Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

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.