The non-partisan verdict upon this letter is that it is faultless in style, sound in principle, courageous, broad and elevated in tone, liberal, wise, statesmanlike, and strong. It is, in short, the declaration of faith of an honest man who has a heart in his breast and a head on his shoulders, with purity in that heart and brains in that head.
The conclusions which follow our study of the public career of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, and the study of that interior life, the beauty of which the world will not know until he has passed from it, are briefly these.
In boyhood, in battle, in the civic chair, in the esteem of his State, in every duty and relation of life, he has been first, and now, it would seem, is first in the hearts of his countrymen. As a student, he was foremost; as a lawyer, he was in the front rank; as a soldier, he was the bravest; as a legislator, the most judicious; as a governor, second to none of Ohio's great magistrates.
The most striking characteristic of Hayes as a soldier was his personal intrepidity. Anthony Wayne, Francis Marion, and Ethan Allen were called brave men in the Revolution, and so they were; but we look in vain in their histories for as numerous proofs of unsurpassable daring as the hero of Cloyd Mountain, Cedar Creek, and South Mountain, has given us. Four horses shot under him; four wounds in action; fighting after he fell; a hundred days exposed to death under fire—these are the evidences of as lofty a courage as is yet known among men.
As a regimental, brigade, and division commander, his most striking quality as a leader was his impetuosity. General Crook used to say that Hayes fought infantry as other men fought cavalry. He was always wanting to move forward, to charge, to get at the enemy with cold steel. His favorite step was the double-quick; his choice of distance two paces; and his preferred mode of fighting, the hand-to-hand grapple. This meant business, was decisive, and was soon over.
Another characteristic was his constant care for the comfort of his soldiers. He was much in the hospitals, cheering up the wounded, writing letters for them, and sending last messages from the lips of the dying to wives, mothers, and friends. He shared his blanket, his last crust, his last penny, with the neediest of his men, and abstained from food when they had none.
His house is to-day, and has been since the war, a soldiers' home, where all who served with him are invited to come at all times and partake at his own table with his wife and children. Seldom is this generous hospitality imposed on by the members of his large military family. Once, only, a pseudo-soldier, whom the children called the "Veteran," having served two days and a half in the army, remained just double the term of his military service under the governor's roof. He doubtless found that the rations at this camp were good.
As a civil magistrate, Governor Hayes has developed executive and administrative abilities of the highest order. He has a practical, common-sense, direct way of doing things. He first finds what things ought to be done, and then how. When his own party has been in a minority, he has made friends with a few of the most reasonable men in the opposition, and through them, as instruments, has accomplished his purposes.
He is a discriminating judge of human nature, and is magnetic enough to make legislators follow his lead, as his soldiers followed him.
He has fixed rules of official conduct to which he adheres in all cases. For example, if he has a judge to appoint—and he has appointed many to fill vacancies—his simple inquiry is, Whom do the members of the legal profession want, who live in the judicial district to be provided for? When that fact is accurately ascertained, the appointment follows as a matter of course, even though the lawyer preferred may be his personal enemy. In the interests of learning, higher education, human benevolence, and equal rights, Hayes has accomplished more than any governor Ohio has yet had. We make this statement with the honorable records of old Jeremiah Morrow, Corwin, Chase, Tod, Brough, and Cox spread before us.