The election of General Pierce to the Presidency in 1852 was fatal to the coalition in Massachusetts. Upon his accession to the office, in March, 1853, General Cushing became Attorney-General of the United States, and in the summer or autumn of 1853 he wrote a letter to a gentleman in Worcester, which was interpreted as a declaration of hostility on the part of the administration against all Democrats who affiliated with Free-soil politicians. The election of 1852 had been favorable to the Whigs of Massachusetts, but the contest was fatal to the Whig Party in a national point of view. That party disappeared in the country, and after two elections in Massachusetts, that of 1852 and 1853, it ceased to have power in the State. For many years after, there were occasional attempts to revive it, but all such attempts were vain. It was led by intelligent and well-disposed men, but its principles were not accepted by the country, and it attempted to secure the recognition of its principles by a policy that was temporizing and expedient. It lacked the courage of the old Democratic Party.
Upon the defeat of the Constitution, I turned my attention to the profession in the office of Mr. Joel Giles, with whom I had studied. He had been a lecturer at Cambridge, a member of the House and the Senate, and of the Constitutional Convention. He was a bachelor, economical in his expenditures, rigid in his opinions, just in every thing, and a most careful student and conscientious practitioner. He was a patent lawyer, and as lawyer and mechanic he was the superior of any other person that I have known. As an advocate his services were not valuable. He seemed timid, and his style was not adapted to jury trials nor to hearings by the court. However, in patent cases he could make himself understood by the court, and he had influence resting upon the belief that he was free from deception which was the fact.
Mr. Giles was then attorney for Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine. He had been counsel for Howe from the first, when Howe was in extreme poverty and unable to pay fees. In the early stages of the contest Mr. Giles conducted the case without present compensation, and at the end, when Howe's income was enormous for the period, Mr. Giles accepted only very moderate fees, and he was content therewith. Mr. Howe was a peculiar character: odd in his ways, but generous with his income:—so generous that at his death his fortune was very small. In my long acquaintance with Mr. Giles I never knew that he made charges for services against any one or that he ever presented a bill, although he sometimes spoke of the indifference and neglect of his clients in the matter of money. Some paid and others did not. Mr. Howe paid all that Mr. Giles required, but that was very little compared with the service rendered. The litigation over the Howe patent was severe and the questions in a mechanical point of view were nice questions. Mr. Giles began with the invention, and he became a master of the case. Mr. Howe was indebted to Mr. Giles for the success of his litigation which established his claim to the invention, secured to him as the proceeds what might have been an enormous fortune, and placed his name in the list of the names of great inventors. The patent-law practice is the most exhausting branch of the legal profession, and the lawyers and experts suffer from brain diseases in excess of the average of sufferers in other branches of the profession.
XX THE YEAR 1854
At the session of the Legislature, January, 1854, the town of Fitchburg, aided by towns and citizens of the vicinity, petitioned for a new county to be composed of towns to be taken from the counties of Middlesex and Worcester and to be called the county of Webster. Mr. Choate was retained for the new county, and I appeared for the county of Middlesex. The hearing by the committee occupied two weeks or more, for an hour or an hour and a half a day. The fees received seem now to have been very small. It was said that Mr. Choate received the sum of five hundred dollars, and my fee was two hundred and fifty dollars. Mr. Choate obtained a favorable report from the committee, but the project failed in the Legislature. It was renewed the succeeding year, when Emory Washburn appeared for the county of Worcester. In those two contests, covering a month of time in all, I had an opportunity to study Mr. Choate in his characteristics as an advocate and as an examiner of witnesses, a branch of the profession in which he had great skill.
Various witnesses were called for the purpose of gathering facts as to the inconveniences of which complaints were made and also for the purpose of showing the advantage to be derived from the proposed change. A witness of importance and altogether friendly, was Stuart J. Park, of Groton. He was a Scotchman by birth, his father having been employed upon the Argyle estates. The father came to America while the son was a minor. They were by trade stone masons. Stuart J. Park was then nearly seventy years of age. He had represented the county in the State Senate and for many years he had been a person of note, although his education was limited. He had, however, an abundance of sound sense and an excess of will power, even for a Scotchman. In his business he had had a large and successful experience. He was the master builder of the Boston Mill Dam, of the Charlestown Dry Dock, of the State prison buildings in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, of the track of the Lowell railway, which was laid originally on granite sleepers, and of many jails in New England. Experience proved that granite sleepers were too firm and sleepers of wood were substituted.
One of the county commissioners was John K. Going of Shirley. I had known him from my youth. He was my senior by about ten years. In my boyhood he called not infrequently at my father's house, driving an old horse in a second-hand, well worn sulky. His business was trading in horses and watches, and gambling, as was reported, for small sums of money. To myself and my brothers he was held up by my mother as a warning. Before he was twenty-one years of age he had induced his father to mortgage his small homestead for four hundred dollars which John lost in unwise or unfortunate ventures. Upon that experience he began to recover his fortunes. He became a dealer in better horses, then in hops, then in real estate, and to some extent he became an operator in Boston markets. At the age of fifty he was worth, probably, two hundred thousand dollars. With the improvement of his fortunes, his character improved. He was always temperate and his agreements were carefully kept. He made ample provision for his parents, and for a sister; was a representative in the general court and for many years he was a capable and acceptable county commissioner. He was one of a not numerous class of persons who escape from evil early associations and habits of life.
In 1854 the Know Nothing Party took possession of Massachusetts. Its secrecy made it attractive to many persons. Moreover, the then existing parties were unsatisfactory to the people. The Whigs, who had been out of power in 1851 and '52, had regained power, but the vitality of the party had disappeared forever. Many of the leaders had joined the Free-soil Party, and others were indifferent to its fortunes. The Democratic Party was dissatisfied with the national administration, and the Free-soil Party was without hope. The coalition could not be repeated. In the spring or summer of 1854 General Banks asked me whether I intended to join the Know Nothings. I said No, that I had left politics and that I intended to practice law. He said in reply, "I am in politics and I must go on." The success of the Know Nothing Party was without precedent. They carried every city and town in the State, elected all the members of the Legislature, unless there may have been an accidental exception, unseated all the members of Congress, elected Henry J. Gardner Governor by an immense majority, and elected Henry Wilson to the Senate of the United States.
Mr. Gardner was re-elected in 1855 by the momentum of the party, although it had fallen into discredit which would have led to its ruin in the face of a vigorous opposition. The Whig Party had disappeared and the Republican Party had not reached a period when it could command its forces. In 1856 the Know Nothing Party was yielding to the Republican Party and Governor Gardner was accepted for a third term.
In the year 1854 I made a trip to the Adirondack woods and mountains. The party was organized by Francis W. Bird, and it consisted of Mr. Bird, Henry W. Pierce, D. W. Alvord, a Mr. Hoyt and myself. We left our homes about the 20th of June and were absent about twenty days. We entered the woods from Amsterdam, N. Y. From that place we travelled by a wagon to Lake Pleasant, about fifty-four miles. We remained there two or three days at a hotel kept by a man named John C. Holmes, or rather by his wife, while Holmes retailed old stories to the few guests. The chief topic was the large trout caught in the lake and when and by whom. The ten largest of the season caught in Lake Pleasant and Round Lake weighed in the aggregate 154-1/2 pounds. A Mrs. Peters from New York was the champion; her prize having weighed something over 16 pounds.