XII. ELECTION TO CONGRESS…

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!"

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