In 1842 he was elected to the Lower House of the Illinois General Assembly. There were in that body at this time many men of distinction and marked ability, but none that were superior to the subject of this sketch. In 1844 Mr. Arnold was again elected to the House. At the close of this session of the legislature in 1846, Mr. Arnold retired from public life, and did not re-enter it until 1856. In politics he had been a Democrat, and in 1844 was a presidential elector on the Polk ticket. But becoming indignant at the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he became what was known as an anti-Nebraska Democrat and in 1856, at the urgent solicitation of the anti-Nebraska Democrats and Republicans of Cook County, he again consented to become a candidate for the House of Representatives in the State Legislature. This was at the time that Bissel was elected Governor and his right to take the seat was challenged by the Democrats on the ground that he once accepted a challenge to fight a duel. Mr. Arnold championed the Governor’s cause, and his speech in his defense not only really settled the question, but gave him a high reputation over the whole State, marking him as one of the ablest public men of the time.
In the historical election at which Abraham Lincoln was first elected President of the United States, Mr. Arnold was elected a representative in the Thirty-seventh Congress from the Chicago district. That Congress met in extra session, July 4, 1861, and has passed into history as one of the most notable and momentous events in the life of the Republic. The Administration at the time was confronted by an open rebellion against the National authority, and it was for this session of Congress to determine just what should be done in the premises. Mr. Arnold had long known Mr. Lincoln, and between the two men there was a warm feeling of regard, and perhaps no man took his seat in this memorable session upon whom the President placed greater reliance than he did upon Mr. Arnold. The respect that was generally entertained for his abilities was evidenced by the fact that he was selected to pronounce the eulogy on the occasion of the death of Stephen A. Douglass. The regular session of the Thirty-seventh Congress met on the second day of December, 1861, at a time when the country was fully plunged into the midst of civil war. Mr. Arnold took his seat in the House, and at once entered actively into all the important proceedings of the body. His labors as a representative were very great and of the highest usefulness. Among his official acts that will live forever as a memento to his manhood and his statesmanship was his vote to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and his introduction of a bill, which against a determined opposition he persistently pushed to enactment, to prohibit slavery in every place subject to the National jurisdiction. One who knew him well, expressed the opinion however, that the ablest and most notable speech which he made in Congress, was the one delivered May 2, 1862, in the support of the bill to confiscate rebel property. This speech, because of its value as an exponent of constitutional law, challenged the attention of the lawyer members. He was ceaseless in administering blows against the institution of slavery. He acted in this regard steadily upon his own declaration: “Whenever we can give slavery a constitutional blow, let us do it.” On February 15, 1863, he introduced a resolution, which was passed, declaring that the constitution should be so amended as to abolish slavery in the United States; and this was the first step ever taken in Congress in favor of the abolition and prevention of slavery in the country.
In his speech advocating this resolution, he uttered the following vigorous language and eloquent sentiment: “In view of the long catalogue of wrongs that slavery has inflicted upon the country, I demand to-day in the Congress of the United States the death of slavery. We can have no permanent peace while slavery lives. It now reels and staggers in the last death struggle. Let us strike the monster this last decisive blow. Pass this joint resolution and the Thirty-eighth Congress will live in history as that which consummated the great work of freeing a continent from the curse of human bondage. The great spectacle of this vote which knocks off the fetters of a whole race will make this scene immortal.” Further on he said: “I mean to fight this cause of the war—this cause of the expenditure of all the blood and treasure from which my country is now suffering; this institution which has filled our whole land with sorrow, desolation and anguish—I mean to fight it until neither on the statute-book nor in the constitution shall there be left a single sentence or word which can be construed to sustain the stupendous wrong. Let us now in the name of Liberty, Justice and of God consummate this grand resolution. Let us now make our country the home of the free.”
Mr. Arnold’s congressional career ended with the Thirty-eighth Congress March 3, 1865. He had served his country so well, had given the Administration such loyal, able and efficient support and won such a splendid fame that it was generally regretted that he would not consent to be returned. After President Lincoln’s assassination, he accepted the appointment from President Johnson of Auditor of the Treasury for the Port Office department, as a residence in Washington afforded him a more ready access to documents that were necessary to enable him to complete his work entitled the “History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery in the United States,” the preparation of which he had commenced before the assassination. He finally resigned the position however, and returned to Chicago in 1867. He then completed his work referred to, which is one of surprising interest and of exceptional historic value. In 1872, he resumed his bar practice in Chicago and continued actively in his profession for two or three years, when failing health compelled him to abandon it. From that time until his death, he lived a retired life in his pleasant home among his books and papers, where surrounded by his family and congenial friends he dispensed an elegant and gracious hospitality. He now had leisure to devote himself to favorite literary pursuits. He devoted himself to historic themes as he had a love for historical research, and a power of analysis which enabled him to do valuable work in historical and biographical writing. In 1880, he brought out a work entitled “Life of Benedict Arnold—His Patriotism and His Treason.” It is generally acknowledged to be a work of ability and fairness. Certainly it showed the independence and courage of the author for it required something of courage to meet the popular prejudice with which the name of Benedict Arnold is regarded. But the author said that he wished to “make known the patriotic service of Benedict Arnold; the sufferings, heroism and the wrongs which drove him to a desperate action and induced one of the most heroic men of an heroic age to perpetrate an unpardonable crime.” The book is really one of great historic value. Mr. Arnold was never quite satisfied with his work on Mr. Lincoln and the overthrow of slavery. About two years before his death, therefore, he began to write the “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” and it is upon this work, says one of his ardent admirers, that his reputation as a biographer and historian must rest.
He was the author of a great number of sketches. “To whatever he undertook,” says one, “Mr. Arnold brought the qualities of a ripe intelligence, great vigor and a sound judgment.” At an age when most men rest, he was pursuing to its legitimate honors and rewards the career of a man of letters and of a historian. With an intellectual and finely chiseled face, of an erect and well-formed person, of quiet and gentlemanly manners and courteous carriage and bearing, Mr. Arnold was a man who always attracted attention. He was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and for many years a vestryman of St. James’ Church in Chicago. The successes of life and the usual hardening influences of public life had no effect upon his manly Christian character. The better side of his nature was at all times in the ascendancy. His earnest, paramount desire was to be useful in the world, and he freely understood that to gratify that desire man must be alive to the claims of his fellow man upon him. On his seventieth birthday he wrote: “Three score and ten; Death must be at no great distance. I wish to live only so long as I may be to some extent useful, and not when I shall be a burden. May my remaining days be useful and innocent.” He was possessed of many noble traits of character, not likely to be known outside of his immediate circle of friends. He was a great lover of children, and devotedly tender in his own home.
Mr. Arnold was twice married. His first marriage was with Catherine E. Dorrance of Pittsfield, Mass., who died October 1839. His second marriage was with Harriet Augusta Dorrance, a sister of his former wife, August 4, 1841. Nine children were born of this marriage. Mr. Arnold died at his residence in Chicago, April 24, 1884, mourned by the great city in which he lived and a multitude of others who appreciate the worth of true manhood. No citizen of Chicago ever had more numerous or more eloquent eulogies pronounced upon his death; the memory of no citizen was ever honored by such a gathering of distinguished people as assembled to pay the last sad tribute to Mr. Arnold’s memory.
Howard Louis Conard.
SOME ANCIENT METHODS OF PUNISHMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS.
Scarcely anything indicates so accurately the predominant traits and condition of a people at any given period, as do the laws by which they are governed and the mode in which those laws are administered. Hence, in studying the early history of Massachusetts much important aid may be derived from the records of the courts and magistrates of that time. These give us a tolerable correct idea of the laws then in force which were designed to regulate the conduct of men in the various relations of life and show what was the practical administration of those laws. This is quite as true (perhaps more so), of the laws concerning what may be termed minor offences or breaches of social duty, for which men were held legally accountable, as it is of the graver crimes.