Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

I have been for fifty years a member of another club called the Worcester Fire Society, some of whose members have had a remarkable relation to important events in the history of the country, of which the story will be worth recording. The club was founded in 1793, before the days of fire-engines, so that if the house of any of the members caught fire, his associates might come to the rescue with buckets and bags and bed-keys and other apparatus to put out the fire and save the property. But it long since became a mere social club. It is limited to thirty members.

The elder Levi Lincoln, Mr. Jefferson's intimate friend, confidential correspondent and Attorney-General in his Cabinet, organizer of the political movement which built up Mr. Jefferson's power in New England in the beginning of the last century, was not, I believe, a member of the Society himself. But his sons were, and many of his descendants and connections by marriage, certainly twelve or fifteen in all. When the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States became vacant, by reason of the death of Mr. Justice William Cushing of Massachusetts, September 13, 1809, Levi Lincoln the elder was appointed, confirmed by the Senate and commissioned to fill the vacancy. Mr. Jefferson earnestly desired and urged his appointment. President Madison accompanied the offer of the office with a letter urging Mr. Lincoln to accept it in spite of a malady of the eyes from which he was suffering. Mr. Madison says he had got along very well as Attorney- General and he thinks he would find less inconvenience in discharging the duties of Judge. But Mr. Lincoln declined the office. He lived until 1820, retaining his health and vigor, except for the trouble with his eyes.

He was a very able man. He argued the case in which it was decided by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts that slavery was abolished in that State by the Constitution, in 1780.

Judge Story was appointed in his place. If Mr. Lincoln had accepted, it is likely that the great judicial fame of Judge Story would be lacking from American jurisprudence. Story would have devoted himself, probably, to professional or political life. At any rate he would not have been appointed to the Bench before 1820.

There can be no doubt that if Lincoln had accepted the seat upon the Bench, he would have been a thorn in the flesh of Marshall. He doubtless shared Mr. Jefferson's dislike for the great Chief Justice. The case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward was decided in 1819. There was in fact but one dissent, but any person who reads Shirley's book on the history of that case will be inclined to believe that without Judge Story Dartmouth College v. Woodward would not have been decided as it was.

More interesting and important is the relation, to Mr. Webster's seat in the Senate, of the second Levi Lincoln, son of him of whom I have just spoken, himself a member of the Worcester Club that has been referred to. He was Governor of Massachusetts, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and a Member of the National House of Representatives. He was elected Senator of the United States by one branch of the Massachusetts Legislature when the term of Elijah H. Mills expired, March 3, 1827. There can be no doubt that if he had consented he would also have been elected by the other house. Mr. Webster was chosen at the next Session. But before he was elected he wrote very strongly urging Mr. Lincoln to accept the office. He said in his letter dated May 22, 1827:

"I beg to say that I see no way in which the public good can be so well promoted as by your consenting to go to the Senate. This is my own clear and decided opinion; it is the opinion, equally clear and decided, of intelligent and patriotic friends here, and I am able to add that it is also the decided opinion of all those friends elsewhere, whose judgment in such matters we should naturally regard. I believe I may say, without violating confidence, that it is the wish, entertained with some earnestness, of our friends at Washington, that you should consent to be Mr. Mills's successor. I need hardly add after what I have said that this is my own wish."

Mr. Lincoln felt constrained to decline, although the office would doubtless have been very agreeable to him, by reason of some statements he had made when elected Governor that he should not be a candidate for the Senate. Mr. Lincoln might, without dishonor or even indelicacy, have accepted the office in spite of those utterances. It was quite clear that all the persons who might be supposed to have acted upon them, desired his election when the time came on. But he was a man of scrupulous honor and did not mean to leave any room for the imputation that he did not regard what is due to "consistency of character," to use his own phrase. Now if Mr. Lincoln would have accepted the office it is likely that he would have held it until his death in 1868. At any rate it is quite certain that he would have held it until the political revolution of 1851.

It is quite clear to me that the office of Senator was at Mr. Lincoln's command. Observe that this was in 1827, and was the election for the term of six years, ending March 3, 1833. That includes the period of Jackson's great contest with Nullification, when Mr. Webster, with all his power, came to Jackson's support. It includes the time of the Reply to Hayne, and the great debate with Calhoun.

Daniel Webster, I need not say, would have been a great figure anywhere. But if Mr. Lincoln had acted otherwise, there would have been absent from our history and literature Webster's Reply to Hayne, the support of Jackson in the day of Nullification, the debate with Calhoun including the speech, "The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States," and the powerful attack on Jackson's assertion of power in the removal of the deposits. The speech on the President's Protest, with the wonderful passage describing the power of England, would not have been made.