one of the most distinguished
names in the country, wrote me a letter, in which he said,
as he read it, "At every sentence, I said to myself, Amen,
Amen."  An eminent Orthodox minister, Doctor of Divinity,
read it aloud to his parish, in full, instead of his Sunday's
sermon.  And a very excellent and able Methodist minister
wrote to me and said, "If that is Unitarianism, I am afraid
I am a Unitarian."  I think the time has come to throw down
the walls between Christians and not to build new ones.  I
think the time has come to inculcate harmony and good will
between all American citizens, especially between all citizens
of the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

You quote some expressions which you attribute to Catholic
clergymen.  If you don't get any nearer right in quoting
them than you do in quoting me, I don't believe that they
ever said any such thing.  If they have, they never will
persuade any considerable number of Catholic laity in this
country, in this nineteenth century, to follow them.  You may
perhaps induce the Catholic young men and women of Massachusetts
to believe there is something in what those clergymen say.
They never will succeed in doing it themselves.

I don't think you will succeed in getting any considerable
number of the people of this country, who are able to read
and write, or to count ten on their fingers, to believe that, as
I am entering my seventieth year, I am actuated by any personal
ambition, in the counsel which I give my fellow citizens.
I don't think you will get them to believe that, if I were
so actuated, I should begin by saying anything which would
estrange a considerable number of the Protestant Republican
citizens of Massachusetts.  I don't think you will convince
them that I am indifferent to the good will of so large a
portion of the American people as are said to be enlisted
in the ranks of the secret society to which you refer.  If
you know as little of your Catholic fellow citizens as you
know of me, you have a good deal as yet to learn of the subject
of which you are speaking.

On the other hand, you may be quite sure I should be unwilling
to do injustice to any of my fellow citizens.  They will hardly
need be assured that I would not lightly or unnecessarily
incur their disapprobation.  But you may perhaps think it
pardonable that I should not be thoroughly informed as to
the principles, motives or conduct of a secret society.  As
you have undertaken the duty of giving me information, will
you kindly answer for me the following questions:

1st.  Is the organization to which you refer a secret organization?
Are its discussions in the face of day?  Do the persons whose
political errors they especially oppose have an opportunity
to know their purposes and to be convinced by their arguments?
If the organization be in any respect secret, why is it deemed
necessary to maintain such secrecy in the United States of
America and at the close of the nineteenth century?

2d.  Is it the custom of many persons who belong to it to
deny, when inquired of, that they are members of such an
association?  And if this be true, does such a falsehood cost
them the respect and friendship of their associates or diminish
their influence in the order?

3d.  Do members of the association, after joining it, retain
their membership in other political parties?  Do they agree
together upon candidates for office or delegates to conventions
to nominate officers and then go into their party caucuses
to support such delegates agreed upon in secret, without consultation
with their political brethren? If that be true, does it seem
to you that that course is honest?

4th.  Do you understand that any considerable number of Catholic
laymen, in this country, accept the interpretation which you
put upon the fifteen articles which you quote as principles
of the Roman Catholic Church?  Is it not true that the interpretation
is absolutely rejected by the Catholic laity in general, and
that they affirm for themselves as absolute independence of
the Pope or of the clergy in all secular matters as you or
I claim for ourselves in regard to Protestant clergymen?

5th.  Are not Italy and France, two Catholic countries, to-
day as absolutely free from any temporal power or influence
of the Pope or the Catholic clergy as is Massachusetts?

6th.  I have had sent me a little leaflet, purporting to be
the principles of the American Protective Association, which
you doubtless have seen.  When you say, in your third article,
that the American Protective Association is "opposed to the
holding of offices in the National, State or municipal Government,
by any subject or supporter of such ecclesiastical power,"
and in your fifth article, that you "protest against the employment
of the subjects of any un-American ecclesiastical power as
officers or teachers of our public schools," do you mean,
or no, that no Catholic shall hold such National or State
or municipal office, and that no Catholic shall be a teacher
in a public school?  You don't answer this question by quoting
the language of church officials in by-gone days or the intemperate
language of some priests in recent times.  It is a practical
question.  Do you or don't you mean to exclude from such office
and from such employment as teachers the bulk of the Catholic
population of Massachusetts?

7th.  Is it you opinion that General Philip H. Sheridan,
were he living, would be unfit to hold civil or military office
in this country?  Or that his daughter, if she entertained
the religious belief of her father, should be disqualified from
being a teacher in a public school?

I have no pride of opinion.  I shall be very glad to revise
any opinion of mine and, as you state it, I shall be very
glad to "know better in the future," if you will kindly enlighten
me.

You and I, as I have said, have the same object at heart.
We desire, above all things, the maintenance of the principles
of civil and religious liberty; and above all other instrumentalities
to that end, the maintenance of our common school system,
at the public charge, open to all the children and free from
partisan or sectarian control.  If you and I differ, it is
only as to what is the best means of accomplishing these
ends.  If you think that they are best accomplished by secret
societies, by hiding from the face of day, by men who will
not acknowledge what they are doing, and by refusing public
employment to men and women who think on these subjects exactly
as we do, but whose religious faith differs from ours, then
I don't agree with you.  I think your method will result
in driving and compacting together, in solid mass, persons
who will soon number nearly or quite fifty per cent. of the
voting population of Massachusetts.  Nothing strengthens
men, nothing makes them so hard to hear reason, nothing so
drives them to extremity in opinion or in action as persecution
or proscription.

On the other hand, my method is the method of absolute freedom
and of pure reason.  The Catholic boy, who has grown up in
our common schools, who had formed his youthful friendships
with his Protestant classmates, whose daughter or sister,
as he grows older, is employed as a teacher, will very soon
be attached to our common school system as we are ourselves.
He will be required, as he gets property, to pay his share
of his support.  He cannot ask to be exempt from a tax to
which all Protestants cheerfully submit, whether their own
children be in the schools or not, and he will not easily
be made to give his consent to paying twice.  The American
Spirit, the Spirit of the age, the Spirit of Liberty, the
Spirit of Equality, especially what Roger Williams called
"Soul Liberty" is able to maintain herself in a fair field
and in a free contest against all comers.  Do not compel her
to fight in a cellar.  Do not compel her to breathe the damp,
malarial atmosphere of dark places.  Especially let no member
of the Republican Party, the last child of freedom, lend his
aid to such an effort.  The atmosphere of the Republic is
the air of the mountain top and the sunlight and the open
field.  Her emblem is the eagle and not the bat.

  I am faithfully yours,
  GEORGE F. HOAR.

After the publication of the foregoing letter, I received
one from Theodore Roosevelt, who was holding a high office
in New York City, then at the beginning of his illustrious
political career.  He expressed his hearty sympathy and approval,
and offered to lay aside everything else and come to my aid,
if I so desired.  I need not say I took special pleasure in
this letter, which disclosed so unmistakably the honest and
brave heart of the man, who was then in his difficult office
fighting wild beasts at Ephesus.  But I did not need to accept
his offer.

I was angrily denounced.  But the leading Republican papers
soon came to my support.  The Republican political leaders
generally, though quietly, approved what I had said and done.
The generous and just heart of the American people was stirred,
and the result was that the movement, inspired by bigotry
and intolerance, lost its force, languished for a year or
two, and was little heard of afterward.

I dare say that the same causes which excited it may provoke
a similar movement more than once hereafter.  But I believe
it will fail as that failed.

I know how prone men are, especially old men, in telling
the story of their lives, to over-estimate the value and the
consequence of the things in which they have taken a part.
But I think I am not extravagant in claiming that the overthrow
of this dangerous delusion was of great value not only to
the Republican Party, but to the cause of religious liberty
in this country, and that the success of the A. P. A. would
have been the destruction of both.


CHAPTER XXX
THE ENGLISH MISSION

I may as well put on record here a matter which I suppose
has never been made public.  When in President Hayes's time
Mr. Welsh resigned the English Mission, Mr. Lowell, then in
Spain, was strongly recommended for the place.  Mr. Evarts,
Secretary of State, was quite unwilling to have Mr. Lowell
appointed.  I fancied that Mr. Evarts might have been influenced
somewhat by his reluctance to appoint a Harvard man.  He was
an exceedingly pleasant-natured man, with no bitterness in
him.  But he entered with a good deal of zeal into the not
unhealthy rivalry between the two famous Universities, Harvard
and Yale.  Of course I did not like that notion.  President
Hayes had an exceedingly friendly feeling for Harvard.  He
had studied at the Harvard Law School, and later had the degree
of Doctor of Laws there.  Mr. Lowell hesitated about accepting
the duty.  I said to the President:  "In the matter of the
English Mission, if Mr. Lowell declines, I have a suggestion
to make which Mr. Evarts, I am afraid, won't like very well.
But I wish to ask you to consider it, Evarts or no Evarts."
My relations with both of them made this familiar and half-
boyish style of dealing with so important a matter not unbecoming.
"I think President Eliot would be an excellent person for
such a service.  It is understood that he is somewhat out
of health.  I think if he should go to England for a year
or two, and take a vacation from his duties at the College,
it would reflect great credit on your Administration and on
the country, and he would return to his duties at Harvard
with renewed health and added reputation and capacity for
usefulness."  Mr. Hayes did not quite commit himself.  But
he expressed his very emphatic approval of the idea, and said
he guessed it might be brought to pass.  But I had, at his
request, sent a cable to Mr. Lowell who was then in Spain,
urging him to take the place.  He was then hesitating, but
finally, as is well known, consented.

I was on the friendliest terms with President Hayes.  As I
have already said he was good enough to offer me the office
of Attorney-General, when the appointment of Devens to the
Circuit Court was under consideration.

I had already, before that time, received from Mr. Evarts,
Secretary of State, the offer of the English Mission, as I
have said in another place, when Mr. Welsh resigned.

I may as well state here, although it belongs to a later
time, that the offer was made to me again, by President McKinley.
I give the correspondence with President McKinley when he
made me that offer:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C.
  September 13, 1898.
  HON. GEORGE F. HOAR (Confidential),
  WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.

It would give me much satisfaction to appoint you Ambassador
to London.  Will it be agreeable to you?

  WILLIAM MCKINLEY.

September 14, 1898.
  TO THE PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON, D. C.

I am highly honored by your confidence, for which I am grateful.
But I believe I can better serve my country, and better support
your Administration by continuing to discharge the legislative
duties to which I have been accustomed for thirty years, than
by undertaking new responsibilities at my age, now past seventy-
two.  If it were otherwise, I cannot afford to maintain the
scale of living which the social customs of London make almost
indispensable to an Ambassador, and I have no right to impose
upon my wife, in her present state of health, the burden which
would fall upon her.  Be assured of my warm personal regard
and of my desire to stand by you in the difficult and trying
period which is before you.

  GEO. F. HOAR


CHAPTER XXXI
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE SYRIAN CHILDREN

A very touching incident, characteristic of the kind heart
of President Roosevelt, ought to be put on record in connection
with his visit to Worcester.

During the Christmas holidays of 1901 a very well known Syrian,
a man of high standing and character, came into my son's office
and told him this story:

A neighbor and countryman of his had a few years before emigrated
to the United States and established himself in Worcester.
Soon afterward, he formally declared his intention of becoming
an American citizen.  After a while, he amassed a little money
and sent to his wife, whom he had left in Syria, the necessary
funds to convey her and their little girl and boy to Worcester.
She sold her furniture and whatever other belongings she had,
and went across Europe to France, where they sailed from one
of the northern ports on a German steamer for New York.

Upon their arrival at New York, it appeared that the children
had contracted a disease of the eyelids, which the doctors
of the Immigration Bureau declared to be trachoma, which is
contagious, and in adults incurable.  It was ordered that
the mother might land, but that the children must be sent
back in the ship upon which they arrived, on the following
Thursday.  This would have resulted in sending them back as
paupers, as the steamship company, compelled to take them
as passengers free of charge, would have given them only such
food as was left by the sailors, and would have dumped them
out in France to starve, or get back as beggars to Syria.

The suggestion that the mother might land was only a cruel
mockery.  Joseph J. George, a worthy citizen of Worcester,
brought the facts of the case to the attention of my son,
who in turn brought them to my attention.  My son had meantime
advised that a bond be offered to the Immigration authorities
to save them harmless from any trouble on account of the children.

I certified these facts to the authorities and received a
statement in reply that the law was peremptory, and that it
required that the children be sent home; that trouble had
come from making like exceptions theretofore; that the Government
hospitals were full of similar cases, and the authorities
must enforce the law strictly in the future.  Thereupon I
addressed a telegram to the Immigration Bureau at Washington,
but received an answer that nothing could be done for the
children.

Then I telegraphed the facts to Senator Lodge, who went in
person to the Treasury Department, but could get no more
favorable reply.  Senator Lodge's telegram announcing their
refusal was received in Worcester Tuesday evening, and repeated
to me in Boston just as I was about to deliver an address
before the Catholic College there.  It was too late to do
anything that night.  Early Wednesday morning, the day before
the children were to sail, when they were already on the ship,
I sent the following dispatch to President Roosevelt:

TO THE PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

I appeal to your clear understanding and kind and brave heart
to interpose your authority to prevent an outrage which will
dishonor the country and create a foul blot on the American
flag.  A neighbor of mine in Worcester, Mass., a Syrian by
birth, made some time ago his public declaration for citizenship.
He is an honest, hard-working and in every way respectable
man.  His wife with two small children have reached New York.

He sent out the money to pay their passage.  The children
contracted a disorder of the eyes on the ship.  The Treasury
authorities say that the mother may land but the children
cannot, and they are to be sent back Thursday.  Ample bond
has been offered and will be furnished to save the Government
and everybody from injury or loss.  I do not think such a
thing ought to happen under your Administration, unless you
personally decide that the case is without remedy.  I am told
the authorities say they have been too easy heretofore, and
must draw the line now.  That shows they admit the power to
make exceptions in proper cases.  Surely, an exception should
be made in the case of little children of a man lawfully here,
and who has duly and in good faith declared his intention
to become a citizen.  The immigration law was never intended
to repeal any part of the naturalization laws which provide
that the minor children get all the rights of the father as
to citizenship.  My son knows the friends of this man personally
and that they are highly respectable and well off.  If our
laws require this cruelty, it is time for a revolution, and
you are just the man to head it.

  GEORGE F. HOAR.

Half an hour from the receipt of that dispatch at the White
House Wednesday forenoon, Theodore Roosevelt, President of
the United States, sent a peremptory order to New York to
let the children come in.  They have entirely recovered from
the disorder of the eyes, which turned out not to be contagious,
but only caused by the glare of the water, or the hardships
of the voyage.  The children are fair-haired, with blue eyes,
and of great personal beauty, and would be exhibited with
pride by any American mother.

When the President came to Worcester he expressed a desire
to see the children.  They came to meet him at my house, dressed
up in their best and glorious to behold.  The President was
very much interested in them, and said when what he had done
was repeated in his presence, that he was just beginning to
get angry.

The result of this incident was that I had a good many similar
applications for relief in behalf of immigrants coming in
with contagious diseases.  Some of them were meritorious,
and others untrustworthy.  In the December session of 1902
I procured the following amendment to be inserted in the immigration
law.

"Whenever an alien shall have taken up his permanent residence
in this country and shall have filed his preliminary declaration
to become a citizen and thereafter shall send for his wife
or minor children to join him, if said wife or either of said
children shall be found to be affected with any contagious
disorder, and it seems that said disorder was contracted on
board the ship in which they came, such wife or children shall
be held under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury
shall prescribe until it shall be determined whether the disorder
will be easily curable or whether they can be permitted to
land without danger to other persons; and they shall not be
deported until such facts have been ascertained."


CHAPTER XXXII
NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

I have, since I have been in the Senate, taken great interest
in the passage of a bill for a system of National Bankruptcy.
The Constitution gives Congress power to establish a uniform
system of Bankruptcy.  The people of Massachusetts, a commercial
and manufacturing State from the beginning, have always desired
a Bankrupt law.  They were large dealers with other States
and with other countries.  Insolvent debtors in Massachusetts
could not get discharge from their debts contracted in such
dealings.  The Massachusetts creditors having debts against
insolvents in other States found that their debtors under
the laws of those States either got preferences or made fraudulent
assignments which they could not detect or prevent.

On the other hand, the bankruptcy laws have always been unpopular
in many parts of the country.  The Democrat who strictly construed
the Constitution did not like to see this power of Congress
vigorously exercised.  The National Courts, who must administer
such laws, were always the object of jealousy and suspicion
in the South and West.  The people did not like to be summoned
to attend the settlement of an estate in bankruptcy, hundreds
and hundreds of miles, to the place where the United States
Court was sitting, in States like Texas or Missouri.  The
sympathy of many communities is apt to be with the debtor,
and not with the creditors, who were represented as harpies
or vultures preying on the flesh of their unfortunate victims.
A good example of this prejudice will be found in an extract
from the speech of Senator Ingalls, of Kansas.  He said in
defending what was known as the equity scheme:

"The opposition arose first, from the great wholesale merchants
in the chief distributing centres of the country.  They have
their agents and attorneys in the vicinity of every debtor,
obtaining early information of approaching disaster, and ready
to avail themselves of the local machinery of State courts
by attachment or by preferences, through which they can secure
full payment of their claims, to the exclusion of less powerful
or less vigilant but equally meritorious creditors.  Naturally
they want no Bankrupt law of any description.

"Second.  From the disabled veterans of the old army registers;
from the professional assignees and wreckers of estates, who,
by exorbitant fees and collusive sales of assets to convenient
favorites, plundered debtor and creditor alike and made the
system an engine of larceny and confiscation.

"Third.  From those who desire, instead of a system for the
discharge of honest but unfortunate debtors upon the surrender
of their estates, a criminal code and a thumb-screw machine
for the collection of doubtful and desperate debts.  They
covet a return to the primitive practices which prevailed
in Rome, when the debtor was sold into slavery or had his
body cut into pieces and distributed pro rata among his creditors.

"Fourth.  From those timid and cautious conservatives who
believe that nothing is valuable that is not venerable.

"Like the statesman described by Macaulay, they prefer to
perish by precedent rather than be saved by innovation.  They
adhere to ancient failures rather than incur the risk of success
through venture and experiment.

"Fifth.  From Boards of Trade, Chambers of Commerce and other
ornamental organizations who, being entirely uninformed on
the subject, permit themselves to become the conduits through
which the misrepresentation and animosity of avaricious creditors
and rapacious attorneys are discharged upon Congress and the
country."

I had moved in the Senate, in 1882, a bill favored by the
merchants and manufacturers of Massachusetts, which was largely
the work of Judge John Lowell, of the United States Circuit
Court, one of the most accomplished lawyers of his day, as
an amendment to a bill which Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Davis and Mr.
Ingalls had reported as a Subcommittee to the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and which had been reported from that Committee
to the Senate.

The Lowell Bill was on my motion substituted for the report
of the Judiciary Committee, by a majority of three.  This
bill was extensively discussed in June and December.  But
I was unable to secure its passage.  It passed the Senate,
but it did not get through the House.

I have had the Parliamentary charge of all Bankruptcy measures
in the Senate from that time.  After the failure of the Lowell
Bill, the Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce, and other
like associations throughout the country, took up the matter
very zealously by employing an able lawyer, the Hon. Jay
L. Torrey of Missouri, to present the matter in the two Houses
of Congress.  He was thoroughly acquainted with the principles
and history of Bankruptcy laws in this country and England.
But he had no compromise in him.  He insisted on the Bill
which he drew, which was a modification of the Lowell Bill,
without being willing to make any concession to objection
or difference of opinion in Congress, or out of it.  He said
he would have a perfect law, or none at all.  The measure
as he drew it was apparently very austere and harsh to the
debtor.  It enumerated a large number of offences for which
the debtor was to be punished by fine and imprisonment, and
by a denial of his discharge.  Mr. Torrey's provisions were
not very unreasonable.  But they made it seem as if the Bill
were a penal code for the punishment of fraudulent debtors.
A simple provision that any debtor who wilfully should make
false answer to any question lawfully put to him by the Court,
or who wilfully concealed or attempted to conceal any property
from his assignee should lose his discharge and be punished
with a proper and moderate punishment, would have answered
the whole purpose.  I take some blame to myself for not insisting
more strenuously upon modifying Mr. Torrey's measure.  But
he constantly visited different Senators and Representatives
and came back to me with glowing accounts of the prospects
of the Bill, and of their promises to support the Bill.  He
was also the agent of the business organizations of the country
who had passed resolutions in favor of the measure as he had
drawn it.  It seemed to me therefore that if I should get
the Bill amended and then it got lost, I should incur the
great reproach of having obstinately set up my judgment against
that of this large number of the ablest men in the country,
who were so deeply interested in the matter.  So the Bill,
though brought up and pressed Congress after Congress, failed
until Mr. Torrey enlisted in the Spanish War.

I then introduced a Bill in a softened and modified form.
It was attacked in that form by Senator Nelson of Minnesota,
a very excellent lawyer and gentleman of great influence,
in the Senate.  He succeeded in having the Bill modified
and softened still more.  The Bill then passed and went to
the House which, under the leadership of the Judiciary Committee,
substituted the original Bill.

Mr. Nelson and I, with Mr. Lindsay of Kentucky, were put on
the Conference Committee in the Senate, with Mr. Henderson,
afterward Speaker, Mr. Ray of New York, now Judge of the
U. S. District Court, and Mr. Terry of Missouri, on the part
of the House.  We struggled nearly the whole winter.  Mr.
Nelson and Mr. Ray took the burden of the contest upon their
shoulders.  Their attempts at compromise reminded their brethren
of the old scientific problem--"What will happen when an irresistible
force encounters an immovable obstacle." But both gentlemen,
each exceedingly firm in his own opinion when he thought he
was in the right, were wise and reasonable and conscientious
men.  So at last they agreed upon the present Bankruptcy
Bill, which became a law July 1, 1898.  It was on the whole
satisfactory to the country, except for one clause in it, which
was interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in a manner
contrary to the understanding and expectation of the framers
of the Bill.

A law was passed February 7, 1903, correcting this and some
minor defects.  It is hoped, though we cannot be sure in
such a matter, that a permanent system of Bankruptcy, so
essential to all commercial, indeed to all civilized nations, is
now established, and will be maintained in the United States.


CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

It has been my singular ill fortune that I have been compelled
to differ from the Republican Party, and from a good many
of my political associates, upon many important matters.

It has been my singular good fortune that, so far, they have
all come to my way of thinking, as have the majority of the
American people, in regard to every one, with perhaps one
exception.  That is the dealing of the American people with
the people of the Philippine Islands, by the Treaty with Spain.
The war that followed it crushed the Republic that the Philippine
people had set up for themselves, deprived them of their independence,
and established there, by American power, a Government in
which the people have no part, against their will.  No man,
I think, will seriously question that that action was contrary
to the Declaration of Independence, the fundamental principles
declared in many State constitutions, the principles avowed
by the founders of the Republic and by our statesmen of all
parties down to a time long after the death of Lincoln.

If the question were, whether I am myself right, or whether
my friends and companions in the Republican Party be right,
I should submit to their better judgment.  But I feel quite
confident, though of that no man can be certain, that if the
judgment of the American people, even in this generation,
could be taken on that question alone, I should find myself
in the majority.  If it be not so, the issue is between the
opinion of the American people for more than a century, and
the opinion that the American people has expressed for one
or two Presidential terms.

Surely I do not need to argue the question; at any rate, I
will not here undertake to argue the question, that our dealing
with the Philippine people is a violation of the principles
to which our people adhered from 1776 to 1893.  If the maintenance
of slavery were inconsistent with them, it was admitted that
in that particular we were violating them, or were unable
from circumstances to carry them into effect.  Mr. Jefferson
thought so himself.

But the accomplishment by this Republic of its purpose to
subjugate the Philippine people to its will, under the claim
that it, and not they, had the right to judge of their fitness
for self-government, is a rejection of the old American doctrine
as applicable to any race we may judge to be our inferior.

This doctrine will be applied hereafter, unless it be abandoned,
to the Negro at home.  Senator Tillman of South Carolina well
said, and no gentleman in the Senate contradicted him: "Republican
leaders do not longer dare to call into question the justice
or the necessity of limiting Negro suffrage in the South."
The same gentleman said at another time: "I want to call your
attention to the remarkable change that has come over the
spirit of the dream of the Republicans.  Your slogans of the
past--brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God--have gone
glimmering down through the ages.  The brotherhood of man
exists no longer." These statements of Mr. Tillman have never
been challenged, and never can be.

I do not mean here to renew the almost interminable debate.
I will only make a very brief statement of my position:

The discussion began with the acquisition of Hawaii.  Ever
since I came to the Senate I had carefully studied the matter
of the acquisition of Hawaii.  I had become thoroughly satisfied
that it would be a great advantage to the people of the United
States, as well as for the people of Hawaii.

Hawaii is 2,100 miles from our Pacific coast.  Yet if a line
be drawn from the point of our territory nearest Asia to the
Southern boundary of California, that line being the chord
of which our Pacific coast is the bow, Hawaii will fall this
side of it.  Held by a great Nation with whom we were at war,
it would be a most formidable and valuable base of supplies.
We had sustained a peculiar relation to it.  American missionaries
had redeemed the people from barbarism and Paganism.  Many
of them, and their descendants, had remained in the Islands.
The native Hawaiians were a perishing race.  They had gone
down from 300,000 to 30,000 within one hundred years.

The Japanese wanted it.  The Portugese wanted it.  Other nations
wanted it.  But the Hawaiians seemed neither to know nor care
whether they wanted it or no.  They were a perishing people.
Their only hope and desire and expectation was that in the
Providence of God they might lead a quiet, undisturbed life,
fishing, bathing, supplied with tropical fruits, and be let
alone.

We had always insisted that our relation to them was peculiar;
that they could not be permitted to fall under the dominion
of another power, even by their own consent.  That had been
declared by our Department of State under Administrations
of all parties, including Mr. Webster, Mr. Seward, and Mr.
Bayard.  They were utterly helpless.  As their Queen has lately
declared:  "The best thing for them that could have happened
was to belong to the United States."

By the Constitution of Hawaii, the Government had been authorized
to make a treaty of annexation with this country.  It was
said that that Constitution was the result of usurpation which
would not have come to pass but for American aid, and the
presence of one of our men-of-war.  But that Government had
been maintained for six or seven years.  Four of them were
while Mr. Cleveland was President, who it was well known would
be in full sympathy with an attempt to restore the old Government.
So if the people had been against it, the Government under
that Constitution could not have lasted an hour.

President Harrison had negotiated a treaty of annexation,
against which no considerable remonstrance or opposition
was uttered.  My approval of it was then, I suppose, well
known.  Certainly no friend of mine, and nobody in Massachusetts,
so far as I know, in the least objected or remonstrated against
it.  The treaty was withdrawn from the consideration of the
Senate by President Cleveland.

Another was negotiated soon after President McKinley came
in.  Meantime, however, the controversy with Spain had assumed
formidable proportions, and the craze for an extension of
our Empire had begun its course.  Many Republican leaders
were advocating the acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands, not
for the reasons I have just stated, but on the avowed ground
that it was necessary we should own them as a point of vantage
for acquiring dominion in the East.  It was said that China
was about to be divided among the great Western powers, and
that we must have our share.  I saw when the time approached
for action of the McKinley Treaty that the question could
not be separated, at least in debate, from the question of
entering upon a career of conquest of Empire in the Far East.

Under these circumstances the question of duty came to me:
Will you adhere to the purpose long formed, and vote for the
acquisition of Hawaii solely on its own merit?  Or, will you
vote against it, for fear that the bad and mischievous reasons
that are given for it is so many quarters, will have a pernicious
tendency only to be counteracted by the defeat of the treaty
itself?

I hesitated long.  President McKinley sent for me to come
to the White House, as was his not infrequent habit.  He said
he wanted to consult me upon the question whether it would
be wise for him to have a personal interview with Senator
Morrill of Vermont.  He had been told that Mr. Morrill was
opposed to the Treaty.  The President said: "I do not quite
like to try to influence the action of an old gentleman like
Mr. Morrill, so excellent, and of such great experience.  It
seems to me that it might be thought presumptuous, if I were
to do so.  But it is very important to us to have his vote,
if we can."  The President added something implying that he
understood that I was in favor of the Treaty.

I said, "I ought to say, Mr. President, in all candor, that
I feel very doubtful whether I can support it myself." President
McKinley said:  "Well, I don't know what I shall do.  We cannot
let those Islands go to Japan.  Japan has her eye on them.
Her people are crowding in there.  I am satisfied they do
not go there voluntarily, as ordinary immigrants, but that
Japan is pressing them in there, in order to get possession
before anybody can interfere.  If something be not done, there
will be before long another Revolution, and Japan will get
control.  Some little time ago the Hawaiian Government observed
that when the immigrants from a large steamer went ashore
they marched with a military step, indicating that they were
a body of trained soldiers.  Thereupon Hawaii prohibited the
further coming in of Japanese.  Japan claimed that was in
violation of their treaty, and sent a ship of war to Hawaii.
I was obliged to notify Japan that no compulsory measures
upon Hawaii, in behalf of the Japan Government, would be tolerated
by this country.  So she desisted.  But the matters are still
in a very dangerous position, and Japan is doubtless awaiting
her opportunity."

I told President McKinley that I favored then, as I always
had, the acquisition of Hawaii.  But I did not like the spirit
with which it was being advocated both in the Senate and
out of it.  I instanced several very distinguished gentlemen
indeed, one a man of very high authority in the Senate in
matters relating to foreign affairs, who were urging publicly
and privately the Hawaiian Treaty on the ground that we must
have Hawaii in order to help us get our share of China.  President
McKinley disclaimed any such purpose.  He expressed his earnest
and emphatic dissent from the opinions imputed to several
leading Republicans, whom he named.

I never, at any time during the discussion of the Philippine
question, expressed a more emphatic disapproval of the acquisition
of dependencies or Oriental Empire by military strength, than
he expressed on that occasion.  I am justified in putting
this on record, not only because I am confirmed by several
gentlemen in public life, who had interviews with him, but
because he made in substance the same declaration in public.

He declared, speaking of this very matter of acquiring sovereignty
over Spanish territory by conquest:

"Forcible annexation, according to our American code of morals,
would be criminal aggression."

He said at another time:

"Human rights and constitutional privileges must not be forgotten
in the race for wealth and commercial supremacy.  The Government
of the people must be by the people and not by a few of the
people.  It must rest upon the free consent of the governed
and all of the governed.  Power, it must be remembered, which
is secured by oppression or usurpation or by any form of injustice
is soon dethroned.  We have no right in law or morals to usurp
that which belongs to another, whether it is property or power."

I suppose he was then speaking of our duty as to any people
whom we might liberate from Spain, as the results of the Spanish
War.  He unquestionably meant that we had no right, in law
or morals, to usurp the right of self-government which belonged
to the Cubans, or to the Philippine people.

Yet I have no doubt whatever that in the attitude that he
took later he was actuated by a serious and lofty purpose
to do right.  I think he was led on from one step to another
by what he deemed the necessity of the present occasion.  I
dare say that he was influenced, as any other man who was
not more than human would have been influenced, by the apparently
earnest desire of the American people, as he understood it,
as it was conveyed to him on his Western journey.  But I believe
every step he took he thought necessary at the time.  I further
believe, although I may not be able to convince other men,
and no man will know until the secret history of that time
shall be made known, that if he had lived, before his Administration
was over, he would have placed the Republic again on the principles
from which it seems to me we departed--the great doctrine
of Jefferson, the great doctrine of the Declaration of Independence,
that there can be no just Government by one people over another
without its consent, and that the International law declared
by the Republic is that all Governments must depend for their
just powers upon the consent of the governed.  This was insisted
on by our Fathers as the doctrine of International law, to
be acted upon by the infant Republic for itself.  In this
I am confirmed by the testimony of Mr. Secretary Long, who
was in President McKinley's most intimate counsels.

The Treaty negotiated by President McKinley with Hawaii was
not acted upon.  It was concluded to substitute a joint resolution,
for which there was a precedent in the case of the acquisition
of Texas.  I voted for the joint resolution, as did Senator
Hale of Maine, and several Democratic Senators, who were earnestly
opposed to what is known as the policy of Imperialism.

I left the President, after the conversation above related,
without giving him any assurance as to my action.  But I
determined on full reflection, to support the acquisition of
Hawaii, in accordance with my long-settled purpose, and at
the same time to make a clear and emphatic statement of my
unalterable opposition to acquiring dependencies in the East,
if we did not expect, when the proper time came, to admit
them to the Union as States.  This I did to the best of my
power.  I was invited to give an address before a college
in Pennsylvania, where I took occasion to make an emphatic
declaration of the doctrine on which I meant to act.

Afterward, July 5, 1898, I made a speech in the Senate, on
the joint resolution for the acquisition of Hawaii, in which
I said that I had entertained grave doubts in regard to that
measure; that I had approached the subject with greater hesitation
and anxiety than I had ever felt in regard to any other matter
during the whole of my public life.

I went on to say:

"The trouble I have found with the Hawaiian business is this:
Not in the character of the population of the Sandwich Island,
not in their distance from our shores, not in the doubt that
we have an honest right to deal with the existing government
there in such a matter.  I have found my trouble in the nature
and character of the argument by which, in the beginning and
ever since, a great many friends of annexation have sought
to support it . . . .

"If this be the first step in the acquisition of dominion
over barbarous archipelagoes in distant seas; if we are to
enter into competition with the great powers of Europe in
the plundering of China, in the division of Africa; if we
are to quit our own to stand on foreign lands; if our commerce
is hereafter to be forced upon unwilling peoples at the cannon's
mouth; if we are ourselves to be governed in part by peoples
to whom the Declaration of Independence is a stranger; or,
worse still, if we are to govern subjects and vassal States,
trampling as we do it on our own great Charter which recognizes
alike the liberty and the dignity of individual manhood, then
let us resist this thing in the beginning, and let us resist
it to the death.

"I do not agree with those gentlemen who think we would wrest
the Philippine Islands from Spain and take charge of them
ourselves.  I do not think we should acquire Cuba, as the
result of the existing war, to be annexed to the United States."

I reinforced this protest as well I could.  But I went on
to state the reasons which had actuated me in favoring the
measure, and that my unconquerable repugnance to the acquisition
of territory to be held in dependency did not apply to that
case.

I cited the Teller resolution, and declared that it bound
the American people in honor, and that its principle applied
to all Spanish territory.  I maintained that there was nothing
in the acquisition of Hawaii inconsistent with this doctrine.
I think so still.

I was bitterly reproached by some worthy persons, who I suppose
will always find matter for bitter reproach in everything
said or done on public matters.  They charged me with speaking
one way and voting another.  But I am content to leave the
case on its merits, and on the record.

The war went on.  The feeling of the country was deeply excited.
President McKinley made his famous Western journey.  He was
greeted by enthusiastic throngs.  The feeling in that part
of the country in favor of a permanent dominion over the Philippine
Islands was uttered by excited crowds, whom he addressed from
the platform and the railroad cars as he passed thorough the
country.  But the sober, conservative feeling, which seldom
finds utterance in such assemblies, did not make itself heard.

The President returned to Washington, undoubtedly in the honest
belief that the country demanded that he acquire the Philippine
Islands, and that Congress should govern them.

I have never attributed publicly, or in my own heart, to
President McKinley any but the most conscientious desire
to do his duty in what, as the case seems to me, was an entire
change of purpose.  Many military and naval officers, from
whose reports he had to get his facts almost wholly, insisted
that the Philippine people were unfit for self-government.
After the unhappy conflict of arms the solution of the problem
seemed to be to compel the Philippine people to unconditional
submission.  It would not be just or fair that I should undertake
to state the reasons which controlled the President in adopting
the conclusions to which I did not myself agree.  I am merely
telling my own part in the transaction.

When I got back to Washington, at the beginning of the session
in December, 1898, I had occasion to see the President almost
immediately.  His purpose was to make a Treaty by which, without
the assent of their inhabitants, we should acquire the Philippine
Islands.  We were to hold and govern in subjection the people
of the Philippine Islands.  That was pretty well understood.

The national power of Spain was destroyed.  It was clear
that she must submit to whatever terms we should impose.
The President had chosen, as Commissioners to negotiate the
Treaty, five gentlemen, three of whom, Senators Cushman K.
Davis, and William P. Frye and Whitelaw Reid, the accomplished
editor of the New York _Tribune,_ former Minister to France,
were well known to be zealous for acquiring territory in the
East.  Mr. Frye was said to have declared in a speech not
long before he went abroad that he was in favor of keeping
everything we could lay our hands on.  I suppose that was,
however, intended as a bit of jocose extravagance, which that
most excellent gentleman did not mean to have taken too seriously.

Mr. Day, the Secretary of State, and Senator Gray of Delaware,
were understood to be utterly opposed to the policy of expansion
or Imperialism.

I do not know about Mr. Day.  But it appeared, when three
years afterward the correspondence between the Commissioners
and the Department of State became public, that Mr. Day expressed
no objection to the acquisition of Luzon, but objected to
a peremptory demand for the whole Philippine Island group,
thereby--to use his language--"leaving us open to the imputation
of following agreement to negotiate with demand for whole
subject matter of discussion ourselves."

The public impression as to Senator Gray is confirmed by the
following remonstrance, which appears in the same correspondence:

PEACE COMMISSIONERS TO MR. HAY
[Telegram]

PARIS, October 25, 1898.

The undersigned cannot agree that it is wise to take Philippine
Islands in whole or in part.  To do so would be to reverse
accepted continental policy of the country, declared and acted
upon throughout our history.  Propinquity governs the case
of Cuba and Porto Rico.  Policy proposed introduces us into
European politics and the entangling alliances against which
Washington and all American statemen have protested.  It will
make necessary a navy equal to largest of powers; a greatly
increased military establishment; immense sums for fortifications
and harbors; multiply occasions for dangerous complications
with foreign nations, and increase burdens of taxation.  Will
receive in compensation no outlet for American labor in labor
market already overcrowded and cheap; no area for homes for
American citizens; climate and social conditions demoralizing
to character of American youth; new and disturbing questions
introduced into our politics; church question menacing.   On
whole, instead of indemnity--injury.

The undersigned cannot agree that any obligation incurred
to insurgents is paramount to our own manifest interests.
Attacked Manila as part of legitimate war against Spain.
If we had captured Cadiz and Carlists had helped us, would
not owe duty to stay by them at the conclusion of war.  On
the contrary, interests and duty would require us to abandon
both Manila and Cadiz.  No place for colonial administration
or government of subject people in American system.  So much
from standpoint of interest; but even conceding all benefits
claimed for annexation, we thereby abandon the infinitely
greater benefit to accrue from acting the part of a great,
powerful, and Christian nation; we exchange the moral grandeur
and strength to be gained by keeping our word to nations of
the world and by exhibiting a magnanimity and moderation in
the hour of victory that becomes the advanced civilization
we claim, for doubtful material advantages and shameful stepping
down from high moral position boastfully assumed.  We should
set example in these respects, not follow in the selfish and
vulgar greed for territory which Europe has inherited from
mediaeval times.  Our declaration of war upon Spain was accompanied
by a solemn and deliberate definition of our purpose.  Now
that we have achieved all and more than our object, let us
simply keep our word.  Third article of the protocol leaves
everything concerning the control of the Philippine Islands
to negotiation between the parties.

It is absurd now to say that we will not negotiate but will
appropriate the whole subject-matter of negotiation.  At
the very least let us adhere to the President' instructions
and if conditions require the keeping of Luzon forego the
material advantages claimed in annexing other islands.  Above
all let us not make a mockery of the injunction contained
in those instructions, where, after stating that we took
up arms only in obedience to the dictates of humanity and
in the fulfillment of high public and moral obligations, and
that we had no design of aggrandizement and no ambition of
conquest, the President among other things eloquently says:

"It is my earnest wish that the United States in making peace
should follow the same high rule of conduct which guided it
in facing war.  It should be as scrupulous and magnanimous
in the concluding settlement as it was just and humane in
its original action."

This and more, of which I earnestly ask a reperusal, binds
my conscience and governs my action.

GEORGE GRAY.
  WEDNESDAY, 12.30, night.

Senator Gray afterward signed the Treaty, defended it in
debate, and voted for its ratification.  He vigorously defended
his vote on the floor of the Senate, chiefly by the argument
that when he learned that it was the purpose of the United
States to expel Spain from the Philippine Islands, he concluded
it was our duty to remain there for the protection of the
people against foreign rapacity and against domestic anarchy.
He claimed that he had been influenced in coming to this conclusion
very considerably by the fact that I was reported to have
said that under no circumstances would we give back the Philippine
people to Spain.  That was true.  I believed then, and believe
now, that it was our duty to deliver them from Spain, to protect
them against her, or against the cupidity of any other nation
until her people could have tried fully the experiment of self-
government, in which I have little doubt they would have
succeeded.

When I saw President McKinley early in December, 1898, he
was, I suppose, committed to the policy to which he adhered.
He greeted me with the delightful and affectionate cordiality
which I always found in him.  He took me by the hand, and
said:  "How are you feeling this winter, Mr. Senator?" I
was determined there should be no misunderstanding.  I replied
at once:  "Pretty pugnacious, I confess, Mr. President."
The tears came into his eyes, and he said, grasping my hand
again:  "I shall always love you, whatever you do."

I found we differed widely on this great subject.  I denounced
with all the vigor of which I was capable the Treaty, and
the conduct of the war in the Philippine Islands, in the Senate,
on the platform, in many public letters, and in articles in
magazines and newspapers.  But President McKinley never abated
one jot of his cordiality toward me.  I did not, of course,
undertake to press upon him my advice in matters affecting
the Philippine Islands, about which we differed so much.  But
he continued to seek it, and to take it in all other matters
as constantly as ever before.

In order that it may not be supposed that I deceived myself
in regard to President McKinley's kindly regard, I may perhaps
be pardoned for saying that his close friend, Senator Hanna,
has more than once assured me that McKinley's love for me
was never abated, and for citing a sentence from an article
by Charles Emory Smith, his trusted counsellor and able and
accomplished Postmaster-General, in this Cabinet.  Mr. Smith
says:

"Senator Hoar was the earnest foe and critic of President
McKinley's policy.  But President McKinley had the warmest
regard and consideration for him.  Nothing, indeed, in public
life was sweeter than the sentiment of these different and
differing men toward each other.  President McKinley was anxious
to commission Senator Hoar as Minister to England, and proffered
him the place.  It was without any desire to remove him from
the arena of contention--apprehension of such a reflection
restrained the proffer for a time--though the contention had
not then been fully developed."

After President McKinley's death I expressed the public sorrow
and my own in an address to a vast audience of the people
of my own city of Worcester, in Mechanics' Hall; and again,
at the request of the Republican State Committee, at the Republican
State Convention shortly afterward.

I have reason to know that both the addresses gave pleasure
to many of the lamented President's closest and warmest friends
throughout the country.  I was afterward invited by the City
Government of Worcester to deliver a historical eulogy on
President McKinley before them.  That office, it seemed to
me, I ought to decline.  It was not because I was behind any
other man in admiration or personal affection for that lofty
and beautiful character.  But I thought that address, which
was not only to utter the voice of public sorrow, but to give
a careful and discriminating sketch of the public life of
its subject, ought to be delivered by some person who agreed
with him in regard to the most important action of his life.
I could not well pass over the Philippine question.  I could
not well speak of it without stating my own opinion.  I could
not undertake to state President McKinley's opinion, conduct
or policy, without expressing my disapproval of it, and if
I did not do that, I could not state it without being thought
by those who heartily approved it, not to have stated it justly
and fairly.

I had repeatedly declared, during the preceding two years,
both before and since his death, my highest admiration for
the intellectual and moral qualities of my beloved friend,
and my belief that he would have a very high place in history
among the best and ablest men of the country.

But I thought the story of the important part of his life
should be told from his point of view, and not from mine;
that the reasons which governed him should be stated by a
person sure to appreciate them fully.  If a great Catholic
Prelate were to die, his eulogy should not be pronounced
by a Protestant.  When Dr. Channing died, we did not select
a Calvinist minister to pronounce his funeral sermon.  When
Charles Sumner died Mr. Schurz and Mr. Curtis, not some old
Whig, and not some earnest supporter of General Grant, pronounced
the eulogy.  I suppose nobody would have dreamed of asking
a Free Trader to pronounce the eulogy on President McKinley
if he had died soon after the beginning of his first term.
So I declined the office.  The City did not ask anybody else
to fill my place, or perform the task.

I will not now renew the debate about our treatment of the
people of the Philippine Islands.  My opinion has not at all
changed.  I think that under the lead of Mabini and Aguinaldo
and their associates, but for our interference, a Republic
would have been established in Luzon, which would have compared
well with the best of the Republican Governments between the
United States and Cape Horn.  For years and for generations,
and perhaps for centuries, there would have been turbulence,
disorder and revolution.  But in her own way Destiny would
have evolved for them a force of civic rule best adapted to
their need.  If we had treated them as we did Cuba, we should
have been saved the public shame of violating not only our
own pledges, but the rule of conduct which we had declared
to be self-evident truth in the beginning of our history.
We should have been saved the humiliation of witnessing the
subjection by Great Britain of the Boers in South Africa,
without a murmur of disapproval, and without an expression
of one word of sympathy for the heroic victims.

My term as Senator expired on the fourth of March, 1901.
The election of Senator for the following term came in January
of that year.  I differed sharply from my colleague, Mr. Lodge,
in this whole matter.  But the people of Massachusetts, with
the generous and liberal temper which ever distinguished that
noble Commonwealth, desired that their Senators should act
upon their own judgment, without any constraint.

A resolution was introduced at the session of the Legislature
of 1899 by Mr. Mellen, Democratic member from Worcester, thanking
me for my speech in opposition to the Spanish Treaty, endorsing
the doctrine of that speech, and condemning the subjugation
of the Philippine people by force of arms.

Charles G. Washburn, Republican member from Worcester, introduced
a resolution commending my speech, and declaring it to be
"A speech of the loftiest patriotism and eloquent interpretation
of the high conception of human freedom which the fathers
sought to preserve for all time in the Declaration of Independence
and in the Constitution of the United States."

These resolution, if adopted, would, by implication, condemn
the well-known opinion and action of my colleague.  They were
encountered by several others, none of which referred to either
Senator, but expressed approval of the Spanish Treaty.  One
of them, however, presented in the House by Mr. Mills of
Newburyport, declared that the Treaty ought to be ratified,
and then the United States should fulfil to Porto Rico and
the Philippine Islands the pledge of self-government and independence
made to Cuba.  Very wisely all these resolutions were referred
to the Committee on Federal Relations, who reported this as
a compromise:

RESOLUTION REPORTED BY THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL
  RELATIONS, OF THE LEGISLATURE, MARCH 29, 1899

_Resolved,_ by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled,
that Massachusetts, ever loyal in sympathy and support of
the General Government, continues her unabated confidence
in her Senators, and with a just pride in the eloquent and
memorable words they have uttered, leaves them untrammeled
in the exercise of an independent and patriotic judgment upon
the momentous questions presented for their consideration.

The whole matter was then dropped.  But the Legislature,
and the generous people of Massachusetts whom they represented,
acted upon the spirit of the Committee's Resolution.  I was
reelected without opposition.  I had every Republican vote,
and many Democratic votes, of the Legislature.  My affectionate
and cordial relations with my brilliant and accomplished colleague
have never suffered an instant's interruption.

I think I am entitled to record, however, that this result
was not accomplished by any abatement of my opposition to
the policy of the Administration as to the Philippine Islands.
I made a great many speeches within a few weeks of the Presidential
election in 1900.  The members of the Senate and House, of
the Massachusetts Legislature, who were to choose a Senator,
were to be chosen at the same time.  I expressed my unchanged
and earnest opposition of disapproval to the whole business
at length.

In speaking of the habit of appealing to the love of the
flag in behalf of this policy of conquest, I said that there
was but one symbol more sacred than the American flag.  That
was the bread and wine which represented the body and blood
of the Saviour of mankind; adding, that a man who would use
an appeal to the flag in aid of the subjugation of an unwilling
people, would be capable of using the sacramental wine for
a debauch.

The week before the election of Senator came on a bill for
the reorganization of the Army was before the Senate.  That
contained a provision for increasing the Army to a hundred
thousand men, allowing the President, however, to reduce it
to seventy thousand, and to raise it again if necessary,
so it would in his discretion be elastic, within those limitations.

Mr. Bacon, of Georgia, who seemed to be the leader of the
Democrats on that measure, inquired of the Republicans who
were managing the bill, how many men they needed and what
time would be required to put down the insurrection in the
Philippine Islands.  Senator Bacon said that they would give
them the hundred thousand men, or any force they might demand
for one or two or three or five years, or for any required
time.  But they were unwilling to give the President the power
of expanding and contracting the army in time of peace.  This
was in full Senate.

I followed with a statement that I had no objection to giving
the President this discretion, and did not disapprove the
bill on that account.  I thought the size of the Army in
time of peace should be left largely to the opinion of the
experts, especially General Miles, the famous soldier at the
head of our Army, who thought the regular Army should consist
of one hundred for every thousand of our population.  That
would be about eighty thousand then, and before long would
require a hundred thousand men.  But I said I was opposed
to raising soldiers to carry on the war in the Philippine
Islands.  The only way to stop it that I knew was to refuse
to vote for the Army Bill.  I voted against it solely on that
account.

I meant that if the Legislature of Massachusetts were to
reelect me, no man should ever have it to say that I had
bought my reelection by silence on this question, or concealed
my opinion, however extreme it might be, until after election.

After my election I delivered an address before the two Houses
of the Legislature, at their request, and was received with
a most cordial enthusiasm.

Yet I think that if any leading Republican who had differed
from me on this question, especially Governor Long, of whose
brilliant administration of the Navy the people of the Commonwealth
were so proud, had pressed his candidacy for the office in
opposition to me, as has been the custom in like cases in
other States, it is not unlikely that he would have been elected.

I have no doubt I should have found Governor Roger Wolcott
a formidable competitor, if he had lived and been willing.
Governor Wolcott had made a statement in public, quietly and
briefly, as was his wont, expressing his sympathy with me
when the question of the Treaty was under debate.  Somewhat
later he made a statement in the same way, expressing his
opinion that the Administration should be supported.  Both
these declarations were in general terms.  They were not inconsistent
with each other.  But death arrested the honorable and useful
career of Roger Wolcott when he was still in the prime of
life, in the strength of his noble manhood, a strength which
seemed rapidly enlarging and growing as if in early youth.

I have not doubt that the subjugation of the Philippine Islands,
the acquisition of a dependency to be held in subjection by
the United States, the overthrow of the great doctrine that
Governments rest on the consent of the governed; that all
the painful consequences which have attended the war for the
subjugation of that distant people, would have been avoided
if the Democratic opposition had been hearty and sincere.
The same spirit that defeated the Election bill in spite of
the majority in its favor, would have easily accomplished
that result.  The Democratic Party, as a party, never meant
business in this matter.  I do not deny that many Democrats--
I dare say a majority of the Democrats--were as earnestly
and seriously opposed to the acquisition of the Philippine
Islands as I was myself.  But they never wielded their party
strength in opposition to it.  I said to one eminent Democratic
leader early in the year 1900: "There is one way in which
you can put an end to this whole business.  If you can elect
a Democratic House it will have power under the Constitution
to determine the use to which the Army shall be put.  In that
way you compelled President Hayes to refrain from further
support by military force of the Republican State Governments
in the South." He answered: "Mr. Hoar, we shall never do
anything as radical as that."

When Senator Bacon made the offer to the majority of the Senate
to agree to give them all the military power they desired
for the suppression of the resistance in the Philippines
for as long a time as they should think it necessary, the
entire Democratic Party in the Senate was in their seats,
and there was no expression of dissent.

I think the Democratic Party feared the fate of the Federalists
who opposed the War of 1812, and of the Democrats who opposed
the War for the Union in 1861.  This of course in the nature
of things is but conjecture.

Seventeen of the followers of Mr. Bryan voted for the Treaty.
The Treaty would have been defeated, not only lacking the
needful two thirds, but by a majority of the Senate but for
the votes of Democrats and Populists.

Senators Morgan and Pettus of Alabama, Senator McLaurin of
South Carolina, Senator McEnery of Louisiana, were avowed
supporters of the Treaty from the beginning.

Mr. Bryan in the height of the contest came to Washington
for the express purpose of urging upon his followers that
it was best to support the Treaty, end the War, and let the
question of what should be done with our conquest be settled
in the coming campaign.  He urged upon them, as I was told
by several Democrats at the time who did not take his advice,
that the Democratic Party could not hope to win a victory
on the financial questions at stake after they had been beaten
on them in a time of adversity; and that they must have this
issue for the coming campaign.  He was besought by his wiser
political associates to go away and leave the Senate to settle
the matter.  But he remained.

After that it became impossible, not only to defeat the Treaty,
but to defeat the policy which had inspired it.  The Treaty
pledged that the Philippine Islands should be governed by
Congress.  It undertook obligations which require for their
fulfillment, at least ten years' control of the Islands.
It put the people of the Philippine Islands in the attitude
of abandoning the Republic they had formed, and of acknowledging
not only our supremacy but that they were neither entitled
or fit to govern themselves or to carry on the war which had
unfortunately broken out.  I do not mean to imply that, as
I have said, a large number of the Democratic Party both in
public life and out of it, were not sincere and zealous in
their opposition to this wretched business.  But next to a
very few men who controlled the policy of the Republican Party
in this matter, Mr. Bryan and his followers who voted in the
Senate for the Treaty are responsible for the results.

I have been blamed, as I have said already, because, with
my opinions, I did not join the Democratic Party and help
to elect Mr. Bryan.  I disagreed with him and his party as
to every other issue then pending before the American people.
So differing from him, I found nothing in his attitude or
that of his party, to induce me to support him, or even to
inspire my confidence in their settlement of the question of
Imperialism or expansion.

In my opinion, if he had been elected, he would have accepted
the result, have put the blame for it on his predecessor
in office, and matters would have gone on very much as they
have under Republican control.

I have been told by many Senators who voted for the Treaty,
that they regretted that vote more than any other act of their
lives.  Enough Senators have said this to me in person, not
only to have defeated the Treaty, but if they had so voted,
to have defeated it by a majority.  A very eminent Republican
Senator told me that more than twenty Senators, who voted
for the Treaty, had given the same assurance to him.  But
they are very unwilling to make the declaration public.  Several
gentlemen, however, have publicly expressed their regret for
their vote, as is well known, enough to have changed the result.

When I think of my party, whose glory and whose service to
Liberty are the pride of my life, crushing out this people
in their effort to establish a Republic, and hear people
talk about _giving_ them good Government, and that they are
better off than they ever were under Spain, I feel very much
as if I had learned that my father, or some other honored
ancestor, had been a slave-trader in his time, and had boasted
that he had introduced a new and easier kind of hand-cuffs
or fetters to be worn by the slaves during the horrors of
the middle passage.

I do not believe that there is a respectable or intelligent
Filipino to-day, unless possibly some Macabebe scout, who
would not get rid of the Government of the United States
at once, if he could.  Buencamino is said to be one of the
ablest of their public men.  He has been quoted as friendly
to us, and is so.  There is no doubt that he has so expressed
himself.  He has been appointed a member of the Taft Government,
and has had committed to him the responsible and important
duty of deciding the appointments to the offices which are
to be filled by the native Filipinos, under the existing establishment.
It is said by both sides that he is crafty and selfish and
ambitious, and that he likes to be on the side that is the
strongest.  How that may be, I do not know.  But he will not
even pretend to accept the rule of the United States willingly.
He appeared as a witness before a Committee of the House of
Representatives, when in this country in 1902.  He was asked
whether his people approved the policy of the Democratic Party.
He answered emphatically: "No.  They do not wish to have the
United States abandon them to the ambition or cupidity of
foreign Governments." But he added: "Every Filipino is in
favor of the policy advocated by Senator Hoar." "What!" said
his inquirer, with great surprise, "Do you mean to say that
every Filipino agrees with Senator Hoar in his views?" "Yes,"
replied the man, with great emphasis; "every Filipino agrees
with Senator Hoar."

I mentioned this one day in conversation with President Roosevelt.
He told me that Buencamino had said exactly the same thing
to him.

General Miles told me on his return from his journey round
the world that he saw many leaders of the Philippine people;
that they spoke of me with great regard and attachment.

June 17, 1902, an eminent Hindoo scholar, published a long
article in the _Japan Times,_ in which he said:

"The speech of Mr. Hoar, though an address to his own countrymen,
is a message of hope to the whole world which sank with despondency
at the sight of Republican America behaving like a cruel,
tyrannical and rapacious Empire in the Philippines and particularly
to the broken-hearted people of Asia who are beginning to
lose all confidence in the humanity of the white races.  Or
is it that they have lost it already?  Hence all papers in
Asia should reprint his speech, translate it, and distribute
it broadcast.  Let it be brought home to the Asiatic people
so that they may work and worship their champion and his forefathers.
Thanks to the awakening in America, thanks to the forces that
are at work to chase out the degenerating, demoralizing passion
for territorial aggrandizement from the noble American mind
and save it for itself and the world at large from the cancer
of Imperialism."

I am afraid I am committing an offence against good taste
in repeating such laudations.  But it must be remembered
that a public man who has to encounter so much bitter reviling
and objurgation, is fairly entitled to have a little extravagance
on the other side that the balance may be even.  I would rather
have the gratitude of the poor people of the Philippine Islands,
amid their sorrow, and have it true that what I may say or
do has brought a ray of hope into the gloomy caverns in which
the oppressed peoples of Asia dwell, than to receive a Ducal
Coronet from every Monarch in Europe, or command the applause
of listening Senators and read my history in a Nation's eyes.

At first there can seem nothing more absurd than the suggestion
of my Asiatic friend that the people of Asia should worship
their champion and his ancestors.  But on second thought,
it is fair to say that while no human being can be entitled
to be worshipped by any other, yet that we got our love of
Liberty from our ancestors, or at any rate that is where I
got mine, and that they are entitled to all the credit.


CHAPTER XXXIV
APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE

Among the great satisfactions in the life of public men is
that of sometimes being instrumental in the advancement to
places of public honor of worthy men, and of being able to
have a great and salutary influence upon their lives.  I have
always held to the doctrine of what is called Civil Service
Reform, and have maintained to the best of my ability the
doctrine of the absolute independence of the Executive in
such matters, as his right to disregard the wishes and opinions
of members of either House of Congress, and to make his appointments,
executive and judicial, without advice, or on such advice
as he shall think best.  But, at the same time, there can
be no doubt that the Executive must depend on some advice
other than his own, to learn the quality of men in different
parts of this vast Republic, and to learn what will be agreeable
to public opinion and to the party which is administering
the Government and is responsible for its administration.
He will, ordinarily, find no better source of such information
than in the men whom the people have shown their own confidence
by entrusting them with the important function of Senator
or Representative.  He will soon learn to know his men, and
how far he can safely take such advice.  He must be careful
to see to it that he is not induced to build up a faction
in his party, or to fill up the public offices with the partisans
of ambitious but unscrupulous politicians.  When I entered
the House of Representatives, before the Civil Service Reform
had made any progress, I addressed and had put on file with
the Secretary of the Treasury a letter in which I said that
I desired him to understand when I made a recommendation to
him of any person for public office, it was to be taken merely
as my opinion of the merit of the candidate, and not as an
expression of a personal request; and that if he found any
other person who would in his judgment be better for the public
service, I hoped he would make the selection without regard
to my recommendation.

I have never undertaken to use public office as personal
patronage, or to claim the right to dictate to the President
of the United States, or that the executive was not entirely
free, upon such advice as he saw fit, or without advice, if he
thought fit, in making his selection for public office.

It has been my good fortune to have influenced, or I think
I may fairly say, procured the appointment to public office
of many gentlemen who would not have been appointed without
my active efforts.  I have no reason to be ashamed of one
of the list.  I believe that the following gentlemen, beside
others less distinguished, who have been very satisfactory,
able and faithful public servants, owe their appointment to
my original suggestion, or would not have been appointed without
my earnest efforts.

Charles Devens, Attorney-General; Alanson W. Beard, Collector
of the Port of Boston; Horace Gray, first to the office of
Reporter of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and later
to that of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States; J. Evarts Greene, Postmaster of Worcester; Thomas
L. Nelson, Judge of the District Court of Massachusetts; Francis
C. Lowell, Judge of the District Court of Massachusetts; Howell
E. Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States; John D. Washburn, Minister to Switzerland.

I think I may also fairly claim that the election of William
B. Washburn as Governor of Massachusetts was due not only
to the fact that I originally proposed him as a candidate,
but to my active efforts in the campaign which preceded the
Convention which nominated him.

There is no man in this list of greater ability or of higher
quality of manhood than Evarts Greene.  Mr. Greene was compelled
by the illness of his wife to remain fast-bound in one spot,
instead of going to some large city where his great talent
would have commanded a very high place indeed in his profession
as editor.  When he edited the Worcester _Spy,_ it was one
of the most influential Republican newspapers in the country.
The _Spy_ got into pecuniary difficulties.  Mr. Greene, with
some reluctance, accepted the office of Postmaster, an office
which, according to usage in such cases, was in my gift.

Just before Postmaster-General Wanamaker, whose executive
ability no man will question, went out of office, he requested
Mr. Greene to send to the Department an account of the improvements
he had made and proposed in the post-office service.  This
was sent in a circular all over the country to other like
post-offices.

Just before Mr. Greene died, President Roosevelt visited
Worcester.  In passing the post-office, where the persons
employed in the service were collected, he stopped and said
he was glad to see "what we have been accustomed to consider
the record post-office."  This, as may well be believed,
gave Mr. Greene great satisfaction.


CHAPTER XXXV
ORATORY AND SOME ORATORS I HAVE HEARD

The longer I live, the more highly I have come to value the
gift of eloquence.  Indeed, I am not sure that it is not
the single gift most to be coveted by man.  It is hard, perhaps
impossible, to define, as poetry is impossible to define.
To be a perfect and consummate orator is to possess the highest
faculty given to man.  He must be a great artist, and more.
He must be a great actor, and more.  He must be a master of
the great things that interest mankind.  What he says ought
to have as permanent a place in literature as the highest
poetry.  He must be able to play at will on the mighty organ,
his audience, of which human souls are the keys.  He must
have knowledge, wit, wisdom, fancy, imagination, courage,
nobleness, sincerity, grace, a heart of fire.  He must himself
respond to every emotion as an AEolian harp to the breeze.
He must have

  An eye that tears can on a sudden fill
  And lips that smile before the tears are gone.

He must have a noble personal presence.  He must have, in
perfection, the eye and the voice which are the only and
natural avenues by which one human soul can enter into and
subdue another.  His speech must be filled with music, and
possess its miraculous charm and spell,

  Which the posting winds recall,
  And suspend the river's fall.

He must have the quality which Burke manifested when Warren
Hastings said, "I felt, as I listened to him, as if I were
the most culpable being on earth"; and which made Philip say
of Demosthenes, "Had I been there he would have persuaded
me to take up arms against myself."

He has a present, practical purpose to accomplish.  If he
fail in that he fails utterly and altogether.  His object is to
convince the understanding, to persuade the will, to set
aflame the heart of his audience or those who read what he
says.  He speaks for a present occasion.  Eloquence is the
feather that tips his arrow.  If he miss the mark he is a
failure, although his sentences may survive everything else
in the permanent literature of the language in which he speaks.
What he says must not only accomplish the purpose of the hour,
but should be fit to be preserved for all time, or he can
have no place in literature, and a small and ephemeral place
in human memory.

The orator must know how so to utter his thought that it
will stay.  The poet and the orator have this in common.
Each must so express and clothe his thought that it shall
penetrate and take possession of the soul, and, having penetrated,
must abide and stay.  How this is done, who can tell?  Carlyle
defines poetry as a "sort of lilt."  Cicero finds the secret
of eloquence in a

  Lepos quidem celeritasque et brevitas.

One writer lately dead, who has a masterly gift of noble
and stirring eloquence, finds it in "a certain collocation of
consonants."  Why it is that a change of a single word, or
even of a single syllable, for any other which is an absolute
synonym in sense, would ruin the best line in Lycidas, or
injure terribly the noblest sentence of Webster, nobody knows.
Curtis asks how Wendell Phillips did it, and answers his own
question by asking you how Mozart did it.

When I say that I am not sure that this is not the single
gift most to be coveted by man, I may seem to have left out
the moral quality in my conception of what is excellent.  But
such is the nature of man that the loftiest moral emotions
are still the overmastering emotions.  The orator that does
not persuade men that righteousness is on his side will seldom
persuade them to think or act as he desires; and if he fail
in that he fails in his object; and the orator who has not
in fact righteousness on his side will in general fail so to
persuade them.  And even if in rare cases he do persuade
his audience, he does not gain a permanent place in literature.
Bolingbroke's speeches, though so enthusiastically praised
by the best judges, have perished by their own worthlessness.

Although the danger of the Republic, and his own, still occupied
his thoughts, Cicero found time in his old age to record,
at the request of his brother Quintus, his opinion, _de omni
ratione dicendi._  It is not likely that the treatise "de
Oratore" or that "de Claris Oratoribus" will ever be matched
by any other writer on this fascinating subject, except the
brief and masterly fragment of Tacitus.

He begins by inquiring why it is that, when so many persons
strive to attain the gift of eloquence, and its rewards of
fame and wealth and power are so great, the number of those
who succeed as orators is so small in comparison with the
number of those who become great generals, or statesmen,
or poets.  I suppose this fact, which excited the wonder
of Cicero, exists in our country and our time.  There is a
foreign country which is to us as a posterity.  If we reckon
those Americans only as great orators who are accepted in
England as such, or who, belonging to past generations are
so accepted now by their own countrymen, the number is very
small.  A few sentences of Patrick Henry are preserved, as
a few sentences of Lord Chatham are preserved.  The great
thoughts of Webster justify, in the estimation of the reader,
the fame he enjoyed with his own generation.  The readers
of Fisher Ames--alas, too few--can well comprehend the spell
which persuaded an angry and reluctant majority to save the
treaty to which the nation had pledged its faith, and, perhaps,
the life of the nation itself.  With these exceptions, the
number of American orators who will live in history as orators
can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I have never supposed myself to possess this gift.  The instruction
which I had in my youth, especially that at Harvard, either
in composition or elocution, was, I think, not only of no
advantage, but a positive injury.  Besides the absence of
good training, I had an awkward manner, and a harsh voice.
Until quite late in life I never learned to manage so that
I could get through a long speech without serious irritation
of the throat.  But I have had good opportunity to hear the
best public speaking of my time.  I have heard in England,
on a great field day in the House of Commons, Palmerston,
Lord John Russell, and John Bright, and, later, Disraeli,
Gladstone and Bernal Osborne.  I have heard Spurgeon, and
Bishop Wilberforce, and Dr. Guthrie in the pulpit.

At home I have heard a good many times Daniel Webster, Edward
Everett, Rufus Choate, Robert C. Winthrop, John P. Hale,
Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Richard H. Dana, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, James G. Blaine, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, James
A. Garfield, William McKinley, William M. Evarts, Benjamin
F. Thomas, Pliny Merrick, Charles Devens, Nathaniel P. Banks,
and, above all, Kossuth; and in the pulpit, James Walker,
Edwards A. Park, Mark Hopkins, Edward Everett Hale, George
Putnam, Starr King, and Henry W. Bellows.  So, perhaps, my
experience and observation, too late for my own advantage,
may be worth something to my younger readers.

I am not familiar with the books which have been lately published
which give directions for public speaking.  So I dare say
that what I have to advise is already well known to young
men, and that all I can say has been said much better.  But
I will give the result of my own experience and observation.

In managing the voice, the speaker when he is engaged in earnest
conversation, commonly and naturally falls into the best tone
and manner for public speaking.  Suppose you are sitting about
a table with a dozen friends, and some subject is started
in which you are deeply interested.  You engage in an earnest
and serious dialogue with one of them at the other end of
the table.  You are perfectly at ease, not caring in the least
for your manner or tone of voice, but only for your thought.
The tone you adopt then will ordinarily be the best tone for
you in public speaking.  You can, however, learn from teachers
or friendly critics to avoid any harsh or disagreeable fashion
of speech that you may have fallen into, and that may be habitual
to you in private conversation.

Next.  Never strain your vocal organs by attempting to fill
spaces which are too large for you.  Speak as loudly and
distinctly as you can do easily, and let the most distant
portions of your audience go.  You will find in that way very
soon that your voice will increase in compass and power, and
you will do better than by a habit of straining the voice
beyond its natural capacity.  Be careful to avoid falsetto.
Shun imitating the tricks of speech of other orators, even
of famous and successful orators.  These may do for them,
but not for you.  You will do no better in attempting to
imitate the tricks of speech of other men in public speaking than
in private speaking.

Never make a gesture for the sake of making one.  I believe
that most of the successful speakers whom I know would find
it hard to tell you whether they themselves make gestures
or not, they are so absolutely unconscious in the matter.
But with gestures as with the voice, get teachers or friendly
critics to point out to you any bad habit you may fall into.
I think it would be well if our young public speakers, especially
preachers, would have competent instructors and critics among
their auditors, after they enter their profession, to give
them the benefit of such observations and counsel as may be
suggested in that way.  If a Harvard professor of elocution
would retain his responsibility for his pupils five or ten
years after they got into active life he would do a great
deal more good than by his instructions to undergraduates.

So far we have been talking about mere manner.  The matter
and substance of the orator's speech must depend upon the
intellectual quality of the man.

The great orator must be a man of absolute sincerity.  Never
advocate a cause in which you do not believe, or affect an
emotion you do not feel.  No skill or acting will cover up
the want of earnestness.  It is like the ointment of the
hand which bewrayeth itself.

I shall be asked how I can reconcile this doctrine with the
practice of the law.  It will be said the advocate must often
defend men whom he believes to be guilty, or argue to the
court propositions he believes to be unsound.  This objection
will disappear if we consider what exactly is the function
of the advocate in our system of administering justice.

I suppose it is needless to argue to persons of American
or English birth that our system of administering justice is
safer for the innocent and, on the whole, secures the punishment
of guilt and secures private right better than any other
that now exists or that ever existed among men.  The chief
distinction of the system we have inherited from England consists
in two things:  first, the function of the advocate, and
second, that cases are decided not upon belief, but upon
proof.  It has been found that court or jury are more likely
to get at truth if they have the aid of trained officers whose
duty it shall be to collect and present all the arguments on
each side which ought to be considered before the court or
jury reach the decision.  The man who seems clearly guilty
should not be condemned or punished unless every consideration
which may tend to establish innocence or throw doubt upon
guilt has been fully weighed.  The unassisted tribunal will
be quite likely to overlook these considerations.  Public
sentiment approves the judgment and the punishment in the
case of John W. Webster.  But certainly he should never have
been convicted without giving the fullest weight to his previous
character and to the slightness of the temptation to the commission
of such a crime, to the fact that the evidence was largely
circumstantial, to the doubt of the identity of the body of
the victim, and to the fact that the means or instrument of
the crime which ordinarily must be alleged and proved in cases
of murder could not be made certain, and could not be set
forth in the indictment.  The question in the American or
English court is not whether the accused be guilty.  It is
whether he be shown to be guilty, by legal proof, of an offence
legally set forth.  It is the duty of the advocate to perform
his office in the mode best calculated to cause all such considerations
to make their due impression.  It is not his duty or his right
to express or convey his individual opinion.  On him the responsibility
of the decision does not rest.  He not only has no right to
accompany the statement of his argument with any assertion
as to his individual belief, but I think the most experienced
observers will agree that such expressions, if habitual, tend
to diminish and not to increase the just influence of the
lawyer.  There was never a weightier advocate before New England
juries than Daniel Webster.  Yet it is on record that he always
carefully abstained from any positiveness of assertion.  He
introduced his weightiest arguments with such phrases as,
"It will be for the jury to consider," "The Court will judge,"
"It may, perhaps, be worth thinking of, gentlemen," or some
equivalent phrase by which he kept scrupulously off the ground
which belonged to the tribunal he was addressing.  The tricks
of advocacy are not only no part of the advocate's duties,
but they are more likely to repel than to attract the hearers.
The function of the advocate in the court of justice, as thus
defined and limited, is tainted by no insincerity or hypocrisy.
It is as respectable, as lofty, and as indispensably necessary
as that of the judge himself.

In my opinion, the two most important things that a young
man can do to make himself a good public speaker are:

First.  Constant and careful written translations from Latin
or Greek into English.

Second.  Practice in a good debating society.

It has been said that all the greatest Parliamentary orators
of England are either men whom Lord North saw, or men who
saw Lord North--that is, men who were conspicuous as public
speakers in Lord North's youth, his contemporaries, and the
men who saw him as an old man when they were young themselves.
This would include Bolingbroke and would come down only to
the year of Lord John Russell's birth.  So we should have
to add a few names, especially Gladstone, Disraeli, John Bright,
and Palmerston.  There is no great Parliamentary orator in
England since Gladstone died.  I once, a good many years ago,
studied the biographies of the men who belonged to that period
who were famous as great orators in Parliament or in Court,
to find, if I could, the secret of their power.  With the
exception of Lord Erskine and of John Bright, I believe every
one of them trained himself by careful and constant translation
from Latin or Greek, and frequented a good debating society
in his youth.

Brougham trained himself for extemporaneous speaking in the
Speculative Society, the great theatre of debate for the University
of Edinburgh.  He also improved his English style by translations
from the Greek, among which is his well-known version of the
"Oration on the Crown."

Canning's attention, while at Eton, was strongly turned to
extemporaneous speaking.  They had a debating society, in
which the Marquis of Wellesley and Charles Earl Grey had been
trained before him, in which they had all the forms of the
House of Commons--Speaker, Treasury benches, and an Opposition.
Canning also was disciplined by the habit of translation.

Curran practised declamation daily before a glass, reciting
passages from Shakespeare and the best English orators.  He
frequented the debating societies which then abounded in London.
He failed at first, and was ridiculed as "Orator Mum." But
at last he surmounted every difficulty.  It was said of him
by a contemporary:  "He turned his shrill and stumbling brogue
into a flexible, sustained, and finely modulated voice; his
action become free and forcible; he acquired perfect readiness
in thinking on his legs; he put down every opponent by the
mingled force of his argument and wit; and was at last crowned
with the universal applause of the society and invited by
the president to an entertainment in their behalf." I am not
sure that I have seen, on any good authority, that he was
in the habit of writing translations from Latin or Greek,
but he studied them with great ardor and undoubtedly adopted,
among the methods of perfecting his English style, the custom
of students of his day of translation from these languages.

Jeffrey joined the Speculative Society, in Edinburgh, in
his youth.  His biographer says that it did more for him
than any other event in the whole course of his education.

Chatham, the greatest of English orators, if we may judge
by the reports of his contemporaries, trained himself for
public speaking by constant translations from Latin and Greek.
The education of his son, the younger Pitt, is well known.
His father compelled him to read Thucydides into English at
sight, and to go over it again and again, until he had got
the best possible rendering of the Greek into English.

Macaulay belonged to the Cambridge Union, where, as in the
society of the same name at Oxford, the great topics of the
day were discussed by men, many of whom afterward became famous
statesmen and debaters in the Commons.

Young Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield, translated Sallust
and Horace with ease; learned great part of them by heart;
could converse fluently in Latin; wrote Latin prose correctly
and idiomatically, and was specially distinguished at Westminster
for his declamations.  He translated every oration of Cicero
into English and back again into Latin.

Fox can hardly have been supposed to have practised much in
debating societies, as he entered the House of Commons when
he was nineteen years old.  But it is quite probably that
he was drilled by translations from Latin and Greek into English;
and in the House of Commons he had in early youth the advantage
of the best debating society in the world.  It is said that
he read Latin and Greek as easily as he read English.  He
himself said that he gained his skill at the expense of the
House, for he had sometimes tasked himself during the entire
session to speak on every question that came up, whether he
was interested in it or not, as a means of exercising and
training his faculties.  This is what made him, according
to Burke, "rise by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and
accomplished debater the world ever saw."

Sir Henry Bulwer's "Life of Palmerston" does not tell us whether
he was trained by the habit of writing translations or in
debating societies.  But he was a very eager reader of the
classics.  There is little doubt, however, considering the
habit of his contemporaries at Cambridge, and that he was
ambitious for public life, and represented the University
of Cambridge in Parliament just after he became twenty-one,
that he belonged to a debating society and that he was drilled
in English composition by translation from the classics.

Gladstone was a famous debater in the Oxford Union, as is
well known, and was undoubtedly in the habit of writing translations
from Greek and Latin, of which he was always so passionately
fond.  He says in his paper on Arthur Hallam that the Eton
debating club known as the Society supplied the British Empire
with four Prime Ministers in fourscore years.

The value of the practice of translation from Latin or Greek
into English, in getting command of good English style, in
my judgment, can hardly be stated too strongly.  The explanation
is not hard to find.  You have in these two languages and
especially in Latin, the best instrument for the most precise
and most perfect expression of thought.  The Latin prose of
Tacitus and Cicero, the verse of Virgil and Horace, are like
a Greek statue, or an Italian cameo--you have not only exquisite
beauty, but also exquisite precision.  You get the thought
into your mind with the accuracy and precision of the words
that express numbers in the multiplication table.  Ten times
one are ten--not ten and one one-millionth.  Having got the
idea into your mind with the precision, accuracy, and beauty
of the Latin expression, you are to get its equivalent in
English.  Suppose you have knowledge of no language but your
own.  The thought comes to you in the mysterious way in which
thoughts are born, and struggles for expression in apt words.
If the phrase that occurs to you does not exactly fit the
thought, you are almost certain, especially in speaking or
rapid composition, to modify the thought to fit the phrase.
Your sentence commands you, not you the sentence.  The extemporary
speaker never gets, or easily loses, the power of precise
and accurate thinking or statement, and rarely attains a literary
excellence which gives him immortality.  But the conscientious
translator has no such refuge.  He is confronted by the inexorable
original.  He cannot evade or shirk.  He must try and try
and try again until he has got the exact thought expressed
in its English equivalent.  This is not enough.  He must get
an English expression if the resources of the language will
furnish it, which will equal as near as may be the dignity
and beauty of the original.  He must not give you pewter for
silver, or pinchbeck for gold, or mica for diamond.  This
practice will soon give him ready command of the great riches
of his own noble English tongue.  It will give a habitual
nobility and beauty to his own style.  The best word and phrase
will come to him spontaneously when he speaks and thinks.
The processes of thought itself will grow easier.  The orator
will get the affluence and abundance which characterize the
great Italian artists of the Middle Ages, who astonish us
as much by the amount and variety of their work as by its
excellence.

The value of translation is very different from that of original
written composition.  Cicero says:

"Stilus optimus et praestantissimus dicendi effector ac magister."

Of this I am by no means sure.  If you write rapidly you
get the habit of careless composition.  If you write slowly
you get the habit of slow composition.  Each of these is an
injury to the style of the speaker.  He cannot stop to correct
or scratch out.  Cicero himself in a later passage states
his preference for translation.  He says that at first he used
to take a Latin author, Ennius or Gracchus, and get the meaning
into his head, and then write it again.  But he soon found
that in that way if he used again the very words of his author
he got no advantage, and if he used other language of his
own, the author had already occupied the ground with the best
expression, and he was left with the second best.  So he gave
up the practice and adopted instead that of translating from
the Greek.

But to go back to what makes an orator.  As I have said,
his object is to excite the emotions which, being excited, will
be most likely to impel his audience to think or act as he
desires.  He must never disgust them, he must never excite
their contempt.  He can use to great advantage the most varied
learning, the profoundest philosophy, the most compelling
logic.  He must master the subject with which he has to deal,
and he must have knowledge adequate to illustrate and adorn
it.  When every other faculty of the orator is acquired, it
sometimes almost seems as if the voice were nine-tenths, and
everything else but one-tenth, of the consummate orator.  It
is impossible to overrate the importance to his purpose of
that matchless instrument, the human voice.

The most fastidious critic is by no means the best judge,
seldom even a fairly good judge, of the public speaker.  He
is likely to be a stranger to the emotion which the orator
inspires and excites.  He is likely to fall into mistakes like
that which Goldwin Smith makes about Patrick Henry.  Mr.
Smith ridicules Henry's speech and action and voice.  The
emotion which the great Virginian stirred in the breasts of
his backwoodsmen seems very absurd to this cultured Englishman.
The bowing and changes of countenance and gesticulating of
the orator seem to him like the cheapest acting.  Yet to us
who understand it, it does not seem that Patrick Henry in
the old church at Richmond need yield the palm to Chatham
in St. Stephen's Chapel, either for the grandeur of his theme
or of his stage, or the sublimity of his eloquence.

Matthew Arnold had the best pair of intellectual eyes of
our time.  But he sometimes made a like mistake as a critic
of poetry.  He speaks slightingly of Emerson's Fourth of
July Ode--

  Oh tenderly the haughty day
  Fills his blue urn with fire;
  One morn is in the mighty heaven,
  And one in our desire.

What did the Englishman know of the Fourth of July emotion
which stirred all Americans in the days when the country
had just escaped destruction, and was entering upon its new
career of freedom and of glory?  What could he understand
of that feeling, full of the morning and of the springtime,
which heard the cannon boom and the bells ring, with stirring
and quickened pulse, in those exultant days?  Surely there
never was a loftier stroke than that with which the New England
poet interpreted to his countrymen the feeling of that joyous
time--the feeling which is to waken again when the Fourth
of July comes round on many anniversaries:

  Oh tenderly the haughty day
  Fills his blue urn with fire;
  One morn is in the mighty heaven,
  And one in our desire.

It is often said that if a speech read well it is not a good
speech.  There may be some truth in it.  The reader cannot,
of course, get the impression which the speaker conveys by
look and tone and gesture.  He lacks that marvellous influence
by which in a great assembly the emotion of every individual
soul is multiplied by the emotion of every other.  The reader
can pause and dwell upon the thought.  If there be a fallacy,
he is not hurried away to something else before he can detect
it.  So, also, more careful and deliberate criticism will
discover offences of style and taste which pass unheeded in
a speech when uttered.  But still the great oratoric triumphs
of literature and history stand the test of reading in the
closet, as well as of hearing in the assembly.  Would not
Mark Anthony's speech over the dead body of Caesar, had it
been uttered, have moved the Roman populace as it moves the
spectator when the play is acted, or the solitary reader in
his closet?  Does not Lord Chatham's "I rejoice that America
has resisted" read well?  Do not Sheridan's great perorations,
and Burke's, in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, read well?
Does not "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever!" read well?
Does not "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" read well?  Does
not Fisher Ames's speech for the treaty read well?  Do not
Everett's finest passages read well?

There are examples of men of great original genius who have
risen to lofty oratory on some great occasion who had not
the advantage of familiarity with any great author.  But they
are not only few in number, but the occasions are few when
they have risen to a great height.  In general the orator,
whether at the Bar, or in the pulpit, or in public life, who
is to meet adequately the many demands upon his resources,
must get familiarity with the images and illustrations he
wants, and the resources of a fitting diction, by soaking
his mind in some great authors which will alike satisfy and
stimulate his imagination, and supply him with a lofty expression.
Of these I suppose the best are, by common consent, the Bible,
Shakespeare, and Milton.  It is a maxim that the pupil who
wishes to acquire a pure and simple style should give his
days and nights to Addison.  But there is a lack of strength
and vigor in Addison, which perhaps prevents his being the
best model for the advocate in the court-house or the champion
in a political debate.  I should rather, for myself, recommend
Robert South to the student.  If the speaker, whose thought
have weight and vigor in it, can say it as South would have
said it, he may be quite sure that his weighty meaning will
be expressed alike to the mind of the people and the apprehension
of his antagonist.

There is one great difference between the condition of the
American orator and that of the orator of antiquity.  The
speaker, in the old time, addressed an audience about to act
instantly upon the emotions or convictions he had himself
caused.  Or he spoke to a Judge who was to give no reason
for his opinion.  The sense of public responsibility scarcely
existed in either.  The speech itself perished with the occasion,
unless, as in some few instances, the orator preserved it
in manuscript for a curious posterity.  Even then the best
of them had discovered that not eloquence, but wisdom, is
the power by which states grow and flourish.

"Omnia plena consiliorum, inania verborum.

"Quid est tam furiosum quam verborum vel optimorum atque ornatissimorum
sonitus inanis nulla subjecta sententia nec scientia?"

Cicero's oratory is to excite his hearers, whether Judge
or popular assembly, for the occasion.  Not so in general
with our orator.  The auditor is ashamed of excitement.  He
takes the argument home with him:  He sleeps on it.  He reads
it again in the newspaper report.  He hears and reads the
other side.  He discusses with friends and antagonists.  He
feels the responsibility of his vote.  He expects to have
to justify it himself.  Even the juryman hears the sober
statement of the Judge, and talks the case over with his
associates of the panel in the quiet seclusion of the jury-room.
The Judge himself must state the reasons for his opinions,
which are to be read by a learned and critical profession and
by posterity.  The speaker's argument must be sounded, and
rung, and tested, and tried again and again, before the auditor
acts upon it.  Our people hear some great orators as they
witness a play.  The delight of taste, even intellectual
gratification, caused by what is well said, is one thing.
Conviction is quite another.  The printing-press and the reporter,
the consultation in the jury-room, the reflection in the Judge's
chamber, the delay of the election to a day long after the
speech, are protections against the mischief of mere oratory,
which the ancients did not enjoy.

I heard a debate in the House of Commons in 1860, on the
paper duties, in which Lord John Russell, Palmerston, Gladstone,
and John Bright took part.  Gladstone's part was not very
prominent.  I now remember little that he said.  His image,
as it then appeared, is effaced by his later appearance on
a much greater occasion.  Bright spoke admirably, both in
manner and matter.  He was an Independent, through giving
general support to the measures of the Government, in which
Palmerston and Lord Russell were the leaders.  He complained
bitterly of their acquiescence in what he thought the unconstitutional
attitude of the House of Lords, in refusing to consent to
the abolition of the paper duties, for which the House of
Commons had voted.  But the Government, though they had tried
to abolish the duty, were very glad to hold on to the revenue.
Bright had none of the English hesitation, and frequent punctuation
of sentences with--"er"--"er"--which has led some one, speaking
of English orators, to say that "to err" is human.  He reminded
me in general, in look, voice, and manner, of the late Richard
H. Dana, although he sometimes threw more passion and zeal
into his speech than Dana ever indulged.  Periods followed
each other in easy and rapid flow.  He had a fine voice and
delivery, easily filling the hall from his place below the
gangway.

Palmerston, in his jaunty and off-hand way, rebuked Bright
for desiring to make the House of Commons adopt a resolution
which would only show its own helplessness.  On the whole,
he seemed to me to get the better of the debate.  Bright could
not persuade the House, or the people of England, to make
a great constitutional question out of the paper duties, especially
after the powerful speech of Lord Lyndhurst, who, then more
than ninety years old, argued for the side of the Lords with
a power that no other speaker on the subject rivalled.

I heard Gladstone again in 1871, when there was a great struggle
between him and Disraeli over the Parliamentary and Municipal
Elections Bill.  I visited the House with Thomas Hughes, to
whom I was indebted for much courtesy while in London, and
had a seat on the floor just below the gallery, where a few
strangers are, or were then, admitted by special card from
the Speaker.

Bernal Osborne, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Sir Stafford Northcote,
Gladstone, and Disraeli took part in the debate.  The bill
was introduced by Mr. Gladstone's Government.  The question
that night was on a motion to strike out the provision for
the secret ballot; so the opponents of the Government had
to close in support of the motion.  The report of Hansard
purports to be in the first person.  But I can testify from
memory that it is by no means verbally accurate.  I have no
doubt the speeches were taken down in short-hand.  The phonetic
system was then used.  But the report seems to be about like
those which our good short-hand reporters used to make before
that invention.  The speeches are well worth studying by a
person who wishes to get an idea of the intellectual and literary
quality of these champions.  There is no great passage in
any one of them.  But the capacity and quality of power appear
distinctly.  Osborne was full of a shrewd and delightful wit,
without the vitriolic flavor which often appears in the sarcasm
of Disraeli.  Gladstone showed his power of elevating the
discussion to a lofty plane, which his opponent never reached,
although Disraeli launched at him many a keen shaft from
below.  Mr. Hughes sat by me most of the night, and occasionally
brought and introduced to me some eminent person whom he thought
I would like to know.

The members of our National House of Representatives, however
turbulent or disorderly, never would submit to the fashion
of treating a speaker whom they do not want to hear which
prevails in the House of Commons.  When Mr. Gladstone got
through, the night was far spent, and the House evidently
wanted to hear Disraeli, then vote and go home.  Mr. Plunket,
a member for the University of Dublin, who seemed an intelligent
and sensible man, rose, wishing to correct a statement of
Mr. Gladstone's, which he thought had done him an injustice.
Disraeli rose about the same time, but bowed and gave way.
The House did not like it.  Poor Plunket's voice was drowned
in the storm of shouts--"Sit down.  Sit down.  Dizzy, Dizzy,"
in which my friend, Mr. Hughes, although of Gladstone's party,
joined at the top of his lungs.  I think the Bedlam lasted
five minutes.  But Plunket stood his ground and made his correction.

Although Bernal Osborne was a man of great wit and sense,
and Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach were
then, as the latter is now, very eminent characters, yet the
only speakers who belonged to the rank of the great orators
were Gladstone and Disraeli.  I will not undertake to add
another description of Gladstone to the many with which every
reader of mine is thoroughly familiar.  The late Dr. Bellows
resembled him very nearly, both in his way of reasoning and
his manner of speech.  Persons who have heard Dr. Bellows
at his best will not deem this comparison unworthy.

Gladstone was terribly in earnest.  He began his speech by
a compliment to Northcote, his opponent, for whom he had shown
his esteem by sending him to the United States as one of the
Joint High Commission to make the Alabama Treaty.  But when
Mr. Gladstone was well under way, Sir Stafford interposed
a dissent from something he said by calling out "No, no"--
a very frequent practice in the House.  Gladstone turned
upon him savagely, with a tone of anger which I might almost
call furious:  "Can the gentleman tolerate no opinion but
his own, that he interjects his audible contradiction into
the middle of my sentence?"  The House evidently did not like
it.  Hughes, who agreed with Gladstone, said to me: "What
a pity it is that he cannot control his temper; that is his
great fault."

There are no passages in this speech of Gladstone that can
be cited as among the best examples of the great style of
the orator.  But there are several that give a good idea of
his manner, and show something of the argument in two or
three sentences:  "I am not at all ashamed of having said,
and I will say it again, that this is a choice of evils.  I do not
say that the proposal for a secret ballot is open to no objections
whatever.  I admit that open voting has its evils as well
as its merits.  One of these merits is that it enables a
man to discharge a noble duty in the noblest possible manner.
But what are its demerits?  That by marking his vote you expose
the voter to be tempted through his cupidity and through his
fears.  We propose, by secret voting, to greatly diminish
the first of these, and we hope to take away the second.  We
do not believe that the disposition to bribe can operate with
anything like its present force when the means of tracing
the action of the man bribed are taken away, because men will
not pay for that they do not know they will ever receive."

"I think it is too late for the honorable gentleman to say,
'We are passing through an experiment; wait for more experiment.'"
"We have already been debating this subject for forty years;
we have plenty of time on our hands; it is a Godsend to have
anything to fill up our vacant hours; and therefore let us
postpone the subject in order that it may be dealt with in
future years."

The great quality of Gladstone, as of Sumner, is his profound
seriousness.  He makes the impression on his hearers, an impression
made, but not so strongly, upon his readers, that the matter
he is discussing is that upon which the foundations of heaven
and earth rest.

It would be a great mistake to hold Disraeli cheap.  He turned
the tables upon Osborne, who had gone into several, what Disraeli
called, archaeological details, with respect to the antiquity
of the ballot, and had cited a proclamation of Charles I.
prohibiting the ballot in all corporations, either in the
city of London or elsewhere, which Disraeli said "was done
with the admirable view of identifying the opinions of those
who sit on this side of the House with the political sentiments
of that monarch.  But there was another assertion of the principle
that the ballot should be open that the gentleman has not
cited.  That occurred in the most memorable Parliament that
ever sat in England--the Long Parliament . . . . They wished
it therefore to be exercised, not to satisfy the self-complacency
of the individual, but with due respect for common-sense and
the public opinion of the country, and influenced by all those
doctrines and all that discipline of party which they believed
to be one of the best securities for public liberty."

Gladstone showed in his speech the profounder reflection
on the general subject, the more philosophy, and the intenser
earnestness; Disraeli showed quickness of wit, a ready command
of his resources, ability for subtle distinctions, and glimpses
of his almost Satanic capacity for mocking and jeering.  He
describes Mr. Gladstone most felicitously as "inspired by
a mixture of genius and vexation."  He speaks of his majority
as a "mechanical majority, a majority the result of heedlessness
of thought on the part of members who were so full of other
questions that they gave pledges in favor of the ballot without
due consideration."

He said:  "There is a celebrated river, which has been the
subject of political interest of late, and with which we
are all acquainted.  It rolls its magnificent volume, clear and
pellucid, in its course; but it never reaches the ocean; it
sinks into mud and morass.  And such will be the fate of
this mechanical majority.  The conscience of the country is
against it.  It is an old-fashioned political expedient;
it is not adapted to the circumstances which we have to encounter
in the present, and because it has no real foundation of truth
or policy, it will meet with defeat and discomfiture."

Gladstone had, what is quite rare, and what no famous American
orator that I now think of, except Choate and Evarts, have
had--a tendency to diffuse and somewhat involved speech, and
at the same time a gift of compact epigrammatic utterance
on occasions.  When Mr. Evarts, who was my near relative,
and a man with whom I could take a liberty, came into the
Senate, I said to him that we should have to amend the rules
so that a motion to adjourn would be in order in the middle
of a sentence; to which he replied that he knew of nobody
in this country, who objected to long sentences, except the
criminal classes.

Gladstone was the last of a school of oratory, and the last
of our time--I hope not for all time--of a school of statesmen.
When he entered upon a discussion in Parliament, or on the
hustings, he elevated it to the highest possible plane.  The
discussion became alike one of the highest moral principles
and the profoundest political philosophy.  He seemed to be
speaking as our statesmen of the Revolutionary time, and the
time of framing our Constitution.  He used to speak to all
generations alike.  What he had to say would have been true
and apt and fit to be uttered in the earlier days of Athens
and Rome, and true and apt and fit to be uttered for thousands
of years to come.  He had, in a large measure, a failing which
all Englishmen have, and always had; the notion that what
is good for England is good for humanity at large.  Still
it was a lofty morality and a lofty ideal statesmanship.  It
was sincere.  What he said, that he believed.  It came straight
from his heart, and he kindled in the bosoms of his listeners
the ardor of his own heart.  He was not afraid of his ideals.

I heard Dr. Guthrie in Edinburgh in 1860.  It was a hot day.
My companion was just getting well from a dangerous attack
of bleeding at the lungs.  We made our way with difficulty
into the crowded church.  The people were, almost all of them,
standing.  We were obliged, by my friend's condition, to get
out again before the sermon.  I remember, however, the old
man's attitude, and his prayer in the racy, broad Scotch,
the most tender, pathetic and expressive language on earth
for the deeper emotions as well as for humor.  I wonder if
my readers have ever seen the version of the Psalms--

"Frae Hebrew Intil Scottis," by P. Hately Waddell, LL.D.,
Minister, Edinburgh, 1891.

If not, and they will get it, a new delight is in store for
them, and they will know something of the diction of Dr.
Guthrie.

He once began a prayer, "O Lord, it is a braw thing to loe
ye.  But it is a better (bitter) thing to hate ye."

The beauty of this dialect is that while it is capable alike
of such tenderness, and such lofty eloquence, and such exquisite
and delicate humor, it is, like our Saxon, incapable of falsetto,
or of little pomposities.

I heard Lyman Beecher, then a very old man, before a meeting
of the members of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1852, when
the measure known as the Maine Liquor Law was pending.  He
bore unmistakable marks of advanced age.  But there were one
or two passages that showed the power of the orator, one especially
in which he described the beauty and delight of our homes,
and intemperance threatening them with its waves like a great
sea of fire.

I saw Henry Ward Beecher several times in private, and had
pleasant talks with him.  But I am sorry to say I never heard
him speak, so far as I can now remember, on any occasion when
he put forth his power.  But if half that is told of his speeches,
during the Civil War, some of them to hostile and angry audiences,
be true, he was a consummate master.  One story is told of
him which I suppose is true, and, if it be true, ranks him
as one of the greatest masters of his art that ever lived.
It is said that he was speaking to a great crowd in Birmingham,
or perhaps Liverpool, which constantly goaded him with hostile
interruptions, so that he had great difficulty in getting
on.  At last one fellow provoked the cheers and applause of
the audience by crying out--"Why didn't you put down the Rebellion
in sixty days as you said you would?" Beecher paused a moment
until they became still, in their eagerness to hear his reply,
and then hurled back--"We should if they had been Englishmen."
The fierce, untamed animal hesitated a moment between anger
and admiration, and then the English love of fair play and
pluck prevailed, and the crowd cheered him and let him go
on.

But any man who reads Beecher's delightful "Letters from the
White Mountains," or some of his sermons, and imagines his
great frame, and far-sounding voice, will get a conception
of his power to play on the feelings or men, of his humor,
and pathos, and intense conviction, and rapidity in passing
from one emotion to another, and will understand him.

I heard Rufus Choate a great many times.  I heard nearly
all the speeches given in Brown's Life; and I heard him a
great many times at the Bar, both before juries and the full
Court.  He is the only advocate I ever heard who had the
imperial power which would subdue an unwilling and hostile
jury.  His power over them seemed like the fascination of
a bird by a snake.  Of course, he couldn't do this with able
Judges, although all Judges who listened to him would, I think,
agree that he was as persuasive a reasoner as ever lived.
But with inferior magistrates and juries, however intelligent,
however determined they were in a made-up opinion, however
on their guard against the charmer, he was almost irresistible.
There are very few important cases recorded that Choate lost.
Non supplex, sed magister aut dominus videretur esse judicum.

Choate's method was pure persuasion.  He never appealed to
base motives, nor tried to awake coarse prejudices or stormy
passions.  He indulged in no invective.  His wit and sarcasm
and ridicule amused the victim almost as much as it amused
the bystander.  He had the suaviloquentia which Cicero attributes
to Cornelius.  There was never a harsh note in his speech.

  Latrantur enim jam quidam oratores, non loquuntur.

When he was confronted with some general rule, or some plain
fact, he had a marvellous art of subtle distinction.  He
showed that his client, or witness, or proposition, belonged
to a class of itself.  He invested it with a distinct and
intense personality.  He held up his fact or his principle
before the mind of the Court and the jury.  He described
and pictured it.  He brought out in clear relief what distinguished
it from any other fact or proposition whatever.  If necessary,
he would almost have made a jury, before he was through, think
the Siamese twins did not look alike, and possibly that they
never could have been born of the same parents.

He had a voice without any gruff or any shrill tones.  It
was like a sweet, yet powerful flute.  He never strained it
or seemed to exert it to its fullest capacity.  I do not know
any other public speaker whose style resembled his in the
least.  Perhaps Jeremy Taylor was his model, if he had any
model.  The phraseology with which he clothed some commonplace
or mean thought or fact, when he was compelled to use commonplace
arguments, or to tell some common story, kept his auditors
ever alert and expectant.  An Irishman, who had killed his
wife, threw away the axe with which Choate claimed the deed
was done, when he heard somebody coming.  This, in Choate's
language, was "the sudden and frantic ejaculation of the axe."
Indeed his speech was a perpetual surprise.  Whether you liked
him or disliked him, you gave him your ears, erect and intent.
He used manuscript a great deal, even in speaking to juries.
When a trial was on, lasting days or weeks, he kept pen, ink,
and paper at hand in his bedroom, and would often get up in
the middle of the night to write down thoughts that came to
him as he lay in bed.  He was always careful to keep warm.
It was said he prepared for a great jury argument by taking
off eight great coats and drinking eight cups of green tea.

When I was a young lawyer in Worcester I had something to
do before the Court sitting in the fourth story of the old
stone court house in Boston.  I finished my business and
had just time to catch the train for home.  As I came down
the stairs I passed the door of the court-room where the
United States Court was sitting.  The thick wooden door was
open, and the opening was closed by a door of thin leather
stretched on a wooden frame.  I pulled it open enough to look
in, and there, within three feet of me, was Choate, addressing
a jury in a case of marine insurance, where the defence was
the unseaworthiness of the vessel.  I had just time to hear
this sentence, and shut the door and hurry to my train: "She
went down the harbor, painted and perfidious--a coffin, but
no ship."

I hear now, as if still in the eager throng, his speech in
Faneuil Hall during the Mexican War.  He demanded that we
should bring back our soldiers to the line we claimed as
our rightful boundary, and let Mexico go.  He said we had
done enough for glory, and that we had humiliated her enough.

"The Mexican maiden, as she sits with her lover among the
orange-groves, will sing to her guitar the story of these
times--'Ah, woe is me, Alhama,' for a thousand years to come."

Choate, like other good orators, and like some great poets,
notably Wordsworth, created the taste which he satisfied.
His dramatic action, his marvellous and strange vocabulary,
his oriental imagination, his dressing the common and mean
things of life with a poetic charm and romance, did not at
once strike favorably the taste of his Yankee audiences.
Webster and Everett seem to have appreciated him from the
first.  But he was, till he vindicated his title to be a great
lawyer, rather a thorn in the flesh of Chief Justice Shaw, of
whose consternation and amazement, caused by the strange
figure that appeared in his court-room, many queer stories
used to be told.  But the young men and the people liked
him.

"Non probantur haec senibus--saepe videbam cum invidentem
tum etiam irascentem stomachantem Philippum--sed mirantur
adulescentes multitudo movetur."

It was a curious sight to see on a jury twelve hard-headed
and intelligent countrymen--farmers, town officers, trustees,
men chosen by their neighbors to transact their important
affairs--after an argument by some clear-headed lawyer for
the defence, about some apparently not very doubtful transaction,
who had brought them all to his way of thinking, and had warned
them against the wiles of the charmer, when Choate rose to
reply for the plaintiff--to see their look of confidence and
disdain--"You needn't try your wiles upon me." The shoulder
turned a little against the speaker--the averted eye--and
then the change; first, the changed posture of the body; the
slight opening of the mouth; then the look, first, of curiosity,
and then of doubt, then of respect; the surrender of the eye
to the eye of the great advocate; then the spell, the charm,
the great enchantment--till at last, jury and audience were
all swept away, and followed the conqueror captive in his
triumphal march.

He gesticulated with his whole body.  Wendell Phillips most
irreverently as well as most unjustly compared him to a monkey
in convulsions.  His bowings down and straightening himself
again were spoken of by another critic, not unfriendly, as
opening and shutting like a jack-knife.  His curly black hairs
seemed each to have a separate life of its own.  His eyes
shone like coals of fire.  There is a passage of Everett's
which well describes Choate, and is also one of the very best
examples of Everett, who, with all his fertility of original
genius, borrowed so much, and so enriched and improved everything
that he borrowed.  Cicero said of Antonius:

"Omnia veniebant Antonio in mentem; eaque suo quaeque loco,
ubi pluimum proficere et valere possent, ut ab imperatore
equites pedites levis armatura, sic ab illo in maxume opportunis
orationis partibus conlocabantur."

Now see what Everett does with this thought in his eulogy,
spoken in Faneuil Hall, the week after Choate's death:

"He is sometimes satisfied, in concise epigrammatic clauses,
to skirmish with his light troops, and drive in the enemy's
outposts.  It is only on fitting occasions, when great principles
are to be vindicated, and solemn truths told, when some moral
or political Waterloo or Solferino is to be fought, that he
puts on the entire panoply of his gorgeous rhetoric.  It is
then that his majestic sentences swell to the dimensions
of his majestic thought; then it is that we hear afar off the
awful roar of his rifled ordnance; and when he has stormed
the heights, and broken the centre, and trampled the squares,
and turned the staggering wings of the adversary, that he
sounds his imperial clarion along the whole line of battle,
and moves forward with all his hosts, in one overwhelming
charge."

One of the most remarkable advocates of my day was Sidney
Bartlett.  He seldom addressed juries, and almost never public
assemblies.  He was a partner of Chief Justice Shaw before
1830.  He argued cases before the Supreme Court of the United
States and before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts after
he was ninety.  He cared for no other audience.  He had a
marvellous compactness of speech, and a marvellous sagacity
in seeing the turning-point of a great question.  He found
the place where the roads diverged, got the Court's face set
in the right direction, and then stopped.  He would argue
in ten or fifteen minutes a point where some powerful antagonist
like Curtis or Choate would take hours to reply.  I once told
him that his method of argument was to that of ordinary lawyers
like logarithms to ordinary mathematics.  He seemed pleased
with the compliment, and said, "Yes, I know I argue over their
heads.  The Chief Justice told me he wished I would talk a
little longer." I do not know that Bartlett ought to be reckoned
among orators.  But he had a great power of convincing, and
giving his intellectual delight to minds capable of appreciating
his profound and inexorable logic.

Edward Everett seems to me, on the whole, our best example
of the orator, pure and simple.  Webster was a great statesman,
a great lawyer, a great advocate, a great public teacher.
To all these his matchless oratory was but an instrument and
incident.

Choate was a great winner of cases, and as relaxation he
gave, in the brief vacations of an overworked professional
life (he once defined a lawyer's vacation as the time after he
has put a question to a witness while he is waiting for an
answer), a few wonderful literary and historical addresses.
He gave a brief period of brilliant but most unwilling service
in each House of Congress.  He made some powerful political
speeches to popular audiences.  But his heart was always in
the court-house.  No gambler ever hankered for the feverish
delight of the gaming table as Choate did for that absorbing
game, half chance, half skill, where twelve human dice must
all turn up together one way, or there be no victory.

But Everett is always the orator.  He was a clergyman a little
while.  He was a Greek professor a little while.  He was a
College President a little while.  He was a Minister to England
a little while.  He was Representative in Congress and Senator.
He was Governor of the Commonwealth.  In these places he did
good service enough to make a high reputation for any other
man.  Little of these things is remembered now.  He was above
all things--I am tempted to say, above all men--the foremost
American orator in one class.

There is one function of the orator peculiar to our country,
and almost unknown elsewhere.  That is the giving utterance
to the emotion of the people, whether of joy or sorrow, on
the occasions when its soul is deeply stirred--when some great
man dies, or there is a great victory or defeat, or some notable
anniversary is celebrated.  This office was filled by other
men, on some few occasions by Daniel Webster himself, but
by no man better than by Everett.  A Town, or City, or State
is very human.  In sorrow it must utter its cry of pain; in
victory, its note of triumph.  As events pass, it must pronounce
its judgement.  Its constant purpose must be fixed and made
more steadfast by expression.  It must give voice to its love
and its approbation and its condemnation.  It must register
the high and low water mark of its tide, its rising and its
sinking in heat and cold.  This office Edward Everett, for
nearly fifty years, performed for Massachusetts and for the
whole country.  In his orations is preserved and recorded
everything of the emotion of the great hours of our people's
history.  The camera of his delicate photography has preserved
for future generations what passed in the soul of his own
in the times that tried the souls of men.

I do not know where he got his exquisite elocution.  He went
abroad in his youth, and there were good trainers abroad,
then.  He must have studied thoroughly the speeches of Cicero
and the Greek orators.  Many casual phrases in his works,
besides many quotations, show his familiarity with Cicero's
writing on oratory.

If you would get some faint, far-off conception of him, first
look at the best bust or picture of Everett you can find.
Imagine the figure with its every movement gentle and graceful.
The head and face are suggestive of Greek sculpture.  This
person sits on the platform with every expression discharged
from the face, looking like a plaster image when the artist
has just begun his model, before any character or intelligence
has been put into it.  You think him the only person in the
audience who takes no interest whatever in what is going on,
and certainly that he expects to have nothing to do with it
himself.  He is introduced.  He comes forward quietly and
gracefully.  There is a slight smile of recognition of the
welcoming applause.  The opening sentences are spoken in a
soft--I had almost said, a caressing voice, though still a
little cold.  I suppose it would be called a tenor voice.
There was nothing in the least unmanly about Edward Everett.
Yet if some woman had spoken in the same tones, you would
have not thought them unwomanly.

  Illa tamquam cycnea fuit divini hominis vox et oratio.

He has found somewhere in the vast storehouse of his knowledge
a transaction exactly like the present, or exactly in contrast
with it, or some sentiment of poet or orator which just fits
the present occasion.  If it be new to his audience, he adds
to it a newer delight still by his matchless skill as a narrator--
a skill almost the rarest of all talents among public speakers.
If it be commonplace and hackneyed he makes it fresh and pleasant
by giving in detail the circumstances when it was first uttered,
or describes some occasion when some orator has applied it
before; or calls attention to its very triteness as giving
it added authority.  If he wish to express his agreement with
the last speaker and "say ditto to Mr. Burke," he tells you
when that was said, what was the occasion, and gives you the
name of Mr. Kruger, who stood for the representation of Bristol
with Burke.

Mr. Everett's stores were inexhaustible.  If any speaker
have to get ready in a hurry for a great occasion, let him
look through the index of the four volumes of Everett's speeches,
and he will find matter enough, not only to stimulate his
own thought and set its currents running, but to illustrate
and adorn what he will say.

But pretty soon the orator rises into a higher plane.  Some
lofty sentiment, some stirring incident, some patriotic emotion,
some play of fancy or wit comes from the brain or heart of
the speaker.  The audience is hushed to silence.  Perhaps
a little mist begins to gather in their eyes.  There is now
an accent of emotion in the voice, though still soft and
gentle.  The Greek statue begins to move.  There is life in
the limbs.  There has been a lamp kindled somewhere behind
the clear and transparent blue eyes.  The flexible muscles
of the face have come to life now.  Still there is no jar or
disorder.  The touch upon the nerves of the audience is like
that of a gentle nurse.  The atmosphere is that of a May
morning.  There is no perfume but that of roses and lilies.
But still, gently at first, the warmer feelings are kindled in
the hearts of the speaker and hearers.  The frame of the
speaker is transfigured.  The trembling hands are lifted
high in the air.  The rich, sweet voice fills the vast audience
chamber with its resonant tones.  At last, the bugle, the
trumpet, the imperial clarion rings out full and clear, and
the vast audience is transported as to another world--I had
almost said to a seventh heaven.  Read the welcome to Lafayette
or the close of the matchless eulogy on that illustrious object
of the people's love.  Read the close of the oration on Washington.
Read the contrast of Washington and Marlborough.  Read the
beautiful passage where, just before the ocean cable was laid,
the rich fancy of the speaker describes--

"The thoughts that we think up here on the earth's surface
in the cheerful light of day--clothing ourselves with elemental
sparks, and shooting with fiery speed in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, from hemisphere to hemisphere, far down
among the uncouth monsters that wallow in the nether seas,
along the wreck-paved floor, thorough the oozy dungeons of
the rayless deep; the last intelligence of the crops, whose
dancing tassels will in a few months be coquetting with the
west wind on those boundless prairies, flashing along the
slimy decks of old sunken galleons, which have been rotting
for ages; messages of friendship and love, from warm, living
bosoms, burn over the cold green bones of men and women, whose
hearts, once as fond as ours, burst as the eternal gulfs
closed and roared over them, centuries ago."

Read the passage in the eulogy on Choate where he describes
him arming himself in the entire panoply of his gorgeous
rhetoric--and you will get some far-away conception of the
power of this magician.

One thing especially distinguishes our modern orator from
the writer in the closet, where he writes solely for his readers,
or where he has prepared his speeches beforehand--that is,
the influence of the audience upon him.  There is nothing
like it as a stimulant to every faculty, not only imagination,
and fancy, and reason, but especially, as every experienced
speaker knows, memory also.  Everything needed seems to come
out from the secret storehouses of the mind, even the things
that have lain there forgotten, rusting and unused.  Mr. Everett
describes this in a masterly passage in his Life of Webster.
Gladstone states it in a few fine sentences:

"The work of the orator, from its very inception," he says,
"is inextricably mixed up with practice.  It is cast in the
mould offered to him by the mind of his hearers.  It is an
influence principally received from his audience (so to speak)
in vapor, which he pours back upon them in a flood.  The sympathy
and concurrence of his time is, with his own mind, joint parent
of his work.  He cannot follow nor frame ideals; his choice
is to be what his age would have him, what it requires in
order to be moved by him, or else not to be at all."

I heard six of Kossuth's very best speeches.  He was a marvellous
orator.  He seemed to have mastered the whole vocabulary of
English speech, and to have a rare gift of choosing words
that accurately expressed his meaning, and he used so to fashion
his sentences that they were melodious and delightful to the
ear.  That is one great gift or oratory, as it is of poetry,
or indeed of a good prose style.  Why it is that two words
or phrases which mean precisely the same thing to the intellect,
have so different an effect on the emotions, no man can tell.
To understand it, is to know the secret not only of reaching
the heart, but frequently of convincing the understanding
of man.

Kossuth made a great many speeches, sometimes five or six
in a day.  He could have had no preparation but the few minutes
which he could snatch while waiting for dinner at some house
where he was a guest, or late at night, after a hard day's
work.  But his speeches were gems.  They were beautiful in
substance and in manner.  He was ready for every occasion.
When the speaker who welcomed him at Roxbury told him that
Roxbury contained no historic spot that would interest a stranger,
Kossuth at once answered, "You forget that it is the birthplace
of Warren."  When old Josiah Quincy, then past eighty, said
at a Legislative banquet that he had come to the time--"when
the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men
shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they
are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
and they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears
shall be in the way," Kossuth interrupted him, "Ah! but that
was of ordinary men."

I was a member of the Legislature when Kossuth visited Boston.
I heard his address to the House and to the Senate, his reply
to the Governor's welcome.  I heard him again at the Legislative
banquet in Faneuil Hall, and twice in Worcester--on the Common
in the afternoon, and at the City Hall in the evening.  I
shook hands with him and perhaps exchanged a word or two,
but of that I have no memory.  Afterward I visited him with
my wife at Turin in 1892, when he was a few months past ninety.
He received me with great cordiality.  I spent two hours with
him and his sister, Madam Ruttkay.  They both expressed great
pleasure with the visit, and Madam Ruttkay kissed Mrs. Hoar
affectionately when we took leave.  Kossuth's beautiful English
periods were as beautiful as they were forty years before,
at the time of his famous pilgrimage through the United States.
His whole conversation related to the destiny of his beloved
Hungary.  He spoke with great dignity of his own share in
the public events which affected his country.  There was nothing
of arrogance or vanity in his claim for himself, yet in speaking
of Francis Joseph, he assumed unconsciously the tone of a
superior.  He maintained that constitutional liberty could
never be permanent where two countries with separate legislatures
were under one sovereign.  He said the sovereign would always
be able to use the military and civil power of one to accomplish
his designs against the liberty of the other.  The opinion
of Kossuth on such a question is entitled to the greatest
deference.  But I incline to the belief that, while undoubtedly
there may be great truth in the opinion, the spirit of liberty
will overcome that danger.  Hungary and Hungary's chief city
seem rapidly to be asserting control in their own affairs
and an influence in the Austro-Hungary Empire which no monarch
will be able to withstand, and which it is quite likely the
royal family will not desire to withstand.  In these days
monarchs are learning the love of liberty, and I believe
in most cases to-day the reigning sovereigns of Europe are
eager to promote constitutional government, and prefer the
title of Liberator to that of Despot.

I have heard Wendell Phillips speak a great many times.  I
do not include him in this notice, because, if I did, I ought
to defend my estimate of him at considerable length, and to
justify it by ample quotation.  I think him entitled to the
very highest rank as an orator.  I do not estimate his moral
character highly.  I think he exerted very little influence on
his generation, and that the influence he did exert was in the
main pernicious.  I have had copied everything he said, from
the time he made his first speech, so far as it is found in
the newspapers, and have the volumes in which his speeches
are collected.  I never had occasion to complain of him on
my own account.  So far as I know and believe, he had the
kindliest feeling for me until his death, and esteemed my
public service much more highly than it deserved.  But he
bitterly and unjustly attacked men whom I loved and honored
under circumstances which make it impossible for me to believe
that his conduct was consistent with common honesty.  He seemed
never to care for the soundness of his opinion before he uttered
it, or for the truth of the fact before he said it, if only
he could produce a rhetorical effect.  He seemed to like to
defame men whom the people loved and honored.  Toward the
latter part of his life, he seemed to get desperate.  If he
failed to make an impression by argument, he took to invective.
If vinegar would not answer he resorted to cayenne pepper.
If that failed, he tried to throw vitriol in the eyes of the
men whom he hated.  His remedy for slavery was to destroy
the country, and to leave the slave to the unchecked will
of the South.  During Lincoln's great trial, he attacked and
vilified him.  At the time when nearly every household in
the North was mourning for its dead, he tried to persuade
the people that Lincoln did not mean to put down the Rebellion.
He never gave the people wise counsel, and rarely told them
the honest truth.  He rarely gave his homage to anybody.  When
he did, it was to bad men, and not to good men.

There can be no worse influence upon the youth of the Republic
than that which shall induce them to approve sentiments, not
because they are true, but only because they are eloquently
said.


CHAPTER XXXVI
TRUSTS

I have given the best study I could to the grave evil of the
accumulation in the country of vast fortunes in single hands,
or of vast properties in the hands of great corporations--
popularly spoken of as trusts--whose powers are wielded by
one, or a few persons.  This is the most important question
before the American people demanding solution in the immediate
future.  A great many remedies have been proposed, some with
sincerity and some, I am afraid, merely for partisan ends.
The difficulty is increased by the fact that many of the evils
caused by trusts, or apprehended from them, can only be cured
by the action of the States, but cannot be reached by Congress,
which can only deal with international or interstate commerce.
As long ago as 1890 the people were becoming alarmed about
this matter.  But the evil has increased rapidly during the
last twelve years.  It is said that one man in this country
has acquired a fortune of more than a thousand million dollars
by getting an advantage over other producers or dealers in
a great necessary of life in the rates at which the railroads
transport his goods to market.

In 1890 a bill was passed which was called the Sherman Act,
for no other reason I can think of except that Mr. Sherman
had nothing to do with framing it whatever.  He introduced
a bill and reported it from the Finance Committee providing
that whenever a trust, as it was called, dealt with an article
protected by the tariff, the article should be put on the
free list.  This was a crude, imperfect, and unjust provision.
It let in goods made abroad by a foreign trust to compete
with the honest domestic manufacturer.  If there happened
to be an industry employing thousands or hundreds of thousands
of workmen, in which thousands of millions of American capital
was invested, and a few persons got up a trust--perhaps importers,
for the very purpose of breaking down the American manufacturer--
and made the article to a very small extent, all honest manufacturers
would be deprived of their protection.

Mr. Sherman's bill found little favor with the Senate.  It
was referred to the Judiciary Committee of which I was then
a member.  I drew as an amendment the present bill which I
presented to the Committee.  There was a good deal of opposition
to it in the Committee.  Nearly every member had a plan of
his own.  But at last the Committee came to my view and reported
the law of 1890.  The House disagreed to our bill and the
matter went to a Conference Committee, of which Mr. Edmunds,
the Chairman of the Committee, and I, as the member of the
Committee who was the author of the bill, were members.  The
House finally came to our view.

It was expected that the Court, in administering that law,
would confine its operation to cases which are contrary to the
policy of the law, treating the words "agreements in restraint
of trade," as having a technical meaning, such as they are
supposed to have in England.  The Supreme Court of the United
States went in this particular farther than was expected.
In one case it held that "the bill comprehended every scheme
that might be devised to restrain trade or commerce among
the several States or with foreign nations." From this opinion
several of the Court, including Mr. Justice Gray, dissented.
It has not been carried to its full extent since, and I think
will never be held to prohibit the lawful and harmless combinations
which have been permitted in this country and in England without
complaint, like contracts of partnership which are usually
considered harmless.  We thought it was best to use this general
phrase which, as we thought, had an accepted and well-known
meaning in the English law, and then after it had been construed
by the Court, and a body of decisions had grown up under
the law, Congress would be able to make such further amendments
as might be found by experience necessary.

The statute has worked very well indeed, although the Court
by one majority and against the very earnest and emphatic
dissent of some of its greatest lawyers, declined to give
a technical meaning to the phrase, "in restraint of trade."
But the operation of the statute has been healthy.  The Attorney-
General has recently given an account of suits in equity by
which he had destroyed a good many vast combinations, including
a combination of the six largest meat-packing concerns in
the country; a combination of railroads which had been restrained
from making any rebate or granting any preference whatever
to any shipper; and a pooling arrangement between the Southern
railroads which denied the right of the shippers interested
in the cotton product in the South to prescribe the route
over which their goods should pass.  He has also brought a
suit in equity to prevent the operation of a proposed merger
of sundry transcontinental railroads, thereby breaking up
a monopoly which affected the whole freight and passenger
traffic of the Northwest.

The public uneasiness, however, still continued.  The matter
was very much discussed in the campaign for electing members
of the House of Representatives in the autumn of 1902.

I made two or three careful speeches on the subject in Massachusetts,
in which I pointed out that the existing law, in general,
was likely to be sufficient.  I claimed, however, further,
that Congress had, in my opinion, the power of controlling
the whole matter, by reason of its right to prescribe terms
on which any corporation, created by State authority or its
own, should engage in interstate or international commerce.
It might provide as a condition for such traffic by a corporation,
that its officers or members should put on file an obligation
to be personally liable for the debts of the concern in case
the conditions prescribed by Congress were not complied with.

The House of Representatives passed a very stringent bill
known as the Littlefield Bill, which was amended by the Judiciary
Committee, of which I was the Chairman, by adding the provisions
of a bill which I had, myself, previously introduced, based
on the suggestions above stated.

But there was a general feeling that the amendments to the
existing law proposed by the Administration were all that
should be made at present.  These consisted in providing
severe penalties for granting rebates by railroads to favored
shippers; for having suits under the existing law brought
forward for prompt decision, and for giving the new Department
of Commerce large powers for the examination of the conduct
of the business of such corporations, and to compel them to
make such returns as should be thought desirable.

I should have preferred to have the bill I reported brought
forward and discussed in the Senate, although there was obviously
no time, with the pressure of other business, to get it through.
But it was thought best by a majority of the Republicans not
to take it up.  Some of them thought it was likely, if passed,
to have a very serious and perhaps disastrous effect on the
country.  So far as I know, nobody in either House of Congress
or in the press has pointed out why such a result would be
likely to follow.

On the whole I was very well satisfied.  The interests concerned
are vast.  A rash or unskilful remedy might bring infinite
trouble or ruin to lawful business.  The work of restraining
the trusts is going on very well under the law of 1890.  It
is a matter which must be discussed and considered by the
American people for a great many years to come, and the evils
from the trusts at present are rather in anticipation than
in reality.  So I am very well content, for the present, with
what has been accomplished.


CHAPTER XXXVII
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WORCESTER BAR

The Worcester Bar, when I came to it, was much like a class
of boys in college.  There was rivalry and sharp practice
in some cases, and roughness of speech toward each other and
toward witnesses and parties.  But in the main, the lawyers
stood by one another and were ready to help each other in
trouble, and the lawyer's best and most trustworthy friends
were his associates.  The Judge and the jurymen, and the lawyers
from out of town used to come into Worcester and stay at the
old Sykes or Thomas Tavern, opposite the court-house, and
at another one known as the United States Hotel, further south.
The former was kept for a good many years by an old fellow
named Sykes.  He was a singular-looking person--a large head,
stout body, rather protuberant belly, and short curved legs
and very long arms.  He had large heavy eyebrows, a wide mouth
and a curved nose and sallow complexion looking a good deal
like the caricatures of the Jewish countenance in the comic
newspapers.  He had two sons who looked very much like him
and seemed about as old as their father.  One day the three
were standing in front of his tavern when a countryman came
along who undertook to stop with his load at the front door
of the tavern.  Sykes was standing there with his two sons,
one on each side of him.  He did not like to have the countryman
stop his load in that spot and called out to him rather roughly,
"Move along."  The fellow surveyed the group for a moment
with an amused look and complied with the order, but shouted
out to the old man:  "Wal, this is the fust time I ever saw
three Jacks of Spades in one pack."

The Court sat till six o'clock and often far into the evening,
and began at half-past eight or nine.  So there was no chance
for the country lawyers to go home at night.  There was great
fun at these old taverns in the evening and at meal times.
They insisted generally, like Mrs. Battles in whist, on the
rigor of the game, and the lawyer had to look sharp after
his pleadings or he found himself tripped up.  The parties
could not be witnesses, nor could any person interested in
the result of the trial.  So many a good case, and many a
good defence failed for want of the legal evidence to make
it out.  But the whole Bar and the public seemed to take an
interest in important trials.  People came in from the country
round with their covered wagons, simply for the pleasure of
attending Court and seeing the champions contend with each
other.  The lawyers who were not engaged in the case were
always ready to help those who were with advice and suggestion.
It used to be expected that members of the Bar would be in
the court-house hearing the trials even if they were not engaged
in them.  That was always an excuse for being absent from
the office, and their clients sought them at the court-house
for consultation.  I cannot but think that the listening to
the trial and argument of causes by skilful advocates was
a better law school than any we have now, and that our young
men, especially in the large cities, fail to become good advocates
and to learn the art of putting in a case, and of examining
and cross-examining witnesses, for want of a constant and
faithful attendance on the courts.

In those old times, our old lawyers, if Charles Lamb had
known them and should paint them, would make a set of portraits
as interesting as his old Benchers of the Inner Temple.  Old
Calvin Willard, many years sheriff of Worcester, would have
delighted Elia.  He did not keep the wig or the queue or the
small-clothes of our great-grandfathers, but he had their
formal and ceremonial manners in perfection.  It was like
a great State ceremonial to meet him and shake hands with
him.  He paused for a moment, surveyed you carefully to be
sure of the person, took a little time for reflection to be
sure there was nothing in the act to compromise his dignity,
and then slowly held out his hand.  But the grasp was a warm
one, and the ceremony and the hand-shake conveyed his cordial
respect and warmth of regard.  He always reminded me of the
Englishman in Crabbe's "Tales" who, I think, may have been
his kinsman.

  The wish that Roman necks in one were found
  That he who formed the wish might deal the wound,
  This man had never heard.  But of the kind
  Is the desire which rises in his mind.
  He'd have all English hands, for further he
  Cannot conceive extends our charity,
  All but his own, in one right hand to grow;
  And then what hearty shake would he bestow.

Mr. Willard was once counsel before a magistrate in a case
in which he took much interest.  A rough, coarse country
lawyer was on the other side.  When Willard stated some legal
proposition, his adversary said:  "I will bet you five dollars
that ain't law."  "Sir," said Mr. Willard, drawing himself
up to his full height, with the great solemnity of tone of
which he was master:  "Sir, I do not permit myself to make
the laws of my country the subject of a bet."

Another of the old characters who came down to my time from
the older generation was Samuel M. Burnside.  He was a man
of considerable wealth and lived in a generous fashion, dispensing
an ample hospitality at his handsome mansion, still standing
in Worcester.  He was a good black-letter lawyer, though without
much gift of influencing juries or arguing questions of law
to the Court.  He was a good Latin scholar, very fond of Horace
and Virgil, and used to be on the committees to examine the
students at Harvard, rather disturbing the boys with his somewhat
pedantic questioning.  He was very nearsighted, and, it is
said, once seized the tail of a cow which passed near him
in the street and hurried forward, supposing some woman had
gone by and said, "Madam, you are dropping your tippet."

One of the most interesting characters among the elders of
the Worcester Bar was old Rejoice Newton.  He was a man of
excellent judgment, wisdom, integrity and law learning enough
to make him a safe guide to his clients in their important
transactions.  He was a most prosaic person, without sentiment,
without much knowledge of literature, and absolutely without
humor.  He was born in Northfield near the banks of the Connecticut
River and preserved to the time of his death his love of rural
scenes and of farming.  He had an excellent farm a mile or
two out of town, where he spent all the time he could get
from his professional duties.  He was associated with Chief
Justice Shaw in some important cases, and always thought that
it was due to his recommendation that Governor Lincoln appointed
the Chief Justice--a suggestion which Governor Lincoln used
to repel with great indignation.  The Governor was also a
good farmer, especially proud of his cattle.  Each of them
liked to brag of their crops and especially of the produce
of their respective dairies.  Governor Lincoln was once discoursing
to Devens and me, in our office, of a wonderful cow of his
which, beside raising an enormous calf, had produced the cream
for a great quantity of butter.  Mr. Devens said: "Why, that
beats Major Newton's cow, that gave for months at a time some
fifteen or eighteen quarts at a milking." "If Brother Newton
hears of my cow," said Governor Lincoln, "he will at once
double the number of quarts."  The old Major was quite fond
of telling stories, of which the strong points were not apt
to suffer in his narration.  One Fourth of July, when he had
got to be an old man, he came down street and met a brother
member of the Bar, who took him up into the room of the Worcester
Light Infantry, a Company of which the Major's deceased son
had long ago been the Captain.  The members of the Company
were spending the Fourth with a bowl of punch and other refreshments.
The Major was introduced and was received with great cordiality,
and my friend left him there.  The next day my friend was
going down street and met the Captain of the Light Infantry,
who said:  "That was a very remarkable old gentleman you brought
into our room yesterday.  He stayed there all the forenoon,
drinking punch and telling stories.  He distinctly remembered
General Washington.  He went home to dinner, came back after
dinner, drank some more punch, and remembered Christopher
Columbus."

The old Major was once addressing the Supreme Court and maintained
a doctrine which did not commend itself to Chief Justice Shaw.
The Chief Justice interposed: "Brother Newton, what is the
use of arguing that?  We have held otherwise in such a case
(citing it) and again and again since." The Major paused,
drew his spectacles slowly off his nose, and said to the Court
with great seriousness: "May it please your Honors, I have
a great respect for the opinions of this Court, except in
some very gross cases."

A man by the name of Lysander Spooner, whose misfortune it
was to be a good deal in advance of his age, the author of
a very clever pamphlet maintaining the unconstitutionality
of slavery, also published some papers attacking the authenticity
of Christian miracles.  In these days of Bob Ingersoll such
views would be met with entire toleration, but they shocked
Major Newton exceedingly, as they did most persons of his
time.  Spooner studied for the Bar and applied to be admitted.
He was able to pass an examination.  But the Major, as _amicus
curiae,_ addressed the Court and insisted that Spooner was
not a man of proper character, and affirmed in support of
his assertion that he was the author of some blasphemous attacks
on Christianity.  The result was that Spooner's application
was denied.  The Court adjourned for dinner.  It was the day
of the calling of the docket, and just before the Judge came
in in the afternoon, the whole Bar of Worcester County were
assembled, filling the room.  The Major sat in a seat near
one of the doors.  He had dined pretty heavily, the day was
hot and the Major was sleepy.  He tipped back a little in
his chair, his head fell back between his shoulders and his
mouth opened, with his nose pointed toward the zenith.  Just
then Spooner came in.  As he passed by the Major, the temptation
was irresistible.  He seized the venerable nose of the old
patriarch between his thumb and finger, and gave it a vigorous
twist.  The Major was awakened and sprang to his feet, and
in a moment realized what had happened.  He was, as may be
well supposed, intensely indignant.  No Major in the militia
could submit to such an insult.  He seized his chair and hurled
it at the head of the offender, but missed, and the bystanders
interposed before he was able to inflict the deserved punishment.


The Major lived to a good old age.  His mental faculties
became somewhat impaired before he died.  He had great respect
for his excellent son-in-law, Colonel Wetherell, who was on
Governor Andrew's staff during the War, and thought that anything
which ought to be accomplished could be accomplished by the
influence of the Colonel.  Somebody told him during the hardest
part of the war that we ought to bend all our energies to
the capture of Richmond.  If Richmond were to fall the rebellion
would be easily put down.  "You are quite right, sir," said
the Major.  "It ought to be done, and I will speak to Colonel
Wetherell about it." But everybody who knew the worthy Major,
unless it were some offender against justice, or some person
against whose wrong-doing he had been the shield and protector
to a client, liked the kindly, honest and sturdy old man.
He was District Attorney for the district which included Worcester
County--an office then and ever since held by admirable lawyers.
He prided himself on the fact that he never drew an indictment
which was not sustained by the Court, if it were questioned.
He liked to recite his old triumphs.  He especially plumed
himself on his sagacity in dealing with one case which came
before him.  A complaint was made of a book well known at
that time, the memoirs of a dissolute woman, which was full
of indecency, but in which there could not be found a single,
separate indecent sentence or word.  The Major was at a loss
for some time what to do in indicting it.  If he set forth
the whole book, it would give it an immortality on the records
of the court which perhaps would be worse for the public morals
than the original publication.  Finally he averred in the
indictment that the defendant had published a book so indecent
that it was unfit to be spread on the records of the court.
The question went up to the Supreme Court and the indictment
was held good.  It was difficult for the Court or the jury
to find that such a book was fit to be spread on the records
of the Court, and the Major secured his victory and convicted
his criminal.

One of the bright young lawyers who came to the Bar a few
years after I did, was Appleton Dadmun.  He died of consumption
after a brief but very successful career.   He was the very
type and embodiment of the Yankee countryman in his excellencies
and his defects and in his fashion of speech and behavior.
He was a graduate of Amherst College.  The only evidence I
ever discovered of his classical education was his habit of
using the Greek double negative in ordinary English speech.
He used to employ me almost always as senior when he had a
case to argue to a jury, or an important law argument in Court.
He would put off the engagement until just as the case was
coming on.  He used to intend to try his cases himself.  But
his heart, at the last moment, would fail him.  He was as
anxious about his clients' cases as if they were his own.
He was exceedingly negligent about his pleadings and negligent
in the matter of being prepared with the necessary formal
proofs of facts which were really not doubtful but which
were put in issue by the pleadings.  When I was retained
my first duty was to prepare an amendment of the declaration
or the answer or plea, or, perhaps, to see whether he had
got the attesting witness to prove some signature.  But when
we had got past all that I used to find that he had prepared
his evidence with reference to what was the pinch of the
case of what was likely to be finally the doubtful point in
the mind of court or jury with infinite sagacity and skill.
I have rarely known a better judge of the effect of evidence
on the mind of ordinary juries.  He took his clients into his
affection as if they had been his own brethren or children,
and seemed always to hate to be compelled to make any charge
for his services, however successful.

He had a pleasant wit.  On one occasion a member of the bar
named Holbrook, who was not a bad fellow, but had, like the
rest of the world, some peccadilloes to repent of, came into
the Court-house one morning just as the Court was coming in
where the lawyers were gathered.  Much excited, he said he
was riding into Worcester in a chaise from the neighboring
town where he spent his nights in the summer.  His horse had
run away and tore at a terrible rate down Main Street, swinging
the chaise from one side to the other as he ran, and breaking
some part of the harness and perhaps one of the shafts.  But
at last he had contrived to crawl out through the window behind
in the chaise top and hold on to the cross-bar.  Letting himself
down just as the chaise had got to the extremity of its sway
from one side to another, he let go and escaped without injury.
But, he said, it was a terrible five minutes.  Every action
of his life seemed to rush through his memory with the swiftness
of a torrent.  "You ought to have very heavy damages, sir,"
said Mr. Dadmun.

Another of the brightest of the young lawyers when I came
to the Bar was H.  He had, however, had rather an unfortunate
introduction to life.  His father, who was a very wealthy
and prosperous manufacturer, sent him to Yale College and
supplied him liberally with money, not only for his support,
but for the indulgence of every extravagant taste.  Beside
spending what his father allowed him, he incurred a good many
debts, expecting to find no difficulty in their payment.  His
father failed in business with a great crash about the end
of his junior year and died suddenly.  He kept on, however,
on credit, until he graduated and then came out with a heavy
load of debt, and no resources for studying his profession.
He got thorough, however, by dint of plausible manners.  He
was a very honest fellow in other respects, but he got the
habit of incurring debts which he could not pay.  Then he
took to drinking hard, and finally went to New York, and died
after a career of dissipation.  But everybody liked him.  Drunk
or sober, he was the best company in the world, full of anecdote
flavored with a shrewd and not ill-natured wit.  There was a
manufacturer in a village near Worcester who had failed in
business owing large debts all about.  He was a man of enormous
bulk, the fattest man in the whole region round-about, weighing
considerably over three hundred.  He left the State to avoid
his creditors, and dwelt in New York, keeping himself out
of their reach.  At last it was discovered by a creditor that
he used to come to Worcester in the train which arrived from
New York on the Western Railroad shortly before midnight Saturday,
go over to his old home, which was not far off, stay there
Sunday, when he was exempt from arrest, and take the cars
Sunday night at about the same hour for New York.  Accordingly
old Jonathan Day, a veteran deputy-sheriff, armed with an
execution, lay in wait for him one dark and stormy Saturday
night at the little old wooden depot of the Western Railroad,
some hundred or two feet from Grafton Street.  The train
came in, and the debtor got out.  The old General laid his
hands on him, and told him he was his prisoner.  He protested
and demurred and begged, making all manner of promises to
pay the debt if the officer would not take him to jail.  But
Day was inexorable.  Meantime the train had gone on, and the
keeper of the depot had put out the lights and gone off.  There
was nobody left in the darkness but the officer and the debtor.
"Well," said the fellow, "if you are going to take me to jail
you must carry me.  I won't walk." So he sat himself down
on the platform.  Day tried to persuade him to walk, and then
tugged and tugged at his collar, but without the slightest
effect.  He might as well have tried to move a mountain.  He
waited in a good deal of perplexity, and at last he heard
the rattle of wheels on Grafton Street, and gave a loud yell
for assistance.  The owner of the wagon came to the scene.
General Day demanded his help as one of the posse comitatus.
But it was as hard to the two to move the obstruction as it
had been for the old General alone.  So the General put the
debtor in charge of his new recruit, and went off up street
to see what counsel he could get in the matter.  All the lights
in the lawyers' offices and places of business were out except
a solitary gleam which came from the office of my friend
H.  He was sitting up alone, soaking himself with the contents
of a bottle of brandy.  General Day found him sitting there
and stated his case.  My friend heard it through, took it
into consideration, and took down and consulted the Revised
Statutes and the Digest.  At last he shook his head with an
air of drunken gravity and said:  "I don't find any express
provision anywhere for such a case.  So I think we must be
governed by the rule of law for the case nearest like it we
can find.  That seems to be the case of the attachment of
personal property, such as lumber, which is too bulky to be
removed.  My advice to you is to put a placard on him saying
he is attached, and go off and leave him till Monday morning."

When I was a young man, one summer a few years after my admission
to the Bar, I took a journey on foot with Horace Gray through
Berkshire County.  We started from Greenfield and walked over
the Hoosac Mountain to Adams and Williamstown, then over the
old road to Pittsfield, then to Stockbridge, Great Barrington,
and the summit of Mt. Washington, now better known as Mt.
Everett or Taghsomi; thence to Bashpish Falls in New York,
and to the Salisbury Lakes in Connecticut.  We visited many
interesting places and enjoyed what has always seemed to me
the most beautiful scenery on earth.

There were one or two quite ludicrous adventures.  I went
alone to the top of Bald Mountain in Lenox one day.  Gray
had been there and preferred to visit a neighboring hilltop.
As I approached the summit, which was a bare pasture, I came
upon a powerful bull with a herd of cattle near him.  He began
to bellow and paw the ground and move toward me in angry fashion.
There was no chance for any place of refuge which I could
hope to gain.  I looked around for some rock or instrument
of defence.  It was, I think, the most imminent danger to
which I have ever been exposed.  I was calculating my capacity
for dodging the creature when suddenly a sound like a small
clap of thunder was heard.  The rest of the herd, which seemed
quite wild, seeing the approach of a stranger, had taken alarm
and started off down the hillside on a full run, their rushing
and trampling causing the earth to reverberate beneath their
tread and produce the sound of which I have just spoken.
The old bull hearing the sound and seeing his companions
departing concluded he would follow their example.  He turned
tail too, and retreated down the mountain side, much to my
relief.

On our walk through Lanesboro we stopped at a plain country
tavern to get lunch.  There were several codgers such as in
those days used to haunt country bar-rooms about eleven o'clock
in the morning and four o'clock in the afternoon.  Sitting
in an old wooden chair tilted back against the wall of the
room was one of them curled up with his knees sticking up
higher than his head.  He looked at Gray's stately proportions
and called out:  "How tall are you?" Gray, who was always
rather careful of his dignity, made some brief answer not
intended to encourage familiarity.  But the fellow persisted:
"I would like to measure with you." Gray concluded it was
best to enter into the humor of the occasion.  So he stood
up against the wall.  The other man proceeded to draw himself
up out of the chair, and unroll, and unroll, and unroll until
at last his gigantic stature reached up almost as high as
Gray's.  But he fell short a little.  I learned, later, that
it was a man named Shaw who afterward became famous as a writer
and humorist under the pseudonym of Josh Billings.  He was
the son of Henry Shaw, formerly of Lanesboro; at that time
a millionaire dwelling in New York, and known to fame as
one of the two Massachusetts Representatives who voted for
the Missouri Compromise in 1820.  Henry Shaw was, I believe,
a native of Lanesboro, and had represented the Berkshire district
in Congress.

The person whom the Worcester lawyers of this time like best
to remember was Peter C. Bacon.  He was the Dominie Sampson
of the Worcester Bar.  I suppose he was the most learned man
we ever had in Worcester, and probably, in Massachusetts.
He was simple and guileless as a child; of a most inflexible
honesty, devoted to the interest of his clients, and an enthusiastic
lover of the science of the law.  When, in rare cases, he
thoroughly believed in the righteousness of his case, he was
irresistible.  But in general he was full of doubts and hesitation.
He was, until he was compelled to make his arguments more
compact by the rules of court limiting the time of arguments,
rather tedious.  He liked to go out into side-paths and to
discourse of matters not material to the issue but suggested
to him as he went along.  He had a curious fashion of using
the ancient nomenclature of the Common law where it had passed
out of the knowledge even of most lawyers and the comprehension
of common men.  He would begin his appeal to the jury in some
case where a fraud had been attempted on his client, by saying,
"Gentlemen, the law abhorreth covin." He was a lawyer everywhere.
His world was the Court-house and his office.  I met him in
the street, of a Sunday noon, one summer and said to him,
"Why, Brother Bacon, you must have had a long sermon to-day."

"Oh," Mr. Bacon said, "I stayed to the Sunday-school.  I have
a class of young girls.  It's very interesting.  I've got
'em as far as the Roman Civil Law."

Mr. Bacon could seldom be made angry by any incivility to
himself.  But he resented any attempt to deprive a client,
however much of a n'er-do-well he might be, of all the rights
and forms of a legal trial.  He was also much disturbed if
any lawyer opposed to him misstated a principle of law, who
ought, in his judgment, to know better.  I was once trying
a case against him and his partner, Judge Aldrich, where General
Devens was my associate.  Devens was summing up the case,
and complaining of the conduct of some parties interested
in the estate of a deceased person.  One of them was a son
of a deceased niece.  There being no children, under our law,
the nephews and nieces inherit, but not the children of deceased
nephews or nieces, when there are living nephews or nieces.
General Devens, not having in his mind the legal provision
at the moment, said to the jury: "The sound of the earth on
the coffin of the old lady had scarcely ceased when one of
these heirs hurried to the probate office to get administration."
Mr. Bacon rose and interrupted him with great emotion.  "He
is not an heir."

"I said," Mr. Devens repeated, "one of these heirs, Mr.
A. F."

Bacon burst into tears and said again, with a broken voice:
"He is not an heir, I say, he is not an heir."

I saw the point and whispered to Devens:  "An assumed heir."

"Very well," Devens said, "an assumed heir, if my friend likes
it better."  Bacon replied with a "Humph" of contentment and
satisfaction, and the matter subsided.  As I was walking home
from the court-house with Mr. Bacon afterward I expressed
my regret at the occurrence and told him that General Devens
had the greatest respect for him.  Mr. Bacon replied: "He
had no business to say it.  Aldrich told me to tell him he
had not read the 'Revised Statutes.' But I would not say such
a thing as that, sir, about any man."

But Brother Bacon had the kindliest of hearts.  It was impossible
for him to bear malice or retain resentment against anybody.
When I was a youngster I was once in a case where Bacon was
on the other side.  Charles Allen was my associate.  It was
a case which excited great public feeling.  There were throngs
of witnesses.  It was tried in the middle of the terrific
heats of one of the hottest summers ever known in Worcester.
Allen, who had a power of stinging sarcasm which he much delighted
to use, kept Bacon nervous and angry through the whole trial.
At last, one afternoon, Bacon lost his patience.  When the
Court adjourned, he stood up on a little flight of steps on
the outside of the Court-house and addressed the crowd, who
were going out.  He said: "Charles Allen has abused me all
through this trial.  He is always abusing me.  He has abused
me ever since I came to this Bar.  I have said it before and
I will say it again--_he is a curious kind of a man."_ This
utterance relieved Brother Bacon's wounded feelings and he
never probably thought of the matter again.

One of the great events in Bacon's life was his receiving
the degree of Doctor of Laws from Brown University, where
he was graduated.  This gave infinite satisfaction to his
brethren of the Bar, who were all very fond of him.  It was
at once proposed, after the old Yankee fashion in the country
when a man got a new hat or a new suit of clothes, that we
should all go down to T.'s to "wet" it.  T. was the proprietor
of a house a few miles from Worcester, famous for cooking
game and trout in the season, and not famous for a strict
observance of the laws against the sale of liquor.  There
was a good deal of feeling about that among the temperance
people of the town, although it was a most excellent, properly
kept house in all other respects.  But the prejudice against
it of the strict teetotalers had occasioned some entirely
unfounded scandal about its management in other matters.  Mr.
Bacon, when invited by the Bar to go as a guest, accepted
the invitation, but stipulated that he should have provided
for him a pint bottle of English ale.  He said he was opposed,
on principle, to drinking intoxicating liquors, but his doctors
had ordered that he should drink a pint of ale every day with
his dinner.  That was provided.  The Bar sat down to dinner
at an early hour and the fun and frolic were kept up far into
the small hours of the night.  Brother Bacon was the subject
of every speech and of every toast.  He seemed to think it
was necessary for him to reply to every speaker and toast.
So he was kept on his legs a great part of the night.  As
he sipped his modest tumbler of ale, Brother Dewey, who sat
next to him, would replenish it, when Mr. Bacon was not looking,
from a bottle of champagne.  So at least two quart bottles
of champagne were passed into the unsuspecting Brother Bacon
through that single pint of beer.  When we broke up, the host
came to ask us how we had enjoyed ourselves, and Mr. Bacon
told him he would like to know where he got his English ale,
which he thought was the best he had ever tasted in his life.
It is the only instance that I know of in modern times of
the repetition of the miracle of the widow's cruse.

Judge Thomas, then holding the Supreme Court at Worcester,
wanted very much indeed to go down with the Bar, but he thought
it would not quite do.  The next morning, Mr. Bacon had to
try a libel for adultery between two parties living in the
town where the Bar had had their supper.  He had had no chance
to see his witnesses, who got into town just as the Court
opened.  So he had to put them on and examine them at a venture.
The first one he called was a grave-looking citizen.  Mr.
Bacon asked him a good many questions, but could get no answer
which tended to help his case, and at last he said, with some
impatience:  "Mr. Witness, can you tell me any single fact
which tends to show that his man has committed adultery?"

"Well, all I know about it, Squire Bacon," replied the witness,
"is that he's been seen at Charlie T.'s"--the inn where Bacon
had had his supper the night before.  There was an immense
roar of laughter from the Bar, led by Judge Thomas, the ring
of whose laugh could have been heard half way across the square.

Brother Bacon, though a modest and most kindly man, used to
think he had a monopoly of the abstruser knowledge in regard
to real property and real actions.  It used sometimes to provoke
him when he found a competent antagonist in cases involving
such questions.  There was a suit in which Bacon was for the
demandant where a creditor had undertaken to levy an execution
of property standing in a wife's name but claimed to have
been conveyed to her in trust for the husband on consideration
paid by him.  In such cases, under the Massachusetts law,
the land may be levied upon as the property of the debtor,
notwithstanding the ostensible title is in another.  The wife
contested the facts.  But after the bringing of the suit,
the wife died, and the husband by her death became tenant
by the courtesy.  Of course his title as tenant by the courtesy
was unaffected by the previous levy, and his wife's right
to contest the demand devolved upon him.  The husband and
wife had both been made parties defendant to the suit under
the Massachusetts practice.  It would not do to let the creditor
get judgment.  Under the advice of Mr. Nelson, afterward
Judge, one of the most learned and careful lawyers, the defendant
pleaded a special non-tenure, and the case was reported to
the full bench of the Supreme Court, where Mr. Bacon was
employed for the plaintiff.  The report inaccurately said
that the defendant filed a disclaimer.  Mr. Bacon made a
very learned argument to show that upon the facts the disclaimer
could not be supported, and was going on swimmingly, under
full sail.  Mr. Bacon said in his argument:  "If he had pleaded
non-tenure, I admit, your Honors, he would have been pretty
well off."  Whereupon Judge Hoar sent for the original papers,
and looking at them read the plea, and said: "Isn't that a
plea of non-tenure?"  Mr. Bacon was obliged to admit that
it was.  The Chief Justice said:  "Well, then, the tenant
is in the condition which you describe as being pretty well
off, isn't he, Brother Bacon?"  Bacon answered with an angry
and impatient "Humph."  The Chief Justice said: "Are there
any other objections to the plea, Brother Bacon?" "More than
forty, your Honor," replied Bacon indignantly, "which I should
state to you at a proper time." The Chief Justice said that
that seemed to be the proper time.  But Mr. Bacon sat down
in high dudgeon, without further remark.

He was the kindliest of men, both to man and beast.  I once
was at a country tavern where Bacon and I were to dine.  It
was about the time of the session of the Supreme Court.  I
was sitting on the veranda of the hotel waiting for dinner
to be ready, in the summer afternoon.  Mr. Bacon took a little
walk, and as he came along and was passing the porch, a puppy
ran after him, came up behind, and seized his pantaloons in
his teeth, making quite a rent in them.  Bacon looked round
and saw the mischief, and shook his finger at the poor dog.
I am sure he had no idea that anybody of the human species
was within hearing.  The animal crouched down in great terror,
expecting a beating.  Mr. Bacon paused a moment with his
uplifted finger, and addressed the cur.  "Why do you try to
bite me?  Why do you tear my pantaloons? Do you think I can
go through the Supreme Court without pantaloons?" With that
he left the poor dog to the reproaches of his own conscience
and took no further notice of the transaction.

I ought perhaps, as I have told this story at Brother Bacon's
expense, to tell one at my own where he came out decidedly
ahead.  We were opposed in a real estate case where the other
evidence of the title was pretty strong Bacon's way, but the
ancient bounds seemed to agree with my client's theory.  I
addressed the jury with all the earnestness in my power in
favor of the importance of maintaining the ancient landmarks,
quoting the curse of the Scripture on him that removed them,
and endeavored to make them see how much of the safety and
security of property depended on sticking to them in spite
of any amount of fallible human testimony.  I thought I had
made a good impression.  When Brother Bacon came to reply,
he told the jury about the Roman god Terminus who watched
over boundaries, and after quite an eloquent description,
he told the jury: "Brother Hoar always seems to me when he
makes this argument, which I have heard a good many times
before, to think he is the god Terminus, and that the protection
of all our modern landmarks is in his exclusive province."
The jury were very much amused.  I have forgotten how the
case was decided.  But I should doubtless remember if it had
been decided in my favor.

Quite late in life some of Mr. Bacon's clients, seeing that
he was out of health, and grateful for his long, faithful and
poorly paid service, made an arrangement to send him on a
journey to Europe.  He was gone a little more than a year,
visiting England, France, Italy and Spain, and returning
with new vigor for another ten years of hard work.  His interest
in Europe had come chiefly from the literature which he had
read in his younger days.  He was not very familiar with much
English prose or poetry later than the time of Addison.  In
one of his first letters in London he announced with great
satisfaction, "I have a room not far from the celebrated Westminster
Abbey mentioned in the _Spectator."_

But Brother Bacon ought not to be remembered alone, or chiefly,
for his eccentricities.  He was a profound, accurate and able
jurist.  The great interests of clients were safe with him.
To him the profession of the lawyer was a sacred office.  I
never think of him without recalling Cicero's beautiful description
in the "De Oratore" of the old age of the great lawyer:

Quit est enim praeclarius quam honoribus et republicae muneribus
perfunctum senem posee suo jure dicere id quot apud Enium
dicit ille Pythias Apollo, se esse eum, unde sibi, si no populi
et reges, at onmnes sui cives consilium expetant;

  suarum rerum incerti quos ego ope mea ex
  incertis certos compotesque consili dimitto
  ut ne res temere tractent turbidas.

Est enim sine dubio domus jurisconsulti totius oraculum civitatis.

Mr. Bacon lived to celebrate his golden wedding, and ended
a stainless and honored life in a ripe old age, mourned by
the whole community, of which he had been a pillar and an
ornament.  His portrait hangs in the Court House where he
would have loved best to be remembered.

In my early days at the Worcester Bar there were a good many
bright men, young and old, who had their offices in the country
towns, but who tried a good many cases before juries.  All
the courts for the county in those days were held in Worcester.
Among these country lawyers was old Nat Wood of Fitchburg,
now a fine city; then a thriving country town.  Mr. Wood
had a great gift of story-telling, and he understood very
well the character and ways of country farmers.  He used to
come down from Fitchburg at the beginning of the week, stop
at the old Sykes Tavern where the jurymen and witnesses put
up, spend the evening in the bar-room getting acquainted with
the jurymen and telling them stories.  So when he had a case
to try, he was apt to have a very friendly tribunal.  His
enemies used to say that he always contrived to sleep with
one juryman himself, and have his client sleep with another,
when he had a case coming on.  He was quite irritable and
hasty, and would sometimes break out with great indignation
at some fancied impropriety of the other side, without fully
understanding what was going on.  I was once examining a witness
who had led rather a roving and vagabond life.  I asked him
where he had lived and he named seven different towns in
each of which he had dwelt within a very short time.  I observed:
"Seven mighty cities claimed great Homer dead." Wood instantly
sprang to his feet with great indignation.  "Brother Hoar,
I wish you would not put words into the witness's mouth."

Wood was a native of Stirling, a thinly settled country town
near the foot of Mount Wachusett.  The people of that town
were nearly equally divided between the Unitarian and Universalist
congregations.  Each had its meeting house fronting on the
public common or Green, as it was called.  In the summer the
farmers would come to meeting from distant parts of the town,
bringing luncheon with them; have a short intermission after
the morning service, and then have a second service in the
afternoon.  During the recess, in pleasant summer weather,
the men of the two congregations would gather together on
the Green, discussing the news of the town, and very often
getting into theological controversies.  In the winter, they
gathered in the tavern or post-office in the same way.  There
was one Universalist champion who told the gathering that he
would make any man admit the truth of Universalism in five
minutes.  He was a well known and doughty champion, and the
Unitarians were rather loth to tackle him.  But, one Sunday,
Lawyer Wood came home to spend the day at his birthplace,
and the Unitarians thought it was a good chance to encounter
the Universalist champion.  So they accepted his challenge
and put Wood forward to meet him.

The Universalist theologian began:  "You'll admit there is
a God?"

"No, I'll be damned if I do," replied Wood.

The fellow was completely non-plussed.  He had got to take
up his five minutes in compelling Wood to admit the existence
of a Creator.  So he was obliged to retire from the field
discomfited.

Another of our leaders at the Bar was Henry Chapin.  He had
made his way from a rather humble place in life to be one
of the leaders of a very able Bar, Mayor of Worcester, and
to hold a place of large influence in the various business,
social, charitable and religious activities of the community.
He was not specially learned, specially profound or specially
eloquent.  But he had a rare gift of seizing upon the thought
which was uppermost in the minds of excellent and sensible
men, country farmers, skilled workmen in the shops, business
men, expressing it in a clear and vigorous way, always agreeing
with the best sentiment of the people.  This, with an unfailing
courtesy and pleasant humor and integrity of character and
life gave him great popularity.  He was exceedingly happy
in short speeches at dinners or at political meetings.  He
had a fund of entertaining anecdote which never seemed to
fail.  He was very careful not to seem dogmatic, or to assert
himself too strongly.  He would put forward his opinion with
saying, "It strikes my mind," or "It has occurred to me,"
or "I thought perhaps it was possible," or "It is my impression."
I remember once protesting before old Judge Byington against
some objection which the counsel on the other side had made
to a witness testifying to his impressions.  I told the Judge
that Brother Chapin never in his life stated anything more
strongly.  If you asked him if he were married, he would
say it was his impression he was.  The Judge said:  "Well,
we have a lawyer in Berkshire County who has the same habit.
Only if you ask him if he is married it is his impression
he isn't."

It is said that when he went to see the Siamese Twins, he
observed to the exhibitor, "Brothers, I suppose."  But I
believe that story had been told before of one of the Royal
Dukes.

Mr. Chapin was nominated by the Republicans for Congress and
accepted and would have had a useful and distinguished public
life.  But he became alarmed by the opposition of the Know-
Nothings and withdrew from the canvass much to the dissatisfaction
of his political friends.  That ended his political aspirations.
But he was soon after appointed to the more congenial office
of Judge of Probate, which he discharged to great public satisfaction
until his lamented death.


CHAPTER XXXVIII
SOME JUDGES I HAVE KNOWN

Unquestionably the most important character in the legal
history of Massachusetts is Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw.  He
was a great lawyer before he came to the Bench.  He had written
one or two very able articles for the _North American Review,_
one of them a vigorous statement of the opinion of Massachusetts
upon slavery.  He was the author of a petition signed by many
of the leading men of Massachusetts in opposition to the high
tariff of 1828.  No more powerful statement of the argument
against high protection can be found.  I have been surprised
that the modern free-traders have not long ago discovered
it, and brought it to light.  He was one of the managers of
the impeachment of Judge Prescott, securing a conviction against
a powerful array of counsel for the defendant, which included
Daniel Webster.  He was consulted in difficult and important
matters by eminent counsel in other counties than Suffolk.

But all these titles to distinction have been forgotten in
his great service as Chief Justice of Massachusetts for thirty
years.  No other judicial fame in the country can rival his,
with the single exception of Marshall.  He was induced to
undertake the office of Chief Justice very reluctantly, by
the strong personal urgency of Mr. Webster.  Mr. Webster
used to give a humorous account of the difficulty he had in
overcoming the morbid scruples of the great simple-hearted
intellectual giant.  He found Mr. Shaw in his office in a
cloud of tobacco-smoke.  Mr. Webster did not himself smoke,
and was at some disadvantage during the interview for that
reason.

Mr. Shaw was rather short in stature and, in the latter part
of his life, somewhat corpulent.  He had a massive head, a
low forehead, and strong and rather coarse features.  He reminded
you of the statues of Gog and Magog in the Guildhall in London.
His hair came down over his forehead, and when he had been
away from home for a week or two, so that his head got no combing
but his own, it was in a sadly tangled mass.  His eye was
dull, except when it kindled in discussion, or when he was
stirred to some utterance of grave displeasure.

There is an anecdote of Mr. Choate which occasionally goes
the rounds of the papers, and which is often repeated quite
inaccurately.  The true version is this.  I heard it within
a few hours after it happened, and have heard it at first
hand more than once since.

Mr. Choate was sitting next to Judge Hoar in the bar when
the Chief Justice was presiding, and the Suffolk docket was
being called.  The Chief Justice said something which led
Mr. Choate to make a half-humorous and half-displeased remark
about Shaw's roughness of look and manner, to which Judge
Hoar replied:  "After all, I feel a reverence for the old
Chief Justice."

"A reverence for him, my dear fellow?" said Choate.  "So do
I.  I bow down to him as the wild Indian does before his wooden
idol.  I know he's ugly; but I bow to a superior intelligence."

Judge Shaw's mind moved very slowly.  When a case was argued,
it took him a good while to get the statement of facts into
his mind.  It was hard for him to deal readily with unimportant
matters, or with things which, to other people, were matters
of course.  If the simplest motion were made, he had to unlimber
the heavy artillery of his mind, go down to the roots of the
question, consider the matter in all possible relations, and
deal with it as if he were besieging a fortress.  When he
was intent upon a subject, he was exceedingly impatient of
anything that interrupted the current of his thought.  So
he was a hard person for young advocates, or for any other
unless he were strong, self-possessed, and had the respect
of the Judge.  My old friend and partner, Judge Washburn,
once told me that he dreaded the Law term of the Court as
it approached, and sometimes felt that he would rather lay
his head down on the rail, and let a train of cars pass over
it, than argue a case before Shaw.  The old man was probably
unconscious of this failing.  He had the kindest heart in
the world, was extremely fond of little children and beautiful
young women, and especially desirous to care for the rights
of persons who were feeble and defenceless.

I was myself counsel before him in a case where the question
was whether a heifer calf, worth six or seven dollars, the
offspring of the one cow which our law reserves to a poor
debtor against attachment, was also exempt.  My opponent undertook
to make some merriment about the question, and there was some
laughter at the Bar.  The old Chief Justice interposed with
great emotion:  "Gentlemen, remember that this is a matter
of great interest to a great many poor families." There was
no laughter after that, and that heifer calf did duty in many
a trial afterward, when the young advocates at the Worcester
Bar had some poor client to defend.

The Chief Justice had not the slightest sense of humor.  When
old Judge Wilde, the great real property Judge, died after
an illustrious judicial service of thirty-five years, somebody
showed Chief Justice Shaw a register published in Boston which
recorded his death, "Died in Boston, the Honorable Samuel
S. Wilde, aged eighty, many years Justice of the Peace." It
was passed up to the Bench.  The old Chief Justice looked
at it, read it over again, and said "What publication is this?"

In the old days, when the lawyers and Judges spent the evenings
of Court week at the taverns on the Circuit, the Chief Justice
liked to get a company of lawyers about him and discourse
to them.  He was very well informed, indeed, on a great variety
of matters, and his talk was very interesting and full of
instruction.  But there was no fun in it.  One evening he
was discoursing in his ponderous way about the vitality of
seed.  He said:  "I understand that they found some seed of
wheat in one of the pyramids of Egypt, wrapped up in a mummy-
case, where it had been probably some four thousand years
at least, carried it over to England last year and planted
it, and it came up and they had a very good crop."

"Of mummies, sir?" inquired old Josiah Adams, a waggish member
of the Bar.

"No, Mr. Adams," replied the Chief Justice, with a tone of
reproof, and with great seriousness.  "No, Mr. Adams, not
mummies--wheat."

Adams retired from the circle in great discomfiture.  He
inquired of one of the other lawyers, afterward, if he supposed
that the Chief Justice really believed that he thought the
seed had produced mummies, and was told by his friend that
he did not think there was the slightest doubt of it.

Chief Justice Shaw, though very rough in his manner was exceedingly
considerate of the rights of poor and friendless persons.
Sometimes persons unacquainted with the ways of the world
would desire to make their own arguments, or would in some
way interrupt the business of the court.  The Chief Justice
commonly treated them with great consideration.  One amusing
incident happened quite late in his life.  A rather dissipated
lawyer who had a case approaching on the docket, one day told
his office-boy to "Go over to the Supreme Court and see what
in hell they are doing." The Court were hearing a very important
case in which Mr. Choate was on one side and Mr. Curtis
on the other.  The Bar and the Court-Room were crowded with
listeners.  As Mr. Curtis was in the midst of his argument,
the eye of the Chief Justice caught sight of a young urchin,
ten or eleven years old, with yellow trousers stuffed into
his boots, and with his cap on one side of his head, gazing
intently up at him.  He said, "Stop a moment, Mr. Curtis."
Mr. Curtis stopped, and there was a profound silence as the
audience saw the audacious little fellow standing entirely
unconcerned.  "What do you want, my boy?" said the Chief Justice.
"Mr. P. told me to come over here and see what in hell you
was up to," was the reply.  There was a dive at the unhappy
youth by three or four of the deputies in attendance, and
a roar of laughter from the audience.  The boy was ejected.
But the gravity of the old Chief Justice was not disturbed.

He had a curiously awkward motion, especially in moving about
a parlor in social gatherings, or walking in the street.
I once pointed out to a friend a ludicrous resemblance between
his countenance and expression and that of one of the tortoises
in the illustrations of one of Agassiz's works on natural
history.  To which my friend replied:  "It is the tortoise
on which the elephant stands that bears up the foundations
of the world," alluding to the Hindoo mythology.

Chief Justice Shaw's opinions, as we have them in the reports,
are exceedingly diffuse.  That practice would not answer for
a generation which has to consult the reports of forty-five
States and of the Supreme Court and nine judicial circuits
of the United States, besides the reports of the decisions
of some of the District Judges, and in most cases the English
decisions.  But it would be a great public loss if any of
Chief Justice Shaw's utterances were omitted.  His impulse,
when a question was argued before him, was to write a treatise
on the subject.  So his decisions in cases where the questions
raised are narrow and unimportant are often most valuable
contributions to jurisprudence.  He seldom passed over any
point or suggestion without remark.  He went to the bottom
of the case with great patience and incredible industry.  The
counsel who lost his case felt not only that he had had the
opinion of a great and just magistrate, but that every consideration
he could urge for his client was respectfully treated and
either yielded to or answered.  Some of his ablest and most
far-reaching decisions were written after he was eighty years
old.

He possessed, beyond any other American Judge, save Marshall,
what may be termed the statesmanship of jurisprudence.  He
never undertook to make law upon the Bench, but he perceived
with a far-sighted vision what rule of law was likely to operate
beneficially or hurtfully to the Republic.  He was watchful
to lay down no doctrine which would not stand this test.  His
great judgments stand among our great securities, like the
provisions of the Bill of Rights.

The Chief Justice was a tower of strength to the Massachusetts
judiciary.  But for him it is not unlikely that the State
would have adopted an elective judiciary or a tenure limited
to a term of years.  But the whole people felt that his great
integrity and wisdom gave an added security to every man's
life, liberty, and property.  So the proposition to limit
the judicial tenure, although espoused by the two parties
who together made up a large majority of the people of the
State, was defeated when it was submitted to a popular vote.
It is, however, a little remarkable that in the neighboring
State of Vermont, for many years the Judges of the Supreme
Court were annually elected by the Legislature, a system which,
I believe, has worked on the whole to their satisfaction.
They have had an able judiciary.  It is said that old Chief
Justice Shaw was one evening discoursing at a meeting of the
Boston Law Club to an eminent Vermont Judge, who was a guest.
He said, "With your brief judicial tenure, sir--"  The Vermonter
interrupted him and said, "Why, our tenure of office is longer
than yours."  "What do you mean?" said the Chief Justice.
"I do not understand you."  "Why," was the reply, "our Judges
are elected for a year, and you are appointed as long as you
behave yourselves."

Chief Justice Shaw is said to have been a very dull child.
The earliest indication of his gift of the masterly and unerring
judgment which discerned the truth and reason of things was,
however, noticed when he was a very small boy.  His mother
one day had a company at tea.  Some hot buttered toast was
on the table.  When it was passed to little Lemuel he pulled
out the bottom slice, which was kept hot by the hot plate
beneath and the pile of toast above.  His mother reproached
him quite sharply.  "You must not do that, Lemuel.  Suppose
everybody were to do that?"  "Then everybody would get a bottom
slice," answered the wise urchin.

Judge Shaw had the sturdy spirit and temper of the old seafaring
people of Cape Cod, among whom he was born and bred.  He was
fond of stories of the sea and of ships.  He liked to hear
of bold and adventurous voyages.  Judge Gray used to tell
the story of the old Chief's standing with his back to the
fire, with his coat-tails under his arm, in the Judges' room
at the Suffolk Court-House, one cold winter morning, when
the news of the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition or
the story of some other Arctic tragedy had just reached Boston
and was in the morning papers.

"I hope, sir," said Judge Bigelow, "that there will be no
more of these voyages to discover the North Pole."

"I want 'em to find that open Polar sea, sir," said Shaw.

"But don't you think," said Judge Bigelow, "that it is too
bad to risk so many human lives, and to compel the sailors
to encounter the terrible suffering and danger of these Arctic
voyages?"

"I think they'll find it yet, sir," was all the reply Bigelow
could get.

Judge Shaw, in his latter days, was reverenced by the people
of Massachusetts as if he were a demi-god.  But in his native
county of Barnstaple he was reverenced as a God.  One winter,
when the Supreme Court held a special session at Barnstaple
for the trial of a capital case, Judge Merrick, who was one
of the Judges, came out of the Court-house just at nightfall,
when the whole surface of the earth was covered with ice and
slush, slipped and fell heavily, breaking three of his ribs.
He was taken up and carried to his room at the hotel, and
lay on the sofa waiting for the doctor to come.  While the
Judge lay, groaning and in agony, the old janitor of the court-
house, who had helped pick him up, wiped off the wet from
his clothes and said to him, "Judge Merrick, how thankful
you must be it was not the Chief Justice!" Poor Merrick could
not help laughing, though his broken ribs were lacerating
his flesh.

Next to Chief Justice Shaw in public esteem, when I came
to the Bar in December, 1849, was Mr. Justice Wilde.  He
was nearly eighty years old, and began to show some signs
of failing powers.  But those signs do not appear in his
recorded opinions.  He was a type of the old common-lawyer
in appearance and manner and character.  He would have been
a fit associate for Lord Coke, and would never have given
way to him.  I suppose he was never excelled as a real-property
lawyer in this country.  He had the antiquated pronunciation
of the last century, a venerable gray head and wrinkled countenance,
with heavy gray eyebrows.  He seemed to the general public
to be nothing but a walking abridgment.  Still, he was a very
well-informed man, and had represented a district of what
is now the State of Maine in Congress with great distinction.
A friend of mine went rather late to church at King's Chapel
one Sunday when the congregation had got some way in the service,
and was shown into the pew immediately in front of old Judge
Wilde.  The Judge was just uttering in a distinct, clear tone,
"Lord, teach me Thy statoots." It was the only petition he
needed to have granted to make him a complete Judge.  Of
the Lord's common law he was a thorough master.

He was no respecter of persons.  He delivered his judgments
with an unmoved air, as if he had footed up a column of figures
and were announcing the result.  When I was in the Law School,
Mr. Webster was retained to argue an important real estate
case before Judge Wilde in Suffolk County.  Mr. Webster was
making what would have been a powerful argument on a question
of land-title but for a statute passed since the days of his
constant practice, which had not come to his knowledge.  There
was a great audience, and when Mr. Webster had got his point
fairly stated, he was interrupted by Wilde.  "Pooh, pooh,
Mr. Webster." The Judge pointed out that Webster had overlooked
one link in the chain of his antagonist's title.

"But," said Mr. Webster in reply, "the descent tolls the
entry."

"That rule is abolished by the statoot, sir."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" said Webster angrily to his
junior.

Another of our great old Judges was Judge Fletcher.  He had
had a great practice as an advocate in Boston, especially
as a commercial lawyer.  He had a great power of clear statement.
He brought out his utterances in a queer, jerking fashion,
protruding his lips a little as he hesitated at the beginning
of his sentences.  But he knew how to convey his meaning to
the apprehension of Courts and juries.  He left the Bench
less than two years after I came to the Bar.  I never had
but one important case before him.  He was a bachelor.  He
was very interesting in conversation, liked the company of
young men, who never left him without carrying away some delightful
anecdote or shrewd and pithy observation.

A lawyer from the country told me one day that he had just
been in Fletcher's office to get his opinion.  While he was
in the office, old Ebenezer Francis, a man said to be worth
$8,000,000, then the richest man in New England, came to consult
him about a small claim against some neighbor.  Fletcher interrupted
his consultation with my friend and listened to Mr. Francis's
story.  In those days, parties could not be witnesses in their
own cases.  Fletcher advised his client that although he had
an excellent case, the evidence at his command was not sufficient
to prove it, and advised against bringing an action.  Francis,
who was quite avaricious, left the office with a heavy heart.
When he had gone, Fletcher turned to my friend and said: "Isn't
it pitiful, sir, to see an old critter, wandering about our
streets, destitute of proof?"

But the most interesting and racy character among our old
Judges was Theron Metcalf.  He used to say of himself--a saying
that did him great injustice--that he was taken to fill a
gap in the Court as people take an old hat to stop a broken
window.  He undervalued his own capacity.  He was not a good
Judge to preside at jury trials.  He had queer and eccentric
notions of what the case was all about, and while he would
state a principle of law with extraordinary precision and
accuracy he had not the gift of making practical application
of the law to existing facts.  So a great many of his rulings
were set aside, and it did not seem, when he had held a long
term of Court, that a great deal had been accomplished.  But
he was a very learned common-lawyer.  His memory was a complete
digest of the decisions down to his time.  He comprehended
with marvellous clearness the precise extent to which any
adjudged case went, and would state its doctrine with mathematical
precision.

He hated statutes.  He was specially indignant at the abolition
of special pleading.  He sent word to me, when I was Chairman
of the Judiciary Committee in the Massachusetts Senate, asking
to have a provision enacted for simplifying the process of
bringing before the full Bench for revision the proceedings
in habeas corpus, or mandamus, or certiorari, or some other
special writ, I forget now what.  I called upon him at once,
and pointed out to him that exactly what he wanted was accomplished
by the Practice Act of 1852.  This was the statute under which
all our legal proceedings in cases affecting personal property
were had.  Metcalf said, with great disgust: "I have said,
sir, that if they did not repeal that thing I would not read
it."

He used to enliven his judgments with remarks showing a good
deal of shrewd wisdom.  In one case a man was indicted for
advertising a show without a license.  The defendant insisted
that the indictment was insufficient because it set out merely
what the show purported to be, and not what it really was.
On which the Judge remarked:  "The indictment sets out all
that is necessary, and, indeed, all that is safe.  The show
often falls short of the promise in the show-bill."

There was once a case before him for a field-driver who had
impounded cattle under the old Massachusetts law.  The case
took a good many days to try, and innumerable subtle questions
were raised.  The Judge began his charge to the jury: "Gentlemen
of the jury, a man who takes up a cow straying in a highway
is a fool."

Another time there was a contest as to the value of some
personal property which had been sold at auction.  One side
claimed that the auction-sale was a fair test of the value.
The other claimed that property that was sold at auction was
generally sold at a sacrifice.  Metcalf said to the jury:
"According to my observation, things generally bring at auction
all they are worth, except carpets."

I once tried a case before him against the Norwich Railroad
for setting fire to the house of a farmer by a spark from
a locomotive.  It was a warm summer afternoon when the house
was burnt up.  There was no fire in the house except a few
coals among the ashes in a cooking stove where the dinner
had been cooked some hours before.  The railroad was very
near the house.  There was a steep up-grade, so that the engineers
were tempted to open the bonnet of their smokestacks for a
better draught.  We called as a witness a sturdy, round-faced,
fat old woman, who testified that she was sitting at her window,
knitting, in a house some little distance away, when the train
went by.  She put in a mark to see, as she expressed it, "how
many times round" she could knit before supper.  A few minutes
after, she heard a cry of fire, and looked out and saw a blaze
on the roof of her neighbor's house, just kindling, close
to the eaves on the side where the engine had passed.  She
threw down the stocking and went to help.  The stocking was
found after the fire with the mark just as she left it.  So
we claimed that we could tell pretty well how long the time
had been between the passing of the train and the breaking
out of the fire.  Judge Metcalf, who was always fussy and
interfering, said:  "How can we tell anything by that, unless
we know how large the stocking was?"  The old lady, with
a most bland smile, turned to the Judge as if she were soothing
an infant, lifted up the hem of her petticoats, and exhibited
a very sturdy ankle and calf, and said, "Just the size I wear,
your Honor."  There was a roar of laughter in the court-house.
The incident was published in the morning paper the next day,
much to the Judge's indignation.  He addressed the audience
when he came into Court in the morning, and said: "I see the
Worcester _Spy_ has been trying to put a fool's cap on my
head."

Judge Metcalf told me this story about Chief Justice Parsons.
The Chief Justice's manner to the Bar, as is well-known, was
exceedingly rough.  He was no respecter of persons, and treated
the old and eminent lawyers quite as harshly as the youngsters.
The Bar used to call him Ursa Major.  The Chief Justice used
to look over the pleadings carefully before the trials began.
It was in the time when special pleading often brought the
issue to be decided into a narrow compass.  Soon after the
case was begun, the Judge would take the case out of the hands
of the counsel and examine the witnesses himself, and give
an opinion which was likely to be implicitly followed by the
jury.  Jabez Upham, of Brookfield, in Worcester County, Mr.
Justice Gray's grandfather, once sent his office-boy to Court
with a green bag containing his papers, thinking there was
no use in going himself.  At last the leading members of the
Bar in Boston got very angry, and four or five of them agreed
together to teach the old Chief a lesson.  So they sat down
to a trial in the Supreme Court where Parsons was presiding.
Pretty soon he interfered with the lawyer who was putting
in the case for the plaintiff, in his rough way.  The lawyer
rose and said:  "I cannot take care of my client's rights
where my own are not respected," or something to that effect.
"I will ask Brother Sullivan to take my place." Sullivan,
who was possessed of the case, took the place.  The trial
went on a little while, when something happened which offended
Sullivan.  He rose and said he could not go on with the case
after his Honor's remark, and would ask Brother So-and-So,
perhaps Otis, to take his place.  This happened three or four
times in succession.  The Chief Justice saw the point and
adjourned the Court very early for the noon recess, and went
to the house of his colleague, Judge Sewall, who lived out
somewhere on the Neck, called him out and said: "You must
go down and hold that Court.  There is a con_spire_acy sir."
Parsons never held a _nisi-prius_ term in Suffolk again.

Chief Justice Shaw used to tell with great indignation the
story of his first appearance before Parsons, when a young
man.  There was a very interesting question of the law of
real property, and Samuel Dexter, then the head of the Bar,
was on the other side.  Parsons was interested in the question
as soon as it was stated, and entered into a discussion with
Dexter in which they both got earnestly engaged.  The Chief
Justice intimated his opinion very strongly and was just deciding
it in Dexter's favor, when the existence of the young man
on the other side occurred to him.  He looked over the bar
at Shaw and said:  "Well, young man, do you think you can
aid the Court any in this matter?"   "I think I can, sir,"
said Shaw with spirit.  Parsons listened to him, but, I believe,
remained of his first opinion.

Judge Metcalf in the time when he was upon the Bench had the
credit, I do not know how well deserved it was, of not being
much given to hospitality.  He was never covetous, and he
was very fond of society and conversation.  But I fancy he
had some fashions of his own in housekeeping which he thought
were not quite up to the ways of modern life.  At any rate,
he was, so far as I know, never known to invite any of his
brethren upon the Bench or of the Bar to visit him at his
house, with one exception.  One of the Judges told me that
after a hard day's work in court the Judges sat in consultation
till between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, and he walked
away from the Court-House with Judge Metcalf.  The Judge went
along with him past the Tremont House, where my informant
was staying.  As they walked up School Street, he said: "Why,
Judge Metcalf, I didn't know you went this way.  I thought
you lived out on the Neck somewhere." "No, sir," said Judge
Metcalf, "I live at number so-and-so Charles Street, and I will
say to you what I heard a man say the first night I moved
into my present house.  I heard a great noise in the street after
midnight, and got up and put my head out of the window.  There
was a man lying down on the sidewalk struggling, and another
man, who seemed to be a policeman, was on top of him holding
him down.  The fellow with his back to the ground said: 'Let
me get up, --- d--- you,'  The policeman answered: 'I sha'n't
let you get up till you tell me what your name is and where
you live.'  The fellow answered, 'My name is Jerry Mahoney,
--- d--- you, and I live at No.  54 Cambridge Street, --- d---
you, where I'd be happy to see you, --- d--- you, if you dare
to call."  That was the only instance known to his judicial
brothers of Judge Metcalf's inviting a friend to visit him.

Judge Metcalf's legal opinions will read, I think, in the
future, as well as those of any Judge of his time.  They are
brief, compact, written in excellent English, and precisely
fit the case before him without any extraneous or superfluous
matter.  He would have been a very great Judge, indeed, if
his capacity for the conduct of jury trials and dealing with
_nisi-prius_ business in general had equalled his ability
to write opinions on abstract questions.

John Davis was never a Judge.  But a few words about him may
well find a place here.  He had long since withdrawn from
the practice of law when I came to Worcester.  He remained
in the Senate of the United States until March 4, 1853.  But
the traditions of his great power with juries remained.  I
was once or twice a guest in his house, and once or twice
heard him make political speeches.

My father, who had encountered all the great advocates of his
time in New England--Webster, Choate, Jeremiah Mason, Dexter--
used to say that John Davis was the toughest antagonist he
ever encountered.  Mr. Davis had no graces of oratory or person.
He was not without a certain awkward dignity.  His head was
covered with thick and rather coarse white hair.  He reminded
you a little, in look and movement, of a great white bear.
But he had a gift of driving his point home to the apprehension
of juries and of the people which was rarely equalled.  He
was a man of few words and infrequent speech, without wit
or imagination.  He thoroughly mastered the subjects with
which he dealt.  When he had inserted his wedge, he drove
it home with a few sledge-hammer blows.  It was commonly
impossible for anybody to extract it.  It was only the great
weight of his authority, and the importance of the matters
with which he dealt, which kept him from seeming exceedingly
tedious.  I remember thinking when I heard him make a speech
in behalf of General Scott in the City Hall, in the autumn
of 1852, that if any man but John Davis were talking the audience
could not be kept awake.  He spoke very slowly, with the tone
and manner of an ordinary conversation.  "The Whigs, fellow-
citizens, have presented for your suffrages this year, for
the office of President of the United States, the name of
Major-General Winfield Scott.  I know General Scott.  I have
had good opportunity to acquaint myself with his character
and public service.  I think you may give him your confidence,
gentlemen."  That was pretty much the whole speech.  At any
rate, there was nothing more exciting in it.  But it was John
Davis that said it, and it had great effect upon his audience.

Mr. Davis supported General Taylor for President in 1848,
thereby, on the one hand, offending Mr. Webster, with whom
his relations had for some time been exceedingly strained,
and the anti-slavery men in Massachusetts on the other.  It
was understood also that he had displeased Governor Lincoln
at the time of his election to the Senate, Governor Lincoln
thinking that Mr. Davis had taken an undue advantage of his
official influence as Governor to promote his own selection.
But the two united in the support of General Taylor, which
led Charles Allen to quote a verse which has been more than
once applied in the same way since, "And in that day Pilate
and Herod were made friends together."

Mr. Davis was a careful and prudent manager of money matters,
and left what was, for his time, a considerable estate, considering
the fact that so much of his life had been passed in the public
service.  His success in public life was, doubtless, in large
measure, increased by his accomplished and admirable wife,
the sister of George Bancroft.  She was a lady of simple dignity,
great intelligence, great benevolence and kindness of heart.
Her conversation was always most delightful, especially in
her old age, when her mind was full of the treasures of her
long experience and companionship with famous persons.  Mr.
Davis left five sons, all of them men of ability.  The eldest
has been Minister to Berlin, Assistant Secretary of State,
Secretary of Legation in London, Judge of the Court of Claims,
and Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the
United States.  Another son, Horace, has been a member of
Congress, eminent in the public life of California, and, I
believe, president of the University of California.

John Davis won great distinction by a very powerful speech
on the tariff question in reply to James Buchanan.  Buchanan
was one of the most powerful Democratic leaders in the Senate,
but Davis was thought by the Whigs to have got much the better
of him in the debate.  It was generally expected that he would
be the Whig candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 1840.  But
another arrangement was made, for reasons which may be as
well told here.  The Whig Convention to nominate a President
was held at Harrisburg, Pa., in December 4, 1839, nearly a
year before the election.  The delegates from the different
States were asked to consult together and agree upon their
first choice.  Then they were asked to say whom they thought
next to the person they selected would be the strongest candidate.
When the result was ascertained, it was discovered that William
Henry Harrison was thought by a very large majority of the
Convention to be the strongest candidate they could find.
He was accordingly selected as the Whig standard-bearer.
A committee of one person from each State was then chosen to
propose to the Convention a candidate for Vice-President.
Benjamin Watkins Leigh, of Virginia, was a strong supporter
of Henry Clay, a man of great personal worth, highly esteemed
throughout the country.  The Convention adjourned, and came
in after the adjournment to hear the report of the committee.
Mr. Leigh accosted the Chairman of the committee and stood
with him in a conspicuous place as the delegates filed in.
He inquired of the Chairman what conclusion they had come
to as to a candidate for Vice-President.  To which the Chairman
replied:  "You will be informed in due time." When the Convention
was called to order, one of the delegates from Massachusetts
made a speech in which he set forth the high qualities that
were desired in a candidate for this important office, and,
after giving a sketch of exalted character and great capacity
for the public service, he ended by declaring that such a
man was Mr. Leigh, of Virginia, and proposing his name as
the unanimous recommendation of the committee.  Mr. Leigh
was taken aback.  He had been a zealous supporter of Mr.
Clay.  He addressed the chair, saying he was much gratified
by what had been said by his friend from Massachusetts, and
he hoped he might live in some humble measure to deserve the
tribute which had been paid to him.  But he thought that having
been a zealous supporter of Mr. Clay, and having had, in some
sense, the charge of his candidacy, he could not himself accept
a nomination in connection with another person without exposing
himself to the suspicion that he had in some way benefitted
by the defeat of his own candidate and leader.  It was said
that his embarrassment was increased by the fact that he had
been seen conversing with the Chairman of the committee by
the members of the Convention.  How that is I do not know.
The result was the nomination of Mr. Tyler, his election,
his succession to the Presidency after the death of Harrison,
which resulted in such disastrous consequences to the Whigs.

John Davis was a Federalist and a Whig.  His sons were Whigs
and Republicans always on the conservative side of public
questions.  His nephew, Colonel Isaac Davis, was in that respect
a contrast to his uncle.

It has been charged that John Davis, by taking up the time
at the close of the session of Congress by an indiscreet
speech, was the means of defeating the Wilmot Proviso, which
had come from the House inserted in a bill for the incorporation
of Oregon as a Territory.  This statement has received general
circulation.  It is made in Pierce's "Life of Sumner," and
in Von Holst's "Constitutional History." There is no truth
in it.  I investigated the matter very carefully, and have
left on record a conclusive refutation of the whole story
in a paper published by the American Antiquarian Society.

Mr. Davis's popularity, however, enabled him to render an
important service to his party at home.  The Democrats in
1839 had elected their governor, Marcus Morton, by a majority
of one vote by reason of the unpopularity of the law to prevent
liquor-selling, known as the Fifteen-Gallon Law, which had
been passed in January, 1838.  They were anxious to redeem
the State, and summoned John Davis, their strongest and most
popular man, to lead their forces.  He accordingly resigned
his seat in the Senate, was chosen Governor by a large majority,
and was reelected to the Senate again the next year.

Sketches like these, made by a man who was young when the
men he is talking about were old, are apt to give prominence
to trifles, to little follies and eccentricities.  Let nobody
think that there was anything trifling or ludicrous about
John Davis.  He was a great, strong, wise man, a champion
and tower of strength.  He not only respected, but embodied
the great traditions and opinions of Massachusetts in the
great days, after the generation of the Revolution had left
the state when she earned for herself the name of the "Model
Commonwealth," and her people were building the structure
of the Commonwealth on the sure foundations which the master-
workmen of the Colonial and Revolutionary days had laid.  The
majestic presence of Webster, the classic eloquence of Everett,
the lofty zeal of Sumner have made them more conspicuous figures
in the public eye, and it is likely will preserve their memeory
longer in the public heart.  But the figure of John Davis
deserves to stand by the side of these great men in imperishable
memory as one of the foremost men of the State he loved so
well and served so faithfully and wisely.

The Bar of Worcester County in 1850 and the years following
was a very able one, indeed.  It had many men of high reputation
in the Commonwealth and some of wide national fame.  The principal
citizen of Worcester and the most distinguished member of
the Bar was Governor Levi Lincoln.  Although he had long since
left practice, he used always to come into the court once
at each term of the Supreme Court, bow respectfully to the
Bench, and invite the Judges to dinner at his house, and withdraw.
He filled a very large place in the history of Massachusetts
from the time of his graduation at Harvard in 1802 until the
close of the War in 1865.  There is, so far as I know, no
memoir of him in existence, except one or two brief sketches
which appear in the proceedings of some local societies of
which he was a member.

His father, Levi Lincoln the elder, was an intimate friend
and correspondent of Mr. Jefferson, and Attorney-General
in his Cabinet.  He was nominated Judge of the Supreme Court
of the United States by Mr. Madison and confirmed by the Senate
and actually appointed, but was unable to take the office
because of failing sight.  He did more, probably, than any
other man to organize and bring to success the political revolution
in New England which followed Jefferson's accession to the
Presidency in 1801.  Many letters to him are found in Mr.
Jefferson's published works, and there are many letters from
him to Mr. Jefferson in the Jefferson papers in the archives
at Washington.  Some of the correspondence on both sides is
enough to make the hair of the civil service reformer stand
on end.  The son adopted his father's political opinions and
was an enthusiastic supporter of Jefferson in his youth.  Jefferson
wrote a letter, which I think is now in existence, praising
very highly some of young Mr. Lincoln's early performances.
He delivered an address at Worcester, March 4, 1803, a few
months after he left college, in which he proposed that the
Fourth of March, the day of Mr. Jefferson's accession to
the Presidency, should be celebrated thereafter instead of
the Fourth of July.  He says: "Republicans no longer can hail
the day as exclusively theirs.  Federalism has profaned it.
She has formed to herself an idol in the union of Church and
State, and this is the time chosen to offer its sacrifice."
He sets forth "the long train of monstrous aggressions of
the Federalists" under Washington and Adams; declares that
they "propose a hereditary executive and a Senatorial nobility
for life," and says that the "hand would tremble in recording,
and the tongue falter in reciting, the long tale of monstrous
aggression.  But on the Fourth of March was announced from
the Capitol the triumph of principle.  Swifter than Jove on
his imperial eagle did the glad tiding of its victory pervade
the Union.  As vanish the mists of the morning before the
rays of a sunbeam, so error withdrew from the inquiries of
the understanding.  The reign of terror had passed," etc.,
etc.  But there never was a better example of Emerson's maxim
that "a Conservative is a Democrat grown old and gone to seed."
As the young man grew in reputation and influence he became
more moderate in his opinions.  He was appointed Judge of
the Supreme Court; then was elected Governor by a union of
all parties in what was called "the era of good feeling";
held the office nine years; then represented the Worcester
district in Congress, and withdrew to a dignified and honorable
retirement from which he emerged to hold the office of Mayor
of Worcester the first year of the life of the city.  He was,
as I remember him, the very embodiment of dignity and aristocracy.
He had a diffuse and rather inflated style, both in public
speaking and in private conversation.  His dignity had a bare
suspicion of pomposity in it.  He looked with great disdain
upon the simplicity of behavior of some of his successors,
and their familiarity with all classes of the people.  He
came into my office one morning full of an intense disgust
with something Governor Briggs had been doing.  He said: "In
my time, sir, the office of Governor of the Commonwealth was
an office of dignity.  The arrival of the Chief Magistrate
in any town was an event of some importance.  He travelled
in his carriage, with suitable attendants.  He appeared in
public only on great occasions.  But now you see hand-bills
about the street giving notice that there is to be a Temperance
tea-party to-morrow afternoon, in some vestry or small hall.
Music by the Peak family.  His Excellency George N. Briggs
will address the meeting.  Admission, ten cents."

He accepted his position at the head of the social life of
Worcester as a matter of course.  I remember one night, when
a party was breaking up, I said to the person next to me, in
some jesting fashion:  "I am sorry to see the decay of the
old aristocracy."  The Governor, who was getting his coat
at the other end of the room, overheard the remark, and called
out:  "Who is lamenting our decay?"

The Governor looked with great disgust upon the formation
of the Free Soil Party and the Anti-Slavery movement.  But
when the war came he remained thoroughly loyal.  He encouraged
enlistment in every way, and measures for the support of the
Government had all the weight of his influence.  He was a
Presidential elector, and voted for Abraham Lincoln at the
time of his second election.

When Webster was first chosen Senator he refused to be a candidate
for the office until it was ascertained whether Governor Lincoln
would accept it.  The Governor then declined, for the reason
I have stated in another place.  He was also offered an appointment
to the Senate by Governor Washburn when Mr. Everett resigned
in 1853.  But it is said that he was quite desirous of being
elected Senator when Mr. Davis was first chosen.

The Governor was, as just said, an example of Emerson's famous
saying that a Conservative is a Democrat grown old and gone
to seed.  He was looked upon as the embodiment of reverend
dignity.  His household was at the head of the social life
of Worcester during his later years.  Every family in the
County was proud who could trace a connection with his.  There
were a few traditions in the old Federalist families like
the Thomases and the Allens of a time when the Lincolns were
accounted too democratic to be respectable.  But they gained
little credence with people in general.  One day, however,
I had to try a real estate case which arose in the adjoining
town and involved an ancient land-title.  An old man named
Bradyill Livermore was summoned as a witness for my client.
He was, I think, in his ninety-fifth year.  He lived in a
sparsely settled district and had not been into Worcester
for twenty or twenty-five years.  I sat down with him in the
consultation-room.  After he had told me what he knew about
the case, I had a chat with him about old times and the changes
in Worcester since his youth, and he asked me about some of
the members of the Bar then on the stage.  Governor Lincoln,
who had long retired, happened to be mentioned.  The old fellow
brought the point of his staff down with great emphasis upon
the floor, and then held it loosely with the fingers of his
trembling and shaking hand, and said, very earnestly, but
with a shrill and strident voice like that of one of Homer's
ghosts: "They say, sir, that that Mr. Lincoln has got to
be a very respectable man.  But I can remember, sir, when
he was a terrible Jacobite."

I have given elsewhere a portraiture of Charles Allen, and
a sketch of his great career.  He was a man of slender physical
frame and feeble voice.  But he was a leader of leaders.
When in 1848 he left the Whig Convention in Philadelphia,
an assembly flushed with the anticipation of National triumph,
declaring, amid the jeers and hisses of its members, that
the Whig Party was dead--a prediction verified within four
years--down to the election of Lincoln, in 1860, he was in
Massachusetts a powerful influence.  He was a great advocate,
a great judge, a great counsellor.  He was in my judgment
a greater intellectual force than any other man in his time,
Daniel Webster not excepted.  It was a force before which
Webster himself more than once recoiled.  I knew him intimately
and was, I believe, admitted to no inconsiderable share of
his confidence.  But there is no space here to do justice
to my reverence for his noble character.

On the whole, the most successful of the Worcester Bar, in
my time, in the practice of his profession, was Emory Washburn.
He was a man of less intellectual power undoubtedly than either
of his great contemporaries and antagonists, Allen, Merrick,
or Thomas.  Yet he probably won more cases, year in and year
out, than either of them.  He was a man of immense industry.
He went to his office early in the morning, took a very short
time, indeed, for his meals, and often kept at work until
one or two o'clock in the morning of the next day.  He suffered
severely at one time from dyspepsia brought on by constant
work and neglect of exercise; but generally he kept his vigorous
health until his death at the age of eighty.  He was indefatigable
in his service to his clients.  His mind was like a steel
spring pressing on every part of the other side's case.  It
was ludicrous to see his sympathy and devotion to his clients,
and his belief in the cause of any man whom he undertook to
champion.  It seemed as if a client no sooner put his head
on the handle of Washburn's office-door than his heart warmed
to him like that of a mother toward her first-born.  No strength
of evidence to the contrary, no current of decisions settling
the law would prevent Washburn from believing that his man
was the victim of prejudice or persecution or injustice.  But
his sincerity, his courtesy of manner and kindness of heart
made him very influential with juries, and it was rare that
a jury sat in Worcester county that had not half a dozen
of Washburn's clients among their number.

I was once in a very complicated real estate case as Washburn's
associate.  Charles Allen and Mr. Bacon were on the other
side.  Mr. Bacon and I, who were juniors, chatted about the
case just before the trial.  Mr. Bacon said: "Why, Hoar, Emory
Washburn doesn't understand that case the least in the world."
I said, "No, Mr. Bacon, he doesn't understand the case the
least in the world.  But you may depend upon it he will make
that jury misunderstand it just as he does." And he did.

Charles Allen, who never spared any antagonist, used to be
merciless in dealing with Washburn.  He once had a case with
him which attracted a great deal of public attention.  There
had been a good many trials and the cost had mounted up to
a large sum.  It was a suit by a farmer who had lost a flock
of sheep by dogs, and who tried to hold another farmer responsible
as the owner of the dog which had killed them.  One of the
witnesses had been out walking at night and heard the bark
of the dog in the field where the sheep were.  He was asked
to testify if he could tell what dog it was from the manner
of his bark.  The evidence was objected to, and Allen undertook
to support his right to put the question.  He said we were
able to distinguish men from each other by describing their
manner and behavior, when the person describing might not
know the man by name.  "For instance, may it please your Honor,
suppose a stranger who came into this court-house during this
trial were called to testify to what took place, and he should
say that he did not know anybody in the room by sight, but
there was a lawyer there who was constantly interrupting the
other side, talking a great deal of the time, but after all
didn't seem to have much to say.  Who would doubt that he
meant my Brother Washburn?"

This gibe is only worth recording as showing the court-house
manners of those times.  It is no true picture of the honest,
faithful and beloved Emory Washburn.  He was public-spirited,
wise, kind-hearted, always ready to give his service without
hope of reward or return to any good cause, a pillar of the
town, a pillar of the church.  He had sometimes a certain
confusion of statement and of thought, but it was only apparent
in his oral discourse.  He wrote two admirable law-books,
one on easements, and one on real property.  Little & Brown
said his book on easements had the largest sale of any law-
book ever published in this country up to its time.  He was
a popular and useful Professor in the Harvard Law School.
He gave a great deal of study to the history of Massachusetts,
and was the author of some valuable essays on historical questions,
and some excellent discourses on historical occasions.  He
left no duty undone.  Edward Hale used to say: "If you want
anything done well, go to the busiest man in Worcester to
do it--Emory Washburn, for example." He was grievously disappointed
that he was not appointed Judge of the Supreme Court when
Judge Thomas became a member of the Bench.  A little while
afterward there was another vacancy, and Governor Clifford
took Merrick, another of Washburn's contemporaries and rivals
at the bar, although Merrick was a Democrat, and the Governor,
like Washburn himself, was a Whig.  This was almost too much
for him to bear.  It took place early in the year 1853.  Mr.
Washburn sailed for Europe a few weeks after, and felt almost
like shaking off the dust of his feet against Massachusetts
and the Whig Party.  But he was very agreeably compensated
for his disappointment.  During his absence he was nominated
by the Whigs for the office of Governor, to which office he
was elected in the following January, there being then, under
our law, which required a clear majority of all the votes,
no choice by the people.  He made an admirable and popular
Governor.  But the Nebraska Bill was introduced in that year.
This created strong excitement among the people of Massachusetts,
and the Know-Nothing movement came that fall, inspired more
by the desire of the people to get rid of the old parties,
and form a new anti-slavery party, than by any real opposition
to foreigners, which was its avowed principle.  This party
swept Massachusetts, electing all the State officers and every
member of the State Legislature except two from the town of
Northampton.  They had rather a sorry Legislature.  It was
the duty of the outgoing Governor to administer the oath to
the Representatives- and Senators-elect.  Governor Washburn
performed that duty, and added: "Now, gentlemen, so far as
the oath of office is concerned, you are qualified to enter
upon your duties."

Governor Washburn was a thorough gentleman, through and through,
courteous, well-bred, and with an entirely sufficient sense
of his own dignity.  But he had little respect for any false
notions of gentility, and had a habit of going straight at
any difficulty himself.  To this habit he owed much of his
success in life.  A very amusing story was told by Mrs. Washburn
long after her husband's death.  She was one of the brightest
and sprightliest and wittiest of women.  Her husband owed
to her much of his success in life, as well as much of his
comfort and domestic enjoyment.  She used to give sometimes
half a dozen entertainments in the same week.  She was never
disconcerted by any want of preparation or suddenness of demand
upon her hospitality.  One day some quite distinguished guests
arrived in Worcester unexpectedly, whom it was proper that
she should keep to dinner.  The simple arrangements which
had been made for herself and her husband would not do.  She
accordingly went at once to the principal hotel of the town, in
the neighborhood, and bargained with the landlord to send
over the necessary courses for her table, which were just
hot and cooked and ready for his own.  She got off very comfortably
without being detected.

Her story was that one time when Judge Washburn was Governor
the members of his Staff came to Worcester on some public
occasion and were all invited to his house to spend the night.
When he got up in the morning he found, to his consternation,
that the man who was in the habit of doing such services at
his house was sick, or for some other reason had failed to
put in an appearance, and none of the boots of the young gentlemen
were blacked.  The Governor was master of the situation.  He
descended to his cellar, took off his coat, blacked all the
boots of the youngsters himself, and met them at breakfast
with his usual pleasant courtesy, as if nothing had happened.

I do not undertake to give a full sketch of Benjamin F. Thomas.
He was one of the very greatest of American lawyers.  But
such desultory recollections as these are apt to dwell only
on the eccentricities or peculiarities or foibles of men.
They are not the place for elaborate and noble portraiture.

Judge Thomas was the principal figure in the Worcester court-
house after Judge Allen's election to Congress in 1848.  Judge
Thomas did not get large professional business very rapidly.
He was supposed, in his youth, to be a person of rather eccentric
manners, studious, fond of poetry and general literature and
of historical and antiquarian research.  He was impulsive,
somewhat passionate, but still with an affectionate, sunny,
generous nature, and a large heart, to which malice, hatred,
or uncharitableness were impossible.  It is said that in his
younger days he used to walk the streets, wrapped in his own
thoughts, unconscious of the passers-by, and muttering poetry
to himself.  But when I came into his office as a student,
in August, 1849, all this trait had disappeared.  He was a
consummate advocate, a favorite alike with Judges and jurors,
winning his causes wherever success was possible, and largely
employed.  He had a clear voice, of great compass, pitched
on rather a high key, but sweet and musical like the sound
of a bugle.  The young men used to fill the court-house to
hear his arguments to juries.  He became a very profound lawyer,
always mastering the learning of the case, but never leaning
too much upon authorities.  Charles Emerson's beautiful phrase
in his epitaph upon Professor Ashmun, "Books were his helpers,
never his masters," was most aptly applied to Thomas.  If
he had any foible which affected at all his usefulness or
success in life it was an impatience of authority, whether
it were the authority of a great reputation, or of party,
or of public sentiment, or of the established and settled
opinions of mankind.  He went on the Supreme Bench in 1853.
Dissenting opinions were rare in the Massachusetts Supreme
Court in those days.  In this I think the early Judges were
extremely wise.  Nothing shakes the authority of a court more
than the frequent habit of individual dissent.  But Judge
Thomas dissented from the judgments of his court on several
very important occasions.  His dissenting opinions were exceedingly
alike.  I think it would have been better if they had not
been delivered.  I think he would have been much more likely
to have come to the other conclusion if the somewhat imperious
intellect of Shaw had not been put into the prevailing scale.
When all Massachusetts bowed down to Webster, Judge Thomas,
though he respected and honored the great public idol, supported
Taylor as a candidate for the Presidency.  At the dinner
given to the Electoral College after the election, where Mr.
Webster was present, Judge Thomas shocked the meeting by saying:
"Some persons have spoken of our candidate as their second
choice.  I am proud to say that General Taylor was not only
my last, but my first choice."  So, when Judge Thomas was
in Congress, while he was as thoroughly loyal, patriotic,
and brave a man as ever lived, he opposed the policies of
the Republican Party for carrying on the war and putting down
the Rebellion.  He was thought to be inspired by a great dislike
of submitting to party authority or even to that of President
Lincoln.  He was very fond of young men.  When he was Judge
they always found that they had all the consideration that
they deserved, and had no fear of being put at a disadvantage
by any antagonist, however able or experienced.  The Judge
seemed always to be stirred by the suggestion of an intellectual
difficulty.  When I was seeking some remedy at his hands,
especially in equity, I used to say that I thought I had a
just case, but I was afraid his Honor might think the legal
difficulties were insuperable and I did not know whether I
could get his Honor's approbation of what I asked.  He would
instantly rouse himself and seem to take the suggestion as
a challenge, and if it were possible for human ingenuity to
find a way to accomplish what I wanted he would do it.  He
preserved the sweetness and joyous spirit of boyhood to the
day of his death.  It was delightful to catch him when he
was at leisure, to report to him any pleasant story that was
going about, and to hear his merry laugh and pleasant voice.
He was a model of the judicial character.  It was a delight
to practise before him at _nisi prius._ I have known a great
many admirable lawyers and a good many very great Judges.
I have known some who had more learning, and some, I suppose,
though very few, who had greater vigor of intellect.  But
no better Judge ever sat in a Massachusetts court-house.  Dwight
Foster felicitously applied to him the sentence which was first
uttered of Charles James Fox, that "his intellect was all
feeling, and his feeling all intellect."

Dwight Foster came to the Bar just a week after I did.  But
I ought not to omit him in any account of the Massachusetts
lawyers or Judges of my time.  He rose rapidly to a place
in the first rank of Massachusetts lawyers, which he held
until his untimely death.  He was graduated the first scholar
in his class at Yale in 1848.  Before he was graduated he
became engaged to a very admirable and accomplished lady,
daughter of Roger S. Baldwin, Governor of Connecticut and
United States Senator, then head of the Connecticut Bar.  This
lady had some tendency to a disorder of the lungs and throat
which had proved fatal to two of her brothers.  Dwight Foster
was very anxious to get her away from New Haven, where he
thought the climate and her habit of mingling in gay society
very unfavorable to her health.  So he set himself to work
to get admitted to the Bar and get established in business
that he might have a place for her in Worcester.  He was examined
by Mr. Justice Metcalf, after studying a little more than
a year, and found possessed of attainments uncommon even for
persons who had studied the full three years and had been
a good while at the Bar.  Judge Metcalf admitted him, and
on some other Judge criticising what he had done, the Judge
said, with great indignation, "If he thinks Foster is not
qualified, let him examine him himself."

Mr. Foster's first employment had very awkward consequences.
The people in Worcester had the old Puritanic dislike to theatrical
entertainments, and had always refused to license such exhibitions.
But a company of actors desired to obtain a theatre for the
season and give performances in Worcester.  There was a great
opposition, and the city government ordered a public hearing
of the petition in the old City Hall.  Foster was employed
by the petitioners.  The hall was crowded with citizens interested
in the matter, and the Mayor and Aldermen sat in state on
the platform.  When the hearing was opened, the audience were
struck with astonishment by the coming forward of Dwight Foster's
father, the Hon. Alfred D. Foster, a highly honored citizen
of great influence and ability.  He had been in the State
Senate and had held some few political offices, but had disliked
such service and had never practised law, having a considerable
property which he had inherited from his father, the former
United States Senator.  He made a most eloquent and powerful
appeal to the aldermen to refuse the petition, in the name
of morality and good order.  He stated the deplorable effect
of attending such exhibitions on the character of the youth
of our city of both sexes, cited the opinion and practice
of our ancestors in such matters, and made a profound impression.
He then warned his hearers against the young man who was to
follow him, whom, he said, he loved as his life, but he was
there employed as a lawyer with his fee in his hand, without
the responsibility which rested upon them of protecting the
morals and good order of the city.  It was very seldom that
so powerful a speech was heard in that hall, although it was
the cradle of the Anti-slavery movement, and had been the
scene of some of the most famous efforts of famous orators.
Everybody supposed that the youth was crushed and would not
venture to perform his duty in the face of such an attack.
But he was fully equal to the occasion.  He met his father
with a clear, simple, modest, but extremely able statement
of the other side; pointed out the harmlessness of such exhibitions
when well conducted, and that the strictness which confounded
innocence and purity with guilt and vice was itself the parent
and cause of vice.  He did not allude to his father by name
or description, but in replying to his arguments said: "It
is said in some quarters," or "An opposition comes from some
quarters" founded on such-and-such reasons.  He got the sympathy
of his audience and carried his point.  And from that time
nobody hesitated to trust Dwight Foster with any cause, however
important, from any doubt of his capacity to take care of
his clients.

He had been brought up as a Whig.   But when the Nebraska
Bill was passed, he became a zealous and earnest Republican.
He was candidate for Mayor, but defeated on a very close vote
by George W. Richardson.  He held the office of Judge of Probate
for a short time, by appointment of Governor Banks; was elected
Attorney-General in 1860 when Governor Andrew was chosen Governor,
and soon after was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court, an
office which he filled with great distinction, then left the
Bench to resume his practice, and died of a disease of the
heart which he inherited from his ancestors.  He was Governor
Andrew's Attorney-General during the War, who said of him
that "he was full of the fire and hard-working zeal of Massachusetts."
He was the organ of the patriotism and energy of Worcester
at the seat of government during the war, looking out for
the interests of her soldiers, and always urging the brave
and vigorous counsel.  I lost a stanch friend by his death.
I can sum up his qualities in no better way than by the word
"manliness."  He never uttered an ignoble word, thought an
ignoble thought, or did an ignoble act.  His method of speech
was clear, simple, spirited, without much pathos or emotion,
but still calculated to stir and move his hearers.

I had more intimate relations with Judge Thomas L. Nelson
than with any other member of the Worcester Bar except those
with whom I formed a partnership.  We were never in partnership.
But after I went to Congress in 1869, he moved into my office
until his appointment to the Bench.  So when I was at home
we were in the same room.  He had been accustomed for a long
time before to employ me to assist him in important trials
before the jury and in arguments before the Supreme Court.
I suppose I am responsible for his appointment to the District
Court, although the original suggestion was not mine.  After
the death of Judge Shepley, there was a general expectation
that Judge John Lowell, of the District Court, would be made
Circuit Judge.  One morning one of the Boston papers suggested
several names for the succession, among them that of Mr.
Knowlton, of Springfield, and Mr. Nelson.  I said nothing
to him.  But he observed:  "I see in a paper that I am spoken
of as District Judge."  I replied:  "Yes, I saw the article."
Neither of us said anything further on the subject.  When
I got to Washington I met Mr. Devens, then Attorney-General,
who said, "We shall have to appoint a District Judge, I suppose.
I think your friend Nelson is the best man for it.  But I
suppose he would not accept it."  I said:  "No, I don't believe
he would accept it.  But, if you think he is the best man
for it, the question whether he will accept it ought to be
determined by him, and not by his friends for him." I had
no thought that Mr. Nelson would leave his practice for the
Bench.  But I thought it would be a very agreeable thing to
him to have the offer.  I wrote to him a day or two afterward
that I thought it likely he would be offered the place.  He
answered by asking me, if it were to be offered to him, how
much time would be given to him to consider the matter.  Soon
after I was informed by Attorney-General Devens that the President
had offered him the place on the Circuit Bench, and that he
very much desired to accept it.  But he thought that, although
the President had put the place at his disposal, he was very
unwilling to have any change in the Cabinet, and doubted whether
he ought to accept the offer unless he were very sure the
President was willing to spare him.  One day soon after, President
Hayes sent for me to come to see him.  I called at the Attorney-
General's office, told him the President had sent for me,
and that he probably wished to speak about the Circuit Judgeship,
and I wanted to know what he would like to have me say.  Devens
said that he should prefer that way of spending the rest of
his life to any other.  But the President had done him a great
honor in inviting him to his Cabinet, and he did not wish
to leave him unless he were sure that the President was willing.
I went to the White House.  When President Hayes opened the
subject, I told him what was the Attorney-General's opinion.
The President said that if he could be sure that were true,
it would relieve his mind of a great burden.  I told him he
could depend on it.  The President said he did not know anybody
else whom he should be as willing to have in his Cabinet as
Devens, unless I myself would consent to accept the place.
He gave a little friendly urging in that direction.  I told
him that I had lately been elected to the Senate after a considerable
controversy, and that I did not think I could in justice to
the people of the State make a vacancy in the office which
would occasion a new strife.  I called on Devens on my way
back, and reported to him what the President had said.  He
immediately went to the White House, and they had a full understanding,
which resulted in Devens keeping his place in the Cabinet
through the Administration.

It was then suggested that while Judge Lowell was a most
admirable District Judge, and in every way an admirable lawyer,
yet that it would be better if it were possible to get one
of the leaders of the Bar, who would supply what Judge Lowell
lacked--the capacity for charging juries on facts, and presiding
at jury trials, and to leave him in the District Court, where
his services were so valuable.  The office of Circuit Judge
was accordingly offered to Mr. William G. Russell.  I wrote
to Nelson, asking him to consider my first letter on the subject
as not having been written.  Mr. Russell replied, declining
the place, and saying, with great emphasis that he was sorry
the President should hesitate a moment about offering the
place to Judge Lowell, whom he praised very highly.  But the
President and the Attorney-General thought that it should
be offered to Mr. George O. Shattuck, a very eminent lawyer
and advocate.  On inquiry, however, it turned out that Mr.
Shattuck, who was in poor health, was absent on a journey,
and it was so unlikely that he would accept the offer that
it was thought best not to diminish the value and honor to
Judge Lowell of the place by offering it further to another
person.  Accordingly the place was offered to Judge Lowell
and accepted by him.

General Devens than said to me:  "I have been thinking over
the matter of the District Judge, and I think if a man entirely
suitable can be found in the Suffolk Bar, that the appointment
rather belongs to that Bar, and I should like, if you have
no objection, to propose to the President to offer it to Mr.
Charles Allen."  Mr. Allen was later Judge of the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts.  I assented, but said:  "If Mr. Allen
refuses it, I hope it will then be offered to Mr. Nelson,
in accordance with your original opinion."  The Attorney-
General agreed.  The offer was made to Mr. Allen, and by him
declined.  When the letter of refusal came, the Attorney-
General and I went together to the White House and showed
the President the letter.  In the meantime a very strong recommendation
of Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., now of the Supreme Court,
had been received by the President.  He felt a good deal of
interest in Holmes.  I think they had both been wounded in
the same battle.  But, at any rate, they were comrades.  The
President then said: "I rather think Holmes is the man." I
then gave him my opinion of Mr. Nelson, and the President
said to Devens: "Do you agree, Mr. Attorney-General?" Devens
said:  "I do." And the President said: "Then Nelson be it."
Mr. Nelson, to my surprise, accepted the appointment.

Judge Nelson was a master of equity and bankruptcy.  No doctrine
was too subtle or abstruse for him.  The matter of marshalling
assets, or the tacking of mortgages, and such things which
require a good deal of the genius of the mathematician, were
clear in his apprehension.  He was one of the two or three
men in the State who ever understood the complications of
the old loan-fund associations.  He was especially a master
of legal remedies.  He held on like a bull-dog to a case in
the justice of which he believed.  When you had got a verdict
and judgment in the Supreme Court against one of Nelson's
clients, he was just ready to begin work.  Then look out for
him.  He had with this trait also a great modesty and diffidence.
If anybody put to him confidently a proposition against his
belief, Nelson was apt to be silent, but, as Mr. Emerson
said of Samuel Hoar, "with an unaltered belief." He would
come out with his reply days after.  When he came to state
the strong point in arguing his case, he would sink his voice
so it could hardly be heard, and look away like a bashful
maiden giving her consent.  Judge Bigelow told me, very early
in Nelson's career, that he wished I would ask my friend to
make his arguments a little longer, and to raise his voice
so the court could hear him better.  They always found his
arguments full of instruction, and disliked to lose anything
so good a lawyer had to say.  His value as a Judge was largely
in consultation and in his sound opinions.  I suppose that,
like his predecessor, Judge Lowell, he was not the very best
of Judges to preside at jury trials, or to guide juries in
their deliberations.  Indeed, Nelson had many of the intellectual
traits--the same merits and the same defects that Lowell
had.  Lowell was a man of great wit, and a favorite with
the Boston Bar when he was appointed.  So they made the best
of him.  They were not inclined to receive Nelson's appointment
very graciously.  It was some years before he established
a high place in their confidence and esteem.  But it was established
before his death.  Gray and Putnam and Webb, all in their
way lawyers of the first class, found Nelson a most valuable
and acceptable associate, and have all spoken of him in most
enthusiastic terms.  He was a good naturalist.  He knew the
song-birds, their habits, and dwelling-places.  He knew all
the stars.  He liked to discuss difficult and profound questions
of public policy, constitutional law, philosophy, and metaphysics.
Sometimes, when I came home from Washington after a period
of hard work, if I happened to find Nelson in the cars when
I went to Boston, it was almost painful to spend an hour with
him, although his conversation was very profound and interesting.
But it was like attempting to take up and solve a difficult
problem in geometry.  I was tired, and wanted to be humming
a negro melody to myself.  He was a man of absolute integrity,
not caring whether he pleased or displeased anybody.  He had
a good deal of literary knowledge, was specially fond of Emerson,
and knew him very thoroughly, both prose and verse.  He had
a good deal of wit, one of the brightest examples of which
I will not undertake to quote here.  He was a civil engineer
in his youth, and was always valuable in complicated questions
of boundary, or cases like our sewer and water cases, which
require the application of practical mathematics.  He was
a friendly and placable person so far as he was concerned
himself, but resented, with great indignation, any unkindness
toward any of his friends or household.  His friend and associate,
Judge Webb, after his death spoke with great beauty and pathos
of Nelson's love of nature and of his old county home:

"When, in later years, he revisited the scenes of his childhood,
he made no effort to conceal his affection for them; as he
wandered among the mountains and along the valleys, so dearly
remembered, his eye would grow bright, his face beam with
pleasure, and his voice sound with the tone of deep sensibility.
He grew eloquent as he described the beauty spread out before
him, and lovingly dwelt on the majesty and grandeur of the
mountain at the foot of which his infancy was cradled.  It
was high companionship to be with him at such times.  His
ear was open to catch the note of every bird, which came to
him like voices of well-beloved friends; he knew the brooks
from their sources to their mouths, and the rivers murmured
to him the songs they sang in the Auld Lang Syne.  But deep
as was the joy of these visits, they did not allure him from
the more rugged paths of labor and duty."

The wisdom of Nelson's selection, if it need vindication,
is abundantly established by the memorial of him reported
by a committee, of which Lewis S. Dabney was chairman, and
adopted by the Suffolk Bar.  The Bar, speaking of the doubt
expressed in the beginning by those who feared an inland lawyer
on the Admiralty Bench, goes on to say:

"Those who knew him well, however, knew that he had been a
successful master and referee in many complicated cases of
great importance; that his mathematical and scientific knowledge
acquired in his early profession as an engineer was large
and accurate, and would be useful in his new position; that
he who had successfully drawn important public acts would
be a successful interpreter of such acts; that always a student
approaching every subject, not as an advocate but as a judicial
observer, he would give that attention to whatever was new
among the problems of his judicial office that would make
him their best master and interpreter, and that what in others
might be considered weakness or indolence was but evidence
of a painful shrinking from displaying in public a naturally
firm, strong, earnest and persistent character, a character
which would break out through the limitations of nature whenever
the occasion required it.

"Those who, as his associates upon the Bench, or as practitioners
before him at the Bar, have had occasion to watch his long
and honorable career, now feel that the judgment of his friends
was the best and that his appointment has been justified;
and those who have known him as an Associate Justice of the
Circuit Court of Appeals have felt this even more strongly."

Another striking figure of my time was Horace Gray.  He was
in the class before me at Harvard, though considerably younger.
I knew him by sight only in those days.  He was very tall,
with an exceedingly youthful countenance, and a head that
looked then rather small of so large-limbed a youth--rather
awkward in his gait and bearing.  But after he reached manhood
he grew into one of the finest-looking men of his time.  I
believe he was the tallest man in Boston.  He expanded in
every way to a figure which corresponded to his stately height.
He was the grandson of the famous William Gray, the great
merchant and ship-owner of New England, who was an important
figure in the days just preceding and just following the War
of 1812.  Many anecdotes are still current of his wise and
racy sayings.  His sons inherited large fortunes and were
all of them men of mark and influence in Boston.  Francis
C. Grey, the Judge's uncle, was a man of letters, a historical
investigator.  He discovered the priceless Body of Liberties
of 1641, which had remained unprinted from that time, although
the source from which our Bill of Rights and constitutional
provisions had been so largely drawn.

Judge Gray's father was largely employed in manufacturing
and owned some large iron works.  The son had been brought
up, I suppose, to expect that his life would be one of comfort
and ease, free from all anxieties about money, and the extent
of the labor of life would be, perhaps, to visit the counting-
room a few hours in the day to look over the books and see
generally that his affairs were properly conducted by his
agents and subordinates.  He had visited Europe more than
once, and was abroad shortly after his graduation when the
news reached him that the companies in which his father's
fortune was invested had failed.  He at once hurried home
and set himself resolutely to work to take care of himself.
He was an accomplished naturalist for his age and time, and
had a considerable library of works on natural history.  He
exchanged them for law-books and entered the Law School.  I
was splitting wood to make my own fire one autumn morning
when my door, which was ajar, was pushed open, and I saw a
face somewhere up in the neighborhood of the transom.  It
was Gray, who had come to inquire what it was all about.  He
had little knowledge of the rules or fashions of the Law School.
I told him about the scheme of instruction and the hours of
lectures, and so forth.  We became fast friends, a friendship
maintained to his death.  He at once manifested a very vigorous
intellect and a memory, not only for legal principles, but for
the names of cases, which I suppose had been cultivated by
his studies in natural history and learning the scientific
names of birds and plants.  At any rate, he became one of
the best pupils in the Law School.  He afterward studied
law with Edward D. Sohier, and immediately after his admission
became known as one of the most promising young men at the
Bar.  Luther S. Cushing was then Reporter of the decisions
of the Supreme Court.  He was in poor health and employed
Gray to represent him as Reporter on the Circuit.  Gray always
had a marvellous gift of remembering just where a decision
of principle of law could be found, and his thumb and forefinger
would travel instantly to the right book on the obscurest
shelf in a Law Library.  So nothing seemed to escape his thorough
and indefatigable research.  When he was on the Circuit, learned
counsel would often be arguing some question of law for which
they had most industriously prepared, when the young Reporter
would hand them a law-book with a case in it which had escaped
their research.  So the best lawyers all over the State got
acquainted at an early day with his learning and industry, and
when Cushing soon after was obliged to resign the office of
Reporter, Gray was appointed by the general consent of the
best men of the profession, although he had as a competition
Judge Perkins, a very well known lawyer and Judge, who had
edited some important law-books and was a man of mature age.
This was in 1854, only three years after his admission to
the Bar.  The office of Reporter was then one of the great
offices of the State, almost equal in dignity to that of the
Judge of the Supreme Court itself.  Four of our Massachusetts
Reporters have been raised to that Bench.  He was quite largely
retained and employed during that period, especially in important
questions of commercial law.  He resigned his office of Reporter
about the time of the breaking out of the war.  Governor Andrew
depended upon his advice and guidance in some very important
and novel questions of military law, and in 1864 he was appointed
Associate Justice of the Court.  In 1873 he became its Chief
Justice, and in 1882 was made Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States.  The extent of his learning and
the rapidity and thoroughness of his research were marvellous.
But it is not upon this alone, or chiefly, that his fame as
one of the great Judges of the world will rest.  He was a
man of a native, original intellectual power, unsurpassed
by any man who has been on the Bench in his time, either in
this country or in England.  His decisions have been as sound
and as acceptable to the profession upon questions where no
authority could be found upon which to rest, and upon questions
outside of the beaten paths of jurisprudence as upon those
where he found aid in his great legal learning.  He was a
remarkably acceptable _nisi-prius_ Judge, when holding court
in the rural counties, and, though bred in a city, where human
nature is not generally learned so well, he was especially
fortunate and successful in dealing with questions of fact
which grow out of the transactions of ordinary and humble
life in the country.  He manifested on one or two occasions
the gift of historical research and discussion for which his
uncle Francis was so distinguished.

It was my sorrowful duty to preside at a meeting of the Bar
of the Supreme Court of the United States to express their
sense of their great loss and that of the whole country,
after Gray's death.

I add some extracts from the remarks which I made on that
occasion:

The Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States come together
to pay a tribute of honor to a great lawyer and Judge.  I
shall have, I am sure, another opportunity to put on record
my own sense of the irreparable loss of a dear friend and
comrade of more than fifty years.  To-day we are to speak,
as members of the Bar, of an honored Judge whom the inexorable
shaft has stricken in his high place.

He was in his seat in the Supreme Court of the United States
for the last time Monday, February 3, 1902.  On the evening
of that day he had a slight paralytic shock, which seriously
affected his physical strength.  He retained his mental strength
and activity unimpaired until just before his death.  On the
9th day of July, 1902, he sent his resignation to the President,
to take effect on the appointment and qualifying of his successor.
So, he died in office, September 15, 1902.

On his mother's side Judge Gray was the grandson of Jabez
Upham, one of the great lawyers of the day, who died in 1811,
at the age of forty-six, after a brief service in the National
House of Representatives.  He was settled in Brookfield, Worcester
County.  But the traditions of his great ability were fresh
when I went there to live, nearly forty years after his death.
The memory of the beauty and sweetness and delightful accomplishment
of Mr. Upham's daughter, Judge Gray's mother, who died in
the Judge's early youth, was still fragrant among the old
men and women who had been her companions.  She is mentioned
repeatedly in the letters of that accomplished Scotch lady
--friend of Walter Scott and of so many of the English and
Scotch men of letters in her time--Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
Mrs. Grant says in a letter published in her Memoir:  "My
failing memory represents my short intercourse with Mrs.
Gray as if some bright vision from a better world had come
and, vanishing, left a trail behind."  In another letter she
speaks of the enchantment of Mrs. Gray's character: "Anything
so pure, so bright, so heavenly I have rarely met with."

The title, which the kindness of our countrymen has given
to Massachusetts, that of Model Commonwealth, I think has
been earned largely by the character of her Judiciary, and
never could have been acquired without it.  Among the great
figures that have adorned that Bench in the past, the figure
of Justice Gray is among the most conspicuous and stately.

Judge Gray has had from the beginning a reputation for wonderful
research.  Nothing ever seemed to escape his industry and
profound learning.  This was shown on a few occasions when
he undertook some purely historical investigation, as in his
notes on the case of the Writs of Assistance, argued by James
Otis and reported in Quincy's Reports, and his recent admirable
address at Richmond, on Chief Justice Marshall.  But while
all his opinions are full of precedent and contain all the
learning of the case, he was, I think, equally remarkable
for the wisdom, good sense, and strength of his judgments.
I do not think of any Judge of his time anywhere, either here
or in England, to whom the profession would ascribe a higher
place if he be judged only by the correctness of his opinions
in cases where there were no precedents on which to lean and
for the excellent original reasons which he had to give.  I
think Judge Gray's fame, on the whole, would have been greater
as a man of original power if he had resisted, sometimes,
the temptation to marshal an array of cases, and had suffered
his judgments to stand on his statement of legal principles
without the authorities.  He manifested another remarkable
quality when he was on the Bench of Massachusetts.  He was
an admirable _nisi-prius_ Judge.  I think we rarely have had
a better.  He possessed that faculty which made the jury,
in the old days, so admirable a mechanism for performing their
part in the administration of justice.  He had the rare gift,
especially rare in men whose training has been chiefly upon
the Bench, of discerning the truth of the fact, in spite of
the apparent weight of the evidence.  That Court, in his time,
had exclusive jurisdiction of divorces and other matters affecting
the marital relations.  The Judge had to hear and deal with
transactions of humble life and of country life.  It was surprising
how this man, bred in a city, in high social position, having
no opportunity to know the modes of thought and of life of
poor men and of rustics, would settle these interesting and
delicate questions, affecting so deeply the life of plain
men and country farmers, and with what unerring sagacity he
came to the wise and righteous result.

Judge Gray's opinions for the eighteen years during which
he sat on the Bench of Massachusetts constitute an important
body of jurisprudence, from which the student can learn the
whole range of the law as it rests on principle and on authority.

And so it came to pass when the place of Mr. Justice Clifford
became vacant that by the almost universal consent of the
New England Circuit, with the general approval of the profession
throughout the whole country, Mr. Justice Gray became his
successor.  Of his service here there are men better qualified
to speak than I am.  He took his place easily among the great
Judges of the world.  He has borne himself in his great office
so, I believe, as to command the approbation of his countrymen
of all sections and of all parties.  He has been every inch
a Judge.  He has maintained the dignity of his office everywhere.
He has endeared himself to a large circle of friends here
at the National Capital by his elegant and gracious hospitality.
His life certainly has been fortunate.  The desire of his
youth has been fulfilled.  From the time, more than fifty
years ago, when he devoted himself to his profession, there
has been, I suppose, no moment when he did not regard the
office of a Justice of the Supreme Court as not only the most
attractive but also the loftiest of human occupations.  He
has devoted himself to that with a single purpose.  He has
sought no fame or popularity by any other path.  Certainly
his life has been fortunate.  It has lasted to a good old age.
But the summons came for him when his eye was not dimmed nor
his natural force abated.  He drank of the cup of the waters
of life while it was sweetest and clearest, and was not left
to drink it to the dregs.  He was fortunate also, almost beyond
the lot of humanity, in that by a rare felicity, the greatest
joy of youth came to him in an advanced age.  Everything that
can make life honorable, everything that can make life happy--
honor, success, the consciousness of usefulness, the regard
of his countrymen, and the supremest delight of family life--
all were his.  His friends take leave of him as another of
the great and stately figures in the long and venerable procession
of American Judges.


Next to Judge Wilde in seniority upon the Bench among the
associate Judges was Mr. Justice Charles A. Dewey of Northampton.
He had had a good deal of experience as a prosecuting attorney
in a considerable general practice in the western part of
the State.  He was careful in his opinions never to go beyond
what was necessary for the case at bar.  It is said that there
is no instance that any opinion of his was ever overruled
in a very long judicial service.

Judge Dewey was a man of absolute integrity and faithful
in the discharge of his judicial duty.  He had no sentiment
and, so far as I ever knew, took little interest in matters
outside of his important official duties.  He was very careful
in the management of property.  When the Democrats were in
power in Massachusetts in 1843 they reduced the salaries of
the Judges of the Supreme Court in violation of the Constitutional
provision.  Chief Justice Shaw refused to touch a dollar of
his salary until the Legislature the next year restored the
old salary and provided for the payment of the arrears.  Judge
Dewey held out for one quarter.  But the next quarter he went
quietly to the State House, drew his quarter's salary, went
down on to State Street and invested it, and did the same
every quarter thereafter.

In the days of my early practice the Supreme Court used to
sit in Worcester for about five or six weeks, beginning in
April.  It had exclusive jurisdiction of real actions, and
limited equity jurisdiction.  All suits where the matter in
issue was more than three hundred dollars might be brought
originally in that court or removed there by the defendant
from the Common Pleas if the plaintiff began it below.  So
the court had a great deal of business.  It also had jurisdiction
of divorce cases, appeals from the Probate Court and some
special writs such as habeas corpus, certiorari and mandamus.
But after all, the old Court of Common Pleas was the place
where the greater part of the law business of the county was
transacted.  There were at first four civil terms in the year,
and, after Fitchburg became a half shire, there were two more
terms held there.  The Common Pleas had jurisdiction of all
crimes except capital.

There were some very interesting characters among the old
Judges of the Common Pleas.  Among the most remarkable was
Judge Edward Mellen, who was first side Judge and afterward
Chief Justice.  He was a man of great law-learning, indefatigable
industry and remarkable memory for cases, diffuse and long-
winded in his charges, and apt to take sides.  He took everything
very seriously.  It is said that he would listen to the most
pathetic tale of human suffering unmoved, but would burst
into tears at the mention of a stake and stones or two chestnut
staddles.

Mellen with the other Judges of the old Common Pleas Court
was legislated off the Bench by the abolition of that court
in 1858.  He moved from Middlesex to Worcester and resumed
practice, but was never largely employed.  He was a repository
of the old stories of the Middlesex Bar, many of which died
with him.

A Lowell lawyer told me this story of Judge Mellen.  My informant
had in his office a law student who spent most of his time
in reading novels and poetry and writing occasionally for
the newspapers.  He was anxious to get admitted to the Bar
and had crammed for the examination.  In those days, unless
the applicant had studied three years, when he was admitted
as of course, the Judge examined him himself.  The Judge was
holding court at Concord, and an arrangement was made that
the youngster should go to the Judge's room in the evening
and submit himself to the examination.  He kept the appointment,
but in about ten minutes came out.  My informant, who had
recommended him, asked him what was the matter.  He said he
didn't know.  The Judge had asked him one question only.  He
was sure he answered it right, but the Judge immediately dismissed
him with great displeasure.  The next morning the lawyer
went up to Judge Mellen in court and said, "Judge, what was
the matter with the young man last night?  Did you not find
him fitted?"

"Fitted?" said the Judge.  "No sir.  I asked him what was
the rule in Shelley's Case, and he told me the rule in Shelley's
Case was that when the father was an atheist the Lord Chancellor
would appoint a guardian for his children."

"Ah," was the reply.  "I see.  The trouble is that neither
of you ever heard of the other's Shelley."

Judge Byington of Stockbridge in Berkshire used to come to
Worcester a great deal to hold the old Common Pleas Court.
He was an excellent lawyer and an excellent Judge--dry, fond
of the common law, and of black letter authorities.  He had
a curious habit of giving his charge in one long sentence
without periods, but with a great many parentheses.  But he
had great influence with the juries and was very sound and
correct in his law.  I once tried a case before him for damages
for the seizure of a stock of liquors under the provisions
of the Statute of 1852, known as the Maine Liquor Law, which
had been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  He began:
"The Statute of 1852 chapter so-and-so gentlemen of the jury
commonly known as the Maine Liquor Law which has created great
feeling throughout this Commonwealth some very good men were
in favor of it and some very good men were against it read
literally part of it would be ridiculous and you may take
your seats if you please gentlemen of the jury I shall be
occupied some time in my charge and I do not care to keep
you standing and some of it would be absurd and some of it
reads very well." And so on.

A neighbor of Judge Byington from Berkshire County was Judge
Henry W. Bishop of Stockbridge.  He was an old Democratic
politician and at one time the candidate of his party for
Governor.  He was not a very learned lawyer, but was quick-
witted and picked up a good deal from the arguments of counsel.
Aided by a natural shrewdness and sense, he got along pretty
well.  He had a gift of rather bombastic speech.  His exuberant
eloquence was of a style more resembling that prevalent in
some other parts of the country than the more sober and severe
fashion of New England.  Just before he came to the Bench
he was counsel in a real estate case in Springfield where
Mr. Chapman, afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
was on the other side.  The evidence of recent occupation
and the monuments tended in favor of Chapman's client.  But
it turned out that the one side had got a title under the
original grant of the town of Blandford, and the other under
the original grant of an adjoining town, and that the town
line had been maintained from the beginning where Bishop claimed
the true line to be.  When he came to that part of the case,
he rose mightily in his stirrups.  Turning upon Chapman, who
was a quiet, mild-mannered old gentleman, he said: "The gentleman's
eyes may twinkle like Castor and Pollux, twin stars; but he
can't wink out of sight that town line of Blandford.  He may
place one foot on Orion and the other on Arcturus, and seize
the Pleiades by the hair and wring all the water from their
dripping urns; but he can't wash out that town line of Blandford."
The local newspaper got hold of the speech and reported it,
and it used to be spoken occasionally by the school boys for
their declamation.  Bishop is said to have been much disturbed
by the ridicule it created, and to have refused ever to go to
Springfield again on any professional employment.

Judge Aldrich was appointed to the Bench of the Superior
Court of Massachusetts by Governor William B. Washburn after
I left the practice of law for public life.  I appeared before
him in a very few cases and must take his judicial quality
largely from the report of others.  He was a very powerful
and formidable advocate, especially in cases where moral principles
or the family relations were concerned, or where any element
of pathos enabled him to appeal to the jury.  The most tedious
hours of my life, I think, have been those when I was for
the defendant and he for the plaintiff, and I had to sit and
listen to his closing argument in reply to mine.  He had a
gift of simple eloquence; the influence with juries which
comes from earnestness and the profound conviction of the
righteousness of the cause he had advocated, and the weight
of an unsullied personal character and unquestioned integrity.

Mr. Aldrich's appointment to the Bench came rather late in
his life, so he was not promoted to the Supreme Court, which
would undoubtedly have happened if he had been younger.  He
was an excellent magistrate and the author of one or two valuable
law books.  Although my chief memories of him are of the many
occasions on which I have crossed swords with him, and of
battles when our feelings and sympathy were profoundly stirred,
still they are of the most affectionate character.  He had
a quick temper and was easily moved to anger in the trial
of a case.  But as an eminent western Judge is reported to
have said in speaking of some offence that had been committed
at the Bar, "This Court herself are naterally quick-tempered."
So the sparks of our quarrels went out as quickly as they
were kindled.  I think of P. Emory Aldrich as a stanch and
constant friend, from whom, so long as his life lasted, I received
nothing but friendliest sympathy and constant and powerful
support.

Judge Aldrich, as I just said, was a man of quick temper.
He was ready to accept any challenge to a battle, especially
one which seemed to have anything of a personal disrespect
in it.  I was present on one occasion when the ludicrous
misspelling of a word, it is very likely, saved him from coming
to blows with a very worthy and well-known citizen of Worcester
County.  Colonel Artemus Lee, of Templeton, one of the most
estimable citizens of northern Worcester County, a man imperious
and quick-tempered, who had been apt to have his own way in
the region where he dwelt, and not very willing to give up
to anybody, employed me once to bring suit for him against
the Town of Templeton to recover taxes which he claimed had
been illegally assessed and collected.  He was a man whose
spelling had been neglected in early youth.  Aldrich was for
the Town.  All the facts showing the illegality of the assessment,
of course, were upon the Town records.  So we thought if the
parties met with their counsel we could agree upon a statement
of facts and submit the question of law to the court.  We
met in Judge Aldrich's office, Colonel Lee and myself and
Judge Aldrich and some of the Town officers, to make up the
statement.  But Mr. Aldrich had not had time to look very
deeply into the law of the case, and made some difficulties in
agreeing upon the facts, which we thought rather unreasonable.
We sat up to a late hour in a hot summer evening trying to
get at a statement.  At last Lee's patience gave out.  He
had had one or two hot passages at arms with Mr. Aldrich
in the course of the discussion already.  He rose to his feet
and said in a very loud and angry tone--his voice was always
something like that of a bull of Basham--"This is a farce."
Aldrich rose from his seat and to the occasion and said very
angrily, "What's that you say, Sir?" Lee clenched both fists
by his side, thrust his own angry countenance close up to
that of his antagonist, and said, "A farce, Sir--F-A-R-S-
E, Farce."  Aldrich caught my eye as I was sitting behind
my client and noticed my look of infinite amusement.  His
anger yielded to the comedy of the occasion.  He burst into
a roar of laughter and peace was saved.  If Lee had spelled
the word farce with a "c," there would have been a battle
royal.


CHAPTER XXXIX
POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS FAITH

I close this book with a statement of the political principles
which I think define the duty of the American people in the
near future, and from which I hope the Republic will not depart
until time shall be no more; and of the simple religious faith
in which I was bred, and to which I now hold.

They cannot to my mind be separated.  One will be found in
some resolutions offered in the Senate December 20, 1899.
The other in what I said on taking the chair at the National
Unitarian Conference, at Washington, in October 1899.

"Mr. Hoar submitted the following resolution:

"WHEREAS the American people and the several States in the
Union have in times past, at important periods in their history,
especially when declaring their Independence, establishing
their Constitutions, or undertaking new and great responsibilities,
seen fit to declare the purposes for which the Nation or State
was founded and the important objects the people intend to
pursue in their political action; and

"WHEREAS the close of a great war, the liberation by the
United States of the people of Cuba and Porto Rico in the
Western Hemisphere and of the Philippine Islands in the far
East, and the reduction of those peoples to a condition of
practical dependence upon the United States, constitute an
occasion which makes such a declaration proper;  Therefore,
be it

_"Resolved,_ That this Republic adheres to the doctrines
which were in the past set forth in the Declaration of Independence
and in its National and State constitutions.

_"Resolved,_ That the purpose of its existence and the objects
to which its political action ought to be directed are the
ennobling of humanity, the raising from the dust its humblest
and coarsest members, and the enabling of persons coming lawfully
under its power or influence to live in freedom and in honor
under governments in whose forms they are to have a share
in determining and in whose administration they have an equal
voice.  Its most important and pressing obligations are:

"First.  To solve the difficult problem presented by the
presence of different races on our own soil with equal Constitutional
rights; to make the Negro safe in his home, secure in his
vote, equal in his opportunity for education and employment,
and to bring the Indian to a civilization and culture in accordance
with his need and capacity.

"Second.  To enable great cities to govern themselves in
freedom, in honor, and in purity.

"Third.  To make the ballot box as pure as a sacramental
vessel, and the election return as perfect in accord with
the law and the truth as a judgment of the Supreme Court.

"Fourth.  To banish illiteracy and ignorance from the land.

"Fifth.  To secure for every workman and for every working
woman wages enough to support a life of comfort and an old
age of leisure and quiet, as befits those who have an equal
share in a self-governing State.

"Sixth.  To grow and expand over the continent and over the
islands of the sea just so fast, and no faster, as we can
bring into equality and self-government under our Constitution
peoples and races who will share these ideals and help to
make them realities.

"Seventh.  To set a peaceful example of freedom which mankind
will be glad to follow, but never to force even freedom upon
unwilling nations at the point of the bayonet or at the cannon's
mouth.

"Eighth.  To abstain from interfering with the freedom and
just rights of other nations or peoples, and to remember
that the liberty to do right necessarily involves the liberty
to do wrong; and that the American people has no right to
take from any other people the birthright of freedom because
of a fear that they will do wrong with it."

SPEECH ON TAKING THE CHAIR AT THE NATIONAL UNITARIAN
  CONFERENCE, IN WASHINGTON, OCTOBER, 1899

"The part assigned to me, in the printed plan of our proceedings,
is the delightful duty of bidding you welcome.  But you find
a welcome from each other in the glance of the eye, in the
pressure of the hand, in the glad tone of the voice, better
than any that can be put into formal words.

  From hand to hand the greeting goes;
  From eye to eye the signals run;
  From heart to heart to bright hope glows;
  The seekers of the light are one.

Every Unitarian, man and woman, every lover of God or His
Son, every one who in loving his fellow-men loves God and
His Son, even without knowing it, is welcome in this company.

"We are sometimes told, as if it were a reproach, that we
cannot define Unitarianism.  For myself, I thank God that
it is not to be defined.  To define is to bound, to enclose, to
set limit.  The great things of the universe are not to be
defined.  You cannot define a human soul.  You cannot define
the intellect.  You cannot define immortality or eternity.
You cannot define God.

"I think, also, that the things we are to be glad of and to
be proud of and are to be thankful for are not those things
that separate us from the great body of Christians or the
great body of believers in God and in righteousness, but in
the things that unite us with them.  No Five Points, no Athanasian
Creed, no Thirty-nine Articles, separate the men and women
of our way of thinking from humanity or from Divinity.

"But still, although we do not define Unitarianism, we know
our own when we see them.  There are men and women who like
to be called by our name.  There are men and women for whom
Faith, Hope, and Charity forever abide; to whom Judea's news
are still glad tidings; who believe that one day Jesus Christ
came to this earth, bearing a Divine message and giving a
Divine example.  There are women who bear their own sorrows
of life by soothing the sorrows of others; youths who, when
Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' reply, "I can'; and old men
to whom the experience of life has taught the same brave lesson;
examples of the patriotism that will give its life for its
country when in the right, and the patriotism that will make
itself of no reputation, if need be, to save its country from
being in the wrong.

"They do not comprehend the metaphysics of a Trinal Unity,
nor how it is just that innocence should be punished, that
guilt may go free.  They do not attribute any magic virtue
to the laying on of hands; nor do they believe that the traces
of an evil life in the soul can be washed out by the sprinkling
of a few drops of water, however pure, or by baptism in any
blood, however innocent, in the hour of death.  But they do
understand the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and they
know and they love and they practise the great virtues which
the Apostle tells us are to abide.

"I think there can be found in this country no sectarianism
so narrow, so hide-bound, so dogma-clad, that it would like
to blot out from the history of the country what the men of
our faith have contributed to it.  On the first roll of this
Washington parish will be found close together the names of
John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams.  John Quincy Adams
had learned from his father and mother the liberal Christian
faith he transmitted to his illustrious son.  If we would
blot out Unitarianism from the history of the country, we
must erase the names of many famous statesmen, many famous
philanthropists, many great reformers, many great orators,
many famous soldiers, from its annals, and nearly all of our
great poets from its literature.

"I could exhaust not only the time I have a right to take,
but I could fill a week if I were to recall their names and
tell the story of their lives.  Still less could I speak
adequately of the men and women who, in almost every neighborhood
throughout the country, have found in this Unitarian faith
of ours a stimulant to brave and noble lives and a sufficient
comfort and support in the hour of a brave death.  As I stand
here on this occasion, my heart is full of one memory,--of
one who loved our Unitarian faith with the whole fervor of
his soul, who in his glorious prime, possessing everything
which could make life happy and precious, the love of wife
and children and friends, the joy of professional success,
the favor of his fellow-citizens, the fulness of health, the
consciousness of high talent, heard the voice of the Lord
speaking from the fever-haunted hospital and the tropical
swamp, and the evening dews and damps, saying, 'Where is the
messenger that will take his life in his hand, that I may
send him to carry health to my stricken soldiers and sailors?'
When the Lord said, 'Whom shall I send?' he answered, 'Here
am I:  send me.'*

[Footnote]
* Sherman Hoar, who after a brilliant public and professional career,
gave his life to his country by exposure in caring for the sick soldiers
of the Spanish war.
[End of Footnote]

"The difference between Christian sects, like the difference
between individual Christians, is not so much in the matter
of belief or disbelief of portions of the doctrine of the Scripture
as in the matter of _emphasis._  It is a special quality
and characteristic of Unitarianism that Unitarians everywhere
lay special emphasis upon the virtue of Hope.  It was said
of Cromwell by his secretary that hope shone in him like a
fiery pillar when it had gone out in every other.

"There are two great texts in the Scripture in whose sublime
phrases are contained the germs of all religion, whether
natural or revealed.  They lay hold on two eternities.  One
relates to Deity in his solitude--'Before Abraham was, I
am.'  The other is for the future.  It sums up the whole
duty and the whole destiny of man:  'And now abideth Faith,
Hope, and Charity,--these three.'  If Faith, Hope, and Charity
abide, then Humanity abides.  Faith is for beings without
the certainty of omniscience.  Hope is for beings without
the strength of omnipotence.  And Charity, as the apostle
describes it, affects the relations of beings limited and
imperfect to one another.

"Why is it that this Christian virtue of Hope is placed as
the central figure of the sublime group who are to accompany
the children of God through their unending life?  It is because
without it Faith would be impossible and Charity would be
wasted.

"Hope is that attribute of the soul which believes in the
final triumph of righteousness.  It has no place in a theology
which believes in the final perdition of the larger number
of mankind.  Mighty Jonathan Edwards,--the only genius since
Dante akin to Dante,--could you not see that, if your world
exist where there is no hope and where there is no love, there
can be no faith?  Who can trust the promise of a God who has
created a Universe and peopled it with fiends? The Apostle
of your doleful gospel must preach quite another Evangel:
And now abideth Hate, and now abideth Wrath, and now abideth
Despair, and now abideth Woe unutterable.  With Hope, as we
have defined it,--namely, the confident expectation of the
final triumph of righteousness,--we are but a little lower
than the angels; without it we are but a kind of vermin.

"The literature of free countries is full of cheer:  the story
ends happily.  The fiction of despotic countries is hopeless.
People of free countries will not tolerate a fiction which
teaches that in the end evil is triumphant and virtue is
wretched.  Want of hope means either distrust of God or a
belief in the essential baseness of man or both.  It teaches
men to be base.  It makes a country base.  A world wherein
there is no hope is a world where there is no virtue.  The
contrast between the teacher of hope and the teacher of despair
is to be found in the pessimism of Carlyle and the serene
cheerfulness of Emerson.  Granting to the genius of Carlyle
everything that is claimed for it, I believe that his chief
title hereafter to respect as a moral teacher will be found
in Emerson's certificate.

"But I must not detain you any longer from the business which
waits for this convention.  It is the last time that I shall
enjoy the great privilege and honor of occupying this chair.

"Perhaps I may be pardoned, as I have said something of the
religious faith of my fellow Unitarians, if I declare my
own, which I believe is theirs also.  I have no faith in fatalism,
in destiny, in blind force.  I believe in God, the living
God, in the American people, a free and brave people, who
do not bow the neck or bend the knee to any other, and who
desire no other to bow the neck or bend the knee to them.
I believe that the God who created this world has ordained
that his children may work out their own salvation and that
his nations may work out their own salvation by obedience
to his laws without any dictation or coercion from any other.
I believe that liberty, good government, free institutions,
cannot be given by any one people to any other, but must
be wrought out for each by itself, slowly, painfully, in the
process of years or centuries, as the oak adds ring to ring.
I believe that a Republic is greater than an Empire.  I believe
that the moral law and the Golden Rule are for nations as
well as for individuals.  I believe in George Washington,
not in Napoleon Bonaparte; in the Whigs of the Revolutionary
day, not in the Tories; the Chatham, Burke, and Sam Adams,
not in Dr. Johnson or Lord North.  I believe that the North
Star, abiding in its place, is a greater influence in the
Universe than any comet or meteor.  I believe that the United
States when President McKinley was inaugurated was a greater
world power than Rome in the height of her glory or even England
with her 400,000,000 vassals.  I believe, finally, whatever
clouds may darken the horizon, that the world is growing better,
that to-day is better than yesterday, and to-morrow will be
better than to-day."


CHAPTER XL
EDWARD EVERETT HALE

To give a complete and truthful account of my own life, the
name of Edward Everett Hale should appear on almost every
page.  I became a member of his parish in Worcester in August,
1849.  Wherever I have been, or wherever he has been, I have
been his parishioner ever since.  I do not undertake to speak
of him at length not only because he is alive, but because
his countrymen know him through and through, almost as well
as I do.

He has done work of the first quality in a great variety
of fields.  In each he has done work enough to fill the life
and to fill the measure of fame of a busy and successful man.
I have learned of him the great virtue of Hope; to judge
of mankind by their merits and not their faults; to understand
that the great currents of history, especially in a republic,
more especially in our Republic, are determined by great and
noble motives and not by mean and base motives.

In his very best work Dr. Hale seems always to be doing and
saying what he does and says extempore, without premeditation.
Where he gets the time to acquire his vast stores of knowledge,
or to think the thoughts we all like to hear, nobody can tell.
When he speaks or preaches or writes, he opens his intellectual
box and takes the first appropriate thing that comes to hand.

I do not believe we have a more trustworthy historian than
Dr. Hale, so far as giving us the motive and pith and essence
of great transactions.  He is sometimes criticised for inaccuracy
in dates or matters that are trifling or incidental.  I suppose
that comes from the fact that while he stores away in his
mind everything that is essential, and trusts to his memory
for that, he has not the time, which less busy men have, to
verify every unsubstantial detail before he speaks or writes.
Sir Thomas Browne put on record his opinion of such critics
in the "Christian Morals."

"Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition and human Lapses,
may make not only Moles but Warts in learned Authors, who
notwithstanding, being judged by the capital matter, admit
not of disparagement.  I should unwillingly affirm that Cicero
was but slightly versed in Homer, because in his Work _De
Gloria_ he ascribed those verses unto Ajax, which were delivered
by Hector.  Capital Truths are to be narrowly eyed, collateral
Lapses and circumstantial deliveries not to be too strictly
sifted.  And if the substantial subject be well forged out,
we need not examine the sparks which irregularly fly from
it."

When Dr. Hale was eighty years old, his countrymen manifested
their affection for him in a manner which I think no other
living man could have commanded.  It was my great privilege
to be asked to say to him what all men were thinking, at a
great meeting in Boston.  The large and beautiful hall was
thronged with a very small portion of his friends.  If they
had all gathered, the City itself would have been thronged.
I am glad to associate my name with that of my beloved teacher
and friend by preserving here what I said.  It is a feeble
and inadequate tribute.

The President of the United States spoke for the whole country
in the message which he sent:

WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, Mar. 25, 1902.

_My dear Sen. Hoar:_  I very earnestly wish I could be at
the meeting over which you are to preside in honor of the
eightieth birthday of Edward Everett Hale.  A classical allusion
or comparison is always very trite; but I suppose all of us
who have read the simpler classical books think of Timoleon
in his last days at Syracuse, loved and honored in his old
age by the fellow citizens in whose service he had spent the
strength of his best years, as one of the noblest and most
attractive figures in all history.  Dr. Hale is just such
a figure now.

We love him and we revere him.  We are prouder of our citizenship
because he is our fellow citizen; and we feel that his life
and his writing, both alike, spur us steadily to fresh effort
toward high thinking and right living.  To have written "The
Man Without a Country" by itself would be quite enough to
make all the nation his debtor.  I belong to the innumerable
army of those who owe him much, and through you I wish him
Godspeed now.

  Ever faithfully yours,
  THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

I spoke as follows:

"If I try to say all that is in my heart to-night, I do not
know where to begin.  If I try to say all that is in your
hearts, or in the hearts of his countrymen, I do not know
where to leave off.  Yet I can only say what everybody here
is silently saying to himself.  When one of your kindred
or neighbors comes to be eighty years old, after a useful and
honored life, especially if he be still in the vigor of manly
strength, his eye not dim or his natural force abated, his
children and his friends like to gather at his dwelling in his
honor, and tell him the story of their gratitude and love.
They do not care about words.  It is enough if there be pressure
of the hand and a kindly and loving glance of the eye.  That
is all we can do now.  But the trouble is to know how to do
it when a man's friends and lovers and spiritual children
are to be counted by the millions.  I suppose if all the people
in this country, and, indeed in all the quarters of the globe,
who would like to tell their gratitude to Dr. Hale, were
to come together to do it, Boston Common would not hold them.

"There is once in a while, through the quality is rare, an
author, a historian, or a writer of fiction, or a preacher, or a
pastor, or an orator or poet, or an influential or beloved
citizen, who in everything he says or does seems to be sending
a personal message from himself.  The message is inspired
and tinctured and charged and made electric with the quality
of the individual soul.  We know where it comes from.  No
mask, no shrinking modesty can hide the individuality.  Every
man knows from whom it comes, and hails it as a special message
to himself.  We say, That is from my friend to me! The message
may be read by a million eyes and reach a million souls.  But
every one deems it private and confidential to him.

"This is only, when you come to think of it, carrying the
genius for private and personal friendship into the man's
dealing with mankind.  I have never known anybody in all
my long life who seemed to me to be joined by the heart-
strings with so many men and women, wherever he goes, as
Dr. Hale.  I know in Worcester, where he used to live; I
know in Washington, where he comes too seldom, and where
for the last thirty-three years I have gone too often, poor
women, men whose lives have gone wrong, or who are crippled
in body or in mind, whose eyes watch for Dr. Hale's coming
and going, and seem to make his coming and going, if they
get a glimpse of him, the event they date from till he comes
again.  To me and my little household there, in which we never
count more than two or three, his coming is the event of every
winter.

"Dr. Hale has not been the founder of a sect.  He has never
been a builder of partition walls.  He has helped throw down
a good many.  But still, without making proclamation, he has
been the founder of a school which has enlarged and broadened
the Church into the Congregation, and which has brought the
whole Congregation into the Church.

"When he came, hardly out of his boyhood, to our little parish
in Worcester, there was, so far as I know, no Congregational
church in the country whether Unitarian or of the ancient
Calvinistic faith, which did not require a special vote and
ceremonial of admission to entitle any man to unite with his
brethren in commemorating the Saviour as he desired his friends
and brethren to remember him by the rite of the last supper.
Until then, the Christian communion was but for a favored
few.  Mr. Hale believed that the greater the sinfulness of
the individual soul the greater the need and the greater the
title to be taken into the fellowship and the brotherhood
of the Saviour of souls.  So, without polemical discussion,
or any heat of controversy, he set the example which has been
so widely followed.  This meant a great deal more than the
abolition of a ceremonial or the change of a rubric.  It was
an assertion of the great doctrine, never till of late perfectly
comprehended anywhere, that the Saviour of men came into the
world inspired by the love of sinners, and not for an elect
and an exclusive brotherhood of saints.

"We are not thinking chiefly of another world when we think
of Dr. Hale or when we listen to him.  He has been telling
us all his life that what the theologians call two worlds
are but one; that the Kingdom of God is here, within and around
you; that there is but one Universe and not two; that the
relation of man to God is that of father and child, not of
master and slave, or even of sovereign and subject; that when
man wields any of the great forces of the Universe, it is
God also who is wielding them through him; that the power
of a good man is one of God's powers, and that when man is
doing his work faithfully the supreme power of God's omnipotence
is with him.

"Dr. Hale has done a good many things in his own matchless
fashion.  He would have left a remarkable name and fame behind
him if he had been nothing but a student and narrator of history,
as he has studied and told it; if he had been nothing but
a writer of fiction--the author of 'The Man Without a Country,'
or 'Ten Times One is Ten,' or 'In His Name'--if he had done
nothing but organize the Lend a Hand clubs, now found in the
four quarters of the world; if he had been nothing but an
eloquent Christian preacher; if he had been nothing but a
beloved pastor; if he had been only a voice which lifted to
heaven in prayer the souls of great congregations; if he had
been only a public-spirited citizen, active and powerful in
every good word and work for the benefit of this people; it
he had been only the man who devised the plan that might have
saved Texas from slavery, and thereby prevented the Civil
War, and which did thereafter save Kansas; if he had been
only remembered as the spiritual friend and comforter of large
numbers of men and women who were desolate and stricken by
poverty and sorrow; if he had been only a zealous lover of
his country, comprehending, as scarcely any other man has
comprehended, the true spirit of the American people; if he
had been any one of these things, as he has been, it would
be enough to satisfy the most generous aspiration of any man,
enough to make his life worth living for himself and his race.
And yet, and yet, do I exaggerate one particle, when I say
that Dr. Hale has been all these, and more?

"Edward Everett Hale has been the interpreter of a pure,
simple loving and living faith to thousands and thousands
of souls.  He has taught us that the fatherhood and tenderness
of God are manifested here and now in this world, as they
will be hereafter; that the religion of Christ is a religion
of daily living; that salvation is the purifying of the soul
from sin, not its escape from the consequences of sin.  He
is the representative and the incarnation of the best and
loftiest Americanism.  He knows the history of his country,
and knows his countrymen through and through.  He does not
fancy that he loves his country, while he dislikes and despises
his countrymen and everything they have done and are doing.
The history he loves and has helped to write and to make is
not the history of a base and mean people, who have drifted
by accident into empire.  It is the history of such a nation
as Milton conceived, led and guided by men whom Milton would
have loved.  He will have a high and a permanent place in
literature, which none but Defoe shares.  He possesses the
two rarest of gifts, that to give history the fascination
of fiction, and that to give fiction the verisimilitude of
history.  He has been the minister of comfort in sorrow and
of joy in common life to countless persons to whom his friendship
is among their most precious blessings, or by whose fireside
he sits, personally unknown, yet a perpetual and welcome guest.

"Still, the first duty of every man is to his own family.
He may be a warrior or a statesman, or reformer, or philanthropist,
or prophet or poet, if he careth not first for his own household,
he is worse than an infidel.  So the first duty of a Christian
minister is still that of a pastor to his own flock.  You
know better than I do how it has been here in Boston; but
every one of our little parish in Worcester, man or woman,
boy or girl, has felt from the first time he or she knew him,
ever afterward, that Dr. Hale has been taking hold of his
hand.  That warmth and that pressure abide through all our
lives, and will abide to the end.  There are countless persons
who never saw his face, who still deem themselves his obedient,
loving and perpetual parishioners.

"I knew very well a beautiful woman, left widowed, and childless,
and solitary, and forlorn, to whom, after every other consolation
seemed to have failed to awake her from her sorrow and despair,
a friend of her own sex said:  'I thought you were one of
Edward Hale's girls.'  The appeal touched the right chord
and brought her back again to her life of courage and Christian
well-doing.

"He has ever been a prophet of good hope and a preacher of
good cheer.  When you have listened to one of his sermons,
you have listened to an evangel, to good tidings.  He has
never stood aloof from the great battles for righteousness
or justice.  When men were engaged in the struggle to elevate
the race for the good of their fellow men, no word of discouragement
has ever come from his lips.  He has recalled no memory of
old failure in the past.  He has never been found outside
the ranks railing at or criticising the men who were doing
the best work, or were doing the best work they knew how to
do.  He has never been afraid to tackle the evils that other
men think hopeless.  He has uttered his brave challenge to
foemen worthy of his steel.  Poverty and war and crime and
sorrow are the enemies with whom he has striven.

"I do not know another living man who has exercised a more
powerful influence on the practical life of his generation.
He has taught us the truth, very simple, but somehow nobody
ever got hold of it till he did, that virtue and brave living,
and helping other men, can be made to grow by geometrical
progression.  I am told that Dr. Hale has more correspondents
in Asia than the London _Times._  I cannot tell how many persons
are enrolled in the clubs of which he was the founder and
inspirer.

"But I am disqualified to do justice to the theme you have
assigned to me.  For an impartial verdict you must get an
impartial juryman.  You will have to find somebody that loves
him less than I do.  You cannot find anybody who loves him
more.  To me he has been a friend and father and brother and
counsellor and companion and leader and instructor; prophet
of good hope, teacher of good cheer.  His figure mingles with
my household life, and with the life of my country.  I can
hardly imagine either without him.  He has pictured for us
the infinite desolation of the man without a country.  But
when his time shall come, what will be the desolation of the
country without the man?

"And now what can we give you who have given us so much? We
have something to give you on our side.  We bring you a more
costly and precious gift than any jewel or diadem, though
it came from an Emperor's treasury.

  Love is a present for a mighty King.

"We bring you the heart's love of Boston where you were born,
and Worcester where you took the early vows you have kept
so well; of Massachusetts who knows she has no worthier son,
and of the great and free country to whom you have taught
new lessons of patriotism, and whom you have served in a thousand
ways.

"This prophet is honored in his own country.  There will
be a place found for him somewhere in the House of many Mansions.
I do not know what will be the employment of our dear friend
in the world whose messages he has been bringing to us so
long.  But I like to think he will be sent on some errands
like that of the presence which came to Ben Adhem with a great
wakening light, rich and like a lily in bloom, to tell him
that the name of him who loved his fellow men led all the
names of those the love of God had blessed."


APPENDIX
THE FOREST OF DEAN
BY JOHN BELLOWS

The Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, is one of the very
few primeval Forests of Britain that have survived to this
century.  It has just been my privilege to accompany Senator
Hoar on a drive through a portion of it, and he has asked
me to write a few notes on this visit, for the American Antiquarian
Society, in the hope that others of its members may share
in the interest he has taken in its archaeology.

I am indebted for many years' acquaintance with George F.
Hoar, through Oliver Wendell Holmes, to the circumstance
that the Hoar family lived in Gloucester from the time of
the Tudors, if not earlier; and this has led him to pay repeated
visits to our old city, with the object of tracing the history
of his forefathers.  In doing this he has been very successful;
and only within the last few months my friend H. Y. J. Taylor,
who is an untiring searcher of our old records, has come upon
an item in the expenses of the Mayor and Burgesses, of a payment
to Charles Hoar, in the year 1588, for keeping a horse ready
to carry to Cirencester the tidings of the arrival of the
Spanish Armada.  And Charles Hoar's house is with us to this
day, quaintly gabled, and with over-hanging timber-framed
stories, such as the Romans built here in the first century.
It stands in Longsmith Street, just above the spot where forty
years ago I looked down on a beautiful tessellated pavement
of, perhaps, the time of Valentinian.  It was eight feet below
the present surface; for Gloucester, like Rome, has been
a rising city.

Senator Hoar had been making his headquarters at Malvern,
and he drove over from there one afternoon, with a view to
our going on in the same carriage to the Forest.  A better
plan would have been to run by rail to Newnham or Lydney,
to be met by a carriage from the "Speech House," a government
hotel in the centre of the woods; but as the arrangement had
been made we let it stand.

To give a general idea of the positions of the places we
are dealing with, I may say that Upton Knoll, where I am
writing, stands on the steep edge of a spur of the Cotteswold
Hills, three and a half miles south of Gloucester.  Looking
north, we have before us the great vale, or rather plain,
of the Severn, bounded on the right by the main chain of the
Cotteswolds, rising to just over one thousand feet; and on
the left by the hills of Herefordshire, and the beautiful
blue peaks of the Malverns; these last being by far the most
striking feature in the landscape, rising as they do in a
sharp serrated line abruptly from the plain below.  They are
about ten miles in length, and the highest point, the Worcestershire
Beacon, is some fourteen hundred feet above the sea.  It is
the spot alluded to in Macaulay's lines on the Armada--

  Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern's lonely
  height;

and two hundred years before the Armada it was on "Malvern
hulles" that William Langland "forwandered" till he fell asleep
and dreamed his fiery "Vision of Piers Plowman"--

  In a somere season, when softe was the sonne

when, looking "esteward, after the sonne" he beheld a castle
on Bredon Hill

  Truth was ther-ynne

and this great plain, that to him symbolized the world.

  A fair feld ful of folke fonde ich ther bytwyne;
  Alle manere of men; the meme and the ryche.

Now, in the afternoon light, we can see the towns of Great
and North Malvern, and Malvern Wells, nestling at foot of
the steep slant; and eight miles to the right, but over thirty
from where we stand, the cathedral tower of Worcester.  The
whole plain is one sea of woods with towers and steeples glinting
from every part of it; notably Tewkesbury Abbey, which shines
white in the sunlight some fourteen miles from us.  Nearer,
and to the right, Cheltenham stretches out under Cleeve Hill,
the highest of the Cotteswolds; and to the left Gloucester,
with its Cathedral dwarfing all the buildings round it.  This
wooded plain before us dies away in the north into two of
the great Forests of ancient Britain; Wyre, on the left, from
which Worcester takes its name; and Feckenham, on the right,
with Droitwich as its present centre.  Everywhere through
this area we come upon beautiful old timber-framed houses
of the Tudor time or earlier; Roman of origin, and still met
with in towns the Romans garrisoned, such as Chester and Gloucester,
though they have modernized their roofs, and changed their
diamond window panes for squares, as in the old house of Charles
Hoar's, previously mentioned.

Now if we turn from the north view to the west, we get a different
landscape.  Right before us, a mile off, is Robin's Wood Hill,
a Cotteswold outlier; in Saxon times called "Mattisdun" or
"Meadow-hill," for it is grassed to the top, among its trees.
"Matson" House, there at its foot, was the abode of Charles
I. during his siege of Gloucester in 1643.  To the left of
this hill we have again the Vale of the Severn, and beyond
it, a dozen miles away, and stretching for twenty miles to
the southwest are the hills of the Forest of Dean.  They are
steep, but not lofty--eight hundred or nine hundred feet.
At their foot yonder, fourteen miles off, is the lake-like
expanse of the Severn; and where it narrows to something under
a mile is the Severn Bridge that carries the line into the
Forest from the Midland Railway.  Berkeley Castle lies just
on the left of it, but is buried in the trees.  Thornbury
Tower, if not Thornbury Castle, further south, is visible
when the sun strikes on it.  Close to the right of the bridge
is an old house that belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh; and,
curiously enough, another on the river bank not far above
it is said to have been occupied by Sir Francis Drake just
before the coming of the Armada.  The Duke of Medina Sidonia,
who commanded the Spanish fleet, was ordered to detach a force
as soon as he landed, to destroy the Forest of Dean, which
was a principal source for timber for the British navy; and
it is probable that the Queen's ministers were aware of this
and took measures in defence, with which Drake had to do.

Two miles lower than the bridge is the Forest port of Lydney,
now chiefly used for shipping coal; and as the ex-Verderer
of the Forest resides near it, and he would be able to furnish
information of interest to our American visitor, we decided
to drive to Lydney to begin.

It was too late to start the same day, however; and Senator
Hoar stayed at Upton, where his visit happens to mark the
close of what is known as the "open-field" system of tillage;
a sort of midway between the full possession of land by freehold,
and  unrestricted common rights.  The area over which he walked,
and which for thousands of years has been divided by "meres"
and boundary stones, is now to be enclosed, and so will lose
its archaeological claims to interest.  In one corner of it,
however, there still remains a fragment of Roman road, with
some of the paving stones showing through the grass of the
pasture field.  The name of this piece of land gives the clue
to its history.  It is called Sandford; a corruption of Sarn
Ford, from _sarnu_ (pronounced "sarney") _to pave;_ and _fford,_
a road.  These are Celtic Cornish and Welsh words; and it
should be noted that the names of the Roman roads in the Island
as well as those of the mountains and rivers, are nearly all
Celtic, and not Latin or Saxon.*

[Footnote]
* The Whitcombe Roman Villa, four miles east of Upton, stands in
a field called Sandals.  In Lyson's description of it, written
in 1819 it stands as _Sarn_dells.  The paved road ran through
the dell.
[End of Footnote]

We made a short delay in the morning, at Gloucester, to give
Senator Hoar time to go on board the boat "Great Western"
which had just arrived in our docks from Gloucester, Massachusetts,
to visit the mother city, after a perilous voyage across the
Atlantic by Captain Blackburn single-handed.  Senator Hoar
having welcomed the captain in his capacity of an old Englishman
and a New Englander "rolled into one," we set out for Lydney,
skirting the bank of one arm of the Severn which here forms
an island.  It was on this Isle of Alney that Canute and Edmund
Ironside fought the single-handed battle that resulted in
their dividing England between them.*  We pass on to the Island
at Westgate Bridge; and a quarter of a mile further leave
it by Over Bridge; one of Telford's beautiful works.  Just
below it the Great Western Railway crosses the river by an
iron bridge, the western piers of which rest upon Roman foundations.

[Footnote]
* Sharon Turner's "Anglo Saxons," Vol. III., Chap. XV.
[End of Footnote]

One remarkable thing which I believe I forgot to mention to
George Hoar as we crossed the Island, is, that the meadows
on both sides of the causeway belong to the "Freemen" of the
city; and that, go back as far as we may in history, we cannot
find any account of the original foundation of this body.
But we have this clue to it--that Gloucester was made into
a Colony in the reign of Nerva, just before the end of the
first century; and in each Roman colony lands were allotted
to the soldiers of the legions who had become freemen by reason
of having served for twenty-five years.  These lands were
always on the side of the city nearest the enemy; and the
lands we are crossing are on the western side of Glevum, nearest
the _Silures,_ or South Welsh, who were always the most dangerous
enemies the Romans had in Britain.  Similarly, at Chester,
the freemen's lands are on the west, or enemy's side, by the
Dee.  In Bath it was the same.

Immediately after passing "Over" Bridge we might turn off,
it time permitted, to see Lassington Oak, a tree of giant
size and unknown age; but as Emerson says--

  There's not enough for this and that--
  Make thy option which of two!

and we make ours for Lydney.  A dozen miles drive, often
skirting the right bank of the Severn, brings us to Newnham,
a picturesque village opposite a vast bend, or horse-shoe,
of the river, and over which we get a beautiful view from
the burial ground on the cliff.  The water expands like a
lake, beyond which the woods, house-interspersed, stretch
away to the blue Cotteswold Hills; the monument to William
Tyndale being a landmark on one of them--Nibley Knoll.  Just
under that monument was fought the last great battle between
Barons.  This battle of Nibley Knoll, between Lord Berkeley
and Lord Lisle, left the latter dead on the field, at night,
with a thousand of the men of the two armies; and made Lord
Berkeley undisputed master of the estates whose name he bore.

We now leave the river, and turn inland; and in a short time
we have entered the Forest of Dean proper; that is, the lands
that belong to the Crown.  Their area may be roughly set down
as fifteen miles by ten; but in the time of the Conqueror,
and for many years after, it was much larger; extending from
Ross on the north, to Gloucester on the east, and thence thirty
miles to Chepstow on the south-west.  That is, it filled the
triangle formed by the Severn and the Wye between these towns.
It is doubtless due to this circumstance of its being so completely
cut off from the rest of the country by these rivers that
it has preserved more remarkably than any other Forest, the
characteristics and customs of ancient British life, to which
we shall presently refer; for their isolation has kept the
Dean Foresters to this hour a race apart.

Sir James Campbell, who was for between thirty and forty years
the chief "Verderer," or principal government officer of the
Forest, lives near Lydney.  He received us with great kindness,
and gave us statistics of the rate of grown of the oak, both
with and without transplantation.  Part of them are published
in an official report on the Forest (A 12808.  6/1884.  Wt.
3276. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London) and part are in manuscript
with which Senator Hoar has been presented.  Briefly, the
chief points are these:

In 1784 or thereabouts acorns were planted in "Acorn Patch
Enclosure" in the Forest; and in 1800 trees marked A and B
were taken from this place and planted opposite the "Speech
House."  Two, marked D and F, were drawn out of Acorn Patch
in 1807 and planted near the Speech House fence.  Another,
marked N, was planted in 1807, five and one-half feet high,
in the Speech House grounds, next the road; and L, M, N, X,
have remained untransplanted in the Acorn Patch.

The dimensions were (circumference, six feet from the ground),
in inches--
                    A       B      D      F      L      M      N      X
In 1814, Oct.  5,  14-3/4  14     11      9-1/2 15-5/8 18-1/2 13     24-1/2
   1824, Oct. 20,  29-1/2  28-3/4 25-3/8 22-1/8 22-1/2 23-3/4 30-1/8 32-1/8
   1844, Oct.  5,  58-1/2  58     45     46     35     34-1/2 57     44-1/2
   1864, Oct.  1,  73-1/2  71     59-1/2 67-3/4 46-1/2 44     73-1/4 56

Another experiment tried by Sir James Campbell himself gave
the following results:

Experiment begun in 1861 to test the value, if any, of merely
lifting and replanting oak trees in the same holes without
change of soil, situation, or giving increased space; as compared
with the experiment already detailed, which was begun in
1800.

In 1861, twelve oak trees of about 25 years' growth, which
had been self-sown (dropping from old trees afterwards cut
down) in a thick plantation, were selected, all within gunshot
of each other, and circumferences measured at five feet from
the ground.  Of these, six were taken up and immediately replanted
in the same holes.  The other six were not interfered with
at all.

Aggregate admeasurement of six   Aggregate admeasurement of six
dug up and replanted.  Marked    not interfered with.  Marked in
in _white_ paint 1, 2, 3, &c.    _red_ paint 1, 2, 3, &c.
1861,   24-1/2 inches             27 inches (_i. e._, 2-1/2 inches more
                                             than the transplanted ones,
                                             at starting.)
1866,   37-3/4    "               46-1/2 "  (_i. e._, 10-7/8 inches more
                                             than the transplanted ones
                                             at starting.)
1886,  118-1/4    "              118-5/8 "  (_i. e._, the transplanted
                                             ones had now _regained_
                                             10-1/2 inches.)
1888,  125-1/2    "              123-1/2 "  (The transplanted trees in '88
                                             had outgrown the others by
                                             2 ins.)
1890,  133-7/8    "              128     "  (The transplanted trees in '90
                                             had outgrown the others by
                                             5-7/8 ins.)
1892,  141        "              131-1/4 "  (The transplanted trees in '92
                                             had outgrown the others by
                                             9-3/4 ins.)

Thus proving that merely transplanting is beneficial to oaks;
the benefit, however, being greater when the soil is changed
and more air given.*

[Footnote]
* The Earl of Ducie, who has had very large experience as an
arboriculturist, does _not_ hold the view that oaks are benefited
by transplanting, if the acorns are sown _in good soil._  In the
case of trees that show little or no satisfactory progress after
four years, but are only just able to keep alive, he cuts them
down to the root.  In the next season 80 per cent. of them
send up shoots from two to three feet high, and at once start
off on their life's mission.
[End of Footnote]

From Lydney a drive of a few miles through pleasant ups and
downs of woodland and field, brings us to Whitemead Park,
the official residence of the Verderer, Philip Baylis.  The
title "Verderer" is Norman, indicating the administration
of all that relates to the "Vert" or "Greenery" of the Forest;
that is, of the timber, the enclosures, the roads, and the
surface generally.  The Verderer's Court is held at the "Speech
House," to which we shall presently come: but the Forest of
Dean is also a mineral district, and the Miners have a separate
Court of their own.  That some of their customs go back to
a very remote antiquity we may well believe when we find the
scale of which the Romans worked iron in the Forest; a scale
so great that with their imperfect method of smelting with
Catalan furnaces, etc., so much metal was left in the Roman
cinder that it has been sought after all the way down to within
the present generation as a source of profit; and in the
time of Edward I., one-fourth of the king's revenue from
this Forest was derived from the remelted Roman refuse.

I have a beautiful Denarius of Hadrian which was found in
the old Roman portion of the Lydney-Park Iron Mine in 1854,
with a number of other silver coins, some of them earlier
in date; but when we speak of the "mines," the very ancient
ones in the Forest were rather deep quarries than what would
now be termed mines.  As we drive along we now and then notice
near the roadside, nearly hidden by the dense foliage of the
bushes, long dark hollows, which are locally known as _"scowles,"_
another Celtic word meaning gorges or hollows; something like
ghyll in the Lake District, "Dungeon Ghyll," and so on.  These
were Roman and British Hematite mines.  If we had been schoolboys
I would have taken Senator Hoar down into a scowl and we should
both have come back with our clothes spoiled, and our arms
full of the splendid hartstongue ferns that cover the sides
and edges of the ravine.  But they are dangerous places for
any but miners _or_ schoolboys; and I shrank from encouraging
an enthusiastic American to risk being killed in a Roman pit,
even with the ideal advantage of afterwards being buried with
his own ancestors in England!  So I said but little about
them.

The Miners' Court is presided over by another government
officer, called the "Gaveller"; from a Celtic word which means
_holding;_ as in the Kentish custom of "Gavelkind."* These
courts are held in "Saint Briavels" (pronounced "Brevels")
Castle:  a quaint old building of the thirteenth century,
on the western edge of the Forest, where it was placed to
keep the Welsh in check.  It looks down on a beautiful reach
of the river Wye at Bigswear; and it was just on this edge
that Wordsworth stood in 1798, when he thought out his "Lines
composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey," etc.

  Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
  Of five long winters; and again I hear
  These waters rolling from their mountain springs
  With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
  Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs.

Senator Hoar will recall the scene from the railway below:
the

  "Plots of cottage ground" that "lose themselves
  'Mid groves and copses";

and he will say how exactly the words describe

  These hedge-rows; hardly hedge-rows; little lines
  Of sportive wood run wild,

for they cover yards in width in some places, as he will
remember my pointing out to him.  The castle is placed on
the outside of the Forest and close on the Wye, to guard what
was seven centuries ago the frontier of Wales; and the late
William Philip Price (Commissioner of Railways and for many
years member of Parliament for Gloucester) told me that when
he was a boy the Welsh tongue was still spoken at Landogo,
the next village down the river, midway between Bigswear and
Tintern.

[Footnote]
* I suspect "Gaffer," the English equivalent of "Boss," may be
the same root:  _i. e.,_ the _taker_ or contractor.
[End of Footnote]

Philip Baylis showed us some of the old parchments connected
with the Mine Court; one document especially precious being
a copy of the "Book of Denys," made in the time of Edward
III.  It sets forth the ancient customs which formed the laws
of the miners.  At this point the Verderer had to settle some
matter of the instant, but he put us under the care of a young
man who acted as our guide to one of the ancient and giant
oaks of the Forest, on the "Church Hill" enclosure, about
three-quarters of a mile up the hill above the Park.  Nicholls
("History of the Forest of Dean," page 20) thinks the name
Church Hill comes from the setting apart of some land here
for the Convent of _Grace Dieu_ to pay for masses for the
souls of Richard II., his ancestors and successors.

It was a steep climb; and the evening twilight was coming
on apace as we followed the little track to the spot where
the old oak rises high above the general level of the wood,
reminding one of Rinaldo's magical myrtle, in "Jerusalem Delivered":

  O'er pine, and palm, and cypress it ascends;
  And towering thus all other trees above
  Looks like the elected queen and genius of the grove!

Only that for an _oak_ of similar standing we must say "king"
instead of "queen"; emblem as it is of iron strength and endurance.

It is not so much the girth of the tree as its whole bearing
that impresses a beholder; and I do not think either of us
will forget its effect in the gloom and silence and mystery
of the gathering night.

Resisting a kindly pressure to stay the night at Whitemead,
that we might keep to our programme of sleeping at the Speech
House, we started on the last portion of the long day's drive.
The road from Parkend, after we have climbed a considerable
hill, keeps mostly to the level of a high ridge.  It is broad
and smooth; and the moonlight and its accompanying black shadows
on the trees made the journey one of great beauty; while the
mountain air lessened the sense of fatigue that would otherwise
have pressed heavily on us after so long a day amid such novel
surroundings.  The only thing to disturb the solitude is
the clank of machinery; and the lurid lights, as we pass a
colliery; and then a mile of two more with but the sound
of our own wheels and the rhythm of the horses' feet, and
we suddenly draw up at an hotel in the midst of the Forest,
its quiet well-lighted interior inviting us through the doorway,
left open to the cool summer night air.  We are at the Speech
House.  We had bespoken our rooms by wire in the morning:
Senator Hoar had a _chambre d'honneur,_ with a gigantic carved
four-post bed that reminded him of the great bed of Ware.
His room like my "No. 5," looked out over magnificent bays
of woodland to the north.  The Speech House is six hundred
feet above the sea, and the mountain breeze coming through
the wide open window, with this wonderful prospect of oak
and beech and holly in the moonlight,--the distance veiled,
but scarcely veiled, by the mist, suggest a poem untranslatable
in words, and incommunicable except to those who have passed
under the same spell.  We speak of a light that makes darkness
visible; and similarly there are sounds that deepen the long
intervals of silence with which they alternate.  One or two
vehicles driving past; now and then the far-off call of owls
answering one another in the woods--one of the sweetest sounds
in nature--the varying cadence carrying with it a sense of
boundlessness and infinite distance; and with it we fall asleep.

If there is anything more beautiful than a moonlight summer
night in the heart of the Forest of Dean, it is its transformation
into a summer morning, with the sparkle of dew on the grass,
and the sunrise on the trees; with the music of birds, and
the freshness that gives all these their charm.

As soon as we are dressed we take a stroll out among the trees.
In whichever direction we turn we are struck by the abundance
of hollies.  I believe there are some three thousand full
grown specimens within a radius of a mile of the Speech House.
This may be due to the spot having been from time immemorial
the central and most important place in the Forest.  The roads
that lead to it still show the Roman paving-stones in many
places, as Senator Hoar can bear witness; and the central
point of a British Forest before the Roman time would be occupied
by a sacred oak.  The Forest into which Julius Caesar pursued
the Britons to their stronghold, was Anderida, that is, the
Holy Oak; from _dar,_ oak (Sanskrit, daru, a tree), and _da,_
good.  It is worth remarking that this idea survives in the
personal name, Holyoak; for who ever heard of "Holyelm," or
"Holyash," or a similar form compounded of the adjective and
the name of any other tree than the oak.  If there is an exception
it is in the name of the _holly_.  The Cornish Celtic word
for holly was Celyn, from Celli (or Kelli), a grove; literally
a _grove-one;_ so that the holly was probably planted as a
grove or screen round the sacred oak.  Such a planting of
a holly grove in the central spot of the Forest in the Druid
time, would account for these trees being now so much more
numerous round the Speech House than they are in any other
part of the woods.  The Saxon name is merely the word _holy_
with the vowel shortened, as in _holi_day; and that the tree
really was regarded as holy is shown by the custom in the
Forest Mine Court of taking the oath on a stick of holly held
in the hand.  This custom survived down to our own times;
for Kedgwin H. Fryer, the late Town Clerk of Gloucester,
told me he had often seen a miner sworn in the Court, touching
the Bible with the holly stick!  The men always kept their
caps on when giving evidence to show they were "Free miners."

The oaks, marked A. B., of whose growth statistics have already
been given, stand on the side of the Newnham road opposite
the Speech House.  The Verderer is carrying on the annual
record of their measurements.

We return to the house by the door on the west; the one at
which we arrived last evening.  It was then too dark to observe
that the stone above it, of which I took a careful sketch
several years ago, is crumbling from the effects of weather,
after having withstood them perfectly for two centuries.  The
crown on it is scarcely recognizable; and the lettering has
all disappeared except part of the R.

We breakfast in the quaint old Court room.  Before us is
the railed-off dais, at the end, where the Verderer and his
assistants sit to administer the law.  On the wall behind
them are the antlers of a dozen stags; reminders of the time,
about the middle of the present century, when the herds of
deer were destroyed on account of the continual poaching to
which they gave occasion.  Many of the cases that come before
the Court now are of simple trespass.

This quaint old room, with its great oak beam overhead, and
its kitchen grate wide enough to roast a deer--this strange
blending of an hotel dining-room and a Court of Justice, has
nevertheless a link with the far distant past more wonderful
than anything that has come down to us in the ruins of Greece
or Rome.

Look at the simple card that notifies the dates of holding
the Vederer's Court.  Here is an old one which the Verderer,
Philip Baylis, has kindly sent to Senator Hoar in response
to his request for a copy.

  V. R.
  Her Majesty's Forest of Dean,
  Gloucestershire,
  VERDERERS' COURT.
  Verderers:
  Charles Bathurst, Esq.  Sir Thomas H.
  Crawley-Boevey, Bart.
  Maynard Willoughby Colchester-Wemyss, Esq.
  Russell James Kerr, Esq.
  Deputy-Surveyor:
  Philip Baylis, Esq.
  Steward:
  James Wintle.
  ----NOTICE----
  The VERDERERS of Her Majesty's Forest of Dean hereby give
  Notice that the COURT of ATTACHMENT of our Sovereign Lady
  the Queen for the said Forest will be holden by adjournment, at
  the Speech House, in the said Forest, at half-past Two o'clock, in
  the afternoon, on the following days during the year 1897, viz.:
  Wednesday, the 27th January;
  Monday, the 8th March;
  Saturday, the 17th April;
  Thursday, the 27th May;
  Tuesday, the 6th July;
  Monday, the 16th August;
  Friday, the 24th September;
  Wednesday, the 3rd November;
  Monday, the 13th December;
  James Wintle,
  Steward.
  Newnham, 1st January, 1897.

Many years ago I stood in the Court Room examining a similar
notice, puzzled at the absence of any system or order in the
times appointed for the sittings, which did not come once
a month, or every six weeks; and did not even fall twice in
succession on the same day of the week.  Turning to the landlord
of the hotel I asked, "What is the rule for holding the Court?
_When_ is it held?"  _"Every forty days at twelve o'clock
at noon"_ was the reply.  Reflection showed that so strange
a periodicity related to no notation of time with which we
are now in touch; it must belong to a system that has passed
away; but what could this be?

We are reminded by the date of the building we are in (1680),
that the room itself cannot have been used for much more than
two centuries for holding the Courts.

But there was a Verderer's Court held in several Forests
besides this Forest of Dean, long before the Stuart days.
The office itself is mentioned in Canute's Forest charter,
dating back nearly nine hundred years; and as at that period
about a third of England was covered with Forests, their influence
must have been very powerful; and local laws and customs in
them must have been far too firmly established for such a
man as Canute to alter them.  He could only have confirmed
what he found; much as he confirmed the laws of nature as
they affected the tides at Southampton!

The next Forest Charter of national importance after Canute's,
is that of Henry III., in 1225.  It is clear that he, again,
made no material change in the old order of things; and in
recapitulating the old order of the Forest Courts, he ordains
that the Court of Attachment (called in Dean Forest the Court
of the Speech) was to be held _every forty days._ This Court
was one of first instance, simply for the hearing of evidence
and getting up the cases for the "Swainmote,"* which came
_three times a year._ The Swains were free man; and at their
_mote_ evidence was required from _three_ witnesses in each
case, on which the Verderer and other officers of the king
passed sentence in accordance with the laws laid down in this
Charter.  From this Swainmote there was a final appeal to
the High Court of the Judges in Eyre (Eyre, from "errer" to
wander, being the Norman French for Itinerant, or, on Circuit)
which was held _once in three years._

[Footnote]
* That the Forest Charter of Hen. III. did not establish these
courts is proved from a passage in Manwood, cap. 8, which runs
thus:  "And the said Swainmotes shal not be kept but within the
counties in the which they have been used to be kept."
[End of Footnote]

The forty-day court was common to all the ancient forests
of Britain; and that they go back to _before_ the time of
Henry III. is clear from the following extracts from Coke's
Fourth Institute, for which I am indebted to the kindness
of James G. Wood, of Lincoln's Inn.

CAP. LXXIII.
          Of the Forests and the Jurisdiction of the Courts
[p 289]   of the Forest.
          * * * * * * *
          And now let us set down the Courts of the
          Forests--Within _every_ Forest there are these
          Courts
          1.  The Court of the Attachments or the Woodmote
          Court.  This is to kept before the
          Verderors every forty days throughout the year
          --and thereupon it is called the Forty-day
          Court--At this Court the Foresters bring in
          the Attachments de viridi et venalione  [&c &c]
          * * * * * * *
          2.  The Court of regard or Survey of days is
          holden every third year  [&c &c]
          * * * * * * *
          3.  The Court of Swainmote is to be holden
          before the Verderors as judges by the Steward of
          the Swainmote thrice in every year  [&c]
          * * * * * * *
          4.  ------ The Court of the Justice Seat holden
          before the Chief Justice of the Forest ---- aptly
          called Justice in eire ------ and this Court of
          the Justice Seat cannot be kept oftener than
          every third year.
          * * * * * * *
   [319]  _For the antiquity of such Forests within England
          as we have treated of the best and surest argument
          therof is that the Forests in England (being in
          number 69) except the New Forest in Hampshire
          erected by William the Conqueror as a conqueror,
          and Hampton Court Forest by Hy 3, by authority
          of Parliament, are so ancient as no record or
          history doth make any mention of any of their
          Erections or beginnings._

Here then we have clear evidence that nearly seven hundred
years ago the Verderer's Court was being held at periods of
time that bore no relation to any division of the year known
to the Normans or Plantagenets, or, before them, to the Saxons,
or even, still earlier, to the Romans.  We are, therefore,
driven back to the period before the Roman invasion in Britain,
and when the Forest legislation was, as Caesar found it, in
the hands of the Druids.  In his brief and vivid account of
these people he tells us that they used the Greek alphabet;
and as he also says they were very proficient in astronomy,
it seems clear that they had their astronomy from the same
source as their literature.  Their astronomy involved of necessity
their notation of time.  And the Greeks, in turn, owed their
astronomy to the Egyptians, with whom the year was reckoned
as of three hundred and sixty days; and this three hundred
and sixty-day year gives us the clue to the forty-day period
for holding the Forest Courts in Ancient Britain.

We cannot fail to be struck, as we examine the old Forest
customs, with the constant use of the _number three,_ as a
sacred or "lucky" number, on every possible occasion.  We
have just seen the role it plays in the Mine Court, with its
_three_ presiding officials, its jury of multiples of _three_
(twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight); its holly stick oath sworn
by _three_ witnesses.  We have notice the Swainmote Court,
also requiring _three_ witnesses, held _three_ times a year, and
subordinate to the Court of Eyre held once in _three_ years;
to which should be added the perambulation of the Forest
bounds at the same triennial visit in Eyre, when the king's
officers were accompanied by nine foresters in fee (_three
threes_) and twenty-four jurors (_eight threes_).

To go fully into the role of the number three in British
traditions would require a profound study; but it may be
useful briefly to note its influence on the Bardic poetry--
the Triads, where the subjects are all grouped in threes.
Nor was this predilection confined to the Island.  We find
it affecting the earliest history of Rome itself, with its _nine_
gods ("By the nine gods he swore") and the _nine_ books which
the Sibyl destroyed by _threes,_ till the last _three_ were
saved.  Then we have the evidence in the name _nundina_*
for a market, that the week was originally a cycle not of
seven, but of _nine_ days; and our own saying that a given
thing is a _"nine days wonder"_ is undoubtedly a survival
from the period when the nine days made a week,** for such
a phrase expresses a round number or unit of time; not nine
_separate_ days.

[Footnotes]
* The Romans meant by _nundinae_ periods that were really of
eight days; but they made them nine by counting in the one _from_
which they started.  So accustomed were they to this method
of notation that the priests who had the control of the calendar,
upset Julius Caesar's plan for intercalating a day once in
_four_ years ("Bissextile") by insisting that the interval
intended was _three_ years!  Augustus was obliged to rectify
this by dropping the overplus day it occasioned.  It is this
Roman custom of _inclusive_ reckoning which has led to the
French calling a week _huit jours_, and a fortnight, _une
quinzaine_.

** The word week comes from _wika_ (= Norsk _vika_) to bend or
_turn_.  The idea connected with it was no doubt that of the
moon's turning from one of its quarters to the next.  I can
remember when some of the people in "the Island" in Gloucester
always made a point of _turning_ any coins they had in their
pockets when it was new moon and repeating a sort of invocation
to the moon!  How or when the nine day week was exchanged
by western nations for the seven day one, we do not know;
but it is likely that it may have been brought about by the
Phoenicians and Jews, who regarded the number _seven_ as
the Druids regarded _three_--as something especially sacred.
They had much of the commerce of Southern Europe in their
hands, and, therefore, a certain power in controlling the
markets, which it would be a convenience to Jews to _prevent_
falling on the sabbath day.  The circumstance that the lunar
month fitted in with four weeks of seven days no doubt made it
easier to effect the change from _nundinae_.
[End of Footnotes]

Shakespeare had been struck with the relationship of the
_nine_ day week, alluded to in the proverb, to the more modern
one of seven days, as is shown by his very clever juxtaposition
of the two in "As You Like It."  In Act III., Scene 2, he
makes Celia say to Rosalind

"But didst thou hear _without wondering_ how thy name should
be hanged and carved upon these trees?"

And Rosalind replies

"I was _seven_ of the _nine days out of the wonder_ before
you came"--_etc._

Gloucester, down till the Norman time, and after, was the
great manufactory of the iron brought from the Forest of
Dean.  The metal was brought up the Severn by barges, to
the quay which stood at the road running straight down from
Longsmith Street (in which Charles Hoar's house stands), and
buried under all this street we find the cinder and slag of
the Roman forges.  In Domesday book (which was ordered to
be drawn up at a Parliament in Gloucester in 1083) it states
that the City had paid to the King (_i. e.,_ Edward the Confessor)
ten _dicres_ of iron yearly.  This is very remarkable, for
a dicre was three dozen rods or bars; so that the whole tribute
was three hundred and sixty bars, or _one bar per day for
the Druid year of three hundred and sixty days._*

[Footnote]
* For more than a century after Julius Caesar had altered the
year to three hundred and sixty-five days, the Roman soldiers
were still paid at the ancient rate of three hundred and
sixty days only, losing the rest as _"terminalia,"_ or days
not counted as belonging to the year!  The proof of this
is that in the time of Domitian a soldier's _year's_ pay divided
by three hundred and sixty gives an even number of _ases_.
[End of Footnote]

And now we come back to the Verderer's Court at the Speech
House with a clear reason for its being held _"every forty
days at twelve o'clock at noon."_

Forty days was the _ninth_ of the Druid year of three hundred
and sixty, and was a period of five weeks of eight days each,
but which according to the ancient method of counting were
called _"nine-days."_  And the reason the Court sits "at Twelve
o'clock at noon" is because the Druid day began at noon.  Even
now, within ten miles of where I write, the children on Minchinhampton
Common, on the Cotteswold hills, keep up _"old May Day,"_
which was the opening of the Druid year, though they are ignorant
of this.  Boys and girls arm themselves on that day with boughs
of the beech, and go through certain games with them; but
exactly as the clock strikes _twelve_ they throw them away,
under pain of being stigmatized as _"May fools!"_

Well has Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, that _"All_ things
are _in all_ things!"  Even this commonplace list of Court
days in the Forest of Dean becomes a beautiful poem when
the light of such a past shines on it; just as the veriest dust
of the Krakatoan volcano evolves itself into every color
of the rainbow when it rises into the sunset sky.

Since writing this paper I find that Philip Baylis, the Verderer
of the Forest of Dean, has kindly sent three or four dozen
of young oak trees from the Government plantations, to Washington,
in order that they may be planted there and in some other
places in the United States, to begin the century with.  The
State Department of Agriculture has arranged for the planting
of these oaks, and the periodical record of their measurements,
so that a valuable basis will be established for an experiment
that may be carried on for a century, or more; and we, the
archaeologists of the nineteenth century, shall have wiped
away the stigma implied in the old Aberdeen Baillie's remark,
that as _Posteerity_ had never done anything for us, we ought
not to do anything for _posteerity!_

The Earl of Ducie has sent, accompanying these Forest of Dean
oaks, four small plants, seedlings from the great Chestnut
Tree on his Estate at Tortworth; the largest and oldest of
its sort in Great Britain.  It measures forty-nine feet round
the trunk.

Leaving the Speech House for Coleford and Newland we descend
a steep hill for half a mile, and crossing the rail at the
Station we begin to ascend the opposite rise through the woods.
As the carriage climbs slowly up we keep on the lookout for
the margin-stones of the Roman paving which here and there
show through the modern metaled surface--pieces fifteen to
twenty inches long by about five inches in thickness, and
set so deep in the ground that eighteen hundred years' wear
has never moved them.  They are buttressed on the outer edge
by similar blocks set four or five inches lower, and themselves
forming one side of the solidly paved water-way or gutter
which was constructed as part of every such road on a steep
gradient, to secure it from abrasion by flood or sudden rush
from heavy rainfall.  There are many excellent examples of
this in the Forest of Dean.  We are on the watch, however,
for some part where the _"margines"_ remain on _both_ sides
of the way.  At last we come upon such a place, and alighting
from the carriage we strain the tape measure across at two
or three points.  The mean we find to be thirteen feet and
seven inches.  As the Roman foot was just over three per cent.
less than ours, this means that the Romans built the road
here for a fourteen-foot way.  So far as I have examined
their roads they were always constructed to certain standard
widths--seven feet, nine feet, eleven feet, thirteen feet,
fourteen feet, or fifteen feet.

It is not too much to say that most of the main roads in
England are Roman; but the very continuity of their use has
caused this to be overlooked.  All the _old_ roads in the
Forest of Dean have been pronounced by the Ordnance Surveyors,
after close examination, to bear evidences of Roman paving,
although for some centuries since then wheel carriages went
out of use here!

There is a vivid description in Statius of the making of
an imperial-road through such another Forest (if not indeed
this very one!) especially worth recalling here, because it
was written at very nearly the period of the building of
this track over which we are journeying; _i. e.,_ near the
end of the first century.

The poet stands on a hill from which he can see the effect
of the united work of the army of men who are engaged in
the construction:  perhaps a hundred thousand forced laborers,
under the control of the legionary soldiers who act as the
engineers.  He makes us see and hear with him the tens of
thousands of stone cutters and the ring of their tools squaring
the "setts"; and then one platoon after another stepping forward
and laying down its row of stones followed by rank after rank
of men with the paviours' rammers, which rise and fall at
the sweep of the band-master's rods, keeping time in a stately
music as they advance; the continuous falling and crashing
of the trees as other thousands of hands ply the axes along
the lines, that creep, slowly, but visibly, on through the
Forest that no foot had ever trodden--the thud of the multitudinous
machines driving the piles in the marshy spaces; the whole
innumerable sounds falling on the ear like the roaring of
a great and vast sea.

The language Statius uses is more simple than mine; but this
is substantially the picture he gives:  and I know of nothing
that so impresses on the imagination the thunder of the power
of the Roman Empire as this creation in the wilderness, in
one day, of an iron way that shall last for all time.

We are here in the sweet silence of a summer morning, eighteen
hundred years after such a scene, and able mentally to catch
some glimpse of it; some echo of the storm that has left behind
it so ineffaceable a mark.

"I intended to ask you just now whether the man you spoke
to in the road was a typical native of the district?" said
Senator Hoar.  "He was dark and swarthy, with very black hair
and piercing eyes; not at all like the majority of people
we see in Gloucester for instance."  "Yes, he is a typical
Forester"; exactly such a man as Tacitus describes his Silurian
ancestors; so Spanish in appearance that he tries to account
for it by remarking that _"that part of Britain lies over
against Spain";_ as if it was such a short run across the
Bay of Biscay to the upper end of the Bristol Channel that
nothing would be more natural than for Spaniards to sail over
here with their wives and families and become Silures!

These Western Britons, both here in the Forest and in Cornwall
certainly remind one of Spaniards.  The type is of an older
Celtic than that of the present Welsh people proper, as some
evidences in the language also point to the occupation being
an older one.  With respect to this particular district of
the Forest and the East of Monmouthshire, one more element
must not be left out of the account; and that is, that Caerleon
was founded by the second legion being removed to it from
Gloucester about the time this road was made; and that it
remained for three hundred years the headquarters of that
legion, which was a Spanish one raised in the time of Augustus.
Forty years ago I remember being at Caerleon (two and one
half miles from Newport), when I met the children of the village
coming out of school.  It was hard to believe they were not
Spanish or Italian!

At all events this part of Britain lies over against Boston;
and Americans can cross over and see Caerleon for themselves
more easily than the people could, of whom Tacitus wrote.


INDEX [omitted]

[Transcriber's notes:

Typed into MS-DOS Editor under Windows XP, using 7-bit characters
only.  Several errors of punctuation or of single letters have been
corrected.  The author uses both "contemporary" and "cotemporary."

The Latin has not been checked for spelling, grammar, or sense.
The one Greek quotation (of two words) has been omitted.

Words have been hyphenated at the ends of lines only when the words
are hyphenated elsewhere in the text or in common usage.]











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