Zachariah Chandler: An Outline Sketch of His Life and Public Services

by Unknown

So far as I know, Mr. Chandler has never been charged with complicity as to dishonest and disgraceful measures such as have sometimes made the very atmosphere of the Capitol a stench in the nostrils of the pure and good. His name does not stand on the pay-roll of Satan, but with the honored few whose eyes have never been blinded by a bribe and whose record has never been blotted with political dishonor.

To have simply done one's duty is no mean victory. To stand—like the anvil beneath the blows of the hammer—and firmly resist the force of a repeated temptation is grand and heroic. To be venal is no venial fault; no price which can be weighed in gold can pay a man for the sale of one ounce of his manliness. Conscience is a Samson, whose locks are easily shorn, but they never grow again; whose eyes, once put out or seared with a hot iron, no prayer will restore. And men, as great and wise as Bacon, have like him been compelled to confess to their own meanness and the mercenary character of their virtue.

One of the worst signs of the times is this corruptibility of popular leaders. One of the greatest of European journals moves like a weather-vane, just as the day's wind blows. Much of the best talent of Europe is for sale for or against despotism. Some of the most gifted men in the House of Lords are of plebeian birth, bought by the bribe of a title, as Harry Brougham himself was, when his great influence became a terror to the aristocracy; and the Duke of Newcastle is said to have bought one-third of the House of Commons. There is scarce a measure, however infamous, that may not be pushed through our common councils and legislative bodies if the lobbyists are only "influential and numerous," and the money is only plenty enough. Let us give God thanks for every man in the community who is not on the auction block to be knocked down to the highest bidder. In these days of abounding fraud and falsehood, men are beginning to feel the value of simple honesty. We have, in our admiration of the genius of intellect, forgotten the genius of goodness, which has power to inspire men with heroism. Better to strengthen a few timid hearts in loyalty to principle than to have deserved the encomium of Augustus, who "found Rome brick, and left it marble." The Earl of Chatham refused to keep a million pounds of government funds in the bank and pocket the proceeds; as Edmund Burke, on becoming paymaster-general, first of all introduced a bill for the reorganization of that department of public service, refusing to enrich himself, through the emoluments of that lucrative office, at public expense.

No wonder George the Second should have said of such "honesty" that it is an "honor to human nature!" Such words were worthy of a king, but it is only a crowned head bowing to royal natures that need no crown to tell that they are kingly. The distinguished Hungarian exile will never be forgiven for saying that he would praise anything and anybody to aid Hungary. There is an instinct in the great heart of humanity which not even wickedness kills, that no quality is so fundamental to character as absolute loyalty to truth, it is the base-block of the whole structure; and great has been many a "fall," where there is no better foundation than the treacherous and shifting quicksands of what is called "policy," and which is to many the only standard of honesty.

Mr. Chandler was known in politics as an enthusiastic and radical advocate of his party and its measures. It was not in him to do anything by halves, and it is difficult to see why one may not as naturally be zealous in politics as in religion; in fact, none are more likely to charge upon him partisanship than those who in their attachment to the opposite party shew their own lack of moderation.

It has been well said that religion demands "a faith, a polity and a party." The faith and the polity belong to it as necessary features; the party is that on which it depends for organization and onward movement. There is a philosophy, a political creed and economy, which are to the state what religion is to the church; and no man can be a patriot without a political faith and polity and party; though he may stand alone, he represents all three. He may be in the largest sense a patriot, and adopt the sublime motto of Demosthenes, "Not father, nor mother, but dear native land!" yet his patriotism may compel him, us he looks at the matter of his country's interest, to take a position on the side of a political party, and to hold it in the face of ridicule and reproach and even of a pelting hail of hate. Others may not be wrong in their espousal of a different political creed, but he is not wrong, but right, in his honest adherence to his. It is so in religion; an honest, intelligent man is loyal to his own denomination, yet is he none the less, because of that, a Christian in the breadth of his charity.

In fact, religion is not the only sphere where self-sacrifice, for duty and for conscience, may be pressed even to martyrdom. St. Ignatius, facing the wild beasts in the arena, calmly said, "I am grain of God; I must be ground between teeth of lions to make bread for God's people." That was the grand confession of a Christian martyr. Tell me, how much lower down in the scale of the heroic does he belong who, for the sake of the best good of a constituency blinded by passion or prejudice, like the great English statesman, consents to be hurled from his shrine as the idol of the people, and calmly says, "I am under no obligation to be popular, but I am under bonds to myself to be true!" When Regulus refused to buy his own liberty and life, at the cost of Rome's disgrace, and persuaded the Senate to reject the very overtures which he was commissioned to convey, himself returning as his pledge required him if the negotiations were unsuccessful, and surrendering himself to the will of his enemies that Carthage might put him to death by slow torture, it seems to me something like the martyr-spirit burned in that bosom. And, if there be nothing akin to moral martyrdom in bravely standing in one's place and boldly holding one's ground, advocating what one believes to be the only true creed in politics, and the only true policy for the country, in face of sneer and threat, daring the blade and the bullet, the open affront and the secret assault, for the sake of being true to one's self and to one's native land—if there be nothing sublime and heroic in all this, the verdict of reason is unsound.

This lamented statesman had also a genial temper, which won for him a host of friends. Public men are prone to one of two extremes; either the hypocritical suavity of the demagogue, or the arbitrary bluntness and curtness of the despot. Some swing away from the fawning airs of the puppy, but it is toward the repulsive manners of the bear. The man who, as you tip your hat with a polite good morning, sweeps by, saying, "I haven't time," is too often the typical man of affairs, who thinks the quick dismission of applicants and intruders is the price of all energetic public service. It is said of the great French statesman, Richelieu, that he could say "No." so gracefully and winningly, that a man once became applicant for a position, upon which he had not the least claim, just to hear the great Cardinal refuse. If common testimony may be trusted, Michigan's esteemed Senator seldom lost the hearty cordiality and courtesy of his manners, even under the fretting friction of public cares.

I am tempted to add that, though a representative Republican, Mr. Chandler was, in the best sense, a democrat. He weighed a man according to the worth of his manhood. He could recognize true manliness beneath a black skin as well as a white one, and behind the rough dress of a poor man, as behind broadcloth; and, because he was the friend of humanity and of human rights, you will find some of his warmest friends among the common people and in the lower ranks.