Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

CHAPTER VI LEADERS OF THE SENATE IN 1877

As I just said, there was no man in the Senate when I entered it who equalled in renown either Webster, Clay or Calhoun, or wielded in the Senate an influence like that of Oliver Ellsworth. With at most but two or three exceptions, no one of them would be counted among the great men of the century in which he lived, or will be remembered long after his death. But the average excellence was high. It was a company of very wise men, fairly representing the best sentiment and aspiration of the Republic. The angers and influences of the Civil War had gradually cooled under the healing influence of Grant. The American people was ready to address itself bravely to the new conditions and new problems, or to old problems under new conditions.

I shall speak briefly here of some of the principal Senators who were there when I took my seat on March 4, 1877, or who came into the Senate shortly afterward during that Congress. Others I have mentioned in other places in this book.

William A. Wheeler, of New York, was Vice-President and President of the Senate. On the Republican side were: William B. Allison of Iowa, Henry B. Anthony and Ambrose E. Burnside of Rhode Island, James G. Blaine and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Roscoe Conkling of New York, John A. Logan of Illinois, Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, George F. Edmunds and Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, John J. Ingalls of Kansas, John P. Jones of Nevada, Stanley Matthews and John Sherman of Ohio, John H. Mitchell of Oregon, Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, Aaron A. Sargent of California, Henry M. Teller of Colorado, Bainbridge Wadleigh of New Hampshire and William Windom of Minnesota.

On the Democratic side were: Thomas F. Bayard and Eli Saulsbury
of Delaware, James B. Beck of Kentucky, Francis M. Cockrell
of Missouri, A. H. Garland of Arkansas, John B. Gordon of
Georgia, L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, Matt Ransom of North
Carolina, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, William P. Whyte of Maryland,
M. C. Butler of South Carolina, William W. Eaton of Connecticut,
James B. Eustis of Louisiana, Francis Kernan of New York, J. R.
McPherson of New Jersey, and Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana.

Henry B. Anthony was the senior member of the Senate when I entered it. When he died he had been a Senator longer than any other man in the country, except Mr. Benton. He had come to be the depository of its traditions, customs and unwritten rules. He was a man of spirit, giving and receiving blows on fit occasions, especially when anybody assailed Rhode Island. He had conducted for many years a powerful newspaper which had taken part in many conflicts. But he seemed somehow the intimate friend of every man in the Senate, on both sides. Every one of his colleagues poured out his heart to him. It seemed that no eulogy or funeral was complete unless Anthony had taken part in it, because he was reckoned the next friend of the man who was dead.

He was fully able to defend himself and his State and any cause which he espoused. No man would attack either with impunity under circumstances which called on him for reply, as he showed on some memorable occasions. But he was of a most gracious and sweet nature. He was a lover and maker of peace. When his own political associates put an indignity upon Charles Sumner, the great leader of emancipation in the Senate, which had been the scene of his illustrious service, no man regretted the occurrence more than Mr. Anthony.

And straight Patroclus rose,
The genial comrade, who, amid the strife
Of kings, and war of angry utterance,
Held even balance, to his outraged friend
Heart-true, yet ever strove with kindly words
To hush the jarring discord, urging peace.

Mr. Anthony was a learned man; learned in the history of the Senate and in parliamentary law; learned in the history of his country and of foreign countries; learned in the resources of a full, accurate and graceful scholarship. Since Sumner died I suppose no Senator can be compared with him in this respect. Some passages in an almost forgotten political satire show that he possessed a vein which, if he had cultivated it, might have placed him high in the roll of satiric poets. But he never launched a shaft that he might inflict a sting. His collection of memorial addresses is unsurpassed in its kind of literature. He was absolutely simple, modest, courteous and without pretence. He was content to do his share in accomplishing public results, and leave to others whatever of fame or glory might result from having accomplished them.

To be, and not to seem, was this man's wisdom.

The satire, of which I have just spoken, is almost forgotten. It is a poem called "The Dorriad," written at the time of the famous Dorr Rebellion. The notes, as in the case of the "Biglow Papers," are even funnier than the text. He gives an account of the Dorr War in two cantos, after the manner of Scott's "Marmion." He describes the chieftain addressing his troops on Arcote's Hill, the place where one Arcote, in former days, had been hung for sheep-stealing, and buried at the foot of the gallows.

The Governor saw with conscious pride,
The men who gathered at his side;
That bloody sword aloft the drew,
And "list, my trusty men," he cried—
"Here do I swear to stand by you,
As long as flows life's crimson tide;—
Nor will I ever yield, until
I leave my bones upon this hill."
His men received the gallant boast
With shouts that shook the rocks around.
But hark, a voice? old Arcote's ghost
Calls out, in anger, from the ground,
"If here your bones you mean to lay,
Then, damn it, I'll take mine away."

I do not know that I can give a fair and impartial estimate of Roscoe Conkling. I never had any personal difficulty with him. On the other hand, he was good enough to say of a speech which I made in the Presidential campaign of 1872, that it was the best speech made in the country that year. But I never had much personal intercourse with him, and formed an exceedingly unfavorable opinion of him. He was an able man, though not superior in ability to some of his associates. I do not think he was the equal in debate of Mr. Blaine, or of Carl Schurz, or, on financial questions with which the latter was familiar, of John Sherman. But he was undoubtedly a strong man. His speech nominating Grant at the National Convention of 1880 was one of very great power. But he was unfit to be the leader of a great party, and was sure, if he were trusted with power, to bring it to destruction. He was possessed of an inordinate vanity. He was unrelenting in his enmities, and at any time was willing to sacrifice to them his party and the interests of the country. He used to get angry with men simply because they voted against him on questions in which he took an interest. Once he would not speak to Justin S. Morrill, one of the wisest and kindliest of men, for months, because of his anger at one of Morrill's votes. I suppose he defeated the Republican Party in New York when General John A. Dix was candidate for Governor. That opinion, however, depends chiefly on common rumor. Governor Boutwell, in this "Recollections," says that Mr. Conkling contributed secretly to the defeat of Mr. Blaine, although he had been willing to support Blaine four years before. He was one of the men whose counsel wrought grievous injury to Grant, and persuaded him to permit the foolish attempt to nominate him for a third term. The deserved respect which the American people had for Grant, and his great influence, would not induce them to bring Conkling and the men who were his associates again into power. I can hardly think of a man of high character in the Republican Party, except Grant, who retained Conkling's friendship. His resignation of the office of Senator showed how utterly lacking he was in sound political wisdom, or in lofty political morality. That a Senator of the United States should vacate his own office because he could not control Executive patronage was a proceeding not likely to be regarded with much respect by the American people. I suppose he expected that he would be returned by the New York Legislature, and that the scene of his coming back would be one of great dramatic effect.

The reason of his action was President Garfield's nomination of Judge Robertson, who had been his own earnest supporter for the Presidency, to the office of Collector of the port of New York. It happened in this way: General Garfield's nomination for the Presidency, of which I have told the story in another place, was brought about in part by the aid of some of the New York delegation, led by Judge Robertson, who had broken away from Conkling's leadership. He was of course angry. After Garfield's election, he demanded that no one of the New York opponents to Grant's nomination should be appointed to office by the incoming Administration. Garfield told me the whole story during the spring session of 1881. He had an interview with Conkling, I think by his own request, and endeavored to come to some understanding with him which would ensure harmony. He told Conkling that he desired to make one conspicuous appointment of a New York man who had supported him against President Grant, and that thereafter appointments should be made of fit men, without regard to the factional division of the party in New York, between his supporters and those of Grant, and that the Senators would in all cases be consulted. Conkling would not listen to the suggestion, and declared that he would not consent to the appointment of Judge Robertson to any important office in this country; that if the President chose to send him abroad, he would make no objection. President Garfield told me that Conkling's behavior in the interview was so insolent that it was difficult for him to control himself and keep from ordering him out of his presence. Nothing could be more preposterous or insolent than the demand of a Senator from any State that a President just elected, who had received the support of the people of that State, should ostracize his own supporters. It would have been infamous for Garfield to yield to the demand.

I ought, in saying that there was no man of high integrity and great ability among the leaders of the Republican Party who retained Conkling's friendship, to have excepted Hamilton Fish. He was a man of great wisdom, who understood well the importance to the Republican Party of avoiding a breach with the powerful Senator from New York. But Conkling was jealous of all the other able men in the Republican Party in his own State. He could—

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

The spirits of good and evil politics have striven with one another in New York from the beginning of her history as Jacob and Esau strove together in the womb. In general the former has prevailed in western New York and along the lakes. In the city of New York sometimes one has carried the day, and sometimes the other. When the bad element was in power, the noble State has reminded me of Tennyson's eagle caught by the talons in carrion, unable to fly or soar.

Oliver Wolcott, who had been one of Washington's Cabinet, afterward Governor of Connecticut, dwelt in New York for some time. He gives this account of New York politics.

"After living a dozen years in that State, I don't pretend to comprehend their politics. It is a labyrinth of wheels within wheels, and it is understood only by the managers. Why, these leaders of the opposite parties, who—in the papers and before the world—seem ready to tear each other's eyes out, will meet some rainy night in a dark entry, and agree, whichever way the election goes, they will share the spoils together!"

John G. Palfrey, in his wonderful "Papers on the Slave Power," was led by his natural impatience with the conduct of the great State, which seemed to him such an obstacle in the path of Liberty, to utter the following invective:

"Pour soulless giant, her honorable history is yet to begin. From her colonial times, when, patching up a dastardly truce, she helped the French and Indians down from the Berkshire hills against the shield which brave Massachusetts held over the New England settlements, through the time of her traitors of the Revolutionary age, down to the time of her Butlers and her Marcys, her Van Burens and Hoyts, poltroonery and corruption have with her ruled the hour. Nature has her freaks, and in one of them she gave a great man, John Jay, to New York. Hamilton was a waif from the West Indies on her spirit- barren strand, and Rufus King from Massachusetts. No doubt, among her millions, she has many wise and good, but the day when they begin to impress any fit influence of theirs upon her counsels, will open a new chapter in the annals of New York."

I am tempted to quote this powerful invective for its literary excellence, and not for its justice. The history of New York, on the whole, has been a noble history. It must be considered that any people that opens its hospitable door of welcome to all mankind, with the elective franchise, must itself, for a time, seem to suffer in the process, and must be strongly tempted to protect itself against evil government by getting control of the powers of Government by unjustifiable methods.

For many years a large majority of the people of the city of New York were of foreign birth or parentage. But how wonderfully most of these have grown in the elements of good citizenship, and of honorable manhood; and how wonderfully their sisters and daughters have grown in the elements of womanhood. Freedom is the best schoolteacher.

Sometimes a political leader in New York who had got power by forbidden ways, has used it for the good of the Republic. I suppose the worst examples of all low political leadership were the Pelhams, the Duke of Newcastle and his brother; yet without them, Lord Chatham's glorious career would have been unknown to the history of English liberty. Chatham used to say: "The Duke of Newcastle lends me his majority to carry on the Government."

Let me not be understood as meaning to compare Roscoe Conkling with such characters. He was fearless. He was a powerful debater. He never flinched in debate from the face of any antagonist. There was something almost sublime in his lofty disdain. He was on the side of the country in her hour of peril. I like Charles Sumner and John Jay and John Adams better. Neither of these men could have lived long on terms of friendship with Conkling. I do not think George Washington could have endured him. But let what was best in him, after all, be remembered, even if we do not forget his great faults.

I ought not, in speaking of the eminent Senators whom I have known, to omit Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi. Except Mr. Revels, from the same State, he is the only negro who ever sat in the Senate of the United States. He conducted himself with great propriety. He was always courteous and sensible. He had a clear understanding of great questions which came up, and was quite influential with his fellow Senators. When the Chinese matter was up, he stated in a few words that he could not, when he recalled the history of his own race, consent to vote for any measure which discriminated against any man by reason of his race or color. He left the Senate Chamber, I believe, with the entire respect of his associates on both sides. He was afterward Register of the Treasury. His speech and vote on the Chinese question were in contrast with those of Senator Jonas, of the neighboring State of Louisiana. In my speech in opposition to the Chinese bill, or that on the Chinese Treaty, I alluded at some length to the treatment of the Jews in the dark ages and down to a very recent time. Senator Jonas, who was a Jew, paid me some compliments about my speech. I said: "Why will you not remember the terrible history of the men of your own race and blood, and help me resist a like savage treatment of another race?" Mr. Jonas rejected the suggestion with a great emphasis, and said: "Mr. Hoar, the Jews are a superior race. They are not to be classed with the Chinese."

There were several negro Representatives from the South when I was in the House of Representatives. All of them behaved with great propriety. They were men who took care of themselves and the interests of their people in any debate. Mr. Rainey, of South Carolina, had a spirited tilt with S. S. Cox, one of the most brilliant of the Democratic leaders, in which he left Cox unhorsed and on his back in the arena. None of them ever said an indiscreet thing, no one of them ever lost his temper or gave any opportunity for an angry or intolerant or contemptuous reply.

Soon after Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, came to the House, in the Congress of 1875-7, unanimous consent was asked that he might address the House at length, without being limited by the hour rule. Judge Hoar, then a member of the House, stipulated that Mr. Elliott, of South Carolina, should, if he liked, have leave to reply. This could not decently be refused, and that was granted also. Thereupon Stephens made a powerful speech, for which he had doubtless made most careful preparation. Robert B. Elliott then made, on the instant that Stephens got through, an admirable reply, of which it is great praise and still not saying too much that it deserves to rank with the speech of Mr. Stephens.

Elliott delivered an excellent eulogy on Charles Sumner, in Boston, which was published with those of Carl Schurz and George William Curtis, and was entirely worthy of the companionship.

Perhaps, on the whole, the ablest of the colored men who served with me in Congress, although each of the gentlemen I have named deserves high commendation, was John R. Lynch of Mississippi. I had a very pleasant acquaintance with him when he was in the House. He was afterward Fourth Auditor of the Treasury.

I was the means of procuring for him a national distinction which very much gratified the men of his color throughout the country. The supporters of Mr. Blaine in the National Convention of 1884 had a candidate of their own for temporary presiding officer. I think it was Mr. Clayton of Arkansas. It was desired to get a Southern man for that purpose. The opponents of Mr. Blaine also desired to have a candidate of their own from the South. The colored Southern men were generally Blaine men. I advised them to nominate Lynch, urging that it would be impossible for the Southern colored people, whatever their preference might be as a candidate for the Presidency, to vote against one of their own color. Lynch was nominated by Henry Cabot Lodge, afterward my colleague in the Senate, and seconded by Theodore Roosevelt and by George William Curtis. Lynch presided over the Convention during the whole of the first day, and a part of the second. He made an admirable presiding officer.

Quite curiously, I have had something to do with introducing a little more liberal practice in this respect into the policy of the country.

I was the first person who ever invited a colored man to take the Chair in the Senate. I happened to be put in the Chair one afternoon when Vice-President Wheeler was away. I spied Mr. Bruce in his seat, and it occurred to me that it would be a good thing to invite him to take my place, which he did.

When I was presiding over the National Convention of 1880, one of the English Royal Princes, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, son of Victoria, visited the Convention. He was brought up and introduced to me. I suppose that was one of the very rare instances in which a scion of the English Royal House was presented to anybody, instead of having the person presented to him. Wishing to converse with the Prince, I called Mr. Bruce to the Chair. I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to confer an honor upon a worthy colored man in the presence of a representative of this Royal House. Frederick Douglass afterward called on me with a delegation of colored men, and presented me with a letter signed by prominent colored men of the country, thanking me for this act.

It also was my fortune to secure the selection, on my recommendation, of the first colored man ever appointed to the Railway Mail Service. This was soon after I entered the House of Representatives in 1869.

Perhaps I may as well add in this connection that I believed I recommended the first married woman ever appointed postmaster in this country, shortly after I entered the House.

When Colonel Chenoweth, who had been on General Grant's staff, a most brilliant and able officer of the War, died in office as Consul at Canton, China, to which he was appointed by President Grant, I urged very strongly upon Grant the appointment of the widow to the place. She had, during her husband's illness, performed a great part of the duties very well, and to the great satisfaction of the merchants doing business there. I told General Grant the story. He said he would make the appointment—to use his own phrase—if Fish would let him. But Mr. Fish was inexorable. He thought it would be a very undignified proceeding. He also urged, with great reason, that a Consul had to hold court for the trial of some grave offences, committed often by very bad characters, and that it was out of the question that a delicate lady should be expected to know or to have anything to do with them. So the proposal fell through.

Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana served in the House with me. I had with him there one very angry conflict. But it did not interrupt our friendly relations. He was a man of a good deal of eloquence, very popular in his own State, and said to have been a very successful and able lawyer, especially in arguing cases to juries. His political speeches in the Senate were carefully prepared, very able statements of his side, and very severe denunciations of his antagonists. But he was a very kind-hearted man indeed, always willing to do a kindness to any of his associates, or to any person in trouble. If he could not be relied on to protect the Treasury against claims of doubtful validity, when they were urged by persons in need, or who in any way excited his sympathy, it ought to be said in defence of him, that he would have been quite as willing to relieve them to the extent of his power from his private resources.

Bainbridge Wadleigh of New Hampshire succeeded to the Chairmanship of the Committee on Privileges and Elections after Mr. Morton's death in the summer of 1869. He was a modest, quiet and unpretending man, of stainless integrity, of great industry in dealing with any matter for which he had direct responsibility, and of great wisdom and practical sense. I formed a very pleasant friendship with him, and regretted it exceedingly when he left the Senate, after serving a single term. There was at the time a very bad practice in New Hampshire of frequently changing her Senators. So few of the very able men who have represented her in the Senate for the last fifty years have made the impression upon the public service, or gained the fame to which their ability would have entitled them, if they had had longer service. Mr. Wadleigh was an excellent lawyer, and the Senate gave him its confidence in all matters with which his important Committee had to deal.

David Davis of Illinois was a very interesting character.
He had been a successful lawyer, an eminent Judge in his
State, and a very admirable Judge of the Supreme Court of
the United States, to which office he was appointed by Abraham
Lincoln.

He entered the Senate when I did, and served one term of six years. His service in the Senate did not add at all to his distinction. The one thing he had done in life of which he was very proud and which was of most importance, was bringing about the nomination of Abraham Lincoln at Chicago. Of that he liked to discourse whenever he could get a listener, and his discourses were always so entertaining that everybody listened who could.

David Davis thought that but for him Lincoln would not have been nominated. I have little doubt that he was right. He had many able and bright men to help him. But he was the leader, director and counsellor of all the forces. He threw himself into it with all the zeal of a man fighting for his life. He made pledges right and left, seeming to discover every man's weak point, and used entreaty, flattery and promises without stint, and, if he were himself to be believed, without much scruple. When somebody said to him in my hearing, "You must have used a good deal of diplomacy, Judge, at that Convention." "Diplomacy," replied Davis, "My dear man, I lied like the devil." He had that sense of humor peculiar to Americans, which likes to state in an exaggerated way things that are calculated to shock the listener, which our English and German brethren cannot comprehend. So I do not think this statement of Davis's is to be taken without many grains of salt. I suppose he thought the man to whom he said it would not take it too literally.

Judge Davis was a man of very warm sympathy. He liked to give accounts of cases he had tried, sitting in equity, or I think sometimes in divorce cases, where he had invented a curious rule of law, or had stretched his discretion, to save some poor widow, or wronged wife, or suffering orphan, a share of an estate to which their legal title was in considerable doubt. If he were led by his sympathies ever to be an unjust Judge, at least the poor widow had no need to worry him by her importunities. He avenged her speedily the first time.

He was a Republican before and during the War, and a steadfast supporter of Lincoln's policies. His opinion had been in general in support of the liberal construction of the Constitution, under which the National powers had been exerted to put down the Rebellion.

He was elected to the Senate after resigning his place on the Supreme Court Bench, by a union of Democrats of the Illinois Legislature with a few discontented Republicans, defeating Logan. When he came to the Senate he preserved his position as an Independent. He did not go into the caucuses of either party. He had no sympathy with the more radical element among the Democrats. Yet he liked to be considered a special representative of the Labor Party in the country. I think he hoped that there might be a union or coalition of the Democrats and Labor men in the Presidential election of 1880, and that in that way he would be elected President.

His seat was on the Republican side. When there was a division, if he voted with the Republicans, he sat in his seat, or rose in his seat if there was a rising vote; but when, as not unfrequently happened, he voted with the Democrats, he always left his seat and went over to the Democratic side of the Chamber, and stood there until his name was called, or his vote counted. As he passed Conkling one day in one of these movings, Conkling called out, "Davis, do you get travel for all these journeys?"

When the Senate came together in special session, on Monday, October 10, 1881, it was found that the Democrats had a majority of two. One Senator only was present from Rhode Island, one only from Nevada, and the two newly elected Senators from New York had not been admitted to their seats. A motion of Mr. Edmunds that the oath prescribed by law be administered to the Senators from New York was laid on the table. On that vote the Democrats had a majority of two, Mr. Davis voting with the Republicans. On a resolution that Thomas F. Bayard, a Senator from Delaware, be chosen President pro tempore, Mr. Edmunds moved an amendment by striking it all out and inserting a resolution that the oath of office be administered to Mr. Miller and Mr. Lapham of New York, and Mr. Aldrich of Rhode Island, by Mr. Henry B. Anthony the senior Senator of the Senate. That resolution was lost by a vote of thirty- four to thirty-three, Mr. Davis voting with the Republicans. Mr. Edmunds then moved to add to the resolution declaring Mr. Bayard President pro tempore, the words "for this day." That was lost by one vote, Mr. Davis voting with the Republicans. After several other unsuccessful attempts, Mr. Bayard was chosen President pro tempore, the resolution being carried by a majority of two votes, Mr. Davis not voting. Thereupon Mr. Bayard accepted the office in a speech, brief, but which clearly implied an expectation on his part to continue in it for a considerable period of time.

The next day, being Tuesday, October 11, Mr. Aldrich of Rhode Island, Mr. Lapham and Mr. Miller of New York, were admitted to their seats. This left a majority of two for the Republicans, if Mr. Davis acted with them, and the two parties tied, if Mr. Davis acted with the Democrats.

The Democrats had succeeded in electing their President pro tempore, whom the Republicans could not displace, and there was left before the body a struggle for the organization of the Senate, including the executive officers and the Committees, in which no progress could be made without Mr. Davis's help.

That being the condition of things, the Republicans called a caucus, in which Senator Logan, Mr. Davis's colleague, appeared with a message from Mr. Davis. This substance of the message was that Mr. Davis thought that the Republicans ought to leave the organization, so far as the executive offices were concerned, in the hands of the Democrats, who had elected the existing officers during the previous Congress, and that the Committees should be appointed with Republican majorities. Mr. Logan further announced that if the Republicans should see fit to elect Mr. Davis President pro tempore, he would vote in accordance with that understanding. Mr. Ingalls of Kansas and I were quite unwilling to accede to this arrangement. But at that time the Committees lasted only for the session for which they were appointed. So the Senate could transact no business of importance, and the office of Secretary, and Sergeant-at-Arms, and Door-keeper, and all the important offices of the Senate would continue in Democratic hands. So, very reluctantly, we yielded to the desire of our associates. Whereupon a resolution was adopted continuing the standing Committees for the session as they had come over from the last session, and indeed from the session before, Mr. Davis voting with the Republicans. This vote was passed by a majority of two votes. General Logan then introduced the following resolution: That David Davis, a Senator from Illinois, is hereby chosen President pro tempore of the Senate. This was also passed by a majority of two votes, Mr. Davis and Mr. Bayard not voting. Mr. Bayard descended from the elevation he had occupied for so short a time, amid general laughter in which he good-naturedly joined, and Mr. Davis ascended the throne. He made a brief speech which began with this sentence: "The honor just conferred upon me comes, as the seat in this body which I now hold did, without the least expectation on my part. If it carried any party obligation, I should be constrained to decline this high compliment. I do not accept it as a tribute to any personal merit, but rather as a recognition of the independent position which I have long occupied in the politics of the country."

So, it was Mr. Davis's fortune to hold in his hands the determination between the two parties of the political power of the country, on two very grave occasions. But for his choice as Senator from Illinois, he would have been on the Electoral Commission. I do not think, in so important a matter, that he would have impaired his great judicial fame by dissenting from the opinion which prevailed. But if he had, he would have given the Presidency to Mr. Tilden. And again, but for the arrangement by which he was elected to the Presidency of the Senate, the Republicans would not have gained control, so far as it depended on the Committees.

He did not make a very good presiding officer. He never called anybody to order. He was not informed as to parliamentary law, or as to the rules of the Senate. He had a familiar and colloquial fashion, if any Senator questioned his ruling, of saying, "But, my dear sir"; or, "But, pray consider." He was very irreverently called by somebody, during a rather disorderly scene in the Senate, where he lost control of the reins, the "Anarch old."

But, after all, the office of presiding over the Senate is commonly not of very great consequence. It is quite important that the President of the Senate should be a pleasant-natured gentleman, and the gentleman in the Senator will almost always respond to the gentleman in the Chair. Senators do not submit easily to any vigorous exercise of authority. Vice-Presidents Wheeler, Morton and Stevenson, and more lately, Mr. Frye, asserted their authority with as little show of force as if they were presiding over a company of guests at their own table. But the order and dignity of the body have been preserved.

Mr. Davis's fame must rest on his long and faithful and able service as a wise, conscientious and learned Judge. In writing these recollections, I have dwelt altogether too much on little foibles and weaknesses, which seem to have something amusing in them, and too little, I am afraid, on the greater qualities of the men with whom I have served. This is perhaps true as to David Davis. But I have said very much what I should have said to him, if I had been chatting with him, as I very frequently did, in the cloak room of the Senate.

He was a man of enormous bulk. No common arm chair would hold him. There is a huge chair, said to have been made for Dixon H. Lewis of Alabama, long before the Civil War, which was brought up from the basement of the Capitol for his use. The newspaper correspondents used to say that he had to be surveyed for a new pair of trousers.

I was one night in the Chair of the Senate when the session lasted to near three o'clock in the morning. It was on the occasion of the passage of the bill for purchasing silver. The night was very dark and stormy and the rain came down in torrents. Just before I put the final question I sent a page for my coat and hat, and, as soon as I declared the Senate adjourned, started for the outer door. There were very few carriages in waiting. I secured one of them and then invited Davis and his secretary and another Senator, when they came along, to get in with me. When we stopped to leave Judge Davis at the National Hotel, where he lived, it was found impossible to get the door of the hack open. His great weight pressed it down, so that the door was held tight as in a vise. The hackman and the porters pulled on the outside, and the passengers pushed and struggled from within; but in vain. After fifteen or twenty minutes, it occurred to some one that we within should all squeeze ourselves over to one side of the carriage, and those outside use their whole strength on the opposite door. This was successful. We escaped from our prison. As Davis marched into the hotel the hackman exclaimed, as he stared after him: "By God, I should think you was eight men."

Eli Saulsbury of Delaware was a very worthy Southern gentleman of the old school, of great courage, ability and readiness in debate, absolutely devoted to the doctrines of the Democratic Party, and possessed of a very high opinion of himself. I knew him very intimately. He was Chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and was a member of it when I was Chairman. We went to New Orleans together to make what was called the Copiah investigation. We used to be fond of talking with each other. He always had a fund of pleasant anecdotes of old times in the South. He liked to set forth his own virtues and proclaim the lofty morality of his own principles of conduct, a habit which he may have got from his eminent colleague, Senator Bayard, who sometimes announced a familiar moral principle as if it were something the people who listened to him were hearing for the first time, and of which he in his youth had been the original discoverer. I once told Saulsbury, when he was discoursing in that way, that he must be descended from Adam by some wife he had before Eve, who had nothing to do with the fall. He was fond of violently denouncing the wicked Republicans on the floor of the Senate, and in Committee. But his bark was worse than his bite.

When the Kellogg case was investigated by the Committee on Privileges and Elections, when I first entered the Senate, Mr. Saulsbury rose in the first meeting of the Committee and proceeded to denounce his Republican associates. He declared they came there with their minds made up on the case, a condition of mind which was absolutely unfit for a grave judicial office, in the discharge of which all party considerations and preconceived opinions should be banished. He said we should have open minds to hear the arguments and the evidence to be introduced, as if it were a solemn trial in a court of justice. When he was in the midst of a very eloquent and violent philippic, the Chairman of the Committee, Bainbridge Wadleigh, said quietly, "Brother Saulsbury, haven't you made up your mind?" Mr. Saulsbury stopped a moment, said, "Yes, I have made up my mind," broke into a roar of laughter, and sat down.

He was a confirmed and incorrigible bachelor. There was in New Orleans, when we were there, a restaurant famous all over the country, kept by a very accomplished widow. The members of the Committee thought it would be a good thing if we could have such a restaurant as that in Washington. We passed a unanimous vote requesting Mr. Saulsbury to marry the widow, and bring her to Washington, as a matter of public duty. He took the plan into consideration, but nothing came of it. Some mischievous newspaper correspondent circulated a report, which went through the country, that Mr. Saulsbury was very much in love with a lady in Washington, also a charming widow. It was said that he visited her every evening; that she had a rare gift of making rum punch; that she always gave him a glass, and that afterward, although he was exceedingly temperate in such things, he fell on his knees, offered himself to the widow, and was refused; and that this ceremony had been repeated nightly for many years. I once mentioned this story to him, and he didn't deny it. But, on the other hand, he didn't admit it.

When he was chosen to the Senate he had two brothers who competed with him for the office. One of them was then Senator. The Senate had a good deal of difficulty in getting through its business before the 4th of March, when the new Administration came in, and the term of the elder Mr. Saulsbury ended. There had been an all-night session, so some of the Senators had got worn out and overcome by the loss of sleep. Just before twelve o'clock at noon Senator Willard Saulsbury put his head down on this desk and fell asleep. The Senate was called to order again for the new session, the roll called, and Mr. Saulsbury's brother Eli had been sworn in. Willard waked up, rose, and addressed the Chair. The presiding officer quietly replied: "The gentleman from Delaware is no longer a member of the Senate." Whereupon he quietly withdrew.

Matthew C. Butler of South Carolina was another Southern Democrat, fiery in temper, impatient of control or opposition, ready to do battle if anybody attacked the South, but carrying anger as the flint bears fire. He was zealous for the honor of the country, and never sacrificed the interest of the country to party or sectional feeling. He was quite unpopular with the people of the North when he entered the Senate, partly from the fact that some of his kindred had been zealous Southern champions before the War, at the time of some very bitter sectional strifes, and because he was charged with having been the leader and counsellor in some violent and unlawful conduct toward the colored people after the War. I have not investigated the matter. But I believe the responsibility for a good deal of what was ascribed to him belonged to another person of the same name. But the Republicans of the Senate came to esteem and value Senator Butler very highly. He deserves great credit, among other things, for his hearty and effective support of the policy of enlarging the Navy, which, when he came into public life, was feeble in strength and antiquated in construction. With his departure from the Senate, and that of his colleague, General Wade Hampton, ended the power in South Carolina of the old gentry who, in spite of some grave faults, had given to that State an honorable and glorious career. When the Spanish War broke out, General Butler was prompt to offer his services, although he had lost a leg in the Civil War.

James B. Beck came into the House of Representatives when I did, in 1869. He served there for six years, was out of public life for two years, and in 1877 came to the Senate when I did.

I do not think any two men ever disliked each other more than we did for the first few years of our service. He hated with all the energy of his Scotch soul,—the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum,—everything I believed. He thought the New England Abolitionists had neither love of liberty nor care for the personal or political rights of the negro. Indeed he maintained that the forefathers of the New England abolitionists were guilty of bringing slavery into this continent. He hated the modern New England theological heresies with all the zeal of his Scotch Presbyterian forbears. He hated the Reconstruction policy, which he thought was inspired by a desire to put the white man in the place where the negro had been. He hated with all the energy of a free-trader the protection policy, which he deemed the most unscrupulous robbery on a huge scale. He considered the gold standard a sort of power press with which the monopolists of the East were trying to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the farmers and workingmen of the South. He thought the public debt was held by men who had paid very little value for it, and who ought to be paid off in the same cheap money which was in vogue when it was originally incurred. He hated New England culture and refinement, which he deemed a very poor crop coming from a barren intellectual soil. He regarded me, I think, as the representative, in a humble way, of all these things, and esteemed me accordingly.

I was not behindhand with him, although I was not quite so frank, probably, in uttering my opinions in public debate. But I found out, after a little while, that the Northern men who got intimate with him on committees, or in private intercourse, found him one of the most delightful companions, fond of poetry, especially of Burns, full of marvellous stores of anecdotes, without any jot of personal malice, ready to do a kindness to any man, and easily touched by any manifestation of kindly feeling toward him, or toward his Southern neighbors and constituents. My colleague, Mr. Dawes, served with him on some of the great committees of the Senate and in the House, and they established a very close and intimate friendship. I came to know Mr. Beck later. But he had changed his feeling toward me, as I had toward him, long before either found out what the other was thinking about. So one day—it was the time of Mr. Dawes's last reelection to the Senate—he came over to my side of the Chamber, took my hand and said with great emotion: "I congratulate you on the reelection of Mr. Dawes. He is one of my dearest friends, and one of the best men I ever knew in my life." And then, as he turned away, he added: "Mr. Hoar, I have not known you as well. But I shall the same thing about you, when your reelection takes place."

He had a powerful and vigorous frame, and a powerful and vigorous understanding. It seemed as if neither could ever tire. He used to pour out his denunciation of the greed of the capitalists and monopolists and protectionists, with a fund of statistics which it seemed impossible for the industry of any man to have collected, and at a length which it would seem equally impossible for mortal man to endure. He was equally ready on all subjects. He performed with great fidelity the labor of a member of the Committee on Appropriations, first in the House, and afterward in the Senate. I was the author of a small jest, which half amused and half angered him. Somebody asked in my hearing how it was possible that Mr. Beck could make all those long speeches, in addition to his committee work, or get time for the research that was needed, and how it was ever possible for his mind to get any rest; to which I answered, that he rested his intellect while he was making his speeches. But this was a sorry jest, with very little foundation in fact. Anybody who undertook to debate with him, found him a tough customer. He knew the Bible—especially the Psalms of David—and the poems of Burns, by heart. When he died I think there was no other man left in the Senate, on either side, whose loss would have occasioned a more genuine and profound sorrow.

When I came into the Senate one of the most conspicuous characters in American public life was Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. He had been Governor of Indiana during the War. There was a large and powerful body of Copperheads among the Democrats in that State. They were very different from their brethren in the East. They were ugly, defiant and full of a dangerous activity. Few other men could have dealt with them with the vigor and success of Governor Morton. The State at its elections was divided into two hostile camps. If they did not resort to the weapons of war, they were filled with a hatred and bitterness which does not commonly possess military opponents. Gov. Morton, in spite of the great physical infirmity which came upon him before the War ended, held the State in its place in the Union with an iron hand. When he came to the Senate he found there no more powerful, brave or unyielding defender of liberty. He had little regard for Constitutional scruples. I do not think it should be said that he would willingly violate his oath to support the Constitution. But he believed that the Constitution should be interpreted in the light of the Declaration of Independence, so as to be the law of life to a great, powerful and free people. To this principle of interpretation, all strict or narrow criticism, founded on its literal meaning, must yield.

His public life was devoted to two supreme objects:

1. Preservation of the Constitutional authority of the Government.

2. The maintenance by that authority of the political and personal rights of all citizens, of all races and classes.

As I have said, he interpreted the Constitution in a manner which he thought would best promote these objects. He had little respect for subtilties or refinements or scruples that stood in the way.

He was for going straight to his object. When the Hayes and Tilden contest was up, he was for having the President of the United States put Hayes and Wheeler in power by using all the National forces, military and other, that might be needful. He was a member of the Committee that framed the bill for the Electoral Commission, but refused to give it his support.

I made a very pleasant acquaintance with him during the sessions of that Committee. I suppose it was due to his kindly influence that I was put upon the Committee of Privileges and Elections, of which he was Chairman, when I entered the Senate. But he died in the following summer, so I never had an opportunity to know him better. He was a great party leader. He had in this respect no superior in his time, save Lincoln alone.

It was never my good fortune to be intimate with Zachariah Chandler. But I had a good opportunity for observing him and knowing him well. I met him in 1854, at the Convention held in Buffalo to concert measures for protecting and promoting Free State immigration to Kansas. He was the leading spirit of that Convention, full of wisdom, energy and courage. He was then widely known throughout the country as an enterprising and successful man of business. When I went into the House of Representatives, in 1869, Mr. Chandler was already a veteran in public life. He had organized and led the political forces which overthrew Lewis Cass and the old Democratic Party, not only in Michigan but in the Northwest. He had been in the Senate twelve years. Those twelve years had been crowded with history. The close of the Administration of Buchanan, the disruption of the Democratic Party at Charleston, the election and inauguration of Lincoln, the putting down of the Rebellion, the organizing, directing and disbanding of great armies, the great amendments to the Constitution, and the contest with Andrew Johnson, had been accomplished. The reconstruction of the rebellious States, the payment of the public debt, keeping the national faith under great temptation, reconciliation and the processes of legislation and administration under the restraints which belonged to peace, were well under way. In all these Chandler bore a large part, and a part wise, honest, powerful and on the righteous side. I knew him afterward in the Department of the Interior. He was, in my judgment, the ablest administrative officer without an exception who has been in any executive department during my public life. His sturdy honesty, his sound, rapid, almost instinctive judgment, his tact, his business sense, his love of justice were felt in every fibre and branch of the great Interior Department, then including eight great bureaus each almost important enough to be a Department by itself.

The humblest clerk who complained of injustice was sure to be listened to by the head of that great Department, who, with his quick sympathy and sound judgment, would make it certain that right would be done.

Chandler has little respect for the refinements of speech or for literary polish. He could not endure Mr. Sumner's piling precedent upon precedent and quotation upon quotation, and disliked his lofty and somewhat pompous rhetoric. He used sometimes to leave his seat and make known his disgust in the cloak room, or in the rear of the desks, to visitors who happened to be in the Senate Chamber. But he was strong as a rock, true as steel, fearless and brave, honest and incorruptible. He had a vigorous good sense. He saw through all the foolish sophistries with which the defenders of fiat money, or debased currency, sought to defend their schemes. He had no mercy for treason or rebellion or secession. He was a native of New Hampshire. He had the opinions of New England, combined with the directness and sincerity and energy of the West. He had a very large influence in making the State of Michigan another New England.

He was a sincere, open-hearted, large-hearted and affectionate man. He was the last man in the world of whom it would be proper to speak as a member of an intrigue or cabal. His strategy was a straightforward, downright blow. His stroke was an Abdiel stroke,

This greeting on thy impious crest receive.

His eloquence was simple, rugged, direct, strong. He had but a scanty vocabulary. It contained no word for treason but "treason." He described a lie by a word of three letters. The character of his speech was that which Plutarch ascribes to Demosthenes. He was strongly stirred by simple and great emotions—love of country, love of freedom, love of justice, love of honesty. He hated cant and affectation.

I believe he was fond of some good literature, but he was very impatient of Mr. Sumner's load of ornament and quotation. He had little respect for fine phrases or for fine sentiment or the delicacies of a refined literature. He was rough and plain-spoken. I do not think he would ever have learned to care much for Tennyson or Browning. But the Psalms of David would have moved him.

I suppose he was not much of a civil service reformer. He expected to rule Michigan, and while he would have never bought or bribed an antagonist by giving him an office, he would have expected to fill the public offices, so far as he had his way, by men who were of his way of thinking. He was much shocked and disgusted when Judge Hoar wanted to inquire further concerning a man whom he had recommended for the office of Judge of the Circuit Court. The Judge said something about asking Reuben Rice, a friend he highly respected who had lived long in Michigan. Chandler spoke of it afterward and said: "When Jake Howard and I recommended a man, the Attorney- General wanted to ask a little railroad fellow what he thought of him."

He joined with Conkling and Carpenter and Edmunds in their opposition to the confirmation of Judge Hoar. He came to know the Judge better afterward and declared that he himself had made a mistake.

He was a strong pillar of public faith, public liberty, and of the Union. He had great faults. But without the aid of the men whom he could influence and who honored him, and to whom his great faults were as great virtues, the Union never would have been saved, or slavery abolished, or the faith kept. I hold it one of the chief proofs of the kindness of divine Providence to the American people in a time of very great peril that their leaders were so different in character. They are all dead now—Sumner and Fessenden and Seward and Wilson and Chase and Stanton and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Chandler,—a circle in which Lincoln shines as a diamond in its setting. Not one of them could have been spared.

It is proper that I should add that I have known very well a good many of the most eminent citizens of Michigan. This list includes Governor and Senator Henry P. Baldwin, and Judge Christiancy, who displaced Chandler in the Senate. I have frequently heard them speak of Mr. Chandler. Without an exception I believe they held him in profound esteem and honor. They were proud of him as the most eminent citizen of their State which has been prolific of strong men, speaking of him as we do of Sumner or Webster.

Mr. Chandler was a remarkable example of what I have often noticed, how thoroughly the people come to know the true character of a public man, even when the press of the whole country unite to decry him. I suppose there was not a paper in New England, Republican or Democratic, that spoke kindly of Zach. Chandler for many years. He was disliked by the Democratic press for his unyielding Republicanism. He was disliked by the Republican press that supported Charles Sumner, for his opposition to him. He was represented as a coarse, ignorant and unscrupulous man. In the campaign of 1880 I sent him a telegram, asking him to visit me in Massachusetts and make a few speeches in our campaign. I added: "You will be received with unbounded respect and honor." The telegram was an astonishment and revelation to the old man. He had no idea that the people of New England had that opinion of him. Governor Baldwin told me that he happened to be passing Chandler's house just as he received my message. Chandler knocked on the window for the Governor to come in. He had the telegram in his hand when the Governor entered, and exclaimed: "Look at that; read that; and I did not graduate at Harvard College either." His colleague, Senator Ferry, alludes to his gratification at the receipt of this message, in his obituary delivered in the Senate. He spoke in Worcester and Boston and Lowell, and in one or two other places. His passage through the State was a triumphal march. He was received as I had predicted. In Worcester we had no hall large enough to hold the crowds that thronged to see him, and were compelled to have the meeting in the skating-rink. Chandler went back to Michigan full of satisfaction with his reception. I think he would have been among the most formidable candidates for the Presidency at the next election, but for his sudden death. If he had been nominated, he would undoubtedly have been elected. But, a short time after, he was one morning found dead in his bed at Chicago. In his death a great and salutary force was subtracted from the public life of the country, and especially from the public life of the great State to whose history he had contributed so large and noble a part.

I have found among some old notes a few sentences with which
I presented him to a mighty audience in my own city:

"Worcester is here in person to-night to give a welcome from the heart of Massachusetts to the Senator of Michigan. If our guest had nothing of his own to recommend him, it would be enough to stir the blood of Massachusetts that he represents that honored State, another New England in her interests and in her opinions. With her vast forests, her people share with Maine, our own great frontier State, those vast lumber interests, for which it has been our own policy to demand protection. Daughter of three mighty lakes, she takes a large share in our vast inland commerce. Her people are brave, prosperous and free. They have iron in their soil, and iron in their blood. Great as is her wealth and her material interest, she shares with Massachusetts the honor of being among the foremost of American States in educational conditions. Massachusetts is proud to—

Claim kindred there, and have the claim allowed.

"But our guest brings to us more than a representative title to our regard. The memory of some of us goes back to the time when, all over the great free Northwest, the people seemed to have forgotten to what they owed their own prosperity. The Northwest had been the gift of Freedom to the Republic on her birthday. In each of her million homes dwells Liberty, a perpetual guest. But yet that people in Illinois and Michigan and Indiana and Ohio seemed for a time to have forgotten their own history, and to be unworthy of their fair and mighty heritage. They had been the trusted and sturdy allies of the slave power in the great contest for the possession of the vast territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific. The old leaders, Douglas in Illinois and Cass in Michigan, who ruled those States with an almost despotic power, sought to win the favor of the South for their aspirations for the Presidency by espousing the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, under which the invaders from the slave States hard by, without even becoming residents in good faith, might fix forever the character of that fair domain. At that time a young knight, a figure of manly courage and manly strength, came forward to challenge General Cass to a struggle for the supremacy in Michigan. It was our guest of this evening. As you all know, the young champion vanquished the veteran warrior in a trial by battle for the freedom of the Continent. I met him at Buffalo in 1854, in the height of the conflict, at a gathering of a few gentlemen to concert measures for sustaining, aiding and arming the Free State immigrants in Kansas. He was the leader and the life of the company. Many of those immigrants had gone from Worcester County, where the Emigrants' Aid Society was first devised by Edward Hale and organized by Eli Thayer. I met him again when I went to Washington in 1869. I found him among the foremost of the leaders of the Senate. He had gone through the great period of the Civil War, and the period before the Civil War. He had stood by Lincoln in that time of trouble. He had stood firm as a rock for the financial integrity of the country. Afterward it was my good fortune to know a good deal of his administration of the great Department of the Interior. I have never known, or known of, a better administration of any Department from the beginning of the Government, than his of that great office, with its eight important bureaus.

"He brings to you to-night the news from Maine and the news from Ohio. He can tell you what the Republicans are thinking of and are doing all over the country, as they prepare themselves for the great contest beginning this year, to end, as we hope and believe, with a great Republican victory in 1880."

John James Ingalls was in many respects one of the brightest intellects I ever knew. He was graduated at Williams in 1855. One of the few things, I don't know but I might say the only thing, for which he seemed to have any reverence was the character of Mark Hopkins. He was a very conspicuous figure in the debates in the Senate. He had an excellent English style, always impressive, often on fit occasions rising to great stateliness and beauty. He was for a good while President pro tempore of the Senate, and was the best presiding officer I have ever known there for conducting ordinary business. He maintained in the chair always his stately dignity of bearing and speech. The formal phrases with which he declared the action of the Senate, or stated questions for its decision, seemed to be a fitting part of some stately ceremonial. He did not care much about the principles of parliamentary law, and had never been a very thorough student of the rules. So his decisions did not have the same authority as those of Mr. Wheeler or Mr. Edmunds or Mr. Hamlin.

I said to him one day, "I think you are the best presiding officer I ever knew. But I do not think you know much about parliamentary law." To which he replied: "I think the sting is bigger than the bee."

He never lost an opportunity to indulge his gift of caustic wit, no matter at whose expense. When the morning hour was devoted to acting upon the reports of committees in cases of private claims, or pensions, he used to look over, the night before, the reports which were likely to be on the next day's calendar. When a bill was reached he would get up and make a pretty sharp attack on the measure, full of wit and satire. He generally knew very little about it. When he got through his speech he would disappear into the cloak room and leave the Senator who had reported the bill, and had expected to get it through without any difficulty—the case being very often absolutely clear and just—to spend his time in an elaborate and indignant explanation.

Mr. Ingalls disliked very much the scrupulous administrations of Hayes and Harrison. He yielded to the craze for free silver which swept over parts of the West, and in so doing lost the confidence of the people to whose momentary impulse he had given way. If he had stood stanchly on the New England doctrines and principles in which he was educated, and which I think he believed in his heart, he would have kept his State on the right side. Shortly before the campaign in which he was defeated for Senator, he said in the cloak room, in my hearing, that he did not propose to be a martyr. He was the author or a beautiful poem, entitled "Opportunity," which I think should accompany this imperfect sketch.

OPPORTUNITY

Master of human destinies am I!
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace—soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!

If sleeping, wake—if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore.
I answer not, and I return no more!

Ingalls was a native of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Somewhere about 1880, being in Boston, he gave an interview to one of the papers in which he commented very severely on the want of able leadership in the Republican Party in Massachusetts. I suppose the criticism was directed at me, although he did not mention my name. In 1880 Massachusetts gave a Republican majority of 48,697, and Kansas a Republican majority of 41,897. Mr. Ingalls's leadership in Kansas had been manifested very largely in the control of official patronage. He said in the Senate that he and his colleague sought to get rid of all Democrats in office in Kansas as with a fine-toothed comb.

So far as I had been concerned, and so far as the Republican leaders in Massachusetts had been concerned, with the exception of General Butler, a different policy had been adopted. We had never attempted to make a political instrument of official patronage. There had never been anything like a "boss" or a machine. Our State politics had been conducted, and our candidates for office nominated, after the old fashion of a New England town meeting. When an election approached, or when a great measure or political question was to be decided, men who were influential consulted together informally, ascertained the public sentiment, deferred to it, if it seemed to be right, and did what they could to persuade it and guide it by speech and discussion in the press, if it needed guidance, and trusted, hardly ever in vain, to the intelligence of the people for the result. I do not know but the diminution of the comparative importance of the towns, and the change of the Commonwealth and cluster of cities and manufacturing villages, and the influx of other elements than that of the old New England stock may not bring about, or if indeed it is not already bringing about, a different conduct of affairs. But I have never adopted any other method, and I have never desired that my public life or influence should survive the introduction of any other method in Massachusetts. Mr. Ingalls's methods and mine have been tested by their results. The people of Kansas are largely of Massachusetts origin. I believe if her leading men had pursued Massachusetts methods she would to a great extent have repeated Massachusetts history. Our method of political management and control has been vindicated by the fact that the Commonwealth has been kept true to its ancient faith, except in a very few years when accidental causes have caused the election of a Democratic Governor. Those elections were protests against an attempt to depart from the old-fashioned method of ascertaining the will of the people in selecting Republican candidates. Massachusetts has kept the succession of United States Senators unbroken, and has had a Republican delegation in the House ever since the party came into power, with two exceptions. She has in general maintained her great Republican majority. On the other hand Kansas has been represented in turn by Democrats and Populists and Socialists and the advocates of fiat money and free silver.

Senator Cockrell of Missouri entered the Senate two years before I did, and has been there ever since. He is a man of great sincerity and integrity, of great influence with his own party, and highly esteemed by his Republican associates. He can generally be depended upon for a fair vote, certainly always for an honest and incorruptible vote, and to do full justice to a political opponent. He used for many years to prepare one speech, in each session, in which he went over the political issues of the two parties in a violent and extreme fashion. He would give us the whole history of the year and point out the imperfections and weakness and atrocity of the party in power in a most unsparing fashion. This speech he would frank home to Missouri. He seemed to think his duty as a Democratic politician was done, and he would betake himself to statesmanship the rest of the year. I think he has of late discontinued that practice. I do not want what I have said to be taken too seriously. There is scarcely a member of either side in either House who would be more missed from the public service, if anything were to happen to him, than Mr. Cockrell, nor for whom all men have a kindlier and more affectionate regard. Like Mr. Allison, he knows the mechanism of administration and legislation through and through. He would be entirely competent to fill a chair of public administration in any college, if, as I hope may be done, such chairs shall be established.

When Justin Morrill died, not only a great figure left the Senate Chamber—the image of the ancient virtue of New England— but an era in our national history came to an end. He knew in his youth the veterans of the Revolution and the generation who declared independence and framed the Constitution, as the young men who are coming to manhood to-day know the veterans who won our victories and the statesmen who conducted our policy in the Civil War. He knew the whole history of his country from the time of her independence, partly from the lips of those who had shaped it, partly because of the large share he had in it himself. When he was born Washington had been dead but ten years. He was sixteen years old when Jefferson and Adams died. He was twenty-two years old when Charles Carroll died. He was born at the beginning of the second year of Madison's Presidency, and was a man of twenty-six when Madison died. In his youth and early manhood the manners of Ethan Allen's time still prevailed in Vermont, and Allen's companions and comrades could be found in every village. He was old enough to feel in his boyish soul something of the thrill of our great naval victories, and of the victory at New Orleans in our last war with England, and, perhaps, to understand something of the significance of the treaty of peace of 1815. He knew many of the fathers of the country as we knew him. In his lifetime the country grew from seventeen hundred thousand to thirty-six hundred thousand square miles, from seventeen States to forty-five States, from four million people to seventy-five million. To the America into which he was born seventeen new Americas had been added before he died.

A great and healthful and beneficent power departed from our country's life. If he had not lived, the history of the country would have been different in some very important particulars; and it is not unlikely that his death changed the result in some matters of great pith and moment, which are to affect profoundly the history of the country in the future. The longer I live, the more carefully I study the former times or observe my own time, the more I am impressed with the sensitiveness of every people, however great or however free, to an individual touch, to the influence of a personal force. There is no such thing as a blind fate; no such thing as an overwhelming and pitiless destiny. The Providence that governs this world leaves nations as He leaves men, to work out their own destiny, their own fate, in freedom, as they obey or disobey His will.

Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all life, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill;
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

It is wonderful what things this man accomplished alone, what things he helped others to accomplish, what things were accomplished by the political organization of which he was a leader, which he bore a very large part in accomplishing.

Mr. Morrill's public life was coincident with the advent of the Republican Party to National power. His first important vote in the House of Representatives helped to elect Mr. Banks to the office of Speaker, the first National victory of a party organized to prevent the extension of slavery. From that moment, for nearly half a century, Vermont spoke through him in our National Council, until, one after another, almost every great question affecting the public welfare has been decided in accordance with her opinion.

It would be impossible, even by a most careful study of the history of the country for the last forty years, to determine with exactness what was due to Mr. Morrill's personal influence. Many of the great policies to which we owe the successful result of the Civil War—the abolition of slavery, the restoration of peace, the new and enlarged definition of citizenship, the restoration of order, the establishment of public credit, the homestead system, the foundation and admission of new States, the exaction of apology and reparation from Great Britain, the establishment of the doctrine of expatriation, the achievement of our manufacturing independence, the taking by the United States of its place as the foremost nation in the world in manufacture and in wealth, as it was already foremost in agriculture, the creation of our vast domestic commerce, the extension of our railroad system from one ocean to the other—were carried into effect by narrow majorities, and would have failed but for the wisest counsel. When all these matters were before Congress there may have been men more brilliant or more powerful in debate. But I can not think of any wiser in counsel than Mr. Morrill. Many of them must have been lost but for his powerful support. Many owed to him the shape they finally took.

But he has left many a personal monument in our legislation, in the glory of which no others can rightfully claim to rival him. To him is due the great tariff, that of 1861, which will always pass by his name, of which every protective tariff since has been but a modification and adjustment to conditions somewhat changed, conditions which in general, so far as they were favorable, were the result of that measure. To him is due the first antipolygamy bill, which inaugurated the policy under which, as we hope and believe, that great blot on our National life has been forever expunged. The public buildings which ornament Washington, the extension of the Capitol grounds, the great building where the State, War and Navy Departments have their home, the National Museum buildings, are the result of statutes of which he was the author and which he conducted from their introduction to their enactment. He was the leader, as Mr. Winthrop in his noble oration bears witness, of the action of Congress which resulted in the completion of the Washington Monument after so many years' delay. He conceived and accomplished the idea of consecrating the beautiful chamber of the old House of Representatives as a Memorial Hall where should stand forever the statues of the great men of the States. So far, of late, as the prosperity and wise administration of the Smithsonian Institution has depended upon the action of Congress it has been due to him. Above all, the beautiful National Library building, unequalled among buildings of its class in the world, was in a large measure the result of his persistent effort and powerful influence, and stands as an enduring monument to his fame. There can be no more beautiful and enviable memorial to any man than a portrait upon the walls of a great college in the gallery where the figures and faces of its benefactors are collected. Mr. Morrill deserves this expression of honor and gratitude at the hands of at least one great institution of learning in every American State. To his wise foresight is due the ample endowment of Agricultural or Technical colleges in every State in the Union.

He came from a small State, thinly settled—from a frontier State. His advantages of education were those only which the public schools of the neighborhood afforded. All his life, with a brief interval, was spent in the same town, nine miles from any railroad, except when absent in the public service. But there was no touch of provincialism in him. Everything about him was broad, national, American. His intellect and soul, his conceptions of statesmanship and of duty expanded as the country grew and as the demands upon him increased. He was in every respect as competent to legislate for fifty States as for thirteen. He would have been as competent to legislate for an entire continent so long as that legislation were to be governed, restrained, inspired by the principles in which our Union is founded and the maxims of the men who builded it.

He was no dreamer, no idealist, no sentimentalist. He was practical, wise, prudent. In whatever assembly he was found he represented the solid sense of the meeting. But still he never departed from the loftiest ideals. On any question involving righteousness or freedom you would as soon have had doubt of George Washington's position as of his. He had no duplicity, no indirection, no diplomacy. He was frank, plain-spoken, simple-hearted. He had no faculty for swimming under water.

His armor was his honest thought
And simple truth his utmost skill.

The Apostle's counsel to his young disciple will serve for a lifelike portraiture of Justin Morrill:

"Be sober-minded:
"Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
"In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works:
in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity;
"Sound speech that can not be condemned; that he that is
of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing
to say of you."

If you wish to sum up the quality of Justin Morrill in a single word, mind, body, and soul, that word would be Health. He was thoroughly healthy, through and through, to the center of his brain, to his heart's core. Like all healthy souls, he was full of good cheer and sunshine, full of hope for the future, full of pleasant memories of the past. To him life was made up of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows. But with all his friendliness and kindliness, with all his great hold upon the love and respect of the people, with all his large circle of friends, with all his delight in companionship and agreeable converse, he dared to be alone. He found good society enough always, if no other were at hand, in himself. He was many times called upon to espouse unpopular causes and unpopular doctrines. From the time when in his youth he devoted himself to the anti-slavery cause, then odious in the nostrils of his countrymen, to the time when in the last days of his life he raised his brave voice against a policy upon which the majority of his political associates seemed bent, he never yielded the conclusions of his own judgment or the dictates of his own conscience to any majority, to any party dictation, or to any public clamor. When Freedom, Righteousness and Justice were on his side he considered himself in the majority. He was constant in his attendance on the worship of a small and unpopular religious denomination. He never lost his good nature, his courage, or his supreme confidence in the final triumph of truth.

Mr. Morrill was not a great political leader. Great political leaders are not often found in the Senate nowadays. He was contented to be responsible for one man; to cast his share of the vote of one State; to do his duty as he conceived it, and let other men do theirs as they saw it. But at least he was not a great political follower. He never committed himself to the popular currents, nor studied the vanes to see how the winds were blowing, nor sounded the depths and the shallows before he decided on his own course. There was no wire running to his seat from any centre of patronage or power. To use a felicitous phrase, I think of Senator Morgan of Alabama, he did not "come out of the door and cry 'Cuckoo!' when any clock struck elsewhere."

Mr. Morrill was a brave man—an independent man. He never flinched from uttering his thought. He was never afraid to vote alone. He never troubled himself about majorities or administrations, still less about crowds or mobs or spasms of popular excitement. His standard of excellence was high. He was severe, almost austere, in his judgments of other men. And yet, with all this, everybody liked him. Everybody who came to know him well loved him. It seems strange that he never incurred enmities or provoked resentments. I suppose the reason is that he never had any controversy with anybody. He did not mingle in the discussion of the Senate as a debater. He uttered his opinion and gave his reasons as if he were uttering judgments. But he seldom or never undertook to reply to the men who differed from him, and he rarely, if ever, used the weapons of ridicule or sarcasm or invective, and he never grew impassioned or angry. He had, in a high degree, what Jeremy Taylor calls "the endearment of prudent and temperate speech."

He was one of the men that Washington would have loved and Washington would have leaned upon. Of course I do not compare my good friend with him to whom no man living or that ever lived on earth can be compared. And Mr. Morrill was never tried or tested by executive or by military responsibilities. But the qualities which belonged to Washington belonged to him—prudence, modesty, sound judgement, simplicity, absolute veracity, absolute integrity, disinterestedness, lofty patriotism. If he is not to be compared with Washington, he was at least worthy to be the countryman of Washington, and to hold a high place among the statesmen of the Republic which Washington founded.

Neither ambition nor hatred, nor the love of ease nor the greed of gain, nor the desire of popularity, nor the love of praise, nor the fear of unpopularity found a place in that simple and brave heart.

Like as a ship that through the ocean wide
By conduct of some star doth make her way—

no local attraction diverted the magnet in his soul, which ever pointed to the star of day.

As I just said, he was one of the men that Washington would have loved and that Washington would have leaned upon. If we do not speak of him as a man of genius, he had that absolute probity and that sound common sense which are safer and better guides than genius. These gifts are the highest ornaments of a noble and beautiful character; they are surer guides to success and loftier elements of true greatness than what is commonly called genius. It was well said by an early American author,* now too much neglected, that—

"There is no virtue without a characteristic beauty. To do what is right argues superior taste as well as morals; and those whose practice is evil feel and inferiority of intellectual power and enjoyment, even where they take no concern for a principle. Doing well has something more in it than the mere fulfilling of a duty. It is a cause of a just sense of elevation of character; it clears and strengthens the spirits; it gives higher reaches of thought. The world is sensible of these truths, let it act as it may. It is not because of his integrity alone that it relies on an honest man, but it has more confidence in his judgment and wise conduct, in the long run, than in the schemes of those of greater intellect who go at large without any landmarks of principle. So that virtue seems of a double nature, and to stand oftentimes in the place of what we call talent."

[Footnote]
* Richard H. Dana, the elder.
[End of Footnote]

He was spared the fate of so many of our great New England statesmen, that of closing his life in sorrow and in gloom. His last days were days of hope, not of despair. Sumner came to his seat in the Senate Chamber as to a solitude. When he was struck with death there was found upon his table a volume of Shakespeare with this passage, probably the last printed text on which his eyes ever gazed, marked with his own hand:

Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
For what is in this world, but care and woe?

The last days of Samuel Adams were embittered by poverty, sickness, and the death of his only son.

Daniel Webster laid wearily down his august head in disappointment and sorrow, predicting with dying breath that the end had come to the great party to whose service his life was given.

When John Quincy Adams fell at his post in the House of Representatives a great newspaper declared that there could not be found in the country another bold enough or bad enough to take his place.

But Mr. Morrill's last days were filled with hope and not with despair. To him life was sweet and immortality assured. His soul took its flight

On wings that fear no glance of God's pure sight,
No tempest from his breath.

And so we leave him. His life went out with the century of which he saw almost the beginning. What the future may have in store for us we cannot tell. But we offer this man as an example of an American Senator and American citizen than which, so far, we have none better. Surely that life has been fortunate. He is buried where he was born. His honored grave is hard by the spot where his cradle was rocked. He sleeps where he wished to sleep, in the bosom of his beloved Vermont. No State ever mourned a nobler son; no son was ever mourned by a nobler State. He enjoyed to a ripe old age everything that can make life happy—honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,

The love of friends without a single foe,
Unequalled lot below.

He died at home. The desire of the wise man,

Let me die in my nest,

was fulfilled to him. His eyes in his old age looked undimmed upon the greatness and the glory of his country, in achieving which he had borne so large a part.