S. G. & E. L. ELBERT
Ctltrnmi itf
SLLA SMITE.BLBmiE 'SS
JIu ilUmiiriam
KATmiKE B. COMAN
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS
BY
HENRY B. STANTON
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 18 8 7
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1885, by Henry B. Stanton, in the oflSce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1886, by Henry B, Stanton, in the oflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothers.
All rij/hU rtttrved.
t'rlnud ly Wyukoop, HalUnUck A Cu.
PRKFACE TO THE Tllllil) EDITION.
Though no portions of tlie first an^ second editions of this work were on sale, they were soon exhausted in supply- ing calls on me for copies. The requests in numerous news- papers and letters that I would place the book where it could be purchased, amounted almost to a rebuke for my not hav- ing done this. In compliance with this desire, I have spent a few weeks in preparing a third edition, which will be issued and sold by a book-publishing house. The new matter in this third edition makes the volume about two thirds larger than the second edition, and about three times as large as the first.
This production is neither a history, a biography, nor an autobiography, but is exactly what it professes to be, namely, some "random recollections" of the writer. It will be well to read it from that point of view. Such value as this draft on my memory may possess is mainly due to the fact that in describing events and men I have usually told only what I personally knew of them ; and, perhaps better than all, I have tried to stop when I was done.
H. B. S.
Tenafly, K J., September, 1886.
XOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. Henry B. Staxtox, the author, died suddenly on January 14th, 1887, in Xew York. He was busy correcting the proofs of this book the day before he died. H. & B.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Author's Birthplace. — Pachaug, Connecticut, — Jewett City. — The Author's Ancestry. — Thomas Stanton, the Indian Inter- preter, and William Brewster, the Pilgrim Father. — Indian Tribes in New London County. — Sachems Uncas, Sassacus, and Miantonomoh. — Extermination of the Pequods in 1637.— Bene- dict Arnold. — Massacre at Groton Heights in 1781. — The Stan- tons who Fell there. — War of 1812-15. — Commodores Hardy, Decatur, and Perry. — Bombardment of Stoniugton.— Perry De- scribes his Victory on Lake Erie.— "Don't Give up the Ship." — Bitter Politics and Blue-Laws Page 1
CHAPTER n.
Puritan " ]\Ieeting-house " at Pachaug.— Freezing as a Means of Grace. — Musical Instruments and Timepieces. — The Clergy. — Doctors Hart, Bellamy, Hopkins, and Lorenzo Dow. — The Bur- roughses.— The Westminster Catechism. — Connecticut Calvin- ism vs. Rhode Island Liberalism. — The Deacon's Horse-race on Sundaj^ — Schools, Teachers, and Books. — Nathan Daboll, the Arithmetician.— George D. Prentice, Poet, Wrestler, and Found- er of the Louisville Journal— Celehrs^iion on July 4, 1824, at Jewett City. — Toast to Henry Clay. — La Fayette at Jewett City in 1825 11
CHAPTER III.
Journey to Rochester in April, 1826.— Xew York City had 150,0C0 Souls. — Tammany Hall — The Bucktails.— The City Hall.— Albany's Population, 15,000. —The Old Capitol. — Legislative
vi
CONTENTS.
Leaders: Younof, Root, Frank Granger, Golden, Livingston, Silas Wright. Tallmadge. — Governor De Witt Clinton, the Magnificent.— The Erie Canal just Completed.— Utica.— Syra- cuse.— Rochester in 1826.— Anti-Masonic Excitement. — Thurlow "Weed's Dingy Newspaper, Shabby Dress, and Empty Pocket. — Henry O'Reilly Issues at Rochester, in 1826, the First Daily Journal West of the Hudson and Delaware Rivers.— Edmund Keau, the Tragedian, Performs in the "Iron Chest" at Roches- ter.—Sam Patch Twice Leaps the Genesee Falls and is Drowned. — Gerrit Smith and Fanny Wright Speak at Rochester.— Samuel Wilkeson Constructs the Harbor at Buffalo Page 21
CHAPTER IV.
Horatio Seymour when a Cadet ; his Father, Henry Seymour. — The "Immortal Seventeen" Senators. — Marcy, Flagg, Bouck in 1826-27. — Death of De Witt Clinton in 1828; Mar- tin Van Buren and Benjamin F. Butler's Eulogiums on Him; their Drift and Purpose. — Van Buren at Rochester in 1828; His Variegated Dress.— Roscoc Conkling's Style. — Presidential Struggle between Adams and Jackson in 1828. — Van Buren Runs for Governor to Help Jackson, and is Chosen. — Smith Thompson and Solomon South wick also Candidates. — Jackson Elected President. — Van Buren Appointed Secretary of State. — Young Men's State Convention at Utica in 1828; the First ever Held in the Union ; William H. Seward Presides; his Unexpected and Embarrassing Nomination for Congress in 1828; he Declines to Run 20
CHAPTER V.
Courts and Counsellors at Rochester in 1827-30.— Daniel D. Bar- nard.— Addison Gardiner.— Samuel L. Selden.— Occasional Vis- itors.— Elisha Williams. — .Tohn C. Spencer. — Daniel Cady. — Henry R. Storrs. — Millard Fillmore. — William H. Seward and others. — Thurlow Weed Cho.sen to the Assembly in 1829. — "A good enough ISIorgan till after the Election." — Weed Founds the Albany Eccniiifj Journal in April, 1830. — The Stale ]\Iends William L. ]\Iarcy's "Pantaloons." — The Patch a Campaign Issue when be Ran for Governor.— John W. Taylor, of Sara- to';a, and the Missouri Compromise. — Marcy and Silas Wright
CONTENTS.
vii
on its Repeal.— The Wilmot Proviso.— Marcy and Wright Com- pared.— The Rochester Clergy in 1830. — Charles G. Finney, the Famous Evangelist. — His Pulpit Oratory Page 35
CHAPTER YI.
The Author Goes to Lane Seminary in 1831.— President Lyman Becchcr Tried for Heresy at Cincinnati. — Henry AYard Beechcr Says his Father is " Plagued Good at Twisting." — Xew and Old School Theological Magnates. — "In Adam's Fall we Sinned all." — Dr. Beman's Parody. — Dr. Beecher's Eccentricities. — First Anti-slavery Speech. — James G. Birney, and General Bir- ney, his Son. — "Boys, Keep j'our Eye on that Flag." — First Mob. — Anti-slavery Debate at Lane in 1834. — Its Consequences. — Early Anti-slavery Career. — The Author Addresses the Mas- sachusetts Legislature on Freedom, in 1837. — The Epoch of Mobs. — East Greenwich. — Utica. — Boston. — Xewport. — Provi- dence.— Bishop Clark of Rhode Island. — Methodist Church Burned. — Pennsylvania Hall Burned. — Quaker Meeting-house Sacked in Portland. — John Neal, the Poet, Puts the Mob down. — Senator William Pitt Fessenden.— "I am that Person." — Mob in Norwich, Connecticut. — Mobbed in many States. — Xever in Yermont 43
CHAPTER YII.
John G. Whit tier and the Author Yisit Gettysburg for Anti- slavery Lecturers. — Whittier's Services to Liberty. — Caleb Cush- ing a Candidate for Congress in 1838. — AYhittier Gets a Letter that Averts Cushing's Defeat. — Origin of the Republican Part}-. — Peculiar Honors paid to John Quincy Adams in 1837. — Author at Washington in 1838. — Adams and the Right of Peti- tion.— Speaker Polk. — Latimer's Case. —The Reel on Mr. Adams's Desk.— Yice-President Dick Johnson Compared with Yan Buren as a Presiding Officer.— The Lions in the Senate in 1838. — Foreshadowing the Methods for Overthrowing Slavery. — The Author's Early Newspaper Productions.— Sylvester Gra- ham, the Dietetic Reformer; his System 56
CHAPTER YIII.
Abolitionists and the Constitution.— Anti-slavery Leaders: Garri- son and others in Boston; Tappan and others in Xew York;
viii
CONTENTS.
Smilli and others in Central Xew York; Lovcjoy and others in the Western States. — Celebrated Women: Prudence Crandall; Mrs. Child; The Grimkes; Mrs. Mott; Lucy Stone; Harriet Beccher Stowe; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Susan B. Anthonj^ — Leading Colored Men; Frederick Douglass; Robert Purvis. — Eccentricities of Abolitionists. — A Motley Group in Boston. — Father Lampson and his Scythe-snath. — Crazy George Wash- ington Mellen. — Disturbing Religious Meetings. — Stephen S. Foster Imitates George Fox. — Charles C. Burleigh's Vile Gar- ments Torn off and Carried away. — Rev. Dr. Channing Eulogizes Burleigh's Oratory.— Coutrovers}^ between Garrison and Wendell Phillips.— Lord Timothy Dexter Page 64
CHAPTER IX.
Tour in Europe in 1840.— Current Description of Author's Travels. — The Main Object of the Tour. — World's Anti-slavery Con- vention in London. — Leading Members. — Distinguished Women. — Haj'don's Large Painting of the Convention; his Anecdote of the Iron Duke. — House of Peers. — Scotch Church Debate. — Brougham Speaks. — Melbourne, the Premier. — Lord Lyndhurst, a Boston-born Boy. — Wellington Speaks on an Irish Question. — Earl Grey Enters.— The Reform Bill of 1832.— Grey's ^NVarning to the Peers to Set their Plouses in Order. — Sydney Smith and Dame Partington. — Gorgeous Pageant at the Funeral of Earl Durham, Son-in-law of Grey, and the Persecuted Ex-Governor of Canada 74
CHAPTER X.
The House of Commons. — Debate on Canada. — Macaulay's Speech. — Lord John Russell. — The Lions of the House. — O'Conncll Aims a Slinging Arrow at Disraeli, the Future Beaconsfield. — Stanley, the Inchoate Earl Derby, Collides with Ilowick, Son and Heir of Earl Grey.— Sir Robert Peel Compared with Clay. Cal- houn, and Webster. — Gladstone, "The Rising Hope of the Stern and Unbending Tories." — Talfourd. — Bulwer's Dandy Dress, — Anecdote of Brougham and Buxton. — Clarkson's De- scription of Wilberforcc's Oratory. — Manners in the English Commons and the American Congress Compared. — The English- man's II. — Oratory in America and Great Britain. — American Suobbery — Joseph II. Choate and William E. Forster before
CO^'TEXTS.
ix
the Union League Club. — Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, Sergeant Ballantyne, and ^lattliew Arnold Facing American xYudiences. — How they Appeared Page 82
CHAPTER XI.
Westminster Hall. — The Courts t Lords Cottenham, Denman, and Abiuger, Sir Frederick Pollock, and other Members of the Bench and Bar — In France. — Deputy Isambert and Advocate Cremieux. — The Great Napoleon's Mausoleum in Preparation on the Banks of the Seine. — NajJoleon, "the Pretender," Seized while Raising a Rebellion at Boulogne. — Return to England. — Loudon in a Fog. — William the Conqueror and Battle Abbey. — Runnymede and Magna Charta. — Bosworth Field and Richard III — Cromwell's Schoolhouse, Mansion, and Farm. — Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes. — William HI. and the Battle of the Boyne. — Old Sarum, the Model Rotten Borough. — The Chartists and their Creed. — Main Cause of their Failure 92
CHAPTER XII.
Some British Poets. — Thomas Campbell.— In the London Con- vention he Ridicules American Poets. — He is Answered. — Ebenezer Elliott. — James Montgomery — Lord Byron's Widow. — His Daughter, Ada Augusta — Thomas Carlyie. — He Calls Victor Hugo a Humbug, and Criticises Emerson. — In Scotland. — Rev. Doctors Chalmers and Wardlaw as Pulpit Orators. — The Manager of the Edinburgh Eetiew Presides over an Anti-Slavery Meeting. — Sydney Smith Preaches a Sermon. — Lord Francis Jeffrey on Law Reform, the Xew York Revised Statutes, and Jeremy Benthara, the Codifier — The Field of Culloden.— Charles Edward Stuart. — Clarkson's Opinion of the Four Stuarts and the Four Georges. — In Ireland. — O'Conncll on the Repeal of the L'nion.— John Randolph Said he was the First Orator in Europe. — Other Famous Men and Places. — Return to America. —Admitted to the Boston Bar . . . 103
CHAPTER XIIL
The Law — Boston Bench and Bar. — Judges Stor}', Sprague, and Shaw. — Jeremiah Mason. — Daniel Webster. — Rufus Choate. — Their Triumphs in the Criminal Cases of Avery, the Knapps, and Tirrell.— Samuel Hoar. — He is Sent to South Carolina to
A*
X
CONTEXTS.
Test the Couslitulionality of Laws Imprisoning Free Colored Seamen.— Expelled from the State by Force.— ^Ir. Hoar's Fee as a Referee.— Choate before Juries.— Shaw on the Bench. — Choatc's Stimulants, Hot Coffee and Hot Water.— Tirrcll's Two Celebrated Trials for IMurder and Arson. — Parker, the Prose- cuting Attorney.— Somnambulism the Defence. — George Head's Manufactured Testimony, and Rufus Choate's Marvellous Ora- tor}', Twice Save Tirrell's Life Page 110
CHAPTER XIV.
The Law.— Several Novel Cases.— Libel Suit at Taunton.— The Vivid "Dream." — Criminal Prosecution for Libel at New Lon- don.—John T. Wait and Lafayette S. Foster for the State.— The Daniels's Case at Boston.— Charles G. Loring and Benjamin R. Curtis Counsel for the Defendant.— Choate for Plaintiffs. — A Patent Suit.— Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Hallett, and Horace E. Smith Counsel. — Joel Prentiss Bishop, the Law-writer. — John P. Hale as Lawj-er and Senator. — Theodore Parker under In- dictment.— Hale his Counsel. — Parker on Fish and Phos- phorus 122
CHAPTER XV.
The Law. — Bench and Bar of the Empire State.— Kent, Spencer, and other Eminent Jurists —Four Great Lawyers of Columbia County.— The Power of Elisha Williams over a Jury — Henry R. Storrs. — Lawyers and Trials at Rochester — Scllcck Bough- ton. — Jesse Hawley. the Land Surveyor, Foreshadowing the Erie Canal. — Charles M. Lee —General "!Mad" Anthony Wayne's Storming of Stony Point Saves a Counterfeiter from the State Prison. — John Grifhn, the Rough Judge of Allegheny County, Sits down on a Dandy Attorney — Alvan Stewart — Some Albany Law3'ers. — The Famous Firm of Hill, Porter, & Cag- gar. — Quirk, Gammon, & Snap — Escck Cowan's Rare Law Library.- Marcus T. Reynolds.— Samuel Stevens.— Daniel Cady. — Joshua A Spencer 1:29
CHAPTER XVI.
Tiie Law. —The Corning and Burden Spike Case — Seward. Blutchford. and Stevens Counsel. — Reuben II Walworth, Ref
CONTENTS.
xi
free. — Jarndycc vn. Jarndyce. — Clients Erect Federal Buildings at Buffalo and Oswego, and Sue the Government. — Speaker Grow, K. E. Fenton, and William Steele Holman Intervene. — Captain Cornelius Vauderbilt and the Fist Fight. — His Son, Cornelius Jeremiah, is Sued, and Blo\vs his Brains out. — The Controversy over the Commodore's Will. — The Spencers. — John C. Spencer. — His Acute Legal Mind. — Interview with his Son, who was Executed for Alleged Mutiny on Board The Soniers. — Chief -justice Ambrose Spencer. — John C. Spencer Concocts the Canal Bill of 1851. . : Page 141
CHAPTER XVII.
Dr. Samuel B. Woodward and Senator Albert H. Tracy. — Close Resemblance to Washington and Jefferson. — Webster and the Conscience Whigs in Faueuil Hall in 1846, — Crittenden on Clay and Webster. — Clay before the Supreme Court. — Mrs. James Madison. — John Sargeant. — Chief-justice Taney. — Clay in the Senate. — A Galaxy of Talents. — "Biddle and the Bank." — The Sub-Treasury Question, — Clay's Speech in New York. — His Personal ]Magnetism, — His Funeral Pageant,— A Cluster of Political Rivals, — George P, Barker, — Sanford E, Church. — Church in the New York Assembly in 1842,— Hoffman, Dix, Seymour, and other Members. — Cburch makes Barker Attorney- General. — Anecdote of Church and James W, Nye at the Buf- falo Convention in 1848. 148
CHAPTER XYIII,
Democratic National Convention of 1844. — Van Buren, Polk, and Cass. — Polk Nominated for President.— Wright Nominated for Vice-President. — He Declines,— First Use of the IMorse Tele- graph.— Polk's Duplicity in Forming his Cabinet. — Marey, Sec- retary of War.— The Barnburners Angry.— Death of John Quin- cy Adams, — The Barnburner Revolt of 1847-48. — "The Assas- sins of Silas Wright." — List of Barnburners and Hunkers. — Utica Convention of 1848,— Young, Cambreling, and Tilden Pres- ent,— Cass and Taylor Rival Candidates for President. — Con- vention at Buffalo in 1848.— B. F. Butler's Speech.- "D— n his Turnips!" — Van Buren Nominated for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. — The Barnburner Revolt
xii
CONTENTS.
Defeats Cass and Elects Taylor.— Reuuiou of the Xew York Democracy in 18-49. — The Election and its Results Page 157
CHAPTER XIX.
The Author Elected to the New York Senate in 1849.— The Canal Bill.— Twelve Senators Resign to Defeat it. — Re-elected in 1851. — The Bill Passes. — The Court of Appeals Pronounce it Uncon- stitutional.— The Author s Seat Contested.— Dinner at the Astor House. — Speech of Seward and another. — Thurlow Weed. — The Midnight Call— The Contest Squelched.— Weed's Hand in it. — 3Iembers and Measures in the Senate. — Hamilton Fish Elected United States Senator.— James W. Beekman Bolts Fish. — Xotices of Hoffman, Loomis, Seymour, Dix, Van Buren, Marcy, and Dickinson. — John Van Buren and the Apple-woman ;^ his Ill-health; the Water -cure Establishment; his Death at Sea IGG
CHAPTER XX.
Whig National Convention of 1852. — Webster's Sad Appearance. — General Scott Nominated for President. — Democratic Kational Convention of 1852. — Cass, Buchanan, Marc}^ Douglas, and Dickinson Aspirants. — An Unexpected Interview by the Vir- ginians.— Xew^ York Delegation in Private Conference. — Threats to Throw Seymour out of the Window. — Marcy and Dickinson Slaughter each other. — Pierce Nominated. — Dean Richmond's '* Finality."— Pierce's Cabinet— Dix Cheated, and Marcy Called. — Pierce Approves the Missouri Compromise Repeal. — Rends the Democratic Party Asunder.— Republican Party Formed in 1855-56. — Fremont Nominated for President. — James G. Blaine. — Notices of Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, John Jacob Astor, John Brown, and jMartiu Van Buren. — Brown Handles a Rifle, and Hits the Bull's-eye. — Van Buren Predicts the Overthrow of Slavery amid Convulsions 179
CHAPTER XXI.
"William II. Seward as Senator.- Seward on Weed. — Seward Un- bending.— Seward and Judge Sackctt. — Weed the "State Fifcr." — Seward and Conkling. — Conkliug Elected to Congress in 1858. — Seward on Greeley.- John Sherman. Candidate for Speaker.— Tom Corwin as au Orator.— The Jewish Rabbi Prays.
coxtp:nts.
xiii
—Ilcnry Winter Davis.— Pennington Clioscn Speaker.— Slidell's Bill to Purcliasc Cuba.— Wade and Toombs in Close Contact.- "Land for the Landless versus Niggers for the Kiggerless."— Scene in the Senate in 1859 between Benjamin and Seward.— Seward Smokes Benjamin's Cigar.— Scene in the Senate in 1834 between Clay and Van Buren.— Van Buren Takes a Pinch of Clay's Snulf Page 193
CHAPTER XXIL Turbulent Scenes in the House in. 1859, 1860. —Grow Knocks Keitt Down. — Crawford Threatens Thad. Stevens.- Tribute to Stevens. — Stephen A. Douglas; his lie-election to the Senate over Abraham Lincoln in 1859.— His Reception in the Senate.— Pro-Slavery Democrats Assail him.— Seward Preparing for the Chicago Convention of I860.— Deluded as to his Strength.— The Senators Opposed to him.— Corwin and Lincoln Speak in Xev,- England Early in 1800. — Xew- Yorkers who Oppose Seward at Chicago. — Lincoln Xominated. — Scene at Auburn when the News Came. — Seward Embittered.— Crushed Presidential Aspi- rations of Seward, Greeley, Clay, and Vrebster. — Ira Harris Chosen Senator in 1881. — Defeat of Greele}^ and Evarts. — Rufus King's Chair in the Senate. — Its Distinguished Occupants. . 207
CHAPTER XXIII.
Lincoln's Cabinet. — Chase Pushed in. — David Davis, Confidential Adviser of Lincoln. — Mrs; Lincoln "Sub-President." — Notices of Seward, Chase, Cameron, Bates, Blair, and Welles. — Bick- erings in the Cabinet. — Chase and Seward Grapple. — Bray Dickinson and Marcus Curtius. — Down in Dixie in April, 1861. — Narrow Escape from Secessionists.- General Butler and his Troops. — Colonel Jones and his Regiment Going through Balti- more.— First Blood of the War. — Notice of Edwin M. Stanton, the War Secretary 220
CHAPTER XXIV. Mr. Lincoln and Dr. McPheeters. — Lincoln's Story. — Roscoe Conkling and Noah Davis Candidates for the Senate in 1867.— Conkling Elected. — Defeat of Morgan by Fenton for the Senate in 1869. — Escape of Marshall O. Roberts from the Lobby. — Democratic National Convention of 1868. — Seymour Favors
CONTENTS.
Chase. — Vallandigbam's Course. — Seymour Xomiuatcd.— Grant Elected.— Seymour Urged to Accept the Senatorsbip in 1875; Refuses; "Why. — Seward's Trip around the World.— Death of Seward in 1872. — R. B. Hayes Running for Governor of Ohio in 1875. — Senator Thurman's Singular Prediction. — Conkliug and Piatt Resign from the Senate, and Lapham and Miller Succeed them in 1881.— Conkling's Success at the Bar Page 234
CHAPTER XXY.
Samuel J. Tildeu; his Triumph over the Canal Ring and the Tweed Ring; his Sudden Death; his Kote to the Author about "Random Recollections." — State Convention of 1874, when he was Nominated for Governor. — llie (N. Y.) Sun's Editorial Article.— Tilden Elected.— The Presidential Contest of 1876.— Tildcn Dies of Heart Disease. — Ex-Governors Clinton, Wright, Marcy, and Feuton Fall by the same Malady under Peculiar Circumstances. — Notice of Robert L. Stanton, D.D.; his Death in Mid-Ocean in May, 1885.— The Presbyterian General Assem- bly's Tribute to his Memory 244
CHAPTER XXVI.
American Journalism. — Its Rank as a Profession. — Earliest News- papers.— First Daily Paper. — Philadelphia Advertiser. — Boston Centinel. — National Gazette. — Controversy of Washington and Jefferson over Freneau, — Early Dailies in New York City. — Three Famous Editors. — Bitter Tone of the Press. — List of Distinguished Contributors. — Duels. — Early Journalism in New England. — Rude Methods of Collecting News and Circulating Papers. — Post-riders and Reporters.— The Deacon and the Mo- hawks.— Dailies in New York, Albany, and Rochester in 1820. — The Rochester Advertiser the First Daily Issued West of the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. — Henry O'Reilly. — Cincinnati Gazette and Charles Hammond. — Louisville Journal and George D. Prentice. — List of Celebrated Contributors in that Era. — Later Editors.— Charles A. Dana.— Henry J. Raymond. — John G. Whittier.— George William Curtis 252
CHAPTER XXVIL
American Journalism. — Vice-President Wilson and Charles Francis Adams.— James and Erastus Brooks.— The New York Erprcss.—
CONTENTS.
Lewis Tappan and David Hale.— The Journal of Commerce. — Early ]Modcs of Getting Kews. — William Cullen Brj-ant and William II. Leggett. — New York Exening Post. — Courage of The PQst^ — President Van Buren. — James Watson Webb.— The Cou- rier and Enquirer. — Famous Duels of Cilley, Graves, Webb, and Marshall.— Greeley's Comments.— Benjamin Day. — T/^e (X. Y.) /Si//i.— James Gordon Bennett.— The Xeio York Herald.— "It Does Move." — Brave Editors aiid Journals. — Joseph Tinker Buckingham and the Boston Courier. — Charles King and the New York American. — Charles Hammond and the Cincinnati Gazette. — James G. Birney. — Gamaliel H. Bailey. — Elijah Par- rish Lovejoy' — Cassius M. Clay Page 265
CHAPTER XXVIII.
American Journalism. — Religious Xewspapers. — Albany Journals and Editors: The Argus, Atlas, and Evening Journal; Croswell, Weed, Cassidy, Van Dyck, Shaw, Dawson, AVilkeson. — Xames of Thirty Persons wliose Obituarv Xotices were Written by the Author in Various Journals. — Death of Gerrit Smith in Decem- ber, 1874. — Several State Conventions. — Tweed Exposes his Persecutors at Rochester in 1871 — Conkling and Fenton Cross Swords at Syracuse in 1871.— Tildcn Xominated for Governor in 1874, Robinson in 1876, Cornell and John Kelly in 1879.— Speech-Flaking and Reporting. — Meeting at Providence in 1856. — The New York Times. — Isaac Hill and the Concord Patriot. — John M. Xiles and the liartford Times. — Xewspaper Corre- spondents Writing Speeches for Senators and Congressmen, and Reports for Committees, and Messages for Governors.— Press Club Receptions in 1885. — Extract from President Amos J. Cumming's Speech; he is Elected to Congress in Xovember, 1886. — The Great Xewspaper District he Represents 278
CHAPTER XXIX.
Conclusion. — Retrospect. — Extract from Thomas Moore's '-'Oft ia the Stilly Xight." 289
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The Author s Birthplace. — Pachaug, Connecticut. — Je^vett City. — The Author's Ancestry. — Thomas Stanton, the Indian Inter- preter, and William Brewster, the Pilgrim Father. — Indian Tribes in New London County. — Sachems Uncas, Sassacus, and Miantouomoh. — Extermination of the Pequods in 1637.— Bene- dict Arnold. — Massacre at Groton Heights in 1781. — The Stan- tons who Fell there. — War of 1812-1815. — Commodores Hardy, Decatur, and Perry. — Bombardment of Stoniugton. — Perry De- scribes his Victory on Lake Erie. — '" Don't Give up the Ship." — Bitter Politics and Blue-Laws.
I WAS born on June 27, 1805, on the margin of the Eiver Pachaug, in the part of Preston which, in 1815, became Griswold, county of Xew London, Connecti- cut. I dwelt in the Uttle hamlet of Pachaug till 1814, when my father removed to J ewett City, in the same township, a pretty Tillage, situated just where the Pachaug empties its pellucid waters into the more stately Quinnebaug, on whose banks I lived till the spring of 1826. These two beautiful streams flow along together some five miles southwesterly, till the Shetucket, which had already captured the "Wilbman- tic, comes pouring down from the north, and gives them its own name, and leads them a rippling dance 1
2
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
to Norwich. Here the Yantic, having previously taken in small rivulets in the northwest, tumbles heedlessly over fantastic rocks, and joins the She- tucket. These live rivers and their accessories, after working their way towards the sea by turning the wheels of hundreds of factories, form the Thames in front of Xorwich, and it marches off with its Indian tributaries in lordly style. After greeting Fort Gris- wold and Xew London, the Thames falls into Long Island Sound just below the Pequod House, and is seen no more.
My father was Joseph Stanton. He was born in Washington County, E. L, on tlie shores of the At- lantic, whence he went in his early days to Preston, to begin a mercantile career. He had a distinguished ancestry. His father was an officer in the Eevolution- ary War, under his eldest brother, who was a young lieutenant in the army of General Wolfe that con- quered Canada from France in 1750. He was subse- quently a colonel in the Eevolution, and a senator and representative in Congress from Ehode Island for many years. Another of the ancestral line was an officer in the forces that wrested Louisburg from the French in 1745, their stronghold in North America. From my father this line is traced directly upward to Thomas Stanton, who was born in England in 1G15, and came to New England in 1035. He Avas learned for those days ; became famous as a negotiator with the Indians, vrhose dialects he thoroughly mastered ; was ai)pDinted by the Commissioners of the United Colonies Indian Interpreter -general for New Eng- land ; was a judge of the New London County Court,
THK author's ancestry.
and deputy for ten years to the General Court. He died in 1677.
My mother was Susan Brewster, born in Preston. Her father was Simon Brewster, who died in Gris- wold, August IG, 18il, aged ninety years, three months, and fifteen days. He- was a wealthy farmer and a magistrate. He was one of the defenders of Fort Griswold when it was stormed by Benedict Ar- nold. The line of the Brewsters goes straight up- ward from my mother to Wilham Brewster, who was born at Scrooby, England, in 1560; was educated at Cambridge, entered the diplomatic service of Queen Elizabeth, was imprisoned at Boston a long time for non-conformity, and came to America by the way of HoUand, in the Mayflower^ and landed on Plymouth Eock, December 22, 1620. Here he ministered as the ecclesiastical head of the Pilgrim colony till his death, on April 16, 1641, aged eighty-four years. He is a prominent figure in the picture of the embarkation of the Pilgrims, which hangs in the rotunda of the Cap- itol at Washington.
Thus my paternal line goes back in this country two hundred and fifty years, and my maternal line two hundred and sixty-five years, which, I think, en- titles me to call myself a native American.
My parents were married at Pachaug, on January 25, 1803.
My father was an enterprising country merchant, a shipper of goods to and from the West Indies, and a woollen manufacturer. He was a political leader of the Jefferson school, thoroughly versed in military matters, courtly in manners, and of indomitable com'-
4
RANDOM EfXOLLECTIONS.
age. He died at New York, in 1827. My mother was of the Puritan stock, intelhgent, high-spirited, and pious. She died at Eochester, IS". Y., in 1853.
In early times three great tribes clustered in ^New London Count}^, viz., the Pequods, the Mohicans, and a branch of the Narragansetts. In my youth quite a body of Mohicans dwelt near my home, while a lib- eral sprinkling of Karragan setts and a bare trace of Pequods remained.
In 1G3T the Pequods had a palisade fortress at Mystic, six miles from Pachaug. Warlike and cruel, they had long been the scourge of Connecticut, and it was resolved to exterminate them. Their sachem was the bloody Sassacus. The hypocritical Uncas was the chief of the Mohicans. " Uncas Pock " is still a famous landmark, overlooking the Yantic Falls, near Norwich. The chief of the Karragansetts was the generous Miantonomoh, one of the noblest and most unfortunate of his race. He was the nephew of the great Canonicus, the sachem who saved the Plymouth Pilgrims from destruction, and succored Eoger Will- iams when he Avas banished from Massachusetts.
In May, 1G37, Captain John Mason, Avith ninety white soldiers, seventy Mohicans, under the lead of Uncas, and several hundred Narragansetts, command- ed by ]\Iiantonomoh, attacked the Pequods at dead of niglit in their stronghold at IMystic. The battle was desperate. It became a massacre. The assail- ants set lire to the birch-bark wigwams within the palisades. The swamp Avas soon a lake of flame, de- vouring men, squaws, and papooses, Avliile those aa^Iio attempted to flee were shot or pierced Avith arrows.
MIANTONOMOH. BENEDICT ARXOLD.
5
A few escaped, and never rested foot till they reached the Mohawk beyond Albany. A handful received quarter from the gentle Miantonomoh. It was the end of the once powerful Pequods.
And now for the sad fate of Miantonomoh. In 1G13 he was attacked by Uncas. Their tribes had a fierce struggle on Sachem's Plain, just west of ^^or- wich. Miantonomoh was defeated. Heartless white commissioners delivered him into the hands of Uncas, ^vho took his victim to the field where the day had gone against him, and, near the " Uncas Rock," he cut from the shoulder of the unflinching Miantono- moh a slice of flesh, broiled it before his eyes, de- voured it, and said, '* It is the sweetest meat I ever ate." He then despatched the fallen sachem with his own tomahawk. In ISitt, two hundred years after this barbarous deed, Connecticut rendered tardy hom- age to the intrepid Miantonomoh by erecting a mon- ument to his memory at the spot where he met his cruel death.
In the last century a dirge was composed to the memory of Miantonomoh, and set to a plaintive mel- ody. In my childhood we had a negro slave whose voice was attuned to the sweetest cadence. Many a time did she lull me to slumber bv sino^ino: this touch- ing lament. It sank deep into my breast, and mould- ed my advancing years. Before I reached manhood I resolved that I would become the champion of the oppressed colored races of my country. I have kept my vow.
Benedict Arnold was born in Xorwich, in IT-iO. In my 3'outh I often passed the house where he first
6
. RAisDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
saw the light, and once ventured timidly within. It cowered, among gloomy trees, away from the street, as if ashamed to face the sunshine. Arnold having failed to deliver West Point to the British, they fit- ted out an expedition, under his command, to Eastern Connecticut, in the fall of 1781. He burned IN'ew London, and expressed malignant regrets that he could not lay his native town in ashes. He attacked Fort Griswold, on Grot on Heights, and massacred a large portion of the garrison. Colonel William Ledyard, the intrepid commander, the brother of the famous traveller, was thrust through with his own sword after he had surrendered. The wounded were thrown into carts, which, by their own weight, plunged, with their writhing freight, furiously down the rocky de- clivity towards the Thames. A shapely monument now crowns the Heights. On marble tablets at its base are engraved the names of the one hundred and more who were slain on that bloody day. Among them are four Stantons, my kindred. My Grandfa- ther Brewster participated in this deadly alfray, but came out uninjured. I scarcely need add that the people of my county were taught to detest the cow- ardly caitiff Benedict Arnold.
As New London was rather a fighting county, I will dispose of the war of 1812-1815 before touching on a few topics that occurred earlier. In 1813 Commo- dore Stephen Decatur, the lion of our navy, under- took to go to sea with his fleet through the eastern end of Long Island Sound. Commodore Hardy, who had been the ca])tain of Nelson's flag-ship at Trafal- gar, where the great admiral fell, chased Decatur into
COMMODORE HAKDY.
7
New London with a superior force. Well do I remem- ber the prodigious sensation this caused in the rural towns. Hardy blockaded Decatur's fleet more than a year, ravaging the coast by incursions on shore at safe points, frightening the women with the thunder of his guns, and keeping the militia of the county con- stantly on the alert. The division of my father was at the front nearly half the time. As became a stanch Madisonian, he was busy drilling the militia for home service and in raising volunteers to go to Canada, and in composing songs adapted to the exigency. I recall scores of these doggerel verses. One gory ballad rang out :
"Brave boys, don't be afraid or skittisL, But go and learn to fight the British."
The aforesaid "boys" were told not to dread the Eed Coats, for —
"If you'll boil a lobster in a stew, He'll look as red and gay as they do."
On a sunny day in September, 1 814, 1 went to Mrs. Ephraim Tucker's, a couple of miles from home, to play. Her husband, a lieutenant in my father's di- vision, was at the seaside. Soon we heard the boom of Hardy's guns floating up from Stonington Point. Mrs. Tucker and I were seated on the doorsteps. An infant lay in her lap. Boom ! boom ! boom ! went the cannon for hours. Tears stole down her ashen cheeks, and she shook like an aspen-leaf. I was nine years old. In my boyish way I tried to comfort her by telling her that my father would see to it that Mr. Tucker was not hurt. The attack at Stonington was ti fiasco. Hardy's firing was wild.
8
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
In the Fremont campaign of 1856 I went to Nor- wich to address a mass-meeting. It occurred to me to run out to Pachaug, which I had not visited for a long period. I seated myself on the doorsteps of the Tucker house, now occupied by strangers. My eye rested on the cemetery which crowned the neighbor- ing hill, where lay in dread repose the generation I had known in my youth. I mused deeply on events that had transpired in the forty-two years that had passed since I sat there before. Such thoughts and scenes rarely come to us except in the visions of the night.
At the close of the war I visited relatives of the name of Hazard, at Westerly, R. I., near the old Stan- ton homestead. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, my father's cousin, vras born in that county. One day the hero of the battle of Lake Erie suddenly dropped in at the Hazards'. His visit elicited a burst of enthu- siasm. His dashing manners and brilliant uniform filled me with visions of naval glory, and I wanted him to take me to sea. He bore a striking resem- blance to the portraits and statues of him which I saw in riper years.
I longed to see the ocean, and hear the beating of its great heart. My father, in company with the commodore, took me to Watch Hill, near the mouth of Pawkatuc River. We arrived late in the evening. The sky was clear, the wind was brisk, the full moon was playing on the waves. I did not sleep a wink. All night I sat at the window and gazed at the white- caps of the billows, or lay on the bed listening to the roar of the breakers.
BITTER POLITICS.
9
"Time writes no wrinliles on thine azure brow; Such as creation's dawn belicld thou rollest now."
Perry described to us the victory on Lake Erie; how Lawrence's dying words, "Don't give up the ship I'' streamed from the fore, and how he went in an open boat from one of his disabled ships to another, the cannon-balls of the enemy whizzing around him, and there hoisted again the Lawrence motto, which waved defiantly till the English surrendered.
The politics of this epoch was extremely bitter. I have witnessed three such eras — the Madisonian, in Connecticut ; the Anti - masonic, in Western Isew York; and the persecution of the Abohtionists ev- erywhere; and I hardly know which was the most acrimonious. Leavino- the two latter to take their turn, I will say a few words about the first.
In Madisonian days schoolboys pulled hair and grown men drew swords. I took a hand in the first- mentioned pastime, understanding just about as much of the merits of the encounter as the mass of voters do nowadays in Presidential contests. As to deadly weapons, I saw my father, in 1812 or 1813, drive out of his grounds at Pachaug, sword in hand, a whole company of Federalist militia, who had come there to insult him. The lawsuit Avhich followed cost him a round sum. Smaller fights were often ludicrous. The standing menace of one old Federalist, Avhen heavily loaded with cider-brandy, was, " I will not say that every Democrat is a horse-thief, but I do say that ev- ery horse-thief is a Democrat." A sturdy Democrat, who had smelt powder at the seaside, taught me to stand on a chair and say, The Hartford Convention 1^
10
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
was hatched in the purlieus of hell !" What purlieus meant, and what the Hartford Convention was, I did not know, and I presume my admiring auditors were in the same predicament. After much delay a new Democratic journal came to town. Its motto was from Shakespeare's Henry YIII., " Be just, and fear not." Shakespeare's name was appended. A warm Madisonian wiped his spectacles. His eyes fell on the motto. He read it through without a pause, " Be just and fear not Shakespeare.' Lifting his fist, he exclaimed, " I'll let 'em know I don't fear Shake- speare or any other Federalist." All through Con- necticut, in those turbulent years, inflamed partisans rent families, churches, and neighborhoods asunder. Vituperation furnished the staple of political discus- sion.
The Congregationalists, or " the Standing Order," as they Avere called, had long been the established C!hurch of Connecticut. In 1818 portions of the Fed- eralists of other denominations united with the Demo- crats, and defeated the Federal party. The last trace of the Blue Law dynasty soon disappeared. It Avas one of the bitterest political conflicts I ever saw. An amendment of the constitution Anally placed all sects on a basis of political equality.
CHAPTEE II.
Puritan "Meeting-house" at Pa chaug.— Freezing as a Means of Grace. — Musical Instruments and Timepieces. — The Clergy. — Doctors Hart, Bellamy, Hopkins, and Lorenzo Dow. — The Bur- roughses,— The Westminster Catechism. — Connecticut Calvin- ism vs. Rhode Island Liberalism. — The Deacon's Horse-race on Sunday. — Schools, Teachers, and Books. — Nathan Daboll, the Arithmetician.— George D. Prentice, Poet, Wrestler, and Found- er of the Louisville Journal. — Celebration ou July 4, 1824, at Jewett City. — Toast to Henry Clay. — La Fayette at Jewett City in 1825.
Our Congregational hoiTse of worship stood on a lawn, surrounded by oaks, on the banks of the Pa- chaug. It was constructed of wood, according to the severest order of Puritan architecture — large, square, with two stories of glaring windows on four sides, the pulpit a perch, the galleries ample, the pews box- es, except the negro-pew, which was a pen near the ceiling. Opposite the front entrance was the whip- ping-post, near by were the stocks, while on a distant hill grinned the skeleton of a gallows. In my child- hood I saw a wretch scourged at the post, a drunkard writhing in the stocks, and a negro executed on the g:allows. These exhibitions have sufRced me for a lifetime.
For many years we had no fires in the church in the winter, and we worshipped God and shivered over the AYestminster Catechism till the congregation
12
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
came to the conclusion that freezing was not a means of grace, and two huge stoves were brought in. AYe had fine singing, but no musical instrument except the chorister's pitchpipe. Ere I left Griswold I saw the gallery desecrated by a bass-viol. We had no clock wherewith to time the sermon, though the min- ister had an hour-glass in the pulpit. One of the early clergymen of Pachaug used to pray fifty or sixty minutes by the glass, the audience all standing. Xow I am on timepieces, I will add that I doubt if, when I was born, there were five gold watches in the county. How changed ! In this progressive age ev- ery boy claims one as soon as he has learned to swear. Silver Swiss watches were common ; the poor resorted to sun-dials, and the affluent had eight -day brass clocks in their parlors, counting the passing hours with owl-like gravity. The pitchpipe reminds me that I recollect seeing only two pianos in my county, though harps and harpsichords were not infrequent, and there was a surfeit of drums, fifes, fiddles, bugles, and trumpets, as befitted a martial people.
There Avas rare stability in the ecclesiastical affairs of Pachaug. Three Congregational ministers were settled there in unbroken succession from 1T20 to 1830, viz., Ilczekiah Lord, Levi Hart, and Horatio AValdo. Dr. Hart was the son-in-law of the famous Dr. Joseph Bellamy, the rival of Jonathan Edwards, and he was the friend of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Hoi)kins, the founder of the Hopkinsian sect. Drs. Pellamy and Hopkins often preached in Pacliaug. Dr. Hart died in October, 1808, an event I remember as distinctly as if it had liappened yesterday. His
WniTEFIELD. — DOW. — BURKOUGHS.
13
venerable form, aiTayed in the clerical dress of the Eevolution, rises before me as I write this Hne. This fact is perhaps worthy of notice as showing that octo- genarians may recall things that occmTcd when they were three 3^ears old.
A few words about otlier clerical celebrities. The echo of Whitetield's fame lingered among my native hills. My grandmother told me of the mellow ac- cents of his voice, now soft as a flute, anon swell- ing like a bugle ; of his dramatic gestures and thrill- ing a^^peals, which swayed great audiences as if swept by the vdngs of the tempest, and how he rode at full gallop from town to town to meet engagements, the skirts of his silk gown streaming behind on the wind. I have bent reverently over the sepulchre of the peer- less preacher in Xewburj^Dort. The Baptists were occasionally represented in our town by their two great lights, the Eev. Silas and Roswell Burroughs, of Stonington, kinsmen of the families of that name who were subsequently conspicuous in the politics of Western Xew York. The strangest and widest known, of all was Lorenzo Dow, a Methodist, who had trav- elled the world over, and lived near Griswold, where he often preached and drew crowds. He looked like Joe Jefferson, in " Eip Yan "Winkle." His sermons were sharply anti-Calvinistic, and his illustrations the quaintest imaginable, while his manners overstepped all ordinary bounds. When discoursing he bestrode the pulpit, sat on the stairs, or walked through the aisles. One characteristic anecdote must suffice. It was in the height of the summer solstice. An aged matron occupied a conspicuous seat. She wore a tall
14
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
cap with a wide border, which rose and fell under the impulse of a broad fan in a style so odd that the boys kept tittering. Mr. Dow endured it for a while, and then, pausing in his sermon and pointing his linger at the venerable lady, exclaimed, "Oh, God, send an ar- row of conviction from heaven straight through that old Avoman's cap into her heart I" The fan was fold- ed, the boys subsided, and the discourse went on.
My native town was only one remove from Ehode Island. We boasted of our supposed superiority in knowledge and virtue over the neighboring common- wealth. If we saw a tramp, or a rickety wagon drawn by a spavined horse, passing through Gris- wold, Ave spoke of them as from Avhat Ave sneer ingly called "t'other state," Avhere the people Avere Bap- tists and Methodists, and took Avalks on Sunday in- stead of AA^hipping their cider-barrels for Avorking on that day. Our fcAv inhabitants Avho dared to use a stronger term than " darnation " Avould talk of " ban- isliing a bad man off the face of the earth into the State of Ehode Island." AYe Avere taught to look Avith shivering dread at the boys Avhose parents came from that state to work in our factories, because of their ignorance of the Westminster Catechism. One of them Avas lured into the Pachaug school. Tha master AA^as examining the pupils in the Catechism. Following the text, he asked the heathen from " t'oth- er state " if there Avere more gods than one. The bar- barian petrified us Avith the flippant answer, I don't know hoAv many you've got up here in Connecticut ; Ave ha'int got none down in Ehode Island."
The liberals of the land of Eoger Williams Avould
THE deacon's SUNDAY HORSE-RACE.
15
sometimes play pranks on the Puritans along the Pa- chaug and Quinnebaug rivers. Our Sabbatarian laws were extremely strict. The deacons, tithing-men, and other officials in Church and State, could arrest any person found riding on Sunday, unless he were going to ''meeting" or for a 'physician. A dashing Rhode-Islander, who owned a spirited gelding, had a manufacturing job in Jewett City. The road to his Rhode Island home ran past the Pachaug church. One Sunday he started from Jewett City for his pa- ternal abode on his gay horse. Ere he reached Pa- chaug one of the deacons mounted his mare and pur- sued him, crying, " Stop I stop I*' They came tearing at full gallop in among the oak-trees which surround- ed the church just as the congregation was gathering on the broad green sward. The deacon chased the Rhode-Islander round and round the venerable edi- fice, each lashing his steed with a rawhide, the deacon shouting, Stop your horse I you are breaking the Sabbath I" the Rhode - Islander responding, ''I have told you a dozen times that I will not trade horses with you on a Sunday, and you ought to be ashamed to keep on violating the Sabbath by proposing it." The crowd on the green viewed the spectacle with amazement. The deacon's mare was all of a foam, and he abandoned the pursuit. He was fond of horses, and something of a jockey, and many of the congre- gation long believed that on that Sunday he Avas urg- ing a horse-trade with the Rhode-Islander.
I have spoken of the oaks that surrounded the Pa- chaug church. I was aware that the large things of youth look small in riper years. I had seen many
16
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
large oaks in this country and Europe, when, in 1868, being near Pachaug, I thought I would run over and measure those oaks, which I had not seen in a long while, but had never been able to get wholly out of my head. Alas! the biggest had sunk under the weight of age, and the next biggest had succumbed to an autumn gale. I measured the two largest that remained. The trunk of the smallest of these aver- aged sixteen feet in circumference, and from tip to tip of its longest limbs it measured through the body one hundred and ten feet. The trunk of the largest averaged eighteen and a half feet in circumference, and from tip to tip of its longest limbs it measured through the body one hundred and twenty feet. These were not " the babes of the woods." Nobody knew anything of the age of these patriarchs.
lYell do I remember the little red schoolhouse in which I learned the A B C's. The sun glared upon it in summer, and the snow blockaded it in winter. The great fireplace blazed with hickory logs from Xovembei' to April. Consequently, the youngstei^ who sat on the low, hard benches near the hearth w^ere roasted, while the big boys and girls, who occupied the back bench- es, near the rattling w^indows, shivered with cold. Our ordinary text-books were "Webster's Spelling- book," " DaboU's Arithmetic," " Murray's Grammar," " Morse's Geography," " Flint's Surveying," " Tyt- ler's History," " Belkna])'s Biographies," the " Amer- can Preceptor," and the never-to-be-forgotten " AVest- minstcr Catechism." We had no nuips, atlases, black- boards, or any of the modern aids and appliances for the acquisition of knowledge. We lost less by this
NATHAN DAI30LL. GEORGE I). Pr.ENTICE. 17
than many imagine. Learning is like gold. Those who get it the hardest generally keep it, while from \ those to whom it comes without the asking it is lia- ble to slip away. The most of what I obtained in the • red schoolhouse at Pachauo^ and the rickety buildino^ 1 at Jewett City in ^^outhful days stays with me yet. j Aside from school-books, Bibles, psalm-books, and the i professional books of the clerg^% the physicians, a.nd \ our one lawyer, I presume all the volumes in this rather wealthy town did not exceed one hundred and fifty. I went throuo'h the whole of them more than ' once. \
Nathan Daboll, the arithmetician, was a native of |
our county. Of course, we thought he was the great- \
est mathematician in the world. One day we heard he j
was about to pass the red schoolhouse. We were mar- i
shalled out to greet him, the pupils all in a row, and j
the master at the head of the line. Mr. Daboll ap- ; proached on a venerable gray horse, his white beard touching the pommel of the saddle. We gave him a
low bow ; he lifted his aged hat, smiled benignly, and i
rode on. He had taught school in Griswold. j
One of my teachers was George D. Prentice, the j
poet, who was born within a stone's -throw of me. i
He is better known as the witty editor of the Louis- '
xille Journal^ now the Compter- Journal^ managed by ;
Henry Watterson. Many were the literary favors I !
received from Prentice. He was a graduate of Brown, j
an admirable instructor, a ripe scholar, had a wonder- |
ful memory, and was a skilful wrestler I have seen 1 him, on a wager, read two large pages in a strange
book twice through, and then repeat them without a :
i 1
s
18
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
miss. The champioii Avrestler of the county met Prentice casually in the bar-room of the Jewett City hotel. The champion was a stalwart fellow, tall, ath- letic, and weighed fifty per cent, more than Prentice. The floor was hard, and the ceiling was high. They clinched. The struggle was desperate. The cham- pion went under rather lightly. He insisted upon another hold. Xo sooner were they ready than Pren- tice threw the champion clear over his shoulders, brinmno: him to the floor with a thud that made the house jar, and beating all the breath out of his body.
Prentice studied law at Griswold. He wore a pis- tol, but had no use for it there. When he went to Louisville, and took up the editorial pen, the pistol came into play.
When I dwelt at Cincinnati, in 1832-1835, the great daily of the Southwest was the Journal, founded in 1830, by Prentice, and conducted by him till his death, in 1870. It was the leading Whig organ in the West- ern States during the existence of that party. As an editor he was full of wit and fire, and his para- graphs exploded like nitro-glycerine, he fighting out his quarrels with pen or pistol, as the case required. Long ago I wrote a little for Prentice's Journal. The last time I saw Prentice was in 1859, at New York, where he had come to publish a volume of his witty sayings. I noticed his arrival at the Astor. Though we had not met for a third of a century, he instantly recognized me when I called Jiim by name. Years only jidded to the zest with which we talked of the events of youth.
In passing through Jowett City, the industrious
IIEXRY CLAY. LA FAYETTE.
19
Pachaug Kiver propelled the wheels of a dozen mills. Among them was a Avoollen factory, erected, at the opening of the century, by a Mr. Schofield, an Eng- lishman, who brought his machinery from beyond the Atlantic. It was said that threats were made to kill him, in order to crush this then scarcely -born species of industry. England has since learned to accomplish the same end by prostrating the protective tariffs of her rivals. My father was, ultimatel}^, the partner of Schofield. At the same time he manufactured ma- chinery and owned three country stores. The years I spent in these stores and factories gave me a close acquaintance with merchandise and machinery. The latter served me an excellent purpose in later times, when I becamxC a patent-lawyer, and tried patent-suits in the courts.
We always celebrated the Fourth of July in Jewett City. We had our dinner, read the Declaration of In- pendence, drank our lemon-punch, gave the thirteen regular toasts, and then called for volunteers ; that is to say, the full-grown men did this. I was brought up to admire Henry Clay. In 1824 Clay, Crawford, Adams, and Jackson were running for the presidency. The Fourth of July brought its celebration. Captain Charles Fanning, my great -uncle, who had fought through the Eevolution, v\'as to preside at the dinner. Clad in the garb of the previous century, and crowned with a flowing wig. Captain Fanning sat at the head of the table, gave the regular toasts, and asked for volunteers. I sprang to my feet, delivered a speech about an inch long, and gave, " Henry Clay : the elo- quent champion of domestic manufactures and internal
20
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
improvements." My prim old uncle stared at me with amazement. The Clay men clinked their glass- es, pounded the table, and I sat down covered with con- fusion and a23plause. This was the first of the six- teen Presidential campaigns in which I have delivered speeches ; sometimes not a few.
In 1825 General La Fayette, in his last visit to this country, passed through Jewett City on his way from New York to Boston. We had short notice of his coming. The whole village turned out to greet him. Captain Fanning, who had fought under him at Mon- mouth, and had taken a hasty breakfast with him just as the battle was commencing, did the honors of the present occasion. La Fayette and Fanning had not met in nearly forty-five 3^ ears, and the latter was wondering if the marquis would recognize him. The coach drove up. It was late in the evening. The marquis alighted, with his son and other companions, and entered the hotel. Captain Fanning stood in the parlor without moving. La Fayette gazed intenth^ at him for a moment, then walked straight up to him, and, throwing his arms around him, French fashion, exclaimed, " Captain Fanning ! God bless you, my old comrade I"
CHAPTER HI.
Journey to Rochester in April, 1826.— New York City had 150,0CO Souls. —Tammany Hall. — The Buclitails.— The City Hall.— Albany's Population, 15,000. — The Old Capitol. — Legislative Leaders: Younir, Root, Frank Granger, Colden, Livingston, Silas Yrright, Tallmadgc. — Governor De Witt Clinton, the Magniticcnt.— The Erie Canal just Completed.— Utica.— Syra- cuse.— Rochester in 1826. — Anti-Masonic Excitement. — Thurlow Weed's Dingy Newspaper, Shabby Dress, and Empty Pocket. — Henry O'Reilly Issues at Rochester, in 1826, the First Daily Journal West of the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. — Edmund Keau, the Tragedian, Performs in the "Iron Chest" at Roches- ter.—Sam Patch Twice Leaps the Genesee Falls and is Drowned. — Gerrit Smitli and Fann}^ Wright Speak at Rochester.— Samuel Wilkeson Constructs the Harbor at Buffalo.
Early in April, 1826, 1 started -for the Far West," even to the Genesee country, which seemed then far- ther off than Alaska does now. My route was by Long Island Sound, the Hudson Eiver, and Erie Canal, which had been completed the October previous. I arrived at ISTew York in the morning. It then con- tained a population of one hundred and fifty thou- sand. I rushed into Broadway. All the world seemed to be there. I stared at the taU houses, and everybody I didn't run into ran into me. I was specially attract- ed by the omnibuses, as I have seen to be the case with other immigrants in later 3"ears. They vrere bound for such far-off villages as Greenwich and Chel- sea, which, I subsequently learned, were located, one
22
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
near the foot of Tenth Street, and the other at Eigh- teenth Street, on the west side. My father had taken Major Mordeeai M. ]S"oah's newspaper, and I knew about Tammany Hall and the Bucktails. I sought the famous building. I stood before it. I remem- bered the couplet :
"There's a barrel of porter in Tammany Hall, And the Bucktails arc swigging it all the day long."
I confronted the City Hall. To my youthful eye it seemed an architectural marvel. Well, to this day it is one of the most unique specimens of its order in the country.
I reached Albany in the forenoon. Its population was lifteen thousand. I repaired to the Capitol. It filled me with wonder. I thought it equal to the ed- ifice which crowned Capitolinc Hill in ancient Eome. I was bewildered when I learned that it cost $110,000. The Tweed style of doing this sort of a thing had not then been discovered. There it stood — its massive walls; its fluted columns; its towering dome, sur- mounted by the statue of Justice bearing aloft the scales. I entered the Assembly Chamber, and lis- tened to an angry debate between Samuel Young, Erastus Koot, and Fi-ancis Gi'anger, tlien among the renowned politicians of Xew York. Granger was the attraction of the ladies' gallery. Dressed in a bottle-green coat with gilt buttons and brilhant ap- purtenances, he was a model of grace and beauty. I went into the Senate "Chamber, and heard a discussion about the canals by Cadwallader D. Colden, Peter li. Livingston, and Silas Wright. Lieutenant-governor
DE WITT CLINTON. THE ERIE CANAL. 23
James Tallmadge, vrho had won distinction in Con- gress in the IMissouri controversy, filled the chair. These things and these men looked large to me then. Years afterwards, wdien a member of the same body, and standing behind the scenes, they dwindled in magnitude.
I saw the governor in the Executive Chamber. De AVitt Clinton was one of the most magnificent men that ever stood on the soil of Xew York. He w^as then in the height of his grandeur and glory. The Erie Canal, his greatest achievement, had been fin- ished the previous fall, and he had come from Buffalo to Albany, and thence to ISTew York, in the canal- boat Seneca Chiefs through an unbroken succession of cheers and the booming of cannon. Amid many imposing ceremonies, a barrel of water brought from Buffalo to Kew York was emptied into its harbor, and then another barrel was carried from New York to Buffalo, and poured into its harbor, and thus was Lake Erie w^edded to the Atlantic Ocean. Mr. Clin- ton then ranked among the foremost statesmen in the nation.
The canal not being wholly free of ice, I went by stage-coach to Utica. The tributaries of the Mohawk River not having been then denuded of their protect- ing forests, its banks were full. On arriving at Utica I could say with Tom Moore,
"From rise of morn to set of sun, I've seen the miglit}^ Mohawk run."
Utica was a gem of a city, w^ith four thousand five hundred souls. There I took the packet-boat for
24
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Eochester. We passed through Syracuse in a driz- ding rain. It contained about two thousand five hundred people, and was just scrambling out of its salt-pits, covered with mud and slime. By-the-by, I supposed that the Erie Canal ^vas a pellucid stream like my own Fachaug. I found it the muddiest ditch I ever saw. We shot into Eochester through the aqueduct across the Genesee as the sun was peeping over the shoulders of the hills in Brighton. The aque- duct seemed to me equal to those famous structures which supplied old Eome with Avater.
In April, 1826, Eochester was a little town of three thousand five hundred inhabitants, clinging to both banks of the Genesee Eiver. In the centre of the vil- lage roared the Falls, one hundred feet high. It al- ready show^ed premonitory symptoms of its coming beauty and greatness. It was growing with marvel- lous rapidity. Stumps of trees were standing in its principal streets, and the w^oodman's axe w^as hewing down the forest to make room for other streets.
In September, 1826, William Morgan was abducted from Canandaigua, carried through Eochester, and in- carcerated in Fort Niagara, which had been abandoned by the government. Then broke out the Anti-ma- sonic excitement, which convulsed Western New York for many years. These bitter controversies tore society all in pieces. Their history has been written again and again, and I shall not repeat a line of it, although I was a witness of the whole of it. Tlie statement of Thurlow AVeed, ])ublished since his death, in regard to the fate of Morgan, is, no doubt, substantially true. I knew all the principal charac-
THURLOW WEED IN 182G.
25
ters mentioned in that statement. I have seen many sharp political and social contests in my day, but, vieAved in some aspects, I think the Anti-masonic feuds excelled them all.
When I came to Kochester, in April, 1826. Mr. Weed was the editor of a dingy weekly Clintonian newspaper, called the Monroe Telegraj)h. He had been a member of the Assembly the year before. He Avas one of the poorest and worst - dressed men in Kochester. He dwelt in a cheap house, in an obscure part of the village. In the western counties of the state, however, he Avas then as great a poAver in poli- tics, perhaps, as at any subsequent period of his life. He was often sent by his associates on missions of grave importance into A'arious states. He sometimes had to borrow^ clothes to give him an appearance be- fitting his talents. I AA^as standing one day in the street with Mr. Weed and Frederick Whittlesey, who Avas afterwards Yice chancellor and Judge of the Old Supreme Court, when up came Weed's little son, and said, Father, mother wants a shiUing to buy some bread." Weed put on a queer look, felt in his pock- ets, and remarked, " That is a home appeal, but 1*11 be hanged if I've got the shilling." Whittlesey drew out a silver dollar, gave it to the boy, and said, Take that home to your mother." He seized the glittering prize, and ran off like a deer. I don't mention these things to the discredit of Mr. Weed, but to his honor . It was rare that a man Avho was so poor should be so great. Spattered Avith ink, and with bare arms, ]ie pulled at the old hand -press of the Telegra/ph^ and at a rickety table that w^ould have been dear at fifty
9
26
RA^'DOM EECOLLECTIOXS.
cents he wrote those sparlding paragraphs which, in later j^ears, made the Albany Evening Journal famous.
In the fall of 1S2G Luther Tucker & Co. estab- lished in Rochester the earliest daily journal issued between the Hudson and Delaware rivers and the Pacific Ocean. It was entitled the Rochester Daily Advertiser^ and was edited in a spirited manner by Henry O'Reilly. It continues to the present day as the Advertiser and Union. Soon after it was start- ed the Advertiser became a Democratic exponent, and for many months a good share of Weed's and O'Reil- ly's time seemed to be devoted to firing red-hot shot at each other. Having been inducted into the mys- tery of newspaper scribbling about two years before by my townsman, George D. Prentice, I took a hand occasionally in those pen-and-ink contests.
AVe had a little theatre at Rochester, managed by an Englishman named "Wilhams, who had played sub- ordinate parts to Edmund Kean in London. Kean stopped at Rochester, with one or two companions, on his way to Niagara Falls for rest. Williams was always in debt, and generally in the hands of the sheriff. He saw Kean at the hotel, and implored liim to play one night and help him out of difficulty. Please remember this was the original 3vean, the real Kean, the great Kean ; not the feeble imitation which appeared in his son, Charles Kean. The peerless act- or yielded to the importunities of Williams. Ample time for preparation was given; the price of seats was ]Hit far above the current rates in Xew York ; the play was The Iron Chest," Kean, of course, tak- ing the part pf Sir Edward Mortimer. The elite of
EDMUND KEAN. — SAM PATCH.
27
Monroe and one or two adjoining counties crowded the house in every part. The affair was a grand suc- cess. At the close of the performance we got a speech, out of Kean, and Williams got out of the hands of the sheriff.
Sam Patch, the famous jumper and diver, came to Eochester in November, 1829, and proposed to leap from the Falls in the heart of 'the village. On the day fixed Sam appeared. The banks of the river, as far as the eye could reach, were lined with spectators. He was dressed in a suit of white, and I will state, for the benefit of other fools of the same class, that, before he leaped, he placed his hands firmly on his loins, then sprang from the shelving rock, and went down straight as an arroAV. He came up feet fore- most, and swam ashore amid the shouts of thousands. A few days later he proposed to leap again. He erected a scaffold twenty-five feet high on the brink of the Falls, making the descent one hundred and twenty-five feet. On the day named another im- mense throng assembled. Mr. Thurlow Weed and I happened to meet at the foot of the scaffold. Patch came, dressed as before, and apparentl}^ under the in- fluence of liquor. As he ascended the scaffold Weed left, but I remained. He made a ridiculous speech, and then jumped. As he went down his arms were all in a whirl, and he struck the water with a stun- ning splash. The crowd waited for hours. He did not rise. The next spring the mangled remains of the poor wretch were found at the foot of the Falls at Carthage, four miles below Eochester.
Gerrit Smith, at Eochester, in 1827 or 1828, deliv-
28
KANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ered a Colonization address in the Court-house. Then thirty years of age, in glowing health, and with a voice that was pronounced superior in melody to Henry Clay's, he was a noble specimen of manly dig- nity and beauty. He was master of a theme that attracted the attention of philanthropists and states- men. It Avas in that year, I belieye, that, in the same building, I heard a speech from a very different ora- tor, on quite a dissimilar subject. This was the fa- mous Fanny Wright, who advocated views concern- ing woman which were then novel, but have since become familiar. She spoke with grace and ability, but was hardly as beautiful as the engraving in vol. i. of " The History of Woman Suffrage."
When I passed through Albany in 1826 I saw in the Senate Samuel Wilkeson, of Buffalo, one of the most remarkable of the pioneers tliat built up west- ern Xew York. Buffalo then contained only four thousand five hundred people, but Avas rapidly in- creasing in population, trade, and wealth. Judge Wilkeson, eagle-eyed and lion-hearted, possessed keen sagacity and indomitable enterprise, and, though not versed in the lore of the schools, he had what no amount of learning can supply — an original, creative genius. He was the founder of the commercial pros- perity of Buffalo. He constructed its harbor, and thus made it the terminus of the Erie Canal and the outlet of the trade of the upi)er lakes. The city rec- ognizes its obligations to the man to whom it is so largely indebted for its early growth and present greatness.
CHAPTER ,IV.
Horatio Seymour when a Cadet ; his Father, Henry Seymour. — The ' ' Immortal Seventeen " Senators. — Marcy, Flagg, Bouck in 1826-1827.— Death of De Witt Clinton in 1828; Mar- tin Van Buren and Benjamin F. Butler's Eulogiums on Him; their Drift and Purpose. — Yan Buren at Rochester in 1828; His Variegated Dress. — Eoscoe Conkling's Style. — Presidential Struggle between Adams and Jackson in 1828. — Van Buren Runs for Governor to Help Jackson, and is Chosen. — Smith Thompson and Solomon South wick also Candidates. — Jackson Elected President. — Van Buren Appointed Secretary of State.— Young Men's State Convention at Utica in 1828; the First ever Held in the Union; William H. Seward Presides; his Unexpected and Embarrassing Nomination for Congress in 1828; he Declines to Run.
m
I SAW Horatio Seymour Avhen he was quite young. Captain Alden Partridge, who had been professor and superintendent at West Point, established, in 1820, a private mihtary school in Yermont, whence he re- moved it to Middletown, Conn. One summer he made a tour of the latter state with his cadets. They visited Jewett City, where I was. Horatio Seymour was one of them. They were a bright bevy of bloom- ing boys, carrying little guns, and dressed in gray jackets, white trousers, and jaunty caps, and they ma- noeuvred with the pride and precision of veterans. A Revolutionary officer, in whose house I felt at home, gave them a reception, and I made bold to shake hands with all of them. Many years later, when I
30
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
met Mr. Seymour in the Assembly at Albany, he spoke of his tour to Jewett City as a cadet. We ex- changed smiles ovei* our early acquaintance, though probabl}^ neither of us had heard of the existence of the other since the casual handshake on the banks of the Quinnebaug Eiver.
I met Henry Seymour, the father of Horatio, sev- eral times at Kochester in 1826 and 1827. He was a canal commissioner from 1819 to 1832, and for six • years bore an active share in the construction of the Erie Canal. In 1826 and 1827 I was a clerk in the canal office at Eochester, whose chief was John Bowman, one of the so-called " Immortal Seventeen " Senators (the Clintonians denounced them as the " In- famous Seventeen") that defeated the bill for giving to the people the right of choosing presidential elect- ors. Bowman's office was the rendezvous of famous Democratic politicians. I recall the visitsf^of Comp- troller Marcy, Secretary of State Flagg, Senators Mal- lory and Hcman J. Kedfield, two of the " Seventeen," and William C. Bouck and Henry Seymour, Canal Commissioners. My young ears were wide open, and I learned something about l^ew York and national politics which I have not yet forgotten. Mr. Sey- mour had been in the State Senate before he was commissioner. He was the coadjutor — indeed, he was a member of the Albany Kegency, that so long bore sway in the Democratic party. It will be read- ily believed that the unflinching politics of the son, and liis devotion to the canal system of New York, were hereditary gifts from the father. In figure and face the late governor, when in his prime, bore a strik-
DEATH OF DE WITT CLINTON.
31
ing resemblance to his sire, but in manners and social intercourse lie was far more spirited and entertaining.
In February, 1828, De Witt Clinton died, without a moment's warning, at Albany. The profound im- pression which his decease produced in Xew York has never been equalled by any similar event. The con- test for the Presidency between John Quincv Adams and Andrew Jackson had just opened. Clinton had declared in favor of Jackson, and Avas brino-ino: over to his standard as rapidly as possible his great follow- ing. The personal party which Clinton had built up Avas never surpassed in the state. Martin Yan Buren, Senator in Congress, head of the Albany Eegency, and an opponent of Clinton, was the Jackson leader in Xew York. It was understood that Jackson's par- tialities for CUnton were so strong that, in case of his election, he would have made him Secretary of State, and Yan Buren would have had to wait. At a meet- ing of the Xew York delegation in Congress, held at Washington, in regard to the death of CHnton, Ste- phen Yan Eensselaer, the Albany Patroon, presided, and Yan Buren made the memorial speech. He closed with these words : ''I, who never envied him anything while living, am now tempted to envy him his grave Vv4th its honors."
In the winter of 1828 Benjamin F. Butler, who had been the law partner of Mr. Yan Buren, was in the Assembly from Albany. He was one of the revisers of the Statutes, and was sent to the Legislature mainly to look after the passage of the new code, John C. Spencer, another of the revisers, being in the Senate chiefly for the same purpose. The morning after the
32
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
death of the ilkistrious governor, Mr. Butler, an ar- dent Democrat, announced the event to the Assem- bly in a eulogium on Clinton of rare eloquence. Mr. Van Buren followed this line of encomium in his speech at Washington ; and then was commenced the concerted effort to bring Clinton's Jacksonian friends in Xew York to the support of the Kinderhook ma- gician, as well as to the aid of the Hero of the Her- mitage.
Yan Buren was in due time nominated for gov- ernor for the ensuing election, to help Jackson carry New York. His first mission was to conciliate the friends of Clinton. In the summer of 1828 he made a tour for that purpose. He came to Kochester. The next -day was the Sablmth. He attended the First Presbyterian Church, the wealthy and aristocratic church of the town, and occupied the pew of General Gould, one of the elders, who had been a life-long Federalist and supporter of Clinton. All eyes were fixed upon the man who held Jackson's fate in his hands. Mr. Yan Buren was rather an exquisite in personal appearance. His complexion was a bright blonde, and he dressed accordingly. On this occa- sion he wore an elegant snuff-colored broadcloth coat Avith velvet collar ; his cravat was orange with mod- est lace tips ; his vest was of a pearl hue ; his trousers were white duck ; his silk hose corresponded to the vest ; his shoes were morocco ; his nicely-fitting gloves were yellow kid; his long-furred beaver hat, with broad brim, was of Quaker color. Eoscoe Conkling, his distinguished successor in the Senate, never ex- celled that.
My idol, Mr. Cla}^, then Secretary of State, was in-
WILLIAM n. SEWARD IN 1828.
33
volved in the struggle between Adams and Jackson, and I was, therefore, for Adams. Early in the spring I made a speech in favor of Adams at Eochester. * In the sum.mer I attended a Young Men's Adams State Convention at Utica, w^hereof William H. Seward was President. Here commenced an acquaintance between us wdiich lasted till the death of that great statesman, in 1872. I delivered several addresses in Monroe County during this campaign, and w^rote some arti- cles in Mr. Weed's Telegraphy and in N^ovember cast my first presidential vote. The Adams nominee for governor, an old Bucktail, and then on the Supreme bench at Washington, w^as Smith Thompson, after wdiom Yan Buren had named one of his sons. The day went against us in New York, owing to votes thrown away on Solomon Soutliwick, the Anti-ma- sonic candidate for governor. Yan Buren w^as cho- sen, and in March he resigned, and took the office of Secretary of State under Jackson.
The Convention at Utica w^as the first assemblage of the kind in any state of the Union. The fact, doubt- less, seems exquisitely absurd to the few delegates that yet live, when they remember that for several years they were pointed out as " the Boys who at- tended the Young Men's State Convention." Our early celebrity was easily won.
I relate the following anecdote as I recall it when falling from Mr. Seward's lips, soon after the event. He had w^on distinction by his presidency over the Young Men's State Convention, and there w^as a gen- eral, desire in the Adams party for his advancement. A member of Congress was to be chosen in the Cayu- 2^
34
RA^'DOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ga district, but Seward did not aspire to the position. He was then twenty-seven years old. The party in Ca\niga relied on his facile pen to draft the addresses of their conventions, which then filled the place of the long strings of resolutions of a later period. The Adams leaders in Auburn had fixed on the nomina- tion of an old and popular citizen, not dreaming that the approaching convention Avould fail to accept him. Taking it for granted that he would be the candidate, young Seward wrote an address describing the nomi- nee as an aged inhabitant of Cayuga, who had long dwelt in the county, had filled important offices dur- ing an honorable career, and was revered for his years, solid attainments, and many virtues. Having pre- pared the address, Mr. Seward left Auburn for a dis- tant county to try a case in court.
The convention got into a snarl, and, after a long contest, rejected the foreshadowed candidate, and, as a last resort, compromised on Seward. In the dusk of the evening they adopted Seward's address with- out having read it, and sent the record of their pro- ceedings to the printer of the weekly newspaper, with verbal directions to insert Seward's name in the ad- dress. It was put in tyi)e, and soon appeared. Judge of Seward's surprise and chagrin when he arrived home to find himself not only nominated for Con- gress, but ])resented to the voters of Cayuga as an aged inliabitant, who had long dwelt in the county, and was revered for his years and virtues, and so on, in the glowing phrases of his own address. He emerged from the ridiculous position in which the convention had placed him by peremptorily declin- in^ the nomination.
CPIAPTER. V.
Courts and Counsellors at Rochester in 1827-1830.— Daniel D. Barnard. — Addison Gardiner. — Samuel L. Selden. — Occasional Visitors. — Eiisha Williams. — John C. Spencer. — Daniel Cady. — Henry R Storrs. — Millard Fillmore. — William H. Seward and others. — Thurlovv Weed Chosen to the Assembly in 1829. — "A good enough Morgan till after the Election." — Weed Founds the Albany Evening Journal in April, 1830. — The State Mends William L. Marcy's "Pantaloons." — The Patch a Campaign Issue Avhen he Ran for Governor. — John W. Taylor, of Sara- toga, and the Missouri Compromise. — jMarcy and Silas Wright on its Repeal. — The Wilmot Proviso. — Marcy and Wright Com- pared.— The Rochester Clergy in 1830. — Charles G. Finney, the Famous Evangelist. — His Pulpit Oratory.
In January, 1829, I became Deputy Clerk of Mon- roe County. The clerk lived many miles out of town, and the responsibilities of the office fell entirely upon me. I officiated as clerk for neaiiy three years in all the Courts of Kecord. In Avitnessing conflicts of law- yers— and some of them were the heads of the profes- sion— I learned a great deal of law, and especially in the matter of evidence. Indeed, I was studying law all these years. Among the leaders of the profession in Monroe were Daniel D. Barnard, Addison Gardiner, and Samuel L. Selden, names that will be instantly recognized by the Bar throughout the state. We had occasional visits from such men as Eiisha Williams, John C. Spencer, Daniel Cady, Dudley Marvin, B. Davis Xoxen, and Henry R. Storrs; while among
36
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
the young lawyers who tried causes in our county were Millard Fillmore and William H. Seward. It was under such auspices that I took my first lessons in legal lore.
In 1S29 it was resolved to run Thurlow Weed for the Assembly. The campaign was to the last degree acrimonious. Weed's leadership in the Anti-masonic excitement had raised up against him an arm}^ of en- emies. The famous cry of A good enough Morgan till after the election" ^v^is worked for all it was worth. Weed was a tremendous power at the polls. With one hand full of ballots and the other on the shoulder of a hesitating voter, it was impossible for his prisoner to escape the influence of his magnetic eye. Weed's opponent was a prominent member of the First Presbyterian congregation. It was deemed im- portant that Weed should attend service there on tlie Sabbath previous to the election. He borrowed some garments, came in on time, wearing a wretched cra- vat and a shockino: bad hat. He abstained from the polls, but could not help taking a seat in a loft which overlooked the principal voting-place of Eochester, and for three days during which the contest lasted he walked the room like a caged lion. I now and then repaired to the room, and, as Weed would look out upon the sidewalk, and see a doubtful voter ap- ])roaching the polls, he would wring his hands and say, " Oh, what would I give if I could see that man for one moment I" Weed was triumphant, and went to the Assembly, and in April, 1830, he issued the first number of the Albany livening Journal.
Anecdotes of the living paint truer likenesses than
weed's shears. — makcy's breeches. 37
funeral orations. The phrase " A good enough Mor- gan till after the election" grew out of the charge that Mr. Weed had clipped off with shears the vrhis- kers of the dead Timothy Monro to make him pass for William Morgan, then not known to be dead, who had no wliiskers. At Rochester, in the Presi- dential election of 1828, Mr. Weed, for three days, was waving his magic wand over the ballot-boxes. A rough fellow kept all the while close to his heels, clipping at him with shears three feet long, bearing the words "A good enough Morgan till after the election *' engraved on each blade. Mr. Weed en- dured the insult with becoming equanimity.
Who has not heard of William L. Marcy's charge against the state " For mending my pantaloons, 50 cents " ? In 1830 he was sent into western In ew York while Judge of the Supreme Court, under a special law, to try the Anti-masonic cases, the act providing for the payment of his travelling expenses. When auditing accounts as comptroller he always de- manded itemized bills, and as special judge he adhered to this proper rule, and therefore put the fifty cents in with the other items. While running for govern- or, in 1832, this item literally cut a figure all over the state. At Eochester the Anti-masons erected a pole fifty feet high on the main street, and suspended at its top a huge pair of black trousers, with a white patch on the seat, bearing the figure 50 in red paint, where it flapped through three gusty days. The grand old governor always enjoyed this fifty-cent epi- sode in his pohtical career. So he did the prank of the stage-drivef in whose coach he was riding in west-
38
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ern JSTew York in the summer after he was chosen governor. The road Avas horribly muddy and rough. As they were wallowing through a bad slough the driver shouted, " Kow, ladies and gentlemen, hold on tight, for this is the very hole where Governor Marcy tore his breeches.-' The governor paid for the din- ners at the next tavern.
Governor Marcy relished jokes on himself. Mr. Weed did not.
In the summer of 1830 I was dining with a friend at the Mansion House in Albany. On the opposite side of the table sat tvro gentlemen, one of whom I recognized as Silas AYright. The other was John W. Taylor, who had then been eighteen years in Con- gress, and twice speaker. My friend slightly knew Mr. Taylor, and introduced me to him, and he intro- duced us to Mr. Wright, the state comptroller. These three gentlemen represented the leading parties of Xew York, the politics whereof were then in a tran- sition condition. Mr. Taylor followed Clay ; Wright was a disciple of Yan Buren, and my friend, who had been chosen to the State Senate the previous fall, Avas an Anti-mason. Mr. Taylor, being the eldest of the company, did most of the talking, and I, being the youngest, did most of the listening. Taylor told in- teresting anecdotes of public men he had met at Washington, and the genial comptroller contributed a few racy stories. One of Taylor's heroes Avas a Southern Congressman, Avho had been conspicuous in the contest over the admission of Missouri to the Union. This emboldened me to say that I had read, as soon as it appeared, Mr. Taylor's famous argument
MARCY AND WRIGHT COMPARED.
39
in that memorable controversy. The ex-speaker seemed pleased that so young a man remembered this crowning act in his long and distinguished Con- gressional career.
One of the ablest men that 'New York has sent to the Senate was Silas Wright* where he sat twelve years, till chosen governor of the state. His mod- esty would have kept him in the background among associates many of w^hom were eminent in the na- tional councils, if his talents for deliberation and de- bate had not borne him to their front rank. A man's status in the Senate is determined by the calibre and skill of the opponents who are selected to cross weap- ons with him in the forum. Wright Avas unostenta- tious, studious, thoughtful, grave. He was, therefore, liable to be underrated by pushing, flippant, shallow, noisy members. Whenever he delivered an elaborate speech the Whigs set Clay, Webster, Ewing, or some other of their leaders to reply to him.
William L. Marcy was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Wright in the New York comptrollership and the United States Senate. Each possessed rare tal- ents, but they were totally dissimilar in mental traits and political methods. Both were statesmen of scru- pulous honesty, who despised jobbery. Marcy wsls wily, and loved intrigue. Wright was proverbially open and frank. Marcy never trained himself to be a public speaker, and did not shine in the hand-to- hand conflicts of a body that was lustrous with foren- sic talents. Few, however, have excelled him in the administration of executive ofiices, as "was shown by his twelve years' service as comptroller and governor
40
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
of New York, and his eight years' management of the War and State departments at Washington.
On the great question that loomed threateningly on the horizon while they were Democratic leaders Wright and Marcy took opposite sides. Wright moved calmly along with the advancing liberal sen- timent of the period, and died a tirm advocate of the policy of the Wilmot Proviso. On this test-measure Marcy took no step forward. Ten years after the grave had closed over his rival he descended to the tomb a mild apologist for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
The clergy of Rochester in 1830 were very able. The minister of the First Presbyterian Church was Dr. Penny ; the pastor of the second was Mr. James, son of the Albany millionaire, familiarly called " Billy " James ; the pulpit of the third Avas vacant ; the Epis- copal clergyman was Mr. Whitehouse, subsequently the distinguished Bishop of Illinois; Dr. Comstock, of the Ba])tist Church, had served six years in Con- gress ; the Methodist preacher was a brother of Mil- lard Fillmore. In October, 1830, Charles G. Finney, the famous evangelist* came to Rochester to supply the pulpit of the Tliird Presbyterian Church. I had been absent a few days, and on my return was asked to hear him. It was in the afternoon. A tall, grave- looking man, dressed in an unclerical suit of gray, as- cended the j)uli)it. Light liair covered his foreliead ; his eyes were of a sparkling blue, and his pose and movement dignified. I listened. It did not sound like ])reaching, but like a lawyer arguing a case be- fore a court and jury. This was not singular, per-
CHARLES G. FINNEY IN 18C0.
41
haps, for the speaker had been a lawyer before he became a clergyman. The discourse was a chain of loffic, brio^htened hv felicity of illustration and en- forced by urgent appeals from a voice of great com- pass and melody. Mr. Finney was then in the ful- ness of his powers. lie had' won distinction else- where, but was little known in Kochester. He preached there six months, usually speaking three times on the Sabbath, and three or four times during the week. His style was particularly attractive for lawyers. He illustrated his points frequently and happily by references to legal principles. The first effect was produced among the higher classes. It began with the judges, the lawyers, the physicians, the bankers, and the merchants, and worked its way down to the bottom of society, till nearly everybody had joined one or the other of the churches controlled by the different denominations. I have heard many celebrated pulpit orators in various parts of the world. Taken all in all, I never knew the superior of Charles G. Finney. His sway over an audience was wonder- ful. Do not infer that there was a trace of rant or fustian in him. You might as well apply these terms to heavy artillery on a field of battle. His sermons were usually an hour long, but on some occasions I have known an audience which packed every part of the house and filled the aisles listen to him without the movement of a foot for two hours and a half. In his loftiest moods, and in the higher passages of a discourse on a theme of transcendent importance, he was the impersonation of majesty and poAver. AYhile depicting the glories or the terroi's of the world to
42
ra:ndom recollections.
come, he trod the pulpit hke a giant. His action was dramatic. He painted in vivid colors. He gave his imagination full play. His voice, wide in scope and mellow in pathos, now rung in tones of warning and expostulation, and anon melted in sympathetic ac- cents of entreaty and encouragement. He was a fine singer, and, when a lawyer, used to lead the choir and play the bass-viol in his town. In singing the Dox- ology he alone could fill the largest edifices. His gestures were appropriate, forcible, and graceful. As he would stand Avith his face towards the side gallery, and then involuntarily wheel around, the audience in that part of the house towards which he threw his arm would dodge as if he were hurling something at them. In describing the sliding of a sinner to per- dition, he would lift his long finger towards the ceil- ing and slowly bring it down till it pointed to the area in front of the pulpit, when half his hearers in the rear of the house would rise unconsciously to their feet to see him descend into the pit below. Bear in mind that this was without the slightest approach to rhodomontade or exuberant excitement on the part of the orator. Mr. Finney regarded his success at Rochester as among the greatest of his remarkable career. In theology he was a New-School Presbyte- rian. .
CHAPTER. YI.
The Author Goes to Lane Seraiuary in 1831. — President Lyman- Becchcr Tried for Heresy at Cincinnati. — Henry Ward Beechcr Says his Father is "Plagued Good at Twisting." — Xew and Old School Theological Magnates. — "In Adam's Fall Vv^e Sinned all." — Dr. Beman's Parody. — Dr. Beecher's Eccentricities. — First Anti-slavery Speech. — James G. Birney, and General Bir- ney, his Son. — "Boj's, Keep your Eye on that Flag." — First Mob.— Anti-slavery Debate at Lane in 1834. — Its Consequences. — Early Anti-slavery Career. — The Author Addresses the 3Ias- sachusetts Legislature on Freedom, in 1837. — The Epoch of Mobs. — East Greenwich. — Utica. — Boston. — Newport. — Provi- dence.— Bishop Clark of Rhode Island. — Methodist Church Burned. — Penns3dvania Hall Burned. — Quaker Meeting-house Sacked in Portland. — John Xeal, the Poet, Puts the Mob down. — Senator William Pitt Fessenden. — "I am that Person." — Mob in Norwich, Connecticut. — Mobbed in many States. — Xever in Vermont.
I DESiKED to supply clelicieiicies in an imperfect edu- cation. After studying the classics a year or more in and around Rochester, during- which time one of my instructors was Rey. Ferdinand D. W. Ward, fa- ther of the now notorious Ferdinand "Ward, of Grant (k Ward (the "Wards were a distinguished Rochester family), I went in the spring of 1832 to Lane Semi- nary, near Cincinnati, oyer which Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher was to preside. Having to support younger brothers in their educational aspirations, I would fain save a httle by going to Cincinnati part vray on a raft of lumber. I helped to load a raft at Clean, X. Y.,
EAlsDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
and then aided to guide it down the whirhng currents of the Alleghany River to Pittsburgh. There I took a deck passage on a steamboat to Cincinnati. I be- lieve I did mv fall share of the work of managing an oar on the raft, and preventing it from following the bad example of several otlier rafts, which lost their heads and scattered their bones along the banks of the turbulent river.
Dr. Beecher was tried for heresy by the Presbytery of Cincinnati for certain utterances of his in Xew England. The case had reached the synod, which met in Cincinnati in 1834. The testimony was all in. One forenoon Dr. Beecher commenced summing up in his defence. As usual, he was able and ingenious while addressing his distinguished auditory. On the ad- journment at noon he took a select party to his house for dinner, among whom were some of his antago- nists. As was the doctor's wont in enthusiastic hours, he kept right on inaking his speech at the dinner- table. He was vivid, elastic, and facetious. He seemed particularly desirous of favorably impressing his mod- erate opponents. Suddenly there piped up from the lower end of the table a voice which uttered these words : Father, I listened to your speech in the syn- od this morning, and I know you are plagued good at twisting, but if you can twist your creed on to the AVestminster Confession of Faith, you can twist bet- ter than I think you can." The doctor's countenance fell, but only for a moment. He suddenly rallied, and said, All my boys are smart, and some of them are impudent." Then, of course, rose a laugh. The voice that pipetl up from the lower end of the table belonged
LYMAN AND HENRY \VARD BEECHEK.
45
to Henry Ward Beecher. Whether he can twist his creed on to the Confession of Faith it does not be- come nie to decide. The doctor's case Vvxnt up to the General Assembly, and was yet undecided when the Presbyterian Church was rent in two in 1838.
Doctor Beecher was one of the magnates of the Xew School, in whose ranks shone Dr. Xathaniel W. Taylor, of Xew Haven ; Albert Barnes, of Philadel- phia ; Dr. IS". S. S. Beman, of Troy ; and Charles G. Finney. Mr. Beman was the debater of his faction. The leader of the C 11- School side Avas Dr. Ashbel Green, President of Princeton College. The combat- ants fought just like the world's people, and kept the Church in turmoil for years. Dr. Beman was often sarcastic. It will be remembered that in the fl^'-leaf of the old catechism were poetic couplets, arranged under the letters of the alphabet, and set to horrible rhymes. The one under A read :
" In Adam's fall, We sinned all."
Dr. Beman used to repeat this, and then add to it :
"In Adam's fall, We sinned all; In Cain's murder We sinned furder; By Doctor Green, Our sin is seen."
I could give many anecdotes illustrating the pecul- iar characteristics of Dr. Beecher ; but I forbear ex- cept to tell one, to show his chronic absent-minded- ness. He preached in the Third Presb3rterian Church, the aristocratic, rich church of Cincinnati. He was
4:6
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
always doing some odd thing. One Sunday he came in late ; the house was packed ; he walked rapidly up the aisle with a roll of blotted manuscript in his hand ; ascended the pulpit; opened the Bible; spread his manuscript, took his text, and was about to begin his sermon witliout any preliminary exercises. One of the elders rose from his pew, and stood. The elder looked at the doctor ; the doctor looked at the elder. The elder came out of his pew, the doctor came down the stairs, and they met. The elder whispered a few words in the doctor's ear, the doctor reascended, closed his Bible, and said, " Let us pray." This was a specimen of many such performances. I don't know of any better way of accounting for it than to tell what the doctor said to us at the seminary when giv- ing a lecture on oratory. " Young gentlemen," said he, " don't stand before a looking-glass and make ges- tures. Pump yourselves brimful of your subject till you can't hold another drop, and then knock out the bung and let nature caper." In the instance of the sermon the doctor liad pumped himself full in his library, and when he reached the church was too eager to knock out the bung.
In the summer of 1882, 1 was passing through the liall of the seminary, and saw on the bulletin-board of my club that the question for debate that evening was this : If the slaves of the South were to rise in insurrection, would it be the duty of the North to aid in putting it down?" I glanced at the board, and never dreamed there would be more than one side to the question, and that in the negativ^e. When the hot evening came, to my surprise everybody arranged
FIRST ANTI- SLAVERY SPEECH.
47
themselves in the affirmative part of the room except myself. As it afterwards came to ])ass that this was the beginning of mv life-work, and lent color to my whole future existence, I shall be pardoned for a few^ personal details. This was in the midst of the South- ampton insurrection in Virginia, when Nsit Turner, a deluded negro, had raised an insurrection which made the cheek of the ancient dominion turn pale and its knees smite together in terror. As the only person on my side of the pending debate, I had the privilege of waiting till all my opponents were through before I spoke. I first divested myself of my cravat, then of ]ny coat, then of my vest. As the debate went on, and the perspiration started from me in unwonted streams, I repaired to my room, took off my boots, put on my slippers, and returned to the club. When I arose to speak, I might be regarded as standing in the regular ball costume in Arkansas, viz., a shirt col- lar and a pair of spurs ; but I never spoke with more fervor and satisfaction for three quarters of an hour than on that occasion. This was my first anti-slavery speech. For nearly forty years I fought it out on that line," till I saw the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments incorporated into the Consti- tution, and Horace Greeley the regular Democratic candidate for president, when I was ready to say with one of old, " Now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, . . . for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
In 18)31 I went to Danville, Ivy., to obtain a letter from Mr. Birney, giving his reasons for joining the Anti-slavery Society. It Avas a remarkably able doc- ument, and had a large circulation. He had been a
48
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
slaveholder, belonged to one of the first Kentucky families, and was a profound lawyer. He was cor- responding secretary, with Elizur Wright and me, of the American Anti-slavery Society. I Avill disre- gard the chronological order of events by adding that, in the London Convention of 1840, he, by his solid and varied attainments, rich fund of information, courtesy, candor, and fine debating powers, inspired confidence in his statements and reflected credit upon his country. He was a wise and patriotic man. The Liberty party honored itself by making him its first candidate for the presidency. His son, David B. Birney, sacrificed a lucrative law-practice in Philadelphia to become a defender of liberty and the constitution on the battle- field. While commanding a corps in front of Eich- mond, in 1864, he was stricken with fever and took to his couch at home, where he became delirious. One night, his cheeks all ablaze, he suddenly sprang up in the bed and shouted, in tones that made the house ring, " Boys ! keep your eye on that flag and fell back dead.
I attended the anniversary of tlie American Anti- slavery Society in Xew York in 1834, and there en- countered the first of my two hundred mobs. We had a great Anti-slavery debate at Lane Seminary, and formed a society during that fall. Pro-slavery trustees required that we should dissolve it. We re- fused to do so. They then passed arbitrary rules in respect to discussion, and even conversation, on the subject of slavery at the seminary. A goodly i)or- tion of us, who were not to be thus throttled, left. It was a heavy blow to the seminary, which hardly re-
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. PETER PARLEY.
49
gained its feet for the next six years. I was on tlie committee that issued an address in vindication of our course. It produced a deep impression. In the early spring of 1835 Mr. Birney and myself went east on an Anti-slavery mission. We spoke at Philadelphia and New York. I then held meetings at Providence, K. I., Boston, Mass., and Concord, E". II., intending to return Avest and pursue my studies. On reaching 'New York I received a commission as general agent of the American Anti-slavery Society. I immediately en- tered upon the work which occupied so large a share of my life.
When I entered this field slavery had the State and Church by the throat ; and though the Abolitionists advocated peaceful measures for the emancipation of the bondmen, they were everywhere at the mercy of mobs. For the dozen years following the fall of 1834 I was engaged in this conflict. I was several years on the executive committee and secretary of the Amer- ican Anti-slavery Society, and as such I addressed millions of men and Avomen in every northern state, from Indiana to Maine, and in Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, and in England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. I appeared before ten legislative commit- tees in seven states, and addressed the first committee of that kind in the country — that of the Senate and House of Massachusetts, in February, 1837, in sup- port of John Quincy Adams's heroic struggle in Con- gress. The Hon. S. G. Goodrich — better known as Peter Parley — was a member of that committee. I spoke for two days in the Hall of Representatives in Boston ; and at the close joint resolutions were passed 3
50
KAJsDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
by the legislature in favor of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and John Quincy Ad- ams's course in Congress was approved. Three hun- dred thousand copies of my speech on that occasion Vv'ere distributed.
The early Anti-slavery men doubtless made hard hits. But, in the language of Webster in his reply to Hayne, we recognized the fact that there were blows to take as Avell as blows to give. Indeed, it was my habit to covet questioning while on the plat- form, and to invite replies when I was through. And what was the usual response — mobs. Vice-president Wilson, in the " Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," is my authorit}" for saying that I was mobbed at least two hundred times. I always spoke strongly in favor of the Constitution, the Union, and the Church; ;^nd 3'et, in ten free states, through a series of 3^ears, I ad- vocated the claims of the slaves to their liberty at the hazard of my life. I have a right to say this, because, in this turbulent epoch, I was voluntarily pleading for a liumble race Avhich, by no possibility, could reward me, or ever hear of my existence.
In 1835 I went into the town of East Greenwich, R. I., and was the guest of Judge Brown, a gentle- man of high standing. My Anti-slavery meeting was advertised. A constable arrived at Judge Brown's, and I was served with a warrant warning me out of town as a vagrant without visible means of su])port, and therefore liable to become a town charge. Judge Brown gave bail for me, and I held the meeting, and invited the constable to hear me. In those days it was the practice to get signatures to the Anti-slavery
THE MOB EPOCH OF 1835.
51
roll. The first name signed was that of the consta- ble who had served the warrant. I viewed the capt- ure of that constable as a great achievement.
We resorted to odd expedients to get in Anti-sla- very speeches. The temperance cause was popular. In 1835, in Ehode Island, I agreed "to address an audi- ence an hour and a half on tempemnce if they would then let me speak an hour and a half on slavery. On the next Sabbath the compact was faithfully fulfilled on both sides, in the presence of a large concourse.
The year 1835 was an epoch of mobs. In the fore- noon of October 21, 1835, a large convention met at Utica to form a State Anti-slavery Society. Judge Henry Brewster, of Monroe County, my uncle, pre- sided. Leaders like Lewis Tappan, Alvan Stewart, Beriah Green, and Gerrit Smith were present. A mob, headed by the L^tica member of Congress, and afterAvards chief -justice of the state, entered the church where the convention was sitting, and dis- persed it by violence. To avoid mistakes, I will add that this man's name was Samuel Beardsley. Xo bodily harm was done to any one in particular, ex- cept the tearing of a few garments and the shaking of cowardly canes over the heads of some aged Abo- litionists.
In the afternoon of the same day the Boston Fe- male Anti-slavery Society, in which Mary S. Parker and Maria "W. Chapman were conspicuous members, held a meeting. William Lloyd Garrison was pres- ent. A violent mob, which some of the Boston newspapers called an assemblage of ''gentlemen of property and standing," compelled the ladies to aban-
52
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
don the hall wherein their society was sitting. They pursued Mr. Garrison into an adjoining building, where he had retired to avoid these peculiar ^' gen- tlemen." They seized him, put a rope around his body, and led him through the streets. Pretty much all that was really accomplished by these " respecta- ble " rioters may be summed up by sa^dng that they thoroughly frightened the women and covered them- selves with infamy.
In the evening of the same day I w^as honored with a little mob while addressing a small meeting at New- port, E. I. The Anti-slavery advocates in that town were " a feeble folk." The mob was of respectable size in com])arison Avith the dimensions of the assem- bly. It was led by an ex-lieutenant or midshipman of the navy. They stoned the building, smashed tlie windows, and drove us into the street.
Soon afterwards I met Lewis Tappan. He face- tiously said that he had ascertained the distance from Utica to Boston, and thence to Newport, and the pre- cise time when the mobs broke out, so as to see hoAV many miles an hour the devil had to travel to take charge of all three of them.
In 183G I was outrageously treated while attem])t- ing to speak to a meeting in a Methodist church at Providence. The mills of the gods ground slowly, but they did not stop. I addressed an immense Fre- mont out-door meeting at Providence in 1S56. In respect to slavery, I dealt with it far more severely tlian in 1830. There were ])lenty of governors on the platform, and Bishop Thomas M. Clark, of that dio- cese, was at my right hand. A man on the platform,
I'KOVIDENCE. PHILADELPHIA. PORTLAND.
53
bedecked with orders, was chief marshal. Ilis enthu- siasm, in repeatedly calling for cheers, bothered me while speaking. After I had finished I asked who that chief marshal was, and the bishop said, Don't you remember that, in 1836, when you were deliver- ing an Anti- slavery address in 'the Methodist church here, a mob came rushing up the aisles, shaking their fists at you and yelling, and 'finally broke up the meeting ? Well, he was the leader of that mob, and now he is making amends."
The respectable individuals who encouraged these crimes against society had no regard for the kind of edifices their vulgar tools assailed. I delivered one evening an address in a beautiful little church in Liv- ingston county, Y. I cannot now recall the name of the town where I spoke. The next morning the building was a heap of ashes. Pro-slavery incendia- ries had set it on fire during the night.
This calls to mind the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, a large, costly structure, erect- ed by the friends of free speech. It was dedicated in May, 1838, w^ith imposing ceremonies, wherein I bore a humble part. The principal oration was by Alvan Stewart. Whittier contributed a noble poem. On May 21 the women were holding an Anti -slavery meeting in the hall, when a brutal mob, w^iich some newspapers called indignant citizens, burned it down. For many years the charred ruins frowned on the city founded by William Penn, and which witnessed the birth of American independence.
In Portland, in 1838, an Anti-slavery convention sat for four days in the old Quaker meeting-house. Gen-
54
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
eral Samuel Fessenden, the leading member of the bar of Maine, presided, but not all his influence could de- ter the mob. The meeting-house was utterly riddled. At length the best men of Portland said, " This won't do." The poet John Neal organized about a hun- dred special constables, and, leading them himself, put the mob down. Years afterAvards, meeting General Fessenden s son. Senator AVilliam Pitt Fessenden, in Washington city, I eulogized his father's steady cour- age in 1838. He asked, " Do you recollect that on one of those evenings a young man took your arm as you Avalked out of the meeting to go through the out- side mob, and said, * I will accompany you to your lodgings, and share the peril with you' ?" I told liim I well recollected it, and had often wished I knew w^ho the young gentleman was. " I am that person," said the senator.
To close the subject of mobs, and make room for other matters, I will refer, quite out of the order of time, to one that occurred in my native county Avhen I was practising law at Boston. In 1845, I went to Norwich to deliver an Anti-slavery address in the town-hall. The hall was stoned, and all the windoAvs broken, and we adjourned until evening. In the in- termission, tlirce-incli ])lanks were spiked on the in- side of the window near which I had to stand, to sliield me from the missiles of the mob. In that same town-hall I addressed a crowded meeting in the Fremont canvass — a meeting presided over by AVill- iam A. Buckingham, subsequently governor and sen- ator— and I wiis introduced to the audience by Gov- ernor Cliaunccy F. ('levcland. I remembered the mob,
NORWICH. VERMONT.
55
and freed my mind for two hours. A throng came over from Griswold and Preston, and I received en- thusiastic plaudits instead of whizzing brickbats.
In remote days it was fashionable for everybody to read the Waverley novels. An English gentleman, who had long been in foreign countries, returned home. Wherever he went, he was pointed out as the man who had not read the Waverley novels. He liked the distinction so Avell that he resolutely ab- stained from those fascinating volumes. By a queer sort of analogy, this reminds me of the course of Ver- mont during the mob period, where I delivered from time to time some Anti-slavery addresses. I was mobbed in every state from Indiana to Maine, except Vermont. I never heard of an Anti-slavery mob with- in its borders. The land of Stark abstained from that fascinating recreation.
I shall say no more about mobs, though I assist- ed at a few after the one in Xorwich.
CHAPTER YII.
John G. Whittier and the Author Visit Gettysburg for Anti- slavery Lecturers. — Whittier's Services to Liberty. — Caleb Gush- ing a Candidate for Congress in 1838. — Whittier Gets a Letter that Averts Cushing's Defeat. — Origin of the Republican Party. — Peculiar Honors paid to John Quincy Adams in 1837. — Author at AYashington in 1838. — Adams and the Right of Peti- tion.— Speaker Polk. — Latimer's Case. —The Reel on Mr. Adams's Desk.— Vice-President Dick Johnson Compared with Van Buren as a Presiding Officer.— The Lions in the Senate in 1838. — Foreshadowing the Methods for Overthrowing Slavery. — The Author's Early Newspaper Productions.— Sylvester Gra- ham, the Dietetic Reformer; his System.
Wishing to enlarge its lecturing corps, the Anti- slavery Society deputed me, in 1836, to go through the country and employ seventy public speakers. I trav- elled far on this errand, paying special attention to colleges, theological schools, and young lawyers. I visited Gettysburg on my tour. I was at the Luther- an Theological Institution on Seminary Eidge, which loomed high above the village on the west. The view was beautiful. It swept over Cemetery Eidge, Gulps Hill, and the Eound Top, lying easterly of the town. The intervening fields smiled with fruit trees and waving grain. Little dreamed I then that twenty- seven 3^ears later these hmdmarks would win world- wide celebrity by listening to the roar of one of the bloodiest battles of modern times, waged to defend and destroy the cause I was there to promote.
WHITTIER. CALEB GUSHING. 57
John G. Whittier accompanied me during a portion of this tour in search of lecturers, cheering me with his genial presence and wise counsel.
I am not so beside myself as to imagine that any encomium from me could add to Whittier's literary fame. But having toiled by his side for several years, and spent many a delightful hour in his cottage at Amesbury, it may become me to record that he ren- dered valuable aid to the Anti-slavery cause by his brave example, while his pen sent ringing Avords of encouragement and shed unfading lustre over the field where the battle raged.
After the expiration of a week or two the picked men Avhom we had selected assembled in Xew York, and were instructed in the usual Anti-slavery argu- ments by a series of discourses in which Theodore D. AVeld took a j)rominent part. Thus equipped, they reaped where the harvest was abundant and the la- borers few.
In 1838 the Abolitionists began to put test ques- tions to candidates for Congress, and then cast their votes for or against them as their answers were satis- factory or otherwise. Caleb Cushing was one of those who replied unsatisfactorily. We held a convention at Salem, Mass., to take measures to defeat him. I handled him severely in a speech in a church in the evening. I Avas not then aware that he was a listen- er in a dark corner of the gallery. Mr. Whittier, a friend of Cushing, visited him early the next morn- ing at his hotel, and told him that he must instantly write another letter to appease the Abolition conven- tion, which was about to adjourn, or he would be 3^
58
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ruined at the polls. His night robe was very thin, and the chair was very cold. But the epistle was penned, and the writer was re-elected. Caleb Gush- ing was a man of extraordinary talents, but an un- scrupulous politician. The exposure of his duplicity in regard to Secession Unally brought him to grief when he was nominated for Chief -justice of the United States Supreme Court.
The Eepublican party grew out of this practice of putting questions to candidates. This plan proving to be unsatisfactory, the Liberty party was organized in the spring of 1840, with James G. Birney as its presidential nominee. This ripened into the Free- soil party of 1848, when Martin Van Buren led its at- tack on the slavery propagandists. This ultimately widened into the Eepublican party of 1855-56.
John Quincy Adams received extraordinary hon- ors in the year 1837. lie encountered unusual abuse in the early weeks of the session of Congress in that year, because of his fearless defence of the right of petition. He was threatened with expulsion from the House, and assassination on its floor. But there came a recoil of the wave. I have already stated that the Massachusetts Legislature, in February, 1837, by the unanimous vote of both Houses, approved his course at Washington.
I participated in a scene at Quincy, in tlic follow- ing summer, which showed the reverential regard felt for him by his constituents. A great throng of gen- tlemen of both political parties met in the town-hall of the ancient home of the Adamses, to present him with a cane made of the Avood of the dismantled frig-
EXTRAORDINARY HONORS TO ADAMS. 59
ate Constitution^ that had won fame in the war of 1812-15, by capturing the British frigates Guerriere and Java. The sage delivered a characteristic speech on receiving this historic memoriaL Xear the close of his address his hand and voice quivered with emo- tion as he illustrated his own position by relating a story of a scarred Eussian soldier who was ushered into the presence of the emperor, and received a medal for an extraordinary feat of valor in a recent battle. Suddenly mounting the top step of the rostrum in the hall, Mr. Adams exclaimed, in shrill tones, " The old soldier shook from head to foot as he took the medal, and was only able to stammer out his thanks by say- ing, ' Though I tremble in the presence of your maj- esty, I never trembled in the presence of your majes- ty's enemies.' " The hit was so happy that I thought the cheers would bring the roof down.
I witnessed the crowning honor bestowed upon the veteran in this memorable year. He was then under the ban of the pro-slavery party of the country. Nev- ertheless, the elite of the commercial metropolis in- vited him to deliver the semi-centennial address com- memorating the formation of the Federal Constitution. In September he pronounced an appropriate and in- structive oration before a learned and brilhant assem- bly that tilled to repletion the Middle Dutcli Church, then the largest audience-room in the Cit}^ of ISTew York.
The services of Mr. Adams during his seventeen years in Congress eclipsed his previous civil career, long, varied, and lustrous though it had been. He became the ablest and most dreaded debater in a leg-
60
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
islative hall that displayed rare oratorical talents. In many close, protracted, and almost savage collisions with trained, bold, and bitter antagonists, like AVise, Ehett, Marshall, and their coadjutors, he showed his superiority in learning, courage, sarcasm, and every element of dialectic skill in one of the famous delib- erative bodies of the world.
I went to Wiishington, in 1838, to look after the imperilled right of petition. Mr. Adams, who Avas fighting our battle in Congress, received me with marked courtesy, partly, perhaps, because I had de- fended him so Avarmly in my speech before the com- mittee of the Massachusetts Legislature. I saw him on a field-day in the House. He coolly presented his pile of Anti-slavery petitions one by one, and scari- fied the Southern members who interrupted him. Mr. Polk, the speaker, was annoyed, but could not help himself. Indeed, he was evidently afraid of Mr. Ad- ams, the old man eloquent. In youth he had ex- hibited the wisdom of age ; in age he was displaying the vio-or of vouth.
At a later day I witnessed tlie spectacle when Mr. Adams presented the j)etition in the famous Latimer case, the fugitive slave that sought shelter in Boston, and whose beleaguered master was finally persuaded, by stress of circumstances and a few dollars, to aban- don the atte]n])t to recover his human chattel. The l)etition was of such an immense length that, for con- venient handling, it was wound on a great reel, which, on the morning of presentation, stood on Mr. Adams's desk in the House. This unicpie object was the ob- served of all observers in the hall, which was crowd-
EMINENT SENATORS IN ISSS.
61
eel to repletion, as the old patriot shook its rustling folds in the face of the fro\\Tiing speaker.
A word about speakei*s of the House. I have seen nine in the chair. As presiding officers I think Mr. Banks was the best and Mr. Pennington the worst.
While at Washington, in 1S3S, I spent a few houi^s in the Senate. The lions were there — Clay, Webster, Calhoun. Wright, and Benton. 1 had previously heard Mr. Clay on a platform in Xew York, Wel^ster before a jury in Boston, and Mr. Wright in the Xew York Senate. I noAv listened to a ten-minute speech each from Mr. Benton and Mr. Calhoun, and had to be therewith content. Vice-president Kichard M. Johnson was in the chair. He was shabbily di-essed, and to the last degree clumsy. What a contrast be- tween him and Martin Van Buren, his urbane, ele- gant predecessor. Colonel Johnson owed his promo- tion largely to two acts, neither of which he ])er- fonned. He was as guiltless of the killing of Tecum- seh at the battle of the Thames, in the war of ISli^, as was Wilham Tecumseh Sherman, and he did not write a line of the famous Sunday-mail report.
In 1S3S I made a speech before the American Anti- slavery Society, wherein I predicted that slavery would tiltimately fall by means of an amendment of the Constitution, and that this would result from the preponderance of free states in the West. My pre- diction came to pass nearly thirty years afterwards. The speech is on record.
From 1832 onward I wrote much for the Anti- slavery press, and for such religious and political newspapers as would give us a hearing. My contri-
62
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
butions would fill volumes, for which, as a general rule, I received no pay.
In 1839 I contributed a series of articles to the New York American, conducted by Charles King, subse- quently President of Columbia College. The title of the series was " Glances at Men and Things." The signature was " Eambler." The topics were miscella- neous. Some of the numbers were widely copied. The author Avas not then known.
Dr. Sylvester Graham was one of the early Anti- slavery men, but will be longest remembered as the most radical dietetic reformer in the country. He began to be generally known in ^^ew England and New York about the year 1830, and elicited attention in rather a narrow circle as a Avriter and lecturer for twenty years. He was well educated, and, though ultra in his opinions on food and regimen, was a log- ical and eloquent speaker. The salient feature of his system was a rigid adherence to a vegetable diet ; or, rather, entire abstinence from meat, fish, and oleag- inous substances of whatever kind, butter included. He waged exterminating war not only on intoxicating drinks, but on coffee, tea, pepper, and stimulating con- diments of every description. Like all reformers, he overshot the true mark, but we are indebted to him for many improvements in the field he assiduously cultivated. Those that drink chocolate or milk, or only water, at their meals, and eat oatmeal or cracked wheat at breakfast, and prefer bread made of unbolt- ed flour, and cut short their fat meats and crisp pastry, and substitute therefor ripe vegetables and fruits, and believe in fresh air, frequent baths, and long
DOCTOR SYLVESTER GRAHAM.
63
walks, should remember their patron saint, Sylv^ester Graham.
There was a dash of amusing egotism in Graham. One day he had partaken very freely of cucumbers, green corn, and watermelon (as substitutes for the sa- vory meats on the table) at the house of a friend. The mixture was too much for an internal organism enervated by close application to study in the previ- ous three months. While expounding his dietetic system to the dinner-party with his usual fervor, he was seized with intense pains in the stomach and co- lon. He threw himself on the carpet, and, while roll- ing around and writhing in agony, would now and then ejaculate, " Yes, gentlemen ! Posterity will do me justice ! (Oh, my bowels !) Yes, gentlemen ! Pos- terity will build monuments to my memory! (Oh, these gripes !) Yes, gentlemen, m}^ S3^stem will flour- ish and ultimately spread through the world."
Among Graham's early disciples w^ere William Cul- len Bryant, Horace Greeley, and Charles G. Finney.
CHAPTER YIII.
Abolitionists and the Constitution. — Anti-slavery Leaders: Garri- son and others in Boston; Tappan and others in New York; Smith and others in Central New York; Lovejoy and others in the Western States. — Celebrated AVomen: Prudence Crandall; Mrs. Child; The Grimkes; Mrs. Mott; Lucy Stone; Harriet Beecher Stowc; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Susan B. Anthony. — Leading Colored Men: Frederick Douglass; Robert Purvis. — Eccentricities of Abolitionists. — A Motley Group in Boston. — Father Lampson and his Scythe-snath.— Crazy George Wash- ington Mellen. — Disturbing Religious Meetings. — Stephen S. Foster Imitates George Fox. — Charles C. Burleigh's Vile Gar- ments Torn off and Carried awa}^ — Rev. Dr. Channing Eulogizes Burleigh's Oratory. — Controversy between Garrison and Wendell Phillips.— Lord Timothy Dexter.
The Abolitionists were compelled not only to study the science of mobs, but also to familiarize themselves Avith the Federal Constitution. That instrument had no more diligent students than those who conducted the Anti- slavery argument, for, from the outset, they were opposed on constitutional grounds by the great leaders in State and Church. The ignorance of its text and spirit by persons well informed on other subjects was both amazing and amusing. I was rid- ing in a stage-coach, in New Enghmd, when slavery became the to])ic of discussion. My antagonist, opu- lent in llesh and ]iompositv, Avas called Judge, and had l)ocn in the Legislature. For ready reference, the Anti-slavery Society had caused to be published
TROMINENT ANTI-SLAVERY LEADERS.
65
a copy of the Constitution so small that it coald be put in one's vest-pocket. During the warm debate the Judge purported to quote from the Constitution something that Avas not in it. I pulled out the small brochure, and, tendering it to him, said, quietly, " Sir, will you turn to the clause you* have cited T' Draw- ing himself up, he replied, with mingled dignity and contempt, That little primer the Constitution ? Why, the Constitution of the United States is as big as a family Bible I"
In and around Boston clustered a constellation of leaders in the Anti-slavery cause whose central fig- ures were William Lloyd Garrison, Francis Jackson, John G. Whittier, Samuel J. May, John Pierpont, Wendell Phillips, and Amos A. Phelps. Its equal in importance appeared in and near Xew York, whose most conspicuous members were Arthur Tappan, Lew- is Tappan, James G. Birney, Elizur Wright, AVilliam Jay, Joshua Leavitt, and Theodore D. Weld. These two cities were the fountains Avhence arose currents that flowed to the remotest parts of the country — in heavy volumes at the East and IS'orth, in triclding and fitful streams at the West and South.
For many years an influence in behalf of the slave radiated from the central counties of Xcav York which was felt beyond the borders of the state. It Avas large- ly due to four men quite unlike in salient characteris- tics, though each was remarkable in his sphere. They Avere acute reasoners, ready writers, and never quailed before mobs. Those who witnessed the majestic elo- quence of Gerrit Smith, the quaint humor and pa- thetic appeals of Ah'an StcAA'art. the luminous logic
66
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
and merciless sarcasm of Beriah Green, and the in- structive disquisitions and pointed periods of William Goodell will regard this as a faint tribute to their abilities and services.
The most rapid glance over this locality could not fail to see Wesley Bailey, long the able editor of the Liberty Press, and subsequently elected a State-Prison Inspector. He was the father of E. Prentiss Bailey, now the editor of the Utica Observer. In 1838 Kev. Mr. Hawley, a Methodist clergyman, removed from Is'orth Carolina to central IS'ew York. Having wit- nessed the evils of slavery, he was of great value to the Emancipation party. He was the father of Gen- eral Joseph K. Hawley, who served with honor in the war of the rebellion, and is now the editor of the Hartford Courant and Senator in Congress from Con- necticut.
Turning westwardly, no one beyond the Allegha- nies would overlook Elijah Parrish Lovejoy, the Alton martyr ; Cassius M. Clay, the brave Kentuckian ; Joshua P. Giddings, Salmon P. Chase, and Gamaliel Bailey, subsequently editor of the National Era.
Emancipation in this country and Great Britain owes much to women. In 182^1: Elizabeth Hey rick issued in England a ])amphlet advocating immediate, as contrasted with the prevailing doctrine of gradual, abolition. It struck the keynote of the contest which resulted ten years later in the overthrow of slavery in the British AYest Indies.
In 1833 Prudence Crandall changed her boarding- school for white girls at (.'anterbury. Conn., into a school for colored girls. Miss Crandall was a cemi-
DISTINGUISHED WOMEN.
67
Quaker, of benevolent disposition, mild manners, and the highest respectability. I took unusual interest in her enterprise (though far away at Lane Seminary), because Canterbury adjoined the town where I was born. Immediately there commenced a persecution of Miss Crandall and her scholars that would have disgraced barbarians in the dark ages. Its ferocity was excelled only by its meanness. The citizens dragged her school-house into a swamp, gross W in- sulted the preceptress, and pelted the timid pupils with stones and offensive filth. Of course the school was broken up. The leader of Miss Crandall's de- fenders was the eloquent divine, Samuel J. May, who then preached in Brooklyn, near Canterbury. The leader of her infamous assailants w^as Andrew T. Judson, afterwards United States District Judge for Connecticut.
Lydia Maria Child had won distinction in literature when, in 1834, she issued her " Appeal in behalf of that class of Americans called Africans." This ad- mirable production, replete with apposite facts, graph- ic sketches, and pathetic exhortations for justice and mercy to a proscribed race, at once became the text- book of the advocates of the slave.
Early in the struggle Angelina and Sarah Grimke, cultivated women of Southern birth, delivered Anti- slavery addresses in the Eastern States that elicited high encomiums, while the beautiful life of Lucretia Mott, even to its golden sunset, was adorned by her good works for the negro race.
One of the early Anti-slavery orators was Lucy Stone. She is now the principal editor of the Wo?)i-
68
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
arCs Journal^ in Boston. Miss Stone was born in West Brookfield, in 1818, was educated at Oberlin College, and ultimately became a lecturer in the Anti- slavery cause. She was an eloquent speaker, and charmed her ardiences. One evening, in western Kew York, I took a democratic lawyer to hear her. As we were leaving the hall at the close of the meet- ing my friend turned towards the platform where Miss Stone was still standing and said, in a dazed sort of way : " Little lady, I do not believe in your doc- trines, but God made you an orator."
I merely glance at Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin." It gave the Anti-slavery cause an impulse that never subsided until the Thirteenth Amendment Avas engrafted upon the Constitution. One of my cherished memories is the occasional glimpses I caught at Walnut Hills of Harriet Beecher, ere she was the wife of my learned, witty, and rather sarcas- tic teacher, the Keverend Dr. Calvin E. Stowe.
The celebrity in this country and Europe of two women in another department has thrown somewhat into the shade the distinguished service they rendered to the slave in the four stormy years preceding the war and in the four years while the sanguinary con- flict was waged in the lield. I refer to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
The negro himself Avas an important element in the struggle for emancipation. The representative man of the race in this country, their most eloquent orator and distinguished leader Avas, and is, Frederick Douglass. ]>orn in slaver}^ he Avas indebted for i)er- sonal freedom to his own stern pur])ose, clear eye,
ULTRA REFORMERS.
69
fleet foot, and brave heart ; and he reached his high position among his fellow-citizens mainly by his own exertions. Looking down the long vista of the past, I recognize the fine presence of Robert Fur vis, of Philadelphia, a colored gentleman of rare excellence, ^vho during the third of a century previous to eman- cipation was the wise champion of his brethren in bondage.
As reformers in all ages, when fighting their bat- tles against desperate odds, have been wont to be in- discriminate in their censures, so Avas it with the early Abolitionists (especially those of the Boston type). Ultimately the Anti-slavery men were divided into two classes, known as the Boston school and the Xew York school; the former very radical, the latter rather conservative. In a few years the Bostonian platform broadened till it covered many evils besides slavery ; and in the opinion of the Xew York leaders their brethren of the Trimountain City became some- what loose in their doctrines and fanatical in their operations. I pass no judgment upon the merits of this feud.
I w^ould not disparage Abolitionists of any type. The ultras of the Bostonian school were charged with fanaticism in the stages of the contest previous to the formation of the Eepublican party. One of the last of their conventions that I saw^ was in Boston before the war. There was a representative array on the front seat, near the platform. First was Gar- rison, his countenance calling to mind the pictures of the prophet Isaiah in a rapt mood ; next was the fine Eoman head of Wendell Fhillips ; at his right was
70
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Father Lampson, so called, a crazy loon — his hair and flowing beard as white as the driven snow. Lampson always dressed in pure Avhite, from head to foot, even including the shoes. He was the inventor of a val- uable scythe-snath, and invariably carried a snath in his hand. His forte was selling his wares on secular days and disturbing religious meetings on Sundays. JS'ext to Lampson sat Edmund Quincy, high born and vrealthy, the son of the famous President Quincy. ^"ext to Quincy was Abigail Folsom, another lunatic, with a shock of unkempt hair reaching down to her waist. At her right Avas George AY. Mellen, clad in the military costume of the Eevolution, and fancying himself to be General Washington, because he was named after him. Poor Mellen died in an asylum for the insane. Well, it is no wonder. The terrible strain put upon the human intellect in those old Anti- slavery days turned some light-headed persons' brains. I must add that high over these motley assemblages rose the inspiring strains of the celebrated Hutchin- son family.
Parker Pillsbury, an Ant i- slavery leader, pungent on the ])latforni and in the press, with a rich vein of humor in his composition, told me that he made a stum])iug tour in Xew Hampshire Avith Stephen S. Foster, and tliat pretty much all his time was con- sumed in getting Foster bailed out of jail for inter- fering in religious meetings in his peculiar style. Foster would sometimes advance up the aisle during the sermon and call the minister a wolf in sheep's clothing, Avhereupon the deacons would carry him out, Foster emerging from the scutBc minus one or
FANATICS AND LUNATICS.
71
two of his coat-tails. He thought he was a second George Fox.
Charles C. Burleigh, brother of William II., the poet and journalist, was a vehement orator of rare logical gifts. He traversed the country delivering Anti-slavery lectures. He dressed like a tramp. In the Anti-slavery office at Kew York we once tore a shabby coat off his shoulders, vowing that he should not represent the society in such a vile garb. John G. Whittier took a hand in this performance. At a later day we were to celebrate at Fall River, in the month of August, the anniversary of West India Emancipar tion. Burleigh was to be one of the speakers, the member of Congress for that district was to preside, and Rev. Dr. William Ellery Channing and a dis- tinguished company from Newport were to attend. ]jurleigh came the day previous, wearing white duck trousers, that looked as if they had not dropped in at a laundry during the summer, and an out-at-the- elbows coat, and other abominable garments to match. We arranged with a tailor to carry off Burleigh's clothes in the night while he slept, and to leave a new suit in his bedroom. The following day Burleigh ap- peared in fresh pepper-and-salt habiliments, and de- livered a speech that elicited encomiums from Dr. Channing.
During the war and the early stage of reconstruc- tion Mr. Garrison took a more sensible and practical view of the situation than Mr. Phillips did. While a million and a half of armed men were fighting on a hundred battle-fields about slavery, and especially after the adoption of the Thirteenth Constitutional
72
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Amendment, Garrison did not see the utility of keep- ing up tlie old American Anti-slavery society. So sharp was tlie collision between these two leaders on this and cognate points tliat they did not speak to each other for man}^ months.
While describing eccentric men, mostly of Massa- chusetts, this may be a suitable place to dispose of Lord Timothy Dexter. About fifty years ago I was riding with Whittier in the westerly suburbs of New- buryport, when we came upon the old mansion once occupied by that eccentric shipping merchant known as Lord Timothy Dexter. Though he had then been dead thirty years, his celebrity, as one of the oddest of Yankees, still lingered in Xew England. The for- mer lordly dwelling had, I think, degenerated into an inn, but it yet bore the Dexter impress. A Avide pi- azza ran along the front, whose roof bore up life-size statues of Washington, Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and other revolutionary heroes, arra^^ed in gaudy and fantastic costumes. In his youth Dexter Avas very poor; in later years he became quite rich. In my boyhood I heard many queer stories about this strange person, whom some called a dupe and some a devil, lie was about to send a vessel to the West Indies, and was searching for freight. A practical joker advised him to load her with warming-pans. He did, and when the cargo reached the tropics, it sold for an enormous price. The sugar-planters took off the per- forated lids of the warming-i)ans and used them to skim the caldrons where the cane was boiling, and tlioy em])loyed the pans themselves, with their long handles, to ladle out the contents of the caldrons.
LORD TIMOTHY DEXTER.
73
This successful venture gave Dexter his first start towards wealth. This peculiar mortal erected a tomb in his garden. A coffin was within the mausoleum. At fixed hours in the day he would lie in the coffin, Avhen a servant Avould knock at the portal of the tomb and say, " Lord I'imothy Dexter ! Lord Timothy Dex- ter ! arise and come to judgment !" Dexter would then get out of the coffin, repair to the house, and gravely eat his dinner. He published a sarcastic book, which he entitled, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones." I have seen it, but do not remember precisely its con- tents. The peculiar feature of the production was that from end to end there Avas not a punctuation point of any kind ; but in an appendix he printed sev- eral pages made up exclusively of points of every sort, telling his readers to sift them into the text of the book to suit themselves. But enough of this eccen- tric Lord Timothy. 4
CHAPTER IX.
Tour in Europe iu 1840.— Current Description of Author's Travels. — The Main Object of the Tour. — "World's Anti-slavery Con- vention in London. — Leading Members. — Distinguished Women. — Ha3'don's Large Painting of the Convention; his Anecdote of the Iron Duke. — House of Peers. — Scotch Church Debate. — Brougham Speaks. — "Melbourne, the Premier. — Lord Lyndhurst, a Boston-born Boy. — Wellington Speaks on an Irish Question. — Earl Grey Enters.— The Reform Bill of 1832.— Grey's Warning to the Peers to Set their Houses in Order. — Sydney Smitli and Dame Partington. — Gorgeous Pageant at the Funeral of Earl Durham, Son-in-law of Grey, and the Persecuted Ex-Govcruor of Canada.
I TOOK ship for Europe on May 12, 1840. I was united in marriage, on May 1, 1840, with Elizabeth Cady, of Johnstown, I^. Y., daughter of Daniel Cady, then a leader of the 'New York Bar. The main ob- ject of my trip was to attend a convention in London for the promotion of the Anti-slavery cause through- out the world.
On June 3, 1840, we first approached London from the west, striking the Thames at Eeading. To see old Father Thames had been my day-dream in life's morning march, when my bosom was young. And here it dazzled my eyes ! As we neared the metrop- olis, we discovered a lofty object that Hoated on a sea of fog and smoke. It was the dome of St. Paul's, lifting its gilded cross high above tlie dark canopy that hovers over London so niuch of the year.
tup: LONDON CONVENTION.
75
I shall say little in this book of my travels. While in Europe, I wrote letters to the Neio York Ameri- can^ describing my tour, under the caption of " For- eign Eambles," signed Eambler.'' Towards the close a few bore the signature of *' Manhattan." They ex- tended from July, 1840, to Feburary, 1841. Portions of them were widely copied. In the Avinter of 1848- 49 I published a long series of numbers in the Na- tional Era^ of Washington, a Free-soil paper, edited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey , an accomplished scholar, whose press had been thrown years before into the river at Cincinnati. They w^ere entitled, " Sketches of Ke- forms and Reformers in Great Britain and Ireland." After retrenchments and additions they were issued, in 1849, in a volume of four hundred pages, bearing the same title, in Xew York and London, by John Wiley. Portions were translated and printed in Paris. At a later date a second edition w^as issued by Charles Scribner. Every reform that has since been carried through Parliament for Great Britain and Ireland was foreshadowed in those numbers of the Era and in that volume.
The Anti-slavery Convention met in London in June, 1840. Thomas Clarkson, the Abolition patri- arch, was president. James G. Birnej^ was one of the vice-presidents, and I was honored with a seat among the secretaries. Many nations were represented. I will name a few of the most distinguished who took part in the proceedings, viz. : The Duke of Sussex, uncle to the queen ; Lord Brougham ; Lord Morpeth, then Chief -secretary for Ireland ; Daniel O'Connell ; Guizot, the French Minister at the Court of St. James ;
76
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Dr. Lushington ; Dr. Bo^yring ; Thomas Campbell, the poet ; Samuel Gurney, the great Quaker banker ; Joseph Sturge ; Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton ; Sir Eard- ley Wilmot ; Sir C. Buller ; the Kt. Hon. C. P. Yil- liers, Edward Baines, and many other Parliamentary leaders ; Kev. John Angell James, Kev. Dr. Cox, Rev. Thomas Binney, Pev. Dr. Wardlaw, and a long list of clergymen of various denominations ; and two young men then little known — John Bright and Will- iam E. Forster. The cause of Abolition wore gold slippers in England. The Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of the Pobes ; the Duchess of Brunswick ; Lady Byron, widow of the poet ; Elizabeth Fry, Mary Howitt, Amelia Opie, Lady Lovelace, Elizabeth Pease, and several other female celebrities smiled upon the convention. The proceedings were reported in a vol- ume of six hundred pages.
AVhile Thomas Clarkson was delivering the opening address of the Anti-slavery Convention, I noticed at my elbow a gentleman with pale cheeks and keen eyes, wearing a silk capote cut short in the skirts, and a brigand cap that toAvered high over the crani- um, who seemed to be sketching the outlines of the convention. This Avas Benjamin R. Ilaydon, the famous painter. Why artists affect this fantastic style of costume when at work, I never coukl under- stand. I have seen newspaper reporters Avho wore the brigand caj), but they Averc usually too ''short" to sport a long silk ca])oto. Ilaydon executed a large painting of the prominent members of the conven- tion, Avhich now hangs in the National Portrait Gal- lery. While employed on this picture he told mt'
HAYDOX, THE GREAT PAINTER.
77
many anecdotes of Wellington, Grey, Brougham, Eus- sell, and other eminent statesmen who had adorned his historic canvas. I recall this of the Iron Duke. Wellington said he had sat about two hundred times for his portrait since Waterloo, and probably as many for miniatures and busts. He told Haydon he had rather storm a fort than sit to an artist. Hay- don had painted him just previous to this interview. One day, during a sitting, the old soldier fell asleep in his chair, and continued so a long time. The art- ist employed the occasion to bestow some touches of the pencil on the dress of his illustrious subject. Time being precious, however, and wishing to resume the coloring of his features, he cried out in a loud tone, hope the light don't hurt your grace's eyes?" Wellington roused up as suddenly as if he had been caught napping on the field of battle, and replied, " Oh, no ! I have faced too much lire for that and, as the painter expressed it, " the old fellow stared at the light with the eye of an eagle."
Poor Haydon! he had the infirmities of genius. He died by his own hand in 1846.
A debate on the famous Scotch Presbyterian ques- tion (then in a critical condition, and which ultimate- ly rent that powerful Church asunder) was to occur in the House of Peers. I went to the House in com- pany with a Birmingham lawyer, and asked the door- keeper for admission to the gallery. He said it was full. The offer of a silver crovrn did not reverse his decision. My Birmingham companion counselled a retreat. I took my card and addressed it to Lord Brougham, writing thereon that I was Secretary of
78
kaxdo:m rkcollectioxs.
the 'World's Anti-slavery Convention, from ^^ew York, and Avould be happv if lie would admit me and a friend to the gallery to hear the pending debate. The lawyer and the doorkeeper were astounded at my au- dacity. " I think I knoAV my man," was my response. The card was taken in, and in a minute the flunky re- turned, bowing nearl}^ to the floor. AVe were ushered into the space allotted to the Commons Avhen sum- moned to the bar of the Peers. We were the sole occupants. Lordly eyes were turned upon us, and a buzzing bevy of peeresses from behind a curtain craned their necks, wondering probably who on earth we were. Earl Dalhousie, an elder in the Scotch Church, was closing a speech. Brougham arose. For twenty minutes the lawyer, statesman, and orator whose name and fame were the property of mankind rolled off so- norous periods on the subject under debate. He then crossed the chamber in front of where we were sit- ting, and made a bow, as much as to say, ^' What do you think of that ?" He was, perhaps, the vainest man in England. The premier. Lord Melbourne, de- livered the last speech. He was majestic in ])ei^onal appearance, elegantly dressed, and had the fatherly aspect Avhich fitted him to act as a sort of a guardian to the youthful queen. But what an orator I His speech was clumsy and slipshod in the extreme.
I will recall a few famous figures in the scarlet chamber. The homely Yankee face of Lord Lynd- hurst, with a "calculating" shrewdness in his eye, and li])s firmly set under an aquiline nose, a heavy l)i'o\v, and a slouched hat that a Bowery boy Avould hardly have picked u}>, wiis pointed out side by side
WELLIXGTOX. LYXDHURST.
79
with the snow}^ locks, long, narrow head, and cres- cent-like visage of the illustrious chief of Waterloo. Crouching in his seat Wellington looked short, but when he stood up he seemed tall. The Iron Duke ran much to legs. Ex-chancellor Lyndliurst was a Boston-born lad. "When his f atlier, John Copley, was painting in London the famous picture of the death of Chatham, now" hanging rn tHe National Gallery, he could not have imagined that his IS'ew England boy Avould rise to be one of the leading lawyers and debaters in the House vrhere the great William Pitt fell. I heard Wellington deliver a short speech one night, if it could be called a speech. Several hours had been spent in discussing an Irish question. The duke rose up. He occupied ten minutes in stating the conchisions he had reached on the thorny subject. He made no gestures, he argued nothing, but stood as straight and stiff as a musket, and talked in a low voice. But everybody in the chamber, peers and spec- tators, listened carefully to each word uttered by the soldier Avho overthrew the first Xapoleon.
Suddenly all eyes are turned tovrards a tall, slender man, his brow silvered by age, wiio is just entering the chamber leaning on the arm of one much young- er. As he approaches the ministerial bench several lords rise and pay him marked deference. Even Brougham, who is at cross-purposes vrith Melbourne, the premier, comes trippingly forward from the cor- ner where he is scowling, and greets him warmly ; while Lyndhurst, Wellington, and tAvo or three other Tory noblemen lift their hats and bow. This is Charles Earl Grey, now in his seventy-seventh year, who. ai
80
RANDOM KECOLI.ECTION8.
premier, with the aid of Brougham, carried the Ee- form Bill of 1832 through the House of Peers; or rather, as mJght be more fittingly said, drove it over the House of Peers. Seating himself, the venerable patrician looked around with the lofty bearing of one accustomed to take the lead among great minds. More than half a century before this Charles Grey, then in the Commons, was the youngest member of the famous committee that managed the impeachment of "VYarren Hastings. The sparkling eulogium of Grey in Macaulay's brilliant description of that event in the Edhiburgh Revieio of October, 1841, will occur to the reader.
Earl Grey's solemn admonition to the House of Lords in 1832, not to reject the Keform Bill that had twice passed the Commons and been thrown out by the Lords, was a model of eloquence worthy of the best days of Greece or Eome. Coming from an old nobleman like him, it was more influential than Brougham's argument and closing appeal to the Peers "on his bended knees" to pass the measure, and more effective than the ridicule poured on the hostile lords by Sydney Smith in his story of Dame Partington's unsuccessful conflict with the Atlantic Ocean in the terrible storm at Sidmouth. In his last speech on that gloomy night when the fate of the British empire hung on his lips. Grey said to the Peers : " Though I am proud of the ancient rank to which we in common belong, and would ])cril much to save it from ruin, yet if your lordships are deter- mined to reject tliis bill, and throw it scornfully back in the face of an aroused and indignant ])eoi)le, then
GREY. — BROUGHAM. — DURHAM.
81
I warn you to set your houses in order, for your hour has come!" The threat of Grey was more potent than the logic of Brougham or the sarcasm of Smith. The bill was passed. The serf rose up a man, and the man stepped forth an elector.
In August, 1840, 1 met Earl Grey at the funeral of his son-in-law, Earl Durham, who had recently re- turned from Canada and died of mortification because of his unsuccessful management of the afi'airs of that then turbulent colony. The sad spectacle was at the country-seat of the deceased nobleman, near the city that bore his name. The scene was unusually grand. Being the guest of the Mayor of Durham, and an American, 1 had a good opportunity for contemplat- ing the ceremonies. I was conducted by " His Wor- ship," who glistened in a scarlet robe and gold chain, through the stately edifice of the earl to the little room, dimly lighted by Avax candles five feet long, Avhere lay the body, guarded by four mutes, from whose shoulders drooped black cloaks of the mediaeval period. One hundred of the tenantry of the rich peer were boisterously feasting in the kitchen on solids and liquids of refreshing varieties. A numerous as- semblage of Whig noblemen, members of Parliament, and untitled people assisted in the solemn pageant, for Durham was a leader of the Liberals and the hope of the rising Radicals. From the Avindow of tlie chamber where lay his stricken daughter Earl Grey watched the long procession that bore the re- mains of his persecuted son-in-law through the adja- cent groves to the place of interment. 4^
CH-APTER X.
The House of Commons. — Debate on Canada. — Macaulay's Speech. — Lord John Russell. — The Lions of the House. — O'Connell Aims a Slinging Arrow at Disraeli, the Future Bcaconsfield. — Stanley, the Inchoate Earl Derby, Collides with Howick, Son and Heir of Earl Grey. — Sir Robert Peel Compared with Clay, Cal- houn, and Webster. — Gladstone, "The Rising Hope of the Stern and Unbending Tories." — Talfourd. — Bulwer's Dandy Dress. — Anecdote of Brougham and Buxton. — Clarkson's De- scription of AViiberforcc's Oratory. — Manners in the English Commons and the American Congress Compared. — The English- man's H.— Oratory in America and Great Britain.— American Snobbery. — Joseph H. Choate and William E. Forster before the Union League Club. — Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, Sergeant Ballantyne, and Matthew Arnold Facing American Audiences. — How they Appeared.
In dealing* with the House of Commons I shall glance only at a few of the celebrated members, who are best known in America.
I entered the Commons to hear a discussion con- cerning Canada, just then on the verge of a rebel- lion. I was just seated Avhen from under the gallery there poured a stream of words, pitched in a monoto- nous key, sparkling with meta])hors. The House had been rather tliin, when instantly the doors began to slam, tidings having passed out that Macaulay was up. His address reminded me of his essays in the Edinhurgh Remeio. Lord John Ilussell, colonial sec- retary, and Whig leader in the Commons, closed the debate. He Avas a better orator than Mclbouriie, but
O'COXNELL. DISRAELI. PEEL.
83
our House of Eepresentatives would have listened to him impatiently.
One of the lions of the House was Daniel O'Con^ nell. In heated controversy he Avas as much dreaded by opponents as was John Quincy Adams in our Con- gress. I speak more particularlv of the Irish orator in another place. Directly across the floor from Q-Connell we recognized the curly locks and flashing eyes of Benjamin Disraeli, the undeveloped Beacons- field. He was then inclined to be ashamed of his Hebrew origin. Hence the keenness of the sting of O'Connell's arrow, who, in a recent exchange of epi- thets during a violent quarrel, declared that Disraeli was the lineal descendant of the impenitent thief that reviled Jesus on the Cross.
Lord Stanley, known in later times as Earl Derby, the Premier, was the most rapid speaker I ever heard. Dashing, bold, sarcastic, he was the Joachim Murat of debate. As secretary of the colonies, in 1834, he carried throuo^li the Commons the bill for the aboli- tion of slavery in the West Indies. Previous to 1840 he had turned to be a Toiy, and followed Sir Eobert Peel. I witnessed a sharp collision between Stanley and Lord Howick, better known in America as the second Earl Grey. The conflict was personal and bitter. The fiery and ill-tempered attack of Stanley was admirably foiled by the cool, caustic reply of Howick.
Sir Eobert Peel was then at the summit of his rep- utation as a Parliamentary leader. I heard him on the Irish registration bill, a measure that evoked hot blood and fervid orator}^ Though Sir Eobert had
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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
not the glowing rhetoric of our Clay, nor the nervous logic of Calhoun, nor the overshadowing majest}^ of Webster, his speech was cogent, lucid, dignified, re- markabl}" courteous towards opponents, and displayed that rare tact which enabled him to hold together what, at that juncture, was an incongruous and fac- tious party. JS'ear him sat AYilliam Ewart Gladstone, a cold, serene, haughty, and intensely ambitious scliol- ar and orator, whom Macaulay had described, in the Ediiiburgli Remew of the previous year, as ''a young man of unblemished character and distinguished par- liamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and muti- nously, a leader (Peel) whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor/' This was a faith- ful portrait of the author of a bigoted book in favor of the extremest doctrines of the advocates of a union of Church and State, which Macaulay was caustically criticising in the ^y^^^g Quarterly. Who could then have dreamed that this ''rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories" would turn with the tide and aid in repealing the Corn Laws, and, as premier, disestablish the Irish Church and carry the right of suffrage almost up to the American standard, and denounce in acrimonious terms old Liberals who had often served in his cabinets, because they would not accept without question a pei'sonal scheme, which even lie could not clearly explain, for l)estowing an independent parliament on the hind of Emmet and O'Connoll?
There were then in the Commons four authors
LYTTON. BUXTON. BROUGHAM.
85
whose Avritings were popular in. America, viz., Ma- caulay, Disraeli, Thomas Xoon Talfoiird, and Ed- ward Lytton Bulwer. Having read their w^orks at home, I took pains to hear them in the national fo- rum. I have touched upon the three first named, and will briefly refer to Bulwer, a Liberal member, then famous as a novelist and dramatist, and in subsequent years as a conservative peer, bearing the title of Lord Lytton. When I saw him he appeared to be some- thing of a dandy. Tall, w4th an Israelitish curve to a long nose, he was dressed at the very height of the fashion. There was a dash of dudism in his man- ners, his cut-away brown coat, wdiite-duck trousers, and green-silk cravat. I was rather surprised to hear such extreme radicalism from such aristocratic lips. But though nothing else could have been logically expected from the author of " Paul Clifford," " Eugene Aram," and the Lady of Lyons," the hue of Bul- wer's politics, whether he shone as a liberal Common- er or a Tory lord, was as easily changed as the color of his cravats.
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was made a baronet in 1840, in return for services in Parliament in the cause of West India emancipation. This anecdote w^as told to me b}^ one of his family : In the year 1824, when Buxton and Brougham were in the Commons, some petitions were confided to them for the abohtion of slavery in the West India Colonies. On consultation they agreed to submit a motion for the amelioration of slavery. Buxton was to make the motion and Brougham to support him. Due notice was given, and the West India interest was on the qui vive for
86
RANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS.
opposition. A tempest was anticipated. Buxton was apprehensive he should be unceremoniously coughed and scraped down. The day came. Just as Buxton was about to lift his majestic form — he was six feet six inches high — Brougham whispered to him, '* I will cheer you while you are speaking, and you must do the same for me.'^'' " Agreed," responded the agitated brewer, as he rose and commenced speaking amid evident signs of impatience on the part of many Commoners. A storm was brewing, but Brougham cried, " Hear ! Hear 1 1 Hear 1 1 !" with all his might, and clapped and stamped so lustily that tlie House was struck with amazement, thought he was crazy, and permitted Buxton to conclude his speech without much interruption. In an instant Brougham was on his feet, liis eye flashing fire, and his hair erect with excitement. Members cried, Divide ! Divide I" in stentorian tones. Harry the Commoner " stood un- moved as a rock. When silence was restored he went forward, kindling with his theme, rolling out splendid thoughts and glowing illustrations, which held the House in awe. The shouts of Hear ! Hear 1 1 Hear I ! !" from Buxton became contagious, and at the close of his speech Brougham sat down amid rounds of ap- plause.
Thomas Clarkson's unique mansion, near Ipswich, was erected in the same year that Columbus discov- ered America. It had its moat and drawbridge, the water in the former fragrant with pond-Hlics, and the railing of the latter entwined with creeping-roses. With pride glistening in his eye he showed me the original records of the first society — formed by him
CLARKSON. — FOX. WILBERFORCE.
■87
and AVilliani AVilberforce and their associates, in 1786, for tlie abolition of the African slave-trade. He gave racy anecdotes and sketches of illustrious men whom he had known and wrought with in that cause, and spoke particularly of Wil.berforce, the younger Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sharpe, Windham, Bishop Porteus, and others of the great dead ajnong his coadjutors, and of Brougham, Buxton, and O'Connell, with v\'hom he had toiled in the later struggles to overthrow sla- very in the West Indies. I asked him about the oratory of Fox, and if Mr. AVilberforce was a good speaker in. Parliament, telling him that in America it was gen- erally believed that Wilberforce was not a command- ing figure in the Commons. The cheek of the patri- arch glowed with enthusiasm as he replied that Fox was terrible in debate, attacking his enemies in a style that sometimes bordered on ferocity. He feared noth- ing ; but, though a lion on the floor, was as mild as a lamb in private intercourse. In response to my in- quiry concerning Wilberforce, he drew himself up to full height, and exclaimed, Mr. Wilberforce not an orator I He was one of the most eloquent men in Parliament. His voice vras as musical as a flute, and his choice vrords followed each other with a regular- ity and beautv that fell on the ear like the swells of an organ." I asked if he was not rather diminutive in person. " Yes," said Mr. Clarkson, but his ear- nestness and pathos, and the magnitude of his theme when exposing the evils of the slave-trade made him look large in debate."
When I was in England the manners of the House of Commons Avere often rude and boisterous. Two or
88
EAXDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
three times I witnessed scenes that would have befit- ted the spectators at a prize-ring better than the mem- bers of a legislative assembly. Such cheers, yells, hisses, groans ! Such vituperation and personal abuse, for which representatives in Congress would have been required to ])romptly apologize on pain of expulsion ! I have seen some of the most angry collisions that ever occurred in our Senate and House. They were perilous, and came near to bloodshed ; but they were less coarse and noisy than those I beheld in Parlia- ment. Ours were the quarrels of inflamed gentlemen. Theirs were the conflicts of heated bullies. Perhaps the House of Commons has improved in late years, but those rude outbreaks during the recent debates on Home Eule do not tend to prove it. American congressmen do not scrape an opponent down by shuf- fling their feet, nor silence him by concerted cough- ing, nor drown his voice by cries of " Divide I Divide !" " Oh ! Ah I'' nor drive him to his seat by ironical cheers, nor jeer him by affected yells of " Hear I Hear !" A congressman miglit kill a colleague in a duel for words spoken in debate, or even shoot him, or plunge a knife into his abdomen in an encounter in the lob- by, but he would scorn to bellow him down like a bull. He prefers to leave that style of argument to the members of a body which has been called " An Assembly of the First Gentlemen in Europe."
The American who would tlioroughly master the utterance of the English nation, whether in Parlia- ment, at the bar, in the pulpit, on the platform, or in tlie streets, must ])ause and consider the letter h. It modifies their language, and is to them the key of
BRITISH AND AMERICAN ORATORY.
89
the alphabet. He who supposes that the peculiarity in this regard relates only to the common people is quite mistaken ; it crops out not infrequently in per- sons of the higher types, and especially the middle class.
The facility of the average .Englishman in drop- ping out and picking np the h Avas brought vividly before me on the second day I ,\vas in the kingdom. I present it as a sparkling drop from " the well of English nndefiled." I was on the coach between Ex- eter and Bath, with a seat by the driver's side. I caught sight of a great edifice in ruins on a distant hill. It Avas my first ruin in the Old World, and I Avished to make as much of it as possible. I eagerly asked the coachman what it was. " Sir," said he, "that is Glastonbury habbey. In the reign of King 'Enry the Heighth, the hold habbot rebelled, and the king 'ung 'im hon a gallows, hand then cut hotf 'is 'ead, and confiscated 'is lands." Telling the coach- man that I had just landed from America, he kindly gave me an extra stop of fifteen minutes to glance at the ruins of the famous abbey, which cover many acres, and where moulder the bones of renowned bishops and princes, whose history I had read in Hume, or 'Ume, as J ohn Bull would call him.
While in England, Scotland, and Ireland, I heard much public speaking in Parliament, at the bar, in the pulpit, and on the platform from persons of all types. It is only echoing the general opinion to say that this foreign oratory was far inferior to ours. The Eng- lish specimens could hardly have been worse. Such hesitating, hemming, hawing, stammering, stuttering, stumbling I They cultivate this style, and think it
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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
aristocratic. "While they seem to reverence their sleezv diction and slipshod utterance as if it were a part of the British Constitution, to other nations it appears not merely contemptible, but makes their or- ators a laughing-stock. Of course^ I met a great many exceptions to this sweeping rule.
On the other hand, not only in the matter of ora- tory, but in everything else, the British turn up their noses at us. It is no wonder. The snobbery and ser- vility of our tourists in that country, and of some of our ministers to the Court of St. James, have con- firmed them in their fancied superiority over the Americans. Indeed, our toadyism has reached a point where it is deemed unfashionable to give American names even to our hotels, and therefore we call them after some of the most infamous characters in British history.
Some of our citizens can recall a scene that enabled them to compare American with English orators. I refer to the reception given by the Union League Club, of isew York, to the Bight Honorable "W. E. Forster, for his steady advocacy of the Union cause in the House of Commons during the Civil War. Arrayed in a dress coat and white cravat which Beau Brummel or George TV. would have envied, Joseph II. Choate, the president of the club, rained down for half an hour upon Mr. Forster a brilliant shower of encomi- ums that made the plainly dressed semi-Quaker quail. In matter and manner it was one of Choatc's happy efforts, while Forster's response was thoroughly Eng- lish in style and sentiment. The contrast between the two performances was striking and instructive.
STANLEY. FAKRAK. BALLAXTYXE. ARXOLU, DI
Even fresher illustrations of the superiority herein asserted Avill occur to those who listened in this coun- try to Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, Sergeant Ballan- tyne, and Matthew Arnold. The two distinguished divines utterly failed to sustain the reputation as pulpit orators which they brought here ; the learned lawyer hopelessly broke down when confronting his first American audience; and the famous essayist, Avho lectured for years with great eclat in his native land, had to take lessons in elocution after reaching our shores before, on his own admission, he felt com- petent to face a trans- Atlantic assembly.
CHAPTER XL
Westminster Hall. — The Courts: Lords Cottenham, Denman, and Abingcr, Sir Frederick Pollock, and other Members of the Bench and Bar. — In France.— Deputy Isambert and Advocate Cremieux. — The Great Napoleon's Mausoleum in Preparation on the Banks of the Seine. — Napoleon, "the Pretender," Seized while Raising a Eebellion at Boulogne. — Keturn to England. — London in a Fog.— William the Conqueror and Battle Abbey. — Runnymede and Magna Charta. — Bosworth Field and Richard III. — Cromwell's SchooUiouse, Mansion, and Farm. — Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes. — William III. and the Battle of the Boyue. — Old Sarum, the Model Rotten Borough. — The Chartists and their Creed. — Main Cause of their Failure.
I EXTERED the great Hall of AVilliam Rufus, in West- minster, whose old oaken arches had witnessed the crowning of many kings, the trial of Charles L, the expulsion of the Rump Parliament by Cromwell, and the bursts of eloquence of Burke and Sheridan on the arraignment of Warren Hastings for high crimes and misdemeanors, and I was spellbound as I paced its stone floor, worn by the footsteps of centuries. I visited the a])artments where the courts were in ses- sion. There sat Lord Chancellor Cottenham, Chief- Justice Denman, of the Queen's Bench, Lord Abinger, of the Exchequer, better known to the bar in Amer- ica as Sir James Scarlett. Of course I was deeply interested in Avitnessing the proceedings of tribunals that gave law to so large a part of Christendom, and whose decisions are daily cited in the courts of the
ENGLISH JUDGES AND LAWYERS.
93
United States. I had heard a speech from Lord Cot- tenham in the Peers. I now hstened to arguments in the courts from Sir Frederick Pollock, Sergeant Talfourd, and Sir William FoUett, leaders of the bar. In matter they wxre able ; in manner bad.
I w^as abroad till January, 1841. I delivered thirty or forty speeches in Great Brit[iin and Ireland, and attended two conferences in France. I had come from the land of mobs, Avhere the press, Avith few ex- ceptions, delighted to misrepresent Abolitionists. It seemed a pleasant change to find myself introduced to audiences by members of Parliament, fellows of the universities, lord mayors of cities, peers of the realm, bishops of the Establishment, and the manager of the Edinhurgh Eevieii\ and then to see my speech- es fully and fairly reported in the newspapers. I took courage, and dared to say in the words of a Kad- ical rhymer :
" There's a good time comiDg, A good time coming; We may not live to see the day, But Earth will glisten in the ray Of the good time coming; Wait a little longer."
I lived to see the day.
While in France, in the summer of 1840, 1 attend- ed two important Anti-slavery conferences in Paris. This was a part of my object in going to Europe. These conferences w^ere participated in by M. Isam- bert, a prominent member of the Chamber of Depu- ties, and M. Cremieux, subsequently minister of jus- tice in the government of Lamartine, and other lead-
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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ei^ of opinion. I cannot even allude to the many famous places I visited on the Continent, but I will except two or three. It was in a memorable Napo- leonic year that I saw France. In Paris, under the dome of the Hotel des Invalides, they were preparing a magnificent mausoleum for the great emperor, whose remains were to be received from St. Helena in the autumn. The old soldiers on the banks of the Seine, Avho had fought under the Little Corporal in many battles, were aglow with enthusiasm at the ap- proach of the pageant. I stopped in July in the pub- lic square of Boulogne and noted its points of interest. Two weeks later the young pretender, known after- wards as JSTapoleon IIL, dashed into the square with fifty armed followers, posted a proclamation on the walls, and called upon the people to rise and drive Louis Philippe from France. The wild adventurer was sentenced to the citadel of Ham for life, but he contrived to escape from his grim prison in May, 1840. Other historic mile-stones dwelt in my mem- ory, and furnished the keys whereby I subsequently interpreted the downfall of Louis Philippe, in 1848, and the extinguishment of the Napoleonic dynasty, in the Franco-German war of 1870.
On returning from the Continent we had a night ride on a coach from Dover to London. AVe reached Shooter's Hill just as the orb of day was breaking through a bank of clouds. The basin wherein the great mctroi)olis reposes seemed a vast lake, whose bosom was rippled by the wind. The dome of the Cathedral loomed above the surface and glistened in the morning sunbeams, wliile Highgate stood sentry
^VILLIAM THE CONQUEROK.
95
over the scene on the north. The iUusion ATas per- fect.
I shall run through the country at random, merely pointing to a fe^v landmarks, Avhicli stand as blazed trees along the track Avhere history has hewed its path. I am not writing a sketch of my travels. The letters to the Xew York American, above mentioned, give glimpses of my wanderings, and show that I did not attend solely to Anti-slavery matters, but for six months went the beaten track of a tourist. In what I jot down I shall generally have some reference to human progress.
I went down to Hastings to see the harbor and the pier where AVilliam anchored the seven hundred ves- sels and landed the sixty thousand men for the great concjuest. Six miles inland is the held where the grim invader, in October, lOCO, fought the battle that placed the kingdom of Alfred the Saxon under the heel of William the Xorman. Poor Harold, the Eng- lish monarch, pierced in the eye by an arrovr, lost his crown and his hfe in the struggle. Here the Con- queror, " of pious memory,"" erected Battle Abbey as a memorial of the victory that gave England the feu- dal system and the Domesday Book. The abbey is a frowning edifice, partially in ruins, a crumbling land- mark of British history.
On the south bank of the Thames, a fevv^ miles from London, I saw a beautiful meadow. At the vrest I caught sight of the towers of Windsor Castle, vrhile my eyes scanned the dense smoke that canopied the metropolis on the east. In 1215 there transpired on this little meadovv' one of the most important events
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RANDOM RECOLXECTIONS.
in the history of England. Gloomy King John came over from "Windsor to Eunnymede to confer with his rebellions barons. On the 19th of June, at their dic- tation, he affixed the royal seal (perhaps he could not write his name) to Magna Charta.
Thousands of Englishmen daily sail up and down the Thames, past this sedgy spot, without being aware that their Declaration of Independence was issued here six hundred years ago. There is nothing strange in this. Crowds of Americans daily beat their surges against a little brick edifice in Philadelphia without remembering that within its Avails, on July 4, 1776, a few feeble colonies issued the immortal document that hurled defiance (to quote Webster) at a power whose morning drum-beat, starting with the sun and keeping company with the hours, encircled the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the mar- tial airs of England.
The wars of the Roses changed the line of descent of the English crown from the Plantagenets to the Tudors. In 1485 the White Eose of York was blast- ed by the Eed Eose of Lancaster, on Boswoi'th field. I had seen the battle fought so often on the stage by Booth, Forrest, and Macready, that, after viewing the old schoolhouse at Leicester, wherein Dr. Sam Johnson was once usher, I rode a little way out of town to the plain where the genuine crook-backe<l Eichard was slain, and the coronet placed on the brow of Henry YII. by Lord Stanley. The guide was loquacious, as became his calling. I swallowed his stories without a grimace, till he told me my feet at that moment rested on the very sod where
BOSWORTH FIELD. EOB ROY.
97
Richard cried aloud, A horse I A Jiorse I my king- dom for a horse!'' Then I was tempted to bolt the track, because no historian informs us that " White Surrey " had been killed or had tied : and while that renowned steed lived what need had Eichard of an- other horse 'i
However, I early learned to accept such tales as true, and get as much enjoyment out of the delusion as possible. When, for example, they exhibited the block in the Tower of London whereon Lady Jane Grey is said to have been beheaded, I admitted that some sharp instrument had made a cleft in it. They pointed me to the schoolroom at Huntingdon where Cromwell learned his A B C's, and to the identical wooden desk at which he sat. I conceded that the latter had been thoroughly whittled, and the only vron- der was that it had stood the jack-knives so well for two hundred and fifty years. When gazing at cer- tain suspicious-looking scratches on the windovv^-siil of Whitehall, and on being assured that these Vv'ere the prints of the spikes that helped to hold up the scaffold whereon Charles 1. was put to death in 1649, I did not for a moment dispute that that unfortunate monarch lost his head in that vicinity about that time. So when in the Highlands of Scotland an an- cient dame charged only a crown for letting me han- dle Eob Eoy's alleged musket, I drew an approving smile from the old crone by the remark that the bar- rel was uncommonly long and the lock very rusty. Is not this the best way to deal with this kind of so-called information ? Tourists must not be too crit- ical.
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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Oliver Cromwell prepared the way for the expulsion of the Stuarts. I walked through the brick house and over the fair helds of Huntingdon where the Pu- ritan spent his youth. The mansion resembled a large Pennsylvania farmhouse of the higher class. Here, in mature years, he trained his Ironsides, who marched to the tune of Old Hundred, but in many an encoun- ter met undismayed the legions of the court and hie- rarchy, oft sweeping them like chaff before the wind. His well-planned battle at ]^aseby ruined Charles. I traversed the hillock over which the lion-hearted general, sword in hand, led the decisive charge. When he became Protector of the Commonwealth he took up the despised name of Kingless England, and bore it aloft on the eagle- wings of a far-sighted policy, and made it respected and feared at every court in Europe. He w^as a great soldier and a great- er ruler, and stood among the foremost men of his time.
I skirted the fatal field of Sedgemoor, where the un- fortunate followers of Monmouth sought to dethrone James II. before his hour had fully come. I sat in the old C^ourt-house at Taunton, where the monster Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes, which condemned to death three hundred and twenty-six men, women, and boys for participating m this uprising, and sent eight hundred and forty-one victims into perpetual slavery. The vials of retribution Avere ])oured upon the head of this infamous judge when his master fell. He cowered in a tap-room at Cireenwich, disguised as a servant, and, on discovery, bogged to be lodged in the Tower as v. protection from tlie populace, who
vni.LIAM III. — OLD SARUM.
90
thi'catened to tear him limb from limb. There he howled like a maniac, haunted by the ghosts of those whom he had condemned to the gallows and the galleys at Taunton. The blackest villain that ever stained the bench was George Jeffreys.
Torbay is one of the most beautiful ocean inlets my eyes ever beheld. It lies in the lap of luxuriant Devonshire. I saw it in the high noon of summer exuberance. In this bay, on the 5th of ISTovember, 1688, William, the Stadtholder of Holland, anchored the great fleet, and landed the grand army he brouglit over to drive James II. from the British throne. The credulous king was slow to believe that his nephew had been invited to invade England by eminent lead- ers of public opinion. It was an easier conquest than that of the other William, who landed at Hastings six hundred and twent3^-two years before. James fled to France. In July, 1 690, he made a last feeble rally for his throne at the battle of the Boyne. In early j^outh I read a pictorial history of England. Among its illustrations was a vivid sketch of Will- iam crossing the Boyne and shouting to his soldiers, " To glory ! My lads, to glory !" It has been the rule of my life to deepen the good impressions of my youth. Of course I saw the Boyne, and sat down on the northern bank, where William was wounded, and fancied I saAv the cowardly James fleeing over the hills on the opposite side, the first one to run away. William III. was the greatest monarch who ever sat on the British throne.
The rotten borough called Old Sarum Avas the laugh- ing-stock of the Whigs in the day of the first Eeform
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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Bill of 1832. I visited its site, getting glimpses of Salisbury Plain, a locality Avliicli had nestled in my inemory since I read the religious tract entitled " The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." I could scarce- ly believe my eyes as I looked upon Old Sarum. For centuries previous to the Eeforni Bill it had sent two members to Parliament, though not a soul had lived there since the Tudors mounted the throne. It was a mere sand-hill, without showing even the ruins of a dwelling, though once it had a small population. Yet this utter w^aste, down to 1832, had as large a repre- sentation in the Commons as Lancashire, with its milhon and a half of people. The voting at elec- tions used to be done by the owner of Old Sarum, Avho sent himself and a favorite, or two of the latter stripe, to Parliament.
Though the Keform Bill of 1832 abolished absurdi- ties like Old Sarum, it left the representation in the House of Commons in a very unsatisfactory state. This led to Chartism, a well-meaning but rather tur- bulent faction, whose five foundation-principles were universal suffrage, voting by ballot, equal parliamen- tary districts, no property qualification for represen- tatives, and the payment of salaries to members. This platform will seem familiar to the people of the United States, but the announcement of the Chartist creed threw England into convulsions. I happened to s])eak at a large Chartist meeting. Some Englii^h friends warned me not to attend, but I said 1 liad rode out many mobs in America, and ratlicr like I it. The organization was already drifting upon the shoals of violence. I cautioned them against
THE ENGLISH CHARTISTS.
101
disorder. But in a fe'.v years they destroj^ed them- selves and their party by outbreaks and bloodshed. In later times, and under the guidance of Gladstone, Bright, "William E. Forster, and their associates, the cause of free suffrage and par-liamentar}^ reform has recovered some of the ground which the Chartists proved incompetent to occupy. •
CHAPTER XII.
Some British Poets. — Thomas Campbell. — In the London Con- vention he Ridicules American Poets. — He is Answered. — Ebenezcr Elliott. — James Montgomery, — Lord Byron's Widow. — His Daughter, Ada Augusta. — Thomas Carlyle. — He Calls Victor Hugo a Humbug, and Criticises Emerson. — In Scotland. — Rev. Doctors Chalmers and Wardlaw as Pulpit Orators. — The Manager of the Edinburgh Revieio Presides over an Anti-Slavery Meeting. — Sydney Smith Preaches a Sermon. — Lord Francis Jeffrey on Law Reform, the New York Revised Statutes, and Jeremy Benthara, the Codifier. — The Field of Culloden. — Charles Edward Stuart. — Clarkson's Opinion of the Four Stuarts and the Four Georges. — In Ireland. — O'ConncU on the Repeal of the Union.— John Randolph Said he was the First Orator in Europe. — Other Famous Men and Places. — Return to America. — Admitted to the Boston Bar.
An amusing scene occurred in the London Anti- slavery Convention that may be worth mentioning. I was on the platform reading a report when Tliomas Campbell entered. He was greeted with applause. I stopped reading. Mr. O'Connell, with a flourish, reminded the American delegates that the author of " Gertrude of Wyoming " stood before them, and there were loud calls for a speech. The poet, in a muddled style, began to compliment American institutions, and then plunged, in a zigzag way, into a contemptuous criticism of our poetry. His manner was peculiar, his pose unsteady, his tongue thick. I replied, eulo- gizing his productions, and warmly vindicating the authors he had assailed. He kept jum])ing up and
SOME BRITISH P0I:TS.
103
interjecting responses, and our colloquy kept the au- dience in a roar. All this was taken down by the stenographer, but it was omitted from the published report by the English managers on their excuse that Campbell was intoxicated. But I was not disposed to sit still and hear Bryant, AVhittier, and Longfellow abused by any British bard, whether sober or drunk.
A glance at two or three other poets must sutrlce. A letter of introduction brought me in front of " El- liott & Co.'s Iron and Steel Warehouse," at Sheffield. I Y\^ent to his house, wliere I w^as greeted with a hearty "Walk in I" from the Corn-law Rhymer, who was standing on the threshold in his stocking-feet. He made no apology for his rough appearance, drew on his shoes, and opened a racy dialogue about America. He was enthusiastic in his admiration of General Jack- son, and dilated on his heroism in the battle with " Biddle and the Bank." Elliott, like Burns, was the poet of the poor, and his songs were the lays of labor. Unlike the Ayrshire ploughman, the Yorkshire iron- monger did not draw his inspiration from open, breezy fields, but from the stifling air of hot furnaces. Burns was the bard of 3^eomen, Elliott was the bard of arti- sans. Presenting me with a copy of his works, and slightly changing his dress, we ascended the hill to the embowered cottage of James Montgomery. The contrast could hardly have been greater than that be- t"ween the rugged rhjnnester and the sacred singer. Polished in manner, neat in dress, calm in conversa- tion, Montgomery inquired about the Pro -slavery mobs in the United States, especially tlie destruction of newspapers, his voice rising to indignation as he
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RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
Spoke of his own imprisonment in York Castle in early days for the publication, in the Sheffield Iris, of liberal doctrines, offensive to the administration of th3 younger Pitt.
In London I met Lady Byron, in company Avith her daughter, Lady Lovelace, Lord Byron's Ada Au- gusta, the " gentle Ada," sole heiress of her father's fame. The mother took a deep interest in emancipa- tion and common-school education in America, but evaded all reference to her late husband. The eyes of the daughter sparkled vrhen I told her that not only in the mansions of the rich in the cities, but in log-huts beyond the Alleghany Mountains, liis poems were familiar as household words. Her countenance seemed to me to reflect more closely the brilliant feat- ures of the father than the plain face of the mother.
I met Thomas Carlyle. He was dressed in a shab- by suit of gray. I was not delighted with this " writ- er of books," as he called himself. We talked about America, and he betrayed great ignorance of a people at whom he sneered. He conversed rapidly, walked the room nervously, and shot out ])orcupine quills in- discriminately at good and evil. As a specimen of his talk I will say that he called Victor Hugo " a glit- tering humbug." His vicious style of writing caused him to go by crooked ways up to an idea instead of advancing towards it by a straight path. Much of his assumed profundity sprang from this source. In later times bis execrable style grew more and more misleading. Take, for instance, some of his lauded writings, and disentangle and analyze paragraphs that appear to hide in their meshes ideas too deep and aw-
CARLYLE AXD EMERSOX.
105
ful to be expressed in plain Anglo-Saxon, and you will discover that the matter is either quite meaningless or very commonplace. But, notwithstanding his crab- bed sentences, rooted prejudices, and sour temper, Car- lyle's war on Shams " was beneficial to mankind, while his pen, at lucid intervals, shed valuable light along the track of history and biography. Ameri- cans must not be too severe on the unique Scotchman, though he is reported to have said of our Emerson that his few ideas would be more clearly and beauti- fully clothed if he used half as many words to cover them. Transcendental writers do indeed need trans- lators to put their productions into idiomatic English. It is mere affectation to go into raptures over chap- ters one third of Avhich nobody really understands. Life is too short to be wasted in sifting a few kernels of Avheat out of bushels of chaff.
I might describe many persons whom I met abroad, men and women, celebrities, oddities, famous, infa- mous, but I have no room for them. Several are no- ticed in my volume of " Sketches of Eeforms and Ke- formers.-'
We must give England a rest, and repair to Scot- land. I went the grand rounds of the Lowlands and the Highlands, and sketched outlines of my tour in letters to the Neio Yorh American. Repetitions will be avoided. I jot only here and there. I listened to a sermon by Dr. Chalmers, then in the fulness of his prime, and the leader in the movement that ulti- mated in the disruption of the Church of John Knox. His discourse was a chain of close reasoning, glitter- ing imagery, and glowing with fervor. Its drawback
106
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
to me was the strong Scotch accent of the orator. His deUvery lacked the mellow cadence of Dr. Ealph Wardlaw of Glasgow, who, to Dr. Chalmers, was as Apollos to Paul.
Our large Anti-slavery meeting in the Scotch capi- tal was presided over by the manager of the Edin- hurgh Ilemew. With what dash, audacity, and brill- iancy did that celebrated periodical leap into the arena of journalism in the dark, troubled, and despotic epoch of 1802. The cause, of freedom in both hemispheres is its debtor. Perhaps at the head of the long list of Avriters who imparted lustre to its pages and gath- ered fame by their contributions during the first forty years of its existence stand Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, and Thomas Bab- ington Macaulay. It made them all lords except Smith, who would have been a lord-bishop if he had not cracked so many jokes over the head of the Es- tablished Church. I liad heard Brougham and Ma- caulay in Parliament. In a country parish I rode ten miles in the rain to listen to a sermon by Smith, the Canon of St. Paul's, who was visiting a rural rector. It was a plain discourse, though two or three para- graphs reminded me that Peter Plymley was in ^ the desk. In Edinburgh I had an interview with Lord Jeffrey, then at the head of the Scotch judiciary. He took an interest in law reform, and asked me a good many questions about the New York Revised Statutes and their authors, which I reciprocated by inquiring into the habits and studies of the strange codilier Jeremy Bentham, then deceased, who always seemed to me to be in law what Dr. Franklin was in
THE FIELD OF CULLODEX.
lOT
science, Dr. Johnson in literature, and Dr. Greeley in journalism. I deemed it fortunate that I had seen and heard the four greatest of the Edinburgh re- viewers.
The last Stuart made a gallant stand at Preston- Pans in 1845, just below Edinburgh, for the crown of his grandfather. His Scotch claymores " hewed deep their gory way " into the ranks of the English, and they fled. But the tide turned against the young prince the next year. On a bleak ridge near Inver- ness he fought the fatal battle of CuUoden in April, ITIG. In spite of his winning manners and indomit- able courage his cause was ruined. Having again and again declaimed at school Campbeirs " Lochiel ! Locli- iel ! beware of the day," I saw CuUoden on a bluster- ing October afternoon, and almost wished that the chivalrous Charles Edward had fared better. At Playf ord Hall, the residence of Thomas Clarkson, the conversation turned upon the Stuarts. "The four Stuarts," said the companion of Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, "were a bad lot." Then, as if in parenthesis, he added, " And so were the four Georges." Time will never reverse this verdict.
When in London Mr. O'Connell invited me to Dub- lin, and laughingly said he would induct me into the mysteries of his agitation for the repeal of the union between England and Ireland. His son John, then in the Commons, presided at our Anti-slavery assem- bly in Dublin. He was a faint copy of his sire. The father gave me a special ticket to a Repeal meeting. He delivered an elaborate address of two hours' length, intended, as he said, to inform me of the ends he had
108
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
in vie^;". Mr. O'Connell was foremost among the eloquent public speakers of liis era. John Kandolph said he was the greatest orator he heard in Europe. He won the title of " Liberator of Ireland." In the address I have referred to he said that no political re- form was worth the shedding of one drop of blood. His repeal agitation brought him to prison, and came to naught. Though something of a demagogue, he was the friend of man, irrespective of clime, color, creed, or condition. Wherever humanity sank under the blow of the tyrant there were found the genial heart and clarion voice of Daniel O'Connell sympa- thizing with the fallen and rebuking the oppressor.
Other scenes rise before me, but I must stop and hie to America. It would be pleasant to sketch a visit to Boston, where William Brewster, my Puritan ancestor, was long imprisoned for nonconformity ; and to the gloomy jail at Bedford, where John Bunyan Avrote the " Pilgrim's Progress ;" but there is no space for them. Xor is there for descriptions of other fa- mous places I saw, as, for example, Flodden Field, immortalized by Scott in Marmion ;" and the site of the Rye House, whose ])lot sent Algernon Sydney and AVilUam Russell to the scaffold; and Moor Park, where William III. was wont to consult Temple, and where Swift captivated and ruined " Stella ;" and Blenheim Castle, Avhose stately halls saw streams of dotage flow from Marlborough's eyes; and Dayles- ford, rebuilt by AVarren Hastings, and to Avhicli he retreated when ])ursucd l)y Burke, Fox, and Sheridan in the great impeachment trial ; and Birnam Wood, where I cut two memorial canes and took them to
RETURN TO AMERICA IX 1841.
109
Dunsinane, and could then have assured Macbeth (if there ever were such a king, and he had been pres- ent) that Birnam ^Vood had come to Dunsinane ; and the sanguinary field of Banngckburn, where a min- strel, accompanying his melodious voice on a harp, sang the immortal ballad of Burns :
" Scots, Tvlia bae vrV Wallace bled, Scots, %Ybam Bruce bas aften led."
I dismiss all these scenes, and gladly hie to Amer- ica, where I arrived in 1841. On my return I com- pleted my law studies, and, in 184:2, went into prac- tice at Boston. But I still performed much work in the Anti-slavery cause, both on the platform and in the press. To make way for other matters, I shall say little of my labors in this latter field.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Law. — Boston Bench and Bar.— Judges Story, Sprague, and Shaw. — Jeremiah Mason. — Daniel Webster. — Rufus Choate. — Their Triumphs in the Criminal Cases of Avery, the Knapps, and Tirrell. — Samuel Hoar. — He is Sent to South Carolina to Test the Constitutionality of Laws Imprisoning Free Colored Seamen. — Expelled from the State by Force. — Mr. Hoar's Fee as a Referee.— Choate before Juries. — Shaw on the Bench. — Choate's Stimulants, Hot Coffee and Hot Water.— Tirrell's Two Celebrated Trials for Murder and Arson. — Parker, the Prose- cuting Attorney.- Somnambulism the Defence. — George Head's IManufactured Testimony, and Rufus Choate's Marvellous Ora- tory, Twice Save Tirrell's Life.
In disposing of judges, lawyers, and courts at one sitting, I shall illustrate the rule that adherence to the order of topics is more important than regard for the order of dates. I shall begin at Boston, where I was first admitted to practice. As a general rule (though there vrill be many exceptions), when I take up a lawyer or a case, I shall get through Avith them before the man or the subject is laid down.
At the time of which I am speaking, the bench and bar at Boston were exceptionally distinguished. Jo- seph Story was in the zenith of his fame ; Judge Sprague, of the United States District Court, who v7on a high reputation as Senator in Congress, was his worthy associate. Chief-justice Shaw, of the State Supreme Court, was one of the ablest lawyers in New England. The leader of the bar was, of course, Mr.
WEBSTER. — MASON. — CHOATE.
Ill
Webster, though Jeremiah Mason stood close to him. But, viewed in some lights, the most brilliant figure was Rufus Choate. He Avas appreciated by the five great men just mentioned, and was the admiration of his junior brethren of the profession, who were accus- tomed to pack the courts to witness his wonderful displays of logic, learning, and eloquence.
While I dwelt in Boston, Jeremiah Mason Avas one of its greatest lawyers. For half a century he was a commanding figure at the Xew England bar. Born and educated in my native county, he spent his best years in Xew Hampshire, whence he removed to Bos- ton in 1832. I recall his tall form, six feet seven inches high, as he passed along the streets, or tow- ered above his brethren in the courts. I heard him once before the full bench. Deliberate, methodical, luminous, compact, with little rhetoric and few ges- tures, his argument was a masterly performance of steel-linked logic.
Daniel Webster in his autobiography, written in 1838, gives a graphic sketch of his great rival. I quote a paragraph : " For the nine years I lived in Portsmouth, Mr. Mason and myself, in the counties where we practised, were on opposite sides of each case pretty much as a matter of course. ... If there be in this country a stronger intellect, if there be a mind of more native resources, if there be a vision that sees quicker or sees deeper into whatever is in- tricate or whatsoever is profound, I confess I have not known it. I have not written this paragraph with- out considering what it implies. I look to that indi- vidual who, if it belong to anybody, is entitled to bo
112
KAXDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
an exception. But I deliberately let the judgment stand." The individual referred to was Chief -justice Marshall. This opinion of Mason was recorded after Webster had been thirty-four years at the bar and twenty years in Congress.
One of Mr. Mason's greatest achievements while in Boston was his successful defence, under the most ad- verse circumstances, at IS^ewport, R. I., of the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery, on an indictment for the killing of his mistress, a Miss Cornell, while trying to pro- duce an abortion b}^ his own unskilled hand. The trial was replete with dramatic incidents, and famous in its day. Mr. Mason cleared another sort of pris- oner by quite a different method. After he had be- come distinguished in Kew Hampshire, he went into a rural county to try a civil suit. A pompous little judge was on the bench. He assigned Mason to de- fend a negro on an indictment for petty larceny. With surprise, tinged with indignation, Mason de- clined the task. " Sir, you must obey the order of the court," said the little judge. " All you need do is to take your client into the adjoining room and give liim the best advice you can." This struck Ma- son in a funny light, and he arose, beckoned to the negro, and stalked into an empty room with his
client " at his heels. Are you guilty ?" asked Ma- son. Yes, sir," responded the negro. " Can tliey prove it ^" " Yes, sir ; all the witnesses are here." Mason put his head out of the open window and said,
It is about fifteen feet to the ground. Do you see those woods ?" The negro leaped, and Mason re- turned into the court. By and by the case was called,
SAMUEL HOAR.
113
but the negro did not respond. Where is your cli- ent asked the little judge. " I do not know," re- plied Mason. " Your honor directed me to give him the best advice I could, and the last I saw of him he was running for those woods . over there." Every- body laughed except the little judge, and the curtain fell on the scene.
The acquittal of Avery by Mr. Mason, the convic- tion of the Knapps by Mr. Webster for the murder of Joseph White of Salem, and the acquittal of Albert J. Tirrell by Rufus Choate for the murder of Maria Bickford, were the greatest triumphs in criminal cases ever won by Boston lawj^ers.
It was a rare privilege to listen, as I did, to Mr. Webster's eulogium on Joseph Story and Jeremiah Mason Avhen announcing their death before the bench and bar of Boston.
Samuel Hoar was for a long time one of the lead- ers of the Massachusetts bar, to Avhich he was admit- ted in 1805. The first time I saw him was in 1836 or 1837, in the trial of a celebrated will case before a jury at Boston. Mr. Webster was his chief opponent. Rufus Choate was one of the junior counsel. I heard both Webster and Hoar address the jury in this case on two successive days, Mr. Webster speaking first. It was apparent that "the Great Expounder" stood a little in fear of the calm, cool, incisive logic of the war}^ advocate that was to follow him, whose pose and style reminded the spectator of Jeremiah Mason.
In the turbulent days South Carolina was accus- tomed to seize free negro seamen who came into her ports from the Korthern States, and lodge them in
114
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
jail until the vessels Avhereon they served sailed away. If any of these negroes happened to be left behind, the commonwealth of John C. Calhoun would sell them into perpetual slavery to pay the jail fees. In 1844 the Legislature of Massachusetts (some of the colored sailors of that state had been thus impris- oned) sent Mr. Hoar to Charleston to test the consti- tutionality of these statutes in the courts sitting in that state. He arrived there in Xovember, when the Legislature of South Carolina passed a law directing the governor to expel him from the state by force. On December 5 he was collared and put on shipboard, and might have been killed by a " chivalrous " mob that pursued him to the wharf, had it not been for the presence of his daughter. It was a long line of deeds of this kind that almost reconciled us to seeing South Carolina ravaged by Union troops during the war, and subsequently trodden down by a negro leg- islature sitting in the capitol that passed the law for the expulsion of Mr. Hoar, and subjected for a while to the robber rule of that infamous rogue, Governor Franklin J. Moses.
In Boston some Connecticut clients employed me to sue the owners of the woollen mill at Lowell, whereof Abbott Lawrence and his brothers were the principal proprietors, for an alleged violation of a contract for the purchase of a quantity of wool. Otlier wool-growers in Connecticut had commenced similar suits against the same defendants. The amount involved vras large, and it was agreed that there should be only one trial, and that the result in all the cases should hinge on that trial. It was further agreed
KL'FUS CHOATe's OKATORY.
115
that the whole matter should be sent to Mr. Hoar to hear and determine as referee. He resided in Con- cord, and took the testimony in Boston, where there were several sittings. The controversy was decidedly sharp, and the swearing pretty hard. One of the Lawrences sold his shares in the Lowell mill, and thus qualified himself to be a witness, thereby gaining an advantage over my clients, who, under the law of evi- dence as it then stood, could not testify. On the turning-point in the case Lawrence contradicted my witnesses explicitly. Mr. Hoar was on intimate so- cial and political relations with the Lawrences.
I have told this commonplace anecdote for the sin- gle purpose of stating the fee of the referee. Mr. Hoar decided the case in my favor. AYhen he hand- ed me his report as referee I asked him how much his charge was. " Twenty dollars," was the quiet reply. Shades of Tweed, and the long procession of departed referees of our epoch (not to speak of those vrho sur- vive), how times and prices have changed since the days of honest and inflexible Samuel Hoar !
Mr. Hoar married a daughter of Eoger Sherman, who was on the committee that drafted the Decla- ration of Independence. He Avas the father of E. Eockwood and George Frisbie Hoar. The mother of William M. Evarts was also a daughter of Eoger Sherman.
AVhat spectator that beheld Eufus Choate in a great cause could ever forget that tall figure, that sallow complexion, that piercing dark eye, those black locks, which hung in curls over an expansive forehead, those dramatic gestures that gave point and emphasis to
116
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
pungent sentences, that majestic tread, which shook the room till the Avindows shivered, that voice whose notes now swelled like a trumpet, and anon sank into a wail as if a gentle breeze were sighing in the tree- tops, and all this without the slightest affectation, and with a clearness of vision that saw the pinch of his case, and a sincerity of manner Avhich proved that victory, and not display, was the end he kept steadily in view ? Mr. Choate argued a case in the Supreme Court at Washington. A distinguished Southern Senator heard him, and speaking to Mr. Webster the next day said : " I listened to your Mr. Choate yester- day. He is an extraordinary man." ^'An extraor- dinary man I" replied Webster. " Sir, he is a marvel."
Like Edmund Burke, whom he studied and admired, Mr. Choate drove "a substantive and six." Chief- justice Lemuel Shaw was a man of few words. He looked like a rough fragment of the feudal system. Short, thick, with a head covered with coarse, frowzy hair, which appeared never to have been combed, he had a habit of resting his elbows while in court on the shelf before him, and holding up his chin by his hands, and glaring at counsel through spectacles trimmed with tortoise-shell instead of silver or gold, a rather striking resemblance to a grizzly bear sitting on his haunches. But his head was clear as sunshine, and his rhetoric a model in style, though his growling voice made the short opinions he delivered on side issues during the trial of a cause seem like nectar gurgling from a tar-barrel. The Old Chief, as he was familiarly called, had a gentle heart, and there was a soft ])la('e in it for Choate, of whom he was really
CHIEF-JUSTICE LEMUEL SHAW.
117
proud, though apt to jerk him up Avith a short rein when too wordy. One afternoon I stepped into court Avhen Choate was flashing his lightnings around the Chief-justice, who kept interrupting him. Walking with Mr. Choate to our lodgings an hour later, I re- marked that the Old Chief was unusually restive and annoying during his argument. Yes," said Choate, " he is an old barbarian I'' Then taking a few long strides, he added in slow, solemn style, But life, lib- erty, and property are safe in his hands." He was arguing on another occasion a novel point of law be- fore the full bench. He was on the crest of the wave. He expressed his gratification at the opportunity of discussing this new question at the bar of a tribunal whose reputation for learning and integrity had long since overflowed the boundaries of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and reached the uttermost limits of the Union. The Old Chief broke in : " Mr. Choate, do you present that as a serious argument to this court d" Oh, no, 3^our honor," replied Mr. Choate, in his hu- morous style, " it was only a rhetorical flourish." Then, stooping down, he said to his associate in a tone loud enough to be heard all around, " The Chief- justice is an urbane gentleman. It is a pity he don't know any law." But there is no end to stories of this sort about Mr. Choate, and I forbear.
It has been my fortune to hear many of the fore- most lawyers in this country and in Great Britain. As an advocate before a jury, especially in a difficult case, I never saw the superior of Rufus Choate.
The habits of such consummate orators are worthy of study. Immediately before he was to address a
118
EAXDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
jury Mr. Clioate would step across the street to the Boston Dehnonico's and drink two or three cups of strong, piping -hot coffee. A jug of smoking -hot Avater woukl stand by his side in the court-room. The coffee stimulated the brain. Sips of the water kept up the stimulus and lubricated the throat. And now came the cyclone. The man knows little about physiology who resorts to brandy before making a speech, and imbibes cold water during its delivery.
The interval between Mason and Choate w^as very wide. The happy mean was hit by Mr. Webster when addressing either the court or the jur}'.
I hesitate about relating the following instance of manufactured testimony. What I shall state is true, but I remember the adage that " even the truth is not to be spoken at all times." However, this occurred so long ago that the principal parties passed from earth m.any years since, and the recital may serve a valuable purpose as an illustration of what I believe occurs oftener than the outside public suppose, i. e.^ the manufacturing of testimony to meet an emergen- cy in judicial proceedings.
One of the celebrated criminal cases in New Eng- land was that of Albert J. Tirrell, who was tried at Boston in 184(5, on two indictments, for the double crime of murdering his mistress, Maria Bickford (I think I give these names correctly), and then setting fire to the assignation-house in wliich he concealed her. Tirrell's family was respectable and wealthy. He was a wild fellow, had a wife, was infatuated with the Bickford girl, feared he was about to lose her, and this was supposed to be his reason for cutting her
TIRRELL'S CELEBRATED CASE.
no
throat with a razor, and firing the house to cover the deed. Each of these offences was punishable with death. The leading counsel for Tirrell was Rufus Choate, and who that ever saw Samuel Dunn Parker could forget the long-headed, hard-working prosecut- ing attorne}^ ? His form, voice, manner, victories and defeats are among the interesting memories of the Eoston bar.
The hinge-point in the defence in this case was somnambulism. It was selected by the junior counsel in preference to an alihi (which was tendered), be- cause, as one of them remarked, the latter was liable to break down. Mr. Choate, who doubtless knew nothing of the circumstances of this selection, merely said that he liked the line of defence, for an alihi was stale, but there was a fresh flavor about somnam.bu- lism. It is proper to state that I was wholly unaware of these preliminary matters, and had no suspicion that any of the testimony had been manufactured until after Tirrell was acquitted on both indictments.
George Head (I draw on my memory for his first name) kept a livery stable in the heart of Boston. He slept over his stable, and in the night had a lantern burning in the hall below. The small house where Maria l^oarded was in an obscure street, and about eight minutes' walk from the stable. The murder and arson were committed just before daybreak, a vraninfi: moon still shinino". Head and Tirrell for some years had been " hale fellows well met."' They travelled together and drank and played cards togeth- er, and did many other things in partnership. Head had a clear brain, steady nerve, rare self-poise, and
120
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
was a faithful confederate in a desperate straight. Before he was placed on the witness stand the ex- traordinary line of defence Avas fully explained by one of the junior counsel to the jur}^ which lifted the ex- perienced prosecuting attorney quite off his feet Avitli surprise. The way was prepared for Head by pre- liminary testimony from two or three members of the Tirrell family concerning the alleged sleep-walk- ing habits of Albert in his youth, and how he would glare wildly and utter guttural sounds on such occa- sions. The path was still further cleared by show- ing the precise hour when Tirrell left the assignation- house on that morning, uttering guttural noises as he went stumbling down the steps.
Head now entered the witness-box, and fixed the precise time when he was awakened by guttural noises at the door of his stable, which was exactly ten min- utes later than the guttural noises on the steps of the assignation-house. Amid much other matter Head testified, in substance, that he looked at the clock, thrust his head out of a Avindow, and asked, " Who is there T A man turned his face up, and the moon- beams showed that it was Tirrell. He opened the door and let him in. Albert glared at him with eyes that had no " speculatioii in them, and in broken par- agraphs said, They are after me !" " They are try- ing to kill me I" " They want my blood " They are setting the house on fire Head said he knew of Tirrell's somnambulistic fits and Avas not much sur- ])rised, but could not imagine what he was talking about. He took him by the collar and walked him around the stable, called him a d d fool, and want-
TIRRELL A.N-D HEAD.
121
ed to know what ailed him. After exercising him in this style for some minutes Albert suddenly woke up and stared at Head and the lantern. His first in- quiry was, George, how came I here ? Have I been in the stable all night still gazing with dazed eye- balls at Head and the lantern, and so and so forth, with much additional testimony from the calm and plausible Head on the direct examination. The pro- tracted and severe cross-examination by crisp, sharp old Parker did not shake him a particle. His recital of the stable scene produced a profound impression on the jury, one of ^vhom subsequently told his coun- sel that it was mainly on this testimony that they acquitted the prisoner.
Xow for the real facts of the meeting of Head and Tirrell at the stable. The former was fully aware of the latter's relations with Maria. After perpetrating the murder and the arson, he walked over to Head's stable, arrived about the time stated by Head, knocked at the door, made himself known, was admitted, told Head the particulars of the murder and the arson (without a speck of somnambulism I), consulted him as to the best mode of escape, and was driven in the ear- ly dawn to his home at "Weymouth in one of Head's close carriages.
The public know the rest. Tirrell immediately sailed clandestine!}^ to Xew Orleans, Avas indicted for the double crime in Boston, was brought thither un- der an executive requisition, and on two trials for his hfe was acquitted by means of the manufactured tes- timony of George Head and the marvellous oratory of Eufus Choate. 6
CHAPTER XIV.
The Law. — Several Novel Cases.— Libel Suit at TauntoD. — The Vivid "Dream." — Criminal Prosecution for Libel at New Lon- don.—John T. Wait and Lafayette S. Foster for the State.— The Daniels's Case at Boston.— Charles G. Loring and Benjamin R Curtis Counsel for the Defendant.— Choate for PlaintiiTs. — A Patent Suit.— Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Hallett, and Horace E. Smith Counsel. — Joel Prentiss Bishop, the Law-writer.— John P. Hale as Lawj^er and Senator, — Theodore Parker under In- dictment.— Hale his Counsel. — Parker on Fish and Phosphorus.
In 1844-45, William "Wilbar kept a large whole- sale and retail liquor store in Taunton, Mass. Benja- min Williams printed a lively temperance newspaper in that town. Under the similitude of " A Dream " he published a scathing article about AYilbar's store. The dream painted the establishment in the most ap- palling colors. The devil, fire and brimstone, liquid death and distilled damnation figured conspicuously in the lurid sketch. From the heads of the casks there flamed out labels bearing such inscriptions as " mur- der," "suicide," "arson," "soul-destroyer;" and the devil and AVil]):ir were on high seats in the counting- room, selling the casks to drunken customers. The dream went so far as to say that Wilbar cari-ied on a lucrative trade in the business of picking the pockets of the poor, and jmtting them to a lingering death, and consigning their wives and children to the alms- house ; and it mentioned the names of two of his vie-
TWO NOVEL LIBEL SriT!=.
123
tims who had died sad deaths, and were remembered in Tamiton. It need hardly be said that these serious charges enmeshed the case in embarrassing difficul- ties.
Wilbar sued Williams for libel, laying his damages at several thousand dollars. AYilliams retained me as his counsel. The plaintiff teas selling liqiioi' icitJiont a license. I set up in defence that the publication w^as an allegory, and not to be construed literally, and that, so far as it confined its descriptions and pic- torials to Wilbar's business of liquor selling, he could not recover because, as he had no license, he was him- self violating the law, and therefore had no standing in court. The case was tried in the Supreme Court before Judge Samuel Hubbard and a jury. After a close contest of four days, the court ruled with me on the law, and my client got a verdict. The case was reported, and several thousand copies of the trial were sold.
The next year I appeared for the defendant in a criminal prosecution for a similar libel, at ^s'ew Lon- don, Conn. It bristled with difficult points, but I got a verdict for my client. The prosecution was ably conducted by District-attorney John T. Wait, the pres- ent representative in Congress, and La Fayette S. Fos- ter, afterwards United States Senatoi\ both of Xor- wich.
I could find no reported case in this country or England that covered the precise ground in contro- versy at Taunton and Xew London.
George Daniels, a slippery shoe manufacturer, had for a year or more been in the habit of making notes
124
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
payable to the order of Alfred Daniels, his wealthy brother, and then forging Alfred's name on the back of the notes, and passing them in Boston. George absconded, leaving notes to the amount of some §25,000 unpaid in the hands of his victims. I brought suit against Alfred Daniels in a single action on all these notes, simply declaring against him as endorser in the usual form. Eufus Choate was counsel with me. The defence ^vas conducted by Charles G. Lor- ing and Benjamin E. Curtis. The latter was subse- quently appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. AVe tried our case before Justice Wilde and a jury at Boston. We proved that from time to time some of the notes in suit and others just like them had been presented to Alfred Daniels, and he was asked if they were " all riglit,'' and that his replies were either evasive or that the notes would probably be looked after when they became due. We took the ground that if Alfred Daniels's name was forged, and he knew it, and our clients did not, Alfred should then and there have exposed the forgerv, and that from his failure to do this the jury might infer that Alfred had made George his agent for passing such notes. We could find no case in the books like the one at bar. But Judge Wilde ruled for us. It had devolved on me to put in the testimony during the contest of four days. Mr. Choate argued the case to the jury with his usual power and splendor. The jury gave the plaintiffs a verdict.
I have said that my early acquaintance with ma- chinery aided me in the trial of ])atent suits. About 1847, one Hovey and one Stevens, of Massachusetts,
B. F. HALLETT. — CHARLES SUM^'EK.
125
were rival manufacturers of a machine for cutting straw by spiral blades or knives. The blades revolved on their axis, and the straw passed between them and a cyhnder. The blades had to be ground so that when in motion they would describe a perfect circle. There was no patent on the straw-cutter, but Hovey had obtained a patent for a machine for grinding the knives or blades. Impelled by sharp competition, Stevens "pirated" Hovey's grinding- machine. He sued Stevens, Avho applied to me to defend him. There was no escape from heavy damages except to invalidate Hovey's patent by showing that he was not the first inventor of the grinding-machine. I re- membered that thirty-three years before, in my fa- ther's Avoollen factory at Jewett City, they sheared broadcloth with spiral knives or blades that operated like those in the straw-cutter, and I inferred that there must have been a machine for grinding them. I sent Stevens to Jewett City, where he learned that such a machine was formerly used there, but some twenty years since it had been bought by two men and taken to a factory at Hoosick Falls, Y. I sent Stevens there, where he found the two men, who hunted up in an outbuilding the dilapidated and abandoned grinding-machine, with the dried grit of the stone still adhering to it. It was exactly like Hovey's al- leged invention. Stevens brought the antique to Bos- ton, and at the trial the two men appeared as wit- nesses. Under appropriate pleadings the old machine cut a great figure in the contest. The counsel for the plaintiff were Benjamiji F. HaUett and Charles Sumner. The defence was conducted by Horace E.
126
RA^sDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Smith and myself. Of course we ■whipped them out of their boots.
Mr. Smith was for some time my partner at Bos- ton. For several years past he has been the accom- phshed dean of the Albany Law-school. Joel Pren- tiss Bishop, of Boston, the widely -known author of valuable treatises on the law, was admitted to the bar while a student in my office. He was at home in a library of rare old law-books.
Mr. Sumner had read many volumes of law, and written some learned annotations thereon. But he seemed to liave little taste for the sharp conflicts of the forum, where the enduring laurels of an exacting profession are won. If he tendered " sage counsel in cumber," he carried not the " red hand in the foray." Though he studied patent law at the feet of Judge Story, he was not expert in comprehending and ap- plying those mechanical principles which are so fre- quently involved in cases that arise in that depart- ment. He acted wisely, therefore, Avhen he retired from the bar, and devoted himself to the delivery of orations on the platform and speeches in the Senate.
Mr. Hallet, who led for the plaintiff in the trial above mentioned, was a wiry, pertinacious advocate. He was not familiar with the intricacies of patent law, and handled mechanical principles very clumsily ; but he was a sturdy opponent to grapple with even when he was on the weaker side. This was partly due to the fact tliat bis cuticle was unusually thick. For a while he conducted a newspaper in Boston, and cham- pioned some valual)le reforms. He subsequently be- came an active nomocrat, and President Pierce ap-
JOHN P. HALE.
127
pointed him United States xittorney for the District of Massachusetts.
John P. Hale is not so well known as a law^yer as a Free-soil Senator. In his younger days, however, he was prominent at the Isew Hampshire bar, and in later years occasionally led in the trial of important causes at Boston.
One of the boldest of the early blows against the slave power from a public man was struck by Hale in 'Ne^y Hampshire in 18J:4. He was in Congress, and was the regular Democratic candidate for re-election. The pending issue w^as the annexation of Texas. First in a pungent letter, and then in a powerful speech, he declared against annexation. The leaders of the De- mocracy rose upon him, and the state was soon all aflame. I went up from Boston to help the robust rebel. After a long struggle Hale was defeated for Congress, but Dover sent him to the Legislature, and his services in the Free-soil cause were soon rewarded by his election to the United States Senate.
Hale was a novice in Anti-slavery literature, and I assisted in preparing two or three of his early speech- es in the Senate. He w^as indolent, a brilliant de- cl aimer, but an indifferent reasoner. Surrounded by foes, it was his proverbial jollity that protected him from assault. He bubbled over with wit and humor. I entered his room at Washington one warm evening, where an inextinguishable coal fire, fed by a stupid servant, had run the thermometer up to about one hundred degrees. He w^as stripped to his skin ; the perspiration was dripping from his chin ; a great pile of documents was before him, which he was industri-
12S
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ously franking. Patting out his hand, he said, " This is the penalty paid for greatness."
He told me this fact, which illustrates a peculiarity of that extraordinary man, Theodore Parker. In a trial in the Federal Court at Boston which grew out of the famous attempt to rescue by force a fugitive slave from the clutches of the law. Hale was counsel for Mr. Parker, and for two wrecks his guest. Tv/ice each day Parker had baked fish served (with no meat), because this diet furnished, as he said, phosphorus for the brain. It was his ordinary custom to have baked fish only once daily, but, to meet the strain of the trial, Hale, who hated fish in any form, was re- quired to lay in a supply of phosphorus at every breakfast and dinner while the legal conflict lasted.
CHAPTER XV.
The Law. — Bencli and Bar of the Empire State. — Kent, Spencer, and other Eminent Jurists.— Four Great Lawj-ers of Columbia County. — The Power of Elisha Williams over a Jury. — Henry R. Storrs. — Lawyers and Trials at Rochester.— Sclleck Bough- ton. — Jesse Hawley, the Land Surveyor, Foreshadowing the Erie Canal. — Charles M. Lee.— General "Mad" Anthony Wayne's Storming of Stony Point Saves a Counterfeiter from the State Prison.— John Griffin, the Rough Judge of Allegheny County, Sits down on a Dandy Attorne}'. — xilvan Stewart. — Some Albany Lawyers. — The Famous Firm of Hill, Porter, & Cag- gar. — Quirk, Gammon, & Snap. — Eseck Cowan's Rare Law Library.— Marcus T. Reynolds.— Samuel Stevens. — Daniel Cady, — Joshua A. Spencer.
I HATE always felt at home with the judges and lawyers of the state of Xew York, for it was with them that I first began to be acquainted sixty years ago.
The old Supreme Court, the Court of Errors, and the Court of Appeals, in the opinions pronounced by Kent, Spencer, Thompson, Xelson, Cowen, Sutherland, Bronson, Denio, and their associates, illuminated all branches of the law in a style worthy of the best ef- forts of Mansfield and Marshall. The decisions of the courts of Xew York have, from the first volume of Johnson downward, held superior rank in the judi- cial tribunals of the Union, and have been quoted with approbation at London, Paris, and Berlin. In 1814, James Kent, the new chancellor, took his seat 6*
130
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
in one of the small rooms of the capitol. Throwing its doors wide open, he caused the proceedings of the court to be regularly reported, and thus poured a flood of light along the track of equity jurisprudence in this country. It would be in vain to attempt to give the names of the great lawyers of Xew York who have aided the bench in erecting its judicial sys- tem on solid foundations. The bench, of course, has been selected from the bar. Besides this, the profes- sion in Kew York has furnished one chief -justice and five associate justices in the Supreme Court of the United States, and five attorney-generals.
I have before me a rapidly prepared and imperfect- ly presented article on this subject, which appeared in the appendix to the eighteenth volume of Bar- bour's New York Supreme Court Reports. Perhaps it will repay perusal.
Columbia County was the birthplace of four distin- guished lawyers — Elisha Williams, Daniel Cady, Will- iam W. Yan Xess, and Martin Yan Buren. I listened to them all except Judge Yan Ness, who had a great reputation for a peculiar style of attractive eloquence, though Williams was his superior before a jury. This scene was described to me by Mr. Cady, bat so long ago that it has somewhat faded in my memory. He was junior counsel with Williams, who led for the plaintiff in a trial which involved a large tract of land bordering on the Hudson River. The plaintiff's recovery depended on sustaining the correctness of a line run by two surveyors, just after the Revolution- ary War, in which they had Avon honor as oflicers. At the time of the trial they had been dead about
ELISHA WILLIAMS BEFORE A JURY.
131
twenty years, but their memory was revered in the counties along the Hudson.
In addressing the jury, the defendant's counsel ve- hemently denounced the two officers, attacking at great length their capacity as surveyors and their characters as men. And now came Williams's turn to reply. The court room Avas so densely packed, es- pecially near the door, that the audience reached down the stairs into the street. Williams vindicated the two surveyors and scathed their traducer in glowing terms, or, as Mr. Cady called it, in " thunder-clap elo- quence." He referred to their unblemished reputa- tion, their services in the struggle for independence, and described their personal appearance and the mil- itary uniform they had w^orn in the field. He wished they could be there, and take the stand, and confound their assailant. The audience had been wrought up to the highest pitch, when Williams, assuming a slow, solemn air, said, amid breathless silence : " The im- posing figures of the revered patriots rise before me ; I feel the approach of their awful presence." Lower- ing his voice and bowing his head as if listening, he continued, I hear their footsteps on the stairs. They will take the witness-box and speak for themselves." Then suddenly turning towards the stairs, and weav- ing his hand, he exclaimed, in a thrilling tone, " Make w^ay for them ! They come I They come I" The crowd around the door opened to the right and left, and the twelve jurors rose and stood on tiptoe to see two men enter the court-room who had been in their graves twenty years.
I heard this great advocate try an important cause
132
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
at Rochester as early as about 1828. The opposing counsel was Henry R. Storrs of Oneida, who was rap- idly advancing to the front rank of the profession. It was a contest between giants. Each possessed rare oratorical gifts. Storrs was the more wary and argu- mentative ; Williams, the more extravagant and im- passioned.
Anecdotes of minor lawyers illustrate the vicis- situdes of the profession quite as well as elaborate sketches of its eminent members. When I was clerk of the courts in Rochester, Selleck Boughton was one of the queerest practitioners at the Monroe bar. He had been a constable, was turning gray, dressed like a scullion, weighed about one hundred pounds, chewed a whole paper of tobacco at once, had studied law in a narrow sphere, wielded a sharp metaphysical mind, and would stand and split hairs from morning till night. A fellow was indicted for trespassing on lands, and Boughton defended him. Of course the title to the lands was in question. Jesse Hawle}", an old citi- zen of Rochester, was a surveyor of high repute, and had run the lines of most of the tracts in that region. Even before De Witt Clinton had fully conceived the idea, Mr. Hawley wrote a series of articles in a Can- andaigua newspaper in sui)port of the feasibility of constructing a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. He was a witness for the prosecution on the trial I have mentioned, and his testimony pressed hard on the defendant. Boughton objected to every question put to Hawley by the district attorney, and argued each objection at an interminable length, Hawlej^ meanwhile resting. There was plenty of
BOUGHTOX. — HAWLEY. — LEE. 133
quaint humor in Hawley's mental composition. Dur- ing one of Boughton's speeches the badgered witness slid into a seat by me. At the Day of Judgment," said he, " I intend to get my case put on the calendar right below Selleck Boughton's. I shall never be placed in peril, for when he is on trial he will stand and object to all eternity."
Charles M. Lee, who figured at the Eochester bar at the same time with Boughton, exhibited a vocif- erous st3^1e of oratory that made a deep impression upon bucolic jurors from the rural towns. A revolu- tionary soldier was indicted for passing counterfeit money. He had followed General ^* Mad " Anthony Wayne up the craggy steep of Stony Point, on the Hudson, in the dark night of July IG, 1779. when that fortress was carried by storm. Lee defended the silver-haired veteran on his trial. The evidence against him was clear, and there was not a shadow of doubt of his guilt. Lee summed up the case with rare ve- hemence, graphically described the bloody attack on Stony Point, and with tears dripping down his cheeks implored the jury to acquit the old soldier. So plain was the case for the people that the district attorney spoke barely ten minutes. It was not then known that the father of the foreman of the jury, had stood shoulder to shoulder with the defendant in the peril- ous night when Wayne captured the British strong- hold. The jury were out an hour. When they re- turned the clerk said, Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict ?" " We have," replied the foreman. Do you find the prisoner at the bar guil- ty, or not guilty ?" jS'ot guilty, because he helped to storm Stony Point I" shouted the foreman.
134
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
In those early days justice in that portion of the country was sometimes administered with a rough hand. John Gritlin was First Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County, then a rude fron- tier settlement. In size and manner he was a proto- type of Abraham Lincoln. He dressed shabbily, was a good lawyer, and carried a clear head on his shoul- ders. I was summoned to Judge Griffin's court as a witness, with some records from the Monroe Clerk's Office, in a case where certified copies would not an- swer the purpose. One of the counsel was a loqua- cious young limb of the law, of small stature, from another county, who dressed like a dude of the pres- ent era. He raised objections at every step in the trial, which the grim judge invariably overruled, whereupon the pert attorney would keep on arguing, and w^ind up by expressing his regret for feeling com- pelled to differ with his honor. The judge endured this for about the tenth time, Avhen, at the close of an unusually ridiculous episode. Griffin asked the dandy if he was through talking on that point. He said he was. Sit down, then, and shut your mouth, you
little d d fool!" responded the judge, in a loud
voice, and with a blow on the bench that made the lawyer's head swim.
I hardly dare lift m}^ pen in an attempt to outline the commanding figure of Alvan Stewart as a law- yer, for my personal knowledge of his marvellous victories in a field where he shone conspicuously as a leader for a quarter of a century, was quite lim- ited. Moreover, his participation in the Anti-slaver}' conflict, when I was fighting by his side, naturally
ALVAN STEWART — ALBANY LAWYERS. 135
tended to eclipse in my eye his earlier fame at the bar. I knew enough of him, however, to say that he was an unusually well-read lawyer, had studied the profession as a science, and in some lines of the prac- tice, especially before juries, he had no superior in central Xew Yoi-k. His quaint humor was equal to his profound learning. He was skilled in a peculiar and indescribable kind of argumqntation, wit, and sar- casm that made him remarkably successful in laugh- ing a case out of court f and lu,cky would it be for the opposing counsel if he did not have to go out with his case. Even to the present day the dozen counties around Otsego and Oneida are fertile in traditions of the forensic triumphs of Mr. Stewart in every depart- ment of the law. I never saw this extraordinary man try an action in court, but before xVnti-slavery con- ventions in several states I heard him argue grave and intricate constitutional questions with consum- mate ability.
Though Albany has always been the judicial centre of the state, it Avas more exclusively such prior to the Constitution of 1846 than it has since been. Even for a considerable time after the adoption of that in- strument it continued to be the chief seat of this de- partment of the government. This kept in practice at Albany, during the lirst sixty years of the present century, a body of lawyers who had no superiors at the Xew York bar. Whoever looks through the re- ports of Johnson, Cowen, Wendell, Hill, Denio, and some of the later authors, will find them liberally sprinkled with the names of Albany lawyers that ap- peared as counsel in the cases. For the latter half of
136
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
this period I knew many of these lawyers, and some of them intimatel^^ I heard before courts and juries the foremost in this long procession of learned and eloquent advocates, from Abraham Van Yechten to Nicholas Hill. There is space to refer to only a few of them.
In the later stages of tliis cycle one of the ablest law firms in Albany was composed of Nicholas Hill, John K. Porter, and Peter Cagger. They did a busi- ness so extensive that it brought them in contact with the profession all over the state. Hill had been trained in the office of Eseck Cowen, at Saratoga Springs. Cowen certainly had the largest law library in the state, and probably in the Union. I think it was Hill who told me that Cowen possessed a copy of every laAv book issued by an American author (Statutes not included) except one, and that he had ransacked the country to find the missing work. Af- ter Judge Cowen left the Supreme Bench Hill brought a liberal selection of his books to Albany.
Nicholas Hill was one of the most profound and successful counsellors that ever appeared before the court m lanco in New York. The members of its highest tribunal had entire respect for his opinions. He was the embodiment of lucid logic, though per- haps rather too refined in his methods of reasoning for the comprehension of minds of ordinary mould. Mr. Porter was an ornate orator, as smooth as oil in his diction, picturesque and dramatic at times, and wielded great sway over juries, whether summoned from the Capitoline precincts or the Helderberg hills. Mr. Cagger, his veins pulsating v.-ith the warmest
HILL, PORTER, & CAGGER.
137
Celtic blood, went oli in the court-room like a hair- trigger on the duelling-ground. An attorney who hoped to circumvent Cagger's moving affidavits on a motion at Chambei^ needed a keen eye, a sharp ])en, and a facile client.
Everybody in Albany knew llill, Porter, and Cag- ger, at least by sight. At the time of the occurrence which I am now to describe their offices were on the second lloor of a building in State Street. In the room above was a photographer's establishment. Specimens of the artist's work were displayed at the foot of the wide stairs by the sidewalk — the stairs that led up to the law-offices. As a captivating ad- vertisement of his vocation (then quite new) the pho- tographer hung up a large plate in the vestibule con- taining admirable likenesses of Plill, Porter, and Cag- ger, the two former sitting in chairs, and the latter standing behind them with a hand on the shoulder of each. The picture was so perfect, and the counte- nances of the three so characteristic, that their friends laughed to look at it. The famous novel of Warren, the English barrister, entitled Ten Thousand a Year,*' wherein are depicted the arts, the loquacities, and the rascalities of the law-firm of Quirk, Gammon, & Snap," was then in the hands of everybody that read novels. Many American lawyers that rarely looked into works of fiction were laughing and crying over '* Ten Thousand a Year," alternatel}" sneering at the metaphysical blockhead Quirk, detesting the oily hyp- ocrite Gammon, and despising the sharp rogue Snap. One night a wag procured a printed label containing the words Quirk, Gammon, & Snap," and slipped
138
EANDOM RECOLLECTIOXS.
it into the picture that bore the familiar Hkenesses of Hill, Porter, and Cagger. The next morning the three law3'ers (taking an old friend along) reached the en- trance to their offices in company. An amused crowd cumbered the side^yalk. The lawyers pushed tlirough. Cagger's eye fell on the label. He exploded with an- ger. ^' It was an outrage ! A detective should ferret out the perpetrator, and he should be criminally pros- ecuted for libel ! The photographer must instantly throw the thing into the street !" Porter seemed to be meditating points in the eloquent speech he could make to a jury in a civil action for damages. Mean- while the philosophic Hill stood, Avith folded arms, looking at the picture. Soon he burst into a laugh that shook him from head to foot. " Ko !" said he, " not a bit of it ! It shall remain as it is. It is the most capital hit I ever heard of. It describes us ex- actly. It is the best advertisement we shall have in years. Let it stand."
I cannot do justice to that wittiest and most sarcas- tic of advocates, Marcus T. Eeynolds, nor to Samuel Stevens, who had few equals as a special pleader un- der the old practice, and at a later period excelled as a patent lawyer. I witnessed an amusing scene be- tween Eeynolds and Stevens before Chief-justice Sam- uel Kelson. They were arguing a motion. The pa- pers had come to each from remote country attorneys. Reynolds possessed an extraordinary measure of im- perturbable self-possession. In the hurry of the mo- ment he had scarcely glanced at his papers, and he caught a wrong idea as to the side on which he was retained. He opened, and in his terse and pointed style
KEVNOLDS. STEVENS. CADY. SPENCER. 139
was arguing effectively against his own client. Ste- vens stared at him, looked at his papers to make sure tliat he himself had not made a mistake, and then listened, and again stared at Eeynolds. The strange manner of his antagonist arrested the attention of Eeynolds just as he was about to close his o])ening, and he took a steady look at his papers, and saw that he was speaking on the wrong 'side. Without the slightest change of countenance, and with perfect coolness of manner, he said, Your honor, I have been tracing in the clearest language I can command the line of argument that my learned opponent will no doubt pursue, and I shall now proceed to show how utterly futile and untenable it is.*' He then de- livered an unusually powerful address in behalf of his own client, and left Stevens to take care of his side of the case as he pleased.
Daniel Cady appeared so often in the courts at the state capital that he might fairly be called an Alban}^ lawyer. He went to the roots of every case he tried or argued. He dealt little in rhetorical embellish- ments, but wielded a ponderous logic that ground adversaries to powder. Unless his case were utterly hopeless he always came off victor in the hand-to- hand conflicts at li'isi Prius. Joshua A. Spencer, of Utica, an accomplished advocate, whose name is sprinkled all through the reports, told me he had tried two hundred jury cases against ]\Ir. Cad}^, and that whenever he succeeded in winning a verdict from his secretive, wary adversary, he never felt sure that a mine was not to be sprung under him and engulf him, until he had obtained from the clerk a certified copy of
110
RANDOM KECOLLECTION'S.
the verdict, and the court had adjourned for the day. Mr. Stevens, of whom I have spoken, argued appeals in h:inco with an amplitude of learning and logic second only to Nicholas Hill. A suit for libel between two surgeons, wherein Cady and Stevens were counsel for the bitter belligerents, had at last reached the Court of Errors, after passing through a long series of cir- cumlocutions in the lower tribunals that covered sev- eral 3' ears. Mr. Stevens argued for the appellants, consuming a day. Mr. Cady replied, and, as my in- formant said, he took Stevens up by the collar in the first sentence, and never let his feet touch the carpet for four hours.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Law. —The Corning and Burden Spike Case. — Seward. Blatchford, and Stevens Counsel. — Reilbeu H. Walworth, Ref- eree.— Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. — Clients Ereet Federal Buildings at Buffalo and Oswego, and Sue the (rovernment. — Speaker Grow, R. E. Fenton, and William Steele Ilolmau Intervene. — Captain Cornelius Yanderbilt and the Fist Fight. — His Son, Cornelius Jeremiah, is Sued, and Blows his Brains out. — The Controversy over the Commodore's Will. — The Spencers. — John C. Spencer. — His Acute Legal Mind. — Interview with his Son, who .was Executed for Alleged Mutiny on Board T/ie Somers. — Chief -justice Ambrose Spencer. — John C. Spencer Concocts the Canal Bill of 1851.
After I removed from Boston to Seneca Falls, in 1847, I became associated in the famous suit of the Burden Company against the Corning Company of Troy and Albany, brought for an alleged violation of the patent of the former by the latter for the man- ufacture of hook-headed spikes, used for fastening T rails to ties on railroad tracks. The case had been carried on appeal to the Supreme Court at Washing- ton, which had given a decision in favor of the plain- tiffs, and had issued the usual order to the Circuit Court in Kew York to enter final judgment for the plaintiffs, and then send it to a master, to take an account of the damages and fix the amount thereof. Lawyers will understand this line of proceedings.
The case had been a long time reaching this point. Samuel Stevens, my associate, was leading counsel
142
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
for the plaintiffs, and Governor SeAvard for the de- fendants, with whom was Samuel Blatchford. We tried in vain for a good while to agree upon some one to take the account. Judge Samuel Kelson, of the Supreme Court, finally referred the matter to ex- Chancellor Walworth. And now commenced a series of interminable delays, which threw Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, of Bleak House fame, quite into the shade. Burden, an ardent man, believed the proceedings would be closed in three months, and that, as the de- fendants had made an enormous amount of spikes, the plaintiffs v»'ould be awarded at least §250,000 damages. Alas! Burden had not carefully studied Jarndyce or "Walworth.
The case went on, it stood still, it went on, it stood still, till all the original counsel were frozen out of it or had died. But the tough ex-chancellor, who was drawing heavy fees as he went along, was like Jefferson's Federahst office-holders — he neither died nor resigned. And so the years rolled away till the constantly accumulating testimony reached tens of thousands of folios, and being put in print from time to time filled many great volumes. An incident or two will illustrate the mode of taking evidence. The ex-chancellor held the reference in his office in Sara- toga, where all the witnesses appeared. One witness came from Troy, and Avas sworn. At Saratoga he became acquainted Avith a young lady, married her, and was a father before he left the stand. Another v/itness was sworn. Burden saAV him avcII under way, and then sailed for Europe to take out certain pat- ents in foreign countries. He travelled extensively
REUBEN TTYDF. \VAL->VORTH.
143
for this purpose in Great Britain and on the Conti- nent, and after an absence of several months he re- turned and found the same witness still testifying. These facts will serve as specimens. After wasting years on the case, Walworth decided that the plain- tiffs were not entitled to recover any damages what- ever. An appeal was taken from this decision, and what then became of the matter I do not know.
Walworth for nineteen years occupied the seat which James Kent had adorned. • He was a night- mare on the jurisprudence of Xew York. One of the moving causes for the adoption of the Constitution of 1846 was to rid the state of the Court of Chancery and of Eeiiben Hyde Walworth as Chancellor.
Clients of mine erected for the federal govern- ment at Buffalo and Oswego buildings for post-offices, custom-houses, and other purposes. In 1855-56 I brought suit for damages in the Court of Claims for violation of our contracts. The government fought desperately, and the conflict was long and weary. The court awarded my clients $36,000. I took the case to Congress, which increased the award to about 880,000. This teas the only case in which Congress ever increased an aicard of that court. The amount we ob- tained was fair and just. The government, without the slightest regard to the merits of the case, first threw the weight of its influence against us in the court, and then in both the Senate and the House. My success in Congress was mainly owing to Eeuben E. Fenton, William S. Holman, and Speaker Galusha A. Grow, while I received valuable aid from Senator Daniel Clark, of Xew Hampshire.
144
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
In the summer of 1838 or 1839 I took passage at New York on a Yanderbilt steamboat plying through Long Ishmd Sound. A Southern gentleman with a colored chattel and a large trunk in his train violated the rules by putting the trank in his stateroom. Soon after passing Hell Gate the deckmaster pulled the trunk out. A scuffle ensued, and the Southerner seized the deckmaster by the collar, the negro lower- ing darkly in a corner as a reserved corps. A crowd of passengers were spectators of this sharp tussle, in which the Yanderbilt forces were getting worsted. Suddenly a well-knit man dashed into the ring with a battle-cry that sounded exactly like swearing. In an instant his coat was olf and his fists doubled. Just at this point the colored contingent wheeled into line. The new-comer dealt a blow that set the ne- gro spinning, and then moved at double-quick on the Southerner's works. Tlie affair was rapidly ap- proaching the precincts of a rough-and-tumble fight between the four combatants when the passengers in- tervened and proposed an adjournment. The motion was carried. The trunk remained outside the state- room, and the other chattel retired to repair his nose. This was the first time I ever saw Captain CorneUus Yanderbilt.
About forty years after this I was retained to col- lect for a client a just debt of $10,000 from Cornelius Jeremiah Yanderbilt, a son of the commodore, which liad somehow become mixed in tlie contest over the commodore's estate. Patient negotiations having failed to secure a settlement, I brought suit against C. J. Yanderbilt to recover the debt. The summons was
THE VANDEKBILTS. THE SPENCEKS. 145
served in the morning, and in the evening of the same day he blew his brains out. Poor Cornelius ! He had generous qualities, and in mien and manners was a closer copy of his father than Avere any of the other children. The effort to collect this debt brought me unwillingly into the possession of a mass of so- called facts concerning the famous controversy about the commodore's will, some of which were true and some of which Avere false. They abounded in the dramatic, and contained materials -for more than one tragedy, comedy, and novel. I shall not soil these pages Avith any of this scandalous matter. The fam- ily fight of these coarse-grained people over the old commodore's dead body AA^as one of the most unsavory in the annals of American litigation. Four of the conspicuous characters in that conflict have since gone to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns. It required all the learning, skill, and forbearance of Mr. Surrogate Calvin to hold the scales of justice Avith an even hand among the fierce combatants.
In January, 1841, on my return from Europe, I Avas on the Avay to Rochester. One of my chance travel- ling companions Avas a son of John C. Spencer. We stopped overnight at GeneA^a, and Spencer brought down from Hobart College his younger brother for an evening call. He Avas a student at Hobart. His manner Avas easy, and his conversation unusually in- teresting for one so young. This Avas the youth who Avas put to death by Captain Alexander Slidell Mac- kenzie, in December, 1842, for an alleged mutiny at sea on board The Somers. I have ahvays thought
U6
EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
that his fate was cruel and unjust. Mackenzie was the brother of the notorious Senator, John Shdell. The elder of the Spencer brothers told cock-and-bull sto- ries of a recent trip to England as bearer of Federal despatches, and his possession of the laAv library of his grandfather, Ambrose Spencer, with notes on the margins of the volumes by the famous chief -just ice, all of which I subsequently learned was a draft on the imagination.
John C. Spencer was for a long period one of the heads of the bar in Avestern New York. I first heard him at Eochester, in 1829-30, when he was special counsel for the state in the prosecution of the Anti- masonic cases. He was a wary and dangerous adver- sary in the trial of actions that involved nice legal distinctions, and where falsehood was curiously inter- twined with truth. His clear head and plastic hand had much to do in the revision of the New York Stat- utes. Gerrit Smith told me that pretty much all he learned when a wild young man, during the short time he was in Spencer's office as a law student, was a method of blotting out writing so skilfully that what was obliterated could by no possibility be ascertained.
It was the acute mind of Mr. Spencer which de- vised that cunning evasion of the Constitution of New York known as the Canal Bill of 1851. The long struggle over this measure in the legislature and the courts will be referred to in another place. Mr. Spen- cer's versatile talents Avere always in request by his party. He held more offices than any citizen of New York, except perhaps Martin Yan Buren and John A. Di:^.
SONS IN THE PROFESSION.
147
I close the cha])ters on Law and Lawyers by re- marking that I have shown my regard for the pro- fession by inducting four of my sons into its intrica- cies. Daniel Cady Stanton was for one year a super- visor of registration, and for two years a member of the legislature of Louisiana, in the turbulent era of reconstruction. Henry Stanton, a graduate of the law school of Columbia College, is now the official attorney of the ISTorthern Pacific Eailway Company. Gerrit Smith Stanton and Kobert* Livingston Stanton are also graduates of the Columbia School. The for- mer cultivates the soil, and dispenses the law in Iowa. The latter practises his profession in the city of New York. The reader who peruses the miscellaneous matter that is to follow will discover that much of it relates to lawyers.
CHAPTER XVIL
Dr. Samuel B. Woodward and Senator Albert H. Tracy.— CiOse Resemblance to Washington and Jefferson. — Webster and the Conscience Whigs in Faueuil Hall in 1846. — Crittenden on Clay and Webster. — Clay before the Supreme Court. — Mrs. James Madison. — John Sargeant. — Chief-justice Taney. — Clay in the Senate.— A Galaxy of Talents.— " Biddle and the Bank." —The Sub-Treasury Question.— Clay's Speech in New York. — His Personal ]\[aguetism. — His Funeral Pageant.— A Cluster of Political Rivals. — George P. Barker. — Sanford E. Church. — Church in the New York Assembly in 1842.— Hoffman, Dix, Seymour, and other Members. — Church makes Barker Attorney- General. — Anecdote of Church and James W. Nye at the Buf- falo Convention in 1848.
It is natural to desire to see distinguished persons ; and next to seeing the very individuals is the privi- lege of conversing with their doubles. Who does not wish that he could behold two men who look and talk as Washington and Jefferson did ? I boarded for some months in Boston at the United States Hotel. Whenever he visited the city, Dr. Samuel B. Wood- ward, Principal of the Insane Asylum at Worcester, dined at that hotel. As he waliced erect and majes- tic through the long room to the head of the table, every knife and fork rested, and all eyes centred on him. He received similar notice when appearing as an expert witness in the courts. The reason was this : Young men Avho saw George AVasliington after he passed middle life traced tlie very close resemblance
DR. WOODWARD. — SENATOR TRACE Y. 149
between him and Dr. Woodward. Aware of the cause, the doctor was flattered by these attentions. Forty-five years ago, I spent a long evening at Buf- falo in the company of Albert H. Tracey, who had previously been prominent in Congress and the State Senate. In the latter body he often pronounced the guiding decision of the old Court of Errors. In mien, size, bearing, visage, and conversation, he was the counterpart of Thomas Jefferson wdien about the same age. Mr. Tracy was fully conscious of this like- ness between him and the author of the Declaration of Independence.
The AYhig State Convention of Massachusetts met in the fall of 1846, at Faneuil Hall. It was during the Mexican war. The Whig party in that state had long been seconding the Presidential aspirations of Mr. Webster. An element known as Conscience Whigs " elected several delegates to the convention, among Avhom were Stephen C. Phillips, Horace Mann, Charles Allen, and Charles Francis Adams, all good debaters and full of courage. They offered resolu- tions about the war and slavery that did not run in the Websterian grooves. In the afternoon the discus- sion waxed warm, and the revolting faction (the coun- terpart of the Xew York Barnburners) were getting the best of it in their encounter with the Conserva- tives. Charles Francis Adams (I think it was) was on the platform, throwing out short, pungent sen- tences that flew like arrows through the hall. I was a close observer of the scene fi^om the gallery, which looked down upon the rostrum, but had not noticed that two prominent Whig leaders had left an hour
150
EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
before. The convention sat with its back to the great door of the hall, around which was a crowd of spec- tators. While Adams was speaking, a clapping of hands suddenly broke out near the door, and instant- ly there emerged from the excited throng the grand form of AVebster leaning on the arms of Abbott Law- rence and Eobert C. Winthrop. A shout of " Web- ster !" went up from the floor, and three cheers bounded to the roof. The two messengers found the Great Expounder (so it was reported) at dinner. His cheek was a little flushed. Adams subsided, and Web- ster ascended the platform. His first sentence was, " I like to meet the Whigs of Massachusetts in State Convention assembled, because their proceedings al- ways breathe the spirit of Liberty." Lie hesitated a second or two before pronouncing the word " liberty," but when it came out it seemed to weigh ten pounds. It was a shot right between wind and water. He spoke briefl}^ closing substantially as follows : " In the dark and troubled night that surrounds us, I see no light by which to guide our course except in the united action of the united Whig party of the United States."
The resolutions of the Conscience Whigs were laid on the table ; but in due time the recoil came, and six years later Daniel AVebster turned his face to the wall at Marshfield, and died, because he could not ob- tain a nomination to the Presidency, while these Whigs marched onward with the procession that ul- timately saved the Union and destroyed slavery.
A dozen years or more after this event in Faneuil Hall, I happened to be one of a dinner-party in Wash-
CUITTENDEN ON CLAY AND \VEBST?:K. 151
ington where John J. Crittenden and Thomas Corwin were the shining lights. The conversation turned on Cla}^ and AVebster, both of whom were then in their graves. Mr. Crittenden said : " We all (^. the Clay AYhigs) desired to see Clay and Webster elected to the Presidency, and we felt that to accomplish this object it was necessary that Mr. Clay should come first, but we were never able to- make Webster and his personal friends see this, and therefore neither of them Avon the prize." The following anecdote Avas vouched for by competent authority. In the storni}^ days of John Tyler, while Webster was Secretary of State, and Kufus Choate Avas in the Senate, and Con- gress Avas in extra session in the fall of ISJrl, the ques- tion of chartering a United States bank Avas shaking the country. Mr. Clay, as chairman of the Finance Committee in the Senate, was pressing the measure, and Tyler Avas resisting it. A conference of leading Whig Senators Avas held. Clay, with lofty mien, Avas for Avaging relentless Avar on the accidental president, AA^ho had stepped into the White House over the dead body of General Harrison. Choate again and again told Avhat Webster thought ought to be done. Clay was restive, and exclaimed, " Who cares a d — n about what Webster thinks ?" In ISIr-I, Clay Avas the Whig candidate for President. The tariff and the annexa- tion of Texas, wherein he had conspicuously figured, Avere the leading issues of the canvass. On a mem- orable occasion in the campaign, Webster made an elaborate speech, but never once mentioned Clay's name. It must have severely taxed his ingenuity to avoid it.
152
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
These are fair illustrations of the relations in which these eminent statesmen stood towards each other dur- ing the last ten years of their lives.
I went to Washington in February, 1848, to attend to business in the Supreme Court. I heard Mr. Clay argue a case. For two hours his sonorous voice pealed through the corridors, and dehghted a great throng. Mrs. James Madison sat by his side. The venerable lady, who was dressed quite young for her years, was gallantly complimented by Mr. Clay, and seemed as proud of the orator as she was thirty -six years before, w^hen he championed the administration of her emi- nent husband in Congress during the war with Eng- land. The counsel that argued the other side of the case was John Sergeant of Philadelphia, who had confronted Clay in Congress in the Missouri contro- versy, but had been on the ticket with him as Whig candidate for the Yice-Presidency in 1832. It was an interesting group of celebrated historical characters, especially when we include Chief-justice Taney, the Secretary of the Treasur}^ that removed the deposits, whom Clay had denounced in the Senate as one of the great scoundrels of the century.
The first time I saw Mr. Clay was in the Senate in the winter of 1838, when he spoke for a few minutes. His manner Avas easy and graceful, but imperious and commanding. The Senate then shone with excep- tional lustre. In the front rank towered Clay, Web- ster, Calhoun, Benton, Buchanan, and Wright. Next to them stood such statesmen and orators as Critten- den, Southard, Tallmadge, liives, Preston, and Clay- ton. Even distinguished men like King of Alabama,
HENRY CLAY AS AX ORATOR.
15e3
Frank Pierce, Grundy, Eobert J. AValker, Allen of Ohio, and Hugh L. White felt honored by being as- signed to the third class. The conflict between re- chartering the United States Bank and establishing the Sub-treasury was then at its height, and Clay and Webster predicted a revolution if the latter prevailed over the former. But they lived years after the mar- ble building in Philadelphia, where the bank so long kept watch and ward, was quietly converted into a sub-treasury. If the ghost of Nick Biddle ever re- visits the glimpses of the moon, it must be shocked as it glides up Chestnut Street, and sees the base uses" to which the fine old Grecian edifice is put.
In the summer of 1S39 I heard Mr. Clay deliver an elaborate speech on the Bank and Sub-treasury ques- tion from an open barouche, at the steps of the Xew York City Hall. He had been conducted by a long cavalcade of horsemen from the banks of the Hudson, and he was now surrounded by an immense concourse. I stood at the junction of Broadway and Park Kow. His voice rang out so loud and clear that his words were distinctly reverberated from the wall of the Astor House. He was then putting in his bid for the next Presidential nomination. But, though their great- est leader, the Whigs declined to run him in the cam- paigns of 1840 and then in 1848, when he could certainly have been successful. Soon after the disas- trous contest of 1844, in a short, humorous speech he accounted for his failure. He said some of his opponents were like those of Tom Brown's Doctor Fell:
KANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
" I do not love you, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this alone I know full well— I do not love you, Doctor Fell."
He was looking forward to a nomination in 1848. I Avatcbed him with interest as he lingered in the Senate Chamber and Supreme Court, surrounded by admirers over whom the sway of his personal mag- netism Yvas as irresistible as that of Napoleon over his Old Guard.
One summer evening, in 1852, 1 arrived at the Del- evan House, in Albany, retired to rest, and Avas soon fast asleep. By and by the strains of martial music floating on the midnight air awoke me, and called me to the open vrindow. It was a band playing the Dead March in Saul at the head of a procession that had just taken the remains of the great Kentuckian from a steamer on the Hudson, and was escorting them to the train that was to bear them to their final resting- place at the AYest.
Rivalries of the type displayed by Clay and Web- ster have been common among leaders of parties, and have often torn them in pieces, as, for instance, those of Jackson and Calhoun ; Yan Buren and Cass ; Ben- ton and Atchison ; Marcy and Wright ; Buchanan and Dickinson ; Ritchie and Blair ; Cass and Doug- las; John Yan Buren and Seymour; Seward and Chase ; Weed and Greeley ; Wade and Chase ; Gree- ley and Raymond ; Dix and Tilden ; Conkling and Fenton ; Hendricks and McDonald ; Cameron and Grow; Thurman and Payne; Blaine and Conkling.
The glass shows many more. Let no one comi)lain
GEORGE P. BARKEK. — SA>'FORD E. CHURCH. 155
that his name is omitted. If all were included, the line Avould stretch out till the crack of doom.
This class of politicians are wont to make chasms in parties through which they themselves often drop, and disappear forever.
In the fall of 18-il I was in Buffalo at a Democratic meeting addressed by George P. Barker, who had won a reputation for a style of oratory like that ascribed to John Van Buren. Tall, graceful, with a kindling eye and clarion voice. Barker s speech swept the au- dience along like an overflowing river. The annexa- tion of Texas vras beginning to loom threateningly upon the horizon. The Democracy generally were favoring the scheme. Barker was suspected of un- soundness on this question. A few '\Vhigs had gone in with the throng. One of them, in the hope of an- noying Barker, who was dashing forward in his usual brilliant manner, cried out. '* Are you in favor of an- nexing Texas to strengthen the slave power of the country T' Turning to his questioner, but not paus- ing in his speech. Barker tlirew in the reply, as if it were a parenthesis, " All the world for freedom ; Salt Eiver for the "Whigs." This sally silenced the Whig, and drew cheers from the Democrats.
In the following January I was introduced to San- ford E. Church, then the youngest member of the As- sembly of 1842, where appeared such leaders as John A. Dix, Horatio Seymour, Michael Hoffman. Arpliaxad Loomis, and Peter B. Porter. I referred to the scene at Buffalo, and Church said he was going to make Barker attorney-general ; and he did, and the worthy predecessor of John Yan Buren he was.
156
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Mr. Church was a member of the Buffalo Conven- tion of 1848. Dean Eichmond, James S. Wadsworth, James W. ]^ye, and I were taking a lunch, when Church came in, dripping Avith perspiration, and said there was a great clamor in the convention, some calling upon Charles Francis Adams for a speech, and others shouting for Frederick Douglass. " ^S'ye," said Church, " it is a contest between a Whig and a negro, and they have agreed to compromise on you. Will you go over?" This tickled K^ye's fancy, and he went to the tent under which the conventioti sat and made one of his witty speeches, that restored the SAveltering assembly to good-humor. Mr. Church rose steadily in favor when twice lieutenant-governor and as comptroller and chief judge of the Court of Ap- peals. He was not a genius, knew little of general literature, but brimmed all over with sagacity and common-sense.
CHAPTER XVni.
Democratic National Convention of 1844. — Van Buren, Polk, and Cass. — Polk Nominated for President.— Wright Nominated for Vice-President. — He Declines.— First Use of the Morse Tele- graph.— Polk's Duplicity in Forming his Cabinet. — Marcy, Sec- retary of War. — The Barnburners Angry.— Death of John Quin- cy Adams. — The Barnburner Revolt of 1847-48. — "The Assas- sins of Silas Wright." — List of Barnburners and Hunkers. — Utica Convention of 1848. — Young, Cambreling, and Tilden Pres- ent.— Cass and Taylor Rival Candidates for President. — Con- vention at Buffalo in 1848.— B. F. Butler's Speech.— "D—n his Turnips!" — Van Buren Nominated for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. — The Barnburner Revolt Defeats Cass and Elects Taylor. — Reunion of the New York Democracy in 1849. — The Election and its Results.
Me. Yan Bukex having been beaten in 184:0 on the sub-treasury and cognate issues, the great body of the Democrats beheved that he ought to be renominated in 184:4. He had a majority of the delegates in the INational Convention of the latter year; but an in- trigue, in which General Cass was the central figure, sprung on him the two-thirds rule, and defeated his nomination. To prevent Cass or any of the other in- triguers from getting it, the friends of Yan Buren (who had previously conferred with James K. Polk about putting him on the ticket for Yice-President) now changed front in the convention, and nominated Polk for President. It is interesting to remember that Silas Wright was nominated for Yice-President.
153
RANDOM RECOLLECTIOXS.
but instantly declined, and that the messages which passed between the convention at Baltimore and Wright at Washington on this subject were the first ever sent over the Morse telegraph. Polk owed his candidacy to the Barnburners, and expressed grati- tude to them for it. To enable him to carry Xew York at the election, Wright, then a leader in the Senate, consented to run for governor. The prize having been won, and Henry Clay beaten by the loss of Xew York, Polk now turned traitor to the men who had made him President. Wright having been chosen Governor, was out of the question for a seat in the Cabinet, but Polk hypocritically offered him the Treasury. Wright declined it, and, with the concur- rence of Mr. Tan Buren and all the leading Barnburn- ers, proposed that the representative of Xew York in the Cabinet be either Benjamin F. Butler for the State Department or Azariah C. Flagg for the Treasury. Polk whiffled, equivocated, fell into the hands of the Hunkers, and spurned the recommendation of those who had lifted him from obscurity into the Presi- dency. The Barnburners nursed their wrath to keep it vrarm," and in 1848 emptied the vials on the head of General Cass, the Hunker candidate for President, and opened the breach in the party that was never closed till slavery was overthrovrn.
In the chilly morning of February 21, 1848, I met Mr. John Quincy Adams by the fireplace in the rear of the Speaker's chair in the House of Pepresenta- tives. He had walked, as was his wont, to the Capi- tol. As he shook my hand, he trembled with cold. He took his usual seat. Some fulsome resolutions
DEATH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
159
eulogizing General Taylor, who was looming as a pos- sible Presidential candidate, were the first business. They created an uproar. Forty members were shout- ing to the Speaker. Mr. Speaker E. C. TTinthrop was vigorously plying his gavel. My eye fell upon Mr. xVdams. His hand was nervously creeping up his desk as if he were trying to rise. I thought he was about to take part in the din that filled the hall. But instantly I saw the pallor of death on his cheek. ITis hand dropped by his side, and he slowly inclined over the arm of his chair. I spoke to Washington Hunt, a member, and subsequently Governor of Xew York : " Look to Mr. Adams, he is falling in his chair." He rushed towards him. A call for help arrested the at- tention of the House. It became silent as the grave. The aged patriot was borne to the Speaker's room, never to leave it alive. Sage of Quincy ! He had fought a good fight for the liberty of the Press, Free- dom of Speech, and the Eight of Petition. He fell in the plenitude of his fame, on the theatre of his grandest achievements, with the roar of battle sound- ing in his valiant ear.
In the fall of 1847 I was a spectator at the Demo- cratic State Convention of that year, held in Syracuse. The convention tore itself asunder in a desperate struggle over the renomination of xlzariah C. Flagg as comptroller, the defeat of Martin Tan Buren at the Baltimore Convention of 184:4:, the political assas- sination of Silas Wright when running for governor the second time in 184:6, and the attempt to incor- porate the Wilmot Proviso into the platform of the party. The great chiefs of both facticns were on the
160
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ground, and never was there a more fierce, bitter, and relentless conflict between the Narragansetts and the Pequods than this memorable contest between the Barnburners and the Hunkers. Mr. AVright was the idol of the Barnburners, He had died that summer. James S. AVadsworth voiced the sentiments of his fol- lowers. In the convention some one spoke of doing justice to Silas Wright. A Hunker sneeringlj re- sponded, It is too late ; he is dead." Springing upon a table, Wadsworth made the hall ring as he uttered the defiant reply : " Though it may be too late to do justice to Silas Wright, it is not too late to do justice to his assassins." The Hunkers laid the Wilmot Proviso on the table, but the Barnburners punished them at the election.
The Barnburners were the Girondists of the De- mocracy. Listen to a sample of names : Martin Yan Buren, Silas Wright, B. F. Butler, Churchill C. Cam- breling, Michael Hoffman, Dean Richmond, John Yan Buren, Samuel J. Tilden, David Dudley Field, Addison Gardiner, A. C. Flagg, Samuel Young, G. P. Barker, Nicholas Hill, San ford E. Church, John A. Dix, Wilham Cullen Bryant, Preston King, James S. Wadsworth, Arphaxad Loomis, J. W. Nye, Will- iam Cassidy, Andrew H. Green, Abijah Mann, John Bigelow, Thomas B. Carroll, Reuben E. Fenton, and Charles J. Folger. A slight acquaintance with the politics of New York sulfices to show that these were men of mark.
In the stormy epoch of 1847-48 the Hunkers were ably led by William L. Marcy, Daniel S. Dickinson, Edwin Croswell, Horatio Seymour, Charles O'Conor,
THE WILMOT PKOVISO.
101
Keuben TI. Walworth, Samuel Beardsley, and Will- iam C. Bouck.
The Syracuse Convention of 1847 had divided the Xew York Democrats into two bitter factions. The convention for nominating the national ticket was to meet at Baltimore in May, 1848. Each faction ap- pointed full delegations, each claiming to be regular. In 1848 the Democratic legislative caucus, at Albany, issued an address to the country, defending the regu- larity of the Barnburner delegates, and presenting with consummate ability the Free-soil side of the slavery controversy. It is now known that this ad- dress was the joint production of Martin Yan Buren, Samuel J. Tilden, and John Yan Buren. After an acrimonious contest at Baltimore the convention re- fused to admit the Barnburners as the sole delegates, but would allow half of them and an equal number of Hunkers to represent the state ; or, as I happened to put it in a speech at a meeting soon afterwards in Albany, which tickled Js'icholas Hill, the chairman, " The regular delegates might occupy half a seat apiece, provided each of them would let a Hunker sit on his lap." The Barnburners declined to enter on these conditions. General Cass was then nomi- nated for President,, and the Free-soil Democracy re- solved to defeat him.
The proceedings at Baltimore set the Free-soil baU a-rolling, and enthusiastic meetings were held all over New York. A tumultuous assemblage in the City Hall Park was addressed by John Yan Buren and Churchill C. Cambreling, the latter declaring, in sono- rous tones, that " slaver}^ had received its death sen-
162
EAXDOM KECOLLECTIOXS.
tence/' A Democratic state convention met at Utica in June. A large representation of the most distinguished Democrats of Xew York vras present, and the veteran Samuel Young took the chair. He delivered a vehe- ment speech, in which he said, " A clap of political thunder vrill be heard in this country next November that will make the propagandists of slavery shake like Belshazzar." Utterances like these from Demo- crats of such eminence as Cambreling and Young re- verberated all over the Union, giving slavery a blow from which it never recovered. Mr. Tilden made an able report respecting the proceedings at Baltimore, and Martin Van Buren addressed a noble letter to the convention, vindicating the constitutionality and wis- dom of the AYilmot Proviso. The convention nom- inated him for President. The Free-soil stream soon broke over the Barnburner dj^kes, and the result was the famous gathering in August at the Queen City of the Lakes.
The nomination of General Cass for the Presidency by the Democrats and General Taylor by the "Whigs led to the Buffalo Convention of 1848. The Barn- burners had opposed Cass in vain at the Baltimore Convention. They had made the Monumental City lurid with their wrath, frightening the delegates from the back states almost out of tlieir wits. At Buffalo I was one of the committee that drafted its Free-soil platform. It was a motley assembly. Pro-slavery Democrats were there to avenge the wrongs of Mar- tin Van Buren. Free-soil Democrats were there to punish the assassins of Silas Wright. Pro-slavery Whigs were there to strike down General Taylor be-
THE BUFFALO CONVKNTION.
163
cause he had dethroned their idol, Ilenrj^ Clay, in the Philadelphia Convention. Anti-slavery AYhigs were there, breathing the spirit of the departed John Quin- cy Adams. xYbolitionists of all shades of opinion were present, from the darkest type to those of a milder hue, who shared the views of Salmon P. Chase. An immense tent was raised on the court-house square for the accommodation of the convention, where the crowds were regaled with speeches and music. Its real business was conducted by delegates locked in a Baptist church close at hand. There was a rooted prejudice against Mr. Van Buren among the Whigs and Abolitionists. But the adroit eloquence of his former law partner, Benjamin F. Butler, of Albany, and an admirable Free-soil letter from the Sage of Linden wald himself, carried him through, and he vras nominated for President, vrith Charles Francis Ad- ams for Vice-President.
A rather amusing illustration of this prejudice oc- curred while Mr. Butler was speaking. It will be re- membered that, in his inaugural address as President, Mr. Tan Buren pledged himself to veto any bill passed by Congress for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- trict of Columbia miless the m.easure was sanctioned by the states of Virginia and Mar^^land. This pledge gave great umbrage to Anti-slavery men of all types, and, though eleven eventful yeai^ had since elapsed when the Buffalo Convention was held, the hostihty to Van Buren on account of this old pledge remained unshaken in many minds. In his speech Butler was getting around thorny points in Van Buren's career ver}' skilfully. While graphically describing a recent
164
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
visit to the ex-Presiclent's Kinderhook farm, and tell- ing hoAV he Avas now absorbed in bucolic pursuits, like Cincinnatus, the model yeoman of his epoch, Butler spoke of the agility with which Yan Buren leaped a fence to show his visitor a field of sprouting turnips. A Whig in the convention, who remembered the veto pledge, and was utterly opposed to nominating its author, broke in upon Butler with the startling ex- clamation, " D — n his turnips ! What are his opin- ions about the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?" ^'I was just coming to that subject," responded the oily Barnburner, with a suave bow towards the ruffled Whig. "Well, you can't be a moment too quick in coming to it," replied the cap- tious interlocutor. But, as I have already stated, the frank letter of Mr. Yan Buren carried him triumph- antly over the breakers.
The revolt of the Xew York Barnburners gave the thirty-six electoral votes of the state to General Tay- lor, which Avas his precise majority in the Union.
Some Barnburners have said that the Democratic revolt of 1847-48 was the beginning of the Free- soil movement. This is an error. It is mistaking the rocky cataracts over which the stream fell for the remote fountains whence it rose. The revolt gave a mighty imjmlse to the current, but did not originate it. Even long before Garrison appeared it had broken forth in the Missouri controversy of 1819-20. Whoever reads the speeches of James Tallmadge, John W. Taylor, and Eufus King in Congress in that troubled period will find that they were as sound in doctrine, as strong in argument, as splendid in diction,
BAKNEUKNEKS AND HUNKERS. — JOHN VAN BUREN. 1G5
as any of the utterances of the folloAving forty-five years, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Con- stitution closed the controversy for all time.
In 1840 the Barnburners and Hunkers held sepa- rate state conventions at Kome to try to reunite the party. The leaders of each faction Avere present, and committees of conference exchanged opinions. A res- olution offered by me to adhere to the AVilmot Pro- viso was adopted. AVe split on that rock, and the conventions adjourned. A pressure from the rank and file brought them together again, when a frail coalition was effected. John Van Buren described it, in his graphic style : '* AVe are asked to compromise our principles," said he. The day of compromise is past; but, in regard to candidates for state offices, we are still a commercial people. We will unite with our late antagonists," he added. Then, paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence, he said: "And we will hold them as we hold the rest of mankind — ene- mies in war, in peace friends." This effort to com- bine inconfjruous elements failed. A mixed ticket for the five state candidates was nominated. AVitli one exception they were all defeated at the ballot-boxes. This device, so frequently employed by leaders of par- ties for closing chasms in their ranks when fundamen- tal principles are involved, is rarely successful. The history of political coalitions proves this.
CHAPTER XTX.
The Author Elected to the Xew York Senate in 1849.— The Canal Bill. — Twelve Senators Resign to Defeat it. — Re-elected in 1851. — The Bill Passes. — The Court of Appeals Pronounce it Uncon- stitutional.— The Author's Seat Contested.— Dinner at the Astor House. — Speech of Seward and another. — Thurlow "Weed. — The Midnight Call.— The Contest Squelched.— Weed's Hand in it. — ^Members and Measures in the Senate. — Hamilton Fish Elected United States Senator. — James "W. Beekman Bolts Fish. —Notices of Hoffman, Loomis, Sej'mour, Dix, Van Buren, Marcy, and Dickinson. — John Van Buren and the Apple-woman; his Ill-health; the AYater-cure Establishment; his Death at Sea.
I WAS elected to the State Senate in 1849, and took my seat in 1850. I was there during the agitation over the compromise measures growing out of the Mexican vrar. A great variety of resolutions Avere introduced in the legislature on those questions. "While this subject was before the Senate I drew a ver}" radical resolution, by way of amendment to a series then pending. It elicited warm debate, and was put to test on a call of the yeas and nays. It was adopted. Every Whig and every Democrat who voted for this amendment subsequently became a member of the Repubhcan ]mrty.
I will here insert two of the resolutions which I assisted to frame, and supported in speeches by my votes. One declared that ''the Federal government ought to relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence or continuance of slavery or the slave-trade,
SLAVERY AND CANAL LEGISLATION.
167
wherever it has the constitutional power over these subjects/' Another said that we feel bound to op- pose, by all constitutional means, and our Senators in Congress are hereby instructed, and our Eepresenta- tives requested, to use their best efforts to prevent, hy 2)Gsitive enactment^ v^iienever necessary, the extension of slavery over any part of our territory, however small, and by whatever pretence of compromise. These sentnnents seem commonplace to-day, but it cost a high price to utter them in- a legislative body in January, 1850, and to stand up to them before the people. All the Barnburners in the Senate voted for these resolutions, while seven of the seventeen AYhigs recorded their names against them.
The Whigs in the legislature, at the session of 1851, introduced an unprecedented bill, which appropriated many millions of money for the purpose of enlarging the canals. The Barnburners deemed it unconstitu- tional, as did Democrats generally. The bill had passed the Assembly, where the AVhigs had a large majority. To prevent the presence of the three-fifths quorum necessary to carry it in the Senate, it was thought best that twelve senators should resort to the desperate expedient of resigning their offices. The consequence was that the bill fell in the Senate.
Elections were ordered on short notice to fill the twelve vacancies, and an. extra session of the legisla- ture was called for June. The tide ran as^ainst the resigning senators, all of whom stood for re-election. Six, whose districts were far away from the canals, were successful. The other six, who lived in ca- nal districts, were overwhelmed, vrith one exception.
168
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
There were three canals, stretching forty -two miles, in the three counties of my district. There were twelve stump-speakers in the field against me, mar- shalled by Gerrit Smith. At the close of the savage fight I was re-elected by five majority. The bill was passed at the extra session. I opposed it step by step. The judiciary soon afterwards vindicated the sound- ness of the doctrines of the resigning senators. The Court of Appeals adjudged the law to be unconstitu- tional, null, and void. In this contest I was the spe- cial target of the " Canal Eing." On both occasions when I ran for the Senate, my district, on a fair test of the strength of parties, was politically opposed to me. I was at each election carried through by a large number of votes from the opposite party in my own town and several adjoining towns, and particu- larly from the poorer citizens in these towns. To be thus sustained at home in these sharp struggles, and when I had to bear up against great moneyed inter- ests and profligate legislation, I regarded as a higher compliment than to have received the degree of LL.D. from the proudest university in the country.
My opponent in the second election was Hon. Josiah B. Williams, a rich, popular, and highly respectable Whig, of Ithaca. He prepared himself with a pile of petitions and affidavits, for the purpose of contesting my seat before a body wherein his political party had a great majority. I had not armed myself with a single petition or affidavit. Tlic following facts illus- trate the tact of one or two Whig leaders who flour- ished in that era. In the winter previous to the re- signation of the twelve senators a public dinner was
TUE EKIE CANAL.
1G9
given ill Xew York city to the legislature. Mr. SeAV- ard, then in the Senate at Washington, Avas confront- ing, almost single-handed, the assaults of the slave power, in a crisis that was extremely perilous. lie attended the dinner. I Avas required to make a speech. I complimented Mr. Seward for his lidelity to the Free-soil cause in the Senate, and at the close gave a toast like this : " William H. Seward, our eminent Senator in Congress, may prosperity ever attend him." All the Whigs cheered because it t\^as Seward, and all the Barnburners because I said it. In the dead vast and middle of the night, v\'hile asleep at the Astor, Thurlow Weed came to my room, awoke me, and said that the manuscript in his hand was an imperfect re- port of my speech. lie wished me to correct it for the newspa^^ers, and be sure and supply some of the eulogies on Seward, which the reporter had omitted. I arose and spent a half hour in revising the speech, and thought no more of the small matter.
In the following June, on the first day when the new Senate assembled, Mr. Weed met me in the lobby before I entered the chamber, and, laying his hand on my shoulder, said, in substance r " Mr. Williams has collected a pile of affidavits, and. will contest your seat furiously. You recollect you made a speech in favor of Mr. Seward, at the Astor dinner last winter, and got out of bed at my request and revised it. The Whigs, at this session of the Senate, will change the committee on Privileges and Elections,' and (giving my shoulder a squeeze that made me wince), '/ thinh you like the change!'''^ The committee was
changed. The new member, whereon everything 8
170
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
hinged, had served with me in the previous Senate. He Tvas a leading Whig, of the Weed-Seward school. My contestant filed his huge heap of petitions and affidavits. The committee met. I presented two legal points, on a piece of paper about as large as my hand. The new member gave a side glance at them, craved time to examine them, and moved that the committee adjourn one week. AYilliams flour- ished his pile of documents, and protested. The mo- tion to adjourn was carried by one majority. The week came around, and the committee again met. The nevv" member assured them that he had been so busy in the Senate that he had not found leisure to look at the papers in my case, and therefore moved an adjournment for two weeks, so that he could ex- amine my two points. Mr. Williams had employed counsel, and there was a tussle over the question of adjournment. The new member again carried his motion. Meanwhile I opposed the canal bill as vig- orously as in the session previous to the resignation. When the two weeks came along there Avas no quo- rum of the committee present, nor was there at a subsequent meeting, and that was the last I heard of the attempt to unseat me.
It is proper to add that I bad not a doubt of the legality of my election, and that I never said a word on the subject to any member of the committee nor to Mr. AVeed. But I presume there vras not a fool in tlic legislature so big as to believe that Thurlow Weed's hand was not in the matter.
I was not a candidate for another nomination to Uie Senate, T pould not afford to be a member, and I
TUE STATE SENATE IN 1849.
171
had no desire to support myself on " the drippings of unclean legislation."
During my membership the presidents of the Sen- ate were Lieutenant-governors Patterson and Church. In the front rank of my colleagues stood Edwin D. Morgan, afterwards Governor and United States Sen- ator ; James M. Cook, subsequently Comptroller and Bank Superintendent ; Thomas 'B. Carroll, who be- came a Canal Appraiser, and Mayor of Troy ; George Geddes, the accomphshed civil-engineer ; William A. Dart, United States District-attorney and Consul-gen- eral to Canada ; George E. Babcock, Charles A. Mann, Clarkson Crolius, James W. Beekman, and Dr. Bran- dreth, of medical fame. We were the second senate chosen under the Constitution of ISiG. It devolved on us to pass several general statutes for giving effect to provisions of that radical instrument, especially in regard to corporations. Among an unusual number of important measures adopted were the general man- ufacturing law, the general railroad law, the general school law, and a complete revision of the then very defective code of procedure. I vras on the committee that performed this last-mentioned weary task, where- in Ave were guided by David Dudley Field, Arphaxad Loomis, John C. Spencer, and Xicholas Hill.
I have taken part in the election of five senators in Congress. One of the stormiest conflicts vre had in the legislature of 1851 was over the choice of a Sena- tor to succeed Daniel S. Dickinson. The Whigs held the State Senate by a majority of two. In the As- sembly they had a good working majority. Their caucus nominated Hamilton Fish for Senator. James
172
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
^Y. Beekman, a Whig Senator, of Xew York city, threw out the hint that he would not support Fish, because he had fallen too much under the control of Thurlow Weed. The day for electing the Senator arrived. Sixteen Whigs voted for Hamilton Fish, the fifteen Democrats voted for as many diJfferent candi- dates, so that the Fish Whigs could not double over upon them. Beekman voted for Francis Granger. There being no choice, another ballot was taken, with the same result. Thereupon I moved that the Sen- ate adjourn. The roll Avas called. The sixteen Fish Whigs voted nay, and the fifteen Democrats and Beekman voted yea — a tie. The movement was such a surprise to Lieutenant-governor Church that he for- got to give the casting vote. He w^as hurrying down the steps, with the gavel in his hand, when somebody pushed him back to the chair, and he announced his vote in the affirmative, and declared the Senate ad- journed, amid great excitement. All this while the Assembly was slowly going through the roll, and it was nearly an hour after we had adjourned before they had nominated Governor Fish.
However, our Whig friends lay in wait, and stole a march upon us a few weeks later. One morning, when two Democratic senators were in New Yorlc city, they sprung a resolution upon us, to go into the election of a Senator in Congress. After an unbroken struggle of fourteen hours Mr. Fish was elected, the exultant cannon of the victors startling the city from its slumbers, and convincing the Silver Grays that the Woolly Heads still held the capitol.
The Democratic policy in respect to the canals was
HOFFMAN AND LOOMIS.
173
mainly due to Michael Hoffman and Arphaxad Loomis, of Herkimer, who represented that count}'- in the Con- stitutional Convention of 184G, and often appeared as colleagues in the Assembly. In 1843 I spent a week or two in Albany, and frequently dropped into the Assembly, where a bill in regard to the enlargement of the canals was pending. For four days the debate shed darkness rather than light over the subject, and the chamber grew murky. One morning a tallish man, past middle age, Avith iron-gray locks drooping on his shoulders, and wearing a mixed suit of plain clothes, took the floor on the canal bill. I noticed that pens, newspapers, and all else were laid down, and every eye fixed on the speaker. I supposed he was some quaint old joker from the backwoods, w^ho w^as going to afford the House a little fun. The first sentences arrested my attention. A beam of light shot through the darkness, and I began to get glimpses of the question at issue. Soon a broad belt of sun- shine spread over the chamber. I asked a member, " Who is that f " Michael Hoffman," was the reply. He spoke for an hour, and though his manner was quiet and his diction simple, he was so methodical and lucid in his argument that, wdiere all had ap- peared confused before, ever^^thing now^ seemed clear. Mr. Hoffman w^as at home on this subject, and his speech foreshadowed the articles in the Constitution of 18-46 on the canals and the finances.
Judge Loomis was a leader in the Convention of 1846, on the questions pertaining to the judiciary and the legislature. The articles on these subjects were moulded by him. He subsequently bore a conspicu-
EAXDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
ous part in defeating tlie Xew York Code of Proced- ure, ^vhose chief elements were adopted in several other states. The canal law of 1851 having been ad- judged unconstitutional, it devolved upon him in the legislature of 1853 to frame and carry through the new constitutional amendment by which the state tided over the dilBculty. He and Mr. Hoffman ap- proved the course of the senators w^ho resigned to defeat the measure of 1851.
It has been a disputed point which contained the most men of mark, the Whig Assembly of 1838, chosen in the faU that witnessed the prostration of Yan Buren's administration on the Sub-treasury ques- tion, or the Democratic Assembly of 1842, elected in the autumn that saw the overthrow of Tyler's admin- istration on the Bank question. In the two there were fifty members that subsequently became distinguished in state and national politics. Horatio Seymour was in the Assembly of 1842. He and Sanford E. Church were the youngest members. Conspicuous among their seniors stood Michael Hoffman and John A. Dix. With a fine address and excellent debating poAvers, Seymour soon became a leader of one wing of the Democracy. He was in tlie legislatures of 1844 and 1845, which were agitated by the state issue of the enlargement of the canals and the national issue of the annexation of Texas. Tliese rent the Demo- crats in Xew York asunder, the two factions being then generally called Badicals and Conservatives, and not Barnburners and Hunkers, as at a little later date. Seymour was already a chieftain in the ranks of the Conservatives. He measured weapons often with op-
HORATIO SEYMOUR. JOHN VAN BUREN. 175
ponents in the legislature like Hoffman, Dix, and Loomis, and attained the liigli position in the Demo- cratic party as an orator and a manager which he held through his long public career. He was courte- ous towards opponents in the Assembly, and he grace- fully recognized their exhibition of the like treatment of himself. He went into a glow of enthusiasm many years subsequent to the occurrence, as he told me of grim Michael Hoffman's generous course after he had sharply arraigned the veteran Barnburner, during a bitter debate about the canals, and Silas Wright, and kindred themes, which had lasted several days. One morning Hoffman rose to reply to Seymour, but on learning that he was ill he refused to dehver his speech for two or three days, till Seymour was able to be in his seat.
I shall not tr}" to paint a portrait of John Yan Bu- ren, the brilliant Barnburner. There could hardly be a wider contrast betv»^een two men than the space that divided the Sage of Lindenwald from Prince John. In one particular, however, they were alike. Each had that personal magnetism that binds followers to leaders with hooks of steel. The father was grave, urbane, wary, a safe counsellor, and accustomed to an argumentative and deliberate method of address that befitted the bar and the Senate. Few knew how able a lawyer the elder Yan Buren was. The son was enthusiastic, frank, bold, and given to wit, repartee, and a style of oratory admirably adapted to swaying popular assemblies. The younger Yan Buren, too, was a sound lawyer. Some of his admirers were wont to tell him that he made a mistake in not aiding to
176
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
lay the foundations of the Kepublican party ; " for," said they in 1856, " if yon had, you would now have been where Fremont is." Wait and let us see," was the sarcastic response, '* how Fremont turns out."
I heard John Yan Buren relate this little anecdote with characteristic humor : When he was Attorney- general he had obtained for an elderly female the valuable monopol}^ of the right to sell apples, cakes, and candy in the rotunda of the State Capitol. She was an ardent admirer of Prince John, and a vocife- rous Barnburner. It w^as admitted that in the cam- paign of 18-18 he had led in the Democratic revolt that gave the thirty-six electoral votes of IS'ew York to General Taylor, which defeated General Cass. When the Whigs came into power they threatened to turn the Barnburner Avoman out of the Capitol. With ruin staring her in the face she repaired to her patron, and begged him to save her. He went to Thurlow Weed, who was supposed to own the Whig party, explained the case, pleaded his services in the Presidential campaign, and said he asked only the single favor of the salvation of the aj)ple-stand. Mr. Weed squeezed the hand of the Prince, shed a sym- pathizing tear, and hoped he might be able to pull the old woman through. But when the tide of ad- ministration reform reached Albany she was swept out of the Capitol, and the apple-stand was bestowed on a female of the Whig persuasion.
The last time I saw John Yan Buren was before he left for Europe, to make a final effort to regain his liealth. I was on the Hudson Eiver Eailroad. The conductor said a gentleman in a seat farther forward
DEATH OF JOHN VAN BUREN.
177
(pointing to it) wished to see me. As I took the proffered place by his side, and gave him a puzzled look, he said, " You don't know me !" The tones of his voice instantly told me that it was John Yan Bm'en. Though faded, wan, and feeble, the wit re- mained, lie had been at a water-cure estabhshment. " Think of trying to bring me up by cold water," re- marked the Prince, with a quiet smile. " Why," he added, "as they put me in a pack the other night, and stowed me away in an u])per loft, where the moonbeams came trickling down upon me through the skylight, I felt as if I were dead and laid out."
When, afterwards, I heard of the sad death of my friend in mid-ocean, I recalled the lines of Scott :
" Fleet fool on the corrie, Sage counsel in cumber, Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!"
Mr. Seymour resisted the Barnburner revolt of 184:7, and supported General Cass for President in 1848. But he warmly espoused the movement to re- unite the party the next year. He was in advance of Governor Marcy in that direction. Seymour pushed forward, Avhile Marcy hung back. Sej^mour rather liked the Barnburners, except John Yan Buren, of whom he was quite jealous and somewhat afraid. But Marcy, after the experiences of 1841 and 1818, denounced them in hard terms, until Seymour's plas- tic hand kneaded him into a Soft, and the Free-soil Democrats began to talk of him for President in 1852, when the vrily old Eegency tactician mellowed tow- ards them. Xothing was vranted to carry Marcy clear
ITS
KAXDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
over except the hostility of Daniel S. Dickinson, who stood in his way to the White House. This he soon encountered, and this reconciled him to the Barnburn- ers. Some of them, hoAvever, still distrusted, him.
The resignation of senators to defeat the canal bill led to a great meeting in the Capitol grounds at Al- bany, where Horatio Seymour, who had been beaten for governor the previous fall, made a bold speech in their defence. Mr. Seymour was then among the most effective and eloquent platform orators in New York. Less electrical than John Yan Buren, he was more persuasive ; less witty, he was more logical ; less sarcastic, he was more candid ; less denunciatory of antagonists, he was more convincing to opponents. They were rivals — one carrying the standard of the Barnburners, the other bearing the banner of the Hunkers. But on the canal issue they were in accord, each, denouncing the unconstitutional measure, and applauding the retiring senators. Both naturally took to statesmanship of a high order.
I frequently spoke on the same platform with Sey- mour and Yan Buren, and attended state and na- tional conventions with each of them. But I never met both of them at the same time on the same plat- form, nor in the same convention. These two re- markable men had little in common except lofty am- liition and rare mental and social gifts. Their salient characteristics were widely dissimilar. Seymour was conciliatory, and cultivated ])eace. Yan Buren was aggressive, and coveted war.
CHAPTER XX.
Whig Natidual Convention of 1852, — Webster's Sad Appearance. — General Scott Xominated for President. — Democratic National Convention of 1852. — Cass, Buchanan, Marcy, Douglas, and Dickinson Aspirants. — An Unexpected Interview by the Vir- ginians.— Xew York Delegation in Private Conference. — Threats to Throw Seymour out of the Window. — Marcy and Dickinson Slaughter each other. — Pierce Xominated. — Dean Richmond's " Finality."— Pierce's Cabinet. — Dix Cheated, and Marcy Called. — Pierce Approves the Missouri Compromise Repeal. — Rends tiic Democratic Party Asunder.— Republican Party Formed in 1855-56. — Fremont Xominated for President. — James G. Blaine. — Xotices of Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, John Jacob Astor, John Brown, and Martin Van Buren. — Brown Handles a Rifle, and Hits the Bull's-eye. — Van Buren Predicts the Overthrow of Slavery amid Convulsions.
The Whig National Convention met at Baltimore in May, 1852. I was on the train for Washington. At that day we had to cross the mouth of the Sus- quehanna at Havre de Grace by ferryboat. As the passengers were descending the long, steep stairs into the gorge I saw Mr. Webster, leaning heavily on the arms of two gentlemen, and surrounded by a caval- cade of friends. He was a candidate for the Presi- dency, in the convention then about to assemble. It was a sad spectacle. The great statesman was then so shattered in health that four months afterwards he sank into his tomb. But though a wreck, he bore up sturdily while clutching at the glittering prize he had so long pin^sued. He received a mortifyingly
180
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
small vote in the convention. General Scott carried off the nomination. " Oh, Charles," exclaimed Web- ster to Mr. Stetson, of the Astor House, a few da^'s afterwards, "what pains me is that the South, for ^vhich I had done and sacrificed so much, did not give me a single vote !"
General Scott made a tour of the country, exhibit- ing his stalwart figure, and discoursing of "the rich Irish brogue and the sweet German accent." He carried only the four states of Massachusetts, Ver- mont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It was the end of the Whig party. The slavery controversy destroyed Webster in the convention, Scott at the polls, and precipitated that grand old organization into a fath- omless pit. Close behind stood the Democrats, giv- ing three cheers for their victory, on the crumbling edge of the chasm that had engulfed the Whigs. " It is an irrepressible conflict," said Mr. Seward.
The Democratic ]^ational Convention at Baltimore, in 1852, Avas a struggle for the nomination to the Presidency between Cass, Buchanan, Marcy, and Douglas. The K ew York delegation was divided, in the proportion of twenty-three for Marcy, whose leader w^as Horatio Seymour, and thirteen for Cass, Avliose leader was Daniel S. Dickinson. It soon be- came apparent that Mr. Dickinson himself was a can- didate, and was looking for success to a combination between a large share of the supporters of Cass and a smaller contingent of the friends of Buchanan. In- deed, Mr. Dickinson told me so. The ballotings were many and wearisome, each of the aspirants doing his best to pull down his rivals.
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF 1852.
151
At the close of the first or second day I was pass- ing throiigli the hall of Barnum's Hotel, when, to my surprise, I was invited by Dickinson to enter a room where the Virginia delegation (which thus far had voted for Buchanan) was in consultation. After an introduction, and a statement that I was a Barn- burner, the chairman asked me whether, if Mr. Dick- inson were to receive the nomination, he could carry Xew York i Xever can I forget the anxious look of Dickinson as they waited for th& answer. I promptly replied that Mr. Dickinson, and Governor Marcy, and Mr. Douglas, and any other man whom the conven- tion nominated, would receive the electoral vote of JS'ew York. I then retired from this very unexpected interview. Dickinson followed me, thanked me, but reo:retted that I had mentioned anv other name than his.
The next morning Virginia voted for Dickinson. I then saw what the interview of the previous day meant. Dickinson rose, made a short speech, thanked Virginia, and begged its delegation to support Gen- eral Cass. This was the keynote for the combination on Dickinson. He asked me if I tliought Virginia would adhere to him, and I frankly told him " iS'o," for I had reasons for regarding its vote merely as a compliment. Mr. Dickinson's friends used to assert that he threw away the Presidency on this occasion. I happened to know better. He never stood for a moment Avhere he could control the Virginia vote — the hinge whereon all was to turn. The convention generally believed that the result in November would depend on Xew York, and it was ready to accept any
182
RANDOM RECOLLECTIOXS.
candidate upon whom the delegates from that state would unite. In the protracted and weary ballotings Marcy rose steadily, till his vote reached ninety-eight. The Xew York delegation then retired for consulta- tion. The convention hall and its adjoining rooms were over a market, Avhich was besieged by noisy carts and trucks. One of the rules of the convention authorized the delegates of any state to cast its vote for such candidates as the majority of its delegates might direct. In the retiring-room Seymour moved a resolution that on the next ballot the vote of Xew York be cast solidly for William L. Marcy. If a bomb had exploded among them it could hardly have caused more excitement. Oliver Charlick, a super- heated Hunker from Long Island, threatened to throw Seymour out of the window unless he with- drew the resolution. Seymour saw that it would be unwise to force a united vote for Marcy in tlie face of so much hostility, and he finally recalled the reso- lution. Perhaps, too, he did not relish the idea of being thrown into the street among the struggling carts and trucks. Thus ended the chances of Marcy. In this style it Avas that Dickinson and Marcy, the envenomed rival sachems, scalped each other in the great wigwam at Baltimore.
On the next ballot (I think it was the next) Vir- ginia voted for Franklin Pierce. The convention was weary, and soon the stampede came, and the Xew Hampshire brigadier was nominated.
The Barnburners did not weep over the defeat of Marcy, rejoiced at the discomfiture of Cass, and were in doubt about Pierce. The convention had adojit-
PIERCE FOR PRESIDENT.
183
ed resolutions declaring the Pro-slavery Compromise Acts of 1850 a ''finality" on that subject. On the way home from Baltimore a Hunker was teasing Dean Kichmond, of Buffalo, by telling him that the proceedings were a finality on the Wilmot Proviso.
A finality on Cass," was the swift response of the bluff Dean. Though so destitute of all literary fur- nishment as to be scarcely able to write grammatl- cxlly, Mr. Kichmond carried on his broad shoulders one of the clearest heads in the ranks of the Barn- burners.
Pierce was elected by a majority so large that it turned his weak head. He was a calamity to the Democracy and the nation. He yielded to unwise counsellors, and favored the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which rent the party asunder during his official term, and arrayed against him a large body of Jacksonian Democrats of the type of Thomas H. Ben- ton, Sam Houston, and Francis P. Blair, senior. This insane measure bore bitter fruits in the perturbed ad- ministration of Buchanan, and ultimately plunged the country into one of the most portentous and bloody civil wars in all history. In the construction of his cabinet Pierce was a dissembler. Daniel S. Dickin- son was urged upon him for a place by an enthusi- astic following, but he spurned the distinguished ex- Senator, and drove him into the ranks of the enemies that prevented his renomination and expelled him from power. Pierce first promised the New York seat in his Cabinet to General Dix. He afterAvards gave it to Governor Marcy. Dix was consoled with the pledge that he should soon be sent as Minister to
184
EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Paris, but was meanwhile set to watching the vaults of the New York sub-treasury. He sat there wearily through the spring, summer, and fall, waiting for the French mission to turn up. I accidentally met him on Broadway on the morning when Pierce's first an- nual message appeared, and asked him how he liked it. It is a good message," said he. He then added, with a spice of bitterness in his tone, If I can say this I think anybody can afford to." If General Dix had not believed that the holding of some office was essential to his existence he would have thrown his sub-treasury commission in the face of the President who liad deceived him. It Avould be difficult to name any other man in this country who filled so many important offices, and so acceptably, as John A. Dix.
The precise date of the organization of the Kepub- lican party in tlie nation is in dispute. In New York it was reduced to form, at Syracuse, in the fall of 1855. Its component elements were Anti- slavery Whigs, Barnburner Democrats, Abolitionists proper, and Free- soil KnoAv-Nothings. Committees of conference, in which Thurlow Weed and Preston King were promi- nent figures, settled the preliminaries, and the new par- ty assembled in Weiting Hall, with Eeuben E. Fenton, of the Barnburner wing, filling the chair. I helped to launch the new party, and then, on the afternoon train of that day, by request of Henry C. Martindale, who was subsequently Attorney-General of the state and Major-General in the army, I went to Pochester and delivered a Ilepublican speech. Of course, 1 was (juite at home on the slavery topic. My address was reported, and generally copied in New York. I sub-
FREMONT BEATS SEWARD.
185
sequcntly spoke in Buffalo with Governor Seward, and addressed other large meetings in that campaign. Our first venture on this stormy sea Avas not success- ful. Our state ticket w^as submerged in the Know- IS'othing breakers.
The Pierce administration repealed the Missouri Compromise. This precipitated the doom of slavery. The Eepublican party was the - legitimate outcome. I helped to organize it in the state of New York, and was a member of tlie National Convention at Phila- delphia, in 1856, which nominated Fremont and Day- ton. I delivered numerous addresses in their support from Maine to Ohio. The Philadelphia Convention w^as opened with prayer by Pev. Albert Barnes. Colo- nel Harvey S. Lane, of Indiana, presided, and occa- sionally rapped on the table with his boot-heels to preserve order. James G. Blaine w^as one of the sec- retaries. Lane, afterwards senator in Congress, was nearly as tall as Mr. Lincoln. He led the cheers for Lincoln at Chicago in 1860. "When that fel- low Lane," exclaimed a disgusted Seward delegate, "jumped on the table wath his hat on his uplifted cane and screamed for Lincoln he looked as if he were thirty feet high."
The feeble cause I had espoused at Cincinnati in 1832 rested, in 1856, on the broad shoulders of a strong party wdiich was marching on to victory.
Whenever I think of Horace Greeley the scene rises before me of a flaxen-haired boy in a log-cabin in a cleft of the Green Mountains, lying on the hearth, after a hard day's work in a scrubby field, reading a book by the blaze of pine-knots. But these pine-
186
RANDOM RECOLLECTIOXS.
knots lighted the barefooted youth to the path that led to great achievements and enduring fame.
I first met Greeley on the front stairs of a Graham boarding-house in IS'ew York city, where he was liv- ing on bran-bread and cold water. lie was then ed- itor of the Ne\o-Yorlcei\ a journal of which he was justly proud. The encounter on the stairway was ac- cidental. His wife, fresh from North Carolina, had sunk down at that rather inconvenient spot in a sort of hysterical swoon, and seemed so reluctant to yield her vantage-ground that ingress and egress by the boarders were only possible by carefully stepping over her. Mr. Greeley, with a deprecatory air, Avas bend- ing down, and in soothing tones was trying to per- suade her to seek a more comfortable resting-place. Early friends of the wedded pair will recall the fact that they became acquainted at this William Street hostelry, and that their espousals were chronicled in some pleasant verses that bore the refrain, " Maid of the Graham-house, sunny and sweet !"
As an illustration of the vicissitudes of journalism, while at the same time pointing to a great political error, I will relate the following anecdote : The first report that came from the Liberal National Conven- tion of 1872 stated that Charles Francis Adams was nominated for President. Happening to be in the Sun office, Mr. Dana asked me to write an article on the subject. I went to my law-office, and spent tlirec hours in preparing three cohimns of wliat I thought was excellent matter, inchiding a rather imposing sketch of the Adams family, from the first John down to the alleged Liberal nominee. On i-eturning
HORACE GREELEY.
187
to the Sun rooms with my editorial, imagine my sur- prise to learn that Horace Greeley, and not an Ad- ams of any sort, was the candidate. I cast my labored production into the waste-basket, and w^ent home.
The campaign of 1872 was a blunder on the part of those who opposed the re-election of Grant. If the bolting Republicans had nominated Greeley, and the regular Democrats had presented a candidate like Horatio Seymour, for instance. General Grant would have been defeated. But it proved to be impossible to persuade a large class of Democrats to vote for *'the founder of the JVew York Tribuney
My last glimpse of Horace Greeley w^is soon after the election of 1872. He darted out of the Tribune office, ran against me, and started down Park Row at a rapid pace. I contrived to keep up with him, and followed him into a street-car at the Astor House. On accosting him he gave me a wild stare that alarmed me. I inquired after his health, and he replied, "I have ruined all my friends in the election, and now they are destroying me." A few more words satisfied me that his mind was clouded. How sad was his end !
Gerrit Smith helped to quarry the corner-stone of the Republican party. He was the very friend of the slave. His purse was always open for the promotion of their cause. When I was a secretary of the Amer- ican Anti-slavery Society he placed in my hands at one time his check for §10,000 for its treasury — a sum equal to $25,000 now. He was the protector and patron of runaway negroes who followed the fort- unes of the North Star. Forty years ago, at his pa- latial mansion in Peterboro', and which looked like
188
RANDOM KECOLLECTIOXS.
the country-seat of an English nobleman, it would be singular if you did not find among the fashionable guests from ^ew York, Albanj^, and Philadelphia surrounding his hospitable board at least one or two fugitive slaves. Indeed — and especially in the sum- mer season — his visitors were of the most miscellane- ous and amusing description. There you might meet a dozen wealthy and refined visitors from the metro- politan cities ; a sprinkling of negroes from the sunny South on their way to Canada ; a crazy Millerite or two, who, disgusted with the world, thought it des- tined to be burned up at an early day ; an adventurer who Avanted Mr. Smith to invest largely in some ut- terly impracticable patent right, while the throng would be checkered with three or four Indians of the neighborhood, the remnants of the once powerful Oneidas, who remembered the father, and felt pretty sure that they could get something out of his munifi- cent son. The high-born guests had come to enjoy themselves during the summer solstice at this fine rural retreat, and they always had a good time. As to the rest, they Avere never sent empty away, espe- cially the negroes and the Indians, the former accept- ing cash in hand and good advice about the best route to Canada, while the latter departed in good time Avith shoulders stooping under burdens of flour, beef, and other edibles. But Mr. Smith never Avas knoAAm to invest in any of the patent rights, and he took not a single share of stock in the scheme for burning up the Avorld.
I Avas, many years ago, riding Avith Gerrit Smith in one of the counties of northern Kew York, lie sud-
SMITH AND ASTOR.
180
denly stopped the carnage, and, looking around for a few minutes, said, " We are now on some of my poor land, familiarly known as the John Brown tract ;" and he then added, " I own eight hundred thousand acres, of which this is a part, and all in one piece." Everybody knows that Judge Peter Smith, his father, purchased the most of this land at sales by the comp- troller of the state for unpaid taxes, and left it by Avill to his son Gerrit. He said that he owned land in fifty- six of the sixty counties in IS^ew York. Some of this brought him a handsome income, though he gave a good deal of it away years before he died. lie was also a landhokler in other states of the Union.
Early in 1837 Mr. Smith's father died, leaving a large estate to Gerrit, charged with heavy legacies and debts. Two or three m.onths after the decease of his father the well-remembered panic of 1S3T oc- curred. The banks had suspended specie payments, and could afford Mr. Smith no loans to meet pressing obligations. So embarrassed was he that his counsel advised him to make an assignment of his property for the benefit of his creditors. Mr. Smith declined to make the assignment until he had first conferred with the elder John Jacob Astor, the old friend of his father. Smith wrote to Astor, and informed him of his situation, and said that, if possible, he would be glad if he could make him a loan, and take such secu- rity therefor as he liad to offer. Mr. Astor invited him to come to ISTew York and talk the matter over. He came, and dined with the great millionaire. As- tor, of course, knew his errand, but, during the pro- tracted dinner, seemed more inclined to tell anecdotes
190
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
about his excursions thirty and forty years before with Peter Smith up the valley of the Mohawk than to listen to details about Gerrit Smith's present obli- gations and the value of the property which he could put under mortgage. As they sat at the hospitable board Mr. Astor Avould frequently break in with the enthusiastic exclamation, "Why, Gerrit, how much you do look as your father used to when he and I went up the Mohawk among the Indians after furs !" At length they came down to business, and Mr. Astor asked Smith how much of a loan he wanted. He told him 8250,000. " Do 3'ou want it immediately, and all at once?" said Astor. "I do," said Gerrit. ''Then you shall have it." It Avas arranged that Smith should give Astor a mortgage on his Oswego water-power, for which Smith had paid §14,000 about fifteen years before, for this loan of $250,000. Mr. Smith returned to Peterboro', and in three or four days received Mr. Astor's check by mail for 8250,000. He made out the mortgage and sent it to Oswego to be recorded, with directions to mail it to Mr. Astor as soon as it Avas inscribed on the records. Smith went on using the money, and supposed that all had gone right about the forwarding of the mortgage. After a delay of several weeks, judge of his surprise at receiving a letter from Mr. Astor, saying that he was afraid that his friend Smith had forgotten to make out that mortgage which they talked about Avhen he was last in the city. Smith hastened to Os- wego, and found that, through some stupidity, the county clerk bad forgotten to mail the mortgage to Astor, although it had been duly and seasonably re-
JOHN EEOWN.
191
corded. Of course it was now sent forward, accom- ])anie(i oy an appropriate explanation. Thus, for sev- eral weeks, John Jacob Astor had nothing but Gerrit Smith's word for a loan of $250,000. This incident lets in a flood of light u|)on the characters of these two renuirkable men.
I have not space to give even a list of the martyrs who endured pains and penalties unto death in the Anti-slavery cause. The tears of an enfranchised race will bedew their graves, and an appreciative posterity will erect monuments to their memory. One well - remembered figure looms on my vision from his lonely resting-place in the Adirondacks. I met John Brown but once, and then unexpectedly, at Gerrit Smith's. Mr. Smith's son. Green, was a sports- man, lie had an assortment of rifles, and was a fair shot. After dinner Green went out with a couple of companions to fire at a target. I was looking on when Captain Brown appeared on the scene. The firing was rather vrild. Brown watched awhile, and then closely examined the rifles, selected one, loaded it, and faced the target. He pointed the weapon at the ground, with his eye on the barrel, raised it rap- idly, and the instant it came to a level he fired, and ]iit the bulFs eye right in the centre. Handing the rifle to Green Smith, he said, with a grim smile, '•Boys, that is the way to shoot," and slowly re- turned to the house. Soon after Brown's execution an editorial from my ]3en appeared in the Xew York Tribune^ whicli I am Avilling should stand as my opin- ion of his character and deeds. He will fill a unique niche in American history. The echo of his fame will
192
KAXDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
reverberate along the colonnades of the centuries, and preserve from obhvion the names of those who put him to death.
In 1S58 I had the pleasure of spending a day at the hospitable mansion of ex-President Yan Buren, near Kinderhook. The Sage of Lindenwald was in- structive and entertaining. The most interesting por- tion of his conversation related to slavery. Eefer- ring to the campaign of 1848, he said that his utter- ances on that great evil Avere his matured convictions. " I have nothing to mochfy or change," he remarked. AYith serious earnestness he added, The end of sla- very will come— amid terrible convulsions, I fear, but it Avill come.'- A word about Mr. Yan Buren's per- sonal following. lias it ever been equalled by any other Xew York statesman ? In the contest of 1848 he carried over, on a bolt from the regular Presiden- tial nominee, more than half the Democratic voters in the state. How few Governor Seward was able to lead over to Andrew Johnson's "policy" in the election of 18G6 1 I feel constrained to pay peculiar honors to Mr. Yan Buren for the course he and his followers pursued in 1817-48 in regard to the ex- tension of slavery. Their protest at the ballot-boxes in that crucial emergency was the turning-point in the great controversy that ultimated, fifteen years later, in the overthrow of the " institution " and the preservation of the Union. But for the aid of Dem- ocrats who had been trained in the school of IMartin Yan Buren, Silas Wright, and Samuel J. Tilden, the Union and the Constitution might perhaps have gone to pieces in the terrible epoch of 1SG1-G5.
CHAPTER XXI.
William II. Se^'ard as Senator. — Seward on Weed. — Seward Un- bending.— Seward and Judge Sackett. — Weed the "State Fifer." — Seward and Conkling.— Conkling Elected to Congress in 1858. — Seward on Greeley.— John Sherman, Candidate for Speaker. — Tom Corwin as an Orator. — The Jewish Rabbi Prays. — Henry AVinter Davis. — Pennington Chosen Speaker. — Slidell's Bill to Purchase Cuba. — Wade and Toombs in Close Contact. — "Land for the Landless Tcrsiis Niggers for the Xiggerless." — Scene in the Senate in 1859 between Benjamin and Seward. — Seward Smokes Benjamin's Cigar. — Scene in the Senate in 1834 between Clay and Van Buren. — Van Burcn Takes a Pinch of Clay's Snuff.
Mk. Seward represented X ew York in the Senate in a grand and memorable era. He rose to the level of his responsibilities, and was courageous, sagacious, sincere, and earnest. He led a forlorn hope against formidable foes, over which the cause he championed finally triumphed. He was grave in argument and dignified in demeanor, and, though rhetorical and even ornate in style, he never indulged in those flashy flippances that sometimes succeed in palming them- selves off as wit, but which legitimate wit repudiates as a bastard progeny.
Since Mr. Dickinson and General Dix left the Sen- ate, Xew York has sent several respectable members to that bod}^, but no really able men, when measured b\" a lofty standard, except Mr. Seward and Mr. Conk- ling. Mr. Evarts is yet to be thoroughly tried on 9
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this new field. He doubtless remembers that Erskinc, one of the greatest advocates that ever addressed an English jury, and Jeffrey, who shone so brilliantly in the Scotch courts, failed in Parliament. The many- sided men like Brougham and Webster are few in number.
ISTobody knew better than Mr. Seward that, if he had been the candidate for the Presidency in 1856, ho w^ould have received the same vote that Fremont did, and that his nomination in 1860 would have inevita- bly followed, and he would have entered the White House instead of Lincoln. Mr. Seward more than hinted to confidential friends that Mr. Weed betrayed him for Fremont.
Mr. Weed himself told the following story : He and Mr. Seward were riding up Broadway, and when pass- ing the bronze statue of Lincoln, in Union Square, Seward said : " Weed, if you had been faithful to me, I should have been there instead of Lincoln." " Sew- ard," replied Weed, is it not better to be alive in a carriage with me than to be dead and set up in bronze ?"
At the close of the Fremont campaign some mon- ey remained in the treasury of the National Commit- tee. William M. Chace, of Providence, the secretary, favored its expenditure on the famous " Helper Book." Edwin D. Morgan, the chairman, would consent to this, if Mr. Weed advised it. Being at Washington in the winter of 1857-58, I met Mr. Chace, who had come there for the rather queer purpose of requesting Mr. Seward to request Mr. Weed to request Mv. Mor- gan to adopt Chace's plan for the disposal of this
SEWARD ON WEKD.
195
money. Chace not knowing Mr. Seward personally, I went one evening to his house to introduce him. The Senator was alone with his after-dinner cigar. Chace explained his case to his attentive listener, I sitting near, reading a newspaper. The Senator puffed out a cloud of smoke and began to talk in that delib- erate style so familiar to his friends. " Mr. Chace, I understand you want me to speak to Mr. Weed, and request him to advise Mr. Morgan to make a certain disposition of the funds in qu*estion V Mr. Chace bowed. " Mr. Chace," resumed the Senator, " Mr. Weed is a very peculiar man. He is a very secretive man. He is an unfathomable man. He thinks I am always driving everything to the devil. But through- out my public life he has told me to do this or that particular thing, and I have done it. He has told me not to do this or that, and I have refrained from do- ing it. Whether in all this he was cheating me or cheating somebody else (for I take it for granted he is always cheating somebody), I don't know." He then suggested to Mr. Chace to go to Senator Simon Cameron, and tell him he had sent him, ,and take his advice in the matter of the funds. Some congress- men dropped in, and Chace and I left. We did not speak for a block or two. My Ehode Island coadju- tor then jerked my arm, burst into a laugh, and said, " Did you ever hear anything equal to that ?"
We never knovr a public man till we see him in un- dress. Webster in a boat at Marslifield, Avith a fish- ing-rod in his hand, was a different person from Web- ster in the Senate holding spellbound the elite of the nation. Mr. Seward was an intense toiler in the thorny
190
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
field of politics. He delighted to throw off his bur- den, and unbend in a small circle of friends. At Sen- eca Falls there resided Garry Y. Sackett, whom Sew- ard, when Governor, had appointed a judge of the Common Pleas. He was a gentleman farmer, largo and stately in person, and dressed in the style of Webster. He was on familiar terms with Seward, took great liberties with him, and the Senator often came to Seneca, and had a free-and-easy round of fun. Sackett did not know as much as he thought he did, and Seward sometimes made a butt of him and roared with laughter, though the Judge would occasionally^ make reprisals on the spot. When the Senator visited the Judge, I was generally called in, and sometimes the young people of the village were invited for the evening. The latter looked with awe upon the distinguished statesman from Auburn.
During one afternoon, Seward had been firing his teasing arrows at Sackett. In the evening, the Judge, arrayed in full Websterian costume, posed before a houseful of young people, and went for the Senator. He brought out and pinned on the wall the famous caricature in which, when Seward was Governor, Thurlow Weed is depicted as the state fifer, with the principal state officers marching in Indian file behind him, and straining themselves to the utmost to keep up with the musician, who is blowing at the top of his bent. Indeed, the little Governor, in trying to tread in the tracks of the tall fifer, had torn his trousers at rather a delicate spot. The likenesses were perfect. The picture was widely circulated, and it so closely accorded with the jeers in the Democratic newspapers
SEWARD OX SACKETT.
197
that it was very annoying to Mr. Seward even after he became Senator, for Mr. Weed, in popular estima- tion, was still '* The Dictator."
On the occasion referred to, Sackett elaborately explained the picture to the youngsters in the pres- ence of Seward, telling what a great leader Weed was, how obediently the Governor followed him, how closely even to that day he kq)t step with him (at this point seemingly trying to conceal the rent in his trousers), assm^ng the deeply interested listeners that Seward owed his success in politics wholly to Weed ; and then, looldng over his shoulder to where Seward sat smoldng, exclaimed, Is not that so. Governor ?" The response came back, Sackett, you are a fool. Go and get me another cigar."
At another time, before ]\Ir. Sewai'd and a like au- dience, and to " get even " with the teasing Senator, the Judge told the story of his visit to the Anti-rent- ers, in the Helderberg, in company with Seward, soon after he was chosen Governor. The Anti-renters were making an uproar. The legislature had authorized a commission to consider their grievances, and Mr. Sew- ard had appointed Sackett one of the commissioners. The latter proposed that they visit the troubled dis- trict, the young Governor assented, notice was sent out three or four days ahead, and they rode to the Hel- derberg in a stately barouche drawn by four horses. Long afterwards, on due provocation, at Seneca Falls, Sackett took reprisals of the bantering Senator after dinner, by describing the scene at Helderberg. He said that when the barouche arrived, several hundred Anti-renters were on the ground. Sackett, standing
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RAXDOM KECOLLECTIOXS.
six feet two inches high, and dressed in imposing cos- tume, got out first. The crowd rushed upon him, sa- luted him as Governor, and gave three cheers. The commissioner lifted his gold-headed cane high in air, and exclaimed, Stop, gentlemen ! You have made the same mistake that the people of Isew York made last fall. They doubtless ought to have chosen me Governor, but, instead, they elected this man, whom I present to you as William H. Seward." Sackett, then addressing the dinner-party, would add, with great reUsh, " You ought to have seen how the crowd fell back when I introduced Seward as the Governor. He was clambering out of the carriage while they were giving me the three cheers, and many of them said they didn't believe that little man was the Gov- ernor." Then turning to the Senator, he said, " Wasn't it a funny scene, Seward I" The Senator replied that when the commissioners Avent into the Helderberg to take testimony, Sackett wasted all their time in tell- ing preposterous stories that nobod}^ believed.
In 1858 Roscoe Conkling was the Republican can- didate for Congress in Oneida. Mr. O. B. Matteson, who had previously represented this district, was zealously opposing him. Matteson had long been a personal friend of Mr. Seward. Hard pressed, Mr. Conkling sent for Mr. Seward and myself to address a county meeting at Eome. I was called to keep the Republican Barnburners in line for Conkling. Mr. Seward was summoned to counteract the effect of Matteson's hostility. Wrapped in a blue broadcloth cloak, with elegant trimmings, Conkling surveyed the large audience with anxious eye. I spoke first, eulo-
t3KWAKD ON CONKLINCr.
199
gizing Seward and Conkling. The Senator commenced his address with a hearty encomium upon Matteson, by way of preface to the matter in hand. lie then spoke generally in support of the Eepubhcan cause, and eloquently commended his young friend Conk- ling to the voters of Oneida. I have been told that this eulogium of Mr. Matteson was retained in the published report of Mr. Seward's speech under the special direction of Mr. Seward, and against the car- nest protest of Mr. Conkling's friends. The next morn- ing I went to Utica, and was amused to see that near- ly the only notice taken of the Eome meeting, by the general press, was a full report of Mr. Seward's eulo- gium on Mr. Matteson. This, of course, would go the grand rounds of the newspapers in the state. I met Mr. Conkling. My acquaintance with the English language is not sufficiently intimate to enable me to describe how angry he was. Mr. Conkling was elect- ed. Then commenced those twenty years of service, in the House and Senate, which have left their lus- trous mark on the records of Congress.
I was at Mr. Seward's, in Auburn. The conversa- tion ran on public afPairs and public men. He re- marked that it was a long time before he fathomed one prominent character in Xew York. This was Horace Greeley. He said he had supposed Greeley was doing his work from philanthropic motives, and had no desire for offi.ce ; but subsequently he found he was mistaken, and that he was very eager to hold office. I replied, in rather a careless tone, " Senator, do you not think it would have been better for you if you had let him have office Mr. Seward looked
200
RANDOM KECOLLPXTIOXS.
at me intently, rolled out a cloud of tobacco smoke, and then slowly responded, " I don't know but it would." I was not aware how point-blank a shot I had fired, for I did not then know of the existence of the letter of Xovemb^r 11, 1854, addressed by Greeley to Seward, dissolving the old political firm of " Sew- ard, Weed, and Greeley," by the withdrawal of the junior partner. Greeley's opposition to Seward's nomination to the Presidency, in 1860, brought this unique epistle out of the secret archives of Mr. Sew- ard. It is printed in Greeley's " Eecollections of a Busy Life," and will repay perusal by students of fallen human nature.
Thomas Corwin was the prince of orators. He was elected to Congress in 1858. He had long before won fame throughout the Union. Ko party had an abso- lute majority in the House that witnessed the terri- ble era that ushered in the rebellion. The balance of power between the Eepublicans and Democrats, in the House, was held by a small body of Xorthern Know-Nothings, Southern Know-Xothings, and Old- line Whigs. John Sherman, on the nomination of Corwin, became the Eepublican candidate for Speak- er. The contest, commencing in December, 1850, con- tinued for eight Aveeks. The ballotings were inter- spersed with a variety of speeches. One morning Corwin arose. The House and galleries overflowed with spectators. His address lasted three days. His aim was to prove that in their efforts to prohibit by law the extension of slavery the Republicans Avere a constitutional party. It was one of the most wonder- ful speeches I ever heard. All that had gone before
TOM COR WIN AS AN ORATOK.
201
it, and all that came after it, in this weary contest of two months, seemed mere chattering in comparison Avith an effort that w\as replete w^ith logic, wit, humor, repartee, sarcasm, and pertinent references to history, and sketches of statesmen in early days who held the doctrines of the "Wilmot Proviso ; and all the while, amid the glitter of the hghter and gayer passages of the speech, the orator was carrying forward the heavy chain of ratiocination.
One day there w^as an unusual commotion on the floor. The pages w^ere running to and fro, and a hun- dred quivering pencils w^ere keeping tally to the call of the clerk. It was seen that all the Democrats, and a dangerously large share of the Ivnow-Xothings and Old-line Whigs, were voting for Mr. Smith, of Xorth Carohna, a new candidate. Ere the result was an- nounced, John Sherman rose. " Mr. Clerk, please call my name. '* John Sherman," said the clerk. " Thom- as Corwin," responded Sherman. On counting the tally list, it was found that the votes cast for Sher- man and the one vote for Corwin were precisely equal to the total votes given for Smith. A narrow escape.
That evening Sherman withdrew, and ex-Governor William Pennington, of Xew Jersey, w^as named as the Republican candidate. There being no regular chaplain, it had been the custom to invite the Wash- ington clergy in turn to officiate in that capacity. The next m^orning the Jewish rabbi appeared for the first time. Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he lifted his open eyes to the ceiling and prayed that the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would break the dead- 9-
202
RA>'DOM RECOLLECTIO:>S.
lock in the House, and set the wheels of Congress in motion. Winter Davis, who had steadily voted against Sherman, was pacing the hall in the rear of the seats. "When the clerk called his name, he an- swered, in a tone that thrilled the crowd, Penning- ton !" The elegant member from Baltimore liad a following. After one or two ballots Pennington was chosen, and the Eepublicans had a speaker. The House took a long breath, and determined to have some sport. A motion to adjourn was voted down, and so was another and another. The new speaker gave the floor to everybody that asked for it, till a dozen members were talking at once, amid screams of laughter. Mr. John Cochrane, a Democrat, crept up the marble steps, and told Mr. Pennington that if he would recognize him he would move an adjournment, and he believed enough Democrats would vote with him to carry the motion. " Oh, no, Mr. Cochrane," said the speaker ; let her run." After it had had fun enough the House adjourned, with the clumsiest pre- siding officer that ever filled the chair.
John Slidell introduced into the Senate a bill to ap- propriate twenty or thirty millions of dollars (I for- get which) for the purchase of Cuba. Of coui^e, the object was to strengthen the slave power. When he moved to take up the bill, it was antagonized by a motion to take up the bill for granting public lands free of cost to settlers, known as the Homestead bill. A debate immediately arose on the merits of tlie two measures, which ran into the night, and became in- tensely bitter towards the close. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, whose seat was right beside Benjamin F.
WADE AND TOOMBS.
203
Wade's, was eloquently abusive. He shook his fist at Seward, who at that moment was standing in the door of a cloak-room calmly puffing a cigar, and called him a little demagogue. He accused the Eepublicans of being afraid of the lacklanders " (as he styled those who might wish to accept the privileges of the home- stead policy), frequently thumping his desk by way of emphasis, and occasionally * striking a blow on Wade's. As he took his seat, half a dozen senators sprang to their feet. Vice-President Breckinridge could not but give the floor to Wade, for he leaped clear from the carpet. Turning short on Toombs, he exclaimed, Afraid, are we ? Afraid, are we ? I nev- er saw anything or any man under God's heavens that I was afraid of," at the same time smiting Toombs's desk with his fist, which came inconvenient- ly close to the Georgian's nose. Two or three more sentences in this vein were hurled at him, accompa- nied by heavy thuds on the desk. Toombs rolled back his chair, and said, " I except my friend from Ohio from my too sweeping remark." Yery well," re- sumed Wade, if you wish to back out, you can go." He then briefly dissected Slidell's measure, contrast- ing it with the homestead policy, and exclaimed, '* We accept the issue tendered to us, and will go to the people on it, viz., land for the landless versus niggers for the niggerless." The excited auditory burst into loud applause, which was not easily suppressed. Sli- dell's motion was rejected, Mr. Douglas rubbing his hands in great glee at the discomfiture of his sly, sour enemy.
It is rare that we meet a character that embodied
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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
SO much rough grandeur as Benjamin Franldin "Wade's. He did not know what fear was. Toombs was mere- ly an eloquent bully. He had little of that courage that stands fire.
During the four turbulent years of Buchanan's ad- ministration, Mr. Seward was recognized both by co- adjutors and opponents as the leader of his party in the Senate. Though always respectful towards an- tagonists, and never for a moment losing his equa- nimity in debate, he was so radical in his opinions on negro slavery, and so bold in their utterance, that he drew upon himself the hostility of the Southern sen- ators, and especially such slavery propagandists as Toombs, Slidell, Mason, and Benjamin. The latter had formerly been a Whig, and liis seat was on the hereditary Whig side of the chamber, where now sat in adjoining chairs four leaders who had supported General Taylor's administration, namely, Seward and Benjamin, Wade and Toombs, the latter then being in the House. Among the ready, pungent, and eloquent orators in the Senate stood Judah P. Benjamin. One day, at the close of a set speech on the Kansas em- broglio, he made an impassioned and bitter attack on Seward. As Benjamin resumed his seat, Seward rose, and, turning to his assailant, said, in a calm and in- different tone, " Benjamin, give me a cigar, and when your speech is printed send me a copy." Seward then retired to the cloak-room and smoked Benjamin's cigar.
Though this was done witliout affectation on the part of Seward, it was nevertheless a close copy of the dramatic scene in tlie Senate a quarter of a cen-
CLAY AND VAN BUKEN.
205
tury before, wherein Clay and Yan Buren were the leading actors. It was in the height of the conflict over the removal, by order of President Jackson, of the Federal funds from the United States Bank and its branches, which had set the country all aflame, particularly in commercial and financial centres. Mr. Yan Buren, the Yice-President, was a model of cour- tesy as a presiding officer. The*Whigs in the Senate, led by their great chieftains. Clay and Webster, de- manded a return of the moneys to the bank. They daily hurled anathemas against Jackson, declaring that he was a despot of the deepest dye, and that an indignant people would soon rise and hurl him from power. They compared him to Nero, Charles I., and other tyrants of olden times. One morning Mr. Clay, in the course of a vehement harangue, implored the Yice-President to instantly leave the Senate chamber and repair to the White House, and on his bended knees before the despot exert his well-known influ- ence over him, and insist upon the restoration of the deposits to the bank without an hour's delay, as the only means of averting a revolution in the country. As Clay closed his eloquent philippic, Yan Buren called a senator to the chair and went straight across the chamber to Clay's seat. The tall Kentuckian rose and stared at the little magician, while the perturbed spectators awaited the result w^ith undisguised anxie- ty. Yan Buren bowed gracefully to Clay, and said, " Mr. Senator, allow me to be indebted to you for another pinch of your aromatic Maccaboy." Clay waved his hand towards the gold snuff-box on his desk, and took his seat, while Yan Buren took a del-
206
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
icate pinch and leisurely returned to the Vice-Presi- dent's chair.
Perhaps some of those who witnessed the Bank- Biddle - Clay - Webster - Jackson -Yan Buren revolu- tion" of 1832-1836, and lived to see the convulsions of 1861-1865, may be tempted to look back upon the financial turmoils of the earlier epoch with feelings akin to contempt. But history would be incomplete unless it took note of many little things that derive all their importance from the magnitude of the men who bore a part in them.
CHAPTER XXII.
Turbulent Scenes in the House in 1859, 18G0. — Grow Knocks Keitt Down. — Crawford Threatens Thad. Stevens.— Tribute to Stevens. — Stephen A. Douglas; his Ke-election to the Senate over Abraham Lincoln in 1859. — His JReccption in the Senate. — Pro-Slavery Democrats Assail him. — Seward Preparing for the Chicago Convention of 1860. — Deluded as to his Strength. — The Senators Opposed to him. — Corwin and Lincoln Speak in New England Early in 1860. — New-Yorkers w^ho Oppose Seward at Chicago. — Lincoln Nominated. — Scene at Auburn when the News Came. — Seward Embittered. — Crushed Presidential Aspi- rations of Seward, Greeley, Clay, and TTebster. — Ira Harris Chosen Senator in 1861. — Defeat of Greeley and Evarts. — Rufus King's Chair in the Senate. — Its Distinguished Occupants.
During Buchanan's administration scenes often oc- curred in the House more dramatic and perilous than any in the Senate. I was present when Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, knocked down Lawrence M. Keitt, of South Carolina, under circumstances that came near to involving the members, and perhaps the galleries, in bloodshed. It was due to the caution and firmness of Speaker Orr that the catastrophe was averted. At a later day Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, a brother of the Alton martyr, while delivering a speech, unconsciously advanced step by step across the area in front of the clerk's desk. A Southern member laid his hand on Lovejoy's shoulder, saying, '* Go back to 3^our own side.'' Instantly the area was full of mem- bers, the most of whom were armed. The ominous
208
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
" click " of weapons was heard. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, clutched at the supposed hair of AYilham Barksdale, of Mississippi, and pulled off his wig. High above the din rose the voice of AYilliani Kellogg, of Illinois, shouting, "My colleague shall be heard!" The crowd swayed to and fro, the mace of the little sergeant-at-arms dancing about on the surface till it was thrown clear out of the vortex, recalling the scene in Westminster Hall, when Cromwell, who had entered to expel the Eump Parliament, was confront- ed with the mace, and cried, " Take away that bau- ble !" The frightened Speaker rapped, rapped, rapped, shouted " Order, order, order!" and the storm finally subsided.
Thaddeus Stevens, clearly within parliamentary rules, was addressing the House on another occasion in his usual pungent style, when Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia, followed by a dozen other Secessionists, rushed towards him, some of them threatening to as- sassinate him on the spot unless he retracted his words. The brave old commoner maintained his ground, and stood by his words. He was then in his sixty-ninth year, and a cripple. Crawford Avas forty, and tall, wiry, and athletic. The assault plunged the House into a vortex of excitement. The deliberation and dignity of Stevens cowed Crawford and his caitiffs, who, one after another, slunk into their seats, while the great debater resumed his speech. The steadiness of nerve exhibited by Mr. Stevens probably saved the House from a bloody affray. The subsequent career of CraAvford illustrates his colossal impudence. Dur- ing the civil war he was a member of the rebel con-
TIIADDECS STEVENS. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 209
gress, and was sent by that assembly to "Washington as one of a so-called commission or embassy to nego- tiate a treaty of peace between the Confederacy and the United States, on the basis that the Union was already dissolved. Could effrontery further go ! These tumults were the skirmishes that preceded Bull Kun, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Appomattox Court House. Keitt was killed in battle in front of Washington, and Barksdale fell in the last terrible charge of Lee against Cemetery Eidge, at Gettysburg, but Crawford pre- ferred to practise law.
An emancipated race, through the long 3^ears to come, will cast wreaths on the grave of Thaddeus Ste- vens. Born to a low condition, he struggled with adver- sity till he reached eminence in law, politics, and states- manship. During the administrations of Lincoln and Johnson he was the leader of the Kepubhcan party in the House of Kepresentatives, its most acute and fearless debater, occupying extreme radical ground on the subjects of the emancipation of the slaves, their enlistment in the army in the war period, and their admission to the ballot-boxes in the reconstruction era ; while on the other hand he advocated the politi- cal disfranchisement and the confiscation of the prop- erty of all those who had actively participated in the rebellion.
Eising from obscurity and poverty, Stephen A. Douglas, without adventitious aids, advanced by sheer force of will and perseverance to eminent leadership in the Democratic party. He had Httle learning, but was endowed with rare oratorical gifts, while his buoyant spirits made him popular with the multitude.
210
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
He was a native-born tribune of the people. A little story will illustrate his jovial manner. Beverly Tuck- er was sitting on his knee, with Douglas's arm around him. Bev.," said he, when I get to be President what shall I do for you ?" Doug.," replied Tucker, " when you get to be President all I shall ask of you is to take me on j^our knee, put your arm around me, and call me ' Be v.' "
In his contest for Senator with Mr. Lincoln, in 1858, he was successful, but did not come to Washington in the following winter until after his re-election to the Senate by the legislature. In his conflict with the " Tall Sucker," of Springfield, the " Little Giant," of Chicago, had been driven to the utterance of opinions on the Free-soil question which were repugnant to the creed of such slavery propagandists in the Senate as Davis, Mason, Toombs, and Slidell. Ilis reception in the Senate, on his first appearance, was a spectacle to be enjoyed. As he entered a select crowd in the galleries applauded. Mason, Slidell, and their bitter clique scowled and did not recognize him. When a distinguished senator approached he rose from his seat and received the greeting with marked cordiality. The lesser lights were content with a hearty shake of the hand, he maintaining a sitting posture. Jefferson Da- vis came to his chair. Douglas rose, and they bowed and bowed, but seemed to say very little. After some of the minor Kepublicans had paid their respects to the lion of the hour, Mr. Seward crossed the aisle ; Doug- las rose, they bowed, and lie then gave the leader of the opposition a seat by his side. Since the last ses- sion the Senate had removed into its ncAv chamber,
SENATOR STUART DEFENDS DOUGLAS. 211
where Douglas had never sat. Lest he and Seward should bo suspected of conversing about the Illinois contest (which was delicate ground for Mr. Seward to tread), the latter, with spectacles in hand and arm extended, was pointing out the architectural beauties of the new hall, Mr. Douglas following the spectacles with his eye, and twisting around in his chair to keep pace with their meanderings.
For many days Douglas was quiet, content with his victory at home. The Slavery -propagandists deter- mined to drive him out of the party. A string of resolutions condemnatory of his Illinois opinions was introduced into the Senate. The debate lasted far into the night. The Kepublicans generally stood aloof. The attacks upon Douglas were rare speci- mens of scathing oratory, Mason and Slidell being particularly offensive. Douglas and his few Demo- cratic coadjutors bore up gallantly against their as- sailants. Charles E. Stuart, of Michigan, a Demo- cratic Senator, was a strong, rough debater. In the evening he converted the Senate Chamber into a threshing-floor and his tongue into a flail. He told the propagandists that instead of receiving the distin- guished Senator from Illinois as a victor, they had treated him as if he were a pickpocket. He pointed to the many seats, one by one, now occupied by Ee- publicans, which he had formerly seen filled by Dem- ocrats. " And this," he exclaimed, in stentorian tones, and shaldng his fist at the antagonists of Douglas, " is due to your detestable doctrines." They quailed under the flagellation of Stuart. It gave them a fore- taste of the civil war. The success of the l^orth in the
212
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
"War of the Eebellion was, strange to say, in part due to the author of the bill that repealed the Missouri Compromise. I refer to the patriotic letter Douglas addressed to his Democratic friends, which was ap- pended to Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, in April, 1861. It produced an impression through the country almost as profound as the Presi- dent's proclamation. It extinguished the hope of the South that they were to receive open aid from the Xorthem Democracy in the attempt to destroy the Union. Indeed, the accession to the patriotic side of the struggle at a critical juncture of six such distin- guished Democrats as General Cass, Mr. Dickinson, Kobert J. Walker, Jeremiah Black, General Dix, and Mr. Douglas, went far to inspire confidence in the ultimate triumph of the constitutional party.
It so happened that Mr. Douglas and I left Wash- ington in the same railway train in the perilous days of April, 1861. We occupied adjoining seats till we reached the Eelay House, where he turned his face towards his Western home. He told me he should spend the spring and summer in rallying the people of Illinois to the support of Lincoln and the Union. Alas ! on the third of the following June his sun set to rise no more on earth.
In 1860 Mr. Seward made a speech in the Senate which lie thought would remove all obstacles to his nomination to the Presidency at Chicago. He read it to me before it was delivered, and requested me to write a description for the JVeio Yorh Irlhine of the scene in the chamber during the delivery, which I did. The description was elaborate, the Senator him-
SEWARD AND CORWKV.
213
self suggesting some of the nicer touches, and every line of it was written and on its Avay to ISTew York before Mr. Seward had uttered a word in the Senate Chamber. Soon a large edition of the speech and the description came to Washington. As he handed me some copies he said, in his liveliest manner, " Here we go down to posterity together." lie was in buoy- ant spirits, seeming not to doubt "that his nomination was assured. He would have felt otherwise if he had known that at that critical 'moment scarcely a half dozen Eepublican Senators were heartily in favor of his candidacy. It is my own personal knowledge that enables me to state that Fessenden, Hamlin, Hale, Simmons, Foster, Dixon, Cameron, Wade, Trum- bull, and Doolittle were among his opponents.
In the early spring of 1860 state contests were pending in Connecticut and Ehode Island w^hose re- sults might exert a wide influence in the next Presi- dential campaign. I spoke in Connecticut and seve- ral times in Ehode Island. In the latter state a fierce struggle was raging for the governorship between tw^o rich candidates — William Sprague, Democrat, and Seth Paddleford, Eepublican. Each w^as flooding that little rotten borough with money. The Eepublicans urged me to get Mr. Corwin to come from Washington and help them. I told them he was poor, and could not afford to waste money in stump speaking. I de- manded a carte llanche as to the terms I was to sub- mit to the peerless orator. They gave it. I saw him. In his half-serious, half -comic style he pronounced me a philosopher, and started eastward ; and on his re- turn he remarked in the same vein that the Yankees
214
KANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
were the most magnificent and munificent people on the face of the globe. A recital of the details of my financial negotiations in behalf of the high contract- ing parties might be amusing.
"When in the House of Eepresentatives, in 1848, I saw a tall, lank, sallow-hued member bending over the chair of another member, scarcely larger than one of the pages, whose dried skin looked like parch- ment. On inquiry I learned that they were Abraham Lincoln and Alexander H. Stephens, both Whigs.
In the spring of 1860 Mr. Lincoln came eastward. He delivered a wonderful speech in Cooper Institute, and went to Connecticut and Ehode Island, where he addressed tumultuous assemblies in the principal cities. His debate with Douglas, his speech in New York, and his trip to New England, gave him the nomination to the Presidency.
Mr. Seward seemed to be certain of receiving the Presidential nomination at Chicago. He felt that it belonged to him. His flatterers had encouraged him in the error that he was the sole creator of the Ke- publican part\^, both he and they forgetting that it was the grandchild of the Liberty party, which Avas the legitimate offspring of the Missouri controversy.
At Chicago, Seward encountered the opposition from his own state of sucli powerful leaders as Gree- ley, Dudley Field, Bryant, and AVadsworth. The first two were on tbe ground and very busy. The two latter sent pungent letters that were circulated among the delegates from various states. The main point of the attack was that Seward could not carry New York. Soon after the adjournment of the con-
SEWAKD AND THE CHICAGO CONVENTION.
215
vention, William Curtis IS'oyes, who vras a delegate, told me (and there could not have been higher au- thority for the statement than this learned lawyer) that a careful canvass of the Xew York delegation showed that nearly one fourth of its members be- lieved it was extremely doubtful if Seward could ob- tain a majority at the polls in that state. This doubt was an element of great weakness in Seward's can- vass at Chicago. The Barnburners in the Eepublican party were general!}^ against him.' Perhaps the main stumblino:-block over which he fell in the convention was Thurlow AVeed. As events finally culminated, it was clear that Seward could have carried Xew York, for the Southern conspirators against the Union were determined that the Eepublican candidate, who- ever he was, should be elected.
Mr. Seward Avas popular among his neighbors On the day when the convention was to ballot for a can- didate, Ca^^ga county poured itself into Auburn. The streets were full, and Mr. Seward's house and grounds overflowed with his admirers. The trees waved their branches on the lawn as if betokeninc' coming victory. Flags were ready to be raised, and a loaded cannon was placed at the gate, whose pillars bore up two guardian lions. Arrangements had been perfected for the receipt of intelligence with unwont- ed speed from the scene where the battle was pro- ceeding. At Mr. Seward's right hand, just within the porch, stood his trusty henchman, Christopher Mor- gan. The rider of a galloping steed dashed through the crowd with a telegram, and handed it to Seward, He read it and passed it to Morgan. For Seward,
21G
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
173 J ; for Lincoln, 103 ; and for other aspirants, 189J. Morgan repeated it to the multitude, who cheered ve- hemently. Then came the tidings of the second bal- lot : For Seward, 18i^ ; for Lincoln, 181 ; and for others, 99J-. ''I shall be nominated on the next bal- lot," said Seward, and the throng in the house ap- plauded, and those on the lawn and in the street ech- oed the cheers. The next messenger fi'om the tele- graph office lashed his horse into a run. The telegram read, " Lincoln nominated. T. TV." Seward turned as pale as ashes. The sad tidings crept through the vast concourse. The flags were furled, the can- non was rolled away, and Cayuga county went homo Avith a clouded brow. Mr. Seward retired to rest at a late hour, and the night breeze in the tall trees sighed a requiem over the blighted hopes of New York's eminent son.
Mr. Seward felt his defeat at Chicago beyond all power of expression, and he never forgave those who had actively contributed to produce it. In incensed moments he accused some men wrongfully, as he sub- sequently admitted. lie was a good hater, and lay in wait to punish his foes. He doubtless defeated General TVadsworth for Governor of Xew York in 1862. "Wadsworth was then military commander at Washington, and Seward was Secretary of State. Wadsworth told me that Seward was " dead against him " all through the campaign. He rather surprised me by saying that Weed wanted him elected. Per- haps this was due to the fact that thirty-five years before Weed and the father of General Wadsworth had stood shoulder to shoulder in the Anti-Masonic
SEWAKD AND GREELEY.
217
party in western New York. I could relate many marked instances within my own knoAvledge where Seward's lightning strokes fell on Xew York Kepub- licans who had opposed his nomination in 1860. If bitter exclamations, welling up from the heart, can prove anything, they demonstrated the depth and in- tensity of his mortification and anger. More than to any other one man he attributed his failure to reach the goal of his ambition to Horace Greeley. For twenty years they were coadjutors in politics, but in 1854 they became estranged, and never after were in close accord. They descended to their graves in the same autumn, Seward in October and Greeley in IS"ovember, 1872. Crushed Presidential aspirations paved the path of each to the tomb. It was just twenty years since Clay and ^Vebster had gone to the spirit land by the same dark and dreary road.
Mr. Seward's successor was to be elected to the Senate in 1861, he being about to enter Lincoln's Cabinet. Mr. Seward's and Mr. "Weed's candidate was William M. Evarts. His principal antagonist was Horace Greeley, but Ira Harris, whom Weed hated a little less than he did Greeley, held about twenty votes as a balance of power. There were a dozen or more votes floating around loose. The Ee- publican nomination was equivalent to an election. The prize was exceptionably valuable, for the Senator would exert great influence in the distribution of pat- ronage and otherwise under the new administration. Evarts and Harris were on the ground weeks previ- ous to the day of trial, and Albany was full of sup- porters of the rival aspirants. Greeley w^as at the 1 0
218
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
"West lecturing. Governor Morgan favored Evarts, and on the evening of the caucus gave AYeed tlie pos- session of the Executive Chamber for the Evarts head- quarters. De Witt C. Littlejohn, tall and lithe, was "Weed's lieutenant. Greeley and Evarts ran about neck and neck. Harris held the balance. There were a dozen or fifteen floaters. For three ballots the re- sult hardly changed. Suddenly Greeley shot ahead of Evarts, and it looked as if he would win on the next ballot. Pale as ashes. Weed sat smoking a cigar within earshot of the bustle in the crowded Assembly room, where the caucus sat. Littlejohn stalked over the heads of the spectators, and reported to Weed. Unmindful of the fact that he had a cigar in his mouth, Weed lighted another and put it in, then rose in great excitement, and said to Littlejohn, " Tell the Evarts men to go right over to Harris — to Harris — to Harris!" The order was given in the caucus. They wheeled into line like ^Napoleon's Old Guard, and Harris vvas nominated. Cannon reverberated on Capitol hill. They were not fired by the AYeed-Ev- arts faction.
Mr. Seward occupied the seat in the Senate which, under the constitutional mode of arrangement, is in class number three. From the foundation of the gov- ernment it had been filled by many statesmen of shining talents, among whom were Eufus King, De Witt Clinton, John Armstrong, Nathan Sanford,AVill- iam L. Marcy, Silas Wright, and John A. Dix. Its prestige had not been tarnished by Mr. Seward. Though defeated in his attempt to reach this elevated position in 1861, Mr. Evarts achieved it twenty-four
SEWARD AND EVARTS.
219
years later, but through auspices quite different from those that seconded his effort in the earlier struggle. In the intervening period the country had borne up under colossal events that might suffice to make a century bend. Mr. Seward, Mr. Weed, and Mr. Mor- gan had gone to the tomb^ and Mr. Evarts, in his old age, was lifted into the chair that Eoscoe Conkling had voluntarily vacated, by politicians who had prob- ably never heard of Eufus King, and knew little of "William H. Seward.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Lincoln's Cabinet. — Chase Pushed in. — David Davis, Confidential Adviser of Lincoln. — Mrs. Lincoln "Sub-President." — Notices of Seward, Chase, Cameron, Bates, Blair, and Welles. — Bick- erings in the Cabinet. — Chase and Seward Grapple. — Bray- Dickinson and Marcus Curtius.— Down in Dixie in April, 1861. — Narrow Escape from Secessionists. — General Butler and his Troops.— Colonel Jones and his Regiment Going through Balti- more.— First Blood of the War. — Notice of Edwin M. Stanton, the War Secretary.
After it Avas known that Mr. Seward was to be Secretary of State great efforts were made by Yice- President Hamlin, Mr. Greeley, Mr. Dana, Mr. Wads- worth, the elder Blair, ex-Senator Carroll, and others of that type, to get Mr. Chase into the Treasury De- partment, as an offset to Mr. Seward. The President and Chase were on the same floor at Willard's Hotel. Mr. Chase had just been choocn a Senator in Congress. In ignorance of the President's intentions, he repaired to the Capitol, and was sworn as Senator, when the message appointing him Secretary of the Treasury was opened in his presence. The case of Gideon Welles was not quite so singular. When Mr. Lin- coln was stumping Connecticut, in the spring of 1860, Welles accompanied him through the state. At Wash- ington he told me he was to go into the Cabinet ; and when asked what ])ortfolio he was to take, said he was not sure, but supposed he would be Postmaster- general.
Lincoln's cabinet.
221
I could put on paper many more things Avhich I personally know about Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet than I shall. I am constrained to omit some of the raciest. David Davis, then in his prime, came to Washington in the trail of the new President. In his vigorous style he took an active part in the construction of the Cabinet. He stood closer to Mr. Lincoln than was then generally supposed. * In the controversies that already appeared, and which subsequently ri- pened into bitterness, Judge Davis was understood to lean to^vards Mr. Seward. Who that witnessed the scene can forget how, in the gusty two weeks that foreboded the storm, Davis stamped back and forth among the male and female politicians that crowded the corridors at Willard's, doing great and small er- rands for large and little people, with hat cocked awry on his head, in the free-and-easy fashion of the boundless West. Mrs. Lincoln, who arrived at Wash- ington with the idea that she was a sort of sub-Pres- ident, vvas suspected of communicating her wishes in respect to the composition of the Cabinet to the much-bored and badgered friend of her husband. She, too, was understood to be on the Seward- Weed side of the pending contest, and opposed to the Chase- Greeley clique. Current gossip reported that, when a protest went up to the President against this inter- meddling of the mistress of the robes, he replied, in characteristic phrase, " Tell the gentlemen not to be alarmed, for I myself manage all important matters. In little things I have got along through life by let- ting my wife run her end of the machine pretty much in her own way."
222
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
Perhaps Mr. Lincoln was wise in selecting his Cab- inet mainly from rivals whom he had overthrown or absorbed at the Chicago Convention. The former lists included Seward, Chase, Cameron, and Bates, while Blair, Smith, and Welles represented factions that had been at the best his cool friends in that try- ing emergency. I had often spoken from the plat- form with such members of the new Cabinet as were accustomed to address public meetings, and knew the others well except Mr. Bates, a quiet, retired gentle- man, who would not have been dreamed of for Attor- ney-General had not Mr. Greeley been supporting him as a make-shift candidate for the Presidential nomination. Nothing but the pressure of the civil war and the patience of Mr. Lincoln kept these in- congruous materials together for six months. Nor was the harmony of the Cabinet improved when Ed- win M. Stanton, nine months after its creation, took the place of Simon Cameron as Secretary of TVar. I do not rely on rumoi^ or inferences or infomiation from the newspapers or other outside sources when I say that Chase was stubborn, jealous, and always in- triguing against some of his associates, especially Seward. Blair, too, was given to plotting and con- tention, and what he lacked in capacity to cope with his colleagues was supplied by the cool sagacity of his long-headed father and the hot temper of his cour- ageous brother, Frank, junior. Amid these warring elements Seward usually appeared self -poised, con- scious of his power, and satisfied with his superior influence at the White House. He parted with his temper now and then, when friends pressed him to
SEWAKD AND CHASE.
223
perform impossibilities, as, for example, on the occa- sion of a visit from leading Xew York Republicans of bis type, who complained that their followers were not receiving a due share of Federal patronage. It was reported and believed that he broke into a rage, exclaiming, in substance, " Why come to me about this ? Go to the White House ! I, who by every right ought to have been chosen President ! what am
I now ? nothing but Abe Lincoln's little clerk."
Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Xavy, usually steered clear of these feuds, and minded his own business. Mr. Stanton was sometimes drawn into them. I shall speak more particularly of the great War Secretary in another place.
Notorious was the superiority of Seward over Chase in the handling of Federal patronage, and the consequent mortification of Chase. I will give one illustration of this, out of many that fell under my notice. I must first tell of whom I am speaking. In the winter of 184:1, I was an onlooker at a debate, in the Senate at Albany, on the causes of Mr. Yan Bu- ren's defeat in ISIO. John Hunter, a Democrat, of Westchester, a refined gentleman and a classical schol- ar, declared that Yan Buren's courage in placing him- self in tlie chasm between a corrupt bank and a pa- triotic people had its fitting historic parallel in the Eoman Forum when Marcus Curtius leaped into the abyss to save the republic. Andrew B. Dickinson, familiarly called Bray Dickinson, a Whig, of Steuben, illiterate and rough-hewn, but a strong debater, who doubtless never till then had heard of Marcus Curtius, replied to Hunter. When he came to the classical
224 ■ RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
portion of the speech, he said that the difference be- tween that Eoman " feller," Curtis, and Yan Euren was, that Curtis jumped into the gap of his own ac- cord, but the people throw'' d Yan Buren in.
When Mr. Lincoln became President, Mr. Dickinson and Edward I. Chase, the brother of Secretary Chase, w^ere rival aspirants for the office of Marshal of Northern JS'ew York. Secretary Chase took deep in- terest in his brother's success. He procured for him the recommendation of Attorney-general Bates, and as this office lay wdthin his department, it w^as sup- posed that this ended the controversy. Dickinson had long been a devoted follower of Mr. Seward, and the Secretary of State now put forth every exertion for his old friend. It was a stand up fight between the two secretaries. Seward prevailed, and the bad- gered President appointed Dickinson. When the ncAvs came to Chase, it was a scene for a painter. His eye- brows twitched more nervously than usual, and his breath was short and hot as he spitefuU}^ said, " What a place you Xew York men have got me into !" Hav- ing w^on the day, Dickinson said that Seward advised him to take his commission (if it may be so called) to Secretary Chase, and tell him he felt sorry for him • and his brother, and that, as Mr. Seward had offered him (Dickinson) his pick of the foreign missions, he would decline the marshalship in his brother's favor. Dickinson did this ; and this in substance, and much more of the same kind, Dickinson detailed before a large circle in the public hall of a Washington liotel, seeming to take special pleasure in telling how badly Secretary Chase felt, and how he pitied him, and how
THE MOB AT BALTIMORE.
225
glad Chase was to get the appointment for his broth- er on these terms, and that Mr. Seward had gener- ously opened his book to him, and he had selected the mission to Nicaragua.
Several contests occurred between the two secreta- ries over places more important than this marshal- ship, and their oppugnation rose far above offices, and reached measures and policies, till they gave Mr. Lin- coln as much trouble in his Cabinet as General Wash- ington had w^th Jefferson and Hamilton. The sharp criticisms I heard from Mr. Chase on some of his col- leagues, and even on the President, would be inter- esting reading. Probably Mr. Lincoln w^as glad to place him at the head of the Supreme Bench, where, doubtless, Mr. Chase was glad to go.
As already stated, I left Washington for Xew^ York in April, 1861. I had witnessed the arrival at the Capitol of the first volunteer troops that came to its rescue on the 19th of the month. It was that brave Massachusetts regiment commanded by Colonel Ed- ward F. Jones (noAV Lieutenant-Governor of Isew York), some of whose members had been, slain while passing through Baltimore, and all of whom, doubt- less, remembered that it was the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, fought eighty-six years before. I found Baltimore under the control of a mob. A portion of them were armed with muskets, stolen from an arsenal. While circulating among them (this Avas on Sunday) their murderous purposes were read- ily perceived. The telegraph wires and railroad tracks between Baltimore and Havre de Grace (where trains cross the Susquehanna) had been destroyed. Never-
10-^-
226
RAXDO:.I RECOLLECTIOXS.
theless, somebody had obtained a copy or two of that number of the Nevo York Herald which declared in favor of maintaining the Union by force. The man- ifesto was read to a great throng, and it was easy to pick out the Secessionists by the fall of their coun- tenances.
On Monday, a small party of us hired at an exor- bitant rate a man to carry us to Havre de Grace. He proved to be a deputy sheriff of Harford County, re- siding at Bel Air, who had just come to Baltimore with passengers from the Xorth. Baltimore was then a nest of rebels, and Maryland was on the verge of secession. The towns we went through were in- flamed with excitement. I was on the box with our sheriff, who seemed to know everybody, and would shout to the crowds, " Hurrah for Jeff. !" at the same time punching me and saying, ^' I'll take care of my load." We stopped at Bel Air to dine. Our wagon stood in the street with half a dozen trunks marked
Js'ew York," and so on, which loungers kept curious- ly inspecting. We waited a couple of hours after din- ner ; the horses had been stabled ; the sheriff could not be found ; the landlord, whom we had liberally rewarded for our dinner, was away, and there were no signs of preparation for our departure. The court- house was near at hand, and I liad noticed that a tu- multuous meeting was going on within, while a rough crowd hung around the door. After a long delay the landlord appeared, a team was attached to the vehi- cle, and the landlord shook hands with us, saying, in a significant tone, " Gentlemen, you'll find us all right the next time you venture down into Dixie."
BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.
227
]^ow for the cause of our detention. The meet- ing at the court-house had been summoned to decide whether the county should go with the Secessionists. Our arrival had raised a side issue in a small circle of violent men, some of whom wanted to hang us, while others proposed to detain us for examination. The sheriff or landlord interposed, and we were allowed to depart. On arriving at IlaA^re, we found that Gen- eral B. F. Butler had been there and captured all the ferry-boats for the transportation of Massachusetts troops to Washington via Annapolis. We hired a rowboat to take us across the Susquehanna to the railway depot, which a Pennsylvania regiment was at that moment entering, the flags flying and drums beating. Half a dozen fellows tried to prevent our crossing the river. A small scuffle ensued, and we were afloat. They fired muskets at us, but the shades of the evening were gathering, and they missed the mark. I conferred with the commander of the Penn- sylvania regiment, giving him the latest information from Baltimore and "Washington, whither he was bound, provided he could reach there.
Irrepressible Ben Butler I His prompt seizure of the ferry-boats gave the country a foreshadowing of his stern quality. Clearer than most others he saw the end from the beo^inning'. Baltimore never be- haved so well as when cowering under the muzzles of his cannon. But Maryland was slow to take in the situation, and did not come to its senses till General George B. McClellan shut the doors of its legislature to prevent the state being carried out of the Union. And so it was in Xev7 Orleans. That turbulent city
228
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
was kept in good order vrhen ruled by General But- ler's pen and sword.
I had iireviouslj known of Edwin M. Stanton as the reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio when I saw him in 1856 at Washington, where he had come to practise law. We held a chatty interview, in vrhich he said we were kindred, his great-grandfather (per- chance it was the grandfather), like mine, having been a Ehode-Islander. We acted on this assumption for a good Avhile ; but afterwards an expert in gene- alogy, Avho volunteered to trace our lineage, informed us that though we sprang from the same stock, our common ancestor lived long before King Philip pitched his tent on Mount Hope, or Roger Williams put his spade into Providence plantations. He ran our line back to Amw Domini 1010, which being half a century before William the Conqueror set foot on Saxon soil, I begged him to pause lest he land our progenitors in the Silurian epoch when the first Dr. Darwin electrified the mollusks by foreshadowing the evolution theory of the origin of man.
I met Mr. Stanton many times while he was at the head of the War Department. If he was as brutal an administrator of that office as his enemies were w^ont to assert, I never discovered it. lie discharged its duties according to his own views of right and expediency during a civil war whose magnitude has no parallel in modern times, and when the armies of the belligerents were twice as large as the forces ever commanded by the great Xa])oleon. A dozen Wa- terloos were fought by troops which he had sum- moned to the field, and, like Pitt and Carnot, he was
EDWIN M. STANTON.
229
the minister who organized victory. He died, worn out by patriotic labors. While the great secretary Avas living, Xorthern demagogues and Southern trai- tors denounced him. Their calumnies have not ceased since he was laid to rest. I have seen him in very trying and sometimes extremely irritating circum- stances, but only once was he rude or even discourte- ous. I will brief! V refer to this rather amusino^ inci- dent. His office was hung with maps that bore on their surface mysterious marks 'in inks of various col- ors. He had left his room unoccupied for a few min- utes. On returning to it he found a plainly-dressed countryman lifting up and looking at one or two of the maps. The secretary violently exclaimed, What rebel emissary do we find here overhauling the secret archives of the War Department i Who are you !" he thundered ? " This explains how it is that impor- tant intelligence leaks out of this office, and falls into the hands of the enemy. Who are you T' He then pounded the bell for a messenger, and in the uproar the countryman, pale as a ghost, contrived to make his way out of the building. He soon returned from Willard's Hotel, accompanied by his member of Con- gress, Avho proceeded to explain that his constituent had two sons' in the army, and one had been wounded and was pining in a hospital, and the father wanted permission to go through the lines and take him home ; ?cnd that he had a letter of introduction in his pocket from the Congressman to the secretary when he stallved accidentally into his empty room half an hour ago ; and so on and so forth. Stanton instantly comprehended the situation. He bowed and bowed,
230
EAXDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
shook hands with the Congressman and the country- man, and bowed again to each, but made no aUusion to the previous explosion. He listened to a short story about the wounded soldier, and immediateh^ drafted tlie orders for his father to visit the hospital and take him home. On the way back to AYillard's the Congressman offered to bet fifty dollars Avith his delighted constituent that he would have failed to carry his point if the Secretary had not burst into a passion when he caught him overhauling the maps and called him a rebel emissary.
I witnessed another scene that illustrated the Sec- retary's proverbial promptness of decision and rapid- ity of execution. One morning when he came to his office he found a miscellaneous company of thirty or forty men and Avomen (mostly of the middle class) aAvaiting his arrival. By his direction a messenger conducted them into an adjoining room, in the centre of Avhicli Avas a little desk resting on a pillar. Soon the secretary entered, boAving suaA'eh^, and took his stand by the desk, Avhile I settled into a chair and looked on. He called to his side the oldest and plain- est-dressed Avoman in the croAvd, and mildly asked, " Madam, what can I do for you ?" He listened to a short narrative, drew up and gave her a brief note, and told a messenger to take '* this lady " to the Adju- tant-general's office. Instantly another aged Avoman stood at the desk and handed him a letter. He read it, endorsed scAxral lines on the back, and she dis- ap})eared under the guidance of a messenger. To the next he said, " Madam, your business belongs to the Xavy Department. Messenger, show this lady the
EDWIN M. STANTON.
231
way to the Kavy Department." To one he gravely remarked, after glancing over her papers, " This is a serious matter. I must examine it carefully. Please step into my office, and wait till I come." And in this manner he went through the entire list, patient- ly, urbanely, quietly, disposing of every case right on the spot, except three or four that were cjuite intri- cate. He cleared the room in forty-five minutes.
A Eepublican client of mine, a large grocer, had trusted sutlers in the army of the Potomac to the amount of several thousand dollars. He came to me in terror, armed with a letter of .Governor Morgan, endorsing his patriotism and integrity, and said I must go to Washington with him in the next train, and procure permission for him to pass through the lines to collect what the sutlers owed him or he should lose it,/(9?' he knew our army was about to attack the enemy ^ and the sutlers would be scattered, and per- haps knocked to pieces. We arrived in Washington the next morning. When the Secretary reached the office I humorously remarked that I wished to make a draft on the well-known urbanity of all the Stan- tons for many generations, " which I am doing so much to dissipate," broke in the Secretary, in the same vein. I explained my business, vouched for the loyalty and prudence of my client, showed the letter of Mr. Morgan, and expressed the hope that, in such an exigency, he would let the grocer pass the lines and collect his dues, or he would be ruined. Stanton struck the table and rose from his chair. " How does this man know that the army is about to move and fight a battle ?" How does he know anything about
232
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
it?" I told him I had not the slightest idea. He then went stamping around the room, wondering why outsiders got up these preposterous reports, but at the same time expressing his indignation at the leaks that were constantly occurring in the War and Xavy de- partments— all of which satisfied me that the army was about to attack the enemy. Mr. Stanton resumed his seat, cooled off, sent for Mr. AYolcott, one of his assistants (and his brother-in-law, I believe), and told him to hear me, and do what I wished. My client went through the lines, obtained his money, and was just leaving Avhen our artillery opened fire.
The following anecdote gives a glimpse of the fa- miliar relations subsisting between the President and the Secretary. Owen Lovejoy, a member of Con- gress from Illinois, obtained from Mr. Lincoln a prom- ise to issue a certain war order, but added, " You must go and tell Stanton about it." He went. " Did the President say he Avould issue such an order ?" inquired the Secretary. He did," responded Lovejoy. " Then he is a fool — a great fool," replied Stanton. Lovejoy returned to the President, and repeated the conversa- tion between him and the Secretary. Did Stanton say I was a fool ^" inquired Lincoln. " He did," said Lovejoy. " Then I think I am a fool, for Stanton is generally right," was the characteristic reply of the President.
My authority for the following incident was pres- ent at the Cabinet meeting Avhere it occurred : Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of AVar, came in Avith the de- tails of a foreshadowed plan for a simultaneous attack on the rebels at three points, in wliich he would want
EDWIN M. STANTON. GIDEON WELLES. 233
a little assistance from the ISTavy. Stanton described his lirst place of attack, and said the troops would need the co-operation of one or two gunboats. The President, addressing Secretary Gideon Welles, asked if they could be furnished. He wriggled around in his chair, and said he couldn't tell, but would inquire, and let them kno^v at the next meeting of the Cabinet. And this, in substance, was his response on all the three points of Stanton's programme. Putting one of his feet on the table, the vexed President said, Mr. Secretary, will you please tell us all you know about the Navy, and then we shall know all you don't know about it." I have thought that the other members of the Cabinet did not fully appreciate Mr. Welles. I was much with him in the Fremont campaign, and know that he was a gentleman of sound judgment and tireless industry. The Cabinet was torn by fac- tions, which the Secretary of the JS'avy tried to steer clear of, and mind his own affairs.
Mr. Stanton would sometimes express his weariness of the toils and trials of the War Department, and his strong desire to return to the practice of the law. When consulting with a general of the army, who was a lawyer, about the Military Governorship of Washington, he gave vent to his ardent feelings in that direction, but, suddenly checking the current, he exclaimed, "However, I shall remain here and try our Great Cause through to the end."
CHAPTER XXIV.
Mr. Lincoln and Dr. McPbeeters. — Lincoln's Story, — Roscoe Conkling and Xoali Davis Candidates for the Senate in 1867. — Conkling Elected. — Defeat of Morgan by Fenton for the Senate in 18G9. — Escape of Marshall O. Roberts from the Lobby. — Democratic National Convention of 1868, — Seymour Favors Chase. — Vallandigham's Course.— Seymour Nominated. — Grant Elected. — Seymour Urged to x^ccept the Senatorship in 1875; Refuses; Why. — Seward's Trip around the World. — Death of Seward in 1872.— R. B. Hayes Running for Governor of Ohio in 1875. — Senator Thurman's Singular Prediction. — Conkling and Piatt Resign from the Senate, and Lapham and Miller Succeed them in 1881. — Conkling's Success at the Bar.
My brother. Rev. R. L. Stanton, D.D., was a leader in the Presbyterian Church, and a Avarm friend of Mr. Lincoln during the war. In the great struggle he was aggressively on the side of the Union, and in fa- vor of the emancipation policy of Mr. Lincoln. In 1862-63 the Rev. Dr. McPheeters, a prominent Pres- byterian, was preaching at St. Louis. Major-general Curtis commanded in that military department. One Sunday Dr. McPheeters uttered some sentiments that were deemed disloyal. The next Sunday Dr. Mc- Pheeters found the doors of his church closed by or- der of General Curtis. There was immediate trouble, not alone in St. Louis, but in AVashington. A com- mittee, composed of both factions, went to see the President. Finding Dr. Stanton in Wasliington, they requested liim to go with them to the White House
TRESIDENT LINCOLN.
235
and present them to Mr. Lincoln. The President lis- tened patiently, and then spoke as follows :
" I can best illustrate my position in regard to your St. Louis quarrel telling a story. A man in Illi- nois had a large watermelon patch, on which he looped to make money enough to carry him over the year. A big hog broke through the log-fence nearly every night, and the melons were gradually disappearing. At leno;tli the farmer told his son John to iret out the guns, and they would promptly dispose of the disturb- er of their melon-patch. They followed the tracks to the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred yards, when the tracks again went into the creek, but promptly turned up on the other side. Once more the hunters buffeted the mud and water, and again struck the lead and pushed on a few furlongs, when the tracks made another dive into the creek. Out of breath and patience, the farmer said, ' John, you cross over and go up on that side of the creek, and I'll keep upon this side, for I believe the old fellow is on both sides.' Gentlemen,'' concluded Mr. Lincoln, " that is just where I stand in regard to your controversies in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my generals to run the churches, and I can't allow your ministers to preach rebellion. Go home, preach the Gospel, stand by the Union, and don't disturb the government with any more of your petty quar- rels."
Dr. Stanton said that, when the belligerents reached Willard's Hotel, they had a hearty laugh, and made up
236
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
their minds that they would go home and follow the President's advice.
In January, 1867, Mr. Conkling, having won a high reputation in the House of Representatives, was a can- didate for United States Senator. He was supported with fidelity and enthusiasm by a large body of the most skilful politicians in the state. His leading op- ponent was Xoah Davis, then on the Bench of the Supreme Court in the Eighth District. In the con- test at Albany Mr. Conkling prevailed over Judge Davis by a narrow majority. The learning, acumen, and versatility displayed by Mr. Davis on the Bench in western IS'ew York, and as Presiding Justice of the Supreme Court in the metropolitan city, and while a member of the Forty-first Congress and United States Attorney in the Southern District of Kew York, are recognized by his fellow-citizens. But it is not so widely known that, in the Free-soil conflict of 1848, he was an active Barnburner. I was on the platform with him before a large out-door meeting in Albion in that campaign. He was then the law part- ner of Sanford E. Church. He would have ably rep- resented the state as a Senator in Congress.
In 1863 Edwin D. Morgan wielded the influence he had acquired in two gubernatorial terms to secure an election to the Senate. His six years at "Washing- ton would expire in March, 1869. He had no doubt that he would be his o\f n successor. He heard that Peuben E. Fenton souglit his place. It did not occur to him that the wily Chautauqua sachem had just com- pleted four years' service in the Executive Chamber at Albany, and still tarried in that city to manage
EDWIN I). MORGAN. — REUBEN E. FENTON. 2o7
his Senatorial canvass. Morgan was cautioned to take heecl to the selection of a Speaker of the Assem- bly, for he would wield great power, especially in the appointment of the committees, most of which in those days were lucrative. Morgan declared himself satisfied Avith Truman G. Younglove for Speaker, lie was under a strange delusion, for Younglove was the fast friend of Fenton.
The new Speaker took the chair at the opening of the session ; the Assembly met daily, but no commit- tees were announced. Weeks rolled away, the Speak- er's rooms were all the time full of applicants for fat berths, and by and by he proclaimed that no commit- tees would be appointed till after the Senator was chosen. The capital city was crowded with Eepubli- cans from every portion of the state. Fenton was as unruffled as Chautauqua lake in summer. Morgan began to be disturbed, broke up his quarters at Wash- ington, came to Albany, and put himself at the head of his forces. Kumor was at fault if plenty of money was not in circulation. It was asserted, and believed, that $12,000 were paid for the sole item of bare rooms at one hotel wherein to bivouac Morgan's troops. So hard pressed were Fenton's lines that he invited his rich and liberal friend, Marshall O. Eoberts, of ISTew York, to take his place as a candidate. He came up, but after looking over the ground, and seeing a de- mand for 8250,000 by the lobby staring him in the face, he returned to the cit}", because it was feared that in an attempt to carry all the Fenton men over to Eoberts a few might fall out of hne. It was ranusing to hear Eoberts, in his characteristic style,
238
KA^^DOM RECOLLECTIONS.
describe his escape out of the hands of the liuiigTy Albany lobby on this occasion.
The evening for holding the caucus arrived. Xo- body who was at the capital during the previous twentj'-four hours will ever forget the exciting scene. The caucus assembled. It elected its president, sec- retaries, and tellers, and now the Eepublican Spealvcr, who had all the committees in his brain, rose, and in a fitly framed speech nominated for Senator in Con- gress Reuben E. Fenton. It hardly need be added that those who had been badgering him for several weeks for first-class places on leading and lucrative committees read betAveen the lines, and were pretty sure that they saw, in clearest words, dropping from the lips of Mr. Younglove :
Kow all you that want me to listen to you two days hence, had better listen to me now."
The result was that Mr. Fenton was nominated on the first ballot. Mr. Morgan paid his bills and went back to Washington, a wiser and a sadder man.
The Democratic Convention of 1868, for nominat- ing a candidate for President, met in Tammany Hall. Mr. Se}Tnour presided, and Mr. Tilden was chairman of the New York delegation. It was the first time the Democracy of the nation had assembled together for eight years. The war was over, slavery had chs- appeared, and old party lines were faint and feeble. The candidates for the Presidential nomination were numerous, but Mr. Seymour was not among them. He favored Salmon P, Chase. He had prepared a speech whicli he intended to deliver, when an opi)or- tune moment arrived, for presenting Chase's name.
SEYMOUR AND CHASE.
239
But he failed to bring certain elements in the Xew York delegation to adopt his plan, and it was quietly dropped. It was asserted and believed that Clement L. Yallandigham, a delegate from Ohio, who was hos- tile to Chase, feared that Se\Tnour's wishes might finally prevail, and therefore took the lead in the irresistible stampede that forced the nomination on Seymour himself, in spite of his earnest protestations. I have seen some of the private correspondence that passed between the ex-Governor and the Chief- Justice at this period, wherein the latter warmly thanked the former for the efforts he had made to give him the nomination. The light shed on coalitions of this sort by the result of Mr. Greeley's candidacy, four years later, leads to the belief that if Chase had been nominated, in 1S6S, he would have fared as badly as Seymour did.
Mr. Fenton s term as Senator in Congress expired in 1875. The Democrats controlled the legislature. It was the first time in thirty years that they had been able to elect a Senator. Governor Seymour was pressed to take the office. The Democrats in the Senate and Assembly were eager to confer it upon him. He was urged to accept from all quarters. I pUed him through the newspapers and by correspond- ence. He resolutely refused. He silenced me by a long letter, breathing the noblest sentiments, which I would print here if I could lay my hand upon it. In it he enforced with rare felicity of diction the proposition that to exert great influence in pubUc af- fairs it is not necessary to hold office. I have ample grounds for supposing that one of the reasons for his
24:0
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
peremptory refusal to go to the Senate was that he felt that deafness Avas creeping upon him, and he did not like to enter an arena Avith waning powers, Avhere his name for a quarter of a century had ranked so high.
I was strongly in favor of the return of Mr. Conk- ling and Thomas C. Piatt to the Senate in 1881, after their resignation. I had been a resigning Sena- tor, in a very small way, just thirty years before, and knew how it Avas myself. So I stood by the resign- ing Senators on this broader and grander field. I had better luck than they, for I Avas re-elected, AA'hile they were defeated. But I Avould not again resign, to pre- vent in that way the passage of a fifteen million un- constitutional canal bill. I do not knoAv Avhether they w^ould again resign, to prevent by that method the appointment of a collector of customs for Xcav York. Their uuAvise rejection by the legislature, and the election of Elbridge G. Lapham and Warner Miller in their stead, Avas far-reaching in its consequences. It gave Alonzo B. Cornell leave to retire to private life at the close of his first gubernatorial term, and gave James G. Blaine long-coA^eted leisure for employ- ing a graphic pen on an interesting period of modern history.
1 have no personal knoAvledge that enables me to penetrate the motives that impelled Mr. Conkling to resign from the Senate. Perhaps he had groAvn Aveary of his protracted labors in Congress. Possibly he saAV foreshadoAved on the horizon factional feuds in the Garfield-Blaine administration, and, as a liepublican, had no wish to participate in them. If, hoAvever, the
■\V1LL1AM II. SEWARD.
241
chief end he had in view was to resume the undis- turbed practice of the law, then the opportune mo- ment he selected for carrying this purpose into effect has already been crowned by a success that has few parallels in the history of the Xew York bar. By and by Mr. Conkling may return to politics. He has the example of Mr. Seward before him, in the six busy years that intervened between the close of Seward's service as Governor of Xew York and the commencement of his term as Senator at Wash- ington.
On Mr. Seward's return, in the fall of 1871, from his trip around the globe, Mr. Hugh J. Hastings ar- ranged a plan for my going with the Governor to Auburn, accompanied by a stenographer, to get a condensed report of his journey for publication in the ISTew York Sun. Mr. Dana and I conferred, and I went up. The report filled a broadside of the Sim, and, as ]^[r. Seward subsequently told me, it saved him much trouble, for, when any of his friends asked him about his trip, he immediately gave them a copy of the newspaper. Of the m^any incidents that oc- curred during this trip to Auburn I will relate but one. The morning after our arrival Mr. Seward w^as walking in his grounds. The servant was pointing him to this, that, and the other thing, but he kept saying, " Show me the bird." I did not understand what he meant. Soon we stood before the largest eagle I ever saw, enclosed in a great cage. The Gov- ernor looked at the eagle ; the eagle looked at th^^ Governor. They exchanged winks, as much as xo sav, "We understand each other." Mr. Seward then
* 11
242
EAIsDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
exclaimed, with some emotion, ''When 1 was in Alaska they gave me that eagle, and that is all I ever got for my trouble in negotiating the Alaska treaty, except a great deal of undeserved personal abuse."
In the autumn of 1872 Mr. Seward died. In 1828 I had been a member of the Young Men's State Con- vention, over which Mr. Seward presided. I now stood by his open grave. In the intervening forty- four years he had played a great part in the history of his country.
The contest for the Governorship of Ohio, in 18V5, between William Allen and Eutherford B. Hayes, exhibited features of national importance. I spent a few weeks in the state while this extraordinary cam- paign was in progress. Both candidates were ad- dressing large audiences. Allen was impressive, saga- cious, bold. Hayes was respectable, commonplace, feeble. Among other distinguished speakers whom I heard were ex-Governor Is'oyes, afterwards Minister to France, Senator McDonald, of Indiana ; Judge Taft, subsequently Minister to Austria, and Senator Allen G. Thurman. In a conversation with the lat- ter at Columbus he made a prediction which then seemed to me singular. He said that if Hayes de- feated Allen in the pending struggle he would be tlie next Kepublican candidate for the Presidency. Hayes did defeat Allen, and he was the candidate. The ablest man whom I met in my Western tour was Mr. Thunnan. It must have annoyed eminent statesmen like him, aspiring to be President, to see small politi- cians preferred before them, The Presidency is dwin-
ALLEN G. TIIURMAX.
243
dling in importance with every passing term. Con- gress controls the administration of the Federal gov- ernment. The leader of the House and the leader of the Senate exert more influence than presidents in moulding vital measures of public policy.
CHAPTER XXV.
Samuel J. Tilden; bis Triumph over tlie Canal Ring and the Tweed Ring; his Sudden Death; his Note to the Author about "Random Recollections." — State Convention of 1874, Avhen he was Nominated for Governor. — The (N Y.) Siui's Editorial Article.— Tilden Elected.— The Presidential Contest of 1876.— Tilden Dies of Heart Disease, — Ex-Governors Clinton, Wright, Marcy, and Fenton Fall by the same Malady under Peculiar Circumstances. — Notice of Robert L. Stanton, D.D.; his Death in Mid-Ocean in May, 1885.— The Presbyterian General Assem- bl3''s Tribute to his Memor3^
AYhex those animosities, rivalries, and prejudices that spring from party strife have passed away Sam- uel J. Tilden will be classed among the eminent men of his era. I became associated with him in the mem- orable contest of 1848, when he stood in the front rank of the Barnburners. In the two rather incom- patible qualities of calm, studious, and philosophic statesmanship, and the capacity to gather, classify, and apply the statistics of a political campaign, I do not remember to have met his equal. As the Chair- man of the Democratic State Committee, he would deliver an address that might have honored Thomas Jefferson. In the subsequent campaign he would handle the figures of the canvass Avith a skill that astonislied Thurlow Weed. But far above all else rose his genius for administrative reform. AVhile Chief Magistrate of the foremost commonwealth in the Union he broke in pieces tlie canal ring in the
SAMUEL J. TILDEN.
245
state, and the Tweed ring in the metropolis, which had long been entrenched behind corrupt combina- tions that had few parallels in our history for the power they had wielded and the audacity they had displayed through a series of years. Mr. Tilden there- by won the confidence of honest and sagacious men in both political parties. The ability and integrity wherewith he performed the duties of the gubernato- rial office brought to him the Democratic nomination to the Presidency in ISTG. I never met a cancUd, in- telligent Eepublican, who was thoroughly informed in regard to the facts, that seemed to doubt that he was fairly entitled to a majority of the votes of the electoral college in that famous contest.
I had written the above, and the unfinished manu- script was lying before me, when I received the tidings of Mr. Tilden's sudden death. I need not say that the unexpected event impressed me profoundly. lie was my junior by nine years. How many old acquaint- ances have fallen since I issued the first edition of this small volume. In February last I sent Mr. Tilden a copy of the second edition. He acknowledged it in a brief note, which I should not print if he were living. I insert it simply because it avouches his capacity at so recent a date for devouring books.
" Greystone, Yoxkehs, N. Y., Feb. 13, 1886. "Dear Mr. STA^'TO^',— I lhank you for the copy of your " Ran- dom Recollections," which I found so interesting that I read it through at one sitting.
" With my best wishes for your health and happiness, I remain, " Very truly yours, S. J. Tilden."
I was at the State Convention of 1874, in Syracuse, which nominated Mr. Tilden for Governor. He was
246
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
present as Chairman of the State Committee. Gov- ernor Seymour and DeTTitt C. Littlejohn (Greeley Lib- eral in IS 72) were delegates. The convention was far from united on the question of the gubernatorial can- didate. Many prominent members doubted the expe- diency of nominating Mr. Tilden. The New York Sim had given voice to these doubts. On the 17th of September the convention came to a ballot, when Mr. Tilden received 252 votes, ex- Judge Amasa J. Parker 126, and a few were thrown for others. William Dorsheimer (Greeley Liberal in 1872) Avas unanimous- ly nominated for Lieutenant-governor, on motion of Mr. Littlejohn. The Democratic campaign opened languidly, and for a while it was believed that Gen- eral Dix, the Eepublican candidate for Governor, would be re-elected. The Sim looked on, kept its powder dry, and reserved its fire. By and by Mr. Dana suggested that it was time for the Szm to hoist its colors. On the Tth of October, three weeks after the nomination, the following article appeared at the head of the editorial columns. If it be in bad taste to quote from one's self, then I am a transgressor. It is only the death of Mr. Tilden that justifies its pub- lication here :
" One of the most essential requisites for making a good Gov- ernor of Xew York is that tlie man should possess sufficient inde- pendence and courage to resist the dictation of the leaders of the party which placed him in office. If ]\Ir. Tilden is elected in No- vember he will be, in the particular we have mentioned, one of the best Democratic governors the state has ever had. Indeed, in the whole list, Silas Wright alone, the most distinguished member of the political school in which Mr. Tilden was raised, can be com- pared with him.
" I\Iarcy and Seymour were able and upright iu the adminis-
SILAS 'WKIGHT AND SAMUEL J. TILDEN.
247
tration of affairs, but they were strong partisans, and never rose to the height of resisting the prevailing current of Democratic opinion. But Governor AN^right was a thorough Jeffersonian Dem- ocrat. His integrity was above reproach, and his leading charac- teristic was sclf-poised independence. On two or three memorable occasions he displn3Td this quality by pursuing a line of policy in relation to important measures directly hostile to the sentiments and purposes of the great majority of the Democratic party, both in this state and throughout the country. Early in 1844, when the Democracy were running mad in favor of the annexation of Texas, Mr. AYright, then in the Senate, persuaded Mr. Van Buren to write his famous letter against annexation. This letter caused the de- feat of Mr. Van Buren 's nomination to the Presidency in the Na- tional Convention of that year. In the summer of 1846, when Mr. "Wright was Governor, and the Democracy were running wild iu favor of the conquest of jNIexican territory, in order to plant slavery therein, he avowed himself, in the most explicit terms, a supporter of the doctrine of the celebrated Wilmot Proviso. This avowal drove from Wright just enough rabid Hunkers — Bourbons they are now called — to defeat his re-election as Governor in that year.
"For Silas Wright, a prospective candidate for President, to thus set himself in opposition to the great body of his party, exhibited extraordinary fidelity to convictions and a noble moral courage. We have no doubt that under analogous circumstances Mr. Tilden would pursue the same course; for on many occasions he has shown that his mind is made of like metal with that which composed Mr, Wright's. We believe that Mr. Tilden followed the lead of Mr, Wright in 1844 and 1846. W^e know that he carried the creed of that eminent disciple of Jefferson and Tompkins to its logical con- clusions at the Buffalo Convention of 1848, which brought out Vau Buren and Adams, in that notable campaign, under the banner of 'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Press, Free Men.*
"But Mr. Tilden has displayed his courage and his independ- ence of party under far more trying circumstances than those we have detailed; and he has shown these qualities in a very marked manner, and right under the eyes of those who are to pass upon his fitness for the oflSce of Governor. We refer, of course, to his agency in breaking up the Tammany ring in 1871, the subsequent flight of Con oily, and conviction of Tweed and their associates, and many other events which attended or followed that explosion.
248
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Nobody doubts that Mr. Tilden was the leader iu this struggle. lie elbowed Richard B. Conolly out of the comptroller's office and pushed Andrew H. Green in. Ho caused the Tammany delegation — stained, but regular — to be rejected by the Democratic State Con- vention, and he advocated the admission, though without success, of the irregular anti-Tammany delegation. Elected to the Assem- bly in Xovember of that year, he declined to attend the Democratic caucus for nominating a candidate for Speaker, although he was then chairman of the Democratic Stale Committee; and be pursued a course quite independent of his party to the end of the session. By this policy he aroused some hostility among a section of the Democratic managers, who were able to send Governor John T. Hotfman, instead of him, as one of the delegates at large to the Baltimore Convention, which nominated Horace Greeley. To Mr. Tilden is largely due the reorganization of Tammany Hall, by turn- ing out the old sachems and installing the new regime that now controls a society whose powerful influence has been felt for half a century in the politics of New York, and whose every representa- tive at the recent State Convention cast his vote for Samuel J. Til- den, as the nominee for Governor.
"The fact that Mr. Tilden has done much of what we have re- cited, in the face of vigorous Democratic influences, raises a strong presumption that if he were Governor of the state he would have the courage to pursue the right path, although iu 60 doing he might sometimes run counter to the wishes of Demo- cratic leaders."
Mr. Tilden knew nothing of this article till his eye fell on it in the 8u7i. I was told that he ordered five thousand copies of the paper for circulation. When the October elections of IS 74 Avere over the Demo- cratic tidal wave set in all through the country. Mr. Tilden carried New York against General Dix by more than fifty thousand majority.
Mr. Tilden died of one of the many forms of what is called " heart disease." It is a rather remarkable coincidence that five of the distinguished statesmen
CLINTON. WRIGHT. — MARCT.
249
who filled the office of Governor of Kew York fell by this malady.
^ On February 11, 1S2S, De Witt Clinton, then Gov- ernor, a man of majestic presence, had been at the Executive Chamber in the Capitol attending to offi- cial business, the legislature being in session. In the evening he was sitting in his private library with his son, looking over his afternoon mail. He had a letter in his hand, when his head dropped on his breast, and he immediately expired. He died of heart disease, then httle known under that name.
Silas Wright, a totally different man from Clinton, was a part of the time during his public career his contemporary, and always his political opponent. On August 27, 181:7, Mr. "Wright went to the post-office in his little town of Canton, in the county of St. Law- rence. He was reading a letter when his head sank upon the table and he died of heart disease without a moment's warning. He had retired from the office of Governor the previous January.
WiUiam L. Marcy was Governor for three terms, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. He went out of the latter office on March 4, 1857. On July 4 of that year he was resting at Ballston Spa. He had taken lunch and repaired to his room, where he was found an hour afterwards quite dead, with a volume of Cowper's poems in his hand. He had expired of heart disease.
Ex-Senator Eeuben E. Fenton occupied the guber- natorial chair of Xew York for four years. In Au- gust, 1885, while in good health, he was at his desk in the First National Bank of Jamestown, of which
250
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
he was President, reading his correspondence. With- out the slightest premonition he fell backward in his chair, convulsively clutching at a letter he was at that moment answering, gave a long, gasping breath, and soon expired. He died of heart disease.
I have been at a loss in the selection of the most appropriate place in this " random'' work for a notice of my last brother. He was a many-sided man, and wrote more than he talked, and studied and thought more than he talked or wrote. He was a scholar, a divine, an author, and an editor ; and he was so thor- oughly informed in political affairs that this brief tribute to his memory might find a proper place among either of those five classes of citizens.
There were six children in my father's family. All were born in rachaug. I am the only survivor. My eldest brother, Eev. Kobert L. Stanton, D.D., was born in March, 1810. He was living when the first edition of this work was issued. He was graduated at Lane Seminary ; was pastor in Mississippi, Kew Orleans, and Ohio ; President of Oakland College, Mississippi, and subsequently President of Miami University, Ohio ; Professor of Theology in Danville Seminary, Kentucky; Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1866 ; and United States Government Visitor at West Point. He wrote much for magazines and newspapers, and was the author of several books and pamphlets. Princeton College conferred upon him the degree of D.D. while he was yet a young man. In May, 1885, he sailed for Eu- rope, as had been his wont before, to recuperate en- ergies exhausted by mental toil. But unmindful of
REV. ROBERT L. STANTOX.
251
the fact that his health Avas unusually feeble, and that he was in the seventy-sixth year of his age, he car- ried the pitcher once too often to the fountain, and it was broken. He died at sea on May 28, and was buried in mid-ocean. When the intelligenc® of his decease reached America, the Presbyterian General Assembly was in session at Cincinnati. That vener- able body placed on its journal this memorial : " The General Assembly records its tribute of respect for the memory of Eev. Robert .L. Stanton, D.D., Moder- ator of the Assembly of 1866. It recognizes the faith- fulness and efficiency with which he discharged the duties of the office, and the value to the Church of his services as pastor, editor, and teacher. Sincerely sorrowing for the loss it has sustained, the Assembly hereby expresses its sympathy with the bereaved fam- ily, and directs that a copy of the foregoing minute, attested by the Moderator, and Stated and Permanent Clerks, be forvrarded to the family of Dr. Stanton.
CHAPTER XXVI.
American Journalism. — Its Rank as a Profession. — Earliest News- papers.— First Daily Paper. — Philadelphia Adxertiscr. — Boston Centinel. — National Gazette. — Controversy of Washington and Jefferson over Freneau. — Early Dailies in Isevv York City. — Three Famous Editors. — Bitter Tone of the Press. — List of Distinguished Contributors. — Duels. — Early Journalism in New- England. — Rude Methods of Collecting News and Circulating Papers. — Post-riders and Reporters. — The Deacon and the Mo- hawks.— Dailies in New York, Albany, and Rochester in 1826. — The Rochester Adccrtiscr the First Daily Issued AVest of the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. — Henry O'Reilly. — Cincinnati Gazette and Charles Hammond. — Louisville Journal and George D. Prentice. — List of Celebrated Contributors in that Era. — Later Editors.— Charles A. Dana.— Henry J. Raymond. — John G. Whit tier. — George William Curtis.
It would be wholly aside from the purposes of this publication to give even an outline of the wide field of American journalism. I shall glance at it from my individual standpoint, and jot down little except selections from what I personally know on the sub- ject.
Journalism not only ranks among the learned pro- fessions both in respect to the influence it exerts, and the intellectual qualifications necessary to succeed in it, but in peculiar fields it leads all the others. If some of our ablest lawyers were, without disclosing their names, to send editorial articles to the foremost city journals on topics outside of their profession, an
EOSTON CENTTNEL" AND " NATIONAL GAZETTE.'' 253
impartial hand would frequently consign them to the waste basket. Xewspaper reporters of the thorough- ly trained school are superior to lawyers of the mid- dle class. It is a fact alike notorious and disgraceful that in some of the chief cities of the Union there are presiding justices in civil and criminal courts of large jurisdiction who can neither speak or write their na- tive language grammatically or clearly. It need hard- ly be added that such jurists (I) would not be toler- ated for a moment as reporters on respectable news- papers.
The press in America rose to its present colossal dimensions from small beginnings. The first news- paper was issued at Boston in 1701. Down to 1725 four others were established in Boston, Xew York, and Philadelphia. They were little dingy sheets, measuring eight or nine inches by ten, issued weekly or fortnightly, with a very meagre supply of brains, news, advertisements, and subscribers.
The first daily journal in the United States was the Daily Advertise)^ published in Philadelphia in 1785. The great paper of the period was the Boston Centi- nel, edited by the famous Major Ben Russell. It was intensely Federal, and the leading advocate in after- yeai-s of the policy of Washington and Adams in op- position to that of Jefferson and Madison. Its rival was the National Gazette issued at Philadelphia, then the seat of government, in 1791. Its editor was the celebrated Philip Preneau, a clerk in the office of Jef- ferson, Secretary of State in General Washington's Cabinet. Freneau was a caustic writer, voiced the bitter politics of that era, and was highly offensive to
25i
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
Washington. But, in spite of very direct hints to do so, Jefferson refused to deprive him of his clerkship. In 1793 the Ilinerva was started in I^ew York city, whose first editor was IS'oah Webster, familiar to us as the distinguished lexicographer. It ultimately bloomed into the Commercial Advertise7\ The JS^ew Yorh Post was established in 1801. Both have flour- ished to this day. In 1801 there were three promi- nent editors in Xew York and Philadelphia, namely : Coleman of the Post, Cheetham of the Citizen, and Duane of the Aurora. The first was a Federalist; the two latter were Democrats. Mr. Duane was the father of that Secretary of the Treasury whom Gen- eral Jackson, a third of a century afterwards, ejected from office because he would not remove the Federal deposits from the United States Bank, and appointed Eoger B. Taney to do the work. One morning in 1801 the Post assailed its two opponents thus:
" Lie on, Duane— lie on for pay, And Cheetham, lie thou too- More against truth you cannot sa}', Than truth can say 'gainst you."
Think of the Evening Post of to-day lunging into two of its "esteemed contemporaries" in this style! It seems to take all the originality out of Dr. Gree- ley's celebrated outburst : " You lie, you villain ; you know you lie !"
From the opening of Washington's second Presi- dential term till the end of Madison's administration, the tone of the press was to the last degree acrimoni- ous. Of the closing five or six years of this period I can speak of my own knowledge. My father was
EARLY JOURNALISM.
255
Madlsonian leader in the eastern portion of Connec- ticut, and subscribed for several newspapers of that faith. The Federal leaders did the same by their journals. The consequence was, the men, women, and children of the vicinage became peppery partisans. So it was all through the country. Every neighbor- hood was kept in a broil by the "organs" of the two parties. Others besides their regular managers often contributed to their columns. Among these were John Adams, Timothy Pickenng, Joseph Story, Aaron Burr, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Edward Liv- ingston, De AVitt Clinton, jVTatthew S. Davis, Wash- ington Irving, and Albert Gallatin. The pens of these prominent men were dipped in gall. Quarrels in those early days meant serious business. The Avooded slopes of Hoboken were the bloody assizes to which many editors and politicians carried their Xevr York con- troversies for final arbitrament.
To form a correct notion of the journalism of Xew England, and, indeed, of any portion of the country, eighty-one years ago, when I was born, we must dis- miss all existing ideas on the subject from our minds. Xot only the telephone, the telegraph, the railway, and the steamboat must fade into mist, but even the mail, as a means of collecting news and distributing newspapers within circles of fifty or a hundred miles in circumference, must disappear. Editors, of course, existed, but the imagination did not dream of the re- porter, now one of the main driving-wheels of Amer- ican journalism, the essential, useful, and ornamental appendage to every newspaper, whether metropolitan or rural; a class not easily deceived or eluded, capa-
256
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
ble of painting the tamest scenes in the liveliest col- ors, and, when in search of truth, may sometimes be tempted to supph^ deficiencies by inventions, but whose fictions are usually more entertaining than their facts.
In the early days the nearest approach to the mod- ern reporter was the post-rider. When the weekly newspapers were printed at the county seat he took a pile in his '^saddle-bags," mounted his horse, and rode into the surrounding towns to dispense his treas- ures and pick up a little local information for the next number. He usually delivered the sheet in person, but here and there, at cross-roads, was a little box, adapted to slied rain, nailed to a tree, Avhere he depos- ited a few papers to supply some adjacent hamlet. When he delivered the papers he was often bored to drop an item or two of later intelligence than that in their columns. The following incident occurred in my native county seventy-five years ago : An aged deacon bad a confused idea of the upper lakes and a mortal dread of the Mohawk Indians. He hung heav- ily on the skirts of the post-rider, who resolved to shake him off. One day he handed him the paper, and the deacon bored him for fresh news. With hor- ror depicted on his countenance, he told the deacon that the Mohawks were digging through the banks of the Great Lakes, and that the water would soon pour down from the west, and that all New England would be drowned by a flood as disastrous as that of Noah's time. The post-rider then put spurs to his horse and fled. The terrified deacon ran to the min- ister and told him the terrible news. The clergyman opened the Bible and read to him, from Genesis, the
THE FIRST DAILY NEWSPAPERS.
257
promise of God that he would never again drown the earth by a flood, and that he had set the bow in the cloud as a seal of this covenant with manldnd. " Ah, my beloved pastor," responded the shivering deacon, "that don't apply. It is not God that's going to do it. God's nothing to do with it. It's them infernal Mohawk Injuns that's cutting down the banks !"
A word in passing about the slow pace wherewith intelligence travelled in those days. One of the most important events of modern times was the battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815. It changed the map of Europe and the face of the civilized world. Xapoleon, avIio there fell to rise no more, liad a great party in this country, and the deepest interest was felt in his fortunes after he escaped from Elba, which I remember as vividly as if it had happened in the last month. The battle of Ligny was fought on June 16, when Xapoleon defeated tough old Field-marshal Blucher. A slow-sailing packet left Liverpool for Xew York just in time to bring this news. Xo other packet was to sail in twenty days. This country, where party spirit ran high for and against the French emperor, was left in terrible suspense. The next pack- et was f ort}' -five days in crossing, so that we received the news of AVaterloo sixty-five days, or more than two months, after the event, when Louis XYIII. was on the throne and Bonaparte was on the way to St. Helena. And how much do you think we got in our papers of the great transactions that followed after Ligny ? A leading American journal devoted a third of a column to the subject, sparing five lines for a de- scription of the battle of Waterloo.
258
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
I have already said in these pages that I left my birthplace in Connecticut in April, 1826, for Eoches- ter, passing through New York and Albany. At that date Xew York City contained a population of 155,000, Albany 15,000, Eochester 3500, Buffalo 4500, Cleveland 500, but Chicago was not even a dot on the map. I shall now refer only to daily newspapers. In April, 1826, the dailies in the metropolitan city num- bered six or seven. I recall the Gazette and General Ad- vertiser^ the Mercantile Advertiser, the Commercial Ad- vertiser,ihQ Post, the Advocate, the Enquirer, and the American. Albany then had two dailies — the Adver- tiser, Clintonian in politics, and the Argus, Demo- cratic. These nine were then the only dailies in the state. There was not a daily newspaper in the Union west of l^ew York, Albany, and Philadelphia. I have previously stated that, in the fall of 1826, the Daily Advertiser was issued at Eochester. It Avas the ear- liest daily put forth between the Hudson and Dela- ware rivers on the East and the Pacific Ocean on the West. Its first editor was Henry O'Eeill}^ Avhom I have known and respected for the past sixty years. (The news of his death at Eochester comes to me while I am revising this sheet of manuscript.) Tlie next daily newspaper west of Eochester and Phila- delphia was the Commercial Register, issued at Cin- cinnati in 1826, a little later than O'Eeilly's Adver- tiser. It lived only six months. The Cincinnati Ga- zette had been pubhshed for several 3'ears as a weekly and semi-weekly, when, on June 27, 1827, it appeared as a daily. Either then or immediately afterwards it came under the management of Charles Hammond,
GEORGE D. PRENTICE. CHARLES A. DANA. 259
whom I occasionally met when I dwelt at Cincinnati, in 1832, '33, '34, and '35. Mr. Hammond had been trained in the law. He wielded a keen pen, and stood at the head of the editorial profession in Ohio. All the Whig newspapers of the West and Southwest, how- ever, were destined to be overshadowed by the Louis- ville Journal^ founded in 1830, by George D. Pren- tice, of Pachaug. It is an interesting fact that these tliree dailies — the Rochester Advertiser, the Cinchi' natl Gazette, and the Louisville Journal — shine in undimmed lustre to-day. In this later epoch, as in the former, able men besides the regular editors wrote for the newspapers ; as, for example, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Moses Stu- art, Caleb Cushing, William L. Marc}^, Silas Wright, Benjamin F. Butler, William H. Seward, John A. Dix, William Wirt, Robert Barnewell Rhett, John C. Cal- houn, James Buchanan, Thomas H. Benton, Amos Kendall, Robert J. AYalker, James G. Birney, and Salmon P. Chase. Some of these gentlemen w^ere frequent contributors to the press, and took an active share in the political controversies of their times through that powerful agency.
I shall now refer more particularly to some of the editors of newspapers whom I have known, omitting Thurlow AYeed, Horace Greeley, and a few familiar names already described in these pages. The number of such editors is so large that a bare catalogue of them would fill a couple of pages. I must make se- lections from a list to every one of whom I would, did space permit, pay a tribute of respect.
For the past sixty years I have seen much of news-
260
RANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS.
paper editors. During half of this long period I have occasionally contributed to journals mainly or wholly directed by Mr. Charles A. Dana. More thoroughly than any editor I have met he has what I call the true newspaper instinct. Prompt in judgment and rapid in execution ; quick to discern v/liat will take with his clientage and what will not ; capable of per- forming a large amount of work in a short space of time ; ever welcoming valuable ideas and invoking picturesque diction wherewith to clothe them ; fond of variety, pungency, wit, and good-humor, but, on sufficient provocation, hitting when he strikes and leaving a mark where he hits; if this country has produced an abler and more versatile occupant of an editorial chair I have not known or heard of him. It gives me pleasure to add that Mr. Dana was ever on the kindliest relations with his editorial associates, and always courteous to his employees.
On the first of January, 1855, Daniel Cady resigned from the bench of the Supreme Court. Lieutenant- Governor Henry J. Eaymond, editor of the Neio Yorh Times, asked me to write him an article on the sub- ject. I complied Avith his wishes. This rapidly pre- pared production duly appeared in the Times, and, much to my surprise, it subsequently occupied twelve pages in the appendix to the eighteenth volume of " Barbour's Eeports of the l^ew York Supreme Court," where it was given the rather high-sounding title of " A Part of the History of the Bar and Bench of New York." Mr. Paymond was a born journalist. He knew how to build up a successful metropolitan newspaper. He wielded a pointed and graceful pen
HENRY J. RAYMOND. — JOHN G. WHITTIER. 261
in the editorial chair, wrote with rare intelligence and skill on a great variety of subjects, was thoroughly versed in political questions, enjoyed a wide acquaint- ance with the public men of the country, was incisive and vigorous in controversy, spoke well on the plat- form and in deliberative bodies, and was an admira- ble presiding officer. As an editor, he delighted in perpetual war with Mr. Greeley and the New York Tribune. Mr. Eayraond was a lively companion, and told a story well. In a familiar conversation at a dinner-table in Washington he was asked why it was that Mr. Greeley called him " The little villain of the Times.'''' Oh," replied Eaymond, " That is to distin- guish me from the big villain of the TriljuneP
The person who should propose to introduce John Greenleaf Whittier as a poet, in any place whatever, would find that the name and fame of the Quaker bard had arrived there before him. But he is not so well known to the present generation as an editor of newspapers in his early days. Born in 1807, at Hav- erhill, on the banks of the beautiful Merrimac, he was eighteen years old when, on a dark evening, he timidly slipped his first communication for the press into the box of the Gazette^ in his native village, and could hardly believe his dazzled eyes as he afterwards furtively peeped into the columns of the paper and beheld his production staring in his face from the types. From his youth Whit tier was an admirer of Henr}^ Clay, and, in 1829, he became the editor of the Boston American Manvfacturer^ a journal that advo- cated Mr. Clay's doctrines on protection. He succeed- ed his friend and brother bard, George D. Prentice, in
262
KANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS.
the management of the JS^ew England Weekly Eeview, at Hartford, when Prentice went to Kentucky, in 1830, to establish the Louisville Journal. In 1832 Whittier returned to his first love, and for about six years was the editor-in-chief of the Haverhill Gazette. He removed thence to the city of AVilliam Penn, on the shore of the Delaware river, and founded the Pennsylvania Freeman, an anti-slavery weekh^ paper. He promulgated his principles in mild hues and win- ning Avays for a year or two, when one of those unique and summary censors of the press and conserv- ators of the peace, commonly called a mob, sacked the office of the Freeman and burned it down, with its contents. In 1840 Mr. AYhittier settled in what con- tinued to be for a long time his rural home, at Ames- bury, on the lower Merrimac. In 1846 or 1847 he became the corresponding editor of that successful and tasteful journal the National Era, established and built up by that able writer, Doctor Gamaliel H. Bailey. It will be remembered that Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin"' first appeared in numbers in the National Era.
I became personally acquainted with Mr. AVhittier in 1834 or 1835. I speak of him now only as a news- paper man. In the dozen ^^ears following 1835 I spent many months in his company, and travelled with him hundreds of miles in eight or ten states. Only those who know my shy friend well are aware how talkative, genial, witty, humorous, sarcastic, and en- tertaining he is in bright hours with two or three companions. Of course we have exchanged many letters in the past half - century . Peculiar circum-
JOHN G. WHITTIER,
263
stances induce me to break through m}^ rule in respect to such correspondence, and print a recent note, mere- ly as a testimonial of my regard for the author, who, like me, is passing away. It may be well to say that my daughter, Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, of Eng- land, did not find Mr. Wliittier at home :
"Oak Knoll, Danvers, 8th monih, 23. 188G.
"My Dear Stantox,— I liave just got back from Holderness, N. II., and find thy letter, introducing thy daughter. I regret that she was not able to see me. I should Jiave been glad to have met her, for my sake as well as thine.
"My dear old friend, how glad I am to see thy writing once more. I wish I could shake the hand that wrote. What times we had together when we fought the wild beasts at Ephesus! I think over the old days a great deal. Life now is all behind me. Most of our early friends have passed away. Sewall and a few others still remain. But we are really getting to be the " Last of the Mo- hicans I"
"I hope thy health is good. I am only staying. I cannot write without suffering.
"God bless thee, old comrade! Ever and faithfully thy friend,
"John G. Whittier."
This note from Mr. Whittier enclosed a cop}", print- ed on a fly-sheet, of his poem to the memory of Sam- uel J. Tilden.
I turn to an editor who joined the guild of jour- nahsm just as the veteran we have been contemplat- ing was leaving it. It is difficult to find a niche in which to place so versatile a man as George AVilliam Curtis. Is he an author? Yes. Is he an orator? Yes. Is he an editor? Yes. Assign him to an}" of these positions and the designation would be appro- priate. Though an eloquent speaker and debater, fitted to shine in popular and deliberative bodies, he has done the most of his life-work Avith the pen. and
264
EA2sD0M IIECOLLECTIOXS.
much of it on daily, weekly, and monthly periodical publications. In 1850 he became a regular writer on the New Yorh Tribune. He was one of the original editors of Piitnavi's Monthly^ and for many years past has been chief editor of the weekly journal of the great publishing house of Harper & Brothers, and a regular contributor to tlieir Monthly Magazine. Mr. Curtis was nominated in 1864 for representative in Congress in the First District of Xew York, in w^hich he resides, and which was strongly opposed to his political views. He was defeated, as he doubtless an- ticipated, and failed to enter an arena where he would have taken high rank among the able and brilliant members. But, after all, he will perhaps be the long- est remembered for his distinguished services with pen and voice in the cause of " Liberty and Union " when it was in extreme peril.
CHAPTER XXVII.
American Journalism. — Vice-President Wilson and Charles Francis Adams. — James and Erastus Brooks. — Tlie A^zc York Express. — Lewis Tappan and David Hale. — The Journal of Commerce. — Early iModes of Getting News. — William Cullen Bryant and William H. Leggett. — KeiD York Eterdng Post. — Courage of The Post. — President Van Buren. — James Watson Webb. — The Cou- rier and Enquirer. — Famous Duels of Cilley, Graves, Webb, and Marshall. — Greeley's Comments. — Benjamin T>^\. — The (N. Y.) Sun. — James Gordon Bennett. — The JS'ew York Herald. — "It Does Move." — Brave Editors and Journals. — Joseph Tinker Buckingham and the Boston Courier. — Charles King and the KeiD York American. — Charles Hammond and the Cincinnati Gazette. — James G. Birney, — Gamaliel II. Bailey. — Elijah Par- rish Lovejoy. — Cassius M. Clay.
Vice-Presidext "Wilsox ^vas in early days an editor of a Free-soil newspaper in Boston, in conjunction with Charles Francis Adams. Indeed, the latter was the founder and the leading contributor of the paper. At a later date Wilson w^rote an elaborate book, in two Yolumes, entitled, "The Else and Fall of the Slave Power.'' Though the style is heavy, it is a valuable storehouse of facts. Of course, he gathered his materials as others do. He levied contributions among his friends. He assessed me to the amount of one hundred and fifty foolscap pages, which he wrought into the book. In coming years, when some Alacaulay shall compose a history of this great epoch, he will find Wilson's work a rich mine from which to draw materials. V2
266
KA^'DOM RECOLLECTIONS.
In looking back to discover the few, the very few, surviving editors of New York newspapers of early days, the eye naturally falls on the veteran Erastus Brooks. He held a high place in journalism for half a century, and is now an occasional writer for the press. The admirable letters that Mr. James Brooks wrote, in 1835, to the Portland Advertiser, describing his tour on foot in Europe, which were extensively copied in this country, deepened the desire in many minds to travel in those enchanting lands. The model letters of Mr. Erastus Brooks, in the same year and the next to the Neio York Daily Advertiser, from Washington, sketching scenes in Congress, in that exciting period, led many young men to visit the Na- tional Capital. The two brothers established the New York Daily Express in 1836. Under their manage- ment it rapidly reached the front rank among the city journals. One of its attractive features were the Washington letters of Erastus Brooks. In a re- cent communication to the present Mail and Express, he says of the founding of the Express of 1836, that
the labor of starting a newspaper in New York fifty years ago was intense, and required patience, courage, self-sacrifice, and persistent effort." In this commu- nication the venerable journalist gives the following interesting facts : " In the time of the writer," says Mr. Brooks, "as editor and proprietor, he has seen more than one hundred and twenty journals live and die in the city of New York alone, and lie believes that more than twenty millions of dollars was spent in the city papers from 1836 to 1877. Only five of the one hundred and twenty journals in existence in
ERASTUS BROOKS. LEWIS TAPPAN.
267
1836, and since then, survived in 1879, and one hun- dred and four had disappeared in the space of twenty years. In inexperienced hands the hirgest collection of sponges Avill not imbibe water as rapidly as new newspapers will absorb money.*'
Mr. Brooks achieved distinction as a politician and a legislator. He was a leader in many sessions of the Senate and Assembly of Xew^ York, and in the Con- stitutional Convention of 18G7, and the Constitutional Commission of 1872. I have- seldom heard his supe- rior in debate in deliberative or partisan bodies. Xo doubt he was somewhat indebted for his success in this held to his early training and long experience as an editor. He is an expert, too, in one occult branch of law. John C. Spencer, Samuel B. Euggles, Eras- tus Brooks, and Horatio Seymour were able to shed valuable light over the ecclesiastical tribunals of the Episcopal Church when they happened to be lay mem- bers of its conventions.
Those who have known or heard of Lewis Tappan only as an enterprising merchant, or an Anti-slavery agitator, may be surprised to see him classed among newspaper editors. But this versatile and vigorous man finds an appropriate place there. He and his brother, Arthur, founded the Xew York Journal of Commerce in 1827, Lewis Tappan being editor-in-chief, and David Hale assistant editor. It was established to promote the interests of the mercantile class, and to defend the doctrines of the Christian religion. Mr. Tappan soon became the sole proprietor, and he and Mr. Hale conducted it with so much abihty and spirit that it early ranked among the most important news-
268
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
papers in the commercial metropolis. Mr. Tappan ul- timately withdrew from its management, in order to devote his time more exclusively to their mercantile firm, then one of the largest silk houses in the city. The Journal of Commerce went into the control of those distinguished editors, 'Hale and Hallock. In 1828 this paper stationed a swift vessel off Sandy Hook to obtain the European news from inward-bound ships earlier than its contemporaries ; and at a subsequent date it ran a horse express from Philadelphia to Xew York, which enabled it to lay the proceedings of Con- gress before its readers a day sooner than the other journals. These projects (conceived and executed by Lewis Tappan and David Hale) may seem small to us, but the generation that had not dreamed of the land telegraph, the submarine wire, the telephone, or the railroad, looked upon them as extraordinary achieve- ments.
In those days I knevv^ Mr. Hale slightly. He was born in a lowly, one story, little clapboard house, in Lisbon, just across the Quinnebaug river from Jewett City. I need not say that I was associated Avitli Lewis Tappan all through the struggle for the overthrow of negro slavery. He ^vas one of the bravest men I ever met. I have seen him stand for an hour while a mob was raining a tempest of missiles upon our assembly, and he seemed as cool as if sitting under the shadow of one of the spreading elms of his native North- ampton.
The men of to-day have faint conceptions of tho bitterness of the controversy over a protective tariff and the rechartering of the United States Bank and
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
260
cognate questions which raged in Jackson's adminis- tration. Party lines sometimes crossed, as in the memorable straggle over the nullification theories, engendered in the fertile brain of John C. Calhoun. On this subject Jackson and Benton were in accord with Webster and Clay. During the whole of this historic crisis the j^sew York Evening Post was per- haps the ablest journalistic * supporter of the princi- ples and measures espoused by the Jackson party. It was with the hero of the " Hermitage " on the tariff, the bank, and nullification, and was against Clay, Webster, and the "Whigs in all these measures except the last. During this troubled period Mr. Bryant con- trolled the columns of the Post^ but through a por- tion of it he was assisted by the more fiery pen of William Leggett. Indeed, it is only stating the exact truth to say that Mr. Leggett was a more vigorous and versatile journalist than Mr. Bryant. Mr. Yan Buren was inaugurated as President in March, 1837. The slavery contest was then at its height. Yan Buren bent to the storm, and in his inaugural declared that he would veto any act which Congress might pass for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In an editorial in his oAvn separate paper, just then started, Leggett keenly criticised Yan Buren's ad- dress, saying that, as to any explicit recommendation of measures, the President might as well have sung "Hail Columbia" or whistled "Yankee Doodle."
And now an event occurred in the history of the Evening Post that is worthy of special commendation. Yan Buren and Wright had foreshadowed the Sub- treasury scheme. The outbreak against the proposed
270
RAXDOM KECOLLECTIOXS.
financial policy was without a precedent in violence. It Tras to the last degree unpopular with the mone- tary and trading classes. But the Post^ though pub- lished in the banking and commercial metropolis of the Union, firmly stood by the President and his Sub- treasury scheme, Avhile in the same columns it held up to indignation and contempt his pledge to inter- pose his veto against any bill that should emancipate the slaves in the district. To fully estimate tlie cour- age and fidelity of the Post in this conjuncture it must be borne in mind that, probably, no two propo- sitions were ever so unpopular in the city of IS'ew York as were the Sub-treasury measure and the proj- ect of setting the negroes free at the national cap- ital.
It is wise to contemplate instances of journalistic independence and courage. The Democratic party had imbibed the infatuated idea of strengthening themselv^es by extending the area of negro slavery. In spite of the longer vision of Yan Buren, Benton, Wright, and Blair, the slavery propagandists deter- mined to annex Texas to the Union for the purpose of planting the baleful institution therein. A small band of Democrats resisted this wild scheme from the moment of its inception. Yan Buren and his fol- lowers in New York looked askance at the project, but hardly dared to speak up like men, and wither it in the bud. But the Evening Post did not hesitate to follow where duty led. It denounced the plot, ex- posed the ulterior objects of the conspirators, and fore- told (which subsequently came to pass) that its con- summation would prostrate the Democratic party and
JAMES WATSON WEBB.
271
bring calamity on the country. Week after week the Post glowed with indignation against the policy of annexation, so pregnant of present evils, so full of future disasters. Mr. Bryant, in this contest, had many coadjutors at his side, but among Democratic journals the Post stood almost alone.
James Watson Webb founded the Xew York Cour- ier and Enquirer in 1829. His career as a journalist and politician are too well known to justify special recital here. For the first twenty years of its long life the Courier and Enquirer ranked among influen- tial journals. At the outset it supported the admin- istration of General Jackson in the bold and vehement style so characteristic of its editor-in-chief, and cham- pioned the President in the earlier stages of his con- flict with Xicholas Biddle and the United States Bank. By and by a change came over the newspaper, and, from being an ardent opponent of the Whig policy of renewing the Charter of the Banks, it became a zeal- ous advocate of that measure. Of the alleged discov- eries of a Congressional Committee, and the subse- quent charges of corruption by Jonathan Cilley, a Democratic member of the House from Maine, and Colonel Webb's challenge of Cilley to a duel, and Cil- ley's refusal to meet him for the asserted reason that Webb was not a gentleman, and the taking-up of the quarrel by William J. Graves, a Kentucky Congress- man, the second of Webb, and the killing of Cilley in a duel with Graves, when Graves called him to the field because Cilley had said that Graves was the bearer of a hostile message from an individual who was not a gentleman — of this famous, foolish, and fa-
272
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
tal fray I shall record nothing, though I was familiar with the transactions at the time they occurred.
The Coxiriei" and Enquirer now became a prominent Whig journal, under the management of Webb. He was an aggressive editor, indulged in pungent person- alities, and courted contradiction and conflict. He charged some of the Kentucky delegation in Congress vrith corruption respecting the Bankrupt Act. Thomas F. Marshall, a Kentucky member, scarified Webb on the floor of the House. Soon afterwards Marshall came to IS'ew York to defend Monroe Edwards, a man of considerable repute, who was arraigned on an in- dictment for forgery. Webb commented sharply in his newspaper on the conduct of Marshall in leaving his seat in the House to appear at the bar of a crim- inal court in a distant city. Day by day the Courier and Enquirer blazed away at Marshall. The night before he was to sum up for Edwards he addressed a note to Webb, telling him that he should reply to his attacks at the opening of his speech. Colonel Webb appeared in court, and Marshall, T3y way of exordium, denounced him in a bitter philippic. The result was a challenge to a duel. The parties went to Delaware for the purpose. They fought, and Webb was wound- ed in the leg. I often saw him on his crutclies. The affair created much excitement, and upon his return to Xew York AVebb was indicted for leaving the state to light a duel. He was found guilty, and sentenced to two 3^ears in the state prison. So great Avas the sympathy expressed for him that his friends, irre- spective of party, circulated petitions praying for his pardon. Among the most conspicuous of the seven-
GREELEY AND WEBB.
273
teen thousand names appended to the petitions was that of Horace Greeley, editor of the ^ew York Trih- ime, then a rival of the Co^irier and Enquirer. Mr. Seward was Governor of the state, and a personal friend of Webb. After Webb had been in the Tombs a few^ Aveeks the Governor gave him an unconditionrl pardon, and saved him from the state prison.
I have related this little piece of history about Marshall, Webb, Greeley, and Seward, as an introduc- tion to a bit of biography concerning Webb and Gree- ley. I must here draw" on my memory for details, and shall give only the substance of the editorial ar- ticles in question. Though each was a Whig organ," the Trihune and the Courier and Enquirer ^vere con- stantly in a broil. One morning Webb handled Gree- ley with severity in a long editorial. He referred to the peculiar dress which Greeley w^ore, asserting that he appeared on Broadvray in an imcouth garb merely to arrest the attention of passers-by. The next morn- ing the Trihune contained an elaborate reply, going over Webb's article point by point. The last subject taken up by the philosopher of Spruce Street was Webb's reference to his dress. I give only the sub- stance of Greeley's paragraph relating to this matter. " As to our personal appearance," he said, " it does seem time that we should stay the flood of nonsense with which the town, by this time, must be nause- ated." He then w^ent on to tell how he came to 'New York with scarcely a dollar in his pocket, and worked as a journeyman printer ten or a dozen years, and how he had toiled till he had become the conductor of a leading journal of the country. Greeley closed 12^ '
274
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
his cutting rejoinder by a reference to his efforts to procure Webb's pardon from the state prison, about in these words: ''That he" (Greeley) "ever affected eccentricity is most untrue ; and certainly no costume he ever appeared in on Broadway or elsewhere would create such a sensation as that Avhicli James Watson Webb would have worn but for the clemency of Gov- ernor Seward. Heaven grant that our assailant may never hang with such weight on another Whig exec- utive. We drop him."
I heard at the time that when Webb read this out- burst of Greeley he broke into a laugh, and said he forgave the irate philosopher.
The Courier and Enquirer covered so long a period that its vicissitudes would furnish an epitome of the history of IS'ew York journalism. At various times Colonel Webb had for his chief of staff George H. Andrews and Henry J. Eaymond. The latter rose till he practically became the principal editor. The old paper waned after Eaymond left it to build up the Times^ and in 1860 it lapsed into the Wo7'ld.
I recall the day, in 1835, when the first number of the Wew Yorh Herald was sold in the streets by a dishevelled set of brawling news boys, "price one cent." These greasy and noisy youths were the grandfathers of the lively and audacious gamins of our times. The ^S';^;^, though, was the first permanent daily penny paper in the Union. It was issued in September, 1833, by Benjamin Da}^ three years in advance of the Herald.
On coming to New York from Lane Seminary, in May, 1834, or 1835, to address the American Anti-
BENNETT AND THE " HERALD." 275
slavery Society (I was present in both years), I ascer- tained that Lewis Tappan had purchased a column in the little Sfui, with the privilege of using that column as a medium of publishing, at advertising rates, such matter as he pleased. lie and Elizur Wright kept it well supplied with anti-slavery facts and figures. When the Herald arose it eclipsed the Sun. James Gordon Bennett was a canny Scotchman, and pos- sessed the genuine newspaper genius. His unique journal opened a fresh epoch in that department of literature. Some time after its establishment I de- livered half a dozen lectures in the city on the Slavery question, especially with reference to the then en- dangered right of petition and freedom of discussion. They were re})orted in the Herald, after a fashion, accompanied by harmless ridicule of the subject and the speaker. A friend recently sent me those copies of the Herald. I was interested in measuring the space the country had passed over in the intervening half-century. " It does move !" said Galileo.
Early remembrances in regard to newspapers are so strong upon me that I must refer to two or three exceptional cases, if it is only to record their names. While I was living in Jewett City, George D. Prentice induced me to subscribe to the JVew England Galaxy., published in Boston by the intrepid Joseph Tinker Buckingham, and to which Prentice was a contrib- utor. I kept the editor in mind through a dozen changing years after I had ceased to read the produc- tions of his pen. Meanwhile he had founded and raised to eminence the Boston Daily Courier. When I was mobbed in Massachusetts in the 3^ears 1835, '36,
276
ea:s"dom eecollectioxs.
'37, '38, Mr. Buckingham occasionally defended liber- ty of speech in able articles in the columns of the Courier. His caustic pen blistered the enemies of free discussion with stinging epithets. The like meed of praise can be bestowed on the New York American^ then holding an unusually high literary rank among the daily newspapers of the city. It Avas conducted by Charles King, the son of Eufus Iving. In that proscriptive era, w^hen journals issued in commercial centres that traded with the South hardly dared to vindicate even the right of petition, the Cincinnati Gazette^ under the management of Charles Hammond (previously mentioned), ventured to speak more brave- ly in support of liberty and law than perhaps any other daily newspaper printed on the banks of the lower affluents of the Mississippi Eiver. Those were indeed troublous days in that portion of the Union. James Cx. Birney's and Gamaliel H. Bailey's printing presses and types were more than once submerged in the Ohio at Cincinnati, and Elijah Parrish Lovejoy was shot to death by citizens while protecting his press and types from a like fate at Alton. It is pain- ful to hold up to view the dark side of this picture. It is far more agreeable to point to the silver lining that soon afterwards began to tinge the edges of the sombre cloud.
The five brave journalists just mentioned have passed away. One of a later period, who suffered in the same cause, survives to publish the history of liis own perils, which, viewed in some aspects, were greater than theirs. I refer to Cassius M. Q\vi\. The freedom of the press never had a more heroic champion than
CASSIUS M. CLAY.
277
this distinguished son of Kentucky. The first time I saw him Avas in 1S44, at Boston, in a great meeting that he was addressing in support of the election to the Presidency of his relative, Henry Clay. The last time I saw him was at Johnston, N. Y., in 1884, when I Avas called to the chair of a meeting which he ad- dressed in support of the election of James G. Blaine. In the intervening fort\' years Mr. Clay had rendered important services in behalf of the slave, especially in his native state, both on the platform and through his newspaper, the True American. His life was fre- quently put to hazard ; his blood was shed in encoun- ters with foes whom he contrived to overmaster in more than one hand-to-hand deadly affray. The libert}^ of speech and of the press owes more to him than to any other citizen of Kentucky. Portions of his recently published autobiography read like a tragic novel.
CHAPTER XXYIII.
American Journalism. — Ecligious Newspapers. — Albanj^ Journals and Editors: The Argus, Atlas, and Evening Journal; Croswell, Weed, Cassid3^ Van Dyck, Sliaw, Dawson, AVilkeson. — Xames of Thirty Persons whose Obituary Notices were AVritten by the Author in Various Journals. — Death of Gerrit Smitli in Decem- ber, 1874. — Several State Conventions. — Tweed Exposes his Persecutors at Rochester in 1871.— Conkling and Fenton Cross Swords at Syracuse in 1871. — Tilden Nominated for Governor in 1874, Robinson in 1876, Cornell and John Kelly in 1879.— Speech-]\[aking and Reporting. — Meeting at Providence in 1850. — The XeiD York Times. — Isaac Hill and the Concord Patriot. — John Niles and the Hartford Times. — Newspaper Corre- spondents Writing Speeches for Senators and Congressmen, and Reports for Committees, and Messages for Governors. — Press Club Receptions in 1885. — Extract from President Amos J. Cumming's Speech; he is Elected to Congress in November, 1886. — The Great Newspaper District he Represents.
Though a little late, I will say, that in the heat of the assault upon the Southern oligarchy, when epi- thets were not always carefully chosen by the assail- ants on either side, the charge Avas made that the rehgious newspapers in the North were opposed to the anti-slavery enterprise. This was at one period the attitude of journals of that class in large cities, but was never true of those published in the country districts and smaller towns. I occasionally contrib- uted to the religious press, and I affirm that in the later stages of our conflict with the baleful institution, and especially in the civil war, it was a jiowci'ful
THE CLERGY IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONTEST. 279
agent in the work of securing the freedom of the slave and the preservation of the Union.
These journals were controlled by clerg3^men, and what I have said of their newsi^apers will hold good of the body of the ministers in the Xorth from the opening of the Anti-slavery contest to its close. They were unjustly accused of hostility to emancipation. This was true for a time in a partial sense of those who preached to the wealthy, aristocratic churches of the chief cities, but it was otherwise with those of the rural districts, and with the ministers of two or three of the most populous sects, as, for example, the Methodists and Baptists. I speak from personal ob- servation when I assert that in the trying crisis of our struggle there were no firmer champions of the slave than the mass of the Xorthern clergy. Indeed, and to state the case exactly, some abolitionists hated ministers more than they hated slave-holders. As Alvan Stewart once quaintly put it- in a convention,
Some of our people seem unable to get under way till they have given the ministers a black eye."
In the conflicts between the Barnburners and the Hunkers, the young Alhany Atlas was the organ of the former, and the venerable Albany Argus of the latter. William Cassidy, the editor of the Atlas, was a versatile writer. He was assisted by the solid abili- ties of Henry H. Yan Dyck and the sparkling wit of John Yan Buren. Edwin Croswell, who had long managed the Argus, was trained in the Albany Ke- gency, a political organization that controlled the Democratic party in Xew York for twenty years. He was an editor of rare gifts. He encountered an
280
RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS.
opponent worthy of his blade in Mr. Weed, of the Albany Ecening Journal. The Argus, at a later day, came under the able direction of Mr. S. M. Shaw, now of the Cooperstown Freeman's Journal, and absorbed the Atlas. In those days Governor Marcy wrote occasionally for the Argus. The veteran George Dawson took the helm of the Evening Journal after the brilliant pen of Mr. Samuel Wilkeson disappeared from its columns. In the vicissitudes of parties from 184:8 to 1858, I occasionally wrote as a volunteer for all of these influential newspapers. It would please me to speak of the later days of the Journal and the Argus, and of those comparativeh" modern news- papers at the state capital, the Times, the Press, and the Express ; but I must move on.
I have never been, in the strict sense of the phrase, on the editorial staff of either the New Yorlc Tribune or the Neio York Sun. But for the past thirty-two years I have written largely for each in turn, and mostly in the editorial columns. The questions I treated were of every variety. There is one topic, however, to which I will particularly refer. It often devolved upon me to prepare obituary notices of dis- tinguished persons. They exhibit the defects of rapid writing, for they were produced under the pressure of emergencies that would permit of no delay. I re- call the following names of subjects, selected at ran- dom : Daniel Cady, John Brown, Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Eobert Eantoul, Horace Greeley, Thaddeus Stevens, John A. Dix, William Cullen Bry- ant, William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin F. Wade, WiUiam Pitt Fessenden, Henry Wilson, Gerrit Smith,
DEATH OF GERRIT SMITH.
281
Daniel S. Dickinson, William II. Seward, Sanford E. Church, ThurloAv AVeed, James Watson AVebb, Arphaxad Loomis, Reuben E. Fenton, Robert L. Stan- ton, Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, Henry O'Reilly, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Rev. Thomas S. Shipman, Mrs. Daniel Cady, Mrs. Gerrit Smith, and Mrs. Lucretia Mott. It gave me a melancholy pleasure to strew stray flowers on the graves of some of my coadjutors in a great cause.
On Sunday afternoon, December 28' IS 74, I called at the house of General John Cochrane, in Xew York, and there learned that Gerrit Smith had that morn- ing been stricken VN'ith apoplexy, and was lying un- conscious in the chamber above. That manly form was waging a desperate battle for life. His attending physician. Dr. Edward Bayard, my brother-in-law, in- formed me that it was quite possible he might live till the next day. Late in the evening it occurred to me that I ^vould go to the Sioi office, and prepare an obituary notice of the friend whom I had known for forty years. I dictated it to a shorthand writer. It would fill five columns. The hour of midnight ar- rived, when it must be decided whether or not it was to go into print. There was no one to confer with but the night editor. I finally sent the article to the composing-room, wliere they prefixed to it the start- ling heading, '* Gerrit Smith's Deathbed." On Mon- day morning the Sun took the town by surprise. General Cochrane's house was filled with reporters. Mr. Smith died about noon. Towards evening I dropped into the Sim office. The night editor rushed up to me, his eyes all aglow, and, seizing my hand.
282
RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS.
exclaimed : " Mr. Stanton, that was one of the grand- est newspaper beats that ever happened in New York ! And how fortunate it is for us that Mr. Smith died to-day ! The glorious old man did not go back on us. It would have been very embarrassing if he had re- covered." The enthusiastic outburst of the night editor may be regarded as the very effervescence of the esjyrit de corps of journalism.
For several years I attended state conventions of both parties in Kew York, and superintended the reports of their doings for the Sun, by a stenographer, who minded his business and let mine alone. It was easy to describe Avhat had transpired to-day, but it Avas diiRcult to foreshadow what was to occur to- morrow. I was oft times able to do the latter, be- cause I had long been personally acquainted with the leaders of factions, and they would accept my assur- ance that the information they imparted would not be disclosed to others, though both sides understood that the facts were to appear in the Sun.
I was at the Democratic State Convention at Eochester in 1871. The exposures in the New York Times of the frauds of the Tweed Iling had startled the country Democrats. Nevertheless, the delegates from the city were, as usual, under the absolute control of Tweed. I am now to speak of the evening before the convention organized. Ultimate results would depend upon whether the Tweed delegation on the morrow demanded seats therein. I knew it was the purpose of such Democrats as Governor Seymour, Mr. Tilden, Chief-Judge Church, and Senator Francis Kernan to exclude them ; and Mr. Tilden had counted
WILLIAM M. TWEED.
283
his followers, and feared no failure. Tweed did not know this. At midnight I met IMr. Tweed alone, by appointment, in his private apartment, where he was to explain to me his programme for the morrow. The scene will long remain in my memory. The chandelier in the large room was turned low, and the elaborate furniture cast ghastly shadows on the walls. The fallen boss, whom I w^as w^ont to see in the ful- ness of his strength, was nervous and sad. In a voice slightly tremulous with emotion, he said the creden- tials of the Tammany delegates would not be pre- sented, lie surprised me with the frankness of his utterances. I will not name those of his persecutors to whom he said he had previously paid money, for a vein of bitterness tins^ed his conversation. At a later date, Tweed w^as sacrificed to save others who wxre as guilty as himself. While in. prison, in the fall of 1877, he Avas drawn into detailed disclosures of the robberies of the Eing by promises which were not kept. Though a public plunderer, he w^as as honest as some of his prosecutors.
I was at many state conventions on the like errand with that just described. As, for example, at the Eepublican Convention of 1871, at Syracuse, when Conkling and Fenton crossed swords, and the latter was grievously Avounded ; and at the Democratic Convention of 1874, where Samuel J. Tilden received authority to break up the Canal Ring, Avhich he after- wards executed; and at the Democratic Convention of 1876, Avliich placed Lucius Robinson in a station that enabled that sour politician to disrupt and almost destroy his party ; and at the Republican Convention
284
IvANDOM KECOLLECTIOXS.
of 1879, where Alonzo B. Cornell surprised his oppo- nents bv winning the Gubernatorial nomination, and afterwards beat his antagonist at the polls by aid of a flank movement of John Kelly.
In the Xew England campaign of the spring of 1860, which foreshadowed the election of a Kepubli- can President (perchance his defeat !), I met in Provi- dence, where I was to speak, Mr. Joseph Howard, Jr., representative of the JS^eic York Times. Supposing I had prepared a written address, he asked me for a copy for tlie Times. Xot a word of my speech was on paper, but, according to my usual habit, the outline was before my eye. AVe repaired to my room. Mr. Howard posed as the Slave Power. For nearly an hour I upbraided him for his long-continued aggres- sions upon the liberties of the people and the Con- stitution of his country. Though evidently a little disturbed in his mind at this vivid portrayal of his manifold iniquities, he nevertheless rallied sufficiently to take down the speech and emphasize its sharp points with " loud applause." This was written out, sent to the Times^ and put in type before the meeting was held, for, be it remembered, the telegraph was far less used for such purposes then than it is now. The large and tumultuous meeting lasted till near mid- night, and the next morning the speech I had hurled at the Slave Power in the person of Joseph Howard three days previously appeared in the Times, and sev- eral thousand copies of the paper were purchased for circulation in Phodc Island.
An old-time friend in Congress happened to meet me in Washington, and asked me to write a speech
ISAAC HILL. — JOHN M. NILKS.
285
for him on the tariff, a subject he said he understood about as well as the average Xew-Zealander. I did as he requested. He read the speech in the House, and circulated a large edition. It was translated into German, his astonislied constituents presented to him a set of silver plate, and he was re-elected.
As pure acts of personal friendship (for I never took a penny for such services), I did this for Repre- sentatives and Senators whose names " shone afar " in the Federal councils. I was a little disgusted once when a prominent Senator, by an awkward fumbling of his manuscript, missed a brilliant passage over which I had burned a large amount of midnight gas. I felt as bad, perhaps, as Mrs. Isaac Hill, of Xew Hampshire, did in Van Buren's day. She was lean- ing over the rail of the Senate gallery while her hus- band was reading a speech. She startled the strange ladies around her by exclaiming : '* There I Mr. Hill has turned over two leaves at once I"' Mr. Hill was an accomplished editor, and therefore able to write his own speeches. So was John M. Xiles, of Con- necticut. Senator Hill built up the Concord Patriot ; Senator Isiles the Hartford Times. Senators and Eepresentatives that can neither write nor speak ought to resign in favor of editors who can do one or both.
What I have stated above is only a sample of a common occurrence at Washington and elsewhere. I am often astounded at the eloquence of some of our public men I Bursting on the country so unexpected- ly, too I
Newspaper correspondents do a lucrative business
286
RANDOM KECOLLECTIOXS.
at Washington in writing speeches for Senators and Kepresentatives. Indeed, so common is this that whenever I see an exceptionally able set speech by an inferior member of either House, I am constrained to exclaim, That is a good speech ; I wonder Avhat newspaper man Avrote it ?" The enterprising corre- spondent who sold the same speech to two Congress- men, each of whom delivered it as his own, rather imposed on his victims, especially as he himself hired a third person to write it. So did the reporter who copied the best passages in the speech he furnished to his dupe from an old book in the Congressional library. There should be honor among such people.
This line of remark will now and then apply to reports from Congressional committees and the ex- ecutive departments, and to Governors' messages and emanations from State Legislatures. Oh, well, if 3^ou don't know how to do a thing yourself, is it not best to invoke the aid of somebody who does ?
Persons not well informed on this subject are not aware how frequent is the practice of palming on the public writings, and especially speeches and orations, which are the productions of others than their reputed authors. Over and over again men have sent articles to newspapers and magazines, and even books to pub- lishers, claiming them as emanations of tlieir own pens, who, when it came to revising the proofs, were not capable of recasting or rewriting a paragraph.
On June 27, 1885, the day wlien I completed the eightieth year of my age and the sixtieth since I be- gan to write for newspapers, the New York Press Club gave me a reception at their rooms in the city. Tlie
AMOS J. CUMMINGS.
287
proceedings were elaborately reported. I omit every- thing except the closing portion of the speech of Mr. Amos J. Cummings, then president of the Club. I print this because it presents some curious informa- tion concerning several distinguished editors and au- thors.
Glance over Mr. Stanton's past," continued Mr. Cummings. He was born fo.ur years before Abraham Lincoln. When he began to write for newspapei's, Lincoln was employed at six clollars a month to man- age a ferry across the Ohio, at tlie mouth of Andei^on's Creek. Stephen A. Douglas Avas a boy twelve years old, living with his widowed mother on a sterile Ver- mont farm. Fred Douglass was a pickaninny on a Maryland plantation. Horace Greeley had not yet entered a country printing-office. Thurlow AVeed was editing a dingy weekly newspaper. Charles Dickens Avas a boy thirteen years old, employed in an attorney's office. Thackeray was a boy of fourteen, attending school in London. William Cullen Bryant had just come to this city. James Gordon Bennett was trying to establish a commercial school here. Henry J. Eay- mond and Charles A. Dana were wearing check aprons at district schools. Erastus Brooks was attending a grocery in Boston. James Watson Webb was an ad- jutant in the regular army. Manton Marble, George W. Childs, and William Henry Hurlbert were en- wrapped in the cocoon of futurity. A. K. McClure was just learning to walk. Joseph E. Hawley had just been born in a country town in Xorth Carolina. John W. Forney was a boy nine years old, running around unshod ; and scores of other newspaper men
288
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.
who have won fame and fortune were not even liter- ary larvaa.-'
Mr. Ciimmings, in Xovember, 1886, was elected by an almost unanimous vote to the Fiftieth Congress from the sixth district of Xew York. His varied ex- perience as a journalist will enable him to carry to the House of Eepresentatives an amount of rare in- formation, that will be valuable in a body that is always composed very largely of lawyers. For exam- ple, the House of the Forty-ninth Congress contains 325 members, of whom 245 belong to the legal pro- fession. The Sixth 'New York District doubtless issues more newspapers and periodicals than any other Con- gress district in the United States. The total num- ber is 418, consisting of daily, semi-weekly, w^eekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, bi-monthly, and quarterly publications, printed in fourteen different languages. This is fifty-five more than are issued in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi combined, which three states send twenty-one members to Congress. The Sixth District, too, is the seat of many of the great book-publishing houses of the countr}^. It is also alive with job printers, who do press-work of all imaginable descriptions. It is entirely appropriate that such a district should be represented in Congress by so competent a journalist as Mr. Cummings.
CHAPTER XXTX.
Conclusion.— Retrospect. — Extract from Thomas Moore's ' Oft iu the Stilly Niglit."
As I turn my eye back over the fourscore years covered by this narrative, I am deeply impressed with the sad thought that nearly all the persons of whom I have written are in the spirit-land, and that some of the more distinguished have entered its portals since the first edition of this work was issued. As I ap- proach the goal I may be pardoned for quoting, ere laying down the pen, the familiar lines of Moore :
' ' When I remember all
The friends, so linked together, I've seen around me fall Like leaves iu \\'intry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead. And all but he departed."
INDEX OF NAMES.
Abinger, Lord, 92. 1 Adams, Charles Francis, 149,150,
156. 163. 265. Adams, Jolin, 72, 255. Adams, John Quincy. 19. 31, 33,
49, 50, 58-00, 83, 158, 159, 163,
259.
Allen, Charles. 149. AllcMi, William, 153. 242. Andrews, George H.. 274. Andrews. Stephen Pearl, 281. Anthony. Susan B., 68. Armstro^L^ John, 218. Arnold, Benedict, 5, 6. Arnold. Matthew, 91. Astor, John Jacob, 189-191. Alchinson, David R, 154. Avery, Ephraim K., 112, 113.
Babcock, George R., 171. Bailev, E. Prentiss. 66. Bailev, Gamaliel, 66, 75, 263, 276. Bailey, AVesley, 66. Baines, EdwaVd, 76. Ballantvne, Sergeant, 91. Banks, Xathaniel P., 61. Barker, George P., 155, 160. Barkesdale, William, 208, 209. Barnard, Daniel D., 35. Barnes. Albert, 45, 185. Bates, Edward, 222, 224. Bayard, Edward, 281. Beaconsfield, Lord, 83. Beardsley, Samuel, 51, 161. Beecher, Harriet, 68. Beecher, Henry Ward, 44, 45. Beecher, Lyman, 43-46. Beekman, James AV^., 171, 172. Belknap, Jeremy, 16. Bellamy, .Joseph, 12. i
I Beman, Nathan S. S., 45. ! ]?enjamin. Judah P., 204. B'ennett, James Gordon, 275, 287. Beutham. Jeremv, 106. Benton, Thomas H., 61, 152, 154, 259.
Bickford. Marin, 113,118,119,121. Biddle, Nicholas, 103, 153, 206. Bigelow, John, 160. Binnev, Thomas, 76. Birney, David B., 48. Birney. James G., 47-49, 58, 6o,
75, 259. 276. Bishop, Joel Prentiss, 126. Black, Jeremiah, 212. Blaine, James G., 154, 185. Blair, Francis P. (Senior), 154,
183, 220. Blair, Francis P. (Junior), 222. Blair, Mont2:omer3\ 222. Blatchford. Samuel, 142. Blucher, Field Marshal, 257. Booth, Junius Brutus, 93. Bouck, William C, 30, 161. Boughtou, Selleck, 132, 133. Bowman, .John, 30. Bowring. John, 76. Brandreth, Benjamin, 171. Breckenridge, John C. , 203. Brewster, Henry, 51. Brewster, Simon, 3, 6. Brewster, Susan, 3. Brewster, William, 3, 108. Bright, John, 76, 101. Bronson, Greene C, 129. Brooks, Erastus, 266, 267, 287. Brooks, James, 266. Brougham, Henry, 75, 77-81, 85- 87, 106.
Brown, John (Capt.), 191, 280.
292
INDEX OF NAMES.
Brown, Judge, 50. Brown, Tom, 153. Brummel, Beau, 90. Brunswick, Diicbcss of, 76. Bryant. William Cullen, 63, 103,
160, 214, 209, 277, 287. Buchanan, James, 152, 154, 204,
207, 259. Buckingham, Joseph Tinker, 275. Buckimjham, William A., 54. Buller, Charles, 76. Bulwer, Edward Lylton, 85. Bunyan, John, 108. Burden, Henry, 141, 142. Burke, Edmund, 87, 92, 108, 116. Burleigh, Charles C, 71. Burleigh, William H., 71. Burns, Robert, 103, 109. Burr, Aaron, 255. Burroughs, Roswell, 13. Burroughs, Silas, 13. Butler, "Benjamin F. (Albany), 31,
32, 158, 160, 103, 164, 259. Butler, Benjamin F. (Lowell), 227. Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 76, 85,
86, 87.
Byron, Ada Augusta, 104. Byron, Lady, 76, 104. Byron, Lord, 76, 104.
Cady, Daniel, 35, 74, 130, 131, 139,
140, 200. Cady, Elizabeth. 74. Cagger, Peter, 136-138. Calhoun, John C, 61,84, 114, 152,
154, 259. Calvin, Delano C, 145. Cambreling, Churchill C, 160,
161.
Cameron, Simon, 164, 213, 222. Campbell, Thomas, 76, 102, 103, 107.
Carlyle, Thomas, 104, 105. Carnot, L. K M., 228. Carroll, Thomas B., 100, 171, 220. Cass. Lewis, 154, 157, 158, 161,
179-18:J. 212. Cassidv, William. 100. 279. Chace,' William M., 194, 195. Chalmers, Thomas, 105, 106.
Channing, William Ellery, 71. Chapman, Maria W., 51. Charlick, Oliver. 182. Chase, Edward I., 224. Chase, Salmon P., 66. 154. 163,
220, 222-225, 238, 239, 259. Cheetham, James, 254. Child, Lvdia Maria, 67. Childs, George W., 287. Choate, Joseph H., 90. Choate, Rufus, 111, 113, 115-119,
121, 124. 151. Church. Sanford E., 155, 160,
171, 174. Cille}^ Jonathan, 271. Clark, Daniel, 143. Clark, Thomas M., 52. Clarkson, Thomas, 75, 76, 86, 87,
107.
Clay, Cassius M.. 66. 276. 277. Clay, Henry, 19, 20, 28, 32. 38, 39,
61, 84, lo2-154, 158, 205, 206,
217.
Clayton, John M., 152. Cleveland, Chauncey F., 54. Clinton. De Witt, 23, 31, 32, 132,
218, 249, 255. Cochrane, John, 202. Colden, Cadwallader D., 22. Coleman, William, 254. Comstock, Oliver C. 40. Conkling, Roscoe, 32, 154, 193,
198, 199, 236, 240, 241. ConoUy, Richard B., 247. Cook, James M., 171. Copley, John, 79. Cornell, Alonzo B., 240. Cornell, Maria, 112. Corning. Erastus, 141. Corwiu,Thomas,151,200,201,213. Cottenham, Lord, 92, 93. Cowen, Eseok, 129, 135, 136. Cox, F. A. (D.D.), 76. Crandell, Prudence. 66. 67. Crawford, Martin J.. 208. 209. Crawford, William II., 19. Crcmieux, Isaac Adolpho, 93. Crittenden, John J.. 151, 152. Crolius, Clarkson, 171. Cromwell, Oliver, 92, 97, 98, 208.
INDEX OF NAMES.
293
Croswcll, Edwin, 160, 279. Cummings, Amos J., 287, 288. Curtis, Benjamin R., 124. Curti.s, George William, 2G3, 2G4. Curtis, Samuel R., 234. Gushing, Caleb, 57, 58, 259.
DaboU, Xatban. 16, 17.
Dana, Charles A., 186, 220, 241,
246, 260. 287. Daniels, Alfred, 124. Daniels. George, 123. 124. Dart, William A., 171. Darwin. Doctor (Senior), 228. Davis, David, 221. Davis, Henry Winter, 202. Davis, Jefferson, 210. Davis, Matthew S., 255. Davis. Xoah, 236. Dawson, George, 280. Day, Benjamin, 274. Decatur. Stephen, 6, 7. Deuio, Hiram, 129, 135. Denmau, Lord, 92. Derby, Earl, 83. Dexter, Lord Timolh}", 72, 73. Dickens, Charles, 287. Dickinson, Andrew B., 223, 224. Dickinson, Daniel S., 154, 160,
178, ISO, 212. Disraeli, Benjamin, 83, 85. Dix. John A., 146. 154, 160, 174,
184, 212, 218, 246, 259. Dixon, James, 213. Doolittle, James R., 213. Dorsbeimer, William, 246. Douglas, Stephen A., 154, 203,
209, 212-214, 287. Douglass, Frederick, 68, 156. Dow, Lorenzo, 13, 14. Duane, William, 254. Durham, Earl, 81.
Edwards, Jonathan, 12. Edwards. Monroe, 272. Elliott, Ebenczer. 103. Emerson. Ralph Waldo, 105. Emmet, Robert, 84. Evarts, William M., 115, 193, 217, 218.
Everett. Edward, 259. Ewing, Tnomas, 39.
Fanning. Charles, 19, 20.
Farrar, Canon, 91.
Fentou. Reuben E., 143, 154,160,
236-239, 249. Fessenden, Samuel, 54. Fessenden, William Pitt, 54, 213. Field, David Dudley, 160, 171,
214.
Fillmore, Millard, 36, 40. Finnev, Charles G., 40-42, 45, 63. Fish, Hamilton, 171, 172. Flairg, Azariah C, 30, 158, 160. FFiut, Abel, 16. Folger, Charles J., 160. Follett, William, 93. Folsom, Abigail, 70, 93. Fornev, John W., 287. Forrest, Edwin, 96. Forster. William E., 76, 90, 101. Foster, La Fayette S., 123. Foster. Stephen S., 70, 213. Fox, Charles James, 87, 108. Fox, George, 70. Franklin, Benjamin, 72, 106. Fremont, John C, 8, 54. Freneau, Philip. 253. Fry, Elizabeth, 76.
Gallatin, Albert, 255. Gardiner, Addison, 35, 160. Garfield, James A., 241. Garrison, William Lloyd, 51, 52,
65, 69, 71, 72, 164. Geddes, George, 171. Giddings, Joshua R., 66. Gladstone, W^illiam Ewart, 84,
101.
Goodell, William, 66. Goodrich, Samuel G., 49. Gould, Jacob, 32. Graham, Sylvester, 62, 63. Granger. Francis, 22. Grant, Ulysses S., 43. Graves, William J., 271. Greeley, Horace, 47, 63, 107, 154,
186, 214, 217, 218, 220, 222, 259,
273, 287.
294
INDEX OF NAMES.
Green, Andrew H., 160. Green, Aslibel, Dr., 45. Green, lieriah, 51, C6. Grey (Earl, 1st), 77, 79, 80, 81. Grey (Earl, 2d), 83. Grey, Ladv Jane, 97. Griffin, John, 134. Grimke, Angelina, 67. Grimke, Sarah, 67. Grow, Galusha A., 143, 207. Grundv, Felix. 153. Guizot; F. P. G., 75. Guruey, Samuel, 76.
Hale, David, 267, 268. Hale, John P., 127, 128, 213. Hallett, Benjamin F., 125, 126. Hamilton, Alexander, 255. Hamlin, Hannibal, 213, 219. Hammond. Charles, 258. Hancock, John, 72. Hardy, Commodore, 6, 7. Harris, Ira, 217. 218. Harrison, William H., 151. Hart, Levi, 12. Hastings, Hus^li J., 241. Hastings, Warren, 80, 92, 108. Hawley, Jesse, 132, 133. llawley, Joseph R., 66, 287. Hawley, Reverend ]\Ir., 66. Haydon, Benjamin R., 76, 77. Hayes, Rutherford B. . 242. Hayne, Robert Y., 50. Head, George, 119. 120, 121. Hendricks, Thomas A., 154. Heyrick, Elizabeth, 60. Hill, Isaac, 285.
Hill, Nicholas, 135, 136, 137, 138,
140, 160, 161. Hoar, E. Rockwood. 115. Hoar, George F.. 115. Hoar, Samuel, 113, 114, 115. HofTman, John T., 248. HofTman, Michael, 155, 160, 173,
175.
Holman, William S., 143. Ifopkins, Samuel, 12. Houston. Sam, 183. Howaril. Joseph. Jr., 284. Howick, Lord, 83.
Howitt, Mary, 76. Hubbard, Samuel. 123. Hugo, Victor, 104. Hume, David, 89. Hunt, Washin2:ton, 159. Hunter, John, 223. Hurlbert, William Henry, 287. Hutchinson (The family), 70.
Irving, Washington, 255. Isambert, Frangois Andre, 93.
Jackson, Andrew, 19, 31-33, 103,
154, 205. Jackson. Francis, 05. James, John Augell, 76. James, William (Senior), 40. James, William (Junior), 40. Jay, John, 255. Jay, William, 65. Jefferson, Joseph, 13. Jefferson, Thomas, 3, 142, 148,
149.
Jeffrey, Francis, 106. Jeffreys, George, 98, 99. Johnson, Andrew, 209. Johnson, Richard 31., 61. Johnson, Samuel, 96, 107. Johnson, William(LaAV Reporter),
129, 135. Jones, Edward F.. 225. Judson, Andrew T., 6,7.
Kcan, Charles, 26. Kcan, Edmund, 26, 27. Keitt, Lawrence M.. 207, 209. Kcllo^or, William, 208. KellvrJohn, 284. Kendall, Amos, 259. Kent, James, 129, 143. Kernan. Francis, 282. King, Charles, 62. 276. King, Pre.ston, 160. King, Rufus, 164, 218. King. AVilliam R., 152. Knapp, Frank, 113. Knapp, Joseph, 113. Knox, John, 105.
La Fayette, The 3Iarquis, 20.
INDEX OF NAMES.
295
Lamartinc. Alplionse, 9^^. Lanipson, Father, 70. Lapham, Elbridge G.. 240. Lawrence, Abbott, 114, 115, 150. Lawrence, James. 9. Leavitt, Joshua, 65. Ledvard, William, 6. Lee," Charles M., 133. Leffgett, William, 2fi9. Lincoln. Abraham, 134, 209, 212,
214. 21G, 221, 222, 232-235,
287.
Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, 221. Littlejohn, De Witt C. 218, 246. Livingston, Edward, 255. Livingston, Peter R., 22. Longfellow, Henry W., 103. Loomis, Arphaxad, 155, 160. Lord, Hezekiah, 12. Loring, Charles G., 124. Lovejoy, Elijah Parrish, 06. LovejoV, Owen, 207, 232. Lovelace, Lady, 76. 104. Lushingtou, Stephen, 76. Lyndhurst, Lord, 78, 79.
McClellan, George B.. 227. McClure, Alexander K.. 287. McDonald, Joseph E., 154, 242. McPheeters, Dr., 234. Macaulay, Thomas Babington,
80, 82,' 84, 85. 106. Mackenzie, Alexander Slidell,
145, 146. !Macready, 96. Madison,' James, 7, 9, 10. Madison, ]Mrs. James, 152. Mallory, James, 30. Mann, Abijah, 160. Mann, Charles A., 171. Mann, Horace, 149. Mansfield, Lord, 129. Marble, Manton, 287. Marcy, William L., 30, 37-40,
154, 160, 218, 249, 259. Marlborough, Duke of. 108. Marshall, John, 112. 129. Marshall Thomas F., 60, 272. Martiudale, Henry C, 184. Marvin, Dudle}', 35.
Mason, James M., 210.
Mason, Jeremiah, 111-113, 118,
204, 210, 211. Mason, John, 4.
Matteson, Orsamus B., 198. 199. May, Samuel J., 65, 67. Melbourne, Lord. 78, 79, 82. Mellen, George W., 70. Miantonomoh, 45. Miller, Warner, 240. Monro, Timothy, 37. Montgomery, James, 103. Moore, Thomas, 23. Morgan, Christopher, 215. 3;organ, Edwin D., 218, 219, 236-
^lorgan, William. 24, 36, 37. Morpeth, Lord, 75. Morse, Jedediah, 16. Moses, Franklin J., 114. Mott, Lucretia, 67, 281. Murat, Joachim, 83. Murray, Lindle}", 16.
Napoleon I.. 79, 228, 257. Napoleon III., 94. Xeal, John, 54. Xelson, Horatio, 6. Xelsou. Samuel, 129, 138, 142. Xiles, John M, 285. Xoah, Mordecai M., 22. iSToxen, B. Davis, 35. Noyes, Edward F., 242. ISToyes. William Curtis. 215. Nye, James W^, 156, 160.
O'Connell, Daniel, 75, 83, 84, 87,
102, 107, 108. O'Connell. John, 107. O'Conor, Charles, 161. Opie, Amelia, 76. O'Reilly, Henry, 26, 258. Orr, James L., 207.
Paddleford, Seth, 213. Parker, Amasa J. (Senior), 246. Parker, Mary S.,51. Parker, Samuel Dunn, 119, 121. Parker, Theodore. 128. Parley, Peter, 49.
296
INDEX OF NAMES.
Partridge, Alclen, 29. Patch, Sam, 27. Patterson, George W., 171. Payne, Henry B., 154. Pease, Elizabeth, 76. Peel, Robert, 83, 84. Penn, William, 53. Pennington, William, 61, 201, 202. Penny, "Joseph, 40. Perry, Oliver Hazard, 8, 9. Phelps, Amos A., 65. Phillips, Stephen C. 149. Phillips, Wendell, 66, 69, 71. Pickerinir, Timothy, 255. Pierce, Franklin, 120, 153. Pierpont, John, 65. Pillsbnrv, Parker, 70. Pitt, Wi'lliam (Senior), 79, 228. Pitt, William (Junior), 87, 104. Piatt, Thomas C, 240. Polk, James K., 60, 157, 158. Pollock, Frederick, 93. Porter, John K., 136, 137, 138. Porter, Peter B., 155. Porteus, Bishop. 87. Prentice. George D., 17, 18, 26,
259, 275. Preston, AVilliam C, 152. Purvis, Robert, 69.
Quincy, Edmund, 70. Quincy, Josiah, 70.
Randolph, John, 108. Rautoul, Robert, 280. Ravmond, Henry J., 154, 200,
261, 287. Redfield, Heman J., 30. Revnolds, Marcus T., 138, 139. lihctt, Robert Barnwell. 60, 259. Richmond, Dean, 156, 160. Ritchie, Thomas, 154. Rives, William C. 152. Roberts, ]\Iarshall 0..237. Robinson, Lucius, 283. Root. Erastus, 22. liug^les. Samuel B., 267. Russell, iAIajor Ben, 253. Russell, Loid John, 77, 82. Russell, Lord William, 108.
Sackett. Garry V., 196-198.
Sanford, Nathan, 218.
Sargeant, John, 152.
Sassacus, 4.
Scarlett, James, 92.
Schofield, John, 19.
Scott, Walter, 108,177.
Scott, Winfield,180.
Scribner, Charles, 75.
Seklen. Samuel L.. 35.
Seward, William H.. 33. 34, 36, 142, 154, 109, 170, 203, 204,210, 212-219, 221-223,225, 241, 242, 259.
Seymour, Henry, 29, 30. Seymour, Horatio, 29, 30, 154,
155, 160, 238, 239, 267. Sharp, Granville, 87, 107. Shaw, Lemuel, 110, 116. Shaw, Samuel M., 280. Sheridan, Richard B., 92, 108. Sherman, John, 200, 201. Sherman, Roijer, 115. Sherman, William T., 61. Shipman, Thomas L., 281. Simmons, James F., 213. Slidell, John, 146, 203, 204, 210,
211.
Smith, Caleb B.,222.
Smith, Gerrit, 27, 51, 65, 146, 168,
281, 282. Smith, Green, 191. Smith, Horace E., 126. Smith of K C.,201. Smith, Peter, 189, 190. Smith, Sydney, 80, 81,106. Southard, Samuel L., 152. Southwick, Solomon, 33. Spencer, Ambrose, 129, 146. Spencer, John C, 31, 35, 145,
146, 267. Spencer, Joshua A., 139. Sprague, Peleg, 110. Sprague, William, 213. Stanley, Dean, 91. Stanley, Lord. 83. Stanton, Edwin M.. 222. 228.233. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 68. Stanton, Joseph (Senior), 2. Stanton. Joseph (Junior), 2.
INDEX OF NAMES.
297
Stanton. Lodewick. 2. Stanton, Robert Lodewick, 234, 251.
Stanton, Susan. 3, 4. Stanton, Tliomas, 2. Steplieus. Alexander II., 214. Stetson, Charles, 180. Stevens. Samuel, 138-141. Stephens. Thaddeus, 208, 209. Stewart, Alvan, 51, 53, 65,134,135. Stone, Lucy. G7. 68. Storrs. Henrv R.. 35, 132. Story, Joseph. 110, 113, 126. 255. Stowe, Calvin E., 68. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 68, 202. Stuart. Charles E.,211. Stuart. Closes, 259. Sturge. Joseph, 76. Sumner, Charles, 125, 126. Sutherland, Jacob, 129. Swift, Jonathan. 108. Sydney, Algernon, 108.
Taft, Alplionso, 242. Talfourd. Thomas Noon, 85, 93. Tallraadge, James, 23, 164. Tallmadge, Nathaniel P., 152. Taney, Roger B., 152,254. Tappan, Arthur, 65, 267. Tappan, Lewis, 51, 52, 65, 267,
268, 275. Taylor. John W., 38, 164. Taylor, Nathaniel W., 45. Taylor, Zachary, 159, 162, 164,204. Tecuniseh, 61. Temple, William. 108. Thackeray, William Makepeace,
287.
Thompson, Smith, 33. 129. Thurman, Allen G., 154, 242. Tilden, Samuel J., 154, 160-162,
238, 244-248. Tirrell, Albert J., 113, 118, 119,
120, 121. Tompkins, Daniel D., 247. Toombs, Robert, 203, 204, 210. Tracey, Albert H., 149. Trumbull, Lyman, 213. Tucker, Beverly, 210. Tucker, Ephraim, 7, 8.
13^
Tucker, Luther, 26. Turner, Nat, 47.
Tweed, AVilliam M., 23, 247, 283.
Tyler, .John, 151.
Tytler, Alexander Eraser, 16.
Uncas, 4, 5.
Vallandigham, Clement L., 239. Van Buren. John, 154, 155, 160,
162, 165, 279. Vfm Buren, .Alartin, 31-33, 38, 58,
61. 130, 146. 154, 157-160, 102-
164. 205, 223. Yanderbilt, Cornelius J., 144, 145. Van Dyck, Henry H., 279. Van Ness, William W., 130. A-'an Rensselaer. Stephen, 31. Van Vechten, Abraham, 136. Villiers, C. P., 76.
Wade, Benjamin F., 154, 203, 204, 213.
Wads worth, James S., 156, 160, 214, 216, 220.
Wait. John T., 123.
Waldo, Horatio, 12.
Walker, Robert J., 153, 212, 259. I Walworth, Reuben H., 142, 143, I 161.
I Ward, Ferdinand, 43.
i Ward, Ferdinand D. W., 43.
Ward law, Ralph, 76, 106.
Warren, Samuel, 137. : Washburne, Elihu B., 208.
Washington, George, 70, 72, 148.
Watterson, Henry, 17.
Wayne, Mad Anthony, 133.
Wei)b, James Watson, 271-274, 287.
Webster, Daniel, 39, 50, 61. 84,
96, 110. 112, 113, 116, 118, 149-
152, 154, 205, 206, 217. Webster, Noah, 16. Weed, Thurlow, 24-27, 33, 36, 38.
154, 169, 170, 215, 216, 259,
287.
Weld, Theodore D., 57. 65. Welles, Gideon. 220, 233. Wellington, Duke of, 77, 79
298
INDEX OF NAMES.
"Wendell, John L. (Law Reporter), 135.
White, Hugh L., 153. White, Joseph, 113. Whitefield, Georffp. 13. Whitehou.se, Heurv J., 40. Whittier, John G.,'53, 57, 65, 71,
72, 103, 261-263. Whittlesey, Frederick, 25. Wilbar, William. 122, 123. Wilberforce, William, 87, 107. Wilde, Judge, 124. Wiley, John, 75. Wilkeson, Samuel (Senior), 28. Wilkeson, Samuel (Junior), 280. William III., 99. 108. Williams, Beujamin, 122, 123. Williams, Elisha. 35, 130-132. Williams, Josiah B., 168-170.
Williams, Roger, 4, 14, 228. Williams (Theatre Manager), 26, 27.
Wilmot, Eardley, 76. Wilmot, David, 40. Wilson, Henry. 50, 265. Windham, William, 87. Winthrop. Robert C, 150, 159. Wirt, William, 259. Wise, Henry A., 60. Wolfe, James, 2. Woodward, Samuel B., 148, 149. Wright, Elizur, 48. 65, 275. Wright, Frances, 28. Wright. Silas, 22, 38-40, 61, 152, 154, 157-160, 162, 218, 249, 259.
Young, Samuel. 22, 160, 161. Younglove, Truman G., 237, 238.
THE END.