Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

It has been charged that John Davis, by taking up the time at the close of the session of Congress by an indiscreet speech, was the means of defeating the Wilmot Proviso, which had come from the House inserted in a bill for the incorporation of Oregon as a Territory. This statement has received general circulation. It is made in Pierce's "Life of Sumner," and in Von Holst's "Constitutional History." There is no truth in it. I investigated the matter very carefully, and have left on record a conclusive refutation of the whole story in a paper published by the American Antiquarian Society.

Mr. Davis's popularity, however, enabled him to render an important service to his party at home. The Democrats in 1839 had elected their governor, Marcus Morton, by a majority of one vote by reason of the unpopularity of the law to prevent liquor-selling, known as the Fifteen-Gallon Law, which had been passed in January, 1838. They were anxious to redeem the State, and summoned John Davis, their strongest and most popular man, to lead their forces. He accordingly resigned his seat in the Senate, was chosen Governor by a large majority, and was reelected to the Senate again the next year.

Sketches like these, made by a man who was young when the men he is talking about were old, are apt to give prominence to trifles, to little follies and eccentricities. Let nobody think that there was anything trifling or ludicrous about John Davis. He was a great, strong, wise man, a champion and tower of strength. He not only respected, but embodied the great traditions and opinions of Massachusetts in the great days, after the generation of the Revolution had left the state when she earned for herself the name of the "Model Commonwealth," and her people were building the structure of the Commonwealth on the sure foundations which the master- workmen of the Colonial and Revolutionary days had laid. The majestic presence of Webster, the classic eloquence of Everett, the lofty zeal of Sumner have made them more conspicuous figures in the public eye, and it is likely will preserve their memeory longer in the public heart. But the figure of John Davis deserves to stand by the side of these great men in imperishable memory as one of the foremost men of the State he loved so well and served so faithfully and wisely.

The Bar of Worcester County in 1850 and the years following was a very able one, indeed. It had many men of high reputation in the Commonwealth and some of wide national fame. The principal citizen of Worcester and the most distinguished member of the Bar was Governor Levi Lincoln. Although he had long since left practice, he used always to come into the court once at each term of the Supreme Court, bow respectfully to the Bench, and invite the Judges to dinner at his house, and withdraw. He filled a very large place in the history of Massachusetts from the time of his graduation at Harvard in 1802 until the close of the War in 1865. There is, so far as I know, no memoir of him in existence, except one or two brief sketches which appear in the proceedings of some local societies of which he was a member.

His father, Levi Lincoln the elder, was an intimate friend and correspondent of Mr. Jefferson, and Attorney-General in his Cabinet. He was nominated Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States by Mr. Madison and confirmed by the Senate and actually appointed, but was unable to take the office because of failing sight. He did more, probably, than any other man to organize and bring to success the political revolution in New England which followed Jefferson's accession to the Presidency in 1801. Many letters to him are found in Mr. Jefferson's published works, and there are many letters from him to Mr. Jefferson in the Jefferson papers in the archives at Washington. Some of the correspondence on both sides is enough to make the hair of the civil service reformer stand on end. The son adopted his father's political opinions and was an enthusiastic supporter of Jefferson in his youth. Jefferson wrote a letter, which I think is now in existence, praising very highly some of young Mr. Lincoln's early performances. He delivered an address at Worcester, March 4, 1803, a few months after he left college, in which he proposed that the Fourth of March, the day of Mr. Jefferson's accession to the Presidency, should be celebrated thereafter instead of the Fourth of July. He says: "Republicans no longer can hail the day as exclusively theirs. Federalism has profaned it. She has formed to herself an idol in the union of Church and State, and this is the time chosen to offer its sacrifice." He sets forth "the long train of monstrous aggressions of the Federalists" under Washington and Adams; declares that they "propose a hereditary executive and a Senatorial nobility for life," and says that the "hand would tremble in recording, and the tongue falter in reciting, the long tale of monstrous aggression. But on the Fourth of March was announced from the Capitol the triumph of principle. Swifter than Jove on his imperial eagle did the glad tiding of its victory pervade the Union. As vanish the mists of the morning before the rays of a sunbeam, so error withdrew from the inquiries of the understanding. The reign of terror had passed," etc., etc. But there never was a better example of Emerson's maxim that "a Conservative is a Democrat grown old and gone to seed." As the young man grew in reputation and influence he became more moderate in his opinions. He was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court; then was elected Governor by a union of all parties in what was called "the era of good feeling"; held the office nine years; then represented the Worcester district in Congress, and withdrew to a dignified and honorable retirement from which he emerged to hold the office of Mayor of Worcester the first year of the life of the city. He was, as I remember him, the very embodiment of dignity and aristocracy. He had a diffuse and rather inflated style, both in public speaking and in private conversation. His dignity had a bare suspicion of pomposity in it. He looked with great disdain upon the simplicity of behavior of some of his successors, and their familiarity with all classes of the people. He came into my office one morning full of an intense disgust with something Governor Briggs had been doing. He said: "In my time, sir, the office of Governor of the Commonwealth was an office of dignity. The arrival of the Chief Magistrate in any town was an event of some importance. He travelled in his carriage, with suitable attendants. He appeared in public only on great occasions. But now you see hand-bills about the street giving notice that there is to be a Temperance tea-party to-morrow afternoon, in some vestry or small hall. Music by the Peak family. His Excellency George N. Briggs will address the meeting. Admission, ten cents."

He accepted his position at the head of the social life of Worcester as a matter of course. I remember one night, when a party was breaking up, I said to the person next to me, in some jesting fashion: "I am sorry to see the decay of the old aristocracy." The Governor, who was getting his coat at the other end of the room, overheard the remark, and called out: "Who is lamenting our decay?"

The Governor looked with great disgust upon the formation of the Free Soil Party and the Anti-Slavery movement. But when the war came he remained thoroughly loyal. He encouraged enlistment in every way, and measures for the support of the Government had all the weight of his influence. He was a Presidential elector, and voted for Abraham Lincoln at the time of his second election.

When Webster was first chosen Senator he refused to be a candidate for the office until it was ascertained whether Governor Lincoln would accept it. The Governor then declined, for the reason I have stated in another place. He was also offered an appointment to the Senate by Governor Washburn when Mr. Everett resigned in 1853. But it is said that he was quite desirous of being elected Senator when Mr. Davis was first chosen.

The Governor was, as just said, an example of Emerson's famous saying that a Conservative is a Democrat grown old and gone to seed. He was looked upon as the embodiment of reverend dignity. His household was at the head of the social life of Worcester during his later years. Every family in the County was proud who could trace a connection with his. There were a few traditions in the old Federalist families like the Thomases and the Allens of a time when the Lincolns were accounted too democratic to be respectable. But they gained little credence with people in general. One day, however, I had to try a real estate case which arose in the adjoining town and involved an ancient land-title. An old man named Bradyill Livermore was summoned as a witness for my client. He was, I think, in his ninety-fifth year. He lived in a sparsely settled district and had not been into Worcester for twenty or twenty-five years. I sat down with him in the consultation-room. After he had told me what he knew about the case, I had a chat with him about old times and the changes in Worcester since his youth, and he asked me about some of the members of the Bar then on the stage. Governor Lincoln, who had long retired, happened to be mentioned. The old fellow brought the point of his staff down with great emphasis upon the floor, and then held it loosely with the fingers of his trembling and shaking hand, and said, very earnestly, but with a shrill and strident voice like that of one of Homer's ghosts: "They say, sir, that that Mr. Lincoln has got to be a very respectable man. But I can remember, sir, when he was a terrible Jacobite."

I have given elsewhere a portraiture of Charles Allen, and a sketch of his great career. He was a man of slender physical frame and feeble voice. But he was a leader of leaders. When in 1848 he left the Whig Convention in Philadelphia, an assembly flushed with the anticipation of National triumph, declaring, amid the jeers and hisses of its members, that the Whig Party was dead—a prediction verified within four years—down to the election of Lincoln, in 1860, he was in Massachusetts a powerful influence. He was a great advocate, a great judge, a great counsellor. He was in my judgment a greater intellectual force than any other man in his time, Daniel Webster not excepted. It was a force before which Webster himself more than once recoiled. I knew him intimately and was, I believe, admitted to no inconsiderable share of his confidence. But there is no space here to do justice to my reverence for his noble character.