Sketch of the official life of John A. Andrew, as governor of Massachusetts, to which is added the valedictory address of Governor Andrew, delivered upon retiring from office, January 5, 1866, on the subject of reconstruction of the states recently in rebellion

Front matter

J

OF

JOHN A. ANDREW,

Preface

others are thus employed, due credit has been given to them by name.

This book has no pretension to the character of a full biography of Governor Andrew. Such a biography, at the request of the family of the Governor, is now in course of preparation by the experienced and accomplished hands of Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, whose work cannot fail to become of standard value in the literature and history of New England. The only merit to which the present writer lays claim, is that of personal and intimate knowledge of the facts which he has recorded in the following sketch ; hastily and imperfectly, no doubt, for it has been prepared during the few hours which he could spare from professional duties, but in such a manner, nevertheless, as he hopes may entitle it to friendly regard from those at whose request it has been written.

To it is^ added the valedictory address of Governor Andrew to the General Court of Massachusetts, upon retiring from office ; the sentiments and logic of which he maintained, without

PREFACE.

Vll qualification, to the day of his death ; and by which he expressed a wish that his title to fame in the history of his country should be determined. The political issues of the war have produced no speech or essay on the subject of the reconstruction of the Rebel States more wise and humane and statesmanlike, or more worthy to be studied by the people of every section of the country on the eve of the presidential contest of the present year.

The photographer of the likeness of the Governor, which precedes the title-page, is Mr. Geo. K. Warren of Cambridgeport, Mass.

( Military Secretary to Governor ( Andrew during the War.

Boston, April, 1868.

Chapter I

The position of Governor Andrew in the history of Massachusetts. — His parentage, birth, school da}’’s, and college course. — Professional study with Mr. Fuller. — Admission to the Sulfblk Bar. — His own expression of the duties, privileges, and opportunities, of the young men of America, in their relation to their country

Chapter II

Professional career. — Training in public law. — Testimony as a witness before the Congressional Committee of Investigation into John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry. — Theory of duty towards unpopular causes. — Experience in cases of domestic relations. — Professional generosity. — Philanthropic services. — Devotion to the Anti-Slavery cause. — Conservative constitution of his mind. — Association with the religious society of James Freeman Clarke. — Letter to Mr. Garrison. — Abstinence from political office. — Service as State Representative in 1859. — He leads the Legislature. — He declines a judicial appointment. — Nomination for Governor. — Sympathy with John Brown. — Its influence in the campaign. — His election. — His share in the Chicago Convention of 1860. — His inaugural address as Governor. — His theory of the main issue involved in the rebellion .

CHAPTER HI.

Massachusetts Militia prepared for service. — Cooperation of other New England Governors invited. — Confidential un-

X

CONTENTS.

derstanding established with General Scott. — Troops held in readiness to be sent to Washington at counting of electoral vote for President. — The Governor’s confidants at Washington. — The beginning of the War. — March of the Massachusetts Militia to Washington. — General review of the services of the Governor to the country during the war. — His counsel of sympathy with the Federal Government. — His unoflScial advisers. — Vice President Hamlin summoned to Boston. — Union of all classes in Massachusetts in support of the war, under the Governor’s leadership. — Mr. Evarts’s description of his leadership. — Speech of Fletcher Webster on Bunker Hill. — Departure of the Twelfth Regiment

Chapter IV

Arrangement and furniture of Executive rooms at the State House. — Freedom of access of people to the Governor. — His catholic relation to all men. — Sir Frederick Bruce finds him surrounded by colored people. — His habits of business. — Not an inch of red tape. — His daily receptions. — His informal manner. — The knapsack man. — Testimony of Mr. Hillard to the purity of his life. — Testimony of Mr. Dana to his incorruptibility and humanity. — His power of endurance. — Neglect of private affairs. — His love for children. — A visit to the White House at night. — Rigid exaction of responsibility and work from others. — The neglected pardon. — Care of penal institutions. — His relations with the Executive Council

Chapter V

The Governor’s habits of diet. — Liking of tea. — His opposition to a Prohibitory Liquor Law. — Extracts from his argument. — He abstains from presenting the subject to the Legislature while Governor, lest he should divide the people from support of the war. — His message to the Legislature on the morality of sale of liquors as a beverage. — Union in sustaining the War paramount to all other issues. — He

CONTENTS.

XI

PAGE

combats Western hostility to New England. — His theory of the destiny of New England in event of success of the Rebellion. — His views of the relations of the British Provinces to New England 57

Chapter VI

His antagonism with opponents of emancipation and the use of colored troops. — Support of Fremont and Hunter in freeing slaves. — Letter in defense of Hunter. — Speech at Martha’s Vineyard. — His influence on the President for Emancipation. — The Proclamation of September 22, 1862.

— The Altoona Convention. — Address of the Governors to the President. — His independence of partisan influences and considerations. — Opposition to secret societies. — Jealousy towards him of old party leaders. — His vetoes. — Official appointments and removals, civil and military. — The duty of allegiance the solution of the problem of emancipation. — Correspondence with General McClellan concerning exclusion of fugitive slaves from our military lines. — Correspondence with General Butler concerning proper relations of our military forces to servile insurrection in Maryland in April, 1861 68

Chapter VII

He obtains official sanction of the Federal Government to the enlistment of colored troops. — He raises the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts (colored) regiments. — Contest for their equal rights with white troops in pay and rank. — Antagonism with the War Department on these questions. — Appeal to the President. — The Attorney General overrules the legal position of the Secretary of War. — Correspondence with the President. — Correspondence with Thaddeus Stevens. — He finally triumphs and secures the rights of his colored soldiers. — His aid of enlistment of colored soldiers everywhere. — He procures organization of Freedmen’s Inquiiy Commission. — Services in behalf of the freedmen. —

Xll

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Opposition to system of arbitrary arrests in Loyal States. —

He declines to take part in the Surratt trial .... 103

Chapter VIII

Reverence for history of Massachusetts. — Fondness of old associations. — Official dignity. — His body-guard. — Care of Harvard College. — Theories concerning education' in Massachusetts. — Schools of agriculture and mechanic arts. — Letter of Count de Gasparin. — Views of the true future of New England. — Testimony of Mr. Evarts and Mr. Godwin to the hopes entertained of his future national career . . 116

Chapter IX

His sensibility. — Anxiety concerning conduct of affairs at Washington. — Causes of his death. — His cheerful and mirthful disposition. — Special subjects of study. — Favorite amusements. — Administration of domestic affairs of the State. — Opposition to capital punishment. — Communications to the Legislature. — His manuscript. — His social conversation.— His eloquence. — His pecuniary means. — He resumes practice at the bar on retiring from office, refusing various public stations. — Familiarity with the Bible. — Religious catholicity. — The return of the flags . . . 138

Chapter X

Valedictoiy address. — Description of the occasion. — He opposes political proscription, whether of white or of black men^ — He is not in accord with either President or Congress. — Course of public temper comes to correspond with his opinions. — Expectations of his connection with the next Federal Administration. — His natural capacity for leadership. — His estimate of the character of President Lincoln.

— Comparison of his own character with that estimate . 158

SKETCH

OF THE

OFFICIAL LIFE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

Chapter I

The position of Governor Andrew in the history of Massachusetts.

— His parentage, birth, school days, and college course. — Professional study with Mr. Fuller. — Admission to the Suffolk Bar.

— His own expression of the duties, privileges, and opportunities of the young men of America, in their relation to their country.

The traveller approaching Boston by the Providence Railroad traverses, nine miles from the city, a beautiful plain, through which wanders the slender stream of the Neponset among rich meadows studded with noble elms. In the background rise the piny slopes of the Blue Hill of Milton. From its ridofes the climber looks eastward far out on the broad Bay of Massachusetts, beyond the capital and the islands of its harbor ; and westward, over line upon line of swelling hills, each succeeding range fading in a fainter purple. Here and there rise higher sum- 1 mits, like Monadnock. By daylight, on the nearer ranges are seen the roofs of a hundred towns, the points of innumerable steeples, the shafts of countless chimneys of busy factories. By night, the factory buildings glitter like illuminated palaces, while the dwellinghouses clustered in the villages shine with a steadier and more homely glow. As the sun sinks behind Wachusett into the Connecticut, brilliant gleams flash over the sea from the lio;hthouses of the Great Brewster and Minot’s Ledge. More than half of the million people of Massachusetts dwell within the boundaries of that landscape.

In the centre of the plain stand long rows of rough wooden barracks. The military precision of their order discloses unmistakably their former use. One half of them are now empty and rotting in the Spring rains. The other half are overflowing with an Irish tenantry, some ardent speculator having bought them all in hope of developing a permanent village from so unpromising a nucleus.

Soon the railroad train leaves Beadville and its camp-ground in the distance, and shelters itself at Boston in a station from which the passenger steps out upon the old parade-ground of the Common. Innocent players of base ball and cricket have trodden off the turf in patches, until

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

the half bare ground looks like the well-worn covering of some ancient trunk. Over the elms and lindens swells the dome of the State House. In the western wing of the building, in front of the windows of the Council Chamber, painters are at work, on swinging platforms. Within, carpenters and masons are busy with plane and trowel. Soon, in the remodeling, all trace of the old apartments will be lost. The last Legislature even threatened the destruction of the whole building ; and, if its history is to end in our day, perhaps then was the fit time. It began with the great Governor who, on the 19th of April, 1775, uttered the exulting cry, “ O, what a glorious morning ! ” and it well might end with him who had the fortune and the courage to repeat that cry with equal exultation, on the 19th of April, 1861. When the Readville Camp was last noisy with soldiery, and the parade-ground of the Common was dark with blue lines of regiments returned from real war, council was last held in that old Chamber by the greatest of the twenty successors of Samuel Adams.

Let it now change, like the camp and the once green parade. To the new era of Peace all the “ modern improvements,” which architect and carpenter and mason are making in the old building, fitly belong. So also to a new era belongs the enterprise of the speculator, to change into a peaceful hamlet the barracks where the great Governor of our modern day organized a hundred thousand Massachusetts soldiers for the war ; and on the parade-ground, where they passed him in review, the school-boy playing with his ball and wicket is a fit representative of the new times. But, however great these changes, this generation must wholly pass away before the traveller crossing the Readville Plain, or the loiterer under the elms of the Charles Street Mall, or the visitor to the halls of the State Government, shall cease to recall and associate with the scene the figure and the face of Governor Andrew.

John Albion Andrew, the twenty-first Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was born at Windham, a small town near Lake Sebago, about fifteen miles from Portland, May 31, 1818, two years before the organization of Maine as a separate State. He died at Boston, October 30, 1867. The family was English in origin, descending in America from Robert Andrew, who immigrated to Rowley Village, now Boxford, in Essex County, Massachusetts, and died there in 1668. It was connected by marriage with several of the famous ancient families

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

of the Colony, — a grandmother of the Governor being a granddaughter of the brave Captain William Pickering, who commanded the Province Galley in 1707, to protect the fisheries against the French and Indians, and the mother of her husband being Mary Higginson, a direct descendant fi^om Francis Higginson, the organizer of the first church in the Colony. A portrait of this old clergyman, his^ ancestor, depicted with snow-white hair and gray moustache, clad in a black robe, holding a book in one hand, on the index finger of which a large signet-ring is displayed, hung over the mantel on the chimney of the Council Chamber during: the whole of Governor Andrew’s administration. The grandfather of the Governor, whose name he bore, was a silversmith, and afterwards a successful merchant in the old and wealthy city of Salem. He removed to Windham, and died there in 1791. His son Jonathan was born in Salem, and lived there until manhood, when he, too, went to Windham, and married Nancy G. Pierce, a teacher in the Fryeburg Academy, where Daniel Webster also was once a teacher. She died in 1832 ; and soon afterwards he removed to Boxford, where he died in 1849. The Governor was their oldest son.

He was a school-boy at Windham and at Salem, and then a student in Bowdoin College. Of his college life Mr. Peleg W. Chandler spoke as follows in his felicitous eulogy at the Suffolk Bar meeting, held oh November 4, 1867, after the Governor’s death : —

“ He took no rank as a scholar, and seemed to have not the slightest ambition for academical distinction ; he had no part at Commencement. This rosy, chub-faced boy, genial, affectionate, and popular, gave no indications of future renown, or of that ability, energy, and breadth of view for which he is now so celebrated. He was not regarded as dull, very much the contrary ; but he seemed to be indifferent to the ordinary routine of college honors, possessed of that happy temperament which enabled him then and for many years afterwards to pass quietly along without a touch of the carking cares and temptations that wait on the ambitious aspirations of the young as well as the old.”

Immediately after graduating at college in the class of 1837, he came to Boston to study law, and prepared for the profession in the office of Henry H. Fuller, an uncle of Margaret Fuller. Of the relation between master and pupil, Mr. Chandler said : —

“ It always seemed to me that his character was much affected by contact with that somewhat

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

remarkable and much misunderstood la>vyer. Mr. Fuller was a man of most genial temperament, an excellent scholar (second in the class of which Edward Everett was first), of wide reading and extensive acquirements ; a man who loved young men, and aided and assisted them in every way he could ; and also of such marked peculiarities, of such wonderful crotchets and such heroic obstinacy, that he naturally and especially attracted, and in some respects almost fascinated, his pupil. The attraction was mutual ; they became almost like brothers. The student sat at the same office table with the master, entered into all the business affairs, wrote letters from dictation, and they seemed in fact like one person. Mr. Fuller had an extensive acquaintance with all sorts of men. He knew the personal history of almost every citizen of the town ; and of all public characters, living and dead, he had a decided opinion, which he never hesitated to pronounce on any suitable occasion. Mr. Andrew, with the curiosity of a young man fresh from the country, took this all in ; but what is remarkablo, while some of the peculiar traits of the master stuck to the pupil, the latter had decided opinions of his own, especially in regard to American slavery, which were sometimes in ludicrous contrast with those of his senior. Mr.

Fuller was a conservative of conservatives. He stood by the ancient ways, even in the cut of his - coat and the shape of his hat ; his ruffled shirt and white cravat were significant of a past generation. Mr. Andrew soon became interested in many of the reform movements of the day, and was as firm and as peculiar in one direction as his friend was in another.”

Then followed twenty years of steady practice at the Suffolk Bar, to which he was admitted in 1840. It was not a conspicuous career, but in it his biographer will find the marks of all the great qualities he afterwards displayed in office ; for never was a life more consistent. In after years, in 1864, then at the height of his renown as Governor, he found time, even among the harassing cares of office, to prepare and deliver to the class graduating from the Medical School of Harvard College, their valedictory address, into which he condensed much of the philosophy of living which was matured in his own mind during this long term of patient professional labor.

“ In no community in the world,” said he, “ is there brighter promise for competent young men than there is here ; for the sphere is so vast, the ways are all open, and all possibilities are fi’ee to all men. It is only necessary that a young man

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

of education should be willing to serve faithfully, to waste no time in dreams and passionate longings, hut to make the most of himself by being useful and by proving his capacity, as occasions naturally occur. His time will surely come. There is never a surplus of competent and trustworthy men. They are always in request. Places are always in waiting for them. But the men themselves do not always at the right time appear.”

“ There is nothing more practically and simply true than that success, abiding and secure, the happiness and usefulness of a professional career, is proportioned to the purity, singleness, and generosity of the purpose with which it is pursued. No thinking man has lived tq middle age who has not seen, with his own eyes, brilliant powers thrown away, capacity for lasting impression on society and for solid happiness as the reward of real good accomplished, made the forfeit of the poor and selfish pursuit of changeful Fortune, or uncertain Fame, or inglorious Ease. What a defeat is such a life ! Will you treat your profession as a trade out of which merely to make your bread, while you indulge every whim or fancy of a mind to which duty is irksome and fruitful toil a mere fatigue ? Then you sacrifice the hope of honorable competence, of solid reputation, the sweet and infinite satisfactions of a worthy life. Will you use it as the mere instrument of sordid gain ? Then you sacrifice your love for Science, who stands waiting to feed you with immortal food, and to open the rich storehouse of all her truth, while you dwarf your soul to the worship of the very dust she treads under her feet. Will you make your profession only a stepping-stone to preferment ? Then you strangle the spiritual and intellectual progeny which might bless your declining age, in order to reign for a while the heartless, aimless pretender of an hour, in a hollow and deceitful prosperity.

“ The solicitude with which we naturally contemplate the future, if it does not degenerate into weak anxiety, is not unreasonable. The desire of excellence is not wholly to be disconnected from a sense of the value of other men’s good opinion. A certain yearning for a proper sphere for generous ambition, a true appreciation of the rewards of meritorious effort, a manly tone of self-respect, are all, of course, desirable, nor are they, in any sense, unworthy. But when one sees so many great and good things waiting to be done, lying unaccomplished only for want of the men of faith, patience, intellect, and action ; when we consider the vastness and variety of opportunity opening to the young men of Amer-

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

ica, who have really fitted themselves to serve their country and do their part in strengthening or enriching it, who are willing to buckle on their armor and contend for a brave mastery ; I think it seems as if self-interest, even, advises only that they should do justice to their own capacities and the means lying open before them, throw aside all weakness and all narrowness, and be faithful to themselves, generous to mankind, considering how bountiful is the Divine Providence to them. There is a margin for mistake and misadventure, for which all of us must allow. But it is usually and on the whole but a margin only. We must be willing to accept our mischances, and even our own errors, reckoning them for what in truth they are to courageous, persevering men, as illustrations of the limitations of everything which is simply human and not supernatural.

“ Gentlemen, as citizens of a country larger than Europe, possessing elements of greater wealth and greater power than Europe, of capacity to feed and support a population exceeding the present numbers of the human race, you have only to develop yourselves and to apply your own powers and acquirements. The first duty of the citizen is to regard himself as made for his country, not to regard his country as made for him. If he will but subordinate his own self-hood, his own ambition, enough to perceive how great is his country and how infinitely less is he, is it not manifest that he presently becomes a sharer in her glory, a partaker of her greatness ? He is strengthened by her strength, and inspired by her intellectual and moral life. While he contributes his little to the grand treasury of her various wealth of power and possession, he draws therefrom vigor and support with every breath he breathes. Standing utterly alone, what man is anything? But associated with his fellows, he receives the instruments, the means, the opportunities, and the facilities for action.”

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

Chapter II

Professional career. — Training in public law. — Testimony as a witness before the Congressional Committee of Investigation into John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry. — Theory of duty towards unpopular causes. — Experience in cases of domestic relations. — Professional generosity. — Philanthropic services. — Devotion to the Anti-Slavery cause. — Conservative constitution of his mind. — Association with the religious society of James Freeman Clarke. — Letter to Mr. Garrison. — Abstinence from political office. — Service as State Representative in 1859. — He leads the Legislature. — He declines a judicial appointment. — Nomination for Governor. — Sympathy with John Brown. — Its influence in the campaign. — His election. — His share in the Chicago Convention of 1860. — His inaugural address as Governor. — His theory of the main issue involved in the rebellion.

In the latter years of his professional practice before becoming Governor, he was engaged in a remarkable succession of cases involvino; hisih questions of constitutional law. In 1854 he defended the parties indicted at Boston for rescuing the ftigitive slave Burns ; in 1855 he defended the British Consul at Boston against the charge of violating our neutrality laws during the Crimean War; in 1856 he argued the petition for a writ of habeas corpus to test the legality of the imprisonment of the Free State officers of Kansas at Topeka. More lately, in 1859, lie initiated and directed the measures for the legal defense of John Brown in Virginia ; and in 1860 he was of counsel for Francis B. Sanborn, at his discharge by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts from the custody of the United States Marshal, by whom he had been arrested on a warrant from the Vice-President of the United States to compel his appearance before the Congressional Committee of Investigation into the affair at Harper’s Ferry.

He had himself appeared before that Committee as a witness on February 9, of the same year, and been subjected to an examination conducted chiefly by Jefferson Davis, then Senator from Mississippi, and Senator Mason of Virginia, as to his motives for taking so much trouble and expense in John Brown’s behalf. In the light of the subsequent career of his examiners some of their questions and his answers have a peculiar signiflcance after the eight intervening years.^

* The following are extracts from the official report of his examination : —

“ By the Chairman, Mr. Mason. Question. Will you state, sir, whether your reason for volunteering your aid in this matter, and the representations that you made to others, or what induced you to act as jmu state you did act, was founded on the impression that Brown was not going to have a fair or just trial, or was it founded on a disposition to aid in his defense, because of his career against tile institution of slavery ?

OF GOVERNOR ANDREW.

On his theory of duty as a lawyer, he never hesitated to defend unpopular and even odious causes. In illustration, besides his defense of the

“ Answer. W ell, sir, I know —

“ Question. In other words, if you had no impressions that the trial was not one fairly and properly conducted, would you have acted as you did, in getting money for his defense, only from a desire to serve him because of the career in which he was embarked ?

“ Answer. I am quite clear on that point, putting the question in that way. As you, sir, first proposed the question, it was a little complex and intricate. Had I felt that Captain Brovm and his associates were in the way to a full and complete opportimity for a fair judicial investigation into all their rights according to the laws of the jurisdiction within which they were, I have no reason to suppose that I should have interfered. I should have felt that I had no occasion to interfere. I had known about old Mr. Brown for several years, and I approved a great deal which I had heard of touching his career in Kansas; I thought he had been an honest, and conscientious, and useful assistant of the Free State cause. My impression of him was derived from many sources. I had never seen him but once in my life, and then only for a few moments. I say in frankness that I felt a certain sympathy for a man who had, as I thought, been useful in behalf of a great cause in which I was interested. I had no sj’^mpathy with his peculiar conduct touching which he was then indicted. I felt injured by that, personally, as a Republican.

“ Question. Suppose the only difficulty connected with his trial, as you heard, had been the want of means, would you and your friends then have volunteered to furnish the means to employ counsel ?

Answer. It is not easy, Mr. Chairman, for one man to speak as to another’s motives. I can only speak as to my own ; and you have now put a question which embarrasses me to this extent : It is unpleasant for a man to blow the trumpet of his own virtue, and I am sorry to be asked to state to what extent I maj' be a benevolent man, or otherwise. I can only give you one little circumstance, as

16 SKETCH OF TEE OFFICIAL LIFE

British Consul, may be named his advocacy of Burnham, in 1860, against the inquisition of the Massachusetts Legislature, and also his defense in the United States courts, the same year, of

an illustration of what I might do under such circumstances. Last year a man was convicted in Boston for piracy, and sentenced to be hanged. I had never seen him, to speak to him, in my life, nor did I know by sight any person related to him in any way. After other efforts had been made, I devoted some weeks, at least, to preparation, and came to Washington, at my own expense, without fee or reward, or the hope of any, in order to press upon the Attorney General and the President those considerations which I deemed proper to be considered in support of the application for executive clemency. The man’s life was saved. I never spoke to him until I accompanied Mr. Marshal Freeman to his cell, and assisted in the reading of the President’s warrant of commutation. I have sometimes done just such things as that on other occasions. I do not profess to be a particularly benevolent man, but I mention that as an illustration of what I might do, even for a stranger.”