In those days the slavery question in some form was the topic of debate and of resolves by the two Houses. Among these the right of petition and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia were the most conspicuous. In these debates and proceedings Mr. Adams was the leader. When he became a member of the Thirty-sixth Congress and was appointed upon the committee of thirty-three, he accepted a surrender to the slave power, which would have given to slavery a perpetual lease of existence, if institutions and constitutions could have preserved it. The surrender to slavery, had it been accepted, would have burdened a race with perpetual servitude and consigned the Republic to lasting disgrace. It is to be said, however, that Mr. Adams but yielded to a public sentiment that was controlling in the city of Washington in the winter of 1860-61, and which was then formidable in all parts of the country. The concession or surrender was accepted by many Republicans, including Mr. Corwin of Ohio who was chairman of the committee of thirty-three.
From 1840 to 1850 I was a member of the Legislature for seven years. A large body of the people led by Robert Rantoul, Jr., William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were in favor of the abolition of capital punishment. Many of the clergy, especially of the orthodox clergy, opposed the change, and for support quoted the laws of Moses. Sermons were preached from the text: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." If this text is treated as a philosophical statement, based upon human nature, that those who resort to blood to avenge their wrongs will get a like return, then the proposition has wisdom in it; but it is the essence of a bloody code if it mean that either the State or the individual sufferer should take a human life either for revenge, punishment, or example.
At a session in the Forties the House was made indignant one morning by the introduction of a petition by Mr. Tolman, of Worcester, asking that the clergy who approved of capital punishment should be appointed hangman. A motion was made to reject the petition without reference. I interposed and called attention to the similarity between the position the House was thus taking and the position occupied by the National House of Representatives in regard to petitions upon the subject of slavery. The suggestion had no weight with the House. The petition was rejected without a reference.
The next morning the messenger said Mr. Garrison wished to see me in the lobby. I found Mr. Garrison, Wendell Phillips and William Jackson with bundles of petitions of the kind presented by Mr. Tolman. They assumed that as I had advocated the reference of the Tolman petition I would present others of a like character. I said, "Gentlemen, when petitions are presented by a member upon his personal responsibility I shall always favor a reference, but as to the presentation of petitions, I occupy a different position. I must judge of the wisdom of the prayer. In this case I must decline to take any responsibility." The petitions were presented by Mr. Tolman and the House retreated from the awkward position.
George T. Bigelow was one of the ablest, if not the very ablest, of the Whig leaders. His style of speech was plain, direct, and free from partisan feeling. His statements were usually within the limits of the facts and authorities. His temper was even and his judgment was free from feeling. He possessed those qualities which made him an acceptable judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards, when he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, gave him a conspicuous and almost eminent position as jurist.
George T. Curtis was fastidious, and sometimes he was supercilious, in his speeches to the House. His influence was exceedingly limited, and he carried on a constant but useless struggle in the hope of extending it.
Samuel H. Walley, Jr., of Roxbury, was for a time, chairman of the Committee on Finance, and one whose integrity and competence were never doubted by anyone. The revenues and expenditure of the State were then insignificant, relatively, in amount, but the people were poor as compared with their condition in 1880 and subsequently. Every appropriation was canvassed in every shop and on every farm. Mr. Walley maintained a strict economy and the expenses of the State were kept at the lowest point consistent with the wise administration of affairs.
Nevertheless the Democratic Party, acting in error, attacked the expenses, discussed the items in the canvass of 1842, and when they came to power in 1843 they made serious reductions, especially in the matter of salaries of public officers, and all, as I now think, unwisely.
In the sessions of 1842 and 1843 there came from the town of Woburn, Nathaniel A. Richardson. When elected he was only twenty-one years of age. His election was due to the local fame he had acquired as a speaker in the Lyceum of the town. His career was brief. Whether he had in him the elements of success cannot now be known, but it was manifest that he did not get beyond words in his speeches.
His speeches were lacking in information and his powers of argument were weak and limited. His most noted speech was in support of a resolution in favor of refunding to General Jackson the fine of one thousand dollars that had been imposed upon him by a New Orleans judge. Richardson's opening sentence was this: "I rise, Mr. Speaker, and throw myself into the crackling embers of this debate,"—from which, in the judgment of the House, he never emerged.
The Lyceum, as it existed from 1840 to 1850, has disappeared, and to the loss of young men who may be called to take part in public affairs. In many cases, however, it led to the development of a style of speaking that was not adapted to political discussion or to the profession of the law. Speaking and writing should be pursued at the same time, and study is an essential condition of success. In public assemblies, even in those that are composed of selected persons, there is always an opportunity for a well-trained man, who is also carefully and fully informed upon the subject under debate, to exert an influence and not infrequently he may succeed in securing the acceptance of his opinions.
But study alone will not make a good or even an acceptable speaker, unless there is added also a period of careful practice. There are many men of learning whose faculty for speaking is so limited that their awkwardness is more conspicuous than their knowledge. The Lyceum may be made a school of practice. The business should not be limited to topics that do not excite feeling. The contests of the world rest largely upon feeling, often degenerating into mere passion. Those who are to take part in such contests should learn at an early period of life to control their feelings and passions. Such benign results can be reached only by experience. Let the debates of the Lyceum deal with questions of living interest, and those who take part in such contests will learn to control their feelings and thus prepare themselves for the business of life.
John P. Robinson, of Lowell, was the best equipped member of the House of 1842. He was then in the prime of life in years, but already somewhat impaired. He was a thoroughly educated man, a trained lawyer, of considerable experience in country practice—a practice which renders the members of the profession more acute than the practice of cities. In the country the controversies are about small matters relatively, but the clients are deeply interested, the neighborhood is enlisted on one side or the other, and the attendance at court of the friends of the parties is often large. The counsel is tried quite as rigorously and critically as is the case. Such was the condition of things previous to 1848. Robinson was not only a good English scholar, but he was devoted to the classics, and especially to the Greek classics and history. Afterwards he became a resident of Athens where he lived for several years. He was a good speaker in a high sense of the phrase. In the sessions of 1842 and 1843 the system of corporations was in controversy. The Democrats were in opposition generally. The Whig Party favored the system. In the session of 1842 or 1843 citizens of Nantucket presented a petition for an Act of Incorporation as a "Camel Company." The town had been the chief port in the world for the whale-fishery business. Its insular position rendered it necessary to obtain supplies from the mainland and to transport the products of the fishery to the mainland. The fact that there was a bar across the harbor, which made it impossible to bring in vessels of the size of those engaged in the fishery was fast depriving it of its supremacy. New London was already a rival.
The scheme for relief was to build what was called "camels." They were vessels capable of receiving a whale-ship and floating it over the bar. They were to be made broad, of shallow draught, with air-tight compartments. These machines were to be taken outside the bar; the compartments were to be filled with water and the camels sunk. The whale ship was then to be floated over the camel and the water was then to be pumped out of the compartments when the camel would rise with the ship on its back and carry the whaler into the harbor.
The scheme seemed a wild one, but opinions were controlled by party feeling. The bill passed, the camels were built, and the scheme failed as a practical measure. Nantucket was doomed as a trading and commercial town. As a watering place it had a future. In one of the debates upon corporations Robinson took part, perhaps upon the Nantucket "camel" question, and made the best speech to which I have ever listened in defense of the system.
The corporation system has yielded larger returns to Massachusetts than she has received from any other feature of her domestic policy, excepting only her system of public instruction.
Robinson lived, probably, on the verge of insanity, to which end he came finally. When a member of the House, he was restless, almost constantly walking in the area or through the aisles, running his hands through his long black hair, engaged apparently in meditation upon topics outside of the business of the House.
He is immortalized in Lowell's "Biglow Papers,"
"John P. Robinson, he
Says he won't vote for Governor B."
The Governor B. was Governor George N. Briggs, with whom Robinson had a quarrel about the year 1845.
Henry Wilson, afterwards Senator and Vice-President of the United States, was a member of the House in 1842 and 1843. He had risen to notice in the campaign of 1840. He was engaged by the Whig Party as one of its speakers and announced as the "Natick Cobbler."
He had worked in the trade of a shoemaker, and as the shoe interest was already a large interest in the State, it was a matter of no slight importance to give distinction to a representative of the craft. Wilson's family were destitute of culture, and although he had had the advantage of training at an academy for a year, perhaps, his attainments were very limited. I recollect papers in his handwriting in which the rule requiring a sentence to commence with a capital letter was disregarded uniformly. His style of speaking was heavy and unattractive. This peculiarity remained to the end. In those days Wilson was known as an Anti-Slavery Whig. In some respects Wilson's political career was tortuous, but in all his windings he was true to the cause of human liberty.
Although I was acquainted with Wilson from 1842 to the time of his death, I could never so analyze the man as to understand the elements of the power which he possessed. It may have rested in the circumstance that he appeared to be important, if not essential, to every party with which he was identified. His acquaintance was extensive and it included classes of men with whom many persons in public life do not associate. He made the acquaintance of all the reporters and editors and publishers of papers wherever he went. He frequented saloons and restaurants to ascertain public sentiment. In political campaigns he was the prophet, foretelling results with unusual accuracy.
Benjamin F. Thomas of Worcester was a leading man in the Whig Party, a good speaker, saving only that he appeared to vociferate. He was afterwards a judge of the Supreme Court of the State and for a single term he was a member of Congress.
As a lawyer his rank was good, almost eminent, in the State, but his career in Congress was a failure. He was a member of the Thirty- seventh Congress, and he failed to realize the issues and to comprehend the duties of a public man in an hour of peril. In 1862 he abandoned the Republican Party, and joined himself to a temporary organization in the State, called the People's Party.
The party disappeared upon its defeat in November, 1862, and Judge
Thomas disappeared from politics.
Mr. Kinnicutt, the Speaker, in 1842, was a gentleman of agreeable manners, fair presence, and respectable, moderate abilities. He administered the office with entire fairness. His elevation to the post of Speaker, then thought to be one of great importance, may have been due to his residence at Worcester. In those days, as in these, Worcester was a center of political power and its leading men were able always to command consideration. When, in 1840, it was an urgency in party politics to defeat Governor Morton, John Davis, of Worcester, called "Honest John," was selected as the candidate, although he was then a member of the United States Senate.
In the sessions of 1843 and 1844, I originated three measures and introduced bills designed to give legal form to the measures.
1. A bill requiring cashiers of banks and treasurers of all other corporations to return to the assessors of each city and town the names of stockholders residing in each such city or town, the shares held by each and the par value of the shares. The bill was passed. The holders of stock who had theretofore escaped taxation were enraged, and a meeting to denounce the measure was held in Boston.
2. A bill to require the mortgagee to pay the tax on mortgaged real estate. The bill was then defeated, but recently the measure has become a law.
3. The reduction of the poll tax.
On each of the last two measures I made a speech which was reported in the Boston Post. Upon the revival of the question concerning the taxation of mortgaged real estate, my opinions were not as firmly in its favor as they had been in 1843, when I originated and advocated the measure.
The assessment of a poll-tax as a prerequisite to the exercise of the right to vote is a relic of the property qualification and it ought not any longer to find a place in the policy of free States. As persons without accumulated property enjoy the benefits of free schools, the use of roads and bridges, and the protection of the laws, there is a justification for the assessment of a capitation tax, but the right to vote should not be dependent upon its payment.
XI THE ELECTION OF 1842, AND THE DORR REBELLION
The election of 1842 was contested by the Democratic Party and successfully, upon the charge that the Whig Administration had unwisely and illegally aided the "law and order party" in Rhode Island in the controversy with Thomas W. Dorr, the leader of the party engaged in an attempt to change the form of government in that State. At that time the people of Rhode Island were living under the charter granted by Charles II. Its provisions were illiberal in the opinion of the majority of the people of Rhode Island, but the majority of the voters under the Charter thought otherwise. Mr. Dorr represented the popular opinion, and Governor King represented the dominant class. Governor King was a Whig and, naturally the Whig Party of Massachusetts sympathized with him. Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, who had been an officer in the War of 1812, was then Adjutant-General of Massachusetts. In his haste to aid Governor King, he loaned to him quite a quantity of muskets from the State Arsenal. This act caused great criticism and contributed to the overthrow of the Whig Party in 1842, if it did not in fact cause it. Dorr had organized a government, under a constitution which had been ratified by such of the people of Rhode Island as chose to vote upon it. The Dorr legislature assembled, a military force was organized, and the State seemed to be on the eve of a bloody contest.
Governor King appealed for aid to President Tyler. The President recognized Governor King as the head of the lawful government of the State, and although the aid was not granted, the Dorr Rebellion came to an end. The courts followed the political department of the government, and the attempt of Dorr and his associates was a failure in fact and in law. The failure was followed, however, by the adoption of a constitution from which the most objectionable features of the Charter were removed.
In 1842 Massachusetts was living under the majority system. The Abolitionists placed a candidate in nomination. As a consequence there was no election of Governor by the people. The Democrats succeeded in obtaining a majority of the Senators elected. The House was about equally divided between the Whigs and the Democrats, and the balance of power was in the hands of four Abolitionists, who were led by one Lewis Williams of Easton. Williams was a sort of personage for ten or twelve days, when he disappeared from public view.
In the contest for Speaker the Democrats supported Seth J. Thomas, of Charlestown, and the Whigs nominated Thomas Kinnicutt, of Worcester, who had held the office of Speaker in 1842. The Abolitionists voted for Williams. The struggle continued for two days without a result. On the third day Mr. Kinnicutt withdrew his name, and his friends presented the name of Daniel P. King, of Danvers.
Mr. Thomas made a short speech in which he said that he was in the hands of his friends. The Democrats attempted to change front, and to secure the election of Williams. The attempt failed, and Mr. King was elected. Mr. King was a man of moderate abilities, but he had made himself acceptable to the voting element of the Anti-Slavery Party. His election as Speaker, was followed by his election to the Twenty- eighth Congress. The southern part of Essex County had been represented by Leverett Saltonstall, of Salem. He was the candidate of the Whig Party in 1842, but the votes of the Anti-Slavery men prevented his election. Mr. Saltonstall was a man of superior abilities and a perfect gentleman in bearing and conduct. He had been a Federalist and my impressions were adverse to him. In 1844 he came to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was appointed Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of which I was a member. All my prejudices were removed, and I came to admire his qualities as a man, and his capacity as a legislator.
Upon the organization of the House of Representatives, in 1843, the two Houses in convention, proceeded to the election of a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Council, and heads of the several administrative bureaus. Marcus Morton, of Taunton, was elected Governor, Dr. Childs of Pittsfield (Henry H.) was chosen Lieutenant Governor, and of the subordinate officers all were Democrats.
The nomination of John A. Bolles, for the office of Secretary of the Commonwealth, gave rise to a singular episode in politics. John P. Bigelow, of Boston, had held that office for several years. He had performed the duties acceptably, and there was a difference of opinion in the Democratic Party as to the expediency of a change. The caucus decided to make a change. Upon the announcement of the nomination of Mr. Bolles, Nathaniel Wood, who had been elected a Senator in convention, from the county of Worcester, left the caucus and the next day he resigned his seat in the Senate. His peculiarities did not end with this act. In 1850 he was elected to the House for the year 1851, as a Coalition Democrat. He voted for Sumner, but he was greatly annoyed by the charge of the Whigs that there had been an unholy coalition between a portion of the Democratic Party and the Free- soilers. In replying to the allegations, he made the counter charge that there was a coalition between the Whigs and the "old hunker Democrats" as they were called. They were, in fact, the Democrats who would not vote for Sumner. A member called upon Wood for the evidence. This question he had not anticipated, and after staggering for a reply, he said—"I have seen them whispering together." As legal evidence the answer was faulty, but in a moral point of view it was not without force.
Governor Morton was a man of solid qualities. He had been upon the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State for many years and in the fellowship of such jurists as Chief Justice Shaw, Judges Wilde, Putnam, Hubbard, and others, and he had borne himself with credit and perhaps even with distinction. He was a favorite of the Democratic Party and for many years he had been its candidate for Governor, and always without opposition. His election in 1839 was due to the public dissatisfaction with the Temperance Act passed in 1838 and known as the Fifteen-Gallon Law. He became Governor in the year 1840, but as his Council and the two Houses were controlled by the Whig Party neither his friends nor his enemies had any means of testing his quality as a political administrator. In 1843, however, the circumstances were different. His political friends were in power in every branch of the government. Party expectations were not realized, and Governor Morton's administration was not popular with the party generally. Early in the session, Benjamin F. Hallett, a member of the Executive Council, became alienated, and the spirit of harmony was banished from that branch of the government.
As the election had been carried upon the Dorr Rebellion, it was thought expedient to recognize the event by a dinner in Faneuil Hall. Dorr was then an exile, and the guest of Henry Hubbard, Democratic Governor of New Hampshire. Dorr was invited to the dinner, but he did not attend. It was asserted that he was given to understand that Governor Morton would by placed in an unpleasant position if Dorr were to come to Massachusetts from New Hampshire, and at the same time, a requisition should come from the Governor of Rhode Island for his delivery to answer in that State to an indictment for treason. The incident gave rise to a good deal of feeling, and finally, Governor Morton did not attend the banquet. Thus it happened that neither of the chiefs in whose honor the banquet was arranged, was in attendance on the occasion.
I was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Invitations. These were sent to leading Democrats in all parts of the country and especially were they sent to distinguished members of Congress. The answers contained only the most delicate and remote allusions to the object of the festival. The letters were turned over to the officers of the meeting. For myself, I retained only the envelope of the letter of Mr. Calhoun with his frank upon the right-hand corner. I had not previously seen a letter envelope.
Governor Morton's administration was a failure, and at the election in 1843 he was defeated by Governor Briggs. The State was a Whig State, and a Democratic administration for two successive years was an impossibility. My impressions of Governor Morton underwent several changes. Previous to his election in 1843 I had regarded him as one of the able men of the country. His lack of courage, and his apparent desertion of his friends in 1843 produced an unfavorable impression upon me both of his character and of his abilities. As to his character, my impressions remain. Of his abilities I can have no doubt.
With some exceptions the policy and measures of the Democratic Party in 1843 were crude and unwise. They demanded changes under the name of reforms. The chief measure was a bill to reduce the salaries of public officers, including the salaries of the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the judges of all the courts. The Whigs resisted the passage of the bill, upon the ground of its injustice to the persons in office, and of its unconstitutionality in respect to the salaries of the judges of the Supreme Judicial Court.
The bill became a law, and upon the return of the Whigs to power in 1844, the salaries of the judges of the Supreme Judicial Court were restored, and they were reimbursed for the loss sustained by the act of 1843. At the session of 1844 I made an argument upon the constitutional question, but it was of no avail. As I have not read my own argument since 1844 I am not prepared to say that it is unsound.
By the election of 1843 Governor Morton was defeated. George N. Briggs who had been for many years a member of Congress from the Berkshire District, was elected Governor, and with him a majority of his political friends in the two Houses. Governor Briggs held the office until January 1851. He was a man of fair, natural abilities, with a taste for politics. He had risen from a low condition of life but he was entirely free from the vices of the world. As a rigid temperance man and opponent to slavery, the middle classes of the State became his supporters without argument. He held the office for seven years, but he was defeated by the coalition of 1850.
Among the leading members of the House in 1844, was Joseph Bell, then recently from Hanover, N. H. He was named second on the Judiciary Committee, and to him was committed the conduct of the bill to restore the judges' salaries. He was a man of massive frame and of great vigor of body. His voice was loud, but it lacked those elements that come from cultivation. He had accumulated considerable wealth in the country and he had come to Boston for ease and comfort in age. His career was brief as he lived only a few years thereafter.
Of the affirmative measures of the Legislature of 1844 the most important perhaps was the statute requiring the registration of births, marriages, and deaths. Previous to that time there was no authoritative records of births, marriages, or deaths. The books of town clerks, the records of clergymen, and the entries in family Bibles were the sources of information. The information was never complete, and often that obtained was inaccurate. The promoters of the measure were Dr. Edward Jarvis of Dorchester and Lemuel Shattuck of Concord. They were both enthusiastic upon the subject and when they had created in me an interest, they furnished me with books and documents including reports of the English and French systems. The petition or memorial was referred to the Judiciary Committee and it fell to me to prepare the bill. This I did with the aid, and largely under the direction, of Shattuck and Jarvis. Then for the first time I had practical use for the small stock of knowledge that I had acquired of the French language. Previous to my election to the Legislature I had purchased a series of books on the French language, known as "French Without a Teacher." My study of the language had been limited to fragments of time that I could command while engaged in the business of the store. Upon my election to the Legislature I made the acquaintance of Count La Porte who had been a professor of the French language at Cambridge. I took lessons from him during the sessions of 1842 and 1843.
In the year 1844 I received from the Democratic Party the nomination for a seat in Congress. It was a barren honor. The district was in the hands of the Whig Party by a respectable majority. In the canvass of 1842 the Whigs had nominated John P. Robinson. He was not an acceptable candidate, and the candidate of the Abolitionists received a large vote. The Democratic candidate was Joseph W. Mansur of Lowell. In the first contest he was near an election by a majority. At the second trial his friends had high hopes of success. At the close of the contest it was found that he had lost votes. His friends charged that his loss was due to the secret opposition of Josiah G. Abbott, who was a rival to Mansur, in the city of Lowell. In 1844 Mansur retired from the field and Abbott became a candidate. Mansur's friends were opposed to the nomination of Abbott, and by their action the nomination came to me. The district was then hopeless. In 1842 the Dorr question was uppermost in the public mind. That had lost its power. In a Presidential contest Massachusetts was Whig by an immense majority. National questions were all-controlling. I was renominated for Congress in 1846 and 1848. I canvassed the district and made speeches in the principal places but as to success I never had any hope.
The 17th day of June, 1843, Mr. Webster delivered the address upon the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. President Tyler and some members of his Cabinet were present. The concourse of people was so great that experts were justified in estimating the number at one hundred thousand. This was the third opportunity that I had had to hear Mr. Webster speak. The first was in the Senate in January, 1839. A few days later I was present in the gallery of the Supreme Court room, and heard the argument in the case of Smith v. Richards.
Mr. Webster appeared for Smith and Mr. Crittenden for Richards. The subject was the sale of a gold mine in which fraud was alleged by Smith. The judgment was for Richards, three judges dissenting. For the first time I heard the word "denizen," used by Mr. Crittenden.
The election of 1844 was disastrous to the Democratic Party of Massachusetts. George Bancroft was its candidate for Governor. He was an enthusiastic leader, but not a popular candidate. I recall the circumstance that I met him during the canvass at the head of Hanover Street, Boston, when some news favorable to Polk had been received. He had a small cane in his hand which he whirled in the air, and shouted: "Glorious! Glorious!" until we were surrounded by a crowd of men and boys.
At the November election I was defeated by a majority of seventy-six, I think, in a vote of about four hundred. I had some political sins of my own that intensified the hostility of my Whig neighbors, and many Democrats voted the Whig ticket.
The act requiring the treasurers and cashiers of corporations to return the names of stockholders to the assessors of the cities and towns where the stockholders resided with the amount of stock held by each, could not be overlooked by those who had suffered. The recollection of my part in the business was still fresh in the minds of the victims. Next the scheme for the annexation of Texas was treated as a Democratic measure, and every Democrat suffered for the sin of the party. As to myself, I had spoken in the House against the scheme. I was a member of the Committee, of which Charles F. Adams was Chairman, that had made reports adverse to the measure. The circumstances, however, availed nothing. Mr. Clay's popularity was great, notwithstanding the indifference or concealed hostility of Mr. Webster. Indeed, Mr. Webster's popularity had suffered from his connection with John Tyler.
Mr. Polk had no strength in Massachusetts. He was the nominee of the Democratic Party, nothing more. Before the day of election came in Massachusetts the election of Polk was known and conceded. New York voted the Monday preceding the Monday of the election in Massachusetts, and the voting was not over until Wednesday night. There was a mass meeting at Pepperell, Thursday afternoon, at which Benjamin F. Hallett and myself spoke. Mr. Hallett was very confident of Polk's election. I was in doubt.
That evening I spoke at Chelmsford, and upon my return to Groton, I found several Whigs at Hoar's tavern, who were congratulating themselves upon a Whig victory in New York. Their authority was the Boston Atlas, an authority not universally accepted at that time. As I passed through the bar-room, after leaving my horse at the stable, I was rallied, and the assertion was made with great confidence that Mr. Clay was elected. I could only say in reply that they had better wait until they had some other authority for the claim. I went to my house, however, with many doubts as to the success of Polk.
At that time there was no railway communication between Boston and Groton. The first intelligence from abroad came from Lowell. My friends there sent to me a copy of the Vox Populi, printed during the night, and which contained the truthful returns from New York. At that time the Vox Populi was not in very good repute, and I thought it unwise to quote it to anyone. I thrust it into my desk without mentioning its contents.
Upon the arrival of the stage from Boston, I received a bundle of papers from my old friend General Staples, which confirmed the news furnished by the Vox Populi. These papers I also thrust into my desk, and went to the post-office. The outer room was filled with Whigs—not one Democrat present. The Whigs were still reposing upon the news printed in the Boston Atlas, but my statement that I had information more recent and that Polk had carried New York disturbed their composure.
At length the postmaster, Caleb Butler, opened the slide door, and passed out a copy of the Boston Courier. The receiver opened it. There were no capitals, no signs of exultation, and without waiting for the reading of the text, the assembly accepted the fact that Clay was defeated.
The Whigs of Massachusetts and indeed of the whole country were deeply grieved by the defeat of Mr. Clay. In many instances his popularity had ripened into personal friendship. His defeat came to many families as a real loss. Among the disappointed Whigs who had met at the post- office that morning was a neighbor and friend of mine, Mr. Aaron Perkins. In his excitement he said with an oath, "Next Monday we will give you a whipping." His declaration was verified. Many Democrats whose names were never disclosed to me voted for the Whig candidate, Deacon William Livermore, and he was elected by a majority of more than seventy votes. The next year he was re-elected by a diminished majority.
In 1846 the Whig Party nominated a new candidate, Edwin Coburn, a young lawyer then in the office of George F. Farley, with whom Coburn had studied his profession. Coburn was a man of good parts intellectually, a fair debater, and an intimate friend of mine. The town was canvassed thoroughly. Two ballots were taken during the first day. I received one hundred and ninety-six votes, and Coburn received one hundred and ninety-six votes at each ballot, and there were four scattering votes. The meeting was adjourned to the succeeding day. That night there was a rally of the absentees. The Democrats sent to Lowell, Manchester, N. H., and Boston, there being an absentee at each of those places. Upon the first ballot the second day I received two hundred and eleven votes and Coburn two hundred and seven. Of scattering votes there were none. From that time forward the town was Democratic. In all the previous contests I had contended against a Whig majority. My success had been due to the friendship of a number of Whig families, to my strength among the young men, and to a more perfect organization of the Democratic Party. The annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War, had alienated the support of some, and to this fact was due the closeness of the contest of 1846.
XII THE LEGISLATURE OF 1847
At the meeting of the Legislature of 1847, some new members appeared. Caleb Cushing came from Newburyport, and Fletcher Webster, and J. Lothrop Motley from Boston. The Democrats of Boston and vicinity were then engaged in raising and equipping a regiment for Mexico. Cushing was Colonel of the regiment and Edward Webster, a brother of Fletcher, was the Captain of one of the companies. On the first day of the session Cushing introduced an order to appropriate twenty thousand dollars to aid in equipping the regiment for service. The order was referred to a special committee of which Cushing was made chairman. I was put upon the committee and the majority were friends of the measure.
Upon the report a discussion sprang up which was partisan with a few exceptions. Conspicuous among the exceptions was Fletcher Webster. Webster supported the appropriation in a speech of signal ability. His drawback was the disposition to compare him with his father. Fletcher was aware of this, and I recollect his remarks upon the subject at an accidental meeting on Warren Bridge. Fletcher was rather undersize, and he spoke of that fact as a hindrance to success in life, in addition to the disposition to compare him with his father. In his speech he made a remark not unlike the style of his father. Addressing himself to his Whig friends, he said that they would be required to explain their opposition to the measure, and added, "and explanations are always disagreeable." My acquaintance with Fletcher Webster, was the introduction to a limited acquaintance with his father, and it led to an act on the part of Mr. Webster which was of signal importance to me.
Mr. Cushing remained in the House until the loss of the appropriation, when he left for Washington. President Polk gave him a commission as a Brigadier-General, and he left for Mexico.
Motley was chairman of the Committee on Education, and as Chairman he reported a bill to divide a portion of the proceeds of the Maine lands, among the three colleges of the State. Theretofore they had been added to the Common School Fund. As a member of the committee, I opposed the measure, and the bill was lost. The subject is mentioned in Holmes' Life of Motley, and a letter of mine is printed therein. I had no idea at the time that Motley had any feeling on account of his defeat, but Mr. Hooper informed me that it led him to abandon politics. If so I may have been the unconscious cause of a success in literature which he might not have attained in public, political life.
At this session I inaugurated a movement for the reorganization of Harvard College. The contest was continued in 1848, '49 and '50. In 1851 I was elected Governor and the Legislature, under the lead of Caleb Cushing, passed a bill by which the overseers of the College were made elective by the Legislature. It was a compromise measure, and its immediate results were not favorable to the College. The lobby became influential in the selection of overseers and unemployed clergymen of various denominations were active in lobbying for themselves. After a few years' experience the election of overseers was transferred to the Alumni, with whom the power still remains. The bill which I introduced, the reports and arguments which I submitted to the House, aimed at the reorganization of the corporation and the election of the corporators by the Legislature.
In the years 1849 and 1850 the town of Concord was represented by the Hon. Samuel Hoar, and he led in the defence of the College. He was no ordinary antagonist. First and last I have been brought into competition with many men of ability, and I have not often met a more able reasoner. He spoke without notes, his only aid being his pocket knife which he held in his right hand and dropped by regular processes into his left hand, where he changed the ends of the knife and then resumed the automatic process.
My own argument I have not read for many years, but it is not unlikely that it contains as much ingenuity as can be found in any argument that I have ever made. The movement attracted a good deal of interest in the State. The College was in control of the Unitarians exclusively, and it was far from prosperous. The final change of the Board of Overseers gave a popular character to the institution, and it was one of the elements of its recent prosperity. For the moment the managers of the College were very hostile to me, but in the course of ten years all feeling had disappeared, and I enjoyed the friendship of Presidents Sparks, Felton, and Walker.
The College conferred upon me the degree of LL.D. in 1851. That honor had no significance as it was given to every person who was elected Governor and that without regard to his learning, attainments, or services.* Subsequently, however, I was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by the votes of those who were controlling the College. In 1861 I was invited to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration, and I was then made a member of the society. Since the opening of the war I have been at Cambridge on two or three occasions only, and my present acquaintance with the persons in power is very limited.
From 1844 to 1850 I received from Governor Briggs several appointments. In 1845 or '46 the Legislature passed an Act authorizing the appointment of railway commissioners. Governor Briggs sent me a commission, which I declined. The Board was never organized, and the act was soon repealed. I was also appointed a member of a commission on Boston Harbor. At the time the public were anxious about the fate of the harbor in consequence of the drainage into it by Charles River, and numerous minor channels. It was not then understood that all deposits by drainage could be removed by dredging. The members of the Commission were Judges Williams, Hopkinson, Cummins, the Hon. Chas. Hudson and myself. The three judges had then recently lost their offices by the abolition of the court of common pleas. Mr. Hudson had then recently left the United States House of Representatives, but whether voluntarily or upon compulsion I cannot say. He was a clergyman, a Universalist, but at an early age he had abandoned his profession for politics. After serving in the Massachusetts House, Senate and Council, he was elected to Congress from the Worcester district, for which he sat during four Congresses. He was a man of solid qualities without genius of any sort. He was distinguished in Congress as a Protectionist, and his speeches on the tariff question were widely circulated by the Whig Party. They were filled with statistics, and like all arguments based on statistics, they were subject to a good deal of criticism by the advocates of free trade.
The three judges were respectable, clear-headed gentlemen. Of Cummins the story is told that, when for the first time a plan of land was introduced in a real-estate case, he refused to consider the document, saying: "I will not allow a case to be won in my court by diagrams." Williams had been chief justice of the common pleas court and he was estimated as the superior among his associates upon the bench. Judge Hopkinson was from Lowell, where he had been a favorite of the ruling class in that city. He was a man of moderate ability. The work of the commission continued through several months, and some of its recommendations were adopted by the Legislature.
As the charters of all the banks in the State were to expire in 1850 or 1851, in the latter year, I think, the Legislature authorized the appointment of a board of commissioners for the examination of the banks. The Governor and Council appointed Solomon Lincoln, of Hingham, Joseph S. Cabot of Salem, and myself.
Mr. Lincoln was a kind, capable man of considerable learning, especially in Old Colony history and genealogy. His first question to bank officers often related to them personally, and when he found a man who traced his line to the Old Colony, he pressed him with questions until his whole history was disclosed. Mr. Cabot sometimes anticipated Mr. Lincoln, by saying at once, when we entered a bank, "Is there anybody here from the Old Colony?"
Mr. Cabot was a bachelor of fifty, and his ways were often odd, and occasionally they were disagreeable. He had a custom of never locking his sleeping-room door. Of this he often boasted. When we were at the American House, Worcester, Mr. Cabot said upon his appearance in the morning: "A very queer thing happened to me last night. When I got up my clothes were missing. At last I opened the door, and there they were in the hall. I supposed that I had been robbed. But I am all right," taking his wallet from his pocket. I said: "Have you looked in your wallet?" He opened it to find that the money had disappeared. We ventured to suggest that for a bank commissioner, he had not shown a great amount of shrewdness.
In the years 1849 and 1850 the commission examined all the banks in the State. Only one was found insolvent, a bank at Pawtucket on the Rhode Island line. The cashier, named Tillinghast, had been persuaded by a man named Marchant, of Rhode Island, to loan money without the knowledge of the officers of the bank. The loan, at the time of the discovery, amounted to sixty thousand dollars.
Upon the examination it appeared that there was a slight surplus of funds over the amount required by the statement. We insisted upon another examination. The cashier then reduced the balance by the statement that certain notes sent forward for collection had been discounted. It was impossible, however, to make the two sides of the account equal each other. At the end of the second day the cashier confessed the crime, and transferred his private property to the bank. Marchant did nothing. He came to the Rhode Island edge of the bridge, where we had some consultations with him, but without any result advantageous to the bank.
In 1847 I was a member of a joint committee to investigate the subject of insanity in the State, and to visit asylums in other States, the object being the erection of a second hospital for the care and treatment of the insane. At the time the only asylum under the control of the State was that at Worcester. There was a second at Somerville for the treatment of private patients. This was under the control of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The hospital at Worcester was under the management of Dr. Woodward, and each years for many years the reports had set it forth as a well organized and well managed institution. At the beginning of our labors we visited the Worcester Hospital. I was then ignorant of the treatment of the insane, but I was shocked by the sight of women in the cells in the basement, who had no bedding but straw, and some of whom had no clothing whatever.
The committee visited the McLean Asylum at Somerville; the Butler Hospital, Rhode Island; the Utica and Bloomingdale Asylums, New York; the Trenton Hospital, the Kirkbride Hospital, and the Philadelphia Alms House, and in none of these institutions did we find any person naked or confined in a cell. The furiously insane were dressed, the arms were tied so as to limit the use of the hands, and the hands were covered with padded mittens. The Worcester Hospital was the poorest institution of all. Our chairman, the Rev. Orin S. Fowler, afterwards a member of Congress, was very indignant, and his report to the Legislature aroused the State from its delusion in regard to the Worcester Hospital. We examined many sites for the contemplated new hospitals, but the Legislature postponed action.
During the year 1847 I was a member of a committee to examine and report upon the securities held by the State. These securities were chiefly the property of the Common School Fund, and they had been derived from the sales of public lands in Maine owned jointly with that State under the agreement made at the time of the separation. Among these securities was a mortgage upon the property of Nathaniel J. Wythe, at Fresh Pond. Mr. Wythe had been a trapper for John Jacob Astor, and he had published a pamphlet upon the region of the Rocky Mountains. Elisha H. Allen afterwards our Consul to Honolulu, and then Chief Justice of Hawaii, and more recently Minister from that country to the United States, was a member of the committee. Mr. Allen and myself were at Fresh Pond together and under the lead of Wythe we went to one of his large ice-houses. The month was August and the men were engaged in removing ice from the house for loading upon the railway cars. From the top of the house to the ground floor must have been sixty feet or more. The cakes of ice were sent down in a run, and by the side of the run there was a narrow foot track, over which the men passed. Mr. Wythe with a lantern led in going up the track to the height where the men were at work. Allen followed and I was behind Allen. When we had ascended about one third of the way, the men above sent down a cake of ice that seemed at first view to threaten the passengers on the side track. Allen stepped back and fell outside the track and disappeared in the darkness. The men were called and by the aid of lights Allen was found in a pit about ten or twelve feet in depth that had been made by removing ice. By the help of a ladder he was taken out, much frightened, but not injured seriously. Mr. Allen was the son of Sam. C. Allen of Northfield, formerly a member of Congress. Mr. Elisha H. Allen was elected to Congress in 1840 from the Bangor district, State of Maine. He went to Hawaii in 1849 and he returned in 1851 or 1852. Upon his return I had several interviews with him as he lived at the Adams House, Boston, for a time, where I was then living. From him I received the impression that he was authorized to say to the Secretary of State that the authorities of Hawaii were prepared to enter upon negotiations for the cession of the Island to the United States. I understood from Mr. Allen that Mr. Webster did not look with favor upon the scheme. In later years I renewed my acquaintance with Mr. Allen. He was a man of quick perceptions, of much general information, and as a debater in the Massachusetts House of Representatives his standing was always good. As to his integrity it was never brought into question.
[* I was elected a member of the American Academy on my birthday, 1857. J. Lothrop Motley and Charles Francis Adams were elected at the same time.]
XIII LEGISLATIVE SESSION OF 1848—FUNERAL OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
The chief incident of the Legislative session of 1848 was the funeral of John Quincy Adams. Mr. Adams died in February, 1848. There were then twenty-four States in the Union and the House of Representatives selected one member from each State to accompany the remains of Mr. Adams to Massachusetts. Of these members I recall Talmadge of New York; Newell* of New Jersey; Kaufmann of Texas; Morse of Louisiana; Wentworth of Illinois; Bingham of Michigan; and Holmes of South Carolina. The Massachusetts Legislature appointed a committee of the same number to receive the Congressional Committee. Of that committee I was a member and George T. Bigelow was the chairman. Our first thought was of a hotel and the entertainment of the Committee.
The feeling in regard to temperance was active and we foresaw that the doings of the committee would be subject to criticism. Finally, Bigelow suggested that we should go to the Tremont House and say to the landlord that we wished him to provide suitable rooms and entertainment for the Congressional Committee. This we did, and nothing was said about wines. At the end we found that the bill was a large one, and that the item of wines was a very important item. It was paid by the Governor and Council, and as one member of the committee I was ignorant of the amount. The reporters made vain attempts to ascertain the facts. A portion of our committee met the Congressional Committee at Springfield. Many additions had then been made to the twenty-four. At Worcester, and perhaps at other places, speeches were made to the Committee by the local authorities and speeches in answer were delivered by members of the Committee. Mr. Holmes of South Carolina, was one of the speakers. He was an enthusiastic man, and he was endowed with a form of popular eloquence quite well adapted to the occasion.
I was assigned to the charge of Mr. Wentworth of Illinois. His height was such that he was already known as "Long John." We sat together in the train for Quincy on the day of the funeral. He was a good natured man, whose greatness was not altogether in the size of his body. His talents were far above mediocrity, indeed, nature had endowed him with powers of a high order, as I had the opportunity to learn when we were associated in Congress.
Two banquets were given to the Committee, one by the State at the Tremont House, and one by the City of Boston at the Revere House. The notable event at the Revere House was the speech of Harrison Gray Otis. Mr. Otis was then about eighty years of age. He was a well preserved gentleman, and in his deportment, dress and speech he gave evidence of culture and refinement. He had been a Federalist and of course he had been a bitter opponent of Mr. Adams. He seized the occasion to make a defence of Federalism, and of the Hartford Convention. While Mr. Adams was President, he had written a pamphlet in vindication of a charge he had made, in conversation with Mr. Jefferson, that, during the War of 1812 the Federalists of New England, had contemplated a dissolution of the Union, and the establishment of a northern confederacy. This charge Mr. Otis denied and he then proceeded at length to vindicate the character of the old Federal Party. He was a gentleman of refinement of manners, but as I sat near him at the Revere House dinner, I overheard enough of his private conversation with Holmes of South Carolina, to satisfy me that he had a relish for coarse remarks, if they had in them a flavor of wit or humor.
The old controversy between John Quincy Adams, and the Federalists of Boston, once saved me, and helped me to escape from a position in which I found myself by an indiscretion in debate. In 1843 the office of Attorney-General was abolished, by the active efforts of the Democrats aided by the passiveness of the Whigs. The Democrats thought the office unnecessary, the Whigs were content to have it abolished, that the party might get rid of the incumbent, James T. Austin. At a subsequent session of the Judiciary Committee, of which George Lunt was a member, he reported a bill for the establishment of the office. Mr. Lunt was a poet, a lawyer, and a politician, and without excellence in either walk. In public life he was destitute of the ability to adapt himself to his surroundings. In those days the farmers constituted a majority of the House. They were generally men of intelligence, and they held about the same relation to the business of the House, that juries hold to the business of the Courts. They listened to the arguments, reasoned upon the case, and not infrequently the decision was made by them. Occasionally they gave a verdict upon a party question, adverse to the arguments of the leaders of the party in power. In his opening argument, Mr. Lunt was unwise, to a degree unusual even for him.
The question he maintained was one which lawyers alone were competent to understand, and he also maintained that the majority of the House ought to accept their views. "The question" said he "is sui generis."
I was opposed to the bill. At that time Richard Fletcher, then recently a member of Congress, had been engaged in a controversy with the Boston Atlas, a leading organ of the Whig Party. A question of veracity was raised and to the disadvantage of Fletcher. Thereupon he resigned his seat in the House and returned to Massachusetts.
Mr. Frank B. Crowninshield was opposed to the bill, and anxious to secure its defeat, but he was unwilling to take the responsibility of contributing openly to that result. Privately he informed me that the purpose was to make a place for Fletcher. In the course of my remarks, in reply to Lunt I said that if the object of the managers was to provide a place for a man who had fallen into discredit, in another branch of the public service, then as far as I knew, the bill was sui generis.
Several members, among them General William Schouler, disclaimed all knowledge of any arrangement such as I had referred to. These assertions of ignorance were not troublesome, but Otis P. Lord, of Salem, rose and after many personal compliments said "I call upon the member from Groton to give his authority for the suggestion he makes in regard to the purpose of this bill." At that moment my mind reverted to the controversy between Adams and the Federalists.
In 1825 or 1826 Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter that was printed in the National Intelligencer, in which he gave his version of statements made by Mr. Adams. Among others he said that Mr. Adams had told him that he had evidence of the purpose of the Federalists during the War of 1812 to secure a dissolution of the Union, and the organization of an eastern confederacy.
Mr. Adams wrote a letter in which he explained some of Mr. Jefferson's statements, but of this he took no notice. Its accuracy, therefore, was admitted. Thereupon the Federalists of Boston, wrote to President Adams, demanding his authority for the statement. That authority he refused to give. Alluding to the many names appended to the letter of the Federalists, he said: "No array of numbers or of talent shall induce me to make the disclosure sooner than my sense of duty requires, and when that time arrives, no array of numbers or talent shall deter me from it." After some remarks intended to connect the Whig and Federal parties I repeated the conclusion of Mr. Adams' pamphlet and made my escape in the smoke. Crowninshield sat upon the dais in front of the speaker during the debate. I made no allusion to him, for I commanded my faculties sufficiently to enable me to realize that if he denied my allegations the denial would be fatal to my standing, and that he would be seriously injured if he accepted my statement. The event taught me a lesson, and thenceforward I have avoided all reference in debate to private conversations.
[* Mr. Newell is the only member living, March, 1901.]
XIV THE LEGISLATURE OF 1849
In the year 1849, two men were elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives who have had conspicuous careers in the State and nation,—General Nathaniel P. Banks and Henry L. Dawes. General Banks had genius for politics and the generalities of public affairs. As an orator he was peculiar and attractive to an unusual degree. For a long period his popularity was great in his town and district, and finally in the State. A long life was the possession of General Banks, and I have only to consider how its opportunities were treated, and its duties performed. The beginnings of his life were humble enough, but the beginnings of life, whether humble or otherwise, are of no considerable consequence to strong characters.
General Banks' public career began with his election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, when he was far along in his thirty-third year. His eminence as a debater and his pre-eminence as a parliamentarian, were established without much delay, and in 1851 he was raised to the speaker's chair. In 1852, he was again elected speaker of the house, and in 1853, and without debate, he was chosen to preside over the Constitutional Convention. He was then elected to Congress, and thenceforward he was a conspicuous personality in the great events of the war; both on the civil and military side of affairs. He achieved distinction in the Thirty-third Congress, and after a long and bitter contest in the Thirty-fourth Congress, he was elected speaker of the House of Representatives. His associates in that House gave him rank next to Mr. Clay, and through tradition that rank is still accorded to him.
During his administration as Governor of the State, from 1858 to 1861, he made military preparations for that contest of arms, which even then was thought by some not to be improbable and by a few thought to be inevitable. It was during that period that he delivered the address at the dedication of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge. The address met most fully the expectations of the authorities at Cambridge, and it gave General Banks standing as an orator when Massachusetts had orators—Everett, Choate, Phillips, Hillard,—and when Harrison Gray Otis and Webster had not been forgotten.
At the opening of the war Mr. Lincoln tendered to General Banks a commission of the first rank, and a command of corresponding importance. He had not received a military education, and he was without experience in military life. His selection was due to a general and well founded opinion that he possessed military qualities, courage and decision, and that he was inspired by a deep devotion to the Union. General Banks was a firm believer in the justice of our cause, and he was animated by an unbounded confidence in our success,— a confidence which was not impaired in the darkest days of the Civil War. After the passing of a third of a century, a review of the entire field on the Civil side does not reveal a character more worthy than General Banks of high military command. In all the vicissitudes of his military career, and success did not always wait upon his undertakings, he never lost the confidence of Mr. Lincoln, nor Mr. Stanton, who was the most exacting of men, whenever an officer failed in his duties.
General Banks' military career may be considered in three parts. As to the campaigns of 1861 and 1862, on the Potomac, and in the valley of the Shenandoah, it is to be said that his fortunes were in the main the fortunes of McDowell, McClellan, and Pope, yet even in the presence of general disaster, he gained distinction by his courage, resolution, and equanimity of temper. The capture of Port Hudson, undertaken and accomplished under his command, opened the Mississippi River below Vicksburg to military operations and to business intercourse. The event was second only in importance to the surrender of Vicksburg.
The Red River campaign was an ill advised undertaking, for which General Banks was in no degree responsible. Indeed, he advised against the movement. This I say upon his specific statement made to me. The undertaking was a great error. There never was a day after April, 1861, when it was not apparent that the south-western portion of the union, beyond the Mississippi River, would yield whenever that river was opened to the Gulf, and the army of Lee had capitulated. Hence the unwisdom of the undertaking. It is sufficient to say that nothing occurred in that campaign which was discreditable to General Banks. The obstacles were too great to have been overcome, and nothing in the nature of success could have been attained by Sherman or Grant. I turn again to the aspect of General Banks' career on the civil side.
In knowledge of parliamentary law and in ability to administer that law it may be claimed justly that General Banks had no rival in his generation. As a speaker he approached the rank of an orator, if he did not attain to it. His presence was stately and attractive, his voice was agreeable, far reaching and commanding, and his control of an audience was absolute, for the time being. That his auditors may at times have differed from his conclusions but only when the speech was ended, and the spell was broken, is evidence of his power as a speaker.
That he came into public life as the associate and rival of Sumner, Wilson, and Burlingame, and that in his whole career as a public man he kept his equal place to the end, and that in Congress he suffered nothing when compared with the able men who occupied seats in the lower House between the year 1850 and the year 1870, give him rank as one of the foremost statesmen of his time. If it be said that his name is not identified with any important measure of the government the same may be said of Mr. Sumner, of Mr. Wilson, of Mr. Conkling, and others, whose speeches and opinions have had large influence upon the policy of the country. A great measure is the result of many causes and in its promulgation it may bear the name of a person whose contribution has been insignificant relatively.
General Banks had aptitude for public affairs—an aptitude which approached genius. His mind dwelt upon great projects, and never upon petty schemes, nor upon intrigues as a means of success. His warfare was a bold one, and in the open field. In politics he was deficient in organizing qualities, but he had unbounded confidence in his own ability and in the ability of his associates and friends to command and to retain popular support. As to himself, that confidence rested upon an adequate basis. In the last fifty years there has been no other man in Massachusetts who was as generously supported, and by people of all classes. For the masses, who saw him and who knew him, only as he appeared on the platform, there was an inspiration in his presence and in his speeches, and for his associates and friends there was a generous companionship which none could resist—which none wished to resist. In his private life there was no malice in his intercourse with men; in the strife of war there was no vindictiveness in spirit nor in the means of prosecuting war.
A patriotic man, who trusted the people, and a man whom the people trusted; a brave soldier, who retained the confidence of his troops, and of his superiors in all the vicissitudes of war; a friend whose friendship was not changed nor tempered by the changing events of life. Such was General Banks to many and to myself, his companion, and often co-worker, and always friend through a lengthened half century.
Mr. Dawes was not a leader in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and no one could then have predicted his success in public life. Something of what the world calls fortune has attended him. He possessed the quality or faculty of industry, but his studies did not extend beyond the current demands of the situation. As a lawyer he was not distinguished. He had none of the qualities of an orator, indeed it was not always a pleasure to listen to his speeches. His manners were not attractive, and of genial wit he was wholly innocent. He had a power of sarcasm, and in his speeches he presented himself in the phase of umpire often, although at times he appeared in the aspect of a contestant. Indeed, this was in his nature. He was a thorough partisan who seemed unwilling to own the fact. His friends could not claim for him any of the qualities for which successful men are commonly distinguished, and yet he has been one of the most successful men that the State has produced. Such success must rest on a substantial basis of merit.
For a single term, between 1846 and 1850 Benjamin R. Curtis was a member of the House. He had already acquired fame as a jurist. His speeches in the house were the speeches that he made to courts and juries. He was destitute of genius, and his speeches exhibited no variety of talent. They were adapted to the argument of questions of law before a court; hence he was not successful as a jury lawyer, and his speeches in the house were usually convincing, although they were never attractive. Judge Curtis' intellectual faculties matured early. Mr. Wilde, for many years the clerk of the court of Suffolk, expressed to me the opinion that Judge Curtis' first argument was as good as his last argument. There can be no doubt, however, that his legal arguments were unrivalled in recent times. He was equipped with all the legal learning that could be required in any case. He had the capacity to see the points on which a case must turn, and he had the courage to pass over the immaterial facts, and points in which other men often lay stress to the injury of their arguments, and to the annoyance of the courts. In his arguments in the impeachment case of President Johnson, he furnished the only ground on which the Senate could stand in rendering a verdict of not guilty.
During his service in the House he introduced an extraordinary bill which received little or no support from the members. By that bill it was made a misdemeanor to flow the land of another for any purpose whatsoever, thus changing the ancient Mill Act of the State; provided, however, that it should not apply to any citizen of Massachusetts. It was said that Curtis had a client whose land had been flowed by a Rhode Island man, and not being willing to pursue him in the courts of the United States, he framed the bill in question. Of course the bill failed. Again in 1851 he gave an opinion that Sumner, Wilson, myself and perhaps some others, could be indicted for the coalition by which the Whig Party was driven from power in Massachusetts. The opinion was printed secretly and read in the Whig caucus, where it received so little support that it was suppressed. When the parties had disappeared, I read a copy that had been preserved in the office of the Boston Journal.
Judge Curtis was a jurist, and that only. He had no literary taste in the true sense, although the statement has been made that he was a constant reader of novels. However that may have been, his speeches were seldom if ever adorned or burdened by illustrations or references outside of the books of the profession.
George T. Curtis, a brother of Benjamin R., was a member of the House for several years, between 1840 and 1850. With the overthrow of the Whig Party in 1851, he disappeared from the politics of the State, and at about the same time he removed to New York. As a writer he is clear and methodical, but from choice or fortune many of his subjects have not been acceptable, and his treatment of his subjects has been counter usually to the general opinion of the country. As the son-in-law of Judge Story and the brother of Judge Curtis, there was a general expectation that his career would be distinguished. That expectation was not realized. His self-conceit was unbounded. That defect made him unpopular with his professional brethren, and at last it alienated his clients. Even Mr. Choate, the gentlest of men, could not endure Mr. Curtis. Of him he said, "Some men we hate for cause, but George T. Curtis we hate peremptorily."
Charles P. Curtis was also a member of the House for many years. He was a more genial man than either the Judge or George T. The three constituted the fraternity known as the Curtii. Chief Justice Shaw, who had married a Curtis, was also included in the brotherhood.
XV MASSACHUSETTS POLITICS AND MASSACHUSETTS POLITICIANS 1850-51 AND 1852
The defeat of General Cass in 1848 changed the policy of the leaders of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. These leaders were David Henshaw, Charles G. Greene, and as an assistant Benjamin F. Hallett. The first two had controlled the patronage of the general government very largely during the administrations of Jackson, Van Buren and Polk. They looked to the election of General Cass as a continuation of that policy. These leaders considered the control of Massachusetts as hopeless, and not unlikely they considered the national patronage as more valuable than the offices of the State. Hence they were ready to endorse whatever the Washington authorities demanded. Consequently our platforms tended to alienate voters rather than to attract them. This policy was very disagreeable to the younger members of the party, but they were unable to resist it. The Boston Post, owned by Colonel Greene, was the leading Democratic paper in the State. Many of the country papers followed its lead. The Worcester Palladium was an exception, but its influence was limited.
Greene and Hallett attributed the defeat of General Cass to the defection of the South and for the time they were disposed to sanction or to permit a policy of retaliation. Consequently the State Convention of 1849 was disposed to utter the sentiments of the party in regard to slavery. For many years Hallett had been the chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. He was designated for that position in 1849. The Free-soil Party had already become a power in the State. It was led by men who had been prominent in the Whig Party in its last days. Hallett reported a resolution in which was this expression: "We are opposed to slavery throughout all God's heritage." When the Democratic Party regained power in 1853 this declaration threatened to impede Hallett in his plans for office and influence. Pierce made allowances for the circumstances and rewarded Hallett with the office of district attorney. The resolutions, however, tended to conciliate the anti-slavery element of the State and in many towns and in some of the counties the Democrats and Free-soilers coalesced and elected a formidable minority of the Legislature. The result of the coalition demonstrated the possibility of a combination which could control the State. The Convention gave me the nomination, and without any serious opposition. Stephen C. Phillips of Salem, was the candidate of the Free-soil Party. Together we had a majority of the popular vote, and Governor Briggs was elected Governor by the Legislature. The plurality rule had not then been adopted.
In 1850 each of the three parties nominated the same candidates and the coalition in the towns, cities and counties was much more complete. The victory was decisive. When the Legislature assembled, Henry Wilson, Free-soiler, was chosen president of the Senate and General Banks, Democrat, was chosen speaker of the House. The candidates of the Democratic Party were elected to the office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The council was divided between the parties. The selection of a candidate for the Senate was left for the Free-soil Party. The choice fell upon Mr. Sumner, although there was a large public sentiment, especially in the Democratic Party, in favor of Mr. Phillips. Such was my own opinion at the time, but the result showed the wisdom or good fortune of the selection that was made. Mr. Phillips was a man of education, a merchant by profession, and a gentleman who enjoyed the confidence of the public. He was an Anti- Slavery man upon principle, but his intellectual movements were slow, and his power as a forensic speaker was moderate only.
In January, 1851, when these events were occurring, the prospects of the National Democratic Party had improved. The Henshaw wing of the party in Massachusetts were anticipating a success in 1852. Mr. Webster had made his famous and fatal speech on the 7th of March, 1850. President Taylor had died, and Mr. Fillmore was President. He had reorganized the Cabinet and endorsed the Compromise Measures, and finally the Whig Party was divided, hopelessly. In this condition of affairs, Greene and Hallett entered upon a vigorous opposition to the election of Sumner. The Boston Post called upon the Democratic members of the House to oppose his election. About twenty-eight members known as "old hunkers" followed the lead of the Post. After a long contest Mr. Sumner was elected by a single vote. As far as I know, Mr. Sumner was not a party to any arrangement as to a division of the offices, and I am sure that I was never consulted upon the subject. As far as arrangements were made, they were made by members of the Legislature. The members had been elected by a coalition among the people and they executed the will of the people. The vacant places were filled by representative men from each of the parties. While the struggle over the election of Senator was going on, the Legislature proceeded to elect a Senator for the term that was to expire the 4th of March, 1851. It was the seat that Mr. Webster had vacated to take the office of Secretary of State under Mr. Fillmore. Governor Briggs had appointed Robert C. Winthrop to the vacancy.