This Senate met in the old chamber now occupied by the Supreme Court, but around which then clustered fresh memories of Clay, Webster, Calhoun and their cotemporaries. The Secretary, Asbury Dickins, called the body to order, and in the absence of John C. Breckenridge, Vice-President elect, James M. Mason of Virginia was chosen to preside temporarily. After the roll was called of the members with unexpired terms, the list of newly-elected Senators was read. As they responded to their names they advanced to the front of the presiding officer's desk, in groups of four, to take the oath of office. The first group were Bates, Bayard, Bright and Broderick; the second consisted of Simon Cameron, Zachariah Chandler, Jefferson Davis and James Dixon. This scene was the subject, twenty-two years later,[7] of the most effective speech ever delivered by Mr. Chandler; probably no speech ever uttered in the Senate more thoroughly touched the popular heart or was more widely read. Of the men who were then United States Senators, parts and witnesses of this scene, Fitzpatrick, Sebastian, Broderick, Dixon, Bates, Mallory, Iverson, Douglas, Bright, Crittenden, Thompson, Slidell, Fessenden, Kennedy, Pearce, Sumner, Wilson, Green, Hale, Thomson, Wright, King, Seward, Pugh, Wade, Allen, Simmons, Evans, Butler, John Bell, Jas. Bell, Andrew Johnson, Houston, Rusk, Collamer, Foot, Mason and Durkee (perhaps others) preceded Mr. Chandler to the grave. Of this number, one (Broderick) was killed in a duel and two committed suicide (Rusk killed himself at Nacogdoches, Tex., on July 29, 1857, and Preston King on August 15, 1865, and while collector of the port of New York, jumped heavily weighted into the Hudson river).
Of the members of this Senate Hamlin, Wilson (his original name was Jeremiah Jones Colbath) and Johnson became Vice-Presidents, and Johnson, on the death of Abraham Lincoln, became President. Mr. Hamlin was the only one still in the Senate at the time of Mr. Chandler's death, and his service had not been continuous but was broken by his Vice-Presidential term. Sons of Cameron and Bayard were in 1879 in the seats occupied by their fathers in 1857. Seward became Secretary of State, Cameron Secretary of War, Fessenden Secretary of the Treasury, and Harlan and Chandler Secretaries of the Interior. Durkee became Governor of Utah, Jones Minister to Colombia and Cameron Minister to Russia. Jones was, on his return from Colombia, arrested for treason and confined in Fort Warren. Bright was expelled for treasonable correspondence with the enemy; Polk was expelled for treason, and Sebastian, who retired from the Senate when Arkansas seceded from the Union, was also expelled, but after the war, ample proof being furnished that he was and always remained true to the Union, the resolution of expulsion was rescinded. Doolittle, Trumbull, Dixon and Foster, who were Republicans in 1857, afterward joined the Democracy, and Mr. Seward also ceased to be in sympathy with the party to which he was indebted for his greatest honors. Gwin identified himself with the Confederacy, then became aide to the unfortunate Maximilian, by whom he was created "Duke of Sonora," and is back again at Washington as a lobbyist. Douglas and John Bell were defeated candidates for the Presidency in 1860. Houston was Governor of Texas when the ordinance of secession passed and was deposed from his office by the disunion convention.
Jefferson Davis, who swore to support the constitution and the Union at the same instant with Mr. Chandler, within four years rebelled against the government and became President of the so-called "Southern Confederacy." Slidell, the most skilful of the disunion leaders, and Mason were appointed by the rebel government Commissioners to Great Britain, and while on their way across the ocean were seized by Captain Wilkes, commanding the United States steamer San Jacinto, taken from the British vessel Trent, and carried to Boston harbor, where they were confined in Fort Warren on a charge of treason. This seizure the Department of State declined to uphold, and on the demand of Great Britain the "embassadors" were released. Slidell died abroad in merited obscurity. Benjamin became Secretary of War of the Confederacy, and after its downfall emigrated to England, became a British citizen, and is a prosperous lawyer in London. Toombs was Confederate Secretary of State, and is still living in Georgia, crying as he did in 1861 "death to the Union." Mallory was Confederate Secretary of the Navy, and for a time after the war was imprisoned in Fort Lafayette. Hunter was also Secretary of State of the Confederacy; since the war he has been Treasurer of Virginia, but with the political revolution of 1879 retired to private life and poverty. Clay was a Confederate Senator and diplomatic agent; in 1865 he was imprisoned in Fortress Monroe. Fitzpatrick was the original nominee for Vice-President on the Douglas ticket in 1860, but declined; he became a rebel but without prominence. Robert W. Johnson was a Confederate Senator and afterward practiced law in Washington. Yulee (whose original name was David Levy) retired from the Senate to join the Confederacy, ceased to be conspicuous, and is now president of a railroad in Florida. Iverson was a Brigadier-General in the rebel army, as was also Toombs. Brown was Captain in the Confederate army and a member of the Confederate Senate. Butler died during the following recess of Congress, and Evans, his colleague, died before the war. All of these Southern Senators, who retired with their States in 1861 were afterward formally expelled from the Senate.
When Mr. Chandler entered the Senate the House of Representatives was controlled by the Democrats, but out of 234 members ninety-two were filled with the fresh blood of the Republican party. Some of these men were then distinguished, and others have become so since, but of the entire number of Representatives only twelve yet remain in either branch of Congress. Henry L. Dawes is a Senator from Massachusetts, Lafayette Grover from Oregon, Justin S. Morill from Vermont, Zebulon B. Vance from North Carolina, George H. Pendleton from Ohio, and L. Q. C. Lamar from Mississippi. Samuel S. Cox, a Representative from Ohio in 1857, is now a Representative from New York. Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, Alfred M. Scales of North Carolina, John H. Reagan of Texas, Otho R. Singleton of Mississippi, and John D. C. Atkins of Tennessee are again members of the House. Stephens was Vice-President of the Confederacy; Scales was Captain, Colonel and Brigadier-General in the rebel army; Singleton was Aid-de-camp to Gen. Robert E. Lee; and Atkins was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifth Confederate Tennessee regiment, and afterward a member of the Confederate Congress.
Others who were members of the House in 1857 afterward added to the reputations they then enjoyed. Schuyler Colfax has been Vice-President. A. H. Cragin, R. E. Fenton, Thomas L. Clingman, Frank P. Blair, Jr., John W. Stevenson, Edwin D. Morgan, Joshua Hill, and George S. Houston have been United States Senators. Israel Washburn has been Governor of Maine, John Letcher of Virginia, and C. C. Washburn of Wisconsin. N. P. Banks was a General in the Union army, and is United States Marshal of Massachusetts. Daniel E. Sickles was also a General in the Union army and afterward Minister to Spain. Francis E. Spinner was for many years Treasurer of the United States. John Sherman has been a Senator, and is Secretary of the Treasury. Elihu B. Washburne was Minister to France. John A. Bingham is Minister to Japan, and Horace Maynard to Turkey. Anson Burlingame was Minister to China, and afterward the embassador of that empire to negotiate treaties with foreign powers. William A. Howard is Governor of Dakota, and John S. Phelps of Missouri. The roll of the dead of the Thirty-fifth House of Representatives far exceeds that of the living.
Zachariah Chandler entered the Senate of the United States with an abiding faith in Northern civilization and its right to supremacy, with a wise distrust of Southern professions, with a just hatred of institutions poisoned by slavery, with a determination to attack treason wherever found, with an unquestioning belief that his cause was right and its defeat impossible, and with as resolute a spirit as ever crossed the threshold of the Senate chamber. His nature was without an atom of compromise, and was strong in the rugged qualities of courage, honesty, sincerity, firmness, and moral intrepidity.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] "The Jeff. Davis speech," March 3, 1879.