Cecil said to Sir Walter Raleigh, "I know that you can toil terribly." This Mr. Chandler did through those eventful years. His labor was without cessation. The great demands upon the energies of the public man were equaled by appeals for private effort which he would not decline, and in every channel of profitable work for the Union cause he made his strong will and his aggressive vitality felt. Industry, so unusual and efficient, multiplied the power of his Roman firmness, and these qualities, guided by his strong understanding, high courage, sincerity of conviction, and the ardor of his patriotism, made him a leader of men in years when leadership without strength was impossible. His impress is upon the events of that era, and of the war for Emancipation and the Union he could say with Ulysses, "I am part of all that I have met." Through the tempest of civil strife his strong spirit battled its way unflinchingly to the goal, and title was fitly bestowed in the people's knighting of Zachariah Chandler as "The Great War Senator."
FOOTNOTES:
[25] I pity the man who, in this hour of peril, stands back and says, "this is an abolition war, and I won't go." ... There are but two classes of men now in the United States, and there are no middle men; these two classes are patriots and traitors. Between these two you must choose. A man might as well cast himself into the gulf that separated Dives from Lazarus as to stand out in this hour of trial.—Speech at Ionia on September 6.
It has taken time to educate us. If we had won certain victories the war would have been over, but the cause would have remained. The proclamation pronouncing emancipation, for which God bless Abraham Lincoln, is educating the people, and soon we will be ready to go forward.... We can never secure a permanent peace until we strike a death-blow at the cause of the war.—Speech at Jackson on October 7.
[26] Extract from a debate in the Senate on April 12, 1864:
Mr. Powell, of Kentucky: The Senator from Michigan, if I understood him, said that I was now the friend of traitors?
Mr. Chandler: You did understand me properly. You have been the friend of traitors, and I voted to expel you, as a traitor, from this body.
Mr. Powell: Do I understand you to say that I am now the friend of traitors and of treason?
Mr. Chandler: You co-operated with traitors, and I have never known you to cast a vote that was not in favor of rebellion.
[27] It is exceedingly gratifying to witness the marked attention Mr. Chandler bestows on soldiers. One day I happened to be in his room, when a major-general and a senator came in. Shortly after a sprightly young soldier came to the door. When about to enter, the young man hesitated to interrupt their conversation, but Mr. Chandler at once gave his attention to the soldier, who, on being asked to take a seat and tell what he desired, said he was a paroled prisoner and wished a furlough home, and that he had been told that all he had to do was to apply to him and he would be sure to get it. Mr. Chandler immediately took his papers and secured the furlough for him.—Washington letter of 1863.