Whether Lowell were right or wrong in thinking that a new wave of Philistinism had overwhelmed the administration of America is of no great importance to us here. I think he was wrong. I think that the American people govern America, and that the intrigues or devices of the men who “run with the machine” are of much less importance than very young people suppose, who read very poor though very conceited weekly newspapers. However that may be, this country has received great advantage from Lowell’s determined interference and interaction in our politics in the years which followed his return in 1874. So vigorous were his writings that he was at once recognized as a pure public leader. I have always found that the “machine” is eager to join hands with any man of literary, inventive, or business ability who is willing, as the phrase is, to “go into politics.” Certainly this was so in Lowell’s case, and in the autumn of 1876 he was asked to take a seat in Congress which we call in Massachusetts the South Middlesex seat. It was the seat which Edward Everett had captured years before, in the face of the machine of his time. It was the seat which William Everett afterwards captured, by fine audacity, although he was not even a resident in the district. Lowell might have gone to the Congress of 1877 if he had chosen. He declined the position, estimating correctly his abilities and inabilities as a member of a legislative body, “as it seems to me.” But, with the same desire to show that men of character and ability were interested in the Republican party, the nominating convention made him an elector for the presidency.
It was in the famous election after which Hayes was declared to be President by the electoral commission. I will say in passing that, as acting president of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, it had been my business to see to the transfer of two or three thousand voters from the North into Florida in the years after the rebellion, and that it was no matter of surprise to me, therefore, that the electoral commission pronounced that Florida had given a Republican vote. I believe Florida would give such a vote to-day, if there were any chance of its being counted.
When it was clear that the election of Mr. Hayes would depend on a single ballot in the electoral college, there were intriguers so mean as to suggest that possibly Mr. Lowell might be persuaded—I suppose by considerations which such men understand better than I do—to give a vote for Mr. Tilden. Any such hopes as these Mr. Lowell very promptly suppressed, as such a man can. That little correspondence, however, called attention to his name, even in the somewhat dark council chambers of the people who distrust “them littery fellers.”
Fortunately for America also, in all turns of our politics there has been the same sense of the value of literature and of the sphere of men of letters which has given the world about all the good diplomacy which the world has ever had. Somewhat as Franklin was sent to France because the French had heard of him before, quite as Motley was sent to Vienna because he knew something about history and could speak the language of Germany, exactly as Mr. Irving had been sent to Spain as our minister, the new administration made advances to Mr. Lowell to ask him if he would not represent us at one of the European courts.
The following notes may be published now, for the study of annalists, as most of the people who are referred to are dead:—
(April 13, 1876.) “What I meant to say was that if, when the Russian embassy was offered me, it had been the English instead, I should have hesitated before saying no. But with the salary cut down as it is now, I couldn’t afford to take it, for I could not support it decently.”
(April 19, 1876.) “I return Mr. Fish’s letter. There is no more chance of their sending me to St. James’s than to the moon, though I might not be unwilling to go. On the old salary I might manage, and it might do my health good. I have little doubt that it was offered to L. with the understanding that he would decline. I have not seen him for a few days. But it is too large a plum for anybody not ‘inside politics.’ It is the only mission where the vernacular sufficeth. Meanwhile, you will be amused to hear that I am getting inside politics after a fashion. I shall probably head the delegation from our ward to the state convention.”
Four foreign missions were offered him. He declined all, but in declining said, perhaps without much thought, that if they had offered him the mission to Spain, he would have gone. Mr. Evarts was Secretary of State, and it may readily be imagined that he was able “to manage it.” And so it was that this professor in Harvard College, who had kept his eyes so far open that he knew of the existence of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, was appointed to represent the United States in Spain.