General Hayes took his seat in the Fortieth Congress, which convened March 11, 1867. He was re-appointed chairman of the library committee, with John D. Baldwin, of Massachusetts, and J. V. L. Pruyn, of New York, as associate members. General Hayes' three years in Congress were almost continuously employed in exacting labors in looking after the pensions and pay of soldiers, and in making provision for their families. Cincinnati had sent a great many soldiers into the war, and all who had wants sent their petitions to the only representative of Hamilton county who had served in the army. The soldiers of his old division, scattered over the country, sent their applications to him as a sympathizing friend. He had as many as seven hundred cases of this kind on hand at one time. His time was therefore necessarily consumed in running to the departments and in answering soldiers' correspondence. This service of love was of course gratuitously and most cheerfully rendered; but it withdrew him more or less from his duties on the floor of Congress.
He was not consequently a speech-maker in Congress, but a business-doer. His innate good sense taught him that the public business was pushed forward, not by talking much, but by talking little. Like Schurz, who became the intellectual leader of the Senate, like Senator Edmunds and most strong men, he kept silent while new to the business of legislation. He was constantly consulted by the chief men in his party because he possessed that most essential quality in a public man—good judgment. He did no talking for himself, but an immense deal of working for others. Every soldier was his constituent, whether he lived in Maine or Nebraska. He placed self not first, but last.
He had no thought of fame or higher place, but silently served those that loved him, and to the maimed or needy tried to make the burdens and loads of life lighter. He doubtless thought that "he who lives a great truth is incomparably greater than he who but speaks it."
CHAPTER VII.
ELECTED GOVERNOR OF OHIO.
Party of State Rights—Their Convention—Platform—Nomination of Thurman—Republican Convention and Platform—Nomination of Hayes—Platform—Opening Speech at Lebanon—Thurman at Waverly—National Interest aroused—Hayes Victorious—Inaugural—First Annual Message—Second Annual Message.
The questions at issue in the great political canvass of 1867, in Ohio, were closely allied to the one whether the National Government had a constitutional right to maintain its existence. It was many years after the war of the Rebellion before the Democratic party could be induced to admit that the war had settled anything. The question of State or National supremacy or sovereignty, settled a hundred times by argument and twice by arms, was still persistently argued by them as an open question. The State Supremacy or State Rights party fought the constitution at the time of its adoption, on the ground that it established a supreme central government, and were defeated. They opposed putting down the Whisky Rebellion, in Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Jefferson and Randolph, and were outvoted in the Cabinet by Washington, Hamilton, and Knox. They forced their disintegration doctrines into the Supreme Court, and were there vanquished by the resistless logic of Chief Justice Marshall. The same old doctrine assumed the form of nullification under the teachings of Calhoun in South Carolina, and was stamped out by Jackson. It appeared again in the great debate between Hayne and Webster, and was annihilated, so far as argument can put an end to any heresy. But it reappeared in 1861, with Davis, Stephens, Lee, and Breckenridge as its most powerful advocates and exponents.