Mr. Winthrop was then a candidate for the Senate against Mr. Sumner. He was sensitive, no doubt, and he may have felt that it was his duty to present Mr. Rantoul's credentials without delay. That was the proper course, probably, and the question whether his term in the Senate was continued a few days was of no public or personal consequences whatsoever. Up to that point Mr. Winthrop's career had been one of uninterrupted success. He was the favorite of Boston, and he belonged to an old and venerated family. His talents were of a high order, his education the best that the times afforded, his character without a blemish, and there was no reason arising from personal conditions why he should not have become the representative man of the State. With the event mentioned, his public life ended. Mr. Sumner was elected to the Senate. The next year the Whig Party nominated Mr. Winthrop and I was brought into direct competition with him. Again he failed.
When, in 1855, the Republican Party was organized, a committee waited upon Mr. Winthrop, and invited him to join the movement. His public record was satisfactory upon the slavery question, that is, it was better than that of many others who became Republicans. He declined to take a position, and gave as a reason that he was unwilling to act with the men who were leading the movement. He named Sumner, and Wilson. If his decision had been otherwise, it is quite doubtful if his nerve would have been equal to the contests through which the Republican Party was destined to pass. Mr. Winthrop had in him nothing of the revolutionary spirit. In England, in the times of Cromwell he would have followed the fortunes of the Stuarts, and it is difficult to imagine him as the associate of Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, in Revolutionary days.
Mr. Rantoul appeared in the Senate after a few days, and his term lasted about twenty days, giving him an opportunity to make one speech. He was afterwards elected to the House of Representatives from the Essex District, and died while a member at the age of forty-seven years. His death was a serious loss to the anti-slavery Democrats of Massachusetts and the country. He was one of the three distinguished men that the county of Essex has produced in his century: Choate, Cushing and Rantoul. In oratorical power he could not be compared to Choate. In learning he was of the three the least well equipped. In logic he was superior to Cushing, and he was more direct, and more easily comprehended than either Cushing or Choate. He had not much imagination, and his illustrations were simple and rather commonplace. As a debater he has had but few equals in our State. He was a radical, a reformer by nature. He was opposed to capital punishment, an advocate of temperance, of prison reform, and a zealous free trader. He made war upon the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 contending that the Constitution imposed upon the States the duty of returning fugitives from labor. This theory seemed to me at the time, as the result of a violent construction of the Constitution, and so it seems to me now. Nevertheless it satisfied many who wised to oppose the Fugitive Slave Law, and sustain the Constitution at the same time.
During the Senatorial contest I was urged by the supporters of Sumner to aid his election, and by the "hunker" wing of the Democratic Party —I was urged to bring the influence of the administration to bear against Mr. Sumner. To all I made the same reply. I said: "I am not pledged to elect Mr. Sumner, I am not pledged to defeat him. The subject is in the control of the Legislature." I did, however, delay making removals and appointments and upon the ground that the election or defeat of Mr. Sumner would affect the appointments to office in the State.
Mr. Cushing had a violent prejudice against shoemakers. Under the coalition, Wilson became president of the Senate, Amasa Walker, Secretary of the Commonwealth, John B. Alley, a Senator, and member of the Council, all shoemakers, or interested in the shoe and leather trade. In addition to these there were many persons of prominence and influence in the party who were in the same business. The "shoe towns" generally supported the Free-soil Party. One morning I received a call from Mr. Cushing, before I had taken my breakfast. Evidently he had had a conference with the leading "hunkers" who had deputed him to state their case to me. After considerable conversation, which perhaps was not satisfactory to Mr. Cushing, he put this question to me, and with great emphasis: "What I wish to know, Governor, is whether this State is to be 'shoemakerized' or not?" With a laugh I said, "General, I cannot tell, whether it is to be 'shoemakerized' or not." Upon this the general left. When he had had interviews with Greene and Hallett, he became anxious for Sumner's defeat; when he was with the coalitionists he would become, in a measure, reconciled to his election. The truth was, Cushing was destitute of convictions. By his residence in the east he had lost faith in our religion, in our civilization, and, in a degree, in our political system. However, he had no stronger faith in any other system. His purposes were not bad, and his disposition to aid others was a charming feature of his character. He would oblige an associate whenever he could do so. As a legislator he would perfect bills that he did not approve, and his stores of knowledge were at the service of any one who chose to make requests of him. Indeed he often volunteered information and suggestions. His reading was so vast and his experience so great, that his professional arguments were often over-loaded. As a jurist his influence with courts was limited. He did not aid the judicial mind. It was seldom necessary for the court to either accept or answer his arguments. On one occasion, he commenced an argument to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts with the obscure philosophical observation: "An impossibility is the greatest possible fact."
General Cushing was learned in many ways, but his faculties were not practical, and he was too much inclined to adhere to the existing powers, and consequently he was ready to change whenever a new party or a new set of men attained authority. As an official, he would obey instructions, and as an assistant in legal, historical, or diplomatic researches, he had no rival. He attained to high positions, and yet he was never fully trusted by any administration or party. His personal habits were peculiar. In later years, his economy degenerated into parsimony. This may have been due in part to his lack of financial skill. First and last he was led into many unprofitable undertakings, and as a results, his patrimony, which was something, and his professional earnings which were considerable, were consumed. He was in debt usually, and he limited his expenses that he might meet his liabilities. He was eccentric. I have met him at evening entertainments arrayed in a dress suit with a bright red ribbon for a necktie.
General Cushing had great qualities, but he was not a great man. He had immense capacity that he could use in aid of others, but he lacked ability to mark out a course for himself, or he lacked tenacity or purpose in pursuing it. His ambition had no limits, and he would swerve from his personal obligations in the pursuit of place. In my administration he was made a judge of the Supreme Court of the State, and upon an understanding that he would retain the place. During the few months that he was upon the bench, he gave promise of success, but upon the election of President Pierce, he could not resist the offer of a seat in his Cabinet. As Attorney-General he did not add materially to his reputation, but his opinions are distinguished for research and for learning. The nomination of Pierce was promoted by the officers who had served in Mexico. Previous to the Democratic Convention of 1852, Gideon J. Pillow came to Boston, and he and General Cushing visited Pierce in New Hampshire. They also called upon me and laid open a scheme in which they invited me to take a part. It was in fact a project for an organization inside the Democratic Party, by which the action of the party should be controlled. First, a central organization composed of a few men self-constituted; next a small number of assistants in each State who were to organize through confidential agents in the counties, cities and large towns. All these agencies through newspapers and by other expedient means would be able, it was thought, to control the party nominations, and the party policy. I had then declined a renomination to the office of Governor, and I was able to say with truth, that I intended to retire from active participation in politics. I declined to consider the subject further. Whether or not the scheme was matured, I have no knowledge.
That campaign and his transfer to Pierce's Cabinet led Cushing to adopt the views of southern men upon the slavery question, and his unwise speeches and letters interrupted his success, finally, and at a moment when success was most important to him. In the autumn or early in December, 1860, he made a succession of speeches at Newburyport which were calculated to promote the views of the Secessionists. At about the same time he wrote a letter which was read before the Republican Senatorial Caucus, when his name was before the Senate for confirmation as Chief Justice of the United States. That letter compelled President Grant to withdraw the nomination. At a period during the war General Cushing was disposed to enter the army, and there was a movement in favor of his appointment as Brigadier-General. Andrew, Sumner, and some others, appeared in opposition, and the appointment was not made.
While I held the office of Secretary of the Treasury, General Cushing gave to a friend of mine, and to myself, an invitation to drive out to his farm, the Van Ness place, about six miles from Washington, on the Virginia heights, and take tea with him. After business we drove to his farm. I took a seat with Cushing in his buggy-wagon, and my friend followed in another vehicle. As we were passing through Georgetown, we stopped at a shop where Cushing obtained a loaf of bread. Upon reaching his place we were taken over the land. Its quality was inferior and it showed the neglect of former owners, and there were indications that the present owner had done little or nothing for its improvement. The foreman was a Virginian, with but little knowledge of farming. The house-keeping was crude. The table was a coarse one. There was neither tablecloth nor napkins. The repast consisted of tea, the bread purchased on the way, soft butter, cold corned beef, and blackberries. When we entered the room Mr. Cushing went to a bureau, and took from a drawer a package which contained steel knives and forks, such as I had been accustomed to sell when a boy in a country store. From the appearance the cutlery had never been used, but its antiquity was marked by spots of rust.
This incident shows the democratic side of Mr. Cushing's character. He had also an aristocratic side. During General Grant's administration, a Mr. Kennedy, who had been a merchant at Troy, New York, came to Washington and distinguished himself by his somewhat ostentatious entertainments to diplomats and other notable persons. This proceeding annoyed Mr. Cushing, and he gave voice to his feelings in this manner: —"Mr. Kennedy, an ironmonger, comes here from Troy and sets himself up as a personage. He is not a personage at all, sir: not at all, sir."