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."