Life and public services of William Pitt Fessenden, United States senator from Maine 1854-1864; secretary of the Treasury 1864-1865; United States senator from Maine 1865-1869

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Preface

SENATOR Fbssenden, during his public life, was a conscientious public servant, and his abilities and usefulness were so great that his fellow senators placed him in positions requiring intense assiduity in the preparation of measures and study of their subject-matter. To this work he gave all his energies and time, secluding himself from the public and the newspaper representatives to such an extent that his personality was, in relation to his importance in the Senate, comparatively little known, except to those who paid more than average attention to matters at Washington. There was nothing picturesque or sensational about him, and he did not become, like some of his contemporaries, a " popular figure " with the people at large. After his death there was no one sufficiently interested to write his life and at the same time in a position to do so. His sons were young men whose energies were sufficiently taxed in the support of their families. Some ten years or more ago, however, his son, Francis Fessenden, Brigadier-general U. S. A., retired Major-general U. S. V., undertook to write his father's life, and devoted years to the assembling of material, obtaining copies or originals of important letters, copies of records and documents from their archives, and writing the first draft of the biography. The labor was very great, as Senator Fessenden had kept copies of a few of his important letters only, and many of his personal papers had been destroyed in the Portland fire. The result of General Fessenden's labor was a manu-

Ti PKEFACE

script of very great length, which was considered by him to need much condensation and excision.

General Fessenden re-wrote the work, and concluded it in 1905, but he died January 2, 1906, without having arranged for its publication. He bequeathed the manuscript and data to me and requested me to revise it and arrange for its publication. I have made no substantial alterations except that I have added some general letters, the author's photograph, and certain letters complimentary to the general which his own modesty forbade him to use.

JAMES D. FESSENDEN.

New York, February, 1907.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I

Chapter I 1806-1854

Birth. — School. — Bowdoin College. — Lawyer. — Maine legislature, 1842.

— Maine legislature, 1845. — Resolves to base his future political action upon opposition to extension of slayery. — Defeated for Congress. — Western trip -with Daniel Webster's party. — Member of Congress, 1841-1851. — Delegate at large to Whig National Convention, 1852. — Maine legislature, 1852-1853. — Elected United States senator, 1854. — Sketch of the life of

his father, Samuel Fessenden 1-39

Chapter II 1854-1859

Enters United States Senate, February 23, 1854. — Nebraska Bill speech. — Charles Sumner's description of the incident. — Position on reciprocity with Canada. — He advises and promotes formation of Anti-extension party at the North. — Speech urging nnion of all parties in the new party, 1854. — Participation in Senate debates, 1855. — His son Samuel runs away from home to Kansas, 1856. — Samuel's description of conditions in Kansas. — Speech on our relations with Great Britain, 1857. — Rebuke to Douglas, 1857. — National election. — Buchanan elected President. — Death of his wife. — Participation in Maine campaign. — Return to Washington.

— Fitzpatrick incident. — Kansas debate. — Senator Fessenden's rebuke to President Buchanan for his prevarication in his Kansas message. — Opposes admission of Oregon as a State because of objectionable negro clause in proposed Constitution. — Opposes bill to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba 40-100

Chapter III 1859-1861

Reelected United States senator unanimously, 1859. — Debates on the Isthmus Pacific Railroad, Washington horse-railroad, invalid pensions, and other bills. — John Brown nud inquiry. — Defends his party against Senator viji CONTENTS

Douglas's charges. — Forbids Maine delegation to National Bepnblican Convention at Chicago to use his name, 1860. — Position on the proceedings against Hyatt for refusal to testify before the Senate's committee. — Election of Lincoln and Hamlin, 1860. — Secession takes place. — Fessenden'a opposition to any compromise with the South. — Assumes charge of the appropriation bills on floor of Senate. — Lincoln's inauguration. — Death of Douglas. — Speech on relations with England, condensed. — Speech on President Buchanan's Kansas message, condensed 101-184

Chapter IV Chairman Op Finance Committee

1861-1864

Chairman of committee on finance. — Bills reported. — Preparation and defense of tariff bills. — His position on the Legal Tender Act. — Financial history, 1861-1864, and his part therein 185-228

Chapter V Seward And Stanton : Negro Soldiers : Legal Tender

1862-1864

His action on the nomination of Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War. — His account of the Senate's effort to induce President Lincoln to retire Secretary Seward from the State Department. — Participation in debates on miscellaneous matters. — Eulogy on Senator Pearce. — His sons in the military service. — He arraigns the administration's war policy in a speech favoring using the negroes as soldiers. — His son James organizes and drills the first negro regiment. — Home letters upon President Lincoln's war policy. — Speeches on the confiscation measures. — General position and speeches on the negro questions. — His son Frank is severely wounded. — Sharp controversy with Senators Chandler and Trumbull over the bill to grant privileges for a telegraph line over British and Russian territory. — Secretary Chase resigns the Treasury. — Condensation of debate on Legal Tender Act. — His defense of the arrests by the State Department . 229-312

CHAPTER VI SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 1864r-1865

Mr. Fessenden as Secretary of the Treasury, July, 1864, to March 3, 1865 313-374

ILLUSTRATIONS

WHiiiiAM Pitt Fessenden Frontispiece

From the painting by Brumldi, in the possession of James D. Fessenden.

WnxiAM Pitt Fessehdek 2

From a miniature painted in 1818 when Mr, Fessenden was 12 years old.

WiLiiiAM Pitt Fessekden in 1836 .12

GsNEBAii Samuel Fessenden 34

Senator Fessenden'a father.

From a photograph in 1854.

LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN

Chapter I Before Entering The United States Senate

William Pitt Fbssbnden was born October 16, 1806. His first American ancestor on the paternal side was Nicholas Fessenden of Cambridge, Massachusetts. William Pitt Fessenden, the subject of this sketch, was the son of Samuel Fessenden and Ruth Greene. Samuel was the son of William Fessenden and Sarah Clement. William Fessenden was the son of WUliam Fessenden and Mary Palmer, and that William Fessenden was the son of WilUam Fessenden and Margaret Wyeth, and the last named William Fessenden was the son of Nicholas Fessenden and Jane Atkinson. The original Fessenden, in America, was an uncle of Nicholas, John Fessenden, who came to Cambridge from Canterbury, England, as early as 1628. He died childless and his property descended to his nephew Nicholas and his niece Hannah, so that Nicholas was the first in America of the line from which WilHam Pitt sprang. Nicholas was a man of education, and all his descendants above named were men of education and means ; they married correspondingly, so that William Pitt Fessenden came into the world with a line of ancestry behind him of cultivated and well-to-do people.

The first six years of William Pitt Fessenden's life were passed in the house of his grandmother at Frye-

2 WILLIAM PITT FESSBNDEN

burg, Maine ; but when he was seven years old he went to live with his father, who was a lawyer in New Gloucester, Maine. The boy grew up in a cultivated and Puritan atmosphere, and is described as being tall, thin, and very graceful, learning and reading eagerly, giving early promise of a brilliant career. He was called Pitt by his friends, and continued to be so called during his life by his friends and family. He opened early intellectually, but did not neglect the athletic and hardening sports and pastimes of people similarly situated. At the age of eleven he was prepared to enter Bowdoin College and presented himself for examination ; Chief Justice Appleton says he distinctly remembers him as he appeared in a jacket and trousers, with a broad ruffle about his neck and looking very youthful, so youthful, in fact, in appearance, that the president of the college advised him to go back to his home for a year. He did so, postponing his entrance a year and then entering with the class which graduated in 1823. He had not inherited the powerful physical organization of his father, who was a giant physically, but had inherited a slender and graceful form from his mother, and her sensitive and nervous temperament with a delicate physiognomy. He attended the studies of the first year of the college, but lived at Gorham, his father considering him too young to be away from home influence and live as boys at college do, and in this home he read Horace and Graeca Majora. He began Uving in the college town at the beginning of his Sophomore year, and took only respectable rank at first. He was not ambitious during the first two years, because his quickness of mind enabled him to take average rank easily, and left him time for amusements and sports; but at the last of his junior year, after the faculty had assigned their parts to the best scholars, a spurious assignment of

At twelve years parts was perpetrated as a joke, giving him a very inferior one ; he was stung by this and resolved to win high rank, the result being that he stood high for the rest of his college course and would have graduated well if he had not got into trouble with the faculty. He was suspended by the faculty for something which he claimed he had not done. The boy wrote to his father that he could prove that he had not done the things with which he was charged. The father appealed from the decision of the faculty to the governing board of the college, the faculty was overruled, and the boy was allowed to receive his degree and appear in the catalogue as having graduated with his class. Upon leaving college he began to study law, although not seventeen years of age. The rules of the court would not allow his admission to practice until he was twenty-one years old, and he occupied the intervening time in haunting the courts of Cumberland County, observing the methods of the distinguished and able lawyers of that bar, among whom his father was a leader. He appUed himself, among other things, to acquiring a command of correct and vigorous English speech, suited to the plain men who made up the New England juries, and with this object in view he wrote much, selecting the most simple and expressive Anglo- Saxon words. He wrote criticisms and articles for the newspapers, and had become somewhat known in the town as a young man of promise, — so much so, that in October, 1825, just about his nineteenth birthday, he deUvered the annual address before the Portland Benevolent Society.

This address was the first of many addresses which he delivered in his earlier years. In the spring of 1826 he went to the city of New York to study his profession with his uncle, Thomas Pessenden, desiring to acquaint himself with equity practice, which at that time had been highly developed in New York, though but little developed in the State of Maine. He did not like the practice o£ law in the State of New York, regarding it as " vexatious " and requiring " threefold the labor to carry on a suit than was needed at home." He was four months in New York, and later said that the best results he had from that visit were from the exercise in walking three miles from his uncle's home to the office and going about doing errands. He now proposed to his father that he should go South and try his fortune, promising that if he succeeded he would push himself, and if he failed his friends should hear no more of him. But his father desired him to return to Portland, and he did so, resuming his studies in his father's office. He taught school at Gray in the winter, studying law in his spare time, and giving a legal opinion now and then ; but it is observed, in reading the old letters, that before giving an opinion he would state the case to his father, giving his opinion with his authorities, and requesting his father's opinion before he vouchsafed any opinion to the client ; " like a wise man I have reserved my opinion until I have received yours. Please answer by return mail."

In the spring of 1827 he was admitted to practice at the April term of the Supreme Court, although he had not attained his majority, but did not begin to practice until December. While a law student and before being admitted, he delivered the Fourth of July oration in 1827 before the young men of Portland. The oration is extant and shows a close study of national affairs and some acquaintance with the political condition of other countries, and presents the advantages arising from individual exertion and untrammeled intellect, declaring opposition to slavery and intemperance, and looking to popular education for the strongest support of our form of government. In September he delivered an address on music before the Musical Society of New Gloucester. The indorsement he made upon his manuscript persuades one that some of his addresses were made more with a view to get practice than from love for his subject, because the indorsement on the front page of his manuscript is as follows : " A Speechification Delivered before the Squallacious Society in New Gloucester." Under the title he wrote : —

The address, however, is a sober treatise on the efEect of music on the human mind.

In December, 1827, he opened a law office in Bridgeton, in Cumberland County, about thirty-five miles from Portland, taking the office of a well-known lawyer, recently deceased, and plunged at once into business. Business came in to him, and in a fortnight after he made the start in Bridgeton he wrote his father that he would need him in two cases at the next term of the Oxford Court. In the summer of 1828 he prepared and delivered the annual address for the Athenaeum Society of Bowdoin College upon the duties which educated men owed their country. "Manly philosophical research should be subject to no fetters, national progress should be hastened by the enlightened direction of the nation's physical power."

After practicing at Bridgeton for two years, he moved to Portland. Portland was then a place of about thirteen thousand inhabitants, with an extensive foreign commerce and a large domestic trade. The lawyers there constituted a distinguished bar, comprising Samuel Fessenden, Simon Greenleaf, and others. From January to October, 1830, Mr. Fessenden was in business by himself. A great grief came to him in the death of his affianced, Miss Ellen Longfellow, a sister of Henry W. Longfellow. This affliction caused his withdrawal from social enjoyments, and he devoted all of his time to study, and eagerly availed himself of every opportunity to make addresses. He delivered an address before the Temperance Society of the City of Portland, and at this time, despite his extreme youth, he was spoken of by one of the Portland newspapers as " a speaker and writer well known to the inhabitants." This was at the beginning of the temperance agitation in Maine,

In August he delivered the annual address before the Gorham Light Infantry, the address showing a careful study on his part of the laws of war and the principles upon which militia systems were founded. Later in that year he became a partner with his father and Thomas A. DeBlois, the firm name being Fessenden & DeBlois. This connection gave him plenty of work, and he gave up, practically, general studies and preparations of addresses, barring an occasional speech. He began to make political speeches, and described himself at this time, in a letter, as " at the age of almost twenty-five, a sober moralizing man, with little care for anything but to win prosperity, deriving absolute enjoyment from nothing but a new 'suit' and a long account of fees with a balance in my favor;" stating also his belief that a " relentless and untiring ambition is the only safeguard against the seductions of what are called the innocent pleasures of society." It is said of him that he was well fitted for society at this period of his life, as always, having an easy and graceful bearing, agreeable in conversation, and really at heart enjoying social intercourse. Intellectual excitement he loved intensely, whether at the bar, in political debate, or in raillery and badinage among his intimate friends.' His repartee even thus early was excellent. He made himself a good boxer and fencer. He became engaged to Miss Ellen Deering in 1831 and married her the year after. She was the daughter of James Deering, a merchant of Portland, In the fall of 1831 Mr. Fessenden, though not yet twenty-live years old, was elected to the legislature of the State of Maine as an anti-Jackson representative. His party were then called Republicans, but soon after came to be called Whigs. Jackson and anti-Jackson party feeling was high. The important question in Maine at this time was the settlement of the boundary line between Maine and Canada. The dispute had previously been referred to the King of Holland. His decision was not satisfactory, and the federal government proposed that Maine accept the award, cede part of the territory which she claimed to the United States, and take an indemnity for it, the ceded territory to be surrendered to Great Britain. Mr. Fessenden at once took the position of the leader of the anti-Jackson party on the floor of the legislature and opposed the proposition concerning the boundary.

He endeavored to obtain an appropriation of funds for the erection of a general hospital for the State of Maine; he obtained a charter for the city of Portland, and made a long speech on the question of renewing the charter of the United States Bank. The speech was printed in full by the Whig newspapers, and in it he foreshadowed the independence of party dictation, which he exhibited at the great crisis of his life, by saying to the Maine legislature, in reference to the proposition to restrict senators in Congress by resolutions of the state legislatures : "They have much better opportunities to give the question full, fair, and thorough examination than we can possibly possess. On questions of great importance to our whole country, I would not yield my honest convictions to comply with the directions of any set of men whatever. On questions of local interest, connected with ourselves alone, my constituents have a right to instruct me. But sir, on questions of general interest, I have a higher obligation. I am bound to form my own opinions and to act upon them in a question of this kind. Sir, did I know that the opinions of every one of my constituents differed from my own, I would act according to my own conviction of right. I am willing to be the servant of the people, but I will never be their slave."

His performances at this session of the legislature made him well known throughout the State and regarded as the Whig leader in the House and a good debater. At the close of the session the Whigs proposed to nominate him for Congress, but he declined this, having decided to keep out of political life until firmly established in his profession. On his return to Portland from the legis ture in the spring of 1832 he married Miss Deering, and he took her to Washington for a wedding trip, as he had been made a delegate to the Young Men's Whig Convention which was to meet in Washington in May. In spite of his resolve to pay attention to law practice, politics engrossed much of his time, for it was presidential year, and he offered the following toast at a dinner which the anti-Jackson people gave to the two Maine senators: " Constitutional law as expounded by Andrew Jackson, which makes every man responsible only to what he chooses to call his conscientious belief. The acts of this founder and his partisans furnish a strong commentary upon the power of the tribunal." Directly after this, he was beaten for the legislature, and began to attend to his law business. The firm had a large business, but the two senior members were in the prime of life, well rounded in every branch of the practical application of law, so that the younger partner had very little opportunity to come to the front. FeeHng this, he left the firm, and, believing Bangor to be a good place to start, went there. At that time it was a two days' journey by stage from Bangor to Portland. He stayed a year in Bangor, but decided, on account of his wife's health, to come back to Portland, which he did; and his books show that, even before he found an of&ce in Portland, business began to come to him. During the year he was in Bangor, he argued twenty-five cases, together with general business. He found time to write satirical articles upon fashionable hobbies, etc. A case which added to his reputation came to him by accident before he had found an office in Portland, and shows his resources and courage. He made the acquaintance of a gentleman from New York, who was in Portland looking after a cargo which had been consigned by a Cuban house to a Portland firm. The Portland firm had failed while the vessel was on the voyage. If the vessel came into port and the cargo reached the consignees, the cargo would go to the creditors generally. Mr. Fessenden advised that a boat should be kept in readiness on the shore of Cape Elizabeth, about six miles outside of Portland, the coming vessel, when sighted, to be boarded, and a stoppage in transitu efEected. This was done, resulting in a prolonged lawsuit in which the Cuban house was ultimately successful.

The hardships of a lawyer practicing in Maine at that time may be judged by the following letter which Mr. Fessenden wrote from Bangor, where he had gone to try a case. It was in winter and the trip took two days. He says : " It is Bible truth that the thermometer stood at twenty-four degrees below zero when we left Augusta at five A. M. One experiencing such cold can well understand what the phrase, 'Cold as Hell' means. Home? I wish to Heaven I was there and never obHged to leave it."

In the autumn of that year, being in attendance at the United States Circuit Court at Wiscasset, he met Daniel Webster, who had stood as his godfather, but whom he had not seen in the mean time. He made a partnership in 1835 with WilHam Willis, a man older than he, with an established business, but who preferred office to court work. The firm was successful and lasted twenty years, until Mr. Fessenden went to the United States Senate in 1854. He was now one of the first court lawyers in the State of Maine, contending with the leaders of the Maine bar. His principal adversary was his father. It is interesting to note the increase in number of his appearances in the reported cases before the Supreme Court. There is a steady increase until 1837, when in the 14th Maine he first appears in more cases than his father, at this time being thirty-one years of age. A Maine judge said to the writer that at this time Mr. Fessenden was unequaled in the clearness of his statement, in his powers as a dialectician, and the quickness with which he could point out his adversary's error. To these qualities he added an intense industry which overlooked nothing.

From the time he met Daniel Webster in Wiscasset until Mr. Webster's chances of receiving the presidential nomination vanished, he worked hard to bring about Mr. Webster's nomination, corresponding frequently in that connection.

In 1837 Mr. Webster was intending to visit the West, where the Whigs desired to see him. There were no railroads beyond the AUeghanies, and only a few on the Atlantic slope. It was suggested to Mr. Webster that he have a young friend with him of sufficient discretion and ability to speak for him when necessary. Mr. Webster invited Mr. Fessenden, and Mr. Fessenden joined Mr. Webster and took the journey with him. The invitation is preserved, and is as follows : —

Boston, April, 8, 1837.

My deah Sib, — I propose to make a journey, this spring, to the West, and casting about for companions, it was suggested to me by Mr. Ketcham, that as your health might be benefited, and your curiosity gratified, by a tour in that direction, it might not be disagreeable to you to be one of our party. If such should be your feeling, I should be very glad to have you join us. Our purpose is to set o£E in such season as to leave Philadelphia on the first of May ; to go to Pittsburg via Harrisburg ; thence to descend the river, visit Lexington, Frankfort, Cincinnati, Louisville, etc., etc., and arrive at St. Louis about the first of June. From St. Louis our course will be up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to Peru, Galena, and other places in that neighborhood, and then across to Lake Michigan and so to Detroit and home by way of Buffalo and Utica. Through this tour, or as much of it as may be practicable, it is proposed that my wife and daughter shall accompany me. I believe, also, that Mrs. Webster's youngest brother, Mr. Edward LeEoy, will go with us. If we accomplish all this, and reach home by the middle of July, we shall have done well.

Mr. Ketcham, as I have reason to hope, has suggested something of this subject already to you. It will give me much pleasure to learn that the plan falls in with your wishes. Nothing is likely to prevent my setting forth at the time mentioned, unless the times should be so difficult and squally as to embarrass us in those preparations which may be necessary for so long an absence.

I will only add, that if your engagements, or other causes, should render it inconvenient for you to go the whole tour with us, I should still be happy in your company for such part of it as may suit with your inclinations or other arrangements. The length of the journey and the state of the season, as it will be, by the time we reach the Mississippi, make it prudent, I think, to leave the Atlantic coast by the first of May. An early answer will oblige

Your friend,

Daniel Webster.

During this trip Mr. Fessenden wrote so many letters home that it is possible to make a description of the trip and his impressions; and in a condensed form it seems worth while to include here an account of the journey.

Mr. Fessenden joined the Websters at Harrisburg, where the railroad ended and the journey by canal began. They went up the valley of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers by canal to Harrisburg, then were drawn up the mountains in cars to the crest, descending on the other side by gravity to another canal, by which they proceeded to Pittsburgh.

Mrs. Webster he found very sociable and agreeable, and Miss Webster bashful, but possessed of a very intelligent face and good conversational accomplishments. A party of young Western men joined them, among whom Mr. Fessenden says was a lawyer, a merchant, a dandy, and an engineer. He was greatly impressed with the signs and symptoms of enterprise at Pittsburgh and the number of factories and steamers. He concluded " that Mr. Webster would never gain popularity by personal intercourse — to strangers he appeared repellent. So far as gaining friends was concerned, Mr. Webster might well, if not better, have stayed at home and left his fame and public service to speak for him."

From Pittsburgh the party descended the Ohio in a steamer. The sail was delightful, as all nature " seemed yielding to influences of spring." At WheeUng Mr. Webster and his party were received with great enthusiasm, and the next day Mr. Webster addressed the populace. From Wheeling they sailed down the Ohio, stopping at the most important places, until they arrived at Marysville, Kentucky. Here they left the river and crossed to Lexington, to enjoy the attentions of Mr. Clay and the leading Whigs of that district. They attended the spring races, a dinner at Mr. Clay's and many parties given in their honor by leading citizens, inspected some of the splendid farms, and attended a barbecue which was given for Mr. Webster. Writing from Lexington, Mr. Fessenden says : " Mr. Webster meets with so warm a reception all along the shore that what with guns, dinners, speeches, and the like, one is continually excited. These Kentucky boys especially are the right sort. We arrived here in exactly the right season to see the last of the spring races. Four horses were entered ; I lost eight ' hailstorms ' on Maria Louisa. One must pay for his learning, you know. Never having before witnessed a regular blood race, I was prodigiously amused, and quite as much with the people about me as with the race itself. The Kentuckians, as you are probably aware, value themselves greatly on their breed of horses; all enter into the spirit of such an occasion, and it was not disagreeable to see such men as Clay, Crittenden, Kobinson, and others of that stamp apparently as much excited, talking as loudly, betting as freely, drinking as deeply, and swearing as excessively as the jockeys themselves.