Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

Zachariah Chandler had been the recognized leader of the Republican party in Michigan from its formation. He had superseded General Cass with a people in whose affections the latter had been strongly intrenched before Chandler was born. He had been four years in the Senate when the war broke out, and he was well established in reputation and influence. He was educated in the common schools of his native State of New Hampshire, but had not enjoyed the advantage of collegiate training. He was not eloquent according to the canons of oratory; but he was widely intelligent, had given careful attention to public questions, and spoke with force and clearness. He was a natural leader. He had abounding confidence in himself, possessed moral courage of a high order, and did not know the sensation of physical fear. He was zealous in the performance of public duty, radical in all his convictions, patriotic in every thought, an unrelenting foe to all forms of corruption. He distinguished between a friend and an enemy. He was always ready to help the one, and, though not lacking in magnanimity, he seldom neglected an opportunity to cripple the other.

Lyman Trumbull had entered the Senate six years before, when Illinois revolted against the course of Douglas in destroying the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Lincoln had earnestly desired the place, but waived his claims. The election of Trumbull was considered desirable for the consolidation of the new party, and the Republicans of Whig antecedents were taught a lesson of self-sacrifice by the promptness with which Mr. Lincoln abandoned the contest. Judge Trumbull had acquired a good reputation at the bar of his State, and at once took high rank in the Senate. His mind was trained to logical discussion, and as a debater he was able and incisive. His political affiliations prior to 1854 were with the Democracy, and aside from the issue in regard to the extension of slavery, he did not fully sympathize with the principles and tendencies of the Republican party. He differed from Mr. Lincoln just as Preston King, senator from New York, differed from Mr. Seward. Lincoln and Seward believed in Henry Clay and all the issues which he represented, while Trumbull and King were devoted to the policies and measures which characterized the administration of Jackson. The two classes of men composing the Republican party were equally zealous in support of the principles that led to the political revolution of 1860, but it was not easy to see what would be the result of other issues which time and necessity might develop.

Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio had been ten years in the Senate when the war broke out. He entered in March, 1851—the immediate successor of Thomas Ewing who had been transferred to the Senate from the Cabinet of Taylor, to take the place of Thomas Corwin who left the Senate to enter the Cabinet of Fillmore. Mr. Wade was elected as a Whig—the last senator chosen by that party in Ohio. His triumph was a rebuke to Mr. Corwin for his abandonment of the advanced position which he had taken against the aggressions of the slave power. It was rendered all the more significant by the defeat of Mr. Ewing, who with his strong hold upon the confidence and regard of the people of Ohio, was too conservative to embody the popular resentment against the odious features of the Compromise of 1850. Mr. Wade entered the Senate with Mr. Sumner. Their joint coming imparted confidence and strength to the contest for free soil, and was a powerful re-enforcement to Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Hale, who represented the distinctively anti-slavery sentiment in the Senate. The fidelity, the courage, the ability of Mr. Wade gave him prominence in the North, and were a constant surprise to the South. He brought to the Senate the radicalism which Mr. Giddings had so long upheld in the House, and was protected in his audacious freedom of speech by his steadiness of nerve and his known readiness to fight.

Henry B. Anthony entered the Senate on the 4th of March, 1859, at forty-four years of age. He had been Governor of Rhode Island ten years before. He received a liberal education at Brown University, and was for a long period editor of the Providence Journal, a position in which he established an enviable fame as a writer and secured an enduring hold upon the esteem and confidence of his State. In the Senate he soon acquired the rank to which his thorough training and intelligence, his graceful speech, his ardent patriotism, his stainless life entitled him. No man has ever enjoyed, among his associates of all parties, a more profound confidence, a more cordial respect, a warmer degree of affection.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

John P. Hale of New Hampshire was still pursuing the career which he had begun as an early advocate of the anti-slavery cause, and in which he had twice overthrown the power of the Democratic party in New Hampshire.—Henry Wilson was the colleague of Mr. Sumner, and was a man of strong parts, self-made, earnest, ardent, and true.—Lot M. Morrill was the worthy associate of Mr. Fessenden, prominent in his profession, and strong in the regard and confidence of the people of his States.—The author of the Wilmot Proviso came from Pennsylvania as the successor of Simon Cameron, and as the colleague of Edgar Cowan, whose ability was far greater than his ambition or his industry.—James W. Grimes, a native of New Hampshire, who had gone to Iowa at the time of its organization as a Territory and had been conspicuously influential in the affairs of the State, entered the Senate in March, 1859. He possessed an iron will and sound judgment. He was specially distinguished for independence of party restraint in his modes of thought and action. He and Judge Collamer of Vermont were the most intimate associates of Mr. Fessenden, and the three were not often separated on public questions. —The colleague of Mr. Grimes was James Harlan, one of Mr. Lincoln's most valued and most confidential friends, and subsequently a member of his Cabinet.—James R. Doolittle came from Wisconsin, a far more radical Republican than his colleague, Timothy O. Howe, and both were men of marked influence in the councils of their party.—John Sherman filled the vacancy occasioned by the appointment of Mr. Chase to the Treasury. Mr. Chase had been chosen as the successor of George E. Pugh, and remained in the Senate but a single day. Mr. Sherman had been six years in the House, and had risen rapidly in public esteem. He had been the candidate of his party for Speaker, and had served as chairman of Ways and Means in the Congress preceding the war.—From the far-off Pacific came Edward Dickinson Baker, a senator from Oregon, a man of extraordinary gifts of eloquence; lawyer, soldier, frontiersman, leader of popular assemblies, tribune of the people. In personal appearance he was commanding, in manner most attractive, in speech irresistibly charming. Perhaps in the history of the Senate no man ever left so brilliant a reputation from so short a service. He was born in England, and the earliest recollection of his life was the splendid pageant attending the funeral of Lord Nelson.** He came with his family to the United States when a child, lived for a time in Philadelphia, and removed to Illinois, where he grew to manhood and early attained distinction. He served his State with great brilliancy in Congress, and commanded with conspicuous success one of her regiments in the war with Mexico. The Whigs of the North- West presented Colonel Baker for a seat in the Cabinet of President Taylor. His failure to receive the appointment was a sore mortification to him. He thought his political career in Illinois was broken; and in 1852, after the close of his service in Congress, he joined the throng who were seeking fortune and fame on the Pacific slope. When leaving Washington he said to a friend that he should never look on the Capitol again unless he could come bearing his credentials as a senator of the United States. He returned in eight years.

Among the opposition senators, some fourteen in number, the most prominent was John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who had stepped from the Vice-President's chair to the floor of the Senate as the successor of Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Breckinridge at that time was forty years of age, attractive in personal appearance, graceful, and cordial in manner, by inheritance and by cultivation a gentleman. He came from a section where family rank gave power and influence. He united in his person the best blood of the South and the North, —preserving and combining the most winning traits of each. His lineage in Kentucky naturally brought to him the sympathy and support of the State. He was born to success and authority among his people. Originally he had anti-slavery convictions, as had all the members of his eminent family. So strongly was this tendency developed in his mind that, when he came to the bar, he removed to the Territory of Iowa, intending to identify himself with the growth of the free North-West. Circumstances overcame the determination, and carried him back to Kentucky, where he was welcomed at the hearth-stones and in the hearts of her people.

MR. CLAY AND MR. BRECKINRIDGE.

At twenty-five years of age Mr. Breckinridge was appointed major in one of the Kentucky regiments, which served in the Mexican war. After his return he entered upon the practice of his profession in Lexington, and against all the traditions of his family identified himself with the Democratic party. An apparently slight incident had an important bearing upon his earlier political career. He was selected to deliver the address of welcome to Mr. Clay on his return to Kentucky in the autumn of 1850, from the field of his senatorial triumph in securing the adoption of the celebrated compromise of that year. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was graceful and effective. He eulogized Mr. Clay's work with discrimination, and paid the highest tribute to the illustrious statesman. Mr. Clay was visibly touched by the whole scene. His old opponents were present by the thousand to do him honor. The enmities and antagonisms of earlier years were buried. He had none but friends and supporters in Kentucky. He responded with earnestness, and even with emotion: "My welcome," he said, "has been made all the more grateful from being pronounced by my eloquent young friend, the son of an eloquent father, the grandson of a still more eloquent grandfather, both of whom were in days long gone my cherished companions, my earnest supporters." Mr. Clay's words were so warm, his manner was so cordial, that it seemed as if he intended to confer upon Breckinridge the leadership in Kentucky, which, after a half century's domination, he was about to surrender. Undoubtedly the events of that day aided Breckinridge the next year in carrying the Ashland District for Congress, and drew to him thereafter the support of many influential Whigs. He entered Congress when the slavery discussion was absorbing public attention, and by the irresistible drift of events he was carried into an association with extreme Southern men. It was by their friendly influence that he was promoted to the Vice-Presidency as soon as he became eligible under the Constitution. During the four stormy years of Buchanan's administration, when the sectional contest approached its crisis, Mr. Breckinridge became more and more the representative of Southern opinion, and, though unequal to Douglas in the arena of debate, he became the leader of those who opposed the "popular sovereignty" dogma of the Illinois senator. He was thence drawn by influences which he could not have controlled if he had desired, into the prolonged and exciting controversy which disrupted the Democratic party. Intellectually Mr. Breckinridge was not the equal of many Southern men who deferred to him as a leader. His precedence was due to his personal character, to his strong connections, to his well-tempered judgment, and especially to a certain attractiveness of manner which was felt by all who came in contact with him.

The prominence of New England in the Senate was exceptional. So many positions of influence were assigned to her that it created no small degree of jealously and ill-feeling in other sections. The places were allotted according to the somewhat rigid rules of precedence which obtain in that body, but this fact did not induce senators from the Middle and Western States to acquiesce with grace. The chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations was given to Mr. Sumner; Mr. Fessenden was placed at the head of the Finance Committee, which then included Appropriations; Mr. Wilson was made chairman of Military Affairs; Mr. John P. Hale, chairman of Naval Affairs; Mr. Collamer, chairman of Post-office and Post-roads; Mr. Foster of Connecticut, chairman of Pensions; Mr. Clark of New Hampshire, chairman of Claims; Mr. Simmons of Rhode Island, chairman of Patents; Mr. Foot of Vermont, chairman of Public Buildings and Grounds; Mr. Anthony, chairman of Printing; Mr. Dixon of Connecticut, chairman of Contingent Expenses. Mr. Lot M. Morrill, who had just entered the public service from Maine, was the only New-England senator left without a chairmanship. There were in all twenty-two committees in the Senate. Eleven were given to New England. But even this ratio does not exhibit the case in its full strength. The Committees on Foreign Relations, Finance, Military Affairs, and Naval Affairs shaped almost the entire legislation in time of war, and thus New England occupied a most commanding position. The retirement of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Cameron from the Senate to enter the Cabinet undoubtedly increased the number of important positions assigned to New England. Twenty-two States were represented in the Senate, and it was impossible to make sixteen of them, including the four leading States of the Union, recognize the justice of placing the control of National legislation in the hands of six States in the far North-East. It was not a fortunate arrangement for New England, since it provoked prejudices which proved injurious in many ways, and lasted for many years.