There is nothing vindictive about him, nothing despicable. He is severe, herculean, desperate for the right, and will win in every battle that commands the forces of his being, if victory be achievable. But he honors strong, square men, who have convictions and dare proclaim them; but petty, mean, ignoble souls are first despised, then pitied.
But the day of his betrayal came, the day of rebel wrath; and he met the stroke before the nation’s gaze, and was vindicated before the world.
A business correspondence, it had been said he had burned. He said, “No, there it is, and I will read it to the House,” and he read it. What business firm, it has been asked, would like to have their correspondence regarding any great business interest, read to those who are filled with all manner of suspicions, and so have it misjudged, misinterpreted, and misapplied? And then, to show the temper of those with whom he dealt, a cablegram from Europe vindicating him, was for two days suppressed by the chairman of the congressional committee, before whom he stood, and who failed to convict him by any document at their command. The scene at that time, and their discomfiture, is thus described by an eye-witness:—
“His management of his own case when the Mulligan letters came out was worthy of any general who ever set a squadron in the field. For nearly fifteen years I have looked down from the galleries of the House and Senate, and I never saw, and never expect to see, and never have read of such a scene, where the grandeur of human effort was better illustrated, than when this great orator rushed down the aisle, and, in the very face of Proctor Knott, charged him with suppressing a telegram favorable to Blaine. The whole floor and all the galleries were wild with excitement. Men yelled and cheered, women waved their handkerchiefs and went off into hysterics, and the floor was little less than a mob.”
About this time, Hon. Lot M. Morrill, of his state, was transferred from the senate to the cabinet of President Grant, and as a partial justification, General Connor, the governor of Maine at this time, appointed him to represent Maine in the United States senate in place of Mr. Morrill. The official note was as follows:—
“Augusta, Maine, July 9, 1876.
“To Hon. Milton Saylor, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Washington, D. C.:
“Having tendered to the Hon. James G. Blaine the appointment of senator in congress, he has placed in my hands his resignation as representative from the third district of Maine, to take effect Monday, July 10, 1876.
“SELDON CONNOR,
“Governor of Maine.”
When the legislature of his state met, he came before them and placed himself under a thorough investigation at their hands. And as Ex-Gov. A. P. Morrill says, “They made thorough work of it.” A man to come forth from such an ordeal unscathed, and without the smell of fire on his garments, must be right and not wrong,—or else he is the veriest scoundrel, guilty, deeply so, and competent for bribes, and they, the legislature of Maine, who virtually tried him, hopelessly corrupt. But, no! this cannot be; and so he was vindicated, and triumphantly elected by them to the highest trust within their gift, to wear the honors of a Morrill and a Fessenden.