Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

For these party associations, to whose influence, under the restraint of intelligent patriotism, the wisest legislation is due, Mr. Schurz has neither approbation nor appreciation. He aspires to the title of "Independent," and has described his own position as that of a man sitting on a fence, with clean boots, watching carefully which way he may leap to keep out of the mud. A critic might, without carping, suggest that it is the duty of an earnest man to disregard the bespattering which fidelity to principle often incurs, and that a beaten path to safe place for one's self is not an inspiring or worthy object of statesmanship.

Nor is Mr. Schurz's independence of party more pronounced or more complete than his independence of true American feeling. He has taken no pride in appearing under the simple but lofty title of a citizen of the United States. He stands rather as a representative German-American. He has made his native nationality a political resource, and has thereby fallen short of the full honor due to his adopted nationality. The large body of American citizens of German birth are intensely attached to their new home, and seek the most complete identification of themselves and their descendants with the development and destiny of the Great Republic. This is wise, and is in accordance with the best traditions and best aspirations of the Teutonic race. But to Mr. Schurz the Republic is not great! "This country," said he, in his Centennial lecture, "is materially great, but morally small."

—Allen G. Thurman came suddenly into prominence in 1867. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Ohio against Rutherford B. Hayes. For the three years immediately preceding his candidacy the Republican majorities in the State had averaged nearly 45,000, while in 1863 Vallandingham had been beaten by 101,699. Without premonition or visible cause, in an election for State officers only, and not for representatives in Congress, the total vote of 1867 proved to be larger than had ever been cast in the State, while the majority of General Hayes was less than three thousand. The Legislature was carried at the same time by the Democrats, and it proved that Mr. Thurman had lost the Governorship only to be promoted at once to the United-States Senate. The political revolution was as remarkable in character as it was sudden in time. Ohio had shown profound loyalty to the Union and an enthusiastic support of all measures for its preservation. Mr. Thurman had run counter to the principles and prejudices of a large number of the people of Ohio by his bitter hostility to the war, and yet he now received a larger popular vote than had ever before been given even to a Republican candidate, except in the year 1863 when so many Democrats repudiated Vallandingham.

It was at the full maturity of his powers, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, that Mr. Thurman took his seat in the Senate, March 4, 1869. He had been chosen a representative in Congress for a single term twenty-five years before, and had afterwards served a full term on the Supreme Bench of Ohio, the last two years as Chief Justice of the court. He was not therefore an untried man, but had an established reputation for learning in the law, for experience in affairs, for intellectual qualities of a high order. During the long interval between his service in the House and his installment in the Senate the relation of political parties had essentially changed. Mr. Thurman had changed with the times and with his associates. When he took his seat in the Twenty-ninth Congress the issue in regard to the extension of slavery in the Territories was beginning to enlist public interest. The first impulse of all the representatives from that extensive and opulent domain, which had been saved from the blight of slavery by the Ordinance of 1787, was to aid in extending a similar blessing to all other Territories of the United States. With the exception of Stephen A. Douglas and John A. McClernand of Illinois, and John Pettit of Indiana, all the Democratic representatives from the four North-western States (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan) voted for the anti-slavery proviso offered by Mr. Wilmot. Mr. Douglas, discerning the future more clearly than his party associates, realized that the chief strength of the Democracy must continue to lie in the South, and that an anti-slavery attitude on the part of the North-western Democrats would destroy the National prestige of the party and lead to its defeat. The Democratic supporters of the Wilmot Proviso had therefore choice of two paths: they must abandon their anti-slavery attitude or they must leave the party. Mr. Thurman adhered to his party. With this exception, his political course has been one of unswerving constancy and fidelity to all the extreme demands and severe creeds imposed upon the Democracy by the South. His Virginia birth, his rearing within the lines of the old Virginia Military reservation in Southern Ohio, his early associations with kindred and his friends, all contributed to his education as a Democrat. He naturally grew to strong influence with his associates, and when he came to the Senate was entitled to be considered the foremost man of his party in the Nation.

His rank in the Senate was established from the day he took his seat, and was never lowered during the period of his service. He was an admirable disciplined debater, was fair in his method of statement, logical in his argument, honest in his conclusions. He had no tricks in discussion, no catch-phrases to secure attention, but was always direct and manly. His mind was not pre-occupied and engrossed with political contests or with affairs of state. He had natural and cultivated tastes outside of those fields. He was a discriminating reader, and enjoyed not only serious books, but inclined also to the lighter indulgence of romance and poetry. He was especially fond of the best French writers. He loved Molière and Racine, and could quote with rare enjoyment the humorous scenes depicted by Balzac. He took pleasure in the drama, and was devoted to music. In Washington he could usually be found in the best seat of the theatre when a good play was to be presented or an opera was to be given. These tastes illustrate the genial side of his nature, and were a fitting complement to the stronger and sterner elements of the man. His retirement from the Senate was a serious loss to his party—a loss indeed to the body. He left behind him pleasant memories, and carried with him the respect of all with whom he had been associated during his twelve years of honorable service.

—William G. Brownlow, a quaint and eccentric man, took his seat as senator from Tennessee. He was in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and in impaired health. He was born in South-western Virginia in the wild and mountainous region adjacent to the borders of three other States. In early life he was a Methodist preacher of peculiar earnestness and force, with special adaptations to the people among whom his ministry lay. To his Church he always retained an intense attachment and devotion. In his later years he published a work on Methodism, under the strange title of "The Iron Wheel examined, and its False Spokes extracted." He came into public and general notice as the editor of the Knoxville Whig, which, though printed in the mountains of Tennessee when facilities of communication were restricted, attained wide circulation and influence. Its editor was known as "Parson" Brownlow, a sobriquet which attached to him through life. His paper was strongly anti-Jackson, warmly espoused the cause of Mr. Clay, and was distinguished in its editorials by a treatment of public questions so original that for nearly a quarter of a century it was known and quoted by the journals of the whole country.

But the odd and humorous editor, hitherto notorious for his partisan intensity and for the extravagance of his diction, was suddenly transformed into a moral hero. When the wild movement for secession swept over Tennessee, and carried with it even such men as John Bell, Brownlow took his stand for the Union. Threats could not move him, persecution could not break him, the prison had no terrors for him. His devotion to the National cause did not mean simply the waving of the flag and the delivery of patriotic orations; it meant cold and hunger, separation from his family, loss of property, possibly loss of life. He endured all, and faced his bloodthirsty enemies with a courage superior to their own. He won their respect by his brave resistance, and was finally released from jail and banished from the Confederacy. He came North, and remained until the progress of the National arms enabled him to return to his home. His patriotic devotion was rewarded by the boundless confidence of the loyal people of Tennessee. At the close of the war he was chosen Governor, and was now promoted to the Senate of the United States—too late for the exertion of his once strong mental qualities, but early enough to testify by his presence the triumph of loyalty and manhood in the bloody strife through which he had passed.

—Thomas F. Bayard, who entered the Senate at the opening of the Forty-first congress, was little known to the public, except as a member of a family which had been for a considerable period prominent in the political affairs of Delaware. His service in the Senate has been remarkable for one leading characteristic,—the power, or the accidental fortune, to create a public impression as to his career precisely the reverse of its actual history. The illustrations are many:—

In financial circles Mr. Bayard has been held as a fair and conservative exponent of sound views, a jealous guardian of the public credit. As matter of fact, he joined in a political crusade to enforce the payment of the National debt in depreciated paper money, and almost the first vote he ever gave in the Senate was against the bill declaring the National debt to be payable in coin. He voted to except specifically the fifteen hundred millions of 5-20 bonds from coin payment, argued earnestly in favor of taxing the bonds of the Government, refused to support the bill for the resumption of specie payments, and united with others in a National movement to repeal the Act after it had been for a considerable period in operation.

On the Southern question, in all its phases, Mr. Bayard has been proclaimed by his supporters as calm, considerate, and just. In truth he has gone as far as the most rancorous rebel leader of the South, touching the Reconstruction laws and the suffrage of the negro. In the Forty-second Congress, in an official report on the condition of the South, Mr. Bayard joined with the minority of the committee in the distinct avowal that negro suffrage would practically cease when the Republican party should be defeated. These are the exact words in which Mr. Bayard concurred: "But whenever that party (the Republican) shall go down, as go down it will at some time not long in the future, that will be the end of the political power of the negro among white men on this continent." When Mr. Bayard united with other Democrats in this declaration the right of the negro to vote had already been protected by an Amendment to the Constitution. His language was, therefore, a distinct threat to override the Constitution in order to strip the negro of the political power which the Constitution had conferred upon him. This threat was so serious and so lawless that it should have received more attention than was bestowed upon it when first put forth. It was not uncommon to hear brazen defiance of Constitutional obligations from Southern speakers addressing Southern audiences for mere sensational effect. But his was an announcement made in the Senate of the United States, not hastily and angrily in the excitement of debate, but with reflection and deliberation, in an official report which had been studied for months and subscribed to in writing by Mr. Bayard.